Small Busine Saturday: What You Need For a Sunday Morning Succe Story by Ren Grajales

It's no secret that Americans have a soft spot for mom-and-pop stores, as a Gallup poll taken earlier this year proved. U.S. consumers were asked to rank their confidence in various institutions, and you know what? Only the military received a higher trust rating than small businesses.

Shoppers get to demonstrate this loyalty once a year during Small Business Saturday (SBS). Ironically positioned the day after Black Friday, the money-raking darling of big-box stores, SBS helps independent retailers kick off the holiday selling season with a welcome sales boost. According to research by American Express, which conceived of the shopping day, and the National Federation of Independent Business, the 2013 edition generated an estimated $5.7 billion in sales for small businesses nationwide.

A few critical factors have spurred this bonanza, including social media exposure, support from American Express and onsite promotions. But there's one very important factor behind the success of Small Business Saturday that may go undiscussed: the ingenuity and drive of the entrepreneurs who run these firms.

The Recordkeeping Payoff

Even the savviest businessperson, however engaged he or she may be, can't be expected to think of everything. In your preparations for this year's iteration of the sales day, you may not have connected the dots of keeping your records organized and a record-breaking Small Business Saturday.

Besides the general advantages a clean slate represents for a business of any size, you can realize some tangible benefits from getting your house in order before the big day. Here's the why and how of it all:

Be better prepared. Whether you rely on lists of clients and prospects to contact about your SBS promotions or inventory records to know what you need to stock, slipshod recordkeeping just won't cut it. When you engage a trusted records management partner to help you, you're getting the lift you need to serve prospects and current customers better-on the last Saturday in November and well into the future.

Save time. On the big day, you'll want to be engaging customers, not sifting through piles of poorly organized records. Having the files you need close at hand will save you time and spare you frustration during this busiest of seasons.

Make a better first impression. How tragic would it be if Small Business Saturday wooed new customers to your door and they left feeling dazed by the clutter in your space and your salespersons' confusion? Work with a trusted partner to cart off little-used files to an offsite storage facility and shred the records you'll never need again.

Reduce overhead. You may be thinking, Why go nuts trying to increase Small Business Saturday revenues if I'm only going to spend it all on storage and filing costs? Consider this: Retaining nonessential paper files can rack up significant expenses over time. When you team with a valued partner to take control of your records, you'll be in better shape to hold on to the benefits of the new business that comes your way.

Small Business Saturday gives consumers a nudge to patronize the local and smaller businesses they might otherwise forget about during the holiday shopping season. It's also a perfect incentive for you to work with a trusted partner with expertise in recordkeeping. Its highly vetted and trained team can help you tame your paper, so you can focus on what should be your most favorite Saturday of all.

LINK:	http://blogs.ironmountain.com/2014/service-lines/small-business/small-...
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