[VIDEO PLAYBACK] [MUSIC PLAYING] – You served your country. Then, you transition
back to civilian life and begin serving
your communities. And for 2 and 1/2
million of you, that meant starting
a small business. You're businesses are
hiring fellow veterans and military spouses. They're supporting charities
and giving your communities a sense of community. Sure, it hasn't
always been easy. You're doing what
you've always done– putting in the hard work
and learning as you go. So to help, Google
has created one place where your veteran-owned
small business can get a step-by-step guide to
reaching customers worldwide. Add a veteran-led badge
to your Google listing and let the world know that you,
all 2 and 1/2 million of you, are open for business. Visit us online to get started. [END PLAYBACK] DONALD ALLEN: Hi, everyone, and
thank you for joining us today as we celebrate National
Veterans Small Business Week with today's Livestream,
Connect with Local Customers on Google.
My name is Donald Allen, and
I'm so excited to be here with you today. So running a small business
can be a great second career after serving in the military. We believe that
digital skills training for veteran-owned businesses,
like building a website, preparing a business plan,
and honing in marketing and audience strategy
will be beneficial as veterans try to grow
or start their businesses. This year, for National
Veteran Small Business Week, we want to celebrate businesses
who identify as veteran-led and help them grow
their businesses through digital
tools and training. After the presentation, we'll
be hosting a Q&A where we'll answer your questions live. So throughout the Livestream,
submit your questions using the hashtag,
#VetLedLivestream on Twitter. We'll also be joined by Northern
California VBOC advocate, Coreena Conley, to ask her
about free tools and programs that VBOC and SBA have
to offer for veterans. All right, so first,
a bit of background.
So in 2017, we launched
Grow with Google, an initiative to help people
across the United States grow their skills,
careers, and businesses by providing the best of
Google's training and tools. Specifically, we've launched
products and programs that help the veteran and
military spouse community. And we'll be sharing some
today as well as resources to learn more at the
end of this Livestream. In today's session, we're
going to talk about a free tool that businesses can use right
away to get started connecting with customers online.
It's called Google My Business. And if you're new to Google
My Business, don't worry. That's why we're here today. And I'll start by
sharing an overview. So Google My Business
offers businesses a way to manage how
their information appears across Google search
and maps through what is called a business profile. All right, so try
to picture this. When we first moved to the
Bay Area a few months ago, my family wanted
to go out to eat. All right, so here we are. We're in the air Airbnb. We have no food in the
house, new to the area.
And just like so many of
our many PCS adventures, we had no idea
what was around us. And keep in mind, I've
got a family of six, so we can't just go
anywhere to go eat. So I open Google Maps and typed
in, "restaurants near me." And what popped up was a
bunch of business profiles for businesses that
were local to our area.
And so we found a quaint
French comfort food cafe. And it had pictures and hours,
directions, and a phone number, which is important
because I needed to call them to see if
they could accommodate my large family. I'll just leave it
to say that we went. They could accommodate us. We had a great time and
is now a favorite of ours that we now follow and
we get updates from. All of that it was through
these business profiles. So research shows that over
90% of customers looking for business information
through search engines are looking for specific
information, like business hours, promotions, or
available appointments. This is important because how a
business's information appears in search results
can impact when, how, or why potential
customers engage with you.
In context of our
discussion today of how businesses can use a
business profile to connect with local customers– so I'll add that, not only
are our customers looking for specific information
about a business, they are looking for
specific information about local businesses. There are billions of local
searches made every month. And more than 30% of
all mobile searches are related to location. So what does this mean? All right, you
have customers who are looking for
specific information and largely looking for
this type of information about a business
in their community. So today, we're
going to discuss how to connect those
dots using features available through
Google My Business. But before we dive in,
it's important to note that Google My Business was
designed for businesses who have a physical location
or do business face to face with their customers. But if you have a
business or are thinking about starting one that
doesn't meet one of these two categories, you're fine.
There will still
be opportunities to gain tangible takeaways
through today's topic. So this is the part where I tell
you what I'm about to tell you. In today's workshop, we're
going to discuss how businesses can use Google My
Business to establish a local online presence,
build a loyal customer base, highlight what makes a
service or product unique, and use insights
to help drive more in-store or online traffic. So you have options
available to you. This is where having a free
business profile on Google can help. Customers are 38%
more likely to visit and 29% more likely
to consider purchasing from businesses that have
complete profile information.
Before diving into
the features of– which can help your business
connect with customers locally, let's first take a review the
anatomy of a business profile on Google. When a customer discovers
your business profile, the initial view they see
is your business overview. In a business
overview, consumers can find info
about your business like address, contact
info, hours of operation, business logos,
photos, and more. This overview allows potential
customers quick access to the best ways to
connect with your business. Through Google My
Business, you have access to a manager dashboard
where you can update all the information shown here. So 96% of customers are more
likely to visit a business that has hours of operations on a
Google search or maps results page. 90% of customers are
more likely to visit a business that had a phone
number on a Google search map results page. And 90% of customers
are more likely to visit a business that has photos on
a Google search or maps results page.
Ensuring this information
is actively managed can help increase the odds of
connecting with new customers. A recent update to
business profiles on Google allows for businesses
the opportunity to include branded images
like logos in their profile. Through this update,
verified businesses can create a short name or
custom name for their business profile to make it easier
for customers to find them. When businesses share
this short-name URL, customers can enter into
their browser search bar using the g.page/ your custom name
to go directly to your business profile. Another great way to stand
out to local customers is by using attributes. Attributes let customers
see what your business has to offer, such as whether
a restaurant offers Wi-Fi or indoor seating. Some attributes like
women-led or outdoor seating can be highlighted as
badges when customers find your business on mobile. For our veteran-led
businesses watching today, we create a specific,
veteran-led business attribute to let your community
know that your business is run by a veteran.
So all of these
features are great. But what if a business doesn't
have a website for consumers to visit once they found
your business profile. It's OK. Google My Business
includes the option to create a free, simple website
generated with information from your business profile. So it's a great starting
point to being online, perfect for small businesses who
do not yet have a web presence. And creating a website
with Google My Business takes about five minutes. There are three steps to
creating a website would Google My Business. One– click Website from your
Google My Business dashboard. And once you do this,
Google My Business will pull the information
from your profile to populate the website. You have the option
then to customize some elements of the site,
including the theme, text, and photos. And when you're
ready to go live, you click the Publish button.
These websites also come
with a free URL and hosting. You can customize your website
address by entering the first part of the domain name, and it
will automatically be followed by .business.site. So if you enter the
name Stacia's Bakery, your website address would be
staciasbakery.business.site. Alternatively, you can
register your own domain name. This option is not
free, and you'll need to register a domain
through Google domains.
But, if you already have a
registered domain name, even with a registrar
other than Google, you can use it for your
new Google site as well. OK, so let's discuss a couple
of creative ways businesses can use the website feature
in Google My Business. If you wanted to build a
website for a hair salon, you would first consider how
you would want your customer to engage with this. Some of the questions
you might ask yourself include what are
the deciding factors that a potential customer would
use when choosing a salon? Do they want to see
before and after photos? Do customers like
to read reviews? Do customers prefer to make
appointments or just walk in? Would customers prefer as he
pricing on individual services? These are all the things
that can be solved through the website template. For example, you could showcase
before-and-after photos and include reviews from your
business profile on Google, so customers can see proof of
the quality work that you do. Next, you could include a Book
Now call-to-action button. So it's important to note,
one out of two customers, they'll want to schedule
an appointment when searching for a business
online are looking for a way to schedule that appointment.
So one of the things that
really came out to me was, when I first got
out of the military, I needed to get a haircut. I couldn't just
go on base and go get my haircut like I had been. I had to go find a real barber. And so I actually
used the Google Search and found a profile
for a business near me. And the one that I
chose for me was a one that I could schedule the
appointment right there in the profile. It was great. And Google works with
third-party scheduling software. Provider– sorry. Google works with third-party
scheduling software providers to enable online booking
through Google Search, Maps, and Reserve with Google, a
service that allows people to book appointments and
reservations directly within the search engine, found
at google.com/map/reserve. And the last feature
that you could utilize would be pricing
information to include info about the cost of services. Another thing that you
can do is use photos. And bright and vibrant ones
are best to showcase products in the gallery. On this slide, you can
see how a bakery showcases examples of how the food looks.
Me, personally, I definitely
prefer more pictures of donuts. And if I were still
thinking of the hair salon, I may want to show
before-and-after pictures to demonstrate my good work. Choosing the right
photos can go a long way in helping customers
feel confident that the service types and
quality of work you provide online with their goals. Another feature that I want to
point out is custom domains. Google My Business will
allow you a free domain, which includes a .business.site
at the end of the business name. However, you may decide that
you want to purchase a custom domain, which is shorter. And when thinking
about which domain is best for your business,
a few the best practices include making it easy to
type, keeping it short, using keywords that your
customers are already using to find you, avoid numbers
and hyphens, and be memorable.
Those are just a
few ways that you can customize a website
for your business through Google My Business. In addition to the
features I just mentioned, businesses can also
customize their website using a pre-designed template. These templates come in a
variety of layouts and color schemes allowing you
to select one that supports your brand guidelines. All right, so in
this section, we're going to discuss ways to help
you build a loyal customer base using welcome offers. All right, so when people
follow your business, they become a follower. And they will see your
updates and offers and photos across Google and
then they're For You feed when you go into Maps. Business owners can check
out the Customers tab to learn more about their
followers in the Google My Business app.
The benefit here is
that this creates an additional channel
for business owners to reach their customers. And then you have
the welcome offer. You can attract people to your
business with a welcome offer. Now, what this is is, when they
click Follow on Maps or Search, they'll get an offer, such
as $5 off your first meal. And then they can
redeem it in in person. The benefit here is
you're giving users another reason to visit you. Again, going back
to our stat, which said that 90% of customers
are looking for business information through
search engines, are looking for
specific information like business hours, promotions,
or available appointments. Promotions serve as a great way
to capture consumer attention and convert them into customers. Here's what that process
looks like for your customer. So a user follows
a business that has a welcome offer set up.
The user is informed of
what it means to follow your business via a pop-up. The user can choose a dismiss
the offer or choose to save it. And then, the user can go
back to the business profile and view the offer when
they are ready to use it. All right. There's three ways that
we can create an offer. So the first one
is, click the Create a Welcome Offer from
the Home screen. I find that to be
very aptly named.
The second way is to set up a
welcome offer in the Profile Editor screen. And the third way is
to click Create offer during the first-time
use prompt. Now that we've decided
to create an offer, and we've navigated our
way to the starting point, there are just four steps
in creating the offer. The first one is to enter
information about the offer. Next, you want to add a photo. And then, third, you want to
add a title and description to what your offer is. The last one is to
view the welcome offer and double-check the details,
and then click Publish. Another useful feature
in Google My Business is the post feature,
which allows merchants to post
live updates directly on their business profile. We briefly discussed the posts
earlier in this workshop. Posts serve as a great way
to keep loyal customers up to date on new products
or service launches or other good information
for your business. So when customers have more
access to your business information and updates, they
can make better decisions as they browse. This allows you to
directly communicate with your local customers,
to improve your customer experience with
timely information, to promote your sales,
specials, special events, news, and new offers.
And this also allows you to
engage with your customers through videos and photos. Posts can be created from your
computer or from your phone. On your computer, sign
into Google My Business or open the Google My Business
app on your phone or tablet. If you have multiple
locations, after you sign in, you're going to need to select
a location you'd like to manage. And then, click
Post from the menu. At the top of the page,
choose the type of post you'd like to create
from the options given. The options to add photos,
videos, text, events, offers– and a button to your
post appear there. Click each field, and enter
the relevant information. To see a preview of your
post, click Preview. And if you're happy with the
preview, in the top right, click Publish. And if you'd like to change
your post, in the top left, click Back.
Edit your draft until you're
ready to publish, and then click Publish. A few ways to use posts, though,
are, like a what's-new post. A what's-new post is one that
provides general information about your business. You can include a
photo, video, a link, a call-to-action button,
or other information. For example, a restaurant
could make a post to promote a new menu item. Or in this example,
Honest SOUL Yoga announced a new yoga
studio location. Product posts are posts that
emphasize a specific product that your business sells. Product posts require a
title, a photo, or video. You can also include a
call-to-action button and other information. And then, we have offer posts. Offer posts are ones that
provide promotional sales or offers from your business. Offer posts require a title
and a start and end date. A view offer call-to-action
button is automatically added to the post. And you can also include
a photo, a video, a coupon code, a link, as
well as terms and conditions with that post.
This is a great method for
getting seasonal offers out there. One more idea– you can
use posts to highlight important business information. This last post shows Honest
SOUL Yoga's hours of operation. And you can create
a post like this and include
additional information that might help customers. So for example, last
year, specifically, my family, on Black
Friday, we were out trying to do some shopping, get
an early start to the season and trying to figure out
the hours of operation for, not just stores, but
also restaurants that we were in the vicinity of. It was really difficult
unless you went to the store and saw the sign in the window. But using this post, you can
announce to all your followers what your hours of operation
are on those special days.
Posts appear in your business
profile in Search and Maps. You can create posts from Google
My Business app on your phone or tablet or from the Web
dashboard using a laptop or desktop. You can also see how posts are
influencing potential customers by reviewing their activity
from the Google My Business dashboard, which brings us
to our last topic today. So our final topic
today is how a business can use the Insights feature
in Google My Business to drive in-store
and online traffic. Many customers find businesses
through Google Search and Maps. Google My Business
Insights focuses on how customers find your
listing on Search and Maps and what they do
after they find it. Think of this as
an understanding the story of your customer,
where they're from, and how they come to
interact with your business. OK, so there's a lot of
different types of insights. Some of the insights
provide you different ways to understand how customers
interact with your listening. So the first one– how customers find your profile. It shows how many customers
found you in a direct search. In other words, they search
for your business name or address versus a
discovery search, which is where they search for
a category, a product, or a service, and your
profile happened to appear.
The next one is
search queries, which is available on the web
version, but not available on the app to view. Search queries show
you the queries that we use to find the business
on Google, where customers found you on Google– Google Search
versus Google Maps. The next one is
customer actions. So this shows you what
searchers did once they found your profile on Google. The actions include, did
they visit your website? Did their request directions? Did they call you? Did they just view your photos? The next one is
direction requests. You'll see your location pinned
on the map and a heat map that shows the most
popular places from which people ask Google
Maps for driving directions to your address. The total number of
requests broken down by city or neighborhood
are displayed as well. The next insight
is phone calls– when and how often searchers
called your business via the Google business
profile on Google. You can view trends by day
of the week or time of day.
And then, the last one we'll
talk about today's photos. This is the number of photos
associated with your profile and how often their
view compared to photos of businesses similar to yours. All right, so we're
going to dive in a bit into three of these
available insights. So in the Insights tab, you can
track common terms and search trends for your business. These queries should
help you create better posts with
Google and even ads to engage your customers. Search queries
focus on the terms that your customers use to find
your business on local search and Maps. You'll see the queries used
in the last week, last month, or even the last quarter. But to protect users'
privacy, you'll only see the queries that
meet our privacy threshold.
All right, so the
next section here shows how customers
behave after they found your listing on Google. The graph shows you
how many customers completed the following
types of actions when viewing your listening. Did they visit the website? A customer views your
website, and this is displayed as website
actions on the bulk report. Did they request directions? This is where a customer
requested directions to your business. And this is displayed
as directions actions on the bulk report. Did they call you? This is clearly where a
customer called your business and displays as phone call
actions on the bulk report. And then there's
the total actions, the total customer actions for
website, directions, and phone.
To view how many customers
complete an action on a specific day,
you simply need to select the day
you're interested in. And so, on the desktop, you just
placed a cursor over the day. And on mobile, you
just tap the day. And to the right of the
graph, click the checkboxes to turn on or off
the various filters. Now, the graph displays the
total number of times anyone clicked one of the actions. So whether they just
clicked, request directions or place a call, this
is going to show you anyone that clicked it. So this means a single
user can request directions to a business 100
times in a single day, and we will show you
that 100 requests were made in that one day.
The next section
here shows where customers are when they request
directions to your business. It's on the map displayed. You'll see your location
pinned in the popular places your customers are when they
ask Google Maps for directions to you address. The total number of
requests broken down by city or neighborhood
are displayed as well. You can zoom in and out on
the map using the controls in the bottom-right corner. Now, the graph displays a number
of unique users in each source location, so by postcode
or city or even country. So this means that a single
user can request directions to a business 100 times
in the time period, but we would only show one
request for that person. OK, in today's
workshop, we discussed how businesses can use Google
My Business to establish a local online presence,
build a loyal customer base, highlight what makes a
service or product unique, and help drive more
in-store and online traffic.
For hands-on support
with any of the topics we discussed today, visit
the smallbusinesspros.com, and schedule of one on one with
a small business pro today. Small Business Pros offers
a quick and easy way for you to optimize your
online services, use your existing data to
make more strategic decisions, and resolve your
issues in real time. You can find more free,
online business tools @GROW.GOOGLE/VETERANLED. As a reminder, if
you have questions, you can get those
questions answered using the hashtag,
#VetLedLivestream for a chance at having your
questions answered live.
Next up, we'll chat with
Coreena Conley from the Veteran Business Outreach Center,
which is partially funded by the Small
Business Administration about the importance of
National Veterans Small Business Week and additional
tools and resources available to the veteran
small business community. But first, let's take
a look at a veteran led small business story
featuring Chris Nolte, army veteran, and founder of electric
bike company, Propel Bikes. CHRIS NOLTE: My
name is Chris Nolte. I'm the founder of Propel Bikes. Throughout school,
I didn't really have all that much direction. I'd thought of the idea of
going into the military.
When I returned from overseas,
I returned with a back injury. I really spent most
of my time at home just kind of feeling broken. A friend of mine got
an electric bike. I built one up for myself. And then, suddenly,
I'm mobile again. So I ended up starting this
electric bike business. And I knew that, if I was
to grow this business, I was going to do
it all on the web. Recently, we added
the Vet-Led attribute. We've actually seen an
increase of business specifically for people
that want to support veteran-owned businesses. The first year, we
sold about 25 bikes. And last year, we
sold about 1,000. Everybody that found us,
they found us on Google. What I do today,
it's very fulfilling. It's kind of a new
mission for me. DONALD ALLEN: And welcome back. And wow, that was
an awesome story. Congrats to Chris and all of
his success with Propel Bikes. Now, we want to welcome our
special guest, Coreena Conley, who serves as a chief
executive officer for the Veteran's
Business Outreach Center serving California and Nevada. So welcome, Coreena. COREENA CONLEY: Thank you.
DONALD ALLEN: Can you tell us
a little bit about yourself, the Small Business
Administration, your work with VBOC and the importance
of National Veterans Small Business Week? COREENA CONLEY: Absolutely. And thank you so
much for having me on today to celebrate their
National Veterans Small Business Week. You know, just a
little fun fact– that there's over 2.9
million veteran businesses out there in our
great nation that contributes over $1
trillion, over $1 trillion with a revenue to
our local economy. So imagine that as a whole. So again, I am really
humbled and honored to serve as a CEO for the
Veteran's Business Outreach Center. We are a 501(c)(3)
nonprofit organization. We're partially funded to the
US Small Business Administration and the Governor's Office
of Business and Economic Development.
Our program is really designed
to be able to assist veterans in their initiatives to either
start, sustain, or expand a small business initiative. So the services
that we offer are complementary because they're
paid by your public tax dollars. And there's three forms
of services that we offer. The first one is, we offer
complementary, one-to-one small business
consulting services. So let's say, for
example, you're a veteran, and you're coming
to our organization, and you're looking to
either start a business. So what our process
is is that, we are designed to take a look
at you as a person as a whole and identify what you're
learning style is. And then, our counselors
are trained to adapt to what you're learning style is. The reason why we do that
is because of the fact that we want to alleviate– starting a business can
be really stressful. And with stress is fear. So we want to be able to
alleviate that emotion called– we call it the false evidence
that appears real mentality. So we can adapt to whatever your
learning style is to assist you in your endeavor to do
the valuation or reality therapy of starting a business.
Or if you're an
existing business, and you're looking to grow or
to sustain, or to put together a succession plan, we will also
adapt to whatever your business needs are. And our consulting services
are done in a couple of different capacities. The first one is, it can
be telephonically done. Or we can do– we use our Webex
where we can actually face-time with you, so then you can
face-up the information that you're reviewing
with a counselor. And also, through
that consultation, review cash flow projections,
creating a strategic plan, building a website,
whatever that initiative is that we are doing with you. And then, the other one
is obviously in person. So we have an office, which
is– our office is located in Sacramento, California. So that's why we offer
the different platforms because everybody
has– most everybody has a smartphone, a computer
where they can go ahead and log on, and it's more effective
for them to do that.
And the other
service that we offer is over 200 trainings
on an annualized basis. One of the signature
programs is created by SBA. It's called the Boots
to Business program. DONALD ALLEN: Oh,
I know that one. COREENA CONLEY: Yeah,
you went through that during your transition? DONALD ALLEN: I did. COREENA CONLEY: Yeah, so, as
you know, then that program has eight modules, and
it really walks you through the conceptual
idea of starting a business to the fiscal
financial management piece of it, to the
operational piece of it, to creating that strategic
plan or that business plan, depending on what
generation you are, right? And it gives you
a snapshot view. So it allows you to
be able to identify if entrepreneurship is
something that is right for you. So it really just opens
your eyes up to say, OK, this is something
that I think that I might want to be able to do.
But when a person goes
through that program, wherever their home base is after their
they come out of the military, then they can contact
one of the 22 VBOCs that are nationwide,
which can be easily accessible on
the sba.gov website. And so each one of those
programs or those VBOC centers will tailor their
services to whatever your specific needs are. And then, the last
service that we offer is, we host
conferences, which are one- to three-day conferences. And they have a
community-based focus. So for example, we just had a
small business and DVBE segment DVBE and the government– you
know we use lots of acronyms– DONALD ALLEN: We do. COREENA CONLEY: –which means
Disabled Veteran Business Enterprise. And so it was a small
business one-day summit, and it was part of the National
Veterans Small Business Week celebration. And so with that, we had our
best practices businesses that have come through the
Veteran's Business Outreach Center program. Some of them are still small
businesses, and some of them are actually
medium-sized businesses.
So we help them grow and
foster their business through, either that neophyte
level all the way through succession planning. So that's what the
VBOC programs do. So with that best
practices, the audience had an opportunity to engage
based upon their industry sector. What were best practices? What they would have
done differently and what worked well for them? Then, the other
component that we had is we had an economic
future forecasting, which talked about, what are
the economic trends, which are so viable to
a small business owner when you're creating your
strategic plan or direction is– if this is what my business
initiative is going to be, then how is it going to
fit within the marketplace and the demographic
area that I serve? Or if it's global, then how does
that fit globally, as a whole? DONALD ALLEN: So
that's interesting.
And one of the things that
came up– so I'm a veteran, you know. COREENA CONLEY: Thank
you for your service. DONALD ALLEN: Well, thank you. And so I know we've
got a lot of veterans who are watching today. So one of the
things that comes up a lot, especially
in the transition, is the idea that we're
not quite ready yet. And so at what stage, from
ideation creation, like that, I have an idea I want
to start a business, to I'm actually operating–
at what stage should I come see you and your team? COREENA CONLEY: That's
an excellent question. So to be quite frank, it
doesn't matter what stage in the game you are because
the veteran's business outreach centers are designed to
assist you wherever you are, specifically, in whatever that
cycle of starting a business or growing a business.
So at any point in time, you
can connect with your local VBOC office. They'll do a needs
assessment to figure out where you are specifically. So if you're a
startup, we want to vet the concept, vet the idea. We want to determine
whether or not the idea, by doing
some market research, is going to fit within
the demographic area that you're looking
to host your business. So let's say you're
going to be starting– I don't know. Pick something. DONALD ALLEN: Underwater
basket-weaving. COREENA CONLEY: OK,
underwater basket-weaving. And you want to have a
retail site that is– so you're going to build a tank,
this whole retail facility.
DONALD ALLEN: Absolutely. COREENA CONLEY: So
what we want to do is we want to take a look
at what businesses and what the economic trend is going
to impact your business, number one. So that's the first thing. So with your local
municipality, what is the five-year plan for
that for that infrastructure, for that municipality that's
going to support your business? Or is there another
business that's similar that's a
box chain that's going to come in that's going
to have the same business initiative that
you're going to do? And is that going to be
your direct competition? And what's the mile
radius of that? The other part of it
is that, taking a look at the economic
research, we have access to a phenomenal program
that SBA provides to us as VBOCs is called IBISWorld. And IBISWorld allows us
to pull economic trends so we can assist you and give
you the information that you need to be able to value your
business concept and idea.
So that might be the
[INAUDIBLE] marketplace of what you're doing. But we want to make
certain, where are your sales going to come from. Are you going to foster
your relationships and do contracts
with corporations? Are you looking for the
general population sector? Or is it a combination
of– how are you going to generate that revenue? And what does that strategic
plan look like– operationally, financially, to your
marketing, to your branding, to your succession
planning as well. DONALD ALLEN: So one of the
things that comes up is– coming back to my underwater
basket-weaving business. COREENA CONLEY: Yes, this
is such an awesome program to get started. DONALD ALLEN: So in my head,
I'm going to do $5 billion of revenue in the first week.
COREENA CONLEY: Yes. DONALD ALLEN: If I
bring that plan to you, are there going to help
me gauge some of that. COREENA CONLEY: So we're going
to give you reality therapy is what I'm going to call it. DONALD ALLEN: Reality
therapy, right. COREENA CONLEY: So we're going
to take a look at your industry sector and what is reasonable
cash flow that you're going to generate. So if you come in,
and you tell me– unless you have a contract
with maybe a major health care or a for-profit
organization that's going to say,
we're going to give you a contract for
that dollar amount, then that's going to
solidify your revenue, right? But it also depends on the
terms and the conditions of that contract.
So we sit down with you,
and we take a look at what your owner's infusion is. Because you have to
have working capital. You have to have sustainability. And so that's why your cash flow
projection is really important because it talks about your
different revenue streams. And you can't start out a
business with $5 million. DONALD ALLEN: No? COREENA CONLEY: Well, you
could if have a contract or you have something
that supports that and evidence that.
Because more than
likely, if you're going to start out a business
that's going to have $5 million you said, within the first year? DONALD ALLEN: First week. COREENA CONLEY: First week? That's– you know, what? That's very aggressive. DONALD ALLEN: Underwater
basket-weaving, it's coming at you. COREENA CONLEY: So you must
be using Google, right? And analytics to
help you with that. So what we will do
is we need to make certain that you have
enough money to cash flow your business. So you have a $5
million contract. You're going to perform
it in the one week. So how are you going
to afford to have money in the bank– that's either
your own owners infusion or a line of credit established
or some kind of funding to support that contract? Because more than
likely, contracts don't get paid until
90 to 180 days out, depending on where it starts. So what we're going to
do is take a look, again, at your industry sector, what
is reasonable in that industry sector? What are some past performance? Who is your competition? So a mini-MBA program– we call
it the SWOT analysis, right? What are the Strengths,
what are the Weaknesses? We're to call it areas
of improvement, right? What are the Opportunities
for your business? And what are the Threats
to your business? DONALD ALLEN: So a
SWOT analysis, OK.
COREENA CONLEY: Yes,
yes, and so we're going to take a look
at that and determine what is a reasonable
cost for the services that you're offering or the
products that you're offering? So for your
basket-weaving business, is it just going to be isolated
to a certain demographic area? Or is it going to
be or a national? DONALD ALLEN: Well,
I just presumed that I would put it online
and make my $5 million a week. COREENA CONLEY: So
again, we'll take it back to reality therapy. So what will happen is, all of
our consultants in our program have an MBA. We have some that
are CPAs as well. So we'd have you sit
down with a consultant, take a look at your
industry sector, and put together a cash flow
projection that's reasonable. We're going to give
you– that's what I call it the reality therapy. And though the services
are complementary. We're not going to
do the work for you.
We're going to mentor you and
guide you through that process. So the energy and effort
that you put into it is the rate of return that
you're going to get out of it. DONALD ALLEN: Oh, perfect. COREENA CONLEY: We have a lot
of the people that come in, and they want us to do the work. But if we do the work
for you, then how are you going to successfully
own and operate your business? DONALD ALLEN: Fair point. But that brings me to
an interesting question.
So I know a lot of
veterans are thinking about starting their own
business as they get out. What are the value that you
see that a veteran brings to starting up
their own business? COREENA CONLEY: That's
really an excellent question. So you've been a
military member. You know that
Department of Defense spends billions of dollars
of training military members, right? DONALD ALLEN: True. COREENA CONLEY: With their
standard operating procedures and also how to be able to
handle situations that are stressful situations, right? You have a ready-action plan.
So that's what makes veteran
business owners so successful. I think you're at the top
90 percentile of success ratio of them succeeding. And it's also predicated on
the industry sector as well. But because they've
been trained, and it's how they take– so let's say you're a veteran. You've recently
transitioned out. And you're looking
to start a business, or you're already in a
partnership in a business. So what we want to
do is take a look at what the needs assessment
are with your business, where you're going
to grow it, or how you're going to start it. And we're going to
take that experience. Maybe you're starting a
business in whatever experience you have in the military. You want to transition
that experience into corporate America
to start your business. And we've helped many,
many, many clients through that threshold from– they come in, they
have a conceptual idea. This is what I did
in the military.
I was in charge of
supply, the supply chain, and I know that I could
get supplies from point A to point B. So we actually
have a client that came through this program
about four years ago. They started out with
a conceptual idea, and now they're running over
$22 million in contracts. But they allowed
us to do our job by guiding them
and mentoring them through that whole process. So any business can be
successful if you plan and you strategize. But that plan is just
used as a barometer. And because of the fact that
things happen in business– when you're an entrepreneur,
and you start out, you wear many, many hats. You might be the
CEO, but you're also the janitor, which every
job is equally important. You can be accounts
payable, customer service. You can be the sales
department as well. And you can be your you own
human resources department as well. So what we take a look at
really is what your bandwidth and what your skill set
level is and to help you, to those areas that you
don't have that bandwidth, to fill those areas either
with collaborative partners or resources that will
give you what you need to have a solid foundation.
But it's up to you
to take the advice and to implement the advice. We can only give you the advice. And we don't make
decisions for you. DONALD ALLEN: That's good. No, it sounds really great,
especially about guiding us through in a nonjudgmental way. That's really important. What if my idea is
super brand new, secret, and I don't want anyone
to know about it. Is there confidentiality? COREENA CONLEY: Absolutely. So what I mentioned earlier– so the consulting
services that we offer are confidential just like a
bank fiduciary relationship. So when you register for
services with our organization, we have a confidentiality
statement. And also, in there,
it describes to that– what that level of
confidentiality is. All of our consultants and
all of our staff members also have to sign a
confidentiality statement on an annualized basis. And we train what that
confidentiality means.
So let's say you're
starting a business, and you have a friend who's
starting the same business. And that friend calls in
because they want to find out about your business initiative. So what we're going to do– just
like what a bank does, or just like, if you have a
medical care provider, they're going to
verify that it's you. So we will ask them a
series of questions, like the last four of your
social security number, what branch of the military. So there are certain
key questions that we ask them because we
have access to that information to verify that, when we're
doing a telephonic consultation or we're doing– or someone's just
calling in, that we know that we're connecting
with you and speaking with you.
DONALD ALLEN: So all right, this
one is on behalf of my wife. COREENA CONLEY: Yes. DONALD ALLEN: What
options are there available for military spouses? COREENA CONLEY: So there
are the same opportunities for military spouses for
entrepreneur training services to the VBOC programs as if you,
the veteran, had came through. It's as simple as that. So we support
veterans of all eras, transitional military members,
reservist guard members, and spouses. And so if your spouse is going
to be in business with you, we will have you sign an
authorization of release form because we serve
the veteran, right? And then, your wife would
register for service as well.
And we would onboard her the
same way that we onboard you. DONALD ALLEN: [INAUDIBLE]. COREENA CONLEY: And
so the same thing if you are a veteran
business owner and you have a key management team. Your key management team
would register for services. You would sign an authorization
form for each one of them. And then we would work
with you as a team. That doesn't mean that they
can receive the services in lieu of you as the veteran. It's in collaboration, so
we could build capacity for you and your business,
or with you, I should say. DONALD ALLEN: OK, so what if
my business isn't $5 million a week? What if it's really only
about $20,000, $30,000 a year? Do you guys still
help with that? COREENA CONLEY: So
yes, so again, we– it doesn't matter the
size of your business, whether you're a micro business,
or you're a small business, or you've generated
no revenue whatsoever.
We're here to guide
you, to mentor you, and to support you if you're
starting, growing, sustaining, and all the way through
an exit strategy. And even through
the exit strategy, if you're looking to
bring on another veteran to take over your business,
we'll mentor both of you in that transition period. Because we want to make
certain that it's fluid and that it's successful
for both of you. And we also help with the
valuation and acquisition of a business. So our services
are really broad. So it's just not
business planning and strategic planning. It's all about
acquisitions and mergers– access to capital is a big one.
DONALD ALLEN: That was
actually my next question. COREENA CONLEY: I
can read your mind. So access to capital is
one of the greatest hurdles that small businesses
have, right? Because it's all predicated
upon the business itself. What is the owners infusion? What cash do you
bring to the table? Not you going out and
getting a credit card, taking a cash advance,
that's not cash, right? DONALD ALLEN: That
doesn't count? COREENA CONLEY: Right. Well, it counts, but it's
not true owner's infusion. What collateralization? So there's different types of
financing that's available. But financing for
a small business is unique to the business. It's not like you're going to
go buy a house and you're going to give them your W-2s,
your last year's s, your 30-days' bank statements,
and your last 30-days' pay stubs. It's different. It's uniquely designed
and underwritten based upon the industry
sector, your business, what you say, in your strategic
direction or your plan, what your business
is going to do, and what does cash
flow projections.
Again, I'm going to go back
to the fiscal wheelhouse. Whatever those
projections say, are they reasonable with the
industry sector? And do they make sense based
upon what your marketing plan is, your branding
analysis, and whatever those different revenue
streams are going to be? So we take a look at, not only
you as a person, as a whole. We take a look at your
business as a whole as well. And then, that's
how we guide you. So it doesn't matter if you're
starting, sustaining, growing– so we've had people that
are survival mode, right? We've had veterans
that are deployed. And we're helping them work
with their business owner back in the states. And we're doing
it telephonically or emailing so their business
is sustainable when they return. DONALD ALLEN: OK, so this
is my last question for you before we move on.
So I know you're with VBOC. Not all of our viewers
are here in California. COREENA CONLEY: Yes. DONALD ALLEN: How do they
go about getting access? Can they get access
to the service? COREENA CONLEY:
Absolutely, absolutely. So SBA is a federal agency. It's called the US Small
Business Administration. And SBA has numerous
programs for small people– or individuals that are looking
to start, sustain, or expand a small business initiative. Because small businesses
are the economic engine of our great economy. At the end of the day, it
all boils down to that. And with that being
said, if you go to the website at www.sba.gov,
that's www.sba.gov, and then the office of
Veterans Business Development is the program that funds and
is responsible for the VBOC centers nationwide.
DONALD ALLEN: Outstanding. OK, well, great. So thank you so much, Coreena. If you don't mind
staying with me– COREENA CONLEY: Absolutely, yes. DONALD ALLEN: Well
go through some Q&A? So now we're going to take a
few questions live from Twitter. As a reminder, if
you have questions, you can get those
questions answered using the hashtag,
#VetLedLivestream on Twitter. All right, let's hop
into our first question. COREENA CONLEY: Excellent. We're excited. What's the first one? DONALD ALLEN: Ooh, OK. This one is from the Borough
of Manhattan Community College. What would you recommend
if founders do not have a physical location and
want to use Grow with Google? All right, so unfortunately, you
cannot use Google My Business as an online-only business.
But you can market your business
using SEO and Google Ads. We've covered both of these
topics in depth in our previous Livestreams, which
you can access at g.co/grow/livestreams. All right. COREENA CONLEY: That's
an excellent question. DONALD ALLEN: All
right, let's see here. What else we got? COREENA CONLEY:
Question number two. DONALD ALLEN:
Question number two. Well, let's see. Oh OK, here's one
for you, Coreena. So this one is,
what's the difference between VBOC and SBA? COREENA CONLEY: So the Veteran's
Business Outreach Centers are partially funded from the
US Small Business Administration due to public law 10650. All of the 22 VBOC
centers nationwide are– some are nonprofit
organizations, 501(c)(3)'s. Some of them are also connected
with local community colleges and/or state universities on
their economic development wing. So each one of them are
independently operated, but we are grantees from the US
Small Business Administration through the Office of
Veterans Business Development through the public law
10650, which started in 2004. DONALD ALLEN: So it's
working together.
COREENA CONLEY: Yes. So basically, SBA is
the federal agency that allows us to be able to
be the boots on the ground to provide those direct
service deliverables– the confidential consulting
services, the over 200 training platforms on an
annualized basis, and then, the
conferences that we host. DONALD ALLEN: OK, cool. All right, question
number three. COREENA CONLEY: Yes? DONALD ALLEN: This one
coming from Clayton Library– how can vets get involved
with Bunker Labs in Atlanta? All right, well,
actually, there's actually an event in Atlanta
tomorrow, which is still accepting RSVPs for a
launch event between Google for Startups and Bunker Labs. You can get involved
by going to Bunker Labs website at bunkerlabs.org. COREENA CONLEY: And
Bunker Labs is one of our collaborative partners. Todd Connor who is the
executive director– yes. So the VBOC programs
collaborate with a lot of the nonprofit organizations
and for-profit aid agencies that provide those direct
service deliverables. DONALD ALLEN: So that's great. You can access a lot of
different resources,. It's like owning all of them. COREENA CONLEY: That's correct. So they takes– they
say it takes a village to raise a child.
So it takes a village
or a multitude of different agencies, nonprofit
organizations, both federal, state, local
municipalities, institutions of higher education to be able
to serve our constituency base. So we all work together
and collaborate. DONALD ALLEN: OK. Next question here is from
Avery from Madison, Wisconsin. All right, are there
more veteran-specific workshops or lessons
that you can recommend? So I'll take first part if
you want to take second part. COREENA CONLEY: Certainly. DONALD ALLEN: So as I mentioned
before, Grow with Google just launch a resource
hub where veterans like– where veterans can find
products, tools, and lessons to start or grow
their businesses. One resource is the Primer app. Primer offers a quick and
easy-to-understand business and marketing lessons. You can find topics
like creating a business plan, increasing
sales, managing finances, or more. Primer also offers
customers mini-courses tailored to veterans
and military spouses that you can find by searching
Veteran Led or [INAUDIBLE] biz, with a Z in the app. The URL is
grow.google/veteranled. COREENA CONLEY: Very nice. So I'm going to add
to that if I may.
DONALD ALLEN: Go, please. COREENA CONLEY: So there are
a lot of different resources out there for individuals
for their small businesses. There's a small Business
Development Center, which is also funded by the
Small Business Administration. So if you're looking to do
government contracting as well, procurement technical
assistance centers as well, they provide, specifically,
contracting opportunities if you're looking to grow
and expand your business. International trade– centers
of International Trade Organization, the Service Corps
of Retired Executives as well and the Women's
Business Centers. DONALD ALLEN: I know SCORE. COREENA CONLEY:
Yes, that's right. You were a counselor with SCORE. DONALD ALLEN: I was. COREENA CONLEY: That's an
excellent question, though. DONALD ALLEN: Yeah, thank you. Uh, what do we have here? Sasha from Des Moines– COREENA CONLEY: All right,
Sasha, what do you have to say? DONALD ALLEN: All right, what's
the difference between Google My Business and things like
Google Places for Business Google Business Profile, Google
Listings, Google Plus Business Pages? OK, I can get that one.
COREENA CONLEY: OK. DONALD ALLEN: Google
My Business let you take advantage of your
businesses present on Google. So with your Google
My Business account, you can manage and update
your business profile and build a website to
attract engage more customers. Google My Business
business profile encompasses what was once known
as Google Places for Business, the Google Listings, and
replaces the Google Plus Business page, so it
consolidates and replaces it. Oh, here we go. This one is from Scott. It says, is there
a search feature to make the veteran
badge searchable? And how do we shop
and do business with vet-led businesses locally? All right. I'll take this one. The attribute is not
currently searchable. The attribute will
show up in two places.
So in Search, when
you're searching for a place using an
Android mobile device, users will see the
attributes like veteran-led on the profile. And when searching for a place
using an iOS mobile device, users will need to use a Chrome
app in order to find a place, and then, they will see the
attribute in a highlight section. On Maps– on Maps,
all users will need to open a
business listening and tap the two-line
description of the business to see the attributes
associated with that business. So it's more of an abbreviated
version on the Maps versus when you go
and do a search. And let's see here, OK,
so this one's for you. COREENA CONLEY: OK. DONALD ALLEN: This is from
Sylvia inside Albuquerque. I only have a business
idea right now. What are some things I need
to consider before starting a veteran-owned business? COREENA CONLEY: Well, that's
an excellent question.
So my first and foremost
recommendation for you is to get into sign up for
services with a local Small Business Development Center,
a Veteran's Business Outreach Center so they can
actually help you– or SCORE– DONALD ALLEN: Or SCORE. COREENA CONLEY: To vet
that process of what your concept of
what your idea is and how that concept or whatever
the idea is that you have, how it fits within
the marketplace. So the most important thing
is get to the local resource partner, either a Veteran's
Business Outreach Center– you can find them on
the sba.gov website.
And let those
professionals assist you to help you mentor you to
walk you through and evaluate that concept or that idea. DONALD ALLEN: Yeah. COREENA CONLEY: Because you
want to find out whether or not it's going to be
feasible or not feasible. DONALD ALLEN: Absolutely. And I'll also plug
SCORE here from the SBA. So when I was a mentor over
there, a lot of the times, we would take in businesses that
were still in the idea phase and didn't really have
anything flushed out.
And we would help walk them
through the fleshing out. But in the same tone, we weren't
going to do the work for you. We would give you the tools, and
you need to go do the legwork. COREENA CONLEY:
And that's where– when I go back to
the needs assessment, just like you go to
a health provider, they're going to do a
needs assessment based upon your health needs. So we do a needs assessment
based upon your business needs. What is your experience
in the industry sector? What do you bring to the
table of your knowledge? Because it's one thing to
have a conceptual idea, but not had that
subject matter expertise to be able to perform
the deliverables. So then we have to
identify, can we find someone who has that
subject matter expertise that you can hire or be your
partner in that business? So it's just basic evaluation.
So then, that way,
the reason why we offer the
services is, we don't want you to start a business,
and we've had people do this. They come and go, we want
to create a plan, right? We're just going to
start a business. So they'll come in. They'll say, this is
an excellent service. We'll start them
in that direction, but they don't want to
create a strategic plan. What they want to
do is they go out, and they sign a lease
agreement, they're in a retail store front. And then they come back six or
nine months later saying, hey, we don't have enough
money to flow. So then, what we do is we take a
look at either a sustainability plan or survival plan
or an exit strategy, whatever their
particular situation is.
So that's why these
resources are so important. DONALD ALLEN: Absolutely. COREENA CONLEY:
They're complementary. They're paid by your
public tax dollars. These are people who
are– they are certified. They're professionals. They know their industry
sector in and out. And they're there to
guide you and mentor you. So the first thing I would
do is to go to sba.gov. Find your local
resource partner, whether it's a VBOC, and SBDC,
a Women's Business Center, or, SCORE whatever it might
be, and then get services from them. Let them guide you and mentor
you through that process, so you can make good,
valid business decisions. DONALD ALLEN: Outstanding, yeah. COREENA CONLEY: That's
a great question. DONALD ALLEN: So the next
one is Clayton Library. Can you briefly briefly
discuss the Patriot Boot Camp Partnership, or– OK, I can do this one. So our Google for
Starters Partnership will pair startups founded by
veterans and military spouses in the Patriot mentor program
with advisors from Google to provide product expertise.
We're especially excited
to support the Patriot Boot Camp as they inspire and equip
additional military spouse and veteran founders to succeed. Wow, we've got a lot of
questions all of a sudden. COREENA CONLEY: That's because
you're doing a fabulous job. DONALD ALLEN: All
right, so this one is from Justine from New York. Is Google Reserve the same
as the appointment booking feature? OK, no, but they
do work together. So Reserve with Google
connects to a wide variety of online services that
let you book, reserve, and get things done like
Mindbody, Tripadvisor, Booksie, and many more. So if you choose those
services, it automatically connect you to your Google
My Business business profile. COREENA CONLEY: Very nice. DONALD ALLEN: Got another
one here from Justine? No, that's a copy there. This one's from
Lily from New York.
COREENA CONLEY:
New York is live. DONALD ALLEN: I know, they're
definitely here in force. Is there a one-stop
place where I can learn more about Google's
resources for veterans? Yes there is, actually. So please visit
grow.google/veteranled where you can find Grow with Google's
free tools and resources for veteran-led businesses. And again, that's
grow.google/veteranled. COREENA CONLEY: That's
an excellent question. DONALD ALLEN: They're coming. They've definitely woken up. So this next one is a
Julia from Ann Arbor. All right, so I own a business,
and one of my employees is in charge of responding
to text messages that come in from Google My Business. Is there any way that I
can monitor the messages? OK, so no, but you can see
the average response time if you have an Android device.
Reports in Messaging Insights
will display the average wait time for a message response
using the last 28 days of data. To see the reports, just go on
your Android phone or tablet, open the Google My Business
app, and tap Customers and then Messages, and you should
better get a report. All right, well, I
think that's about all the time we have for today. And I hope that you found
this information valuable. Thank you, Coreena. COREENA CONLEY: Thank you. Thank you for your service
and inviting me out today. DONALD ALLEN: Oh, thank you.
And thank you for joining us. And thank you all for
attending the Livestream. From all of us here at Google,
I won't say a Happy National Veteran Small Business Week. Thank you. COREENA CONLEY: Sign out. [MUSIC PLAYING].