Here are some timeless lessons that big businesses can learns from small town values:

Talk To Your Neighbors

A common criticism of large businesses is that they gradually become aloof to their surroundings. Regardless of whether it’s 100% true in every case, Wal-Mart is frequently accused of ignoring what its presence and practices do to local communities. Charles Fishman’s book The Wal-Mart Effect supplies dozens of examples.

Rather than engaging in any kind of meaningful dialogue with local residents, the company simply sets up shop and carries on as usual. This leaves many in the area feeling as though they have been left out in the cold, taken for granted by a company interested solely in taking their money.

The best way to overcome this kind of resentment is by talking to your neighbors. Make it known in every community you operate in that the company encourages and values the concerns of nearby residents instead of brushing them off.

Talk To Your Customers

One of the things people love most about well-run small businesses are the personal connections they keep with customers. A local hardware store owner, for instance, typically knows his most loyal customers by name. A family-run coffee shop might remember what their “regulars” order and begin preparing it as soon as their cars pull into the lot.

Sadly, these much-appreciated gestures are one of the first casualties when a small business grows into a large one. Left un-addressed, the disappearance of personal attention leads customers to feel alienated from the company they once loved doing business with.

The solution? Talk to your customers. Instead of just paying lip service to the abstract idea of customer engagement, solicit their feedback as a matter of explicit, regular policy – and honor their requests, when appropriate.

Build Relationships

Relationship building is another widely adored small business trait which many larger companies seem to cast aside. In an August 2010 feature, Entrepreneur.com uses Minnesota Twins owner Jim Pohlad as an object lesson in how bigger businesses can retain this focus.

As recently as 2000, the Twins were a dilapidated franchise and a financial disaster, coming dangerously close to being contracted out of Major League Baseball entirely. Since then, the franchise has come roaring back – largely on the strength of their open, accessible, friendly character:

Since they didn’t have summer sunshine or their latest free-agent acquisitions to sell, the Twins made their players as accessible as possible. Emerging stars were asked to continue to participate in the caravan and other promotions. And the team did its best to keep the roster stable, letting fans develop favorites. “When players come and go every year, it just becomes kind of a revolving door,” Pohlad says. “We didn’t want that.”

What the small-market Twins lacked in Yankee-esque financial clout and prime tourist appeal, they made up for by forging genuine relationships with Minnesotans. Today, they are one of MLB’s most respected and successful organizations year in and year out.

Truly Monitor Your Costs

Early on, every dime at a company’s disposal must be well-spent just to survive. But as a business grows, the “pressure valve” of obsessively monitoring costs begins to ease. Growing profits diminish the incentive to demand results from expenditures. “Expense accounts” are given to key employees. Before long, a previously successful business can start hemorrhaging cash with little or nothing to show for it.

The lesson here is that financial success is not something you are owed. It is the result of disciplined cost controls and a mentality that all expenses must produce returns. While this will undoubtedly be tougher to maintain at a 5,000 employee conglomerate than a five person restaurant, it is no less important and arguably far more so.

Be Accountable

Small businesses are accountable out of necessity. Without billion-dollar reserves to fall back on, callously ignoring broken promises or shoddy performance is not an option. Attempting to operate in this manner leaves a business starved of customers and stripped of its reputation.

In the small business community, your word truly is your bond. Size, again, makes it both possible and tempting to retreat from such accountability. “Who cares if we alienate these customers”, a manager might think – “when so many others are willing to take their place?”

However true this might be in any specific situation, it is a short-sighted and unsustainable way to run a business. Marketing consultant Perry Marshall writes that “friends come and go, but enemies multiply.”

Hiding behind your desk when problems demand accountability means “you only know how to replace angry customers with ignorant ones.” Getting out in front of problems even when you are not forced to, conversely, persuades people to trust that your company will do the right thing.

Spreadable, the latest product from Grasshopper Group, is a word-of-mouth marketing tool that will help you and your customers spread the word about your business. And we are giving you a sneak preview.

The Spreadable Private Launch Party

Tomorrow night we are offering our customers & friends the opportunity to come hang out in downtown Boston, network & get a peek at Spreadable. Along with FREE wine and beer there will be tons of…what else? Spreads! We’ll be giving several demos and handing out 10 beta invites to Spreadable.

What: Spreadable Launch Party
Date: August 26, 2010
Time: 6:30 PM
Place: The Entrepreneur Loving Workbar of Boston- 711 Atlantic Ave, Boston MA
To Register: http://spreadablelaunch.eventbrite.com/

For more information or questions, contact Grasshopper’s Ambassador of Buzz, Jonathan Kay @grasshopperbuzz.

We are currently hiring for the following positions:

Business Intelligence Analyst

The Business Intelligence Analyst will be responsible for helping drive strategic business decisions and solving analytical problems. They will communicate with all levels of organization across the company and use skills to drive business direction. Here are some key qualifications:

• 2-4 years of relevant experience in a business analyst role
• Experience with Excel, Access, statistics, PL/SQL, Oracle
• Strong attention to detail

Jr. Web Design Rockstar

If the word “UI Design” excites you, this may be your calling! The Junior Web Designer will contribute designs, work in Photoshop and learn key tips from other successful designers. Here are some qualifications we are looking for in our next web design rockstar:

• An impressive online portfolio
• HTML/CSS/jquery/Photoshop experience
• Training in various statistical methodolodgy

Ruby on Rails Developer

Here is an opportunity of a lifetime to help launch an entirely new business division focused on entrepreneurial services. You will have the chance to build web applications, services, and most of all encourage entrepreneurial development. Some key qualifications:

• 2+ years web application building experience
• Knowledge of database design, SQL, HTML, CSS and javascript

Social Media Coordinator

If you find yourself twittering, facebooking and keeping up with the latest social media trends, this could be the job for you. The social media coordinator will be responsible for handling Grasshopper’s social media, building blog content, and ensuring positive customer relationships. We want someone who especially:

• Has 1-2 years in the online marketing field
• Has excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to contribute to several marketing campaigns

Software Engineering Manager

If you’re an efficient web and software developer that can deliver your solutions with quality as well, this is a great job for you. The software engineering manager will ensure timely software release and development while mentoring a skilled team of quality assurance engineers. The software engineering manager should:

• Have multi-year experience developing web applications using BDD and TDD techniques
• Have strong experience in C# and ASP.NET, MVC, or Ruby on Rails
• Possess previous positive team leadership experience

Ruby on Rails Developer/Designer

Grasshopper Groups is in an exciting Growth phase, and you can be a part of it. The Rub Rails developer will help build the Chargify recurring billing application developed by Grasshopper labs. They will develop amazing applications from start to finish. Some key qualifications:

• Knowledge and capabilities of HTML, SQL, database design and web application building using Ruby on Rails
• Passion for web technologies and ability to work in a fast paced, deadline driven environment

If you possess the qualifications for these jobs and want to work in a fun environment while building your skills, apply at http://grasshoppergroup.com/careers-jobs

Grasshopper Group:

• Fizzlosophy: What are 3 startup marketing strategies to build a buzz around your company and product? Grasshopper CEO, Siamak Taghaddos is featured on Venture Fizz in their article on top strategies to build buzz around your brand. He stresses the importance of targeting the right people, being memorable, and getting people to talk about you. Check out Siamak’s helpful advice.
• 5 Outside-the-Box Marketing JobsiMedia Connection features Jonathan Kay in their article about his job “Ambassador of Buzz.” Read the article to find out what an ambassador of buzz is, what they do, and tips for spreading buzz.
• Hiring the Right Fit for your Startup CultureReadWriteWeb covers the Grasshopper company culture in an article about the importance of hiring the right people at a startup company. Learn about how to choose the right people in terms of core values and past experience.
• The Building Blocks of Making it Go ViralJonathan Kay guest blogs on Social Fresh in an article on how to get people to watch your viral video. He talks about key elements like humor, music and controversy among other elements. Read all of Jon’s tips at the site.
• Invest in a Community Manager NowJonathan Kay guest blogs on Greenhorn about the importance of hiring someone at your company to ensure customers are happy and talking about your brand. Read about how his successful experiences at Grasshopper have come through positive word of mouth.
• The 3 Most Common Mistakes When Growing An Idea Into a Business Jonathan Kay guest blogs about mistakes he has seen entrepreneurs make over and over again and how you can avoid making them. Included are tips on being imperative, hiring the right people and not being afraid to fail.
• Start-up Technology Rentention Concerns Boston.com features Grasshopper Group’s Chief Operating Officer, Don Schiavone in an article about employee engagement and retention. Don shares his experiences with success at Grasshopper and how they have managed to foster “leaders,” not “managers.” Read about Grasshopper’s positive employee culture.

Grasshopper

• Entrepreneur Recruitment with Jonathan KayGetYourBizSavvy talks with Ambassador of Buzz Jonathan Kay about Grasshopper, his role, and entrepreneurial empowerment. Read the full article and watch the video about what Grasshopper FedEx’d!
• Case Study: Grasshopper-Rebranding done Right Laura Lowell gives a great overview of the Grasshopper rebranding campaign last May. Read from the case study which covers everything from the YouTube videos to the chocolate grasshoppers.
• 22 Small Business Phone ServicesSmallBizTrends lists Grasshopper as one of their favorite virtual phone services! Read about Grasshopper and 22 other small business phone services. What was the favorite feature? Faxes Emailed as PDFs.

Chargify

• Recurring Billing for Web Apps Chargify is featured in Think Vitamin’s post on recurring billing systems. Read about billing systems, payment gateways, and why your company should use them. The article even states that Chargify has the “richest set of features and lowest barrier to entry.”
• Chargify Takes Care of Your Recurring Billing System NeedsAfter recently attending Tech Cocktail Boston, Tech Cocktail gives a nice overview of Chargify’s mission and benefits. Featured – the free monthly service, API integration and how it can simplify billing.  They even have Jonathan Kay’s video from the Tech Cocktail breakfast on the site!
• Welcome Chargify to Our Family of IntegrationsFormstack, a data management blog, praises Chargify in  their post. They include how and why they use Chargify and how recurring billing is important for them. Watch the video about Chargify and Formstack integration!

Jailbroken iPhone applications are a noteworthy example. Apple has angered many iPhone users (and application developers) by refusing to let certain apps be sold in its store without explanation. But instead of meekly giving up, a growing movement of jailbroken app developers and retailers are fighting back.

The Need For Jailbreaking

Since its 2007 release, reviewers and journalists have raved about all that the iPhone can do: its 200 unique patents (according to ABC), its touch screen, its camera and its raw processing power.

Unfortunately, die-hard tech enthusiasts soon discovered that some of the iPhone’s most tantalizing features were “locked down” and inaccessible to the user. The iPhone 3G, for instance, does not record video out of the box despite being technically capable of it. Nor was this an accident: the only way to access this and other hidden features is by “jailbreaking” your iPhone.

Jailbreaking -also known as unlocking – involves changing the iPhone’s underlying software.

What Jailbroken Apps Can Do That “Normal” Apps Can’t

After jailbreaking, iPhone owners can (among other things):

• Customize backgrounds and icons
• Customize sounds
• Download applications from places other than Apple’s iTunes store
• Use carrier services other than AT&T
• Use the iPhone as a wireless modem

Apple, it should be noted, does not approve of jailbreaking and has even denied support services to some iPhone owners who do so. It has also tried to spread the notion that jailbreaking is illegal, which appears to be false – thus, the gray area. Gizmodo offers a comprehensive tutorial on how to jailbreak, for those interested in learning more.

Growing Demand

24/7 Wall Street finds that “the great majority of iPhones sold in China are unlocked” and that “approximately 7.5 million” iPhones are jailbroken overall.

In a video interview, Jay Freeman (founder of underground app store Cydia) told CNN that 8%-10% of all iPhones are jailbroken and that Cydia individually had done $1.5 million in sales since opening up for business. In an August 2009 article, Wired noted that Cydia was being accessed by nearly 500,000 users per day.

Kim Streich, whose 3G Unrestrictor earned $19,000 in sales after being on Cydia for only two weeks, remarked that “people are so annoyed by Apple and their shit, and if you give them opportunity to go around it, then they’ll even pay for it.” 3G Unrestrictor allows iPhone 3G users to have FaceTime conversations and use applications like Skype while using AT&T’s 3G network.

The Jailbroken App Market

At first glance, it might seem like underground iPhone app sales would not be a very stable or long-lasting market. 24/7 Wall Street finds, for instance, that Apple claims to have lost $450 million or more due to app piracy. This suggests an unwillingness on the part of many iPhone owners to pay for the apps they use.

However, it does not appear that all or even most of this piracy is coming from jailbroken iPhone users. Later in the same article, 24/7 Wall Street notes that “only 40% of jailbroken devices use pirated software.”

The other 60%, presumably, willingly pay websites like Cydia for jailbroken apps that make use of unlocked iPhone features like FaceTime. And while Wired concedes that “Cydia’s numbers appear small” compared with mainstream app sales, it also shows that “you don’t have to be huge to make money.” In fact, Wired writes:

“With a smaller market, fewer competitors and a reasonably large customer base, each developer has a higher chance for making a quick buck, Freeman said. Plus, you get more personal attention: Developers submitting their app through Cydia need only contact Freeman, and their app can be made available almost immediately.”

How Consumers Benefit

Consumers have benefited greatly from jailbreaking and the jailbroken iPhone apps being sold by gray market entrepreneurs like Jay Freeman. That’s because some of the best iPhone apps are arbitrarily rejected by Apple and cannot be downloaded from the app store.

In his essay Apple’s Mistake, venture capitalist Paul Graham writes that “lot of programmers have started to see Apple as evil” because:

“They treat iPhone apps the way they treat the music they sell through iTunes. Apple is the channel; they own the user; if you want to reach users, you do it on their terms. The record labels agreed, reluctantly. But this model doesn’t work for software. It doesn’t work for an intermediary to own the user.”

One app developer interviewed by Graham had this to say:

“While I did enjoy developing for the iPhone, the control they place on the App Store does not give me the drive to develop applications as I would like. In fact I don’t intend to make any more iPhone applications unless absolutely necessary.”

Ultimately, Graham warns, Apple’s bureaucratic approach to running its app store will cause more developers to feel this way and simply avoid developing new iPhone apps altogether. Jailbreaking and jailbroken app markets like Cydia help ensure that iPhone owners can download the apps they want, regardless of what Apple has to say about it.

Social Fresh Charlotte is a one-day social media conference in North Carolina on August 16, that will feature various speakers talking about social media and providing us with their expert advice.

One of these experts is our very own Ambassador of Buzz, Jonathan Kay, @grasshopperbuzz who will be speaking about the use of web videos for marketing (think New Dork video).

Along with Jonathan there will be a ton of great speakers and great topics. Here’s some more info on the event:

Who’s it for?

Anyone who wants to learn about leveraging social media! Not just bloggers, social media consultants, or startups.

What kinds of topics will be discussed?

Topics include:

• Turning social media into a company wide platform
• Social media tools
• Implementing a social media strategy in your company
• Using social media for customer service
• Web video for marketing
• Product Demo
• Keynote speaker Amber Naslund

…and more!

Who else will be there?

Other speakers include Social Fresh founder Jason Keath, Shawn McPike of AT&T, Blue Sky Factory CEO Greg Cangialosi, Open-First CEO Ted Shelton, and many other social media experts!

How do I register?

To register, visit the online registration site http://www.amiando.com/sofresh-charlotte.html. Hurry though…tickets are selling out fast!

*Update*

Check out some of the great recaps from the conference:

• What I learned at Social Fresh Charlotte
• Social Fresh: Web video for marketing
• Social Fresh Charlotte Recap
• Social Media in the Queen City of the South

Ben’s impressive rise to marketplace success is chronicled below:

The Big Idea

PopCityMedia.com explores the early days of GIVE Water and how Ben Lewis made the decision to start it. After incorporating as PurBlu Beverages, the then eighteen year-old Lewis’ mission was simple: turn a bottled water business into a permanent, self-sustaining charitable donor. His basic strategy for achieving this is as follows:

“Unlike other brands, their water, GIVE, comes in three causes: GIVE Life for children suffering from poverty and malnourishment in the world; GIVE Hope for women suffering from breast cancer; and GIVE Love for the environment.”

Different bottles of GIVE Water are adorned in a different color label denoting one of these causes. This way, consumers can look at them all on a shelf and consciously decide which charity and cause they wish to support. Once the purchase is made, ten cents of the price is automatically donated to whichever cause that bottle corresponds to. (Competitor Ethos, Inc.com notes, gives just five cents of each purchase to charity.) The list of causes that consumers may support with their GIVE Water purchases now includes environmental issues and muscular disorder research (green and orange labels, respectively.)

The Early Days

Ben Lewis was under no illusions about how competitive the market he entered was. “When you look at the bottled water market, there are 800 brands out there,” Lewis told PopCityMedia. “It’s critical that we set our product apart from all other brands. This makes activism really easy for people. All they have to do is buy the water.”

Of course, business success is never quite as easy as entrepreneurs initially believe. Despite having a meaningful unique selling proposition and point of difference, Lewis had to hustle to gain early traction and distribution.

Early on, Inc.com finds that Lewis borrowed warehouse space at the office of a friend’s father and began selling GIVE Water from the trunk of his own car. He was pleased to find that people did indeed want to buy his product, but naturally, the sell out of your car distribution method is not very scalable. As a logical next step, Lewis succeeded in persuading some local delis and grocery stores in Pittsburgh to stock GIVE.

Company Expansion

His initial plans for a nationwide roll-out by the end of 2007 proved far too optimistic. However, Lewis, his product sales and the story behind it did slowly begin to attract the attention of distributors on the East Coast, in Canada and the Midwest. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reveals that the enterprising young man convinced a nearby Whole Foods, the Giant Eagle in Cranberry, and the Children’s Museum café to stock the beverage. By the end of 2007, GIVE had donated “around $3,000-$4,000″ to charity.

By February 2008, the Daily Pennsylvanian found that Lewis had found a headquarters for his company: a 2,000 square-foot office on the eighth floor of One Oxford Centre.

Additionally, Lewis brought in some “adult help” to manage the GIVE’s growth. Gary Paparella, an ex-Cadbury Schweppes executive with 28 years of beverage industry experience, had become the company’s Chief Operating Officer, alongside CEO Ben Lewis.

Whole Foods & Future Plans

Lewis summed up his ultimate goals for GIVE Water in his interview with the Daily Pennsylvanian:

“What I’m trying to achieve with GIVE is to leverage the rapid growth of bottled water and use it as a vehicle to create social change.”

It’s still early, but Lewis is well on his way. In March 2009, Inc.com reported that Lewis had deals in place with Whole Foods to carry GIVE Water on both coasts. At the time, GIVE had donated “more than $50,000, which suggests retail sales of about $650,000″ in the 18 months since the company’s mid-2007 founding. Lewis now expects nationwide reach by the end of 2010, and a May 2010 company press release states that its products are already “distributed in thousands of outlets across the US and Canada.”

GIVE has also run a number of contests which award seed money to aspiring young social entrepreneurs. The top prize in the most recent contest, announced on May 12, went to biodiesel firm GTECH.

Ben’s Advice For Aspiring Young Entrepreneurs

Ben’s early business experience has taught him a number of valuable lessons other young entrepreneurs would do well to learn. Time management is crucial. Inc.com writes that “Lewis often must decide between taking a conference call and going to class.” Lewis has also learned the importance of budgeting. Says Lewis:

“It’s really helped me gain experience with adults. Seriously, what 18 year old has to make budgets? No one out there my age is running a company with a $600,000 budget.”

More broadly, Lewis advises:

“I know it’s kind of cliché, but I would have to say anything is possible, don’t give up. There were a couple of times when I gave up. I realized at one point that I was too far along not to go forward, I knew more about bottled water than I needed to know. Set high standards for yourself.”

Keeping Tabs

Those interested in keeping tabs on GIVE Water and Ben Lewis can go here:

• DrinkGive.com
• Ben’s LinkedIn