Today, we’d like to introduce you to Brenton Wright.
Hi Brenton, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
My origin story for Dealsby was that my parents were small business owners while I was in college in the 1980s, and they often struggled with customer acquisition (finding that next new customer). It bothered me that they regularly struggled, and I felt like many small business owners in the community experienced the same pain. Customer acquisition is the often surveyed #2 pain point for small business owners in the U.S., only behind lack of cash flow. My interest in creating and running a small business after graduating from college and undergraduate studies motivated me to choose my MBA concentration in Entrepreneurship & Small Business.
When COVID first came to the U.S. in early 2020, I had a lot of time at home, like most folks, to sit and evaluate how to create, design, and build out the Dealsby referral marketing technology to tackle the challenge of customer acquisition. I went through and tested numerous system design prototypes and wireframes and developed an algorithm-based referral marketing solution that is very efficient and effective for my customers (both consumers and small business owners).
I wanted to create a web and app-based solution that helps consumers easily refer small businesses faster and more efficiently and be rewarded for their referrals with a discount on a first-time or future purchase with the referred business. Since we spend most of our day on mobile devices, why not have an app that allows you to easily support your small business community and save time and money?
I also wanted to create a centralized referral rewards community by specialty that allowed consumers to easily search for great small businesses in their local community that are offering special discounts & promotions specifically for customer referrals. Currently, you have to seek out businesses individually to find their offers (if they have any); with Dealsby, you can come to one destination (Dealsby.io on your smart devices) to easily search, find great local offers, and share them with your family and friends.
Dealsby allows you to easily share small business referrals and the referral reward offers with your family and friends in just a few clicks using your text, email and social media. Dealsby was created to help grow local economies while also helping consumers save time and money while also better connecting with businesses located in their community.
Can you talk to us about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Like most entrepreneurs, it took a while to find the possible product/market fit. Product/Market Fit is an ongoing challenge and can evolve over time as customers find new uses so even if you feel like you have found it, changes in customer behavior can make it obsolete.
I had to do a product pivot and a few micro-pivots along the way but as I talked to more and more potential customers, I found that I had a solution that customers would want to incorporate into their daily business lives. I talked to restaurant and retail store owners, specialty home contractors such as electricians and handyman services as well as realtors and movers. As I continue to talk to more and more customers every day, the interest level is high in Dealsby and how it can help them grow their business. I am starting with the restaurant and retail sector and will be adding other industries as my company gains traction.
Marketing studies indicate that over 95% of the U.S. population owns a smartphone and uses it an average of 5 to 6 hours per day. Consumers pretty much run their daily lives using their smartphones, so I said to myself, why not create an app-based tool that makes it easy for consumers to share referrals of small businesses they love to shop while also being rewarded for their referrals? I talked to potential small business customers about their pain points, and almost all mentioned that they would like to have more customers patronizing their business. A few had an informal customer referral program but no way to promote & track referrals. It was a pretty unorganized method of getting new customer referrals. My overall desire was and remains to help small businesses grow and thrive.
Customers don’t care specifically about a product or service; they only care about how you can help them solve their problems. My mantra is customers don’t buy my service, they buy into my perspective in how I can help them solve their problem of customer acquisition. Consumers want more money-saving opportunities, especially with inflation reducing their purchasing power. Small businesses want to bring more customers into their business at a lower marketing cost, which also improves their profitability and increases customer loyalty. Referred customers tend to patronize a business longer than non-referred customers. It’s the trust and pre-vetting that consumers want. A referral coming from family and friends is considered much more reliable and trustworthy than relying on often biased advertisements.
It has taken almost three years to build Dealsby. Launching in Q1 of 2024, Dealsby has pre-registered several hundred consumer subscribers throughout Georgia in anticipation of this new web and app-based savings solution. I have had businesses such as restaurants, realtors, movers, electricians, handyman services, and other referral-dependent industries express a high interest in having an easier and more cost-effective way to receive customer referrals. My goal, as Founder & CEO, is for Dealsby to be a day-in-the-life product for my users.
I want Dealsby to be incorporated into my customer’s daily routine without thinking and be THE go-to app for saving time and money and better connecting with their local economy. Deals by is totally free for consumers and an easy-to-use, viral, and affordable way to have a viral and cost-effective referral marketing solution for small business owners.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I have lived in Atlanta since 2016. I have spent over 30 years in sales. I have worked for organizations such as the Kentucky Lottery and a handful of pharmaceutical companies over the majority of my work career. I truly enjoy the sales aspect because it is a continuum and also because I enjoy establishing, developing and maintaining business relationships with customers. My goal is to help solve your problem(s) and hopefully make your job a little easier at the end of the day. I have been very fortunate and blessed and have always been successful in the sales positions I have had over the years.
Starting Dealsby allows me to use my vast sales and management experience along with my acquired knowledge and skill set over the years to work with small business owners and help them solve an often-mentioned recurring pain point, which is customer acquisition. I have a very firm understanding of computers and technology. Customers honestly don’t care about my product per se; they care much more about how I can help them solve their problems.
So my introduction doesn’t start with Dealsby; it starts with what challenges they are facing on a daily basis, what they have used to solve those problems/issues, and what has worked or not worked for them in the past. I have a love for technology and believe I have built a value-added solution that will become a business management tool for businesses that rely on customer referrals. Dealsby is a simple, viral, and affordable referral marketing and customer engagement technology that does not require a large investment in time to operate/maintain expertise or financial commitments.
What sets me apart from others is the ability to quickly and easily engage with customers and gain their trust and respect. Customers can tell if you truly know your business and theirs, and my motto has been to know your customer, your product, and your business. In today’s business world, it is important to not just compare but differentiate how you can directly help solve the problems of the day.
Dealsby is a referral marketing and customer engagement technology that makes it easy for small businesses to implement effective referral marketing strategies such as web & app-based customer referral programs, compared to traditional word-of-mouth referrals, and leverage the power of personal recommendations.
What were you like growing up?
Growing up, I was a middle child and the first in my family to go to and graduate from college. I was always an inquisitive individual, and I was very athletic. Computers have always fascinated me, but not as a software developer; I was curious about how they worked and performed programmed tasks. With Dealsby, I am a non-technical founder, so I handle all aspects of my business except software code development and implementation. I consider myself to be a Type A personality and always have a plan and often a backup plan for whatever I want to accomplish, whether personal or professional. I believe my family and friends would agree with the aforementioned statement.
Attending the University of Louisville for my undergraduate and graduate studies taught me to prepare for the often unpredictable world and offer relevant solutions that help solve problems. To this day, I believe college prepared me for success by equipping me with the knowledge and skill set to perform at a high level. My interests included following the stock market and understanding fundamental and technical analysis of companies. I enjoyed playing golf and reading books that were often non-fiction because I wanted to continue to broaden my understanding of the world and how it operates.
My friends would say I am very kind, witty, empathetic, and compassionate. People close to me would also say I am altruistic and always willing to sacrifice and help wherever I can. One of my planned social responsibility initiatives for Dealsby is to be active in the child hunger dilemma in school. Many children go hungry every day and are sometimes denied meals because of delinquent school breakfast and lunch balance. I want my company to work to engage Dealsby member small businesses more in donating a certain percentage of referral reward discounts to schools in their area.
I haven’t had the opportunity to travel much over the years, but that is my plan later in life. My mission and vision over the coming years are to make Dealsby an eventual nationwide referral marketing and customer engagement solution and also make it an API (Application Program Interface) where other companies can employ my technology to create customer referral and engagement solutions for their own business. I really want Dealsby to have a heavy presence in Georgia and the Atlanta area. Atlanta is such a great city to launch and operate a technology company. My social media content often ends with “Made with love in Atlanta.” After I’m ready to call it a work/entrepreneurship career, I want to work with new entrepreneurs in mentoring, educating, and providing guidance.
The world is changing drastically and I was educated on running brick and mortar type businesses. More companies today are tech-based and AI technology is adding a whole new variable and will most likely affect what job opportunities will be available and what will most likely go away as AI continues to evolve and society incorporates it into their daily lives. As a business owner, I have to stay on top of the latest trends and technologies driving society.
Pricing:
- Consumers: Free.
- Small Business: SaaS Referral Marketing Technology: $199 per month (term discounts are available).
- Small Business: SaaS Featured Small Business Add-on Option: +$79 per month (term discounts are available) https://dealsby.io/pricing_page
Contact Info:
- Website: https://dealsby.io
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dealsby.io/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DealsbyMarketingTechnology
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dealsby/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/VirelyReferral
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGuSpNahmJu0vl3XYqrBuhg
- Other: https://virely.co
