Brent Wright With Dealsby

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studio in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio, brought to you by Kennesaw State University’s Executive MBA program, the accelerated degree program for working professionals looking to advance their career and enhance their leadership skills. And now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio. And this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, CSU’s executive MBA program. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories today on the Atlanta Business Radio. We have Brent Wright, and he is with a product called Delsby. Welcome.

Brent Wright: Thank you. Lee. Thank you for having me on.

Lee Kantor: Well, I am so excited to learn what you’ve got going on. I know your company is called Virally Referral Marketing, but the product we’re here to talk about is called Delsby. Let us know what you got going on.

Brent Wright: Yes, Delsby is a new community centric referral marketing technology that’s designed for small businesses to help them with customer acquisition and retention. And it’s a little bit unique because it is geolocation based and we use referral code sharing technology. So we make it really easy for consumers to find businesses in their community. And obviously we know how important our small businesses are. So I’ve got something here that’s going to go over pretty well.

Lee Kantor: Now is it is it primarily focused on kind of brick and mortar retailing kind of stores?

Brent Wright: Ali. It actually our three segments that we’re going to launch with are restaurants, retail and professional services that could include realtors, movers, pet groomers, roofers, lawn care. So those are going to be our three major categories for launch. We’re going to launch here in Georgia. And eventually Delsby is going to be a nationwide available referral marketing technology. But we’re going to get started here in Atlanta.

Lee Kantor: So can you walk me through do you want to pick one of those three? Or we can go into each one of those three verticals. What would serve you best?

Brent Wright: We can do one of each. I’ll just start with restaurants, if that’s okay.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, that’d be great.

Brent Wright: Yeah. With the restaurant industry, we know that obviously there are 33 million small businesses in this country. You know, 90 over 90% of them rely on referrals. The restaurant industry is no different. We know that about 60 to 70% of small business revenue comes from referrals, but only about 30% of small businesses actually have customer referral programs. So I’ve created a solution that’s going to be able to help connect consumers with restaurants and retail establishments in their communities, as well as some professional service providers because we want to. What kind of makes deals be different is we’re building a community solution, as opposed to an individual solution, where consumers have to individually find businesses. We actually bring small businesses. We actually bring consumers to you. We just launched a few weeks ago, and we already have 2000 consumers in Georgia signed up. So we’re getting ready to start bringing the first few businesses on. But the restaurants, obviously, it’s a big part of our economy, and we want to help them bring more consumers that are in their areas into their business and get those businesses referred.

Lee Kantor: All right, so say I own a restaurant here in Atlanta and I’d like to participate. Say I have a pizza place in Buckhead. So how would it work?

Brent Wright: So what they would do was they would go to delsby.io um, and he would sign up for a business account. It literally takes a couple of minutes. You upload your information you would put up to five pictures of like pictures of your food. You have a profile picture as well that you can upload. It could be your logo and you actually create your profile. And once you create your profile, you would go in and actually create your referral campaign. That part takes less than two minutes. Once you create your referral campaign, it could be 10% off your first visit.

Lee Kantor: Okay, so a referral campaign is some sort of an offer or call to action.

Brent Wright: Yes, it’s a call of action. It’s a referral campaign is a way for you to share your information with the public. It will be either a hyperlink or a QR code. And once you once you create that referral campaign, you get a QR code or a hyperlink and you share those via consumers, share those hyperlinks or QR codes via text, email or social media. And that’s how small businesses get the word out about their business, because our consumers that have signed up for deals will see that information, and they’ll be able to share it with their social, with their social circles.

Lee Kantor: So then the premise is that you have, um, a pile of consumers that are actively looking for, um, new things. And then if if a restaurant or retailer or even professional services puts their offer in there, your community will actively share, promote and and buy from them.

Brent Wright: Yes, they will actually see it. And what makes deals be different is when they open the deals B app or website, they will see a map and once they share their location with us, we’ll show them businesses that are in their area that are offering these referral rewards, and they’ll be able to choose those rewards and share them with others quickly. Uh, the moment you share referral with a family member or friend or social circle, the business owner is notified. Notified via email and apt notification so they know the moment their business has been notified, and then the discounts will actually be issued to the both the referee and the individuals referred to that business. So it’s kind of a win win situation for everyone. Uh, the mapping is what makes it unique because you can see on the map, regardless of where you’re at in this country, you could be in Los Angeles or Miami or Chicago, and you’ll see businesses within a 30 mile radius that are delsby member businesses, and you’ll also be able to see their offers and share them within a few clicks.

Lee Kantor: So when you’re launching a business like this is kind of a two sided marketplace, you need to build up both sides of the marketplace, right? You need the businesses and then you also need the consumers. How have you gone about kind of building this out?

Brent Wright: Uh, so from the consumer standpoint, we’ve been running Google ads and we’ve gotten quite a response for that. We have consumers signing up every day From the I’ve been spending the last few years, uh, getting the code written by software developers. So we’re going to get out and start talking to, uh, business owners. We have, like, a vegan bakery, we have a realtor, we have electrician. We have folks like that that are ready to actually get started with deals. So we’re going to be bringing our small businesses on, uh, pretty soon. But we, the consumers we’ve actually acquired through Google and just, uh, you know, finding us through Google search, um, in their area, looking for bargains and deals. Deals. He’s actually coming up in the Google search.

Lee Kantor: So then, um, how I can see how it’s a value to the consumer. They’re going to save some money. I can see how it’s a value to the business owner. They’re going to get a customer. Um, how do you monetize something like this?

Brent Wright: Uh, the business pays a monthly subscription fee to be part of our network. Uh, it’s that will be our monthly recurring revenue. So for the services we provide, they will pay a monthly fee. And we would basically run their customer referral programs for them. We are going to incorporate AI technology on the product roadmap to be able to recommend to small businesses what type of programs are most effective in their area, but from the monetization standpoint, the business pays a monthly fee to be part of the deals being networked.

Lee Kantor: And then is that a flat monthly fee or is it like kind of fluctuate based on how many leads it is?

Brent Wright: It is it is a flat monthly fee of 199 per month. And then we have an additional fee where you can be a featured small business and you’re shown more prominently on the deals B map. Whether you’re using Apple or Android device, you’ll see these businesses on the map and you’ll be able to usually click on those. You can click on those businesses and see their business profile. It has all their contact information or address. Pictures of the products and services. But that monthly fee is what we charge in order to get them more brand awareness and brand exposure for their business.

Lee Kantor: So what’s your backstory like? How did you realize this was a problem that you could solve?

Brent Wright: Well, my kind of my origin story is I was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. I was educated there as well. Um, I, my parents were small business owners growing up. That was back in the mid 80s. And as them being small business owners, they struggled with customer acquisition like a lot of small businesses do today. And I actually changed my major from management to small business entrepreneurship and small business. So I actually have an MBA in entrepreneurship. Uh, and it really bothered me to see my parents, my parents struggle. And as I got out, like most folks during I created deals when Covid first started, like most folks that had a lot of time at home. I was able to talk to business owners and find out what their pain points were, and every single one of them said, well, I could use more customers. So I thought to myself, well, you know, there’s I know there’s referral marketing technology out there for small businesses to help them grow. But I wanted to create something that was unique, that was geolocation based, that actually showed you on a map where these businesses were. So that’s where I actually came up with the idea of Delsby and started building. And we just finished the technology about 30 days ago. But just seeing that pain point of customer acquisition, it’s the number two. It’s the number two survey pain point behind the lack of cash flow for small business owners. So just finding and keeping that next customer is always a challenge for small business. So I created something that helps address that pain point and solve it now.

Lee Kantor: Um, have you gotten to the point where you’ve tested this. And then there’s people who are getting results. Or is it still too early?

Brent Wright: Yeah, it’s still too early. We literally just launched a few weeks ago, and we’re getting ready to sign up our first few businesses. So we anticipate having a lot of success stories because consumers are literally waiting. And I know this is a great time to launch because we’re heading into the holiday season, and we really want to support small businesses in the Atlanta area and Georgia and actually nationwide. But yeah, we’ve had a lot of really positive feedback about, well, if something like this exists, I would definitely be part of it because I want to be part of this community. And that’s really what differentiates deals is we’re creating a community instead of a standalone marketing solution where consumers have to find you. We actually bring consumers to you.

Lee Kantor: Now, if I’m a consumer and I it’s an app is that the deal is an actual app that’s on my phone.

Brent Wright: Yes. You can actually download it now. And the app and Android app stores. And it’s also available on the Delsby website at delsby.io.

Lee Kantor: So if I go to delsby.io, I download the app. I have it on my phone. Am I just being pinged every day like today? Here’s today’s offers. Or like what? What’s it like from my consumer standpoint?

Brent Wright: Well, it’s all starts with the consumer. When they’re when they’re looking for a restaurant or looking for a retail store, or they’re looking maybe for realtor or mover, they would actually open up the Delsby app, and they can actually do a search based on those industries and Subindustries, because we have it broken down by sub industry as well, like, you know, American food, Italian, French and with retail it’s by, you know, specialty things like that. So they can do a search and see businesses around them. So the consumer actually initiates what they’re looking for. And we show them the results that are in their area within a 30 mile radius. And they can also do a search. They see the featured small businesses first, because those folks are paying to be seen first, and then they can also do a search for other industries that maybe aren’t featured small businesses. But it all starts with the consumer initiating that search request. So we only send you information when you request it.

Lee Kantor: And then so like if you get a new business and then they say, hey, we have this offer, then that would kind of bubble up for the consumer on the Delsby app.

Brent Wright: That is correct. And we’ll also do, uh, marketing automate marketing automation, where we will send out an email to all the consumers in that area that this particular business just joined. Uh, go to dolby.io, check your deals B app to be able to see this business and their offerings. So we’re actually going to make sure that the new business and the existing businesses get regular exposure on our platform.

Lee Kantor: So is your background you mentioned uh, MBA in entrepreneurship, but have you done a lot of digital marketing in the past.

Brent Wright: Uh, no, actually, I’ve been in sales, uh, almost all my career. Almost 30 years. Uh, I’ve worked in the, uh, I when I worked in Kentucky, I actually worked for the Kentucky Lottery, believe it or not, for ten years. And then, uh, the rest of that time was actually been in pharmaceutical sales. So I’m used to talking to customers, finding out their pain points. But my passion has always been small business, because we know that’s 99.9% of all business businesses in this country are small business. And like I said, I have that, uh, that family history of being a small business, and that’s always been my dream is to be a small business owner myself. So that’s how it deals with me, was kind of founded.

Lee Kantor: Now, how did you build the team to build out the technology?

Brent Wright: Uh, I actually used my developers are overseas. Uh, we actually started the year 2020. As far as, uh, writing the actual algorithm for the service. And then it was wire framed where we actually designed the screens. And then I had a team of developers that actually wrote all the code to make everything happen. So that took a few years to do, and we’ve been tweaking it over time. And I finally have a product that is actually pretty special as far as how it operates. We have what’s called a Delsby points program, where consumers can earn points for deals, be branded merchandise for, for submitting referrals, for recommending small businesses. We have that capability as well where consumers can say, hey, I’d like to see this business on Delsby. And we’ll actually go out and recruit that business to join. So we’re making this as community centric and community focused as well. And my goal also is to reduce the carbon footprint, because we want to introduce you to businesses that are really close to you to minimize the amount of travel that consumers make in order to support businesses that maybe are already around them, but they don’t realize it.

Lee Kantor: So what do you need more of right now? And how can we help?

Brent Wright: Well, for me, I just had a PR person that’s going to be actually doing sending out PR Newswire that’s going out in a few weeks, but it’s just, uh, I’m going to get involved with like, business organizations, business associations, chambers of commerce. Uh, we just need to know we need folks to know the deals we exist, that this is a new technology. It was founded and is based in Atlanta, so I’m really big on making sure that Atlanta is recognized in my solution. Uh, so we plan on being here for a very long time, but it’s just awareness that this product exists. Uh, so any help we can get as far as creating awareness with, with your listeners and, uh, you know, this is going to be a nationwide product, uh, once we get some traction here in Atlanta. But just the awareness is what we could ask at this point.

Lee Kantor: So now, is the team primarily you or do you have a team around you?

Brent Wright: It’s primarily me. I use a lot of contractors to get things done. And once we I do plan on being involved with, um, uh, Atlanta Tech Village, that’s kind of where my company started as far as, you know, um, building the algorithm, uh, I know that the ecosystem here in Atlanta is very large and, um, very fluid as far as the resources. But I do plan on starting out having office space in Atlanta, Tech Village and all the new South downtown project. Uh, I just took a tour of that a few days ago, so I plan on having a presence there. But yeah, this is where we’re going to Atlanta is where we’re going to be. And it’s it’s in all our advertisements. It’s made with love in Atlanta.

Lee Kantor: And then you’re looking right now for both consumers and business people to, uh, just join the platform.

Brent Wright: Yes. To join the platform. If you if customer acquisition is a pain point for your small business, we run basically your platform for you. You just you know you the moment you get a referral, all thing has to do is look at your phone. We know that 95% of us adults own a smartphone. So it’s important to be where your customers are and that’s where big deals is going to be. So yes, and obviously we know consumers, we’re on our phone a lot. So we want to make sure that we create something that’s easy for the consumer and the business to connect. And that’s what Delsby does. And that’s what makes it differently is it’s not an individual solution where consumers have to go find your individual business. You can search by these three categories and see everyone that’s around you and see those offers and share them with your family and friends. And literally just a couple of clicks.

Lee Kantor: Well, Brant, one more time, the website, if people want to connect or, uh, I guess they can go to the App Store as well.

Brent Wright: Yes, it’s Delsby dot IO Is the actual web address and then it is the deals. B app is actually in the Apple and Android app stores. It’s free to download. For consumers, it’s absolutely free forever to use. For small businesses, it’s a very affordable. It’s about $9 a day to have a, you know, a formal, full working customer referral program. But that’s where your customers or businesses and consumers can go to actually access the deals B platform.

Lee Kantor: And that’s d e a l s b y.io to go and learn more. Brant, thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Brent Wright: Thank you Lee. Thank you for having me on today.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Atlanta Business Radio.