Biznik Success Story: Piper Lauri Salogga, Natural Balance Home & Office
Natural Balance Home & Office is a full-service interior design firm with a focus on feng shui and green design. Using equal parts organizing, style, feng shui and personal intention, the company's approach is to reflect and support its clients' "true selves" in their homes and workspaces.
The Challenge: Differentiation and Establishing More-Meaningful Business Connections
When starting her business in 1998, Natural Balance owner Piper Lauri Salogga found that the Seattle interior design space was a crowded market. She needed additional ways to differentiate her offerings and establish the deep connections in her community that would lead to a steady flow of work. She was looking for networking opportunities to reach her target audience.
The Solution: Business Networking
Piper had experimented with other networking vehicles, including LinkedIn and smaller, less-consistent organizations, but none of them addressed her main concerns. One year ago, she decided to try something new and signed up for Biznik.
"Biznik made it easy to interact with others online and is technically very user-friendly."
Because she is a "face" person, she likes being able to see photos of her Biznik contacts, and enjoys the fact that Biznik, unlike the other sites out there, promotes face-to-face gatherings within the local community.
"The overlap of real-life events with online networking makes for a more dynamic and successful network-building experience. Biznik allows me to really get to know people in my area and connect with them in an authentic way."
Results: Success with Biznik
While Piper initially joined Biznik on a whim, in the past year as an Active member, she has found business tips, education, marketing advice and a strong sense of community that supports Natural Balance and has supported Piper's efforts as an entrepreneur.
Professional Success:
Biznik has significantly increased Piper's ability to connect with key contacts in her area that provide practical business advice and continue Natural Balance's forward momentum. Biznik is very community focused and targets those in creative fields as well as those in indie professions, which fits well with Piper's work style and business ethics. Through Biznik, Piper was able to develop professional relationships that she uses on a regular basis to support and grow her business.
Biznik's ease-of-use has helped Piper clearly define her business offerings; on a regular basis she is able to edit her profile, extend promotions and further build her Biznik network.
Business Success:
One-third of all of Natural Balance's new clients come from web searches and, thanks to Biznik, Natural Balance has seen an exponential increase in web traffic. Because Biznik has improved Natural Balance's rankings on key search engines, the company is currently ranked in the top 10 for "feng shui design Seattle" on Google and Yahoo.
About Biznik:
Biznik is based on a simple idea: connecting small businesses to each other for mutual business benefit. Biznik combines powerful social networking technology with face-to-face meetings and education, in a community that serves the unique needs of entrepreneurs and personal businesses. Biznik is a free service with opportunities for members to pay for enhanced features and more visibility. Membership levels include Supporting, Active and Basic. Biznik offers a variety of services for each member at each membership level, with new programs and resources being added on a regular basis. More information on Biznik may be found at www.biznik.com.
