Small Business Focus: Tricia Ford, Homewood Chamber of Commerce


Photo by Caleb Chancey

Tricia Ford has been the Executive Director of the Homewood Chamber of Commerce since October of 2008. She was previously the Executive Director of the Mountain Brook Chamber. She started and ran a company called Market Potential, a full-service advertising/public relations firm, for 17 years. She is a graduate of the University of Alabama where she received both a Bachelor and Masters degree. I was able to snag a few minutes of her time recently and I really appreciate her being willing to be a part of this blog. She’s also a great friend and somebody I’ve done business with for years.

How has your experience running a business in the past influenced how you interact with small businesses in the community?
I understand them. I understand their day-to-day operation, the meaning of cash-flow (or not having cash-flow), what it is to juggle accounting, sales, marketing and everything. You wear a lot of different hats.

After running two chambers of commerce, what challenges do you find are unique to Homewood?
Homewood is a very tight-knit community. The challenge I am going to have is connecting the community with the businesses, the city government and having some sort of seamless communication among all of those areas, working together for one goal: to see the city continue to prosper and grow. It has so much potential and we have wonderful people that live here that love their community.

You’ve seen economic recessions before. How does this one in particular compare to previous ones and how has it impacted Homewood small businesses?
It is the worst I have ever seen. Given the good economic times that we experienced in previous years when compared to the current economy, I think we are very fortunate that our businesses are doing as well as they are doing. They are seeing slow improvements in their sales figures, but nothing can compare to previous years when there was more disposable income. I am seeing things turn around slowly.

When you talk to small business owners, what are you hearing is the single greatest challenge they are facing?
Getting customers in the door. And when you get them in the door, you might have a large crowd, and a large number of purchases, but with smaller dollar amounts per purchase.

Talk about the importance of technology as it relates to what you do every day.
It’s the communication value. With the advent of email and now social networking, communication is so valuable to get instant information out to the chamber members. Staying on the leading edge of that has kept me on my toes and with the help of a lot of good friends, I hope that I am learning fast enough!

As you dabble with social media, are you seeing the potential of communication with your chamber members and the positive potential that is there?
Absolutely. Their feedback is instantaneous and instead of trying to pry things out of people, I am getting a quick response to questions of “would this be helpful to you?” or “what do you think about this?”. It helps me do my job better because I better know how they are feeling or what their opinion is of what is going on and how we can serve them. It prevents mistakes, too. Prior to having that kind of communication, it was on a trial-and-error basis on many things that you offer your chamber members. Just through the sheer means of a quick survey, you can turn in a hurry and go in another direction.

“How I Made $100K With Twitter”

This is a great article on how Twitter and other social media avenues can open the door to new opportunities.  As the author mentions in the article, if you’re looking for a get rich quick answer, then stop reading now.

In my opinion, his approach isn’t too dissimilar to traditional networking.  It’s just taking advantage of the technology that’s available to us today.

Read more…

New Addition to Birmingham Small Business

This blog is and probably always will be an evolution of ideas.  After I took the picture of Garrett Doss in my first Small Business Focus feature, I realized that I am no photographer.  I am pleased to announce that Birmingham Small Business is adding a new member to the blog team.  Local photographer Caleb Chancey will be providing (real) photography for the blog and I am really excited to have him on board.  I’ve known Caleb’s family for a while but have recently reconnected with him.  He does some great work and he works with great people.

His contributions will be coming soon.

Twitter: @calebchancey
Website: http://www.calebchanceyphotography.com/
Blog: http://www.calebchancey.com/blog/

Small Business Focus: Garrett Doss, OB-GYN South, P.C.

Garrett Doss is the practice administrator for OB-GYN South, P.C. Garrett graduated from University of Alabama with a B.S. in Healthcare Administration. He does a phenomenal job managing the practice efficiently and is always looking to use technology to better himself as well as the doctors. He’s a great friend and I thought it would be very appropriate to make him my first interview for this new blog. A special thanks to the doctors for letting me steal a few minutes of his time.

You’ve been at OB-GYN South for 10 years. What is it that you enjoy most about this job?
“I would have to say the practice itself. I’ve been in enough practices consulting with different physicians that I know a good group when I see them. The integrity, the honesty, the way they treat their employees, the way the physicians all get along–that’s probably my favorite aspect of the job. I’ve seen enough bad ones to know which ones are good–and this is a good one… how the physician partners get along and how they participate with each other. These doctors have a single-minded mission of what they want to get out of the practice. That gives them an edge over a lot of practices in terms of working environment.” Read the rest of this entry »

Small Business Focus

One of the main things I want to do with this blog is feature small businesses and small business leaders in our community.  There are a lot of great people that I would like to profile because I believe they bring a lot to the table in their organization, as well as the small business community here in Birmingham.

My first profile should be up by the end of January and will feature a practice administrator of a phenomenal group of doctors at Brookwood Hospital.

New venture…sort of

This isn’t truly a new venture, but I am changing roles at Infomedia.  After spending 8 years providing front-line support to our clients, as well as programming and graphical work, I spent the next 3 years in production management.  Throughout my 11 years at the company, I’ve been involved in nearly every phase of the business.

One area I have always dabbled in is digital consulting.  It’s something I have always enjoyed a great deal but never committed much time to because my primary job function has been in production management.  I am, however, changing roles to officially move into full time digital consulting.

I am excited about this because it will give me an opportunity to do what I love doing the most: providing solutions to businesses through the web.  My official title is “Senior Digital Consultant” and it is a pretty good description of what I do.  Gone are the days when people needed websites.  People don’t need websites anymore… they need websites that grow their business, increase efficiencies and save money.  What that looks like for one company looks completely different for another.  We’ve built thousands of websites and web applications for all types of businesses and each one is tailored to fit the needs of the organization.

One of my favorite things to do when meeting with prospective clients is to simply listen.  Many times, they know the deficiencies their business has or where they need to focus on the most in order to improve sales, generate leads or to simply gain greater business efficiencies.  Sometimes they don’t.  Our strategy is to find out where they are lacking and to see if what we have to offer will truly grow their business.  We’re not a perfect fit for everybody and we don’t try to be.

I am excited about my new role at Infomedia and am looking forward to getting to know the small business community here even better.