Just my luck, I live really close to Shop Adorn’s retail store and got the opportunity meet up with Nicole in person for this interview. Nicole recently opened the store this spring, featuring street wear and modern clothing for men and women and is really happy with the neighborhood. Located in Beaumont neighborhood, having a brick and mortar store is a dream come true for Nicole. Nicole originally held her store,  Shop Adorn,  online only.  (shopadornonline.com)

Online vs. Brick & Mortar

It’s fascinating the difference between her customers online and off. The store shopper tend to be mostly moms of all ages, especially stay at home moms who want a different wardrobe and want fashionable clothes as well as a more mature crowd of  ladies. Online, her sales are mostly ladies who hold higher income jobs and tend to be colleage grads.

Nicole has been focused on creating the online store to match more of the retail store’s branding.  Recently they’ve incorporated some the green and white from the storefront and gave the website the facelift it was looking for. It’s definitely a challenge to create the same emotional feeling and experience online and off!

Which tools to use?

Nicole’s a big fan of using Volusion as an e-commerce solution. Nicole told me she originally went with Magento for her online store, but found it a bit of a monster, it’s customer service was lacking, and the costs were really high.

While Nicole doesn’t use Volusion for her POS sales in her store, but has found a system to be able to link inventories, one of the main frustrations with a lot of brick and mortar stores who have an online store as well.

Reaching the market

Blogging has been one of the best ways to drive Shop Adorn customers to their online store. Nicole’s staff blogs daily, really focusing on getting excited about the clothing and why they are carrying it.  Over 50% customers find their website because of their blog!

Nicole wants to set up a local blog to incorporate more of her neighbors in Beaumont to help spread the news of events at different stores and restaurants. She’s been impressed with how merchants in the area help each other out. Other exciting things Nicole’s doing at her store: she’s  offering customers face-to-face style consulting, in-store trunk shows and neighborhood parties!

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If you are active on BizNik in the Portland area, you’ve probably seen some good articles and activity from Kaya Singer. Kaya has a very unique background, she’s owned a pottery business, been a family therapist and is now a small business coach. She has recently launched her book, The Entrepreneur’s Handbook to Money & Freedom.

It’s impressive how active Kaya is in communicating with businesses through Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Read below and learn how powerful online communication can be for a business coach.

What’s your business?

Awakening Business Solutions – I offer tools, process and coaching programs to solo business owners to help them overcome obstacles and develop a business mind-set.

When did you start using social media? What made you decide to try it?

I began social media as soon as it was available. I was on e-mail before most people. Communication is my focus and I loved the immediacy and the ability to create community with people world-wide.

How has social media affected your business?

It has allowed me to market to people world-wide and develop strong communities and relationships with people I would never have met. It has allowed me to put articles all over the world and make a huge difference in people’s lives.

What is one tool that you use the most?

Not just one. My LinkedIn group – Awakening Women in Business, my blog, Facebook, Twitter, BizNik, EZine articles and I am getting ready to move forward developing a membership site.

Have a social media story you’d like to share?

I was part of an e-mail group called “Powerful Women Entrepreneurs“. There were hundreds of women and it ran as a Yahoo group. The woman who facilitated it decided to suddenly quit so there was no place for all these women to go.  On a whim- one morning when I was on LinkedIn, I began “Awake Women in Business” and I invited all the women from the other group. Many of them came and then I also invited  other women I knew and posted it on Facebook and Twitter. It was active and involved almost immediately!  I love it as I am a natural facilitator, and it is a way to build community with women in business. It is also giving me some training for my new membership site that is coming soon.  I love working with women too so this also fulfills that need.

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I’ve been impressed with all of Google’s tools, I’ve been playing with more of them over the past year and was happy to see they have a Local Business directory.

It provides a free listing of your business and allows you to update it for free as well. As a business, they encourage to put your address, photos, hours, and a description of your business. It’s a nice supplement to your blog and website and integrates with Google Maps, which especially nice if you are tricky to find and are always giving directions. As a bonus, you can add coupons to this listing, a great way for new businesses to get customers walking through the door!

Don’t wait, an account only takes 5 minutes to set up, get more business an easy way!

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