Amanda Brinkman travels the country meeting with small business owners in small towns, but Thursday was the first time she ever stepped foot in Cañon City.
Brinkman, the chief brand and communications officer at Deluxe Corp. and host of Hulu’s Small Business Revolution – Main Street, said when she arrived in town Thursday, she could feel that the community members really care about each other and that they care about the success of small businesses.
“It’s been really beautiful to see how the town has pulled together around this,” she said during a meet and greet Thursday night at the Cañon Royal Event Center.
Cañon City is one of the Top 10 finalists to be featured in Season 4 of SBR, which is why Brinkman and her team split up Thursday and Friday to visit small businesses throughout the community, not just on Main Street.
“A lot of the businesses feel like they’ve already won,” she said about the feedback she so far had received from local merchants and service providers. “That is why we do this at Deluxe because we want people to recognize that the real opportunity here is watching how your community came together and figuring out how to use that momentum moving forward.”
She said at the end of the contest, only one town will end up winning, but all of the Top 10 communities can harness the momentum and energy they’ve been feeling and move forward with it.
“That’s why I call it a movement,” Brinkman said. “It’s really just about inspiring that across the country.”
When the team visits businesses, they are looking for those that have a need for what Deluxe has to offer, which includes marketing services for small businesses.
“It’s a makeover show at the end of the day, so we definitely want to make sure that we are working with businesses that need marketing help, the financial advice, but we also are looking for businesses that can create an entire business model,” Brinkman said. “We want to make sure that the business can really use the help as a catalyst.”
The No. 1 struggle she hears from business owners across the country is that they don’t understand marketing and how marketing can help grow a business.
“And that’s what Deluxe does, so we love helping businesses with that so they can get back to doing what they love,” Brinkman said.
The second most common struggle business owners deal with is not knowing their numbers, or knowing what their numbers are telling them, she said.
“When you don’t know your numbers, it’s very hard to make decisions about your business because you don’t know which inventory you should get more of, or which one is producing the best margins — you can’t make informed decisions if you don’t understand those numbers,” Brinkman said. “Both of those things can be intimidating to a lot of businesses because they didn’t start their business to run a business, they started their business because of a passion they have.”
Deluxe doesn’t do SBR just to produce the show, they’re doing it to truly help, Brinkman said, and when she sees business owners put to use the advice and guidance offered through Deluxe and the SBR, it is rewarding.
“There’s nothing more gratifying than seeing a business apply the advice and encouragement that we gave them and taking their business to the next level,” Brinkman said. “We know that they know they are always capable of it, and it just warms our heart to see that they took the advice.”
For more information, visit https://www.deluxe.com/.
Follow Brinkman on Facebook and at amandakbrinkman.com. Follow @amandakbrinkman on Twitter and Instagram.
Carie Canterbury: 719-276-7643, canterburyc@canoncitydailyrecord.com