Earlier this month, Marty Fisher, CEO of Sherpa, was invited
on the Conquer Local Podcast with host George Leith to discuss the digital
transformation that many small businesses will need to embrace going forward.
George and his team were intrigued by Sherpa’s Adopt a Business
Challenge initiative (applications now closed) that aimed to support businesses in the community affected
by COVID-19 with free marketing services. In this segment George asks Marty
about the initiative and how it came together.
George: So the reason that you and I are meeting here on the
Conquer Local Podcast, I was made aware of your organization and an initiative
that you’ve started through one of my colleagues, who’s been speaking to you
and I was, when speaking to Logan, I’m like, “We need to get Marty on the
podcast.” Because you share a passion that we have on the Conquer Local Podcast
for local business. And unfortunately, due to recent events, our local business
community, I don’t care where you’re listening to the sound of my voice, is
under attack and you have come up with an amazing initiative to help those
local businesses.
Marty: Yeah, we were sitting around trying to figure out
what to do with all of our spare time that was, unfortunately, a consequence of
all these businesses being forced to stay home and we decided, you know what,
we’ve got some available time, let’s try and put some good karma back out into
the world. And so, Sherpa decided to start something called the Adopt a
Business Challenge. And so, we staked $50,000 worth of marketing services, and
said, to any small businesses, please apply to receive these services. And
then I turned around and said to some other agency and marketing group owners
that I knew, “Hey, I’m doing this, can I sort of tag you in?” And say, “Hey,
Doug Darling at Tripwire, are you in?”
We actually had the idea, even before the U.S. started that
All In Challenge, we were already soliciting other agency owners to offer their
services to small businesses who needed it. And so, it’s really got a bit of a
life of its own now, we’ve got over 11 partners and we’ve raised over $200,000
in free marketing services for small businesses and helping them take some of
those, either, first baby steps digitally or helping them become more savvy
marketers in social or taking advantage of Google’s favoring of hyper-local
search results.

George: Well, I applaud you in this initiative and that’s
why we wanted to have you on the podcast was to learn some more about what are
you hearing as we take a pulse with local business owners? What are you hearing
from local businesses? And was it one particular meeting that you had? Or was
it, you don’t strike me as the type of person who would have a lot of free time
on your hands, but there had to be some sort of impetus that was like, “We need
to do this, we need to help.”
"We’re not in the business of saving lives, but with our skills and know-how we might be able to help save a livelihood"
Marty: It really wasn’t anything specific in terms of a
place that we consumed, so much as many of the local businesses, whether
they’re are restaurants or small boutiques that my staff consumes their
products and services, and they’re like, “Oh my gosh, like this place could go
out of business, what can we do? They don’t have a good website; they don’t
have a good social media presence. Is there anything that we can do to kind of
help them?” And we’re like, “Yeah, let’s get on this.” And so, we basically
created these custom landing pages with applications, then we’ve had something
like 50 businesses now apply for us to assist them, and us and our partners to
assist them with marketing.
We’re not in the business of saving lives, but with our
skills and know-how we might be able to help save a livelihood, and so that
was really where things came from. And as a Canadian and in particular a
Western Canadian, we haven’t necessarily been affected by the pandemic, as
brutally as people in places like Spain, France, Toronto, and New York City.
We’re just, our geographic isolation, in some ways actually played to our
favor, but it didn’t change the fact that the economic impact of this is in
some ways, at least in our geography, greater than the actual physical pole, so
that’s part of the motivation for us as well.
Listen to Marty’s full interview HERE
Learn more about the Adopt a Business Challenge and our
adoptees:
https://sherpamarketing.ca/adopt-a-business