Small Business Stories -Catherine Corley Video

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Small Business Stories -Catherine Corley

Alex Fees: I’m Alex Fees on sbtv.com. We are coming to you from the 2008 NFIB national small business summit in Washington DC and with me here now is Catherine Corley. Catherine is a Sam’s Club vice-president of small business marketing. Catherine, good to see you, I appreciate you being here. Catherine Corley: Good to see you Alex. Thanks for having me. Alex Fees: So, how are you holding up? You’ve been here for several days working round the clock or so it seems. Catherine Corley: Actually, it’s very exciting and I’m very inspired by being around all these small businesses, the opportunity to speak with our small business winner, the opportunity to hear Senator McCain talk bout the changes the he proposes so I’m not tired at all. I can keep going. Alex Fees: No, you’re kind of running on adrenaline right now? Catherine Corley: Yes. Alex Fees: Good to know. So, tell me about Sam’s Clubs joint partnership, venture ship, liaison with NFIB and SBTV? Catherine Corley: Well, it’s very interesting how it came about. At Sam’s club, we have been celebrating National Small Business Week every year and typically, we do that by sending our associates out into a place of small business to work in our business so that we can see first hand. Alex Fees: Right. Catherine Corley: The challenges that they face. But this year with our 25th anniversary and we want to do something different and so we wanted to show small businesses particularly those that weren’t Sam’s Club members, how much money they could save by coming to Sam’s Club. And particularly in these economic times, so we decided to do an invoice comparison of that. But that requires small businesses, you’re pretty busy to have to get their invoices together and come in to the club. Alex Fees: And that was just for a small business owner to bring it one of his or her invoices in for comparison and the like. Catherine Corley: Yes, and so that we could show them and compare the prices on how much money they could save. So then we had to think about, what could really draw them into the club because that’s asking a lot of a small business member. So, we thought about a small business makeover and so what is this small business makeover consists of? Well, first thing that small businesses need is access to capital. Alex Fees: Right. Catherine Corley: So, cash became a big component of that and then we thought about you know the wonderful merchandise that Sam’s club offers. I guess they need to run their business, so office equipment, office supplies, security systems. If they’re in the food business, food items but beyond that what small businesses need? What would a makeover consist off and really what was kind of the missing piece in terms of content and expertise, organizations that would advocate on their behalf. So, we reached out to SBTV and you all we’re generous enough to say you know, we would like to partner with you on this and we can bring something to the party. We help small businesses by giving them expert mentoring. So, I said, that’s wonderful. That’s a great important piece and then it was actually through that discussion that we talked about the NFIB, being the premier association that represents really small businesses and gives them a voice in the legislature. So together, all these partners came together and created the small business makeover package. Alex Fees: Well, I know that my boss is at sbtv.com certainly are experts in their own line and they have access to other experts who can help with this mentoring. Catherine Corley: Yes. Alex Fees: Now, what about the criteria in itself? Wayne MCintyre who owns MCintyre Plumbing Incorporated out of Tyler, Texas was the winner, correct? Catherine Corley: Yes. Alex Fees: What were the criteria and why did Wayne win? Catherine Corley: The criteria was really—we had it—it was the sweepstakes. So basically, there’s no criteria which makes it a very different contest. Really, all you have to be is a small business owner and then you were asked to come to the club. You didn’t have to purchase anything but to get an invoice comparison sheet and then they registered on SBTV and then from those registrants, we selected a winner. So, it wasn’t random and we didn’t know if we would get a business who was completely successful. A business who was a medium business. We didn’t know if it would be a restaurant, we didn’t know if it would be a business who was really, really struggling. So, that’s kind of the exciting part is getting to know Wayne and his business and understanding what his needs are for his business to protect it, manage it, or grow it. Alex Fees: Okay and Wayne is here at the NFIB conference. I just interviewed him. He tells me he gets essentially a $45,000.00 gift cards at the Sam’s Club, correct? Catherine Corley: Yes. Alex Fees: Also mentoring from my bosses and experts at sbtv.com, what am I missing? Catherine Corley: The lifetime membership to NFIB and the trip here to this summit. Alex Fees: And Wayne has had experience and some participation with the NFIB in the past— Catherine Corley: Yes. Alex Fees: He’s certainly is here this week and I’m sure we’ll continue that relationship. Catherine Corley: I think we’ll hear more from Wayne. I think he has a very important message for small business and knowing what it’s like to face the struggles everyday and to wonder, “Am I going to be able to pay my people next week?” And what is taxes in government and I think that Wayne sees the opportunity to become more vocal himself representing small business and also to share what he learns to this experience in the mentoring to the pod cast with other small business owners. Alex Fees: Well, Catherine what about talking to me about the Sam’s Clubs focus on small business owners on entrepreneurs. Catherine Corley: Well, Sam’s Club was found in 25 years ago with the premise of helping small business and Sam was a small business owner and he achieved greatness through hard work and dedication and being a small business owner himself so that’s we are founded on and we’ve started small businesses by using our scale because we’ve grown a lot the last 25 years to really be their buying agent. So, where a small business doesn’t have any purchasing leverage individually, what we can do using our scale is get them a better price and so that’s what we do. We consider ourselves a buying agent for our members. So, the number one thing that we do is save them money. Alex Fees: Okay, so that’s right. We’re getting back to the contest. That’s what the invoice was all about, right. Catherine Corley: Yes. Alex Fees: You wanted small business owners to bring it in so you could show them how much they could have saved on these same items if— Catherine Corley: Yes. And during that week, we showed small business owners. We could save them about $3.4 million. Alex Fees: Wow! Any idea per person what the average amount of savings is? Catherine Corley: Well, we know for about 70% of—we deal with 2,500 members said that they save their annual cost of membership every month and then about 30% of those saved over a $1,000 a year. But in some instances I think the average segments that we had was a minimum of $600.00 for invoice. Alex Fees: Wow! That is significant. Catherine Corley: And we’re continuing to do more everyday. We’ve had some. There are thousands and thousands of dollars. As a matter fact, some of the small business owners are afraid to look when they know how much money they’ve been spending that they really didn’t mean to. Alex Fees: Sure, yeah. They could have been reeving that benefit had they come earlier, huh? Catherine Corley: Investing it back in their business, yes. Alex Fees: Yeah. All right Catherine, thank you very much. Catherine Corley: Thank you, Alex. Alex Fees: Congratulations on your success here at NFIB. She is Catherine Corley. She is senior vice president of small business marketing for Sam’s Club. We are the NFIB, I’m Alex Fees. You’re logged on to SBTV.

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Alex Fees: I’m Alex Fees on sbtv.com. We are coming to you from the 2008 NFIB national small business summit in Washington DC and with me here now is Catherine Corley. Catherine is a Sam’s Club vice-president of small business marketing. Catherine, good to see you, I appreciate you being here.

Catherine Corley: Good to see you Alex. Thanks for having me.

Alex Fees: So, how are you holding up? You’ve been here for several days working round the clock or so it seems.

Catherine Corley: Actually, it’s very exciting and I’m very inspired by being around all these small businesses, the opportunity to speak with our small business winner, the opportunity to hear Senator McCain talk bout the changes the he proposes so I’m not tired at all. I can keep going.

Alex Fees: No, you’re kind of running on adrenaline right now?

Catherine Corley: Yes.

Alex Fees: Good to know. So, tell me about Sam’s Clubs joint partnership, venture ship, liaison with NFIB and SBTV?

Catherine Corley: Well, it’s very interesting how it came about. At Sam’s club, we have been celebrating National Small Business Week every year and typically, we do that by sending our associates out into a place of small business to work in our business so that we can see first hand.

Alex Fees: Right.

Catherine Corley: The challenges that they face. But this year with our 25th anniversary and we want to do something different and so we wanted to show small businesses particularly those that weren’t Sam’s Club members, how much money they could save by coming to Sam’s Club. And particularly in these economic times, so we decided to do an invoice comparison of that. But that requires small businesses, you’re pretty busy to have to get their invoices together and come in to the club.

Alex Fees: And that was just for a small business owner to bring it one of his or her invoices in for comparison and the like.

Catherine Corley: Yes, and so that we could show them and compare the prices on how much money they could save. So then we had to think about, what could really draw them into the club because that’s asking a lot of a small business member. So, we thought about a small business makeover and so what is this small business makeover consists of? Well, first thing that small businesses need is access to capital.

Alex Fees: Right.

Catherine Corley: So, cash became a big component of that and then we thought about you know the wonderful merchandise that Sam’s club offers. I guess they need to run their business, so office equipment, office supplies, security systems. If they’re in the food business, food items but beyond that what small businesses need? What would a makeover consist off and really what was kind of the missing piece in terms of content and expertise, organizations that would advocate on their behalf.

So, we reached out to SBTV and you all we’re generous enough to say you know, we would like to partner with you on this and we can bring something to the party. We help small businesses by giving them expert mentoring. So, I said, that’s wonderful. That’s a great important piece and then it was actually through that discussion that we talked about the NFIB, being the premier association that represents really small businesses and gives them a voice in the legislature. So together, all these partners came together and created the small business makeover package.

Alex Fees: Well, I know that my boss is at sbtv.com certainly are experts in their own line and they have access to other experts who can help with this mentoring.

Catherine Corley: Yes.

Alex Fees: Now, what about the criteria in itself? Wayne MCintyre who owns MCintyre Plumbing Incorporated out of Tyler, Texas was the winner, correct?

Catherine Corley: Yes.

Alex Fees: What were the criteria and why did Wayne win?

Catherine Corley: The criteria was really—we had it—it was the sweepstakes. So basically, there’s no criteria which makes it a very different contest. Really, all you have to be is a small business owner and then you were asked to come to the club. You didn’t have to purchase anything but to get an invoice comparison sheet and then they registered on SBTV and then from those registrants, we selected a winner. So, it wasn’t random and we didn’t know if we would get a business who was completely successful. A business who was a medium business. We didn’t know if it would be a restaurant, we didn’t know if it would be a business who was really, really struggling. So, that’s kind of the exciting part is getting to know Wayne and his business and understanding what his needs are for his business to protect it, manage it, or grow it.

Alex Fees: Okay and Wayne is here at the NFIB conference. I just interviewed him. He tells me he gets essentially a $45,000.00 gift cards at the Sam’s Club, correct?

Catherine Corley: Yes.

Alex Fees: Also mentoring from my bosses and experts at sbtv.com, what am I missing?

Catherine Corley: The lifetime membership to NFIB and the trip here to this summit.

Alex Fees: And Wayne has had experience and some participation with the NFIB in the past—

Catherine Corley: Yes.

Alex Fees: He’s certainly is here this week and I’m sure we’ll continue that relationship.

Catherine Corley: I think we’ll hear more from Wayne. I think he has a very important message for small business and knowing what it’s like to face the struggles everyday and to wonder, “Am I going to be able to pay my people next week?” And what is taxes in government and I think that Wayne sees the opportunity to become more vocal himself representing small business and also to share what he learns to this experience in the mentoring to the pod cast with other small business owners.

Alex Fees: Well, Catherine what about talking to me about the Sam’s Clubs focus on small business owners on entrepreneurs.

Catherine Corley: Well, Sam’s Club was found in 25 years ago with the premise of helping small business and Sam was a small business owner and he achieved greatness through hard work and dedication and being a small business owner himself so that’s we are founded on and we’ve started small businesses by using our scale because we’ve grown a lot the last 25 years to really be their buying agent. So, where a small business doesn’t have any purchasing leverage individually, what we can do using our scale is get them a better price and so that’s what we do. We consider ourselves a buying agent for our members. So, the number one thing that we do is save them money.

Alex Fees: Okay, so that’s right. We’re getting back to the contest. That’s what the invoice was all about, right.

Catherine Corley: Yes.

Alex Fees: You wanted small business owners to bring it in so you could show them how much they could have saved on these same items if—

Catherine Corley: Yes. And during that week, we showed small business owners. We could save them about $3.4 million.

Alex Fees: Wow! Any idea per person what the average amount of savings is?

Catherine Corley: Well, we know for about 70% of—we deal with 2,500 members said that they save their annual cost of membership every month and then about 30% of those saved over a $1,000 a year. But in some instances I think the average segments that we had was a minimum of $600.00 for invoice.

Alex Fees: Wow! That is significant.

Catherine Corley: And we’re continuing to do more everyday. We’ve had some. There are thousands and thousands of dollars. As a matter fact, some of the small business owners are afraid to look when they know how much money they’ve been spending that they really didn’t mean to.

Alex Fees: Sure, yeah. They could have been reeving that benefit had they come earlier, huh?

Catherine Corley: Investing it back in their business, yes.

Alex Fees: Yeah. All right Catherine, thank you very much.

Catherine Corley: Thank you, Alex.

Alex Fees: Congratulations on your success here at NFIB. She is Catherine Corley. She is senior vice president of small business marketing for Sam’s Club. We are the NFIB, I’m Alex Fees. You’re logged on to SBTV.

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