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About Coast river business journal. (Astoria, OR) 2006-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 17, 2021)
COAST RIVER BUSINESS JOURNAL BUSINESS COMMENT NOVEmBER 2021 • 13 Improve the environment and your bottom line By Jessica Newhall Clatsop Community College Small Business Development Center Trying to gain loyalty from today’s customers can feel impossible. Someone can come into your store, restaurant or visit your website, and as quickly leave with the confidence they can find your product or service elsewhere. So, how do you capture the sale and the loyalty of today’s empowered customer? It starts by recognizing that you must be more than a purveyor of goods and services — you must connect to their values in a way that makes you stand above the alternatives. Climate change and the environment are increasingly top of mind and consumers are actively seeking out companies, brands and products that embrace sustainability as a part of their business model. For small businesses, this represents an area to build value and differentiate your company, brand and offerings. Embracing sustainability for a small business doesn’t mean that you must change your whole company. Instead, small, incremental steps toward being greener can • In which areas can we improve our business practices to be more sustainable and lower our environmental impact? This last question can be a great exercise for you to involve others in, especially your employees (as, like consumers, they are likely desiring to work for a company that reflects their values). Ask them to participate in a brainstorming session. If you are a sole proprietor, gather some friends, family or VIP customers and create a focus group to evaluate your business practices. Here are some areas to explore and questions to get you started: • Supply chain/product selection: What is the approach to sustainability by the vendors you buy from? Are their business practices, products or operations sustainable (recyclable/ recycled, organic, fair trade)? • Packaging: What kind of waste is created by the sale of your product once a customer leaves your location? An example would be if you are a restaurant, are your to-go containers made of recycled materials and compostable once they reach a landfill after use? • Paper, paper and more paper: Are there ways that you can reduce the amount of paper your The bottom line is that small businesses must work harder to create and retain customers — and those who find ways to connect with the values of their customers will likely enjoy increased sales, improved customer retention and grow revenue. Implementing sustainable practices can be a great path to achieving these. While building sustainability into your business shouldn’t be just about profits, it can also result in cost reductions, which lead to improved margins and increased profitability — and that is a byproduct you can be proud of! make a huge difference for the environment and your customer’s perception of your business. Chances are, you are already doing some great things so, as you gear up for the holiday season, this is a great time to do an audit of your sustainability practices by asking: • What are we doing right now that reflects our commitment to being environmentally friendly? • Do we do a good job communicating our sustainability initiatives to customers? If not, how could we make sure they know about them? business requires? Some simple improvements around electronic billing, texted/emailed receipts, DocuSign for contracts and replacing document storage with cloud storage can make a big impact. • Operational waste: What kind of byproducts come from the production of your products or services? Are there ways to reduce this or find a secondary use for them? • Energy usage: Perform an energy audit of your business. Are you using energy-efficient appliances, LED lamps and turning off lights when you don’t need them? Organizations like the Energy Trust of Oregon or Pacific Power Jessica Newhall can be helpful partners in exploring how to reduce energy consumption. • Supplies and furnishings: Instead of buying new, are there ways to buy second- hand, repurpose or make do with what you have? • Marketing: What is the environmental impact of your marketing? How can you create high-impact advertising and promotional programs that have minimal impact on the environment (radio, digital, email, text)? If you do need to print or create physical promotional products, are there options made of recycled materials or are multiuse? • Reduce travel: What is the transportation footprint of you company? This includes everything from allowing employees to work from home (when appropriate), evaluating travel to a trade show or thinking through the transportation footprint of your supplies and products both inbound and to the customer. Identify what is business critical and where improvements can be made. The bottom line is that small businesses must work harder to create and retain customers — and those who find ways to connect with the values of their customers will likely enjoy increased sales, improved customer retention and grow revenue. Implementing sustainable practices can be a great path to achieving these. While building sustainability into your business shouldn’t be just about profits, it can also result in cost reductions, which lead to improved margins and increased profitability — and that is a byproduct you can be proud of! Jessica Newhall is the associate director and Small Business Manage- ment Program manager for the Clat- sop Community College Small Busi- ness Development Center. She can be reached at jnewhall@clatsopcc.edu. • Business News Updates • e-edition CoastRiverBusinessJournal.com ... Life Happens y We’re Here! That’s Wh Our friendly and dedicated Physicians and Physician Assistants are available for all of your routine healthcare needs, not just for emergency situations! 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