Why We Appreciate Calgary Small Businesses

As you might've heard or read in our blog, Kayak Online Marketing was recently named a finalist for a prestigious Calgary "breakout business" award, given to the small company making the biggest impact in its respective industry or market.

Since then, we've gotten lots of support from clients, colleagues, and the community. That's made us appreciate not just the wonderful people we know, but also all of the hard work that goes into making a business like ours successful. We think we can probably speak for all the nominees on the list when we say that it feels great to receive a bit of public recognition, but watching our company grow – and hearing from satisfied clients and customers – is well worth the effort on its own.

Success Tips for Other Small Businesses

We'd like to pass along our congratulations to all the other finalists on the "breakout business" list (you can see them all here: Breakout Business), and also pass along a few tips we picked up along the way:

1. A "successful" startup business isn't just an idea or concept; it's finding clients and customers one at a time, and then making sure they feel like they've gotten more than their money's worth as part of the deal.
2. Finding customers or clients is never something you do just once, it is part of an ongoing process that helps your business grow over time. That process gets a lot easier if your products, customer support, and/or long-term value make you stand out.
3. Just because everyone in your market or industry is doing things one way doesn't mean you have to follow in step. In fact, a lack of imagination is usually more dangerous than an unconventional approach.

Depending on what kind of business you're in, and just how unconventional you are, there may be times when you have to challenge your customers to get them to do what's best for them. In fact, you may even have to turn down work (or sales) where the fit's not perfect. That's all right – as long as you're doing the right thing, everything will work out in the long term.

It's great to even be nominated for an award, but those are the kinds of things that come after you've already done the hard work of separating yourself from the competition. Focus on the parts of your company that people can't see, and eventually others will realize that you'll go farther to win their business and deliver everything you promised.

Vote For Your Favorite Calgary Small Business "Breakout" Finalist

Want to support us (great!), or one of the other four finalists (probably okay, too)?

Voting continues for a few more days, so cast yours by visiting the contest site here: http://www.smallbusinessweekcalgary.com/vote/breakout-business.

It only takes a moment to vote, and you can be assured we will be grateful for your support and participation!

Help Calgary's Small Business Week Award finalists out: Tweet This!