Small business owners looking to increase visibility ahead of NFL Draft in Detroit
(CBS DETROIT) - "All eyes are on us. Let's go Detroit," said Kiersten Johnson, a small business owner who attended Monday night's "NFL Draft Small Business Pregame."
It's part of multiple workshops, all aimed at using online tools through Google to help small business owners get a step ahead of the competition so they can have a piece of the economic pie the NFL Draft will bake in the city.
"To learn how to position myself in Google to make myself easily accessible for the people who are going to be descending on to our city. I make customized cookies so I would love the opportunity to be able to service customers who are going to be coming near and far," Johnson said.
Johnson has owned and operated "Cookies by Kiersten" since 2009. Like many small business owners in and around Detroit, she is looking for ways to maximize all of the eyes on the city when the draft is in town.
"All the hotels downtown are going to be sold out. And also Oakland, Wayne, Macomb counties all throughout the region probably as far as Canada on the other side of the river. We're going to fill those up, and then all the restaurants will need to be ready to go 25 hours, eight days a week because we're going to have hundreds, maybe 300-400,000 people attending this draft," said Claude Molinari, the President and CEO of Visit Detroit.
"Detroit is winning right now. You know, to be able to build upon all of the excitement that's going on in the city and have a vein in that pulse is just great as a small business owner. I feel like I'm building upon something that has already been great," Johnson added.
The next workshop is scheduled for Wednesday, April 3, at 1 p.m.