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Many retailers offer seminars for their customers, teaching them how to do basic DIY work around the house and answering questions about common projects.
But the team at Busy Beaver went above and beyond, hosting a dozen seminars in one afternoon during the grand opening last year of their new store in Pittsburgh’s Lawrenceville neighborhood.
“It’s the first store we’ve opened in eight years, and we really wanted to come in with a bang and celebrate Busy Beaver joining the Lawrenceville community,” says Steve Derr, Busy Beaver’s marketing director. “We want to be the neighborhood home improvement center, so we held a neighborhood picnic as part of the grand opening celebration.”
The company management wanted to offer an educational element to the grand opening, which is where the seminars came in, Derr says.
“We asked ourselves how we could make the event even more beneficial to our customers and the community,” he says. “We decided on seminars that covered the basics about what our customers would need to know for their homes. We worked with our merchandise managers and vendors to put these together.”
The seminars were all free. Most were taught by vendor representatives, with assistance from store employees.
“We wanted to offer a variety of seminars in a short amount of time, so we set them up in 20-minute increments,” Derr says. “We knew someone may want to learn about selecting the right furnace filter at 12 and then paver patio installation at one, so we made them short, just covering the basics, so people could quickly go from one seminar to another in a short amount of time.”
Other seminar topics included installing doors, staining wood, pest control and learning about the basics of water heaters.
“We offered everything for free as a way to say thanks for being accepted into the community,” Derr says. “And we appreciated the assistance from our vendors, too. Offering an event like this for the community is a great way to help build relationships for the future.”
