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My Biggest Mistake – I didn’t weave my firm into community

I’ve owned a small business for more than eight years since buying it from the previous owners in 1996.

I thought all I had to do was put up an "Under New Ownership" banner and my problems would have been solved. After all, I am a sign company.

But that didn’t work.

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Name: Shane Beard

Title: Owner

Company: Fastsigns of Naperville

Type of company: Quick-turn-around sign and graphic company

Location: 803 E. Ogden Ave., Naperville

Founded: 1996

Number of employees: 8

Web: http://www.fastsigns.com/76

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http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0411010160nov01,1,7543229.story?coll=chi-business-hed

Nor did the dozens of other things I thought would work. What did work was weaving our company into the fabric of the community.

That approach isn’t easy, but it turned out to be the cheapest and most productive way of marketing our new ownership, and customers responded in droves.

How did we do it?

In those early days of ownership we counted every penny. We just didn’t have a lot of money we could throw toward advertising.

Then one day I had a Cub Scout troop come in looking for a discounted sign to help sell popcorn for the troop. I gave them a deep discount, and little did I know what effect that would have.

That troop leader went and told three other troop leaders about my generous discount, and the next thing I knew I had them lined up out the door for my discounted banners.

Fast-forwarding eight years, our store is the No. 1 source in town for every not-for-profit organization.

We are very active in the community, we sit on committees, we are active on boards and we flip pancakes at the pancake breakfasts.

We also work the finish line at the 5K run held in town and help sell baked goods at the local church.

All of this volunteer work has come back to us tenfold in the form of paying jobs because all of these volunteers typically have other jobs during the week and think of us when they need a sign.

The traditional means of advertising is fine when it is augmented with a relationship type of marketing.

All the direct mail, all the yellow-page ads, all the newspaper ads don’t amount to much if you don’t get your business involved at a grass-roots level.

I made this mistake at the beginning. But since we began to "put a face on the business" we have been seeing nothing but success.

Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune

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