Area businesses will try new things to help ‘09 cash flow

By Bryan Gentry

Published: January 5, 2009

While individuals vow to shed pounds, quit smoking or spend more time with family, businesses in the Lynchburg area are setting New Year’s resolutions of their own.

They’ve dealt with lower consumer spending for months, and several businesses are trying new things to help their cash flow improve in 2009.

Dan Lynch, chairman of a volunteer business counseling program called Lynchburg SCORE, said business owners need to re-evaluate where they stand and make improvements in order to survive a recession.

“Too many people work in their business and not on their business,” Lynch said. “They do everything, (they are) chief cook and bottle washer, and they don’t work on … the marketing, the sales, the finances.”

Here are a few ways that some local business owners are working to make their businesses more viable:

Shannon Gatling plans to diversify the price for his car washing service in 2009. He also wants to beef up businesses by going to his customers, instead of waiting for them to come to him.

Three months ago he became owner of a car wash on Fort Avenue, part of an “Everything $15” store that also includes a parlor, and a men’s clothing store.

True to the name of the store, Gatling’s car wash charges a flat $15 for every job.

He plans to change his prices later this year, so that customers pay different prices depending on the size of their vehicle.

He also plans to look for car cleaning contracts. “I don’t have any right now,” he said. He just has his regular customers who come to him.

He plans to go door-to-door at businesses to offer his services. He would pick up people’s cars from work, wash them inside and out and return them.

Some of that shoe leather marketing will have to wait for warmer weather, though. “I work by myself right now,” he said. “In the summertime, I’ll hire somebody else so I can be a little more flexible.”

A bridal store in downtown Lynchburg also plans to increase its marketing efforts this year.

Leecy Fink, owner of Celebration, said she is entering her store into at least four or five prom and bridal fashion shows outside the Lynchburg area. In years past, sometimes the store only went to one show outside the area.

“For bridal and special occasion wear, it’s definitely a destination purchase,” Fink said, shortly after serving some customers who had traveled from Buena Vista to come to her store. “People come where the selection is.”

For the new year, the store also updated its Web site to include more pictures “so people can envision themselves shopping here,” Fink said.

Although spending has been slow lately, the store is about to enter its busy season as proms and summer weddings approach.

“When people are spending money, that’s when business owners have to spend money on marketing,” Fink said.

At Health Nut Nutrition in Wyndhurst, owner David Thomas is developing a strategy to beat out several small-store disadvantages.

“I’m looking for ways to increase my buying power,” Thomas said.

He said some of his stiffest competition comes from Kroger, which has beefed up its organic offerings and can get more quantity discounts from suppliers.

“I’m looking for ways to increase my buying power,” Thomas said.

Thomas said he will start letting customers order caseloads of organic products at the wholesale price.

That will help him increase his ordering volume from his suppliers. Once he has the higher volume for six months, quantity discounts will kick in.

“It’s a win-win situation for our customers and the store,” Thomas said. “It’s going to help our customers be able to afford (the items). That is going to bring customer loyalty, and bring up my quantity with the supplier.”

Rose Pruitt, an employee at Health Nut, said the store also will have more training sessions to teach employees more about how organic nutrition can help different medical conditions. “That’s a personal resolution of mine, to learn more about the product we sell,” she said.

The store also will stock more makeup made with natural products, she said.

Changes like marketing and product offering strategies are among some of the things businesses need to do to get through a slow time, Lynch said.

He and other Lynchburg SCORE counselors have been encouraging business owners to assess their financial situations — a free “business health checkup” form is on LynchburgSCORE.org — and make a plan.

That plan might include cutting some perks, focusing on customer satisfaction, or renegotiating the lease price on the business site.

No matter what it includes, there actually has to be a plan.

“If you’re sitting back and hoping, that’s not a strategy. That’s not a tactic.”