The Atlanta Small Business Network was on-location at the Six Flags Haunt After Hours hosted by Cobb County Chamber of Commerce. ASBN’s Jim Fitzpatrick was joined by Carol Braund, business consultant for SpotOn Transact, to discuss digital marketing platforms that help small businesses minimize costs and increase revenue.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
Jim Fitzpatrick: We’re at the Six Flags Haunt After Hours, and we’re catching up with Carol Braund who is with SpotOn, which I love that name.
Carol Braund: Yes, it’s absolutely-
Jim Fitzpatrick: It’s SpotOn, right?
Carol Braund: It is SpotOn, absolutely.
Jim Fitzpatrick: It’s SpotOn. Well for the people that are watching right now, the business owners and entrepreneurs, what does SpotOn do and how does it help its clients?
Carol Braund: Well, SpotOn is doing something very unique and different in this space. What SpotOn does is we do a digital marketing platform for small to medium businesses-
Jim Fitzpatrick: Really?
Carol Braund: Which is very unique. We do it … we have a mobile app, we actually have two mobile apps, one for the business owner and one for the consumer. We have over a million downloads of our consumer ad to date.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Wow.
Carol Braund: And combined with that, we do credit card processing. And we do it very affordably for the small to medium business owner because we find that a lot of business owners are paying way too much, they pay fees, they’re stuck in contracts.
Jim Fitzpatrick: That’s right.
Carol Braund: We have no contracts, we don’t charge all the junk fees, plus we’re giving the small to medium business owner a very robust digital marketing platform to help them increase their revenue. So we’re all about minimizing their cost and increasing their revenue.
Jim Fitzpatrick: I was going to say-
Carol Braund: For a very low cost.
Jim Fitzpatrick: You’re hitting them on two very important streams there.
Carol Braund: Absolutely.
Jim Fitzpatrick: And how quickly is the money available through your company? If companies come in and they want to run their credit card processes through you?
Carol Braund: We have next day funding.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Next day?
Carol Braund: Next day funding.
Jim Fitzpatrick: As a business owner myself, I know that’s a big value.
Carol Braund: It’s a big value.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Because there’s people that have to make payrolls and they have to pay vendors-
Carol Braund: Absolutely.
Jim Fitzpatrick: And to wait that maybe three or four days from other banks is crazy, right?
Carol Braund: It’s crazy. And we have next day funding, no contract, which is huge.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Yeah, that’s nice. That’s nice.
Carol Braund: Try us out for a month or two. We have what we call is a digital loyalty and rewards program-
Jim Fitzpatrick: Okay.
Carol Braund: Where a merchant can capture their customer’s information. We do a tablet for store locations, but you can do this even if you’re at home base, but we usually have a tablet where a merchant can put out and they’ll collect their customer’s phone number and email, and now they can market to those customers, give them rewards. Customers like rewards.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Oh, I know they do.
Carol Braund: They love it.
Jim Fitzpatrick: I know they do.
Carol Braund: So-
Jim Fitzpatrick: I’m addicted to it.
Carol Braund: Yes. So they can earn rewards by simply punching in their information, and now the merchant has that information, they can post to Facebook, Twitter, send a mobile alert and email-
Jim Fitzpatrick: That is a phenomenal platform.
Carol Braund: And that can be all automated as well.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Yeah.
Carol Braund: And we give free equipment.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Wow. Really?
Carol Braund: Free equipment.
Jim Fitzpatrick: That is … they don’t have to spend a minimum or anything like that?
Carol Braund: No, they do not.
Jim Fitzpatrick: They just get it and they’re ready to go.
Carol Braund: They get it, and we’re here to help them.
Jim Fitzpatrick: How long does it take for you to ramp up a company and bring them on board?
Carol Braund: We like to say a week. Seven to ten days-
Jim Fitzpatrick: That’s not bad.
Carol Braund: To get their application in and get-
Jim Fitzpatrick: And where is your business headquarters?
Carol Braund: San Francisco.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Oh, San Francisco?
Carol Braund: Yes.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Okay, great. Great, that’s where it’s all happening in the way of technology.
Carol Braund: It is, and we have 24/7 customer support. You know, a lot of merchants, they never hear from their payment processor, there’s a lot of very expensive loyalty rewards programs out there, and we just … we’ve eliminated all that, those extra fees and issues.
Jim Fitzpatrick: And you can provide the merchant with all of the data that you’re collecting from their customers?
Carol Braund: Oh, absolutely.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Because today, as you know, everything is about data.
Carol Braund: It is. It really is.
Jim Fitzpatrick: You control the customer’s data, and you’ve got a customer for life, right?
Carol Braund: Absolutely. We’ll work from that digital dashboard, now they can access it from their computer as well. They can see their payments, they can see the sales they’re making in real time, hourly-
Jim Fitzpatrick: That’s great.
Carol Braund: And we have them full analytics so they can see what they earned last month versus this month. All that analytics plus one very unique aspect of our app is that we compile all of the reviews from the top nine review sites-
Jim Fitzpatrick: Really?
Carol Braund: Google, Yelp, Facebook, TripAdvisor-
Jim Fitzpatrick: Very nice.
Carol Braund: All on the one app. You can see those reviews, you’ll get notified as a merchant in real time. You can see them right on the app, and you can respond to those reviews.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Wow, that’s a very nice benefit.
Carol Braund: Review management. Now that alone is worth the-
Jim Fitzpatrick: You’re taking all of the stuff that small business owners just don’t have the time to mess around with, right?
Carol Braund: Exactly. This is one-stop shopping.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Yeah, it really is.
Carol Braund: And they can have their phone, they can be on holiday in Florida and they can manage their business.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Yeah. For you small business owners or for those people that are thinking about going into … to open up their own business, this is a platform that they need to look into, for sure.
Carol Braund: Absolutely.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Great.
Carol Braund: We pride ourselves on customer services, concierge customer support.
Jim Fitzpatrick: That’s great. That’s great. Thank you for joining us on ASBN, we so much appreciate it.
Carol Braund: Thank you so much. Glad to be here.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Great.
