I was recently listening to a webinar – yes another zoom webinar! – where one of the largest coaching firms in the workd were explaining why they are interviewing local business owners.
It transpired that the purpose was to create insights to share, positive messages (on the whole), and opportunities in the process to promote those businesses to their wider community.
This caught my attention, and resonated with my belief in win-win within the community. So, we set out to do the same and already have several interviews under our belt. The range and stories we have uncovered in the process has been fantastic. We’ve spoken to local business owners who bought out the firm that made them redundant. We’ve spoken to an Uckfield firm and Chamber Member that has gone out of their way to educate and support local business during the Covid19 crisis. We’ve spoken to female construction firm director learning about her passion for women to be empowered in that sector, and to catering firms that have had to completely pivot their business to survive. All have been inspiring.
What I wasn’t expecting was what the ‘win’ would look like for us. What fantastic learning and insights.
So, the process is to do a short, informal (read human) interview of the owners of local businesses. The interviews are filmed – and if the quality is good then the videos can be used also – but generally it is for transcription, compiling, and then getting the message out there to a much wider audience (in our case thousands of prospective readers).
The transcripts will be sent to many business via a range of methods from blogs, to posts to newsletters to articles. We are being very careful not to make them sales pitches but interest stories. Nevertheless, the advantage for each participating firm is massive exposure within their community, the chance to share what they do and how they do it, to share what they have learnt, and to inspire others. They also get the chance to have a return link or offer, and the opportunity to inspire fellow businesses and consider their own journey to where they are now.
I have included here a LINK to our very own chapter’s Darren Elsom of Trunk Networks mentioned above.
So, the offer is simple. If you are a business owner and a member of Uckfield Chamber, and would like your business, your insights and your learnings to be shared with a wider audience, then drop me an email to gavinbellamy@actioncoach.com with ‘121 interviews’ in the subject line.
And that’s it!
Gavin Bellamy, ActionCOACH