#10: Give a Shout Out



Merci!


When it comes to business, and even life, there's alot of people who've helped you along the way. Sometimes you might not realize it, but when it hits, always remember to give them a shout out, or even just say "Thank you".

Today I'd like to thank Vacancy.com for choosing my entry as the winner for their scholarship (You can see it in older posts)! It was a great opportunity and definitely the most fun I've ever had writing anything! Much less a scholarship 'essay' - which here it was a blog post.

If you, your kids, your neighbor, or you neighbor's kids are going to college or just going away and need residence, definitely check out Vacancy.com! They have the cleanest and easiest user interface - so it's easy to find a place to live based on city, university, etc. To be honest, I just went to their site for the scholarship and that was suppose to be it. But their site as well as their Facebook page have great resources on college living, residency, tips, etc that any college bound kid would need to know.

And as Thanskiving rolls around, use this holiday as an opportunity to thank your loyal customers. If you're successful, alot of it is because of their word of mouth (and the great promos on this blog. Eh?EH?) - and that's PR you can't buy! Here are some great ways to appreciate them:

• Hold a meal (A small breakfast, lunch, or even brunch) that you can let your customers know about and they can come in throughout the day and grab a meal


• Host a small event (a more fancy version of the meal) 

• handwritten thank you cards with a purchase (dep. on the size of your biz)


• have a small pre-thanksgiving sales


• put up a large banner! It can say things like thank you, messages from employees, names of loyal customers


• "Good Neighbor" program - like a double coupon for customers and a friend!


• send them holiday cards (stick to Happy Holidays unless you run a religion based store)


• Donate on their behalf (there are some silly ones like buying a sheep for a poor farmer or you can let them choose!"