Attended: Coldwell Seacoast Realty, Carolina Specialties, M Fiorenza CPA, Sun Trust Mortgage, Sun Trust Bank, Gotcha Covered, BlueTone Media, Rhodes Law Offices, NB Chiropractic
Seasonal and current business trends driving their individual businesses at the moment
- Website company is gearing up for spring: seeking wedding-related websites and customers
- News-item-Over 4000 NC Corporate Charters have been revoked this year; ensure that your customers that you have business with dont have a suspended or revoked corporate charter. Most are due to non-payment of the nominal annual fee.
- Largest automobile insurer in NC is now actively seeking home owner policy customers
- Truck rentals for out-of-state movers and storage needs for these customers, including boat storage
- SunTrust is grooming an out of state big business customer that is setting up in this town with all his business account needs, credit cards etc. (he stated name of business, but I didn't catch it)
- Rhodes Law Offices seeks knowledge of who is the developer/builder for the Knolls on Mount Misery Road
- Sun Trust Mortgage currently is seeing more refinances than new mortgages at this time. He mentions that he likes to turn "nos" into "yeses" for customers who can't secure mortgage loans with his competition. Also seeing inordinately expensive rates from his competition (e.g. a loan available at 4.738% but the customer is being charged higher at 6.5%) lets him get more business
- NB Chiropractic sees change in the outdoors weather for the better is bringing in lots of weekend warriors that might have overdone it and injured themselves (Coldwell Seacoast Realty grinned and agreed with overdoing it)
- Carolina Specialties-T Shirts a segment of the current business is school uniforms, school fundraising t-shirts, school activities and sports specialties primarily at the middle and high school level. Also Colleges are buying for summer programs and marathon t shirts for the recent shell Island marathon. (when asked, yes he can do USB flash drives, but that item is expensive these days compared to the profit margin)
- Gottcha Covered was pleased with a recent success in landing a bid for a cadre of new homebuild window blinds and roller shades orders, affirmatively answered question about being able to custom retrofit windows and blinds into a vintage home.
- Coldwell Seacoast Realty gave example prime listings of 2 or three homes in the ($150k - $230k) range that once weren't available at this lower price point. One market stressor in real estate is brand new built home vacancies over saturated at the moment is driving down prices on existing home resales. Considers sell market is currently at "aggressive" low prices, good time for purchasers. Mentioned neighborhoods: Echo Farms (e.g. an $190k home) and The Arbors (e.g. an $165k home).
Agenda
- Free-Appetizer Meet and greet get-togethers for NBBN to groom new clients
- Who seeking? homeowners in a few new select subdivisions (e.g. Brunswick Green and Waterford)
- food costs potentially free if local restaurants want to cater these events to approach these same customers that NBBN currently seeks
- Location possibilities Eddie Romanellis, the newly built Best Western Hotel
- Announcement ideas websites, posters at our businesses, subdivision located signs, ads at the local restaurant
- atmosphere for the event(s) Bring business cards but it should be a friendly atmosphere not an exhibit-professional one.
- concerns about "What if 200 people show up?" "How much is this going to cost us?"
- New Prospects
- a male a new landscape landscaper
- a female an estate planner
discussion about bringing in prospects that would be barging on each others turf but not affecting these two
