3/26/08 meeting

From the pen of Alisha Benson:

B2B Meeting Notes for 3/26

The overall theme that was shared by Jay Anderson, Cindy Guthrie and Bob Britton is that the market is good here in Spokane regardless of what we are hearing elsewhere.

James Hicks with West Coast Entertainment brought flyers and information for the special discounted rate for B2B groups, Ambassadors, GSI members and friends/families to the opening night of Phantom of the Opera – Wednesday 10/8/08. To order tickets contact James at 777-6253.

Chris Hagerman with Family First Senior Care also shared a promotion with the group – 20% off the first week of services.

Mark Pond provided a very interesting and informative presentation about some of the capabilities of Spokane Public Library - services that are free (as long as you have a library card) and much easier and more effective than a Google Search. He focused in on the Business Resources section and 2 of the 40+ databases the library subscribes too. The library is paying almost $12,000 for just these two databases and their capabilities are amazing. Mark share a statistic that the average white collar work day is 8.89 hrs and 7.76 hrs is spent on research and information gathering. Mark just brushed the surface of how these databases can help reduce the amount of time spent researching. ReferenceUSA is the #1 source for information on businesses and people. Want to identify your competitors, or identify businesses in a certain industry to target? This database will provide you with more details than you can imagine. Demographics Now is your resource for every demographic breakdown imaginable. Working on business plan, analyzing a new market, wanting to understand your customers better? This database will provide you some detailed, eye opening answers. You can check them both out at www.spokanelibrary.org

If you are one of the people who spend 7+ hours a day researching or know someone who does, send a referral along to Mark. Thanks for the great presentation Mark.

Please take a peek at the summary of the leads at http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pC3IuhtGzGDN4XkuAfah9CA.

See everyone on April 9th!