Talking Daily Deals, Loyalty and More on the Ingredients Podcast

Running a business is tough. If it’s a brick-and-mortar, consumer-facing business, then it’s doubly tough. You have staff to manage and train, facilities to maintain, codes to abide by, books to keep, bills to pay and oh, somewhere in there you need to have a great product or service.

On top of all those things, you need to actually bring people in the doors to pay for it all.

Knowing this, merchant funded rewards and coupon marketers across the country have focused their attention on merchants. They understand that many businesses are desperate to do whatever is necessary to bring in traffic and keep the doors open for another week. They prey on these restaurants, retailers, health spas and service shops for deals, promising to bring in traffic in exchange for a cut of the revenue.

Some are legit, many aren’t. With so many other duties to handle, most business owners can’t take the time to vet every opportunity. It’s a recipe for disaster in many instances.

With that in mind, Dave Bona and I were excited to join Craig Christiansen on his new Ingredients Podcast. Craig is the owner of The Chocolate, a fantastic dessert café with locations in West Jordan and Orem, Utah. They have fantastic cupcakes and cookies in a stylish setting (and if you’re an Access member, you can get a deal there.)

Obviously, Craig lives and breathes the small business merchant world each and every day. Dave leads the Access Partnership Marketing team, which manages relationships with over 300,000 merchants like The Chocolate every day. Put these minds together and the result is an interesting conversation about daily deals, coupons, loyalty and the tough plight of the small business owner. And cookies. Delicious cookies.

Check it out over at the Ingredients Media site.

Also, be sure to give Craig a follow on Twitter for more podcasts and serious discussion of Breaking Bad.