Meet your San Francisco small business leader and the winner of TunedIn Demandforce Video Contest- Popular Mechanix. Nestled within San Francisco’s Mission District, the yellow and blue façade of Popular Mechanix makes this local auto repair shop really eye-catching. It’s in an “automotive alley” of sorts, operating next to several other automotive service businesses.
Andy and his Golden Rules
Andy Gescheidt, founder and owner of Popular Mechanix, has been working with vehicles for 30 years. He’s a whimsical man who acts with purpose and possesses an easy laugh. “We fixed anything that rolled,” he said, recalling the early days. But after partnering up with another neighboring repair shop, Andy decided to rebrand the businesses and specialize in Volvos. It’s became his philosophy to find one thing to focus on and be the best at it instead of dealing with a little bit of everything. In 1998, Andy was involved in a freak accident which nearly took his life – a dewired trolley pole from a bus fell and struck Andy in the back of the head as he was walking down a street, throwing him to the sidewalk and fracturing his skull. He was in a coma for a month and was not expected to live. He woke up, however, and learned to love and appreciate every minute of his life and his work. In a way, this accident has committed him to running a high quality business for the long haul. (more…)
During the holiday season, more and more of your customers, patients, and clients will be spending their free time online, so its important that you stay active and keep your business on their radar. Below are the top 5 tips and best practices to keep those customers coming in. (more…)
We’ve all gotten those well intentioned, but brisk, reviews that customers have left after their last visit consisting of “Great!” “Awesome auto service” or “Best doctor ever”, but what do these simple one or two word reviews really say about your business?
A good review should be simple, concise and hopefully grammatically correct. In about 3-5 sentences a review should say everything a potential customer needs to know to convince them to do business with you. Any longer and it becomes more like an essay (who has time for that?) and we’ve seen the pitfalls with anything much shorter.
So, how do you go about getting these types of reviews for your business? It’s all about asking questions. (more…)
On Monday, Google officially launched Google+ Pages – a social platform for business. For the past few days, I’ve been flooded with emails from our Small-Medium Business (SMB) network asking about this new tool and how to get started. Drawing from the most popular questions, I’ve created a short Q&A post to help you get started with Google+.
Q: Should I create a Google+ page for my business?
A: It depends. Here are the questions you should ask yourself before creating a page. (more…)
With the arrival of Fall, it’s time to start thinking about your Holiday emails. I know, I know – we just said goodbye to summer and we’re already talking about Holiday marketing, but this is a great opportunity to reach your patients, clients and customers.
To help you through the holidays, we’ve come up with ideas for custom campaigns. If delivered effectively, campaigns like these can help boost your year-end revenue and get your customers excited about your business well into 2012. What to Send and When
You’ve heard it before, but it doesn’t hurt to hear it again – social media is here to stay.
The shift to interacting with our friends, family, colleagues and customers through social networking sites isn’t a fad, it’s a fundamental shift in the way we communicate. And the true ROI of joining in on this social media bandwagon is that your business will still be thriving in 5 years.
Demandforce knows that keeping up with the newest trends can be daunting, especially when you have a business to run. So how can we make all this “Facebooking” and “Tweeting” easy for you while ensuring you stay relevant and in-tune with your customers? One word: Timely.
With our latest releases, the Demandforce Network tab has been revamped and expanded. Wondering how your business can take advantage of this new feature?
With the Demandforce Network, we’re putting local businesses on each other’s radar. You can view how many dentists, auto shops, salons, spas, chiropractors, etc. in your area are on Demandforce, too. Want to increase your business’s customer base? Consider reaching out to one of the non-competing businesses in your network to establish a cross-promotion.
Facebook is always changing. Keep up to date with our blog to make sure you aren’t caught off guard!
Facebook’s Updated Settings
On August 23rd, Facebook made significant changes to users’ privacy settings and users’ ability to share content.
Facebook users can now alter their privacy settings right on their profile, instead of having to jump through numerous hoops in the old “Privacy Settings” page. Users can easily control who sees their profiles, status updates, and tagged photos on the right-hand side of their profile.
Having trouble keeping track of our your customer’s vehicle records and mileage? Editing communications is one of the easiest ways to connect with your customer base and allow them to help you. Regardless of industry, including a custom message adds a personal touch to your standard Welcome and Thank You communications.
In Automotive industry, it is extremely difficult to keep track of when your customers sell vehicles and the exact mileage of specific vehicles in your database. However, by simply adding a phrase that highlights the Vehicle Information Box in your DF communications, you can empower your customers to update your database in Demandforce and help you send them correct and timely messages regarding their vehicles. (more…)
As highlighted in the recent New York Times’ (NYT) article, “In a Race to Out-Rave, 5-Star Web Reviews Go for $5”, a new breed of spammers are catering to businesses seeking to pad their online reputations with positive reviews. These unscrupulous entrepreneurs offer to rave about any business for a small fee; some will even post negative reviews about your competitors. Too hard to believe? Check out this screenshot I took on August 25th:
How can you identify fake reviews?
Unfortunately, for us humans, identifying the fake from the real might not be as easy as it seems. The NYT article mentioned earlier identified a study conducted by Cornell University researchers suggesting that it’s more difficult than it sounds to tell a fibbed review from an honest one. In the study, three human judges were presented with a mix of 400 commissioned fake positive reviews and 400 positive TripAdvisor reviews believed to be genuine and the judges failed to tell them apart.. (more…)
Demandforce provides the leading consumer demand creation solution for small business. Our software-as-a-service application is used by thousands of customers to grow revenue, keep clients coming back, and manage operations more effectively. We help small business thrive in the Internet economy.
I’m experiencing something interesting working with the full spectrum of Gen Y, Gen X, Boomers, and Millenials all mushed up into a thing called work. It seems that with each new generation entering the workforce, the expectations of how fast things have to happen gets faster. …Not to be blame on the Millenials themselves, but […]
That’s right, it wasn’t video…. it was multi-tasking. How many times have you been on a conference call where you had to say “I’m sorry can you repeat the question?” I’ll admit, it’s happened to me. It’s not right, but I’ll own up to it. A lot of coworkers at my last company worked remotely, […]
Annie
What our clients are saying:
"The Demandforce Connect for Facebook Premium Package helped us set up our Facebook page quickly and efficiently. Our most up-to-date business information is posted on Facebook and Demandforce's Facebook applications have been added through the Package which would have taken us hours to do. Our staff absolutely loves our Facebook page and can't stop showing it off to our new or existing patients."- Dr. John Uehara - Dental Care of Maui
"People love it. It's great to go onto Facebook and be able to book appointments directly. I think it's a great thing all around for a business."- Dr. J. Stephen O'Brien P.C
"Facebook was relatively new to me, but Demandforce really helped me see the value of Social Media the 1st day after I signed the Premium contract. Their consulting team was able to properly & quickly establish my brand on Facebook, and more importantly, make it much easier for me to connect with my customers online. Not only does my Facebook Page stand out among my competitors, but my customers can schedule with me, read my reviews, and redeem my specials at any time of the day. I got to work with Eric - one of DF's social media specialists on the project, and he really took the time to listen to me, understand my brand, and replicate it on Facebook. Thank you Demandforce for increasing my web presence!"- Avo - Foothill Automotive
Andy Gescheidt, founder and owner of Popular Mechanix, has been working with vehicles for 30 years. He’s a whimsical man who acts with purpose and possesses an easy laugh. “We fixed anything that rolled,” he said, recalling the early days. But after partnering up with another neighboring repair shop, Andy decided to rebrand the businesses and specialize in Volvos. It’s became his philosophy to find one thing to focus on and be the best at it instead of dealing with a little bit of everything. In 1998, Andy was involved in a freak accident which nearly took his life – a dewired trolley pole from a bus fell and struck Andy in the back of the head as he was walking down a street, throwing him to the sidewalk and fracturing his skull. He was in a coma for a month and was not expected to live. He woke up, however, and learned to love and appreciate every minute of his life and his work. In a way, this accident has committed him to running a high quality business for the long haul. (more…)
On Monday, Google officially launched 
