by: Greg Pierce
Zuma Office Supply’s vision is to help others and give back through our business. A great side benefit for customers is it takes the mundane task of buying office supplies, and creates the opportunity to feel good about what you are doing. Let’s be honest, buying office products isn’t the funnest thing on your To Do list, but buying from ZumaOffice.com gives you a sense of pride knowing your purchase is helping Zuma Do Good Work through great charities across the country.
The work Zuma does is directly proportionate to our business success, meaning the more customers and sales we have the more we can give back. The better we are doing in business, the greater the donations we can send to great charities like Best Friends Animal Society, Big Brothers Big Sisters, and The V Foundation for Cancer Research.
As a independent family owned business, Zuma started completely from scratch in December of 2009. Sales our first month were barely over $3000, and times were really scary. That was especially true because we started the business two months following the greatest financial crash in this country since the Great Depression. We have grown slowly, and consistently over the last 17 months, but we have a very long way to go. It’s still scary, but usually a fun ride too.
Customers ask all the time, “What can we do to help?”. I love that question because that means we have passionate customers who actually care about how we are doing. There are many things our customers can do to help Zuma grow, attract new customers and become a truly great company. Customers telling others about Zuma is a huge part of getting our message out to people who want to help others and actually save money on office supplies. The fact is, advertising costs are ridiculous these days, and as a self-funded business, we cannot afford to advertise like the big guys. Your positive word of mouth is a key business driver!
It’s actually a great time to start a business as it’s so easy to reach a huge number of people through social networking. So, here’s what you can do to help Zuma grow:
- Send a message to your Facebook friends. Ask them to “Like” us on Facebook, compare our prices, and give us a try. Here’s our Facebook link.
- Send a tweet about Zuma to all your followers. Include a link to our website and ask them to check us out. Here’s our Twitter Page.
- Forward our monthly email specials to all your contacts with a plug to check out ZumaOffice.com.
- Never buy office supplies from the Big Box corporate “superstores”. Use Zuma for all your office products needs including ink and toner, paper and technology products. Our prices are better, our service is better, and we give back!
We have the best customers in the world, and really appreciate the support, loyalty and friendships we’ve developed on this journey. Great customers, great employees, great vendors, a commitment to be good to our environment, and giving back to the community are part of our Conscious Capitalism business model. We are human beings and far from perfect. But we do our best and hope to follow the Boy Scout mantra of “leaving where we’ve been a little better than it was before we came”. Some days we succeed, some days we make mistakes, but we always keep moving forward.
Thank you for helping us create a company that makes a difference! Please let me know your thoughts. All comments will be replied to. Thank you for helping us do good work!