Being in the business world for over 40 years working and teaming with CEO’S running multi-billion dollar companies earn me a name of respect. If you don’t have a good name, you don’t have anything!
Over the past several years, I find that most people who are newbie’s in the world of business have no business ethics.
Business 101 – You do not go on another person’s or company’s blog and promote what you are doing, unless it is stated in the rules of that site you can do so. If you do not see it anywhere on the site, “good business ethics” says, contact the administrator of the site for permission. Other than that, in the comments of the blog, leave a meaningful message that the person of the blog would like to contact you because you contributed pertinent information. But, leaving your website, the name of your new blog, your new book, etc., and it is not approved by administrator of that site is a no…no!
The right way to do this in business is to inbox the person who you would like to potentially do business with or hoping they are interested in what you would like to share, or show professionalism by sending a press kit. You can do this through a private inbox, letter, or email. As a business owner, I believe it is very disrespectful any other way.
Maybe I am old school, but that is what last. It’s not easy starting or becoming a successful entrepreneur, believe me. Newbie’s to the business world, once you have put in hard work, sweat and tear into your business you will want the same respect. I believe that in most social media post that the internet is creating an illusion that starting a business is easy, and that is far from the truth.
I remember about a year and a half ago, I had this awesome idea to help promote small businesses who were just starting out. I wanted to share what I had learned over the years in business with newbie’s, in hope that what I had to offer was valued. Well, something like that.
This was not my first “Rodeo”. I owned many businesses and several nail salons. I teamed up with high schools that offered manicuring for students. On the weekend the parents would bring their young teenagers who were studying manicuring to my salon and I would teach business ethics, and techniques. Most of these young teenager’s went into business, and many opened up salons and are very successful to this day!
Getting back to helping new small businesses. The awesome idea and event of the year. I called it, “The Holiday Market”.
At the time I was in a 30 thousand square foot building with offices and warehouse space. I started to create this event around the holiday season. I called a few organizations in my area who trained people to start their own business. These organizations shared my information with potential vendors of new small businesses. I started getting calls and signing vendors up.
I knew from experience being a small business and needing help with promoting your new business adventure was very important. So I called in a few favors and was able to get on television to promote, “The Holiday Market”. I invited a few of the small businesses to be featured on live television, and was able to get a deal on flyers, that look like post cards. The 4 by 4’s, we called them kicker cards where I live. This was to help advertise the event. I gave them out to every vendor in order to help promote the event and their business.
In the beginning when I met with each vendor individually, to qualified you had to be a maker. Meaning, your product had to be made by you. I wanted to bring something unique to the community, one-of-a-kind products. Each small business brought in their product and showcased it. I explained to them at that time that in order for this to be successful, everyone had to be a part of helping promote the event.
You cannot just rely on friends, family members, co-workers and social media. You have to put some old school into it and walk those streets. I walked the streets, networked, sent out social media advertisements and so forth. And to no avail, most of the vendors didn’t even tell anyone about where they were or what was going on.
Well, to say the least. Most of these new businesses didn’t even appreciate what was going on, and didn’t realized the importance of advertising where their business was going to be or the event.
A lot of the traffic came from people driving by, and sew the painted signage outside. It was a little disappointing to me as for someone who was trying to help others grow and promote their business…they just didn’t understand, but, people still got sales, and I was happy about that. But deep down inside, I knew that if everyone had put in the time and effort to help promote the event, and their business, they would have done so much better with sales. Most of them were not hungry enough!
Marketing and advertising is a very important part of any business success. The more people helping in this case, the more the merrier. The more people there are helping to support the event, the better or more enjoyable the event will be. Most of the people who came to see me and my products, also shopped with the other vendors. As far as I am concerned the event was still successful, but again, if everyone had used what was given to them, the event would have been so much more enjoyable and more successful for all.
I say all of that to say this, stop going on other peoples social media sites, blogs, etc., to promote what you are doing without getting their permission. Most people who are loyal to these business owners will not respect you for doing that.
One thing I realized being in business for over 30 years, don’t disrespect your fellow business man and/or woman that you are doing or want to do business with. When you disrespect any business owner, you are ultimately disrespecting yourself.
If you don’t have a good name, you don’t have anything!