JEFF TAXDAHL didn’t want to hire a salesperson. That simple wish is at the root of his company’s transformation, starting two years after it was founded, to an all-Internet model.
He runs Thread Logic Inc., which sells shirts and other apparel with custom-embroidered logos to business customers. Most such companies are hyper-local, he says, selling to customers down the street or around the metro, and expanding by adding salespeople to reach ever larger regions.
He didn’t want to go there, in part because he likes to maintain control over his business, perhaps to a fault, he admits. He also dislikes the general practice in which the best salespeople tend to build business and then jump to a competitor, bringing their customers along.
Instead, Taxdahl decided to use the Internet to sell to customers all over the country, and set about for a year researching the market, building a site, and then finding that the key to selling over the web is the same as selling any other way: it’s about marketing, not about technology. He spent the next months applying his sales and marketing skills like he had never applied them before. The result was a 117 percent increase in revenue from one year to the next.
This is what struck me about all four finalists for this year’s Upsize Business Builder Awards: the simplicity of the reason at the root of each best practice. Our annual contest seeks to recognize smart business-building ideas from local small-business owners. This year the execution of the ideas might have been complex, but the basic spark was nothing fancy. Consider three more finalists’ stories:
Jon Charles’ customers lost money in the stock market. He and his stylists see many of the big executives in town at the Jon Charles Salon, and plenty of the regular people, too. After the economic collapse of 2008, their stock portfolios had tanked along with their budgets for high-end salon services. Charles dreamed up a “stimulus” plan that offered a discount on hair services in line with their stock market loss.
You can call it a clever way to disguise a need to cut prices if you wish, as did one of our contest judges. But customers loved it, media outlets covered the story all over the country, and Jon Charles picked up enough new business, he says, to finance the opening of a second salon.
Mark Morse took note when YouTube was born. His advertising agency, Morsekode, was launched in 2002. But it wasn’t until the creation of YouTube in 2005 that he realized which direction to take. Noting the rise of online video, he invested in a separate department, Brand Motion, to ride the trend that has more and more marketers building their brand through interactivity. He says Morsekode is now enjoying healthy growth rates again.
Molly Rice dislikes cramped, boxy office space. As CEO of Spyglass Creative, she recognized that her company’s open floor plan not only fosters creativity among employees, but also tends to seal the deal with clients who enjoy their visits. She decided to begin hosting regular parties to increase the number of people who come through the doors.
The result is a recovery from a slump in billings two years before as clients cut their advertising budgets. Rice believes the agency is on track to keep the celebrations coming.
The basic ideas from our four finalists are simple. The results on their company’s performance can be profound. What humble idea could fuel a powerful transformation at your business?
