Today we are going to meet several extraordinary business people. Small business owners are passionate about what they do and the contributions they make to the economic vitality of this great country. One of their biggest challenges is the constantly changing marketing landscape. What used to be taken care of with a big yellow pages' ad along with membership in the local Chamber of Commerce is not a constantly morphing amoeba that extends its fingers into new advertising venues only to retract them a short time later in order to grab something new floating by.
Is Facebook important to a business or is your time better spent on LinkedIn? Do only Teens play around on InstaGram? Is Twitter now just for politicians? When an entrepreneur is trying to just run their business, keeping up with the gyrations of this marketing amoeba are time consuming and frustrating.
Today's show focuses on personal interviews with 9 different small business owners about what they learned at SCORE's recent Digital Marketing symposium. The Palm's afternoon star extraordinaire, Mike Balsamo, attended the event with microphone in hand to find out how these intrepid entrepreneurs intend to reinvent their marketing efforts to compete in the new 100% digital age.
There was also a surprise guest appearance at the beginning of the program. Thais Sullivan is the Florida Division Vice President and CRA Community Lending Officer at Valley National Bank. VNB is a regional bank with 209 branches in New York, New Jersey and Florida. They pride themselves on being customer focused with the added promise of just plan old friendliness - something often missing in business banking relationships. Thais' big surprise was the presentation of a gigantic posterboard check for $5,000 made payable to Palm Beach SCORE. THANK YOU, VALLEY NATIONAL BANK - AND THAIS!
FEATURED IN THIS EPISODE
Thais Sullivan
Thais Sullivan has spent the majority of her career in the world of banking, starting out with BofA as a small business banker over 20 years ago. As she progressed in her career, always propelled by her success as a small business banker, she was recruited by other banks, always with increasing titles and responsibilities, and always focused on meeting the needs of small businesses. Now she is confident that she has found her niche with the customer-centric regional bank where her job requires her to be involved with the small business community she so loves.
Beth-ann Morrison
Beth-ann Morrison is a Vice President and Loan officer at Valley National Bank's Palm Beach Gardens Branch on RCA Boulevard. She has grown up in the banking industry and specializes in helping small business owners procure SBA loans. It is a paper intensive process that can be a daunting task, but Beth-ann focuses on getting successful results - whatever it takes.
Palm Beach SCORE
Palm Beach SCORE is a non-profit who's mission is helping local small businesses, startups and entrepreneurs grow and thrive by offering mentoring, workshops, business consulting and counseling services, networking opportunities, events and partnerships within the Palm Beach / South Florida business corridor.
SCORE-ing Your Business' host Penny Pompei serves as Chapter Chair for our local Palm Beach SCORE Chapter #224, located in beautiful downtown West Palm Beach.
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Key Topics
- Accounting & Cash Flow
- Marketing, Public Relations & Sales
- In Business
- Encore (50+) Entrepreneurs
- Rural Entrepreneurs
- Veteran Entrepreneurs
- Women Entrepreneurs
- Young Entrepreneurs
- Finance & Insurance
- Professional, Scientific, & Technical Services