I thought about it, businesses are set up for people and not people for businesses. Woo! This statement sounds like the biblical saying of Jesus to the inquisitive Pharisees, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27) Businesses call themselves ‘legal entity’ or ‘going concern.’ They arrogate to themselves the capability of standing alone as corporate entities, which operate as individuals. Yes. That’s what the law says or how the law brings them into existence. They breathe an air of life after a successful search and acquisition of domain name culminates into registration with the state or county. Alright, the name is registered and fees paid to the state. Alright, let’s say the registrants step further to make it a brick and mortar or online through a website. Excellent! A business is born. You could call it business name you like.
But let’s face it, “Which of these businesses, or so called Mr. Corporate Entity, could actually move any further from domain name and registration without humans taking charge and operating them. Even at that, let’s say that the entire Michigan population becomes in charge of General Motors or Ford or even Chrysler, would those businesses succeed without humans patronizing their products or services? No! This brings me to the point I want to make here. Humans make business to work and the two have to work hand in hand. In other words, there should be a symbiotic relationship between man and business. One brings goods and services - business - and the other consumes those goods and services -humans.
So how would this relationship be sustained; is the business doing enough to welcome her customers, patrons – humans – in their various communities? The big names would say, “Yes. We sponsor these and that, we have built these here and there. In other words, we are good corporate citizens.” Believe it, the press would magnify their achievements. All those “We did this and that,” are for promotional purposes. These are big shots and nothing passes without recognition by the press.
But my target here is on the small businesses that are struggling to survive and raise their heads. Most of them do well in their own right. Those neighborhood hair salons, liquor stores, spas and others, “How do you really strive to retain your old customers and acquire new ones, amidst competition, in your own little way?” Actually, the idea to write this came from www.generalgoodsmarket.com and www.beauty.com
I thought that small businesses should always innovate good ways of giving back as a way of promotion too. Beauty.com brought to my mind that businesses, like beauty salons, spas, fashion stores, hair accessory stores and so on, could be promoting themselves if they selflessly think about ideas such as introducing “free makeup sections” for women on one side of their stores occasionally. This could be done, may be a fortnightly, on weekends, probably for the entire day of the business. A staff, knowledgeable in making up with lip sticks, eye shadows, powder and what have you, for women, should be delegated to handle that for the day. This is part of the sacrifice and price to be paid to succeed. Sometimes, it may mean to enlist an extra hand once every two weeks in anticipation of reaping potential patronage.
Believe it or not, giving back this little is not very easy; but it pays off big time in the long run. Not only would customers try products from beauty.com or the likes; but some who did would likely buy them from the store, if they like it and still advertise the store and the products. It is not a bad idea for stores to sacrifice a little sometimes to gain very hugely. This is only an idea. It is always good to innovate how to sustain and promote the business, however little. I will be introducing these ideas from time to time in my blog. If you have any thoughts that will be of interest, please kindly put them out here for all.
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