When I started out on the grand adventure of launching a business, I was fortunate enough to receive help and support from many individuals who had absolutely nothing to gain from my success or the time and effort they invested in me. Ask anyone who has been involved in building a business from scratch and they will tell you it involves long periods of often thankless work, punctuated by periods of boredom, euphoria, terror, and despair. While many of those experiences required by necessity that I shoulder the burden alone, there were times when the opportunity to lean on and learn from others was enormously reassuring. This was particularly so during the inevitable periods of self-doubt and discouragement.

I found myself in exactly such a place a couple of years into my ZOOM! endeavours as I began to despair that my business would never amount to much. Sharing my concerns with some fellow attendees at a local business networking group, a business coach graciously offered to meet with me over coffee to review my numbers and offer his professional appraisal, for free. As I sipped coffee and nibbled a donut to distract me from the gnawing trepidation that he would confirm my greatest fear, he explained that my numbers were sound and I had the foundation of a good business on my hands. I left our meeting buoyed with renewed hope and direction, determined to make a go of it.

As a newcomer to an industry in which I had no experience, the onus was on me to research and learn best practices, most of which came as the result of trial and error in the homes of our incredibly patient customers. One day, while searching online for examples of efficient cleaning processes, I happened upon an archived course developed specifically for home cleaning companies like mine. I reached out to the owner to request access and he phoned me back promptly. We spend about an hour talking, during which I shared the story behind my startup. He closed the conversation with an offer to send me all the documentation from his online course… for free. These became instrumental in helping me to nail down our systems and processes, many of which we continue to use to this day.

Over the course of my numerous visits to local business networking meetings in those early years, I made the acquaintance of the owner of a gutter and siding cleaning company. We hit it off immediately and recognized the opportunity for some synergistic marketing efforts (him: outside cleaning; me: inside cleaning). He offered to provide me access for – you guessed it – free, to the back end of his customer database and present them with a promotional offer. I was able to land some business from these warm leads, which was a real shot in the arm and an enormous encouragement during those early days.

One of my early-identified objectives for this business – and one which I ultimately enshrined in our vision statement – was for ZOOM! to became a conduit of good things, and “a force for good that manifests a positive impact in the lives of people”. That meant less of a “me” focus and more of an “us” orientation, positively impacting our team members, our customers, our community, and other local businesses… including our competitors.

This desire to pay it forward to the business community has birthed our latest initiative, in which we will be undertaking collaborative, reciprocal promotional efforts with numerous local businesses. We plan to deliver savings to our customers’ inbox once each month in the form of an exclusive promotional offer from each business.

As with everything we undertake, it’s my hope that this initiative will result in a win-win for all parties involved. For us, it’s an opportunity to pay it forward while adding value to the service we deliver to our customer’s home. For local businesses it provides exposure and encouragement, as has been graciously afforded me over the years. For our team, it results in more work. And for our customers, it provides the following:

• Adds value to the service we provide to your home.
• Draws your attention to some amazing local businesses.
• Saves you time having to search for local goods and services.
• Lessens the likelihood of your falling for a third-rate provider.
• Saves you money.

For the record, we do not receive any financial compensation for these promotions. So why do it? Having been the fortunate beneficiary of so much good will over the years, how could we do less?