Leveraging Your Accreditation for Maximum Return
As we enter into the first month of 2014, we hope that you and your business have had a successful beginning to the new year. The holiday season is now in our “rear-view mirror” and I am sure we are all doing our best to stay healthy and to keep up with the roller coaster weather during these typical Southeast Texas winter months. We all know the routine – temperature up, temperature down….coat in the morning, sleeves rolled up in the afternoon. Sometimes it is a challenge just to keep the whole team satisfied with the temperature inside our own office…ahh the joys of communal living, right?
Nonetheless, we are looking forward to an outstanding year in 2014. We have begun the year with a bang and our calendar of events for the year ahead is already getting full! 2013 was definitely a year of celebrating our 50th Anniversary as a BBB serving Southeast Texas. It was also a year of investing and preparing our organization for the next 50 years of success, growth, and working to create a marketplace where consumers and businesses can trust each other. In addition, we were laying the groundwork to continue to expand our vision of helping to develop the next generation of educated and ethical business leaders through our educational outreach and scholarship programs.
Thanks to our Visionary Board of Directors we have been able to invest in technology updates, expanded office space, and increased staffing all to enhance our ability to assist you in 2014 as you work to make your business better. We invite you to give us that opportunity.
One of our goals in 2014 is to help each of our almost 1900 Accredited Businesses to leverage their accreditation to maximize the return on their investment in our Better Business Bureau. Here are some ways you can do that in the coming year:
Networking
We encourage you to take advantage of all of our Networking Events, many of them either free or with nominal cost, that allow you to visit with other business leaders and get your name and services in front of them along with your contact information. These include:
** Morning Mixers throughout our service area (17 in 2014)
** Lunch & Learn Business seminars (now averaging over 150 business leaders at each event quarterly)
** Accredited Business Celebrations (newly expanded and enhanced for 2014)
** Torch Award Banquet (over 500 business leaders in attendance)
** Senior Celebration (over 1900 seniors and over 100 vendors)
** And on and on it goes…..
Branding
If you are looking to get your business name and brand in front of an expanded group of potential consumers, we have a wide variety of sponsorships available that will help to increase your brand recognition among your targeted audience. Many of these are available with a very reasonable cost. Just to name a few:
** E-torch sponsorships (sent to all of our Accredited Businesses Monthly
** Shred-It and Forget It – getting your name and information to over 500 people at each event
** Lunch & Learn
** Torch Award
** Senior Celebration
** TOGGLE 2.0 – Reaching students and schools across Southeast Texas
** BBB Home Page – nearly 50,000 visits a month
Whatever group or audience you are targeting, we can help you reach them.
Advertising
If you would like assistance with your advertising to ensure that it meets Code of Advertising guidelines, and achieves its intended purpose without causing or leading to consumer complaints, we can provide a free Advertising Review of your planned advertisement before it even goes out to help you ensure maximum impact. Businesses will send us their ads prior to publishing, so that we can assist them with this critical piece. Advertising Review is, in fact, what the BBB was founded on over 100 years ago!
Dispute Resolution
Not only consumers, but also businesses reach out to us each day so that we can help them with their disputes or potential disputes. Many people know that we work with Businesses and consumers to help them find resolution to their disputes that are presented to the BBB. This includes the use of such services as conciliation, mediation, and even arbitration at times. What many people do not know is that we can also assist even before a dispute or disagreement reaches the Complaint level. Both businesses and consumers call us each day for advice and suggestions on how to handle situations so that they do not end up in the filing of a complaint. All of this is a part of the services we provide to you and your consumers.
We invite you then, in 2014, to contact us and let us show you how we can help you leverage your Accreditation with the BBB to maximize the return on your investment and the assist you in every way we can as you work to make your business better!
Have a fantastic month and a great start to 2014. Let us know how we can help!
Your servant leader,
John Paschall
