Let’s Work Together to #ProtectLocal

At Vendasta our core purpose is to drive local economies. Fifty percent of the world's employees work for small and medium businesses. Small businesses fuel the world's economies, they invest in our communities, they unlock economic opportunities, create jobs, and grow the middle class. They make our communities worth living in. 

COVID-19 is putting a disproportionate strain on local economies.  We are here to help.

How will we do this?

We will do this with tangible and actionable products and services for the local ecosystem.  Look for messaging everywhere with the Hashtag #ProtectLocal and please feel free to participate!

At Vendasta we provide our cloud broker partners - anyone selling SaaS solutions to local businesses - with an end-to-end e-commerce platform that democratizes technology for local businesses.  If this sounds just a little too fluffy take a couple of minutes to watch the video to see REAL software in action.

We intend to help our cloud broker partners in these ways:

1. Project #LearnAgency will help them learn and hone their skills. 
2. Project #PartnerRemote will provide free tools to facilitate remote work and commerce on our platform.
3. Project #LocalBusinessOnlineToolkit  will provide our cloud brokers with a set of tools that they can provide free of charge to their local business customers so they can conduct business online.
4. Project #TeachDigital will help our cloud brokers allow their business customers to learn and teach their employees digital skills. 
5. Project #BusinessResources  will provide curated actionable free resources to help them survive and thrive. 

Here are more details on how and why these initiatives will help our cloud broker partners during this difficult time.

1. Project #LearnAgency.  Many people with uncertain employment futures will be at home during the Covid-19 pandemic, and will be spending time online looking for alternate career opportunities. We will provide them with an opportunity to obtain both the education and tools to provide income for their families. Existing cloud brokers may have extra cycles to learn new skills to help them expand their business.
2. Project #Remote.  Our cloud brokers will not be able to operate normally. In order to help them we are going to add remote tools to help them operate efficiently and productively.  These tools will be included in their current subscriptions at no charge and will include the ability to integrate their phone systems, book and host remote meetings, screen share, and communicate effectively with potential customers.
3. Project #LocalBusinessOnlineToolkit .  Many small businesses that are not online and e-commerce enabled are being disproportionately affected. The situation is dire for these small businesses. For many, the choices are to close or move online. Moving online is often viewed as expensive, time-consuming, and virtually impossible. We will put our cloud brokers in a position to help these businesses get online, book appointments, and transact.  We are going to provide our cloud brokers, at no charge, a number of e-commerce enabled packages that will include a basic e-commerce enabled website, reputation management, customer voice, social media marketing, advertising intelligence, messaging and appointment booking. This will allow them to build trust and gain future business. 
4. Project #TeachDigital Many small business employees will have extra time on their hands.  Businesses will receive training materials and courses from our cloud brokers, enabling them to learn digital marketing and e-commerce skills. This will help businesses do the work themselves and position our cloud brokers as the digital expert. This will translate into increased business and long term trust. 
5. Project #BusinessResources  Our Cloud Brokers and their businesses customers are looking for resources they can trust to help them cope with the situation and it is overwhelming. We are going to do our best to provide curated actionable free resources to help them survive and thrive. 

To all our cloud broker and vendor partners, if you are reading this and want to learn more or want to participate please reach out to anyone on our team.   

Stay safe and #ProtectLocal