Local Community Articles Guide

Neighborhood groups offer a good opportunity for any retail business to promote themselves. Through practical engagement, retail business people can show off their skills, their human side and win friends. One way of dealing with a neighborhood group is through supporting their campaigns with free labour or donations. Both are often welcomed with open arms. This really is practical engagement which shows that the business respects the work of the group and is prepared to help where able.

One other way a retail business can connect with a neighborhood group is through a speech or a presentation at a group meeting. Coming in as guest speaker for a lunch or dinner, you may present an component of your business in a different way to a normal business presentation.

The luncheon or dinner speaking opportunity provides you with the possibility to put a human face to the business and to build enduring local friendships without coming across as being all about business.

Below are some tips to make the most of local speaking engagement opportunities with neighborhood groups: Prepare for the talk, keep a relatively narrow focus as nobody enjoys a rambling presentation which gets lost. Have some props. Showing is definitely better than telling.

Prepare some fun. It may be a joke or two, some humour about yourself, stories from the store or some funny images. Humour is a great way to break the ice and better engage with your audience.

Keep the talk local. Neighborhood groups are populated by men and women that, well, care about their local area. To connect with them, make sure that your talk connects with the community. It will help them warm to what it is important to say.

Don't overtly advertise during the talk. What you say should be more educational or entertaining than advertising. If possible and practical, provide them with a sample. This lets them touch and feel what you sell within the business. Consider hosting the talk in your store - let them go behind the scenes and find out what you do.

Presenting your retail business in the way could make you and your employee team feel more local to the members of the community group. It may also provide you with a chance for valuable feedback about the way you are serving local needs.

You will discover stories of challenged businesses turning around their situations after presenting to neighborhood groups with issues resolved or challenges overcome.

For the community group connection to work, conversely, it must deliver tangible benefits to the group and its members. This is where the quality and content of the presentation become vitally important. By getting out and connecting with community groups you do better connect your retail business with the community from that you just draw your clients.