Across the country, small businesses are essential to making their local communities attractive to residents and visitors. Very often, from large metropolises to small-town America, you will find small business owners from all walks of life and industries working to develop a sense of community pride. While it may seem like larger corporations have community engagement on lock, there are a few ways that small businesses and community involvement go hand-in-hand.
According to the Small Business Administration (SBA), small businesses employ just over half of the working class in the United States. This number alone tells the tale about the impact a small business owner can have in promoting success throughout their respective communities. Just think about the diversity of skill sets and backgrounds at the fingertips of small business owners and workers. When mobilized, they can become a significant volunteering force in the community. Their positive impact begins to grow, boosting your reputation and increasing customer loyalty.
Expanding Your Brand Through Targeted Community Offerings
Getting out there and being active within your community can take several shapes. But, being involved is not just about being hands-on. There are multiple ways that time-constrained small business owner can make a positive impact in the community without overworking themselves.
- Donations. This is a quick and effective way to target your offerings to the community. A few clicks of the mouse and your contributions can be spread throughout the community for its greatest good.
- Event sponsorship. Sponsoring a local charity event is one of the easiest ways to help a community cause while putting your name out there. You will want to target events that mirror your business model, such as a women’s clothing boutique sponsoring an event for breast cancer awareness.
- Scholarships. Offering a small scholarship to a local college, trade school, or even a seminar can be an effective offering in communities that can be used as a promotional tool as well.
- Space offerings. You close at 5 pm, leaving your space empty and unused until 9 am the next morning. Why not offer your space for community meetings? While this is a little more hands-on, this is a highly effective way to give back to the community while giving you an opportunity to show attendees exactly what you have to offer.
- Staff incentives. Offering staff incentives for volunteering during off-hours presents some unique benefits. It will be your staff speaking to others about what your business does while working side-by-side with other community-minded people. This gives you a grassroots type of promotion that organically grows over time. Additionally, your staff will feel fulfilled both through their volunteer work and the incentives you provide, such as gift cards, additional paid time off, or even salary bonuses. This goes beyond engaging the community; your staff retention will grow as will the quality of applicants applying for position openings.
When you pair small businesses and community involvement, you’re setting yourself up to make a real difference on a local level. In addition to the mentioned time-saving ways to get involved, there exists a wide variety of hands-on community involvement options, such as active participation in charity events, volunteering for community initiatives, or conducting workshops. You can engage your local area while bringing about positive visibility and goodwill towards your branding.
Leveraging Tech for Small Businesses and Community Involvement
We can’t discuss small businesses and community involvement unless we dive into technology for a bit. Modern POS solutions can provide you with some diverse abilities in making your community offerings more accurate to your potential client base and to your branding. Innovative POS solutions afford you with extended opportunities for deepening your relationships with customers. It’s these relationships that you can create community activities and better your customer communication.
With a next-gen POS system in place you can lean on gathered customer information to create an awareness campaign around an event you have selected for sponsorship. You can offer incentives based on transaction history to make sure you’re putting your community first based on its interests. For example, when the local food bank is actively seeking donations of non-perishable food items, you can create a business campaign that awards a $5 in-store voucher for a donation of 5 or more items.
Letting the data analysis and management capabilities of an innovative POS solution brings flexibility to your business as well as several productivity bumps. These will help you aid the community by freeing up valuable blocks of your time thanks to automations in financial tracking and inventory management. With these automations in place and a smartphone app in your pocket, you can easily head out into the community to make a positive impact while your business largely manages itself.
Making Community Causes Bigger Than Your Business
Getting involved in the community is something that we must all do to secure a bright future for everyone. For the small business owner, whose time and resources are limited, this will mean putting the community ahead of your business at times. This may scare many of you, but several of the ways you can serve neighborhood will have a positive impact on those you help while giving your reputation as a community leader a boost.
Alleviating the financial concerns of operating your business starts with the utilization of a next-gen POS solution. This provides you with the data you need in getting the word out to your customer base while giving back valuable time to you and your staff; time that can then be used to participate in the community for the betterment of all. This gives your business and the surrounding neighborhood peace of mind, thanks to the mutual feeling of having each other’s back.
Getting your business immersed in the community can be an easy and greatly rewarding venture. You will want to have a POS solution in place that presents you with the highly effective productivity gains typically be found in a next-gen POS solution. talech can give you valuable insights into how to engage your staff and employees while making a positive impact in your neighborhood. Contact us today for a free demo and how you can gain valuable time by leveraging cutting-edge technology to deepen your community involvement.
