An agreement is made between a business and charity to have a portion of their sales go to a cause. Therefore when a customer mentions the charity while they patronize the business by buying a product or service, 15% of that purchase goes to the charity.

Good For Charity

• An alternative way of fundraising for a cause
• Great way to advertise charity
• Build alliances between charity and business

Good For Business

• Generates more foot traffic and sales for business
• Brings in new customers
• Great way to advertise business
• Build alliances between charity and business

Everybody Wins!

1). Pick up a copy of the 2012 SF Business Times Book of Lists.

2). Select a page that showcases several potential leads, such as top solar companies, top construction companies, or whatever might be relevant to your business.

3). Looking over the list of 25 businesses, identify any contacts that one of your employees might know, and record their information into a Google Spreadsheet or other Excel file.

4). Upload the contact information to SalesForce or another CRM program, so that all interaction with each lead can be tracked.

5). Create case studies of previous clients who might be similar to the businesses listed such as solar, construction, etc. Be sure to include examples of several services provided by your company.

6). Make sure to include some of the case studies from step #5 on the company website.

7). Construct an email blast so that it displays these case studies. We think Constant Contact is a great email marketing solution, but you can choose which ever works best for you.

8). Target specific employees from the list of companies created in step #3 by emailing or calling them directly. Then, either mention the case studies of similar companies you provided services for, direct them to your website, and/or suggest a meeting or coffee break to discuss what you might have to offer them.

9). Lather, rinse, repeat.

Although we recommend utilizing the SF Business Times Book of Lists, the above steps can be used for any published list that pertains to your specific business. (i.e. 7×7 Magazine’s Best Of Guides, Diablo Magazine’s Best of the East Bay, etc.)

Resources:

Constant Contact

SalesForce.com

Piedmont Avenue Consulting Blog

Piedmont Avenue Consulting excels at helping businesses expand into new markets.  To schedule a free consultation, contact us today.

Here’s what we like best:

To-Do’s:  A team member can add a To-Do item assigned to himself or any other team member. The task can include a due date, can be emailed to the designated employee or the entire group, and comments or files can be attached to each To-Do. Sync Basecamp with your [Google Apps] account, and create To-Do’s directly from your Google mailbox.

Time Tracking:  Basecamp allows each team member to track the time they have spent working on a project or on a single To-Do item. It is then possible to run reports finding a wide array of results – track one employee’s time across all projects, the amount of time a group has put into a single project, or see how much time has been spent on a particular task such as blog writing, admin time, or the development of a single web page.

Writeboards: Every project includes a Writeboard, where files can be imported, and then any team member with access to that project can view and makes edits or changes to that file directly in Basecamp without having to download and then re-upload the file. It is then simple to compare and contrast the current and previous versions of that file, so it is clear to see who made what changes, and the original is never lost.

The Calendar: The calendar is a new feature to Basecamp, one we find far superior to Milestones, its previous incantation. The calendar allows your team to track the schedule of a project and plan out the stages and the roles and responsibilities of each collaborator along the way using a simple, graphic calendar format.

The Dashboard: The Dashboard acts as home base or headquarters for each team member upon signing in to Basecamp. From here you can easily view the latest developments across all projects, view all the To-Do’s assigned specifically to you, view the time you have tracked personally across all projects, and a calendar displaying all milestones and events related to you.

Basecamp is an excellent way for a team to manage projects and stay organized; its simple interface and design enable streamlined collaboration. If you are interested in in trying out Basecamp for your organization check out the Free 30 Day Trial, or feel free to contact us here at Piedmont Avenue Consulting.

Google Apps provides Google for Businesses, including email, calendar, documents, and more. customized Business Cards, each one with a different design provides email, survey, etc system a variety of educational and motivational programs centered on business marketing, stock market investing, and real estate finance.

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