Meeting with Applebee's

Reenactment of our meeting with Applebee's

          On Tuesday, Mike and I (Hunter) had a meeting with Applebee’s in Harrisonburg to sit down and talk to their manager (David) about the possibility of having Applebee’s ads put on thelocalrocket.com.  We realized, after the meeting was already set up, that we should have gone after a restaurant or business that was not involved in or part of a chain.  My point being is that Applebee’s is a great ad for our site, but they have to go through multiple steps and present our website to corporate before we can establish an agreement.  Thus, our meeting was with the local manager that now has to take our ideas and present them higher up.

            After sitting down with David, we explained the problem we found in the Harrisonburg area and what we were attempting to fix the problem with our website.  We included how the site works, average daily page views, our fair price range for Applebee’s posting ads, how we are currently marketing, where we plan to go in the future, and how we had not met with any of Applebee’s direct competitors in the area. (Chili’s, Roadhouse,etc.)  This, I believe, had David sold on our website and interested in pursuing our website.  I say this because he then went in to talking to us about the possibility of an exclusivity agreement.  He also went as far as to say if he didn’t have to go to corporate, he was sold on our site and felt we really had something going.  As we finished up the meeting, David said he would pitch it for us the best he could and would do all he could because he really liked our approach.  One last thing, he talked to us about making shirts and stickers and if we really join an exclusivity agreement we can both benefit.

            Though we walked away without money in hand, the experience we gained and the boost we got was far beyond money.  We will be hearing back within the next few weeks to see where we stand and if corporate wants to pursue our site further.  Mike and I feel that we pitched thelocalrocket.com well and that our meeting couldn’t have gone better.  We look forward to moving ahead and getting the site out there.

Bertrand

This week we also worked on a "support our website" button to make more profits. We are getting the word out about to businesses so that they can post events on there. Hopefully, they will donate money if they feel that our website is helpful.

Dear Mister,
We identified two problems in our locality. People are unsure of their options for what to do when they want go out, go eat or do something in general. Also, businesses are unsatisfied with their current marketing efforts.
In consequence, our goal was to link businesses and customers and we have been developing a website for the last past three months. Our idea was to build a site that has activities on a map that will show people what events are going on around Harrisonburg. It is benefiting customers by giving them the different options for the week and businesses by marketing their events or specials.

In the first two months, we developed the website to its full capacity by developing features and adding events online. In the last past 30 days, we started to get the word out to students and locals about the website. It is actually working very well.
Number of views?
We are now trying to work it out with businesses in order to get more events on our website. We give you the possibility to add your own events and pictures for free on our website. You just need to register and click on ADD events or Add Pictures!
We hope that it will help your business to get more people in. You can access the website here: thelocalrocket.com

If you feel like our website is very useful to your business, feel free to support our website by donating! (feature included on the website)

Sincerely,

Bertrand Moulin