I read your blog and I have to say I love your candid and conversational writing. Is blogging more or less leading by example for you? In other words are you demonstrating how to find your voice? DA: Thank you and yes. Blogging is tantamount to teaching in the online world. It establishes you as an expert and at the same time it allows you to establish relationships with potential customers through a medium that lacks pretense because they get to know you first. People let their guard down and let you in once you have provided them value and that’s what the blog does. It also goes a long way in establishing and instilling loyalty with existing clients. “I started my first business, a research company, and after two years I came to realize that my favourite customers were entrepreneurs.” I recommend starting a blog to a lot of clients because it helps you define your voice, your brand, and the way you do things. We all have competitors, but we also have a different approach, our own system. I tell my clients all the time that it’s a matter of convincing your potential cus- tomers that the shoe you’re holding fits best. I love the layout of Stratigro.ca. It’s very user-friendly. DA: That’s what we were going for and that’s what we got. We had a local web designer create Stratigro.ca and we couldn’t be happier. On our website, we share a weekly blog and regular free resources to help small business owners grow their business. We have a very interesting online tool called Finding Opportunities to Increase Profits that analyzes profits. Any business owner can buy the tool, plug in the pertinent information like cost of materials, wages, and total expenses and it creates an extremely thorough report with trends between year one and year two, for instance, and shows you a series of benchmarks. It’s about showing them where they are, what they should be aiming for, and tips to get there. It seems like a business that keeps you on your toes and your imagination active. DA: There are no two business owners who are alike. Everyone faces different challenges, but business is business. What we learn from our mistakes and successes with one business is usually transferable. We like to call them ‘common challenges’ and we like to help people through them and then to recognize them. I love seeing how excited people get when they tell the story of their business. There’s nothing like it. Even when an idea has
been sitting on the shelf for years, people still get that glimmer in their eye. Keeping that hope alive, helping them find their voice – or in some cases just help them make their voice louder – and making it a reality is what it’s all about for me.
“Everyone faces different challenges, but business is business.”
If you’d like to book a free telephone consultation with Denise, simply visit Stratigro.ca/coaching. All other inqui- ries can be directed to Denise@Stratigro.ca.
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MARCH 2017 • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
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