The main path on the home page carries the highlights. This is everything that survived — advertisements, news items, society notes and column squibs, from an 1880s Kansas hardware store to today. Some entries carry caveats about dates or attribution; those are noted in place rather than quietly dropped.
A German immigrant family in Atchison and Junction City, Kansas. Hardware, then farm implements, then bicycles, then automobiles, then a land office. Every time the technology changed, they moved into it first — and they were already advertising like modern marketers.
Herman Gruntjes → John Herman Grentner“We must get rid of our Buggy and Carriage Stock as we need the room they now occupy.”
The reason-why close: tell the customer why the price dropped so the discount reads as credible rather than suspicious. Paired with before-and-after price anchoring. They were still using this device twenty years later.
Dated from the masthead only. The same archive mis-dated a neighbouring Grentner ad by eighteen years, so treat the year as approximate.
“These are the finest stoves that have ever been brought to this city.”
The earliest ad we can date with confidence — and the smallest. No company, no logo, no offer: just J. H. GRENTNER, 610 Commercial Street, Atchison. A man and a street number. Everything that follows is built on this.
“The new firm will be incorporated under the name of the Grentner Hardware company.”
Growth by acquisition, on the front page. They bought a competitor’s entire stock to enter a new town — and the Grentner Hardware Company was born from it.
“A $7.00 set of stoneware given with each range purchased during this exhibit.”
Not a product list — a week-long in-store event, with a free gift bundle and free biscuits and eggs served daily. “Grand Annual” means it was already a recurring tradition. Experiential retail and vendor co-marketing, in the 1890s.
Filed under an 1881 masthead, but the ad itself reads “OCTOBER 2nd to 9th, ’99.”
“We lead them all on WHEELS.”
Bicycles were the new technology, so the hardware store sold bicycles. A genuine category-leadership slogan, running in a second town’s newspaper — and an attached repair shop, because they supported what they sold.
“Own your own house and be your own master.”
The land office. No product and no price in the headline — it sells independence and legacy, reframes rent as waste, and offers financing (“easy terms”) and build-to-order. They also paid for professional syndicated ad art.
Filed as 1920; the masthead reads 1910.
“The very car you have been wanting at a price that does not make you dig too deep.”
Now automobiles, trading as Grentner Bros. A full cost-transparency argument for why the car is $900 and not $1,250 — and a free trial: “We want to take you for a ride.”
“Demonstrations Cheerfully Given!”
Three competing marques at once, advertised in the neighbouring town’s own paper. The name has walked from J. H. Grentner to Grentner Hardware to Grentner Bros. to Grentner & Sons — a legible multi-generation arc.
“1921 model Studebaker Special Touring Car demonstrator — $1350.00 / Regular Price $1665.00”
A hardware store became a car company in twenty-five years. Grentner Motor Co. now runs a used-car department spanning seven brands — real trade-in volume, and price anchoring still going strong in its fourth decade.
“We carry the best line of Spring Work in the city.”
A multi-brand franchise stack — John Deere, Deering, Staver and Columbus simultaneously — plus implements, stoves, hardware and bicycles under one roof.
The ad sells Crescent bicycles and gasoline stoves — inconsistent with 1880. Date unresolved.
“We have a first-class repair shop in connection.”
Service attached to product, and the reason-why close again (“WE ARE OVERSTOCKED and must unload”). Both men’s and women’s models shown.
A three-storey brick commercial building, now occupied by a military surplus store. Nothing visible in the photograph connects it to the family — included here as an open question, not a claim.
A German-American social club ball in Butte, Montana, listing a floor manager as “Henry Grenther” — a different spelling, and no business connection. Kept in the archive as a lead, not evidence.
The family lands in Miami during the land boom. A subdivision, a model-airplane shop, a tire brokerage claiming to be the largest in Florida, and a return to real estate — each one a new category, each one advertised with a hook.
C. E. Grentner · Charles & John Grentner“Roberts & Grentner Subdivision”
A broker’s ad listing lots on N.W. 7th Avenue — the family name on a platted Miami subdivision at the height of the land boom, a year before the bust. This is a third party’s ad and the fine print sits at the edge of legibility, so the reading is careful rather than certain.
“Catalogs, containing instructions for building the models, will be mailed upon request or given to persons calling at the shop.”
Aviation was the new thing, so they opened the Florida Model Aero Supply Company. A free mail-order catalogue full of how-to instructions is content marketing and lead generation — in 1930.
“You Pay Only Regular Price”
Four tactics stacked: a free offer solving a real annoyance (the annual tag fee), financing (“Only 50c Down”), a trade-in allowance — and crucially no discount, so the giveaway reads as added value. Branded wordmark, the brothers’ faces as the trust mark, and a leadership claim: “Florida’s Largest Tire Brokers.”
“now associated with D. C. Coleman, Broker, 418 Seybold Bldg.”
Post-war, and back into real estate. He advertises as “Charlie” — selling himself as the point of contact rather than the firm. That same first-person personal branding reappears in his ads fourteen years later.
“Mr. Grentner attended University of Florida, now is associated with Grentner Brothers.”
Charles E. Grentner Jr. married Thelma Grace Smith on Christmas Day 1941 — and joined the family business. The generational handover, in the society pages.
“Gay Grentner serves her younger brother and sister, Chuck and Lynn.”
The third generation — Gay, Chuck and Lynn — modelling for a Herald Christmas gift feature. The second such feature in two weeks.
A Grentner child as the Herald’s photo model for a toy roundup — evidence of the family’s local press access as much as anything else.
A young Charles Grentner fined $15 for speeding in Miami Beach — the same year he opened the aero supply shop. Around automobiles from the start, one way or another.
“The brothers were in the car business for many years as Grentner Brothers; they had a Packard, DeSoto-Plymouth, and Mercedes-Benz dealership…”
A reader’s remembrance built around a 1922 Miami Beach photograph — the Miami origin story, printed decades later.
Packard, English Ford, Simca, Mercedes-Benz. Packard put the Grentner brothers in its own national marketing. And the advertising got genuinely sophisticated — customers called “boosters,” a loyalty network across 400 filling stations, and a co-marketing deal with a motel and a restaurant.
Charles & John Grentner · Grentner Bros.“It’s a pleasure to sell a car that is truly different and has demonstrable engineering advancements—such as Torsion-Level Ride—that other cars don’t have.”
Packard put Charles and John Grentner — and their words — into its own national franchise marketing. A manufacturer showcasing them to recruit other dealers. This is also the document that finally proves who “Grentner Bros.” actually was.
“I’ll lose a sale…and a SIMCA booster (1850 at last count) and— you’ll PAY AT LEAST $400 MORE”
The most rhetorically modern ad in the whole archive. Shared-loss framing puts dealer and buyer on the same side of the table. “(1850 at last count)” is social proof by running tally. And he calls his customers boosters, not customers — brand advocacy, in 1960.
“BE OUR GUEST FOR THE WEEK-END AT THE FABULOUS DUNES MOTEL. PLUS DINNER AT FU MANCHU. ALL FREE TO EVERY PURCHASER OF A NEW OR USED CAR.”
A three-business co-marketing tie-up — car dealer, motel and restaurant — aimed squarely at out-of-town buyers to remove the friction of travelling to buy. Alongside it, a total-cost-of-ownership argument with a hand-drawn cost comparison.
“It’s all or nothing, because the public demands that you have all the parts and complete service facilities. To buy a car, the customer must have full confidence in the dealer.”
The business editor devotes a feature to explaining his method. Charles E. Grentner, 46, is the only import dealer in Miami whose sales are rising in a falling market, and has just been elected president of the Miami Automobile Dealers Association. The free-gas plan runs on courtesy cards honoured at roughly 400 filling stations — a loyalty network.
“so does Charlie Grentner give specially imprinted bags to his customers”
He borrowed the restaurant doggie bag and gave car buyers branded takeaway bags for their old parts. The branding was novel enough that it became the news item. He was still running the same gag fourteen years later, in a different industry.
“YOU GET THE DEAL— YOU GET THE SERVICE— AT GRENTNER’S”
All-in pricing that removes hidden-cost anxiety: “$9.75 IS ALL YOU PAY / Includes TAX—TAGS—Insurance and Interest.” Plus a claim to America’s largest English Ford service and parts departments.
“And the cars sell very well when they hit the used car lot because they are in much better shape than most.”
The companion panel: a purpose-built storefront, full exterior signage, and service-and-parts income of roughly $14,000 a month. The same service-first thesis Charles articulates in the 1961 profile.
“This is a chartered flight for dealers and their wives and celebrates the Mercedes-Benz’ diamond jubilee.”
Thelma and Charlie flown to Stuttgart by Mercedes-Benz for the marque’s diamond jubilee — a Miami family business inside a global manufacturer’s dealer network.
“Charles Grentner Jr., owner of a foreign car dealership has put his three children to work”
Gaye, 18, typing for the summer; Lynn, 17, assisting; Chuck, 14, running the filing system. The family-labour model, on the record.
“Charlie Grentner has a remarkable photo at his showroom, 1799 SW Eighth St.”
He hung a photograph of what was said to be the world’s first automobile in his showroom — turning a sales floor into somewhere a columnist would write about.
““And doing all right,” says Charlie Grentner.”
A salesman who lost his vocal cords to cancer taught himself to speak again — and kept selling cars at Grentner. The owner vouches for him personally in print.
““Haven’t you guys ever seen a Lotus,” growled Charlie Grentner.”
By 1961 the garage is a recognisable enough Miami place that a columnist sets a scene in it.
“He is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Charles E. Grentner, 600 Jeronimo Dr., Coral Gables.”
The same Chuck who was running the filing system at 14, now Student Council president at Coral Gables High. Note: this document gives the father’s middle initial as E, not G.
A car dealer becomes a restaurateur, and turns promotion into an art form. Every stunt was engineered to be reported rather than paid for — and a Miami Herald columnist ranked one of them alongside the most famous publicity gimmicks in American history.
Charlie Grentner · Grentner’s for Steak“Car salesman Charlie Grentner is now a restaurateur with Grentner’s For Steak in South Miami.”
Another category, another move. He took over the space that had been Stewart’s For Steak and put the family name straight into the restaurant’s — deliberate brand transfer from the dealership into an entirely new business.
“Try the delightful difference at Grentner’s soon.”
A tagline, and a signature dish as owned property: “Grentner’s Hot Baked Apple Ring.” The name appears seven times in a short block. Plus a weekly Monday fashion show — programming built to manufacture traffic on the slowest night of the week.
“Gimmick . . . thy name is success.”
A Herald columnist ranks his Monday-lunch promotion alongside flagpole-sitting and Bojangles Robinson tap-dancing down Broadway. Earned media by design — a free offer built to be written about rather than paid for, aimed once again at the slow Monday daypart.
“Call CHARLIE GRENTNER GUEST REALTY”
My father, two years out of college and newly a realtor. Guest Realty is also where he met my mother — she came in as a receptionist and agent-in-training the following year. Four years after this ad, a man at one of his workshops handed him a failing motel rather than let the bank take it. The ad prints the full payment maths and a veterans’ discount: value transparency, already the house style.
“There are doggie bags, but they’re called ‘VIP Bags’, for Very Important Pets.”
Everyone was opening steak houses, so he left the category. Three dayparts each got their own priced offer — early-bird bundle, main menu, night-owl menu. And the imprinted-bag idea from the 1961 car dealership reappears fourteen years later as “VIP Bags.”
The headline’s “Gretners” spelling is the paper’s own typo.
“place is chalking up bigger business than ever before.”
He buys the Airways Motel on NW 36th Street — entering lodging — while reporting record volume at the restaurant and calling off a planned sale. Autos, restaurants and hotels, all running at once.
“with freebie cocktail to any lady wearing a mini six inches or more above the knees; or a midi six inches below”
A customer poll used as a promotional engine, with a free drink as the incentive, run across lunch and dinner to build Monday traffic. It generated free coverage instead of paid space.
“Prelude to conversion of restaurant into international-cuisine operation”
He tested the new concept in one corner of the dining room and pre-announced the plan to the press — three weeks before the full relaunch. Phased concept development with advance publicity.
“Formerly Grentner’s for Steak”
A rebrand caught mid-flight: “Grentner’s International,” with the old name printed underneath so the equity carries across. Textbook practice, executed in 1976.
“if any doubters come in on a Friday or Saturday night he’ll make them a Caesar salad with his own hands.”
Rumour control turned into a promotion: rather than just denying that the restaurant had sold, he attached a personal guarantee that doubles as a traffic driver on his two best nights.
“the motel is now operated by Charlie Grentner, of Grentner’s International restaurant in South Miami, who is converting the Airways into a do-it-yourself motel.”
The first mention of the self-service idea. Branded menu items — the Heartburn Special, the Pawn Shop Platter, the Reubenowitz — made the menu itself the hook of the review.
“or Charlie Grentner at the Cape Royal Building in Cocoa Beach.”
My father, running real-estate education on the Space Coast — printed weeks before the Luna Sea came to us the same year. It was a workshop like this one that produced it: an attendee handed the failing motel over rather than watch the bank take it. The notice prints no middle initial, so the identification rests on place, date and trade rather than on the document itself.
“THIS ONE WON’T LAST!”
A second listing three days after the first — a running ad cadence rather than a one-off, and the same “Call Charlie Grentner” personal branding my grandfather had used in 1946.
“We’ll pay off the finance company and give you an older car or cash for your equity.”
Grentner Bros. auto sales on W. Flagler Street, using the same customer-problem headline formula the family reused across industries for decades.
Surrounding classifieds reference “’36 TO ’42 MODELS” — the content reads as 1940s.
What Bar Rescue does on television, my family did for a living — decades before it was a television format. Go in to help a failing business, then take it on and turn it around. It started with a motel nobody bought, handed over days before the bank could take it. One became five by 1984, and the same method has since run through a dozen residential properties. 1979 was the hinge year — the restaurant sold in January, and before it was out both my grandfather’s advertising agency and my parents’ realty company had been incorporated.
My grandfather & my father“Bellamy and Grentner together own and also operate the Miami Airways motel on NW 36th Street”
The hinge. After eleven years the restaurant sells, and the family moves into airport motels — father and son operating the Airliner for its owner while co-owning Miami Airways with him. Operating-for-equity progressing into partnership.
“Registered Agent: GRENTNER, CHARLES E. — 4155 N.W. 24th Street, Miami”
My grandfather’s advertising firm, on the state record: filed 29 June 1979, dissolved November 1988. And look at the address — 4155 NW 24th Street is the Airliner Hotel. He ran the agency out of the lobby of the property it marketed. Document №628333.
Charlie Jr and Kay put a name and a corporation around what they had been doing since 1969 — finding struggling property, helping, then taking it on. It is still in operation today, forty-seven years later. Most of the businesses on this page are long gone; this one never stopped.
“I’d say it’s the wave of the future for 80 percent of the hotels and motels.”
The model goes national on the Knight-Ridder wire. Three properties running, three more in the works, and security marketed deliberately — dead-bolts and two keys per room, “a feature that Grentner’s hotels stress in all of their advertising materials.”
“What it amounts to is an economy system, but it’s a better system.”
Occupancy doubled after converting to self-service, then held at 80–100% year round. The pitch is pure unbundling — cut what guests don’t value, and upgrade what they touch (“the best towels on the market”). Free in-room HBO as the differentiator, in 1981.
“YOU HAVE The only KEY!”
A key-shaped Self Serv Motor Inn logomark and a real tagline that does double duty — it states the operational fact and sells the emotional benefit. Rates posted on the roadside sign, and a loyalty ladder: discounts from the third night, rising to 10% from the seventh.
“All advertising campaigns are a gamble. You hope you’re shooting at the right media, reaching the right market and putting across the right message.”
He pitches an entire town a $140,000–$200,000 destination-branding campaign — 36 billboards spaced every 10–15 miles to intercept drivers already in Florida, four candidate taglines, a slide deck, stated KPIs, and a co-op funding model of $5 per room and $1 per seat. This clipping also reveals Grentner Communications Inc., the Miami advertising firm he ran alongside the hotels.
“It had gone belly-up four times, but that’s really our game — we take losers and make winners out of them.”
The fifth hotel. The Runaway Bay Club is bought and immediately renamed The Inn on the Bay — shedding a failed brand as the first act of the turnaround — then marketed with a $34 bundled package of bed, breakfast, barbecue, booze and a bay cruise.
“This menu can also be served upstairs in Windows on The Bay at lunchtime only.”
Two years after buying a property that had failed four times, it is running four named brands at once — The Inn On the Bay as parent with its own sail logo, Charlie’s Dockside Lounge, Charlie’s Dockside Restaurant and Windows on The Bay. And the ad prints the entire priced menu, oysters at $2.95 to a rib eye sandwich at $5.25: price transparency doing the selling, and one kitchen cross-sold across two rooms.
“We’ve been projecting the wrong image for 40 years.”
He campaigns to rebrand an entire municipality, pays $400 to insert a flier into the local paper, and builds a straw ballot into it to be mailed back to his own hotel. Direct-response marketing and first-party data collection — the same business his great-granddaughter would be in.
“Charlie’s Dockside Lounge”
Within months of the 1984 purchase the property already has a designed sail-and-waves logo and a sub-brand named for its owner. Live music Tuesday through Saturday, 8:30 till whenever.
“the docks at Charlie’s Dockside Restaurant — The Inn On The Bay, 1819 79th St Causeway.”
Mini power boat races launching from the hotel’s own docks — a partnership with an outside racing association that earned the property a mention in a different county’s newspaper. Borrowed audience, no ad spend. Note the paper prints both brands joined by a dash: outside editors had absorbed the parent/sub-brand relationship.
“Four races for prizes today on Biscayne Bay; Charlie’s Dockside Restaurant on the Bay”
Event programming as marketing — hosting the races put the venue name and address in the paper for free. The listed phone runs through the hotel switchboard on extension 605, quietly confirming the integrated hotel-and-restaurant operation.
The same race, placed in a second paper two days before the Fort Lauderdale listing — one partnership event worked into coverage across two counties. This scan is badly blurred; the Fort Lauderdale version is the legible one to cite.
“That’s Grentner’s forte (Remember Grentner’s for Steak in South Miami?)”
More than a million dollars into renovating the Airliner, including a complete new dining room. The press was already using the restaurant name as shorthand for a reputation carried into hotels.
“Self Service Inns Inc. is a Miami-based company headed by C.E. Grentner as president.”
The fourth property, and the first move outside the Miami/Cocoa Beach core — bought from an out-of-state bank, with $250,000 committed to renovation and The Breakers’ former food-and-beverage manager hired to run catering.
“I’m interested only as an operator of Self Service Inns.”
A second printing of the Stuart Showcase story with extra closing paragraphs — including his public declaration of interest, notable given he also owned the advertising firm pitching the idea.
“YOU’LL LIKE IT - I PROMISE”
An ad fronted and hand-signed by the pianist Jack Reynolds — a named personality as spokesperson and trust device. The $8.88 prix fixe set as an oversized logo, with every course itemised so the buyer can price the bundle.
“In Your Room Free! at These South Florida Hotels”
A national entertainment brand carries an ad for all four properties at once, each with its own toll-free reservation line. A regional independent chain punching well above its weight — and the Inn on the Bay listed at 1819 79th St Causeway.
“He gave the people hope.”
Sponsoring a charity ball for the FDR centennial — at a competitor’s hotel, with proceeds to the National MS Society. The piece also records that his father was in Miami real estate through the boom and the Depression.
“I have paid for this ad with my personal funds. No organization is involved.”
A self-funded full-page open letter to the Herald, laid out as a three-column argument grid with a tear-off response coupon — petition-as-advertising with a built-in conversion mechanism. Archived rather than featured: it is an opinionated political advocacy piece, included here for its marketing craft.
“There’s no better way to show your appreciation than to give a beautiful evening at Grentner’s enjoying a fine dinner and the music of Jack Reynolds.”
Holiday gift certificates — $20 for dinner for two and a jug of wine. Selling the slow season.
A two-night, $119-per-person fitness package at The Inn On the Bay — aerobics, Nautilus and pool “Aquacise,” catered with Grentner’s low-calorie meals. The trade bending itself to whatever the market wanted.
“Our Famous PRIX FIXE DINNER $8.88”
Working the banquet trade out of the Airliner Hotel — breakfast $3.99, luncheon $4.95. Chasing the group business, because that’s where the margin was.
Cocoa Beach, and the Luna Sea. Competing against the chains, rebuilding after the 2004 hurricanes, and working out that the fastest way to help your own business is usually to help the one next door. Then the same idea, scaled across three Colorado resort valleys.
Jessica Grentner“We have a lot of repeat business from Europe.”
Independent Brevard hotels holding their own against the high-rises and the chains — with the Internet just starting to level the field. Quoted as Jessica Grentner, third generation on the 42-unit Luna Sea.
“Luna Sea MOTEL / Bed & Breakfast / ECONOMY RATES”
The pun earned the motel free editorial coverage in a regional daily, photographed alongside the county’s most memorable business names. Brand-name-as-marketing, and it cost nothing.
“We’ve been hindered without it.”
After the 2004 hurricanes took out dozens of Cocoa Beach signs, a stricter ordinance cut the maximum from 300 square feet to 84. Luna Sea ran a canvas banner while it waited — a replacement ran $8,000 to $30,000.
“The motel is operated by a third generation of motel owners in Florida.”
The paper wrote that my parents bought it. They didn’t. In 1975 it came out of a real-estate workshop my father ran in Brevard — an attendee said the bank was days from taking the place, and that if we wanted to try to save it, he’d simply hand it over. We took it. That’s how a family in the hospitality trade ended up in the hotel business: not an acquisition, a rescue.
“It’s an innovative new spin that not only benefits the traveler, but also the local community.”
Instead of a lobby continental breakfast, Luna Sea guests ate cooked-to-order at the Sunrise Diner or Roberto’s Little Havana — about 120 vouchers a week at each. Three family-run businesses, one deal. The same instinct as the 1961 Dunes Motel tie-up, forty-five years later.
“We did a lot of research and development to decide which chocolates to bring in.”
Loco Cocoa — fine chocolate, Mayan drinking chocolate and local artists’ work, opened inside the motel and run with my parents. A second small business bolted onto the first.
The printed headline reads “Coach Beach” — the paper’s own typo.
“Since the map came out in May 2008, we distributed more than 250,000 copies. The popularity made it very obvious that there was a real demand in the area for this caliber of map.”
The Vail expansion alone added more than 50 new map pick-up locations — every one of them a local business getting found by visitors who’d never have walked past it otherwise. The brand was Resort Maps at the time; it later became Discovery Map.
“Grentner’s Hickory Barbecue Restaurant in Miami Springs”
Eight Herald staff blind-tasted ribs from eight Northwest Dade stands. Grentner’s Hickory Barbecue placed third of eight — ahead of Tony Roma’s. Third-party editorial validation, not paid advertising.
“OPEN EVERY DAY”
A full Western brand identity — script logo, rope border, a founder-style portrait as the face of the business. It ran eleven days after the Herald taste test: advertising timed to ride earned media, in 1988.
“whose hotel is connected to Grentner’s Hickory B-B-Q next door”
The restaurant was physically connected to a 113-unit apartment-motel — lodging plus dining under one roof, prefiguring the Luna Sea years by decades. The Herald used it as a landmark to orient readers.
“Brand New Rooms”
The Luna Sea renovated, advertising outside its home county with a toll-free reservation line — and placed inside the “Florida’s Space Coast” co-operative ad section rather than advertising alone.
“You’re supposed to do what you’re good at.”
The Myachi years — building a “tween” lifestyle brand from nothing, promoted full-time through schools, surf shops and toy fairs.
Campaign season on the Space Coast — a red-white-and-blue mohawk shaped into a “W” at a rally at Space Coast Stadium in Viera.
The family property sells. The work moves onto first-party data and AI. A century and a half after a hardware store in Kansas started selling bicycles because bicycles were next, the instinct is unchanged: see what’s coming, and move into it early.
Net Results Consults“People will be happy to know they’re not going to knock it down…why mess with it?”
The trade press puts the deal at $32 million for the restaurant, a 120-room inn and the marina. The Miami Herald, reporting the same day, said the price was still unknown because no deed had been filed — so the $32M figure is The Real Deal’s, not the Herald’s.
“The seller is a company registered to Charles Grentner, who bought it in 1984 for $2.7 million.”
One sentence closes a thirty-two-year loop. The property had failed four times before he bought it in 1984 for $2.7 million — “that’s really our game, we take losers and make winners out of them” — and 1819 79th St Causeway stayed in the family until it sold to Montreal’s Jesta Group. Reported by Nicholas Nehamas.
“Sponsors that participated at the event included Costco, Shuckers Bar & Grill and Fuel Medics.”
A six-year-old’s gymnastics fundraiser for Doctors Without Borders, sponsored by the restaurant on the family’s property — listed in the same breath as Costco. Community standing, five years before the sale.
The page slug prints only “Thursday, September 22” — the year is not on the scan.
“The biggest mistake I see small business owners make is not taking their marketing seriously enough. They often believe it exists somewhere on the fringes of operations when in fact, success is often achieved when a more integrated approach is taken.”
One of a hundred experts asked to name the biggest mistake small businesses make. Mine was the family answer, five generations deep: marketing isn’t a fringe activity. The Grentners were running in-store events, free-gift bundles and co-op campaigns in the 1890s — the businesses that lasted were the ones that took it seriously. Credited as Jessica Grentner of Net Results Consults.
“What we’ve done for SMBs is level the playing field. A solo consultant using Delivr can now build audiences and run campaigns that would have taken a team of 10 at a large agency just a few years ago.”
Thirty years after a Florida Today reporter wrote that the Internet was starting to level the field for independent hotels, the same sentence — about the same fight. On training AI: “incredibly effective and protective when you’ve trained it with clear boundaries and expectations.” Reported by Matthew Kayser.
“That’s the whole inheritance: you learn it by doing it, early.”
I run my companies from our Growing Homestead in Montana, helped by two Junior Associates who attend my entrepreneurial homeschool. In 1961 a Miami society column ran a photograph of my father captioned “Kids Working” — he was fourteen and ran the filing system at the dealership; his sisters typed and assisted. Sixty-five years later, same arrangement, same idea.