Scotiabank Small Business Manager, Andy Davis, revealed that Scotiabank wanted to push small business as much as possible and offer whatever they could to assist. Photo:VINO

Jamila Vanterpool, Director of JV Consulting, led the small business seminar hosted by Scotiabank last Saturday, September 28, 2012. Photo: VINO

Small Business Manager at Scotiabank, Mr Andy Davis, explained that the focus of small business week was to celebrate the success of Scotiabank's small business customers.

Small Business Week, he explained, was conceptualised out of the Scotiabank Barbados Branch. “They piloted it and got an amazing response from the customers so as part of the bank’s culture of sharing best practices it was rolled out throughout the region,” Davis shared.

Small Business Week is celebrated in each of the Caribbean territories that have a Scotiabank branch.

Expressing what the response to the initiative was like, Mr Davis revealed that “It’s been amazing, the response that we got was really, really good. We had a number of business owners display their products and services in the branch and giving the customers an idea of the types of products and services that they offer, where they are located and essentially to open up a market or customer base for those businesses.”

The celebration, which occurred for the first time in the Territory, saw a different business being featured each day of the week. Among the businesses featured were Island Services, UMI Fashions, Paul’s Photo Studio, Caribbean Yacht Management (Proudly African) and also Vanguard Security Services.

Davis explained that the business owners saw it as an opportunity to showcase and promote their business and that is what Scotiabank wanted to encourage. He further explained that he pitched the idea to a number of businesses and these were the ones that were represented. “It was very well received,” Mr Davis disclosed.

Upcoming Plans

Seminars will continue after Small Business Week and according to Davis, the plan is to conduct one seminar per quarter. “We provide the necessary tools and advice to help business persons to grow and operate their businesses better,” he expressed.

He added that there was a plan to work closely with the National Business Bureau as a partner on some upcoming projects that they have as it relates to business development in the Territory.

Prospects for Small Business in the Territory

Regarding the prospects for Small Businesses in the Territory, Davis expressed that he thought it was very good.

“As a financial institution we don’t just provide funding and leave the business owners to fend for themselves. It’s all about offering advice and solutions and seminars just like these which help business owners to fine tune their business operations so that they can be more effective and even be profitable at running those businesses,” he added.

Ultimately, he explained, the goal is to grow businesses. Small business is an “important topic, a hot topic”.

“The industry that we are in thrives on delivering quality customer service; without our customers the banking industry doesn't have anybody, we don’t have a business,” he noted.

The Small Business Manager disclosed that, “We want to push small businesses as much as possible and offer what we can to help small businesses”.

Jamila Vanterpool, the Director of JV Consulting which specialises in training such as customer service, team building and hospitality skills among others, led the training seminar with small business owners at the end of the Small Business Week celebrations hosted by Scotiabank.

Ms Vanterpool related that she dealt with areas such as training and helping to develop a really strong customer service culture. Leading by example, she related, was an important concept that she stressed in her session with the owners.

She said it was essential to set “clear customer service guidelines” so that staff knows exactly what the business owner’s specific standards were and be able to follow and provide the best service.

A small business owner herself, Ms Vanterpool also related the role of customer service in marketing and how much it costs the employer when poor service is provided.

Aaron Seddon, who manages the CocoMaya restaurant with his wife Kim in Virgin Gorda, related that they had been dealing with Andy for the past three months and started a small business account with Scotiabank.

Being in the service industry, he believed wholeheartedly in the concept of a staff training creation atmosphere. He felt it was imperative to train staff in such a way that they were able to greet customers in the right way and treat them with respect in exactly the way one would have liked to be treated themselves.

Mr Seddon explained that a lot of staff training was done at CocoMaya, including how to treat a guest, meet a guest and serve a guest. These, he said, were all ongoing processes with his staff, "from wine tastings to closing the bill". He also said ensuring that the client’s or customer’s needs are placed first and that their whole experience is a positive one so that they’d come back is the ultimate goal. “You want them to come back with friends as well,” Mr. Seddon added.