Olga Mizrahi - Sell Local, Think Global: 50 Innovative Ways to Make a Chunk of Change and Grow Your Business

Sell Local, Think Global

50 Innovative Ways to Make a Chunk of Change and Grow Your Business

By Olga Mizrahi

Copyright 2015 by Olga Mizrahi

All rights reserved under the Pan-American and International Copyright Conventions. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented, without written permission from the publisher, The Career Press.

SELL LOCAL, THINK GLOBAL
Cover design by Howard Grossman/12E Design
Printed in the U.S.A.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Mizrahi, Olga.

Sell local, think global : 50 innovative ways to make a chunk of change and grow your business/by Olga Mizrahi.

pages cm

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-60163-340-8 -- ISBN 978-1-60163-434-4 (ebook)

1. Small business marketing. 2. Marketing. 3. Internet marketing. 4. Small business--Growth. I. Title.

HF5415.13.M557 2015
658.8--dc23

2014028056

I dedicate this book to my Googies.

My clients, colleges, and collaborators are the inspiration and perspiration behind bringing the wisdom Ive earned to print. I sincerely thank Sarah Daniels, Caroline Rath, Judie Vivian, Nathan Tourtellotte, Pat Bramhall, Kimberly Grietzer, Kathleen Deppe, Michelle Patterson, Rose Tafoya, Steve Kinney, Katie Covell, Mark Chapman, Jannelle Salcido, Daniel Tepke, and my number-one proofreader and supporter, Geoffrey Mizrahi.

Special thanks to Rob Hatch, Tony Buzan, Charlene Li, John Lee Dumas, Joy Cropper, Lorenda Phillips, Melissa Jun Rowley, Brenee Brown and Turi Altivilla, for lending your voices to the conversation. Dr. Norah Dunbar graciously gave her social research lens to each chapter, and I am indebted to her. Norah, thank you for crossing over briefly from academia to add to this work.

Jamie Ponchak has been my graphic right hand at ohso! design for the past eight years, and her style has extended to this book. Jamie, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the late nights and weekends. Jim Hanson also gets a special acknowledgment for holding down the fort and meeting the demands of our clients with ever-changing technology.

I thank Desiree Lumachi for introducing me to the Long Beach Post. Its her special kind of enthusiasm thats been a true catalyst behind my writing. Its also the love and support from The Polish Posse, Bartek Korsak and Monica Petrozolin in particular, that encouraged me to persevere. Thank you for the support of all my family, especially my great Southern California in-laws and my distant, yet close-to-my-heart relatives (Skowronscy!). Avery Mizrahi tops everyone in pure enthusiasm. Thank you for making my heart magically bigger every day, Avery.

A special shout out to Bryan Elliot, without whom I wouldnt have been introduced to some of the great thought leaders who inspire me to write, like Brian Solis, Seth Godin, Chris Brogan, David Merman Scott, and Gary Vaynerchuk. Contributing to Behind the Brand led to many other blogging adventures that allowed me to ship.

Thank you to the readers and commenters at the Long Beach Post and ChunkofChange.com. You inspire me to do my best work.

Thanks to my agent, John Willig and the special author that thought John and I would make a good team, Melissa Giovagnoli Wilson. Finally, a big thank-you and warm West-to-East hug to the fantastic team at Career Press.

Local Is No Longer Strictly Defined by Geography

Making the Most Out of Our Time Together

Creating a UVP to Make Marketing Magic

Bringing Print to Life

Examining the Audience

Measuring With Meaning

Standing to Deliver

How E-commerce Gobbled Up Sales

Joining the Conversation

Eavesdropping on the Market

Going SoLoMo (Social, Local, and Mobile)

Riding the Perpetual Whitewater

The things that make us localsindependence and uniqueness, the feeling of being part of a community, having Main Street handshake integrity, helpfulness, and approachabilitycontinue to remain the same, even as the world around us changes.

Todays global evolution (in the form of new tools, methods, and online resources) can either feel exciting, new, and deliciously ripe with opportunity, or it can create a ball of confusion, pulling you in a million directions.

As a local small business owner, for years I felt the pain of not enough. Not making enough progress, not having enough money, not growing fast enough, and certainly not having enough time. And, often, not enough comes with a bonus pack of the overwhelming feeling of too much. Too many e-mails, increasing demands, the ever-speeding-up of technology, and a staggering breadth of choices have all caused me paralysis and temporary shutdown.

By all external appearances, Ive had it pretty good: an inspiring work space, fulfilling projects, clients that loved what I produced, public accolades, and a house on the water to come home to, complete with a loving family. Therefore, in taking a peek behind the curtain it might be surprising how much of a struggle it was to get the inside me aligned with the outside me.

Case in point: In 2006, I was faced with a crumbling business partnership. My business partner was a graphic genius whose warm heart sold me on a coupling that I felt could never go wrong. When starting our business, we looked at our strengths and came up with a unique value proposition that attracted swift business from large and small companies alike: we married her offline graphics talent with my online e-commerce web design skills. Our print and online message was unique for its time, as not many graphic agencies delivered effective web design, and not many web design firms could make attractively designed materials. Alas, after a couple years, the world changedand we changedbut our offerings and message did not. What she thought we did and what I thought we did diverged. We struggled.

Soon, I spent most of my time connecting the dots on how to most effectively communicate a clients message. I would then look at the channels available to attract commerce strategicallyfrom using the website as a home base, to online marketing, to offline print collateral. At night, I felt burdened with the complex coding that being the online end of our partnership required. When I wanted to bring in others to do production, I was met with resistance.