Well that depends who you ask. If you ask Jeff Bezos, he has gobbled up so many small businesses that he’s not even hungry anymore. Ask us, as we will tell you that small businesses are essential to our survival. Of course they are not doomed! They just need to make sure we can still find them…
“Small businesses are the lifeblood of our communities”. We truly believe that small businesses should be protected & supported and that a stable small business sector is the key to healthy communities & economy.
The challenges for many small businesses lies in remaining relevant & visible in the incessant noise and distractions of today’s world.
To add to this challenge, modern consumer capitalism has left small businesses vulnerable & struggling. Many have perished due to hyper-competition from globalization and encroachment from large multi-national corporations. It’s one thing to compete within a city, it’s another to compete with every business in the world. When consumers are chasing the cheapest prices, while corporations focus solely on providing healthy returns for their shareholders, small businesses get left out.
Take the example of Walmart. When they decide to build a new Superstore in a small town or city, MANY local businesses simply cannot compete with their prices and go out of business. Walmart can do this because of their wholesale purchasing power, extensive distribution network, and their utter disregard for employees security and well-being among many other factors. Vast numbers of their employees live on welfare because they are not paid living wages. This is not OK, and is not the way business should be done.
I have seen this first hand in my neighborhood growing up. We used to have FOUR corner stores, a small grocery store and an independent gas station within a 5 minute walk from our home. A Costco was built not far from us along with other big box stores, and now, there is only ONE struggling corner store left, which survives on the students of a nearby high-school.
Local businesses create jobs which pay living wages and offer their employees a sense of purpose and identity. They take pride in their work because they feel a sense of ownership. When Walmart comes in, they are not creating any new jobs, they are simply stealing jobs from the local economy and replacing them with poorly-paid, part-time jobs.
Luckily, many local services cannot be mass-produced and exploited by large corporations, and the trend to buy local services and products is on the rise.
Where we have observed the biggest discrepancy between small and big businesses is how they are marketed. Large corporations have huge budgets that allow them to hire expensive marketing agencies to use the most current marketing methods, while small businesses often don’t even have the time to work on this.
We seek to balance the playing field here. Many consumers already prefer to work with a local business instead of a large corporation. Instead of being treated as a number, they would rather have a personal connection where it is easy to reach out about any concerns or questions. They would also rather support the local economy, increasing the prosperity of their community.
The challenge lies in how these customers can EASILY FIND the local business they are looking for.
This is where we come in. Using many of the best-practice marketing tactics used by large corporations IN ADDITION TO specialized local marketing strategies, we are able to ensure higher visibility to our local business partners.
If you would like to learn more about how we can serve you, schedule a Discover Call in the calendar below.
