Google Girl, Author at Get Found on Google | Above the Fold, Regina, SK.

Shopping Local is Where It’s At

Find Everything You Need. Save Money. Shop Local.

[Updated Mar 21/20] All links below open in a new window. Please allow popups for our site.

What Can We Help You with Today?

The world is in the midst of COVID-19. Businesses are closed. Retailers are struggling. The world as we know it is changing at lightening speed. As a small business we are doing everything we can to support clients, knowing at the end of this crisis many clients will leave, cancel or put services on hold, simply because their own businesses have strunk beyond recognition.

While we alone can’t do enough to keep every business thriving, we can do our small part to help each of these businesses get found online. There are so many deserving local business who need support at this time. If you want or need any of these services, please consider supporting one of these businesses.

Get Your House or Business Spick & Span!

Cleaning with Class is one of Regina’s oldest and most trustworthy residential and commercial cleaning services. They regularly take precautions to minimize the likelihood that cross-contamination occurs including fresh rags for every room/surface (most companies only use fresh rags in each house), spray with disinfectant cleaning products to kill household germs and wash before entering and exiting your home. All of their staff are bonded and many staff are long term employees ~ being with the company since the beginning, nearly 18 years ago.

Need a Hand Communicating with Customers?

Communicating with your customers during times of uncertainty is hard. What to say and what not to say; finding just the right words. Tiffany Wolfe, a member of our virtual team, can help you write those words to be clear, concise and correct at any time. Whether a few social media posts or significant communication materials, she can help. Contact her here.

Bookmark Travel and Events for Later

The travel industry is being hit especially hard by COVID-19. One of our past guests on the Secret Life of Entrepreneurs, Anne Gibbons from Gibbons Travel, is watching her livelihood disappear. Travel is not allowed at this time, unless travellers are returning home to Canada. When the restrictions are lifted, and the bans removed, consider talking to Anne about domestic, international or warm-weather destinations. ⛱️

Events are not top of mind right now, unless you are a professional event planner, like Eleven Events. If you’ve attended an event by Eleven Events, you know the calibre of show produced.

Dress Up, Dress Down, Dress Comfy

Speaking of warmer weather, this lock-down before spring still seems to require an extra sweater or two. Maybe it’s the stress, maybe it’s the temperature, but one of my favourite “warm me up” sweaters is a 3/4 length turtleneck sweater I bought from Amaranth Designs. A local women’s fashion designer, Rea makes comfortable clothes that fit and flatter real women. 🥶

[July 2017] Out and about this week and I realized how much I rely on our local retailers.

Co-working and #GetShitDone

As a virtual employer, we have an office located downtown at Queen City Collective, but spend the majority of our time with clients onsite or working virtually, as a team and with clients. One of the businesses we rely on to #GetShitDone is BLG Business Solutions, another virtual business working with entrepreneurs to solve their tech woes. Co-working with these businesses means lower overhead, greater efficiencies and improved service for clients. Co-marketing is new to Canada and Saskatchewan, but it is a huge operating model in the US. Co-marketing, for clients, means experience you can trust at rates you can afford. 👍🏼

As a small business we rely extensively on the service of other small businesses for insurance with Prairie Benefits, real estate with Terrie Dunand and legal advice from KMP Law. We are also members of the Better Business Bureau of Sask, the Regina Chamber of Commerce and BarterPay, a national network of businesses trading products and services. If you are not a member, I highly recommend them! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Get a Sweat on then Get in My Belly

Early in the week I stopped in at Lakeview Fine Foods. If you haven’t had a chance to visit them, I strongly suggest you do. You’ll see the same staff day after day, they know their products and they know their customers. In grocery, that seldom happens anymore. My favourite story about the staff, the butcher in particular, happened a few weeks ago. I was buying chicken thighs and asked how long I needed to cook them. I was just drawing a blank; I couldn’t remember if thighs were like ribs and needed to boil first, or if I could just quickly cook them. The butcher’s response was, as straightforward and dry as could be, “Until they’re done.” Then he realized I might take offense to his response and quickly checked my response. I chuckled pretty good. I think he was a little relieved. wink wink Good place. Great folks. Check them out.

I also dropped into Opex Fitness Regina more than a few times to work with my coach Luke Rossmo. I really enjoy the environment at Opex and am always surprised how hard I work on my own versus the competition of someone else doing the exact same work. For the most part I am seeing slow steady progress. Keyword: progress. All good. It’s amazing how many online supports exist for those that don’t want the gym environment. Health Coach Cheryl has a Simple Swaps program to teach folks how to eat healthier, more simply. Nadine Howard has Healthier Lifestyles, where she takes you back to the basics of a simple, healthy nutrition plan and Robyn Michon has Robyn Michon Coaching, helping you create better relationships with your partner. From physical health to mental health, we can all use a little extra support.

Once I got my workout done and my groceries in hand, I still had a few minutes to spare so popped into Brewed Awakening for my favourite latte (non-fat, decaf ~ it was the middle of the afternoon. 😃) and Springer & Oake to grab some delightful, locally-made soap and lip balm (favourite flavour is root beer!).

Planning on heading out to shop today? #ShopLocal

Complete transparency disclaimer. When I wrote the original blog post, none of the businesses mentioned were clients. Today, some are, or were clients; however, that does not change my support of these local businesses. These are my real thoughts. Those who know me, know I don’t BS well. I’m a straight shooter.

Check these places out, and if not these local businesses, find your own local favourites.

Have a great week!

Power Up Your Business with a Free Google Listing

Listings are a crazy, powerful tool for customers to find your business. Don't miss out on the free webinar!

[testimonial_view id=”1″]

Google Girl In Strategy

The Importance of Branding For Local Business

Branding Helps Your Business Grow from the Ground Up.

There’s an age-old debate about marketing… is it an art or a science?

At Above the Fold, we appreciate both the art side and the science side of marketing. However, we really focus on the science side of things to help our clients’ businesses grow. Marketing in this day and age has so many different components to it, and while it is important to keep both sides of marketing in mind, we find that using numbers and technical strategies really take businesses to the next level.

Marketing is Largely Driven by the Science

Interestingly, there are many aspects of marketing that people associate with the art side of marketing, that in fact, are largely driven by the science side of things. Let’s take branding and brand personality for example.

Branding or brand personality are terms that are thrown around a lot in the marketing world, but they basically refer to the consistent characteristics that are associated with a business. They are developed through all the things that potential customers see related to your business, for example, your logo, your social media, your website and your e-mails. Of course, all of these things have visual components that are immensely important with regards to brand development, but how you can use these tools as strategies to take your business to the next level is often overlooked. At Above the Fold, for example, we build e-campaigns, optimize social media usage, track visitors and interpret data about websites, monitor conversions from a variety of sources and more. All these approaches work with the technical side of marketing, but do wonders to develop businesses’ brands.

Branding is More than a ‘Nice to Do’

Why are branding and brand personality so important for your businesses. People often think that branding is a “nice to do” marketing strategy, but that it doesn’t actually do much other than look visually appealing. In fact, effective branding can actually help grow your business and make money. What’s not to love? Some of the best things that branding can do for businesses are making them more recognizable, and allowing potential customers to relate to them directly. This is especially important for local and small businesses trying to grow, as customers are more likely to engage with a business that they relate to. This goes along with the same logic as buying clothing, for example. If we look into a shop window, see an item of clothing and think “hey! That looks like something I would wear…” we are WAY more likely to buy that piece of clothing than if we had thought “hmm… not really my style.” We like to see a reflection of ourselves in the things that we buy. Basically, the better branding or brand personality a business has, the more it can relate to the correct consumer, establish its place in the market, and turn leads into paying customers.

This is all part of what we do at Above the Fold. We understand that all our clients have unique brands and goals for their businesses. Our process includes discussing the specific goals clients have for their businesses and then developing specific and dynamic strategies to achieve those goals together. We report results to you on a monthly basis in order to identify where progress is being made, and what adjustments or fine-tuning is needed.

We value open communication and commit to working with our clients every step of the way. We are also aware that goals and priorities shift as businesses grow, and we are constantly adapting our approaches and strategies as brands continue to mature.

Ultimately, our goal is to see your business ‘above the fold!’

Have You Google'd Yourself Lately?

Learn how to create more raving fans for your business and find ready-to-buy customers!

[testimonial_view id=”1″]

Google Girl In Strategy

We’re Live! We’re Local! We Work with You from the Ground Up!

Where It All Began

Back in 2015, we were on a summer road trip, when my husband and I got talking; you know those blue sky conversations that start with What if? What if we won the lottery? What if we had our own business(es)? What if… He has his dream (and it’s his to share) and I had mine. At the time the technology did not exist to execute mine; at least not in an effective way.

Technology caught up and it’s now or never. Above the Fold was conceived in the front seat of a hot car on a summer road trip and born July 4th this year. It’s now live to you and growing like a crazy out of control teenager!

We aim to achieve one thing, more than anything else. Make online simple for local businesses.

Chain stores have teams of people to manage listings, reviews, social media and websites. How are local businesses to compete? We believe the answer is Above the Fold. We have the experience, the technology and the partners to help local businesses succeed. We make it simple to manage your online world including your Listings and Customer Reviews, Social Media and Blogs and manage or develop a website including optimizing your search engine terms and targeting ads to your website visitors. We promise not to talk techie, and we will support you with SMART Marketing services (IE we come to your business to plan and execute your full marketing strategy) when needed.

We bring more than 20 years of marketing, communications, sales, local business, retail and customer service experience to the table. We work with an award-winning team of planners, designers, writers, strategists and local experts who want to see your business thrive.

Give us a try today! Our free online assessment is open to all local businesses, regardless of size or location. Don’t pass up this opportunity to see your business through your customer’s eyes. Complete the contact form here and we will contact you shortly with the results.

Stay tuned, we’ve got some exciting plans ahead. Watch as we move local businesses above the fold on Google, Bing and Yahoo!

Have You Google'd Yourself Lately?

Learn how to create more raving fans for your business and find ready-to-buy customers!

[testimonial_view id=”1″]