Vacation.com Preferred Supplier Business AdvantEdge Enhances Benefit Offerings
Members can now take advantage of a wider assortment of discounted business services and supplies.
ALEXANDRIA, VA (April XX, 2009) – Vacation.com®, North America’s leading travel services marketing organization, can now offer its members better discounts on a larger range of business services and supplies thanks to recent enhancements by Preferred Supplier Business AdvantEdge.
An association member benefit provider with negotiated contracts with Fortune 500 companies and other service suppliers, Business AdvantEdge offers Vacation.com members substantial discounts off office equipment and supplies, communication services, travel printing, payment services and more.
“Being a member of Vacation.com not only raises an agency’s commission levels and improves their marketing reach, but it also lowers their everyday costs thanks to Preferred Suppliers like Business AdvantEdge,” said Stephen McGillivray, Vacation.com’s vice president of Marketing.
Member agencies can take advantage of discounts from a wide variety of companies they use everyday, including shipping with Fed-Ex and UPS, computers from Hewlett-Packard, payroll processing with ADP, supplies and furniture from Office Depot, mobile phones from T-Mobile and TravelCell, hotel and destination information from STAR Service Online and Weissmann Reports, and more.
Added McGillivray, “Running an agency involves numerous relationships with many businesses. Thankfully our members can rely on Business AdvantEdge to enhance many of those relationships.”
Vacation.com members can log into AgentNet or www.business-edge.net for details. All other agencies should visit www.JoinVacation.com for more information.
NFIB Awards Presentation
Mary Hazzard presented MN Representative Julie Bunn with the NFIB Guardian of Small Business award for 2008 in Stillwater at the Lowell Inn on Sept. 11, 2008.
Strength in Numbers
Stillwater's Business AdvantEdge bulks up the Purchasing Power of Small Businesses by Pooling Their Orders
BY JENNIFER BJORHUS
Pioneer press photo by Craig Borck
Pioneer Press, (December 10, 2006) – Anyone who has carried home a three-pound box of Cheez-Its from Sam's Club understands the basic principle behind Business AdvantEdge Inc.
The Stillwater, MN company pools purchases for tens of thousands of small businesses around the country to score better deals from vendors such as Hewlett Packard and Visa. Substitute toner car-tridges or payroll processing for Raisin Bran and you get the idea.
"It's a new wrinkle on some old, tried-and-true familiar formulas," said President Mary Hazzard.
Hazzard would know. Business AdvantEdge is Hazzard's third company, and her previous ventures helped her fine-tune the model.
Hazzard, started out as a tourist coordinator while attending the University of Minnesota. After graduating, she launched her first company representing car rental agencies, tour operators, hotels and airlines to travel agencies. Working for herself provided the flexibility she needed as a single mom, she said, back when the concept of flextime wasn't well accepted.
"I never missed a parent-teacher conference," said Hazzard.
After selling that operation, Hazzard joined a Minnesota-based consortium of 500 travel agencies called AURA, eventually becoming part owner. Hazzard negotiated volume-based contracts with cruise lines, carrental agencies and airlines so members could turn around and offer better deals to their retail customers. Hazzard sold AURA to a venture capital group in 1999 that rolled it into Vacation.com, headquartered in Alexandria, VA.
Hazzard already had business No 3 plotted out. There was no reason she couldn't repeat AURA'S success with companies in other industries, she figured. Business AdvantEdge would negotiate volume-based deals on a variety of office products and services for businesses in real estate, mortgages, construction, insurance and finance. Vendors are very willing to offer discounts and other benefits if Hazzard can deliver the bodies and a flow of orders, she said.
The trick was for Business AdvantEdge to sign up enough small companies to have strong leverage. She also had to have a big enough stable of vendors to differentiate her company from the few competitors in the field, Rather than knock on doors one by one, Hazzard decided to market Business AdvantEdge to trade organizations to which small businesses belonged. After all, the trade associations already had well-developed channels to communicate fast with their members via newsletters and Web sites.
But so far her strategy has worked. Business AdvantEdgenow has 60,000 individual businesses signed up through various groups such as the Society of Financial Service Professionals and the Builders Association of Minnesota. Its list of vendors includes Office Depot. UPS, Hewlett Packard, Visa and payroll company PayChex.
Hazzard signs three-year contracts with associations whose members agree to buy from her vendors. Hazzard pools members together so that individual companies don't have to meet high sales goals. She selects vendors willing to bid on discount packages, plug- ging their bids into a spread-sheet for what she jokingly refers to as a "beauty contest." She recently negotiated a cell-phone deal for the Builders Association of MN, which wanted satellite phones for members who hunt.
Business AdvantEdge's discounts range from 5% - 75% manufacturer suggested retail prices. Each time a member buys something from a vendor, Business AdvantEdge keeps a certain percentage of the order to pay itself, as well as a royalty to the association. That's an attractive source of non-dues revenue for trade groups.
Hazzard's negotiated rate with credit card companies, for instance, is a charge of 1.8% - 2.8% per transaction. That’s significantly less than the 5% small businesses typically pay on their own, she said.
Member companies can either use their credit card for automatic discounts at a participating vendor's store, or buy on- line through a password-protected connection from their association's Web site to the vendor’s special BA Web site.
Hazzard's biggest challenge is a familiar one to any small company: managing cash flow. There always is churn with members and vendors, she said, which means her revenue stream is difficult to predict. To manage it, Hazzard works with associations already signed up to boost the number of its members actively using her program. In some groups, as many as 35% participate; in others it’s as low as 1%.
Hazzard targets them. If the association holds trade shows, Hazzard sets up a Business AdvantEdge booth. If there are speaking opportunities at breakfast seminars, she takes advantage of them to pitch the program. She works with some groups to increase the number of newsletters they distribute, or to shoot off e-mail blasts - anything to assure the association's member companies understand how Business AdvantEdge can help them.
"It just takes a while to get on their radar screen," Hazzard said. "The small-business owner has so much in front of them all the time."
Mary Hazzard, photographed in her Stillwater office, runs Business AdvantEdge, a company that arranges bulk buying for other small clients with major vendors such as Office Depot, UPS, HP, Visa and payroll company Paychex. Mary Hazzard decided to market Business AdvantEdge to trade organizations to which small businesses belonged. The trade associations already had well-developed channels to communicate fast with their members via newsletters like those shown above and Web sites.
Jennifer Bjorhus can be reached at jbjorhtus@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-2146.
“Rat Pack”!
The Vacation.com 10th Anniversary International Conference was held in Las Vegas. Past Presidents, including Mary Hazzard, CTC were invited as honoraries to help celebrate this landmark event. The 2000 attendees and exhibitors were treated to a number of spectacular events, and Business AdvantEdge, along with partner HP, were key actors in the training and tradeshow arenas. HP provided equipment for the Tech Center and other training venues, and the attendees had additional hands on experience with HP printers, notebooks, iPaqs and tablet PCs at the HP booth. Also participating were co-exhibitors American Solutions, a marketing and promotional supplier and Digital Design Video Productions – commercial video specialists.
Of course the Las Vegas experience wouldn’t be the same without some celebrity encounters – or at least celebrity impersonator encounters. See if you recognize this individuals in this “Rat Pack”!
Kathy Hazzard, Business AdvantEdge, is Elected to the American Association of Microbusinesses Board
Stillwater, MN – In a recent election, the American Association of Microbusinesses (AAM) tapped Kathy Hazzard, of Stillwater based Business AdvantEdge, to serve on their Board of Directors. AAM is a national non-profit professional association and resource for microbusinesses and entrepreneurs headquartered in Minneapolis, MN. Originally founded 10 years ago as the Minnesota Home-based Entrepreneurs Association (MHEA), the organization changed their name two years ago when it became apparent that micro businesses in other states were interested in joining MHEA. AAM’s mission is to serve the emerging and small business owner with a variety of support services and affinity benefits such as legal advice, micro-loans, networking opportunities, etc. In addition, AAM actively promotes the visibility and viability of microbusinesses and entrepreneurs as a vital part of the local economy of the neighborhood, the city, state and country.
Ms. Hazzard will be a strong addition to the Membership Committee as well as the Benefits Task Force, a committee that will assess member needs, priorities, and preferences, gather and analyze information, explore options, outreach to current and prospective partners or providers (as appropriate), and advise the board and membership on pertinent aspects of the association’s comprehensive benefit package. The task force will also be involved in the delivery, registration process, and administration issues which relate to the benefits package.
Business AdvantEdge, also headquartered in Minnesota, is a trade association member benefit specialist that has discount and other benefit programs with a variety of Fortune 500 companies as well as other specialty vendors. These include HP, Office Depot, DHL, UPS, Paychex, ADP, FirstData/Discover Financial Services, Alamo and National Car Rental.
In addition to AAM, BA also provides member benefit programs to national as well as local trade associations representing several verticals such as financial planners, commercial and residential builders, mortgage brokers, realtors, medical and non-profits. BA aggregates sales across multiple associations and industries eliminating the risk of an individual association not meeting their revenue goals with a preferred vendor.
Office Depot NASCAR Vendor Showcase
Office Depot hosted several Business AdvantEdge clients at their annual "NASCAR Customer Appreciation Picnic and Vendor Showcase." Attendees included Association heads from groups as diverse as the Plumbing, Heating and Cooling Contractors Association (PHCC) to the Youth Intervention Program Association (YIPA). See NASCAR photo to top left.
Star Tribune (August, 2006)
Outside Consultant
As an aggregator/bulk buyer, we target small businesses within business trade associations through their member benefit program. How can we maximize participation in our discount buying program using the associations' marketing vehicles? These generally include their association newsletters, broadcast e-mails, direct mail, faxes, trade shows and conferences.
First, make sure that your direct marketing activities are achieving optimal results. Ensure that you are targeting the right customers with the right products and that you are using the latest mailing lists and contact information. Direct marketing often fails because the right messages do not reach the intended audience at the right frequency.
Customers typically go through five stages while making purchase decisions: problem recognition, information search, evaluating alternatives, purchase and exhibiting post-purchase behaviors. The nature and duration of these stages differs from consumer to consumer and product to product. You must use your existing marketing vehicles to remain "closer to customers" and guide them through each stage. Once they see you as someone who provides a solution to their problems, it will induce trial purchase.
Lastly, tailor your marketing activities to various subsegments. A careful analysis might reveal that your market comprises the following three subsegments: those who need your products/services but are not purchasing from you; those who are buying similar products/services exclusively from your competitors, and those who need your products/services but have not purchased them yet from anyone. With each subsegment, focus on creating awareness and inducing trial purchases; differentiating yourself through exceptional service and relationship building -- trade shows and conferences are great venues for such activities -- and creating demand.
| Contact: Mark Dixon | mdixon@hp.com |
| Contact: Mary Hazzard | Tel: 888-734-3343 |
HP Selects Business AdvantEdge as Partner for Financial Service Professionals Group
STILLWATER, MN (August, 2006) – HP has selected Minnesota based Business AdvantEdge, Inc., a leading member-benefit provider for associations, to manage their affinity program with the Society of Financial Service Professionals (FSP). The Newton, PA based Society of FSP chose Hewlett-Packard (HP) as their preferred technology partner because they recognize HP as the industry leader for security, storage and mobility solutions in hardware and related services.
For example, as part of their program, HP will offer FSP members notebooks with docking stations that have a separate hard drive for easy storage and back up, as well as the HP Finger-print reader, which acts as a security password, helping to keep customer records safe.
The Society of FSP, with 20,000 members in nearly 200 local chapters across the United States, is a multidisciplinary network of credentialed financial service professionals, whose core values are “Ethics, Education and Relationships.” Its mission is to promote professionalism among its members by delivering top-quality continuing education programming, establishing and rewarding the highest standards of ethical conduct, and cultivating mutually beneficial relationships among credentialed financial service professionals. These same standards are also applied to their member benefit vendor relationships such as HP.
HP offers Society members a comprehensive inventory of business-grade equipment and services including specially priced desktops, notebooks, tablet PCs, handhelds, digital cameras and projectors, plasma TVs, multi, laser and inkjet printers, and printer accessories such as cartridges and toner, etc. HP will provide other value-added benefits such as a proprietary member-shopping site with a live, on line help feature, special phone lines, plus monthly promotions.
Business AdvantEdge, Inc. is a member benefit provider and aggregator for trade associations and non-profit organizations serving these sectors: financial planning, commercial and residential construction, agricultural and horticultural enterprises, mortgage brokers, realtors, medical and non-profits. In addition to HP, BA has contracts with well-respected industry leaders such as: Office Depot, UPS, DHL, Paychex, ADP, First Data and others.
HP, headquartered in Palo Alto, CA, is an $86.7 billion technology solutions provider to more than one billion customers in more than 170 countries on five continents. The company's offerings span IT infrastructure, global services, business and home computing, and imaging and printing. HP has approximately 150,000 employees worldwide and ranks at No. 11 in the 2004 Fortune 500 ranking and is a leader in providing smart business solutions to vertical partners such as trade associations.
Contact Business AdvantEdge, Inc. at 450 Main Street North, Stillwater, MN 55082, Tel: (888) 734-EDGE; E-mail: mhazzard@business-edge.net.
Kathy Hazzard, Business AdvantEdge, to Serve on the National Federation of Independent Businesses Leadership Council
Stillwater, MN – The Minnesota chapter of NFIB has tapped Kathy Hazzard, of Stillwater based Business AdvantEdge, Inc. to serve on their state's Leadership Council. “Kathy has contributed greatly to the NFIB local Area Action Council in Washington County, MN and will be an effective small-business advocate at the State Legislature by serving on our Leadership Council as well,” said NFIB/Minnesota state director Mike Hickey. Ms. Hazzard is already familiar with the small business community through her 20+-year career serving trade associations in multiple vertical industries spanning travel and hospitality, finance and insurance, mortgage, real estate and agriculture.
The National Federation of Independent Business is the leading advocacy organization representing small and independent businesses. A nonprofit, nonpartisan organization founded in 1943, NFIB represents the consensus views of its members in Washington and all 50 state capitals. NFIB's mission is to promote and protect the right of their members to own, operate and grow their businesses. NFIB also provides timely information designed to help small businesses succeed.
Business AdvantEdge, Inc., headquartered in Minnesota, is a trade association member benefit specialist that has discount and other benefit programs with a variety of Fortune 500 companies as well as other specialty vendors. These include HP, Office Depot, DHL, UPS, Paychex, ADP, FirstData/Discover Financial Services, Alamo and National Car Rental. BA also provides member benefit programs to national as well as local trade associations representing several verticals such as financial planners, commercial and residential builders, mortgage brokers, realtors, medical and non-profits. BA aggregates sales across multiple associations and industries eliminating the risk of an individual association not meeting their revenue goals with a preferred vendor.
NFIB Awards Presentation
Local entrepreneur exemplifies commitment to
small-business issues
CONTACT: Mandy Minick, (614) 221-4107
ST. PAUL, MN (March, 2006) – Minnesota's largest small-business advocacy group, the National Federation of Independent Business, today presented the "Small-Business Champion" award to Mary Hazzard, owner of Business AdvantEdge, Inc. in Stillwater.
The NFIB Small-Business Champion award program identifies a small-business activist in each of the 50 states. These small-business owners have distinguished themselves through their involvement and participation in NFIB programs and activities that promote the issues important to Minnesota's small businesses. Five regional winners will be honored at the 2006 National Small-Business Summit in Washington, D.C., June 18-20.
"Mary is a leading businesswoman who has devoted her time and efforts to championing the cause of small-business in Minnesota for almost two decades," said NFIB/Minnesota state director Mike Hickey. "She's provided leadership to this organization by serving on our state's Leadership Council, chairing her local Area Action Council and participating as a small-business advocate at the Legislature. The impact of her work to create a supportive environment for small businesses is evident from St. Paul all the way to Washington, D.C."
"I recognized early in my career that small businesses created jobs and goodwill in a community, and provided the best customer service on a consistent basis. On a micro or local level, they were the glue that held commerce, schools, neighborhoods, and even families together. On a macro, or national, level. they were the jobs engines that fueled growth in the economy," Hazzard said. "I joined NFIB because I wanted more exposure to other small-business owners outside my own industry. Being a member has provided me with an outlet for volunteerism and political activism while also educating me on small-business issues. Receiving an award from this organization means a great deal to me and my business. I look forward to continuing to work with NFIB well into the future."
Hazzard owns Business AdvantEdge, Inc., that serves as a resource for other small- to medium-sized entrepreneurial businesses and non-profit trade associations. She started Business AdvantEdge in 1998 to coordinate purchasing discounts and business-to-business services for member companies.