MORE BORROW
SMART NEWS
News Report From November 26, 2007
THIS REPORT COVERS IMPORTANT EVENTS BEFORE
AND AFTER OUR OCTOBER LAUNCH. THESE ARE EVENTS WE HAVE NOT
PREVIOUSLY REPORTED. THERE IS QUITE A LOT OF INFORMATION HERE, SO
GET COMFORTABLE AND ENJOY!
BORROW SMART A HIT AT THE ALABAMA BLACK CAUCUS MEETING.
The decision to launch Borrow Smart in mid October
came about because of an opportunity to sponsor the Alabama Black
Caucus event in Point Clear Alabama. We felt that to sponsor their
event and have them (and others) actually begin seeing who our Borrow
Smart members are, what they stand for and then to see our
advertising and public relations activities would be a really great
opportunity -- an opportunity for our members to be recognized for
their proactive work in developing and supporting consumer friendly
programs for Alabama borrowers. Well, it turned out much better than we ever
expected. Be sure and see the full report here.
A SURPRISE REPORT FROM AN ALABAMA SENATOR We
launched Borrow Smart on October 18th. We knew almost immediately
the program would be a hit. We knew because of the great turn-out
at our first press conference and the number of newswires that picked up
our story within an hour of the press conference. We were not, though,
sure of the impact it might have on one of our target audiences -- the
Alabama Legislature. Not many have heard this story, so here goes.
It turns out that Senator Barron was in Montgomery the week after our
meeting and read
this article in the Montgomery Advertiser . He called
Michael Sullivan and asked if he had heard about this and wanted to know
who these Borrow Smart people were. After Michael explained it was
"us" he commented that this was a "great thing for the industry."
He further indicated that this move would take much of the heat off of
legislators about our industry.
This was just another great example of our members
getting recognized for this effort. Clearly, our Borrow Smart
members and stores are becoming noticed by those who count.
Wow!
BORROW SMART STORE KITS ARE IN YOUR HANDS. As
you read this you all should have your borrow smart store kits. We
hope by now you have them up.
Here is a link to the kits if you need it for any reason. Be
patient. It may take a moment to load this onto your computer.
GREAT MEETING WITH BIRMINGHAM NEWS EDITORIAL BOARD. As
you may know the Birmingham News
published this article about the Borrow Smart Alabama announcement
from our press meeting. We were not at all pleased with the story.
We wrote to the News the day of the article expressing our concerns.
To our surprise they reprinted our concerns four days later as seen
here. We were pleasantly surprised with this second article.
At the same time we also asked to meet with the full editorial board of
the News to explain the Borrow Smart concept. They agreed to meet
with us and we met about a week after the second article. It was a
very positive meeting. The News editors were very cordial and
asked good questions, but not hostile questions. They were
somewhat surprised by the fact that only 200 stores had signed up for
this consumer effort to support a Code of Fair Lending-- especially when
there are close to 2,000 store fronts and many out of state firms who do
business here. We got in a good plug for our members by making
sure they knew who our members are. We expected to be in the
meeting for about 30 minutes or so and ended up staying for over an
hour. It was a very productive meeting!
NEW BORROW SMART INITIATIVES We
are working on several new initiatives for Borrow Smart. Here they
are a few in no particular order:
-
A holiday promotion special
-
Establishing a dialogue with the Decatur Daily
after a couple of articles they published and a new story they are
working on
-
An editorial board meeting with the Montgomery
Advertiser
-
Articles on the proper use of our services to
very specific target audiences
-
Developing a series of seminars to promote
proper use of our services
All of our initiatives will be designed to promote
Borrow Smart stores over the those stores that are not Borrow Smart
stores. With our web site and store identifiers, you should now be easy
to find.
WE ARE ADDING NEW MEMBERS We
have received commitments from two new potential and prominent new members.
Both are large out of state firms with a combined total of almost 50
stores in Alabama. The principals of both firms have closely
followed our progress. When they saw the results of our program
they decided they should be a part of the Borrow Smart program.
What is interesting is that both principals are actively involved in
other state associations. By active, we mean they are founders or
directors of other associations and one is also a CFSA member.
Both remarked on the unique and creative approach to solving our
industry problems and agreed with us that "just lobbying" will clearly
no longer protect our industry. Our adversaries are very media
savvy and we had better be media savvy or we will be gone!
We will get you more information on these new
members in the next week or so.
