Buffalo Bud’s Wild West Adventure.... Part 2: Shooting the Surf

So here we find ourselves, our modern day Wild West stage set.  Last time, we learned about our rugged six-pack crew, the core of Sauk Valley Shop Small.  Today, I’ll back up 8 months and start the story that led up to SVSS.

It is April 22, 2011, a rainy night, late after a long days work.  It’s the kind of rain that would wash a main street out the west end of town.  It's a tired phrase, I know, but so was I on that night, so it kind of fits.  Plus, it was April and it was actually raining. 

For me, April is a time at Distinctive Gardens when we're just at the precipice of retail exploding for the spring season.  But in reality, my busy season starts months earlier when I have my winter task list of honey dos preparing for the spring rush.  Granted, I’m not frying my back breaking pristine prairie, but I am fending off carpel tunnel and blurry vision with computer work. During this time, I'm not that active on Facebook for fun.  Rather, I'm on the computer cranking out way too much preparation stuff .  This particular day was especially long, and at its end, contrary to my normal pattern, I decided to have a little fun just shooting the ''surf'' on Facebook.  Facebook is a glorious way to connect to your buddies and the story of their lives even if you are unable physically to be social all the time.  So while I was catching up on the latest face-vine gossip, I came across a post from my buddy Carla for this contest, the Facebook American Express Open Big Break for Small Business, or simply, Big Break.  Carla is my friend from childhood who runs a nifty Facebook page on social media called Social Pie.  You can find easy to understand tips on using social media there.  So anyway, I read her post,

"Who wouldn't want $20K? I'm entering. Are You?"  

Normally, I would just skip right over this kind of content, but for some reason I stopped, clicked and checked it out.  The link went to the AmEx OPEN Facebook page.  If you don't know about American Express, the one thing you need to know is that they back their commitment to small business with concrete action.  I know this now.  AmEx OPEN's forum is a great site chalk full of resources for small business owners.   For Big Break, American Express OPEN and Facebook teamed up to hold a contest for small businesses competing to win $20K and a social media make over for their business.  Five winners would fly out to California to Facebook for a three day one on one intensive business make over to learn how to grow their business using social media. 

Pretty cool, but what I found more intriguing was the first of a three-part process.  The first part (answering three questions), I thought would also be the last for us. These questions were of the sort that got a person to thinking, philosophizing, and even dreaming.  This was the cool part I could not pass up.  Never mind, it being connected to these bigger than life mega corporations or that $20K appeared a pipe dream at best.  No, these three questions, the thoughts they triggered, the internal mindset they fostered, now this was the meaty stuff.  So I did it.  I answered three questions.

So you ask, what were they already?  Well, they were simple.  The first was, “What makes you excited to come to work each day?” Seems easy enough, right?  Try it.  See what it does for you.  When you really try to answer that question a lot of stuff comes up and out all over the place.  It forces you to find the essence of your joy.  For me, that answer was,

‘We love gardening, no two ways around it.  We love gardeners.  They’re the coolest, most open-minded people around.  We love our industry.  These people are honest, enthusiastic, and love sharing knowledge and the joy of their efforts.  We feel lucky doing a job we love. We opened this garden center because it’s a fantastic way to meet like-minded people, and share in our passion for plants, gardening, and community. No gardener (nor garden center) worth their salt is anything if not community-minded. Like our customers, we strive to be good neighbors; seeding our community with the same love it shows us.  We hold benefit festivals, like Gardenstock; teach a slew of first graders on yearly field trips (what a trip); and partner with local businesses and artists expanding art and culture in our town.  We’re a garden lover’s delight growing plants, friendship and community, one seed at a time.’

So there it was.  An answer.  Which also, in hindsight, turned into a guide.  It is a mantra that has sewn into my core sense of self.  In the upcoming months, from that first answer would emerge an awareness my thoughts are not unique.  Many people hold those core beliefs true.  On that day, a door opened from which I have met a slew of like-minded individuals.  And that in its self is where the big win lives.

The next two questions built on the first.  The second asked how Facebook impacted our business.  The short of it is Facebook has impacted more than our business.  It has impacted our sense of belonging to a community.  It is a way to stay connected even while yoked to a keyboard, trudging across a personal plot of bitter hard ground. 

Kathy Cecchetti and Gary Johnson at The Studio for Second Saturdays March.  Photo by Nick Griffin

Through Facebook, in 2011, we witnessed an amazing coming together of the community.  The cultural and small business community was ablaze in connectivity.  We discovered oodles of unknown artists, people in their own towns trying to make culture a priority while partnering with small shop owners to offer a cultural experience to their people.  In small towns, formal galleries are scarce.  Here, small business owners and creatives unite to showcase each others unique flavor by temporarily re-appropriating small business storefronts and filling them with the cultural happenings of the town.  These events come in a variety of forms ranging from monthly happenings to yearly festivals.  Second SaturdaysArt Happenings in Dixon, IL is one such event now two years old.  In 2011, Fourth Fridays Where Art and People Collide in Sterling, IL formed, along with Arts in the Square, Prophetstown, IL.  All three, utilize Facebook groups for behind the scenes organizing.   Through Facebook we also learned of similar events, First Fridays-Oregon, Franklin Grove’s First Fridays, and Polo’s Fourth Fridays.  We even have a Third Thursday in Mt. Carroll now.  Through Facebook, we met many new artists from as far away as Savannah, and the Quad Cities who came out to participate in Gardenstock Art & Music Festival.  Relationships were formed and connections increased.  We got to know each other last year, who we were, what we did, who all was out there.  In 2012, those relationships are strengthening, events expanding, and small business and cultural groups are striking unprecedented ground through the use of social media.  While it’s been a boon for our business, social media equally if not more so, strengthened our community ties.

The social media frontier is the revolution of today.  It was also the topic of the third and final question, on how a Big Break could help our business. What would we do if we won?  That was the gold rush, strike it rich, dreaming question.  I actually allowed myself to dream into it, convinced my chunk of the prairie wasn’t laden with any sort of silver veins.   Regardless of my skepticism, it was a great activity for planning and so I thought on it.  I decided, if we were to strike gold with $20K and a business makeover we would use it to further integrate the use of social media in our business and community projects.  The website would get overhauled, socially tricked-out and we would do some fun stuff at Gardenstock.  Most importantly if we won we would share what we learned in California.  How appropriate, California, home of the gold rush and now home to the social media rush of the day. 

When we next meet, I’ll tell the story of another rainy night at the Kroeger’s parking lot and the second step that almost wasn’t.   

Until then, be well, shop small, and be a force for cultural good in your community.