Invent Your Future Conference 2010 - May 2, 2010 - Segment Four

Caller Julie Craft, Senior Director of Business Development at MerchantCircle, explains how the website makes it easier for business owners to sell their services or products to other small business owners and customers online. Just like Facebook allows people to create a free profile and connect with their friends in a variety of ways, MerchantCircle provides a similar service for small business owners, allowing them to build their brand throughout their social circle while creating channels for selling products and services between business-to-business and business-to-customer. Today, MerchantCircle is the largest social network for small businesses, with 1.3 million small businesses today in the U.S. that are actively engaging with their consumers as well as other local merchants. Once a profile has been created, companies can then advertise what they do, communicate with potential customers, as well as create an alliance with other companies in the same market or area. Julie notes that the site provides a variety of free business tools to members with profiles, including templates for building coupons, drafting newsletters, writing a blog, and uploading photos. While MerchantCircle offers an array of free tools, Julie explains that the site is monetized using a premium model, where the basic profile and business tools are all free. However, business owners who really want to expand and differentiate their business in the marketplace are more than willing to upgrade and pay for premium services to help accomplish that goal. For more information, visit the company at their site www.MerchantCircle.com.

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