By Logan Langlois
NASHVILLE, TN — Lovers of independently owned Nashville Black Business celebrate the second release of the Nashville Black Business Coupon Book with a kickoff party filled with families, fun, music, and, naturally, small businesses selling their unique items. The coupon book provides buyers with a wide array of coupons available to spend at over 75 businesses spanning a variety of industries and offers a total of over $800 worth of savings. The project is a joint effort between two locally beloved Nashvillian entrepreneurs, Thomas Kelly of Creative Soulz and Danielle McGee of Black Business Boom, who together have produced a coupon book advertising businesses that specialize in apparel, food and beverage, home decor, business services, and more.
In a brief break from running around coordinating his launch party, Kelly detailed that the idea for the coupon book came to him randomly while watching a coworker of his sell “smart cards” for her school. He realized that there was nothing like this idea for the Nashvillian Black community. Being someone who loves giving back, Kelly looked at the skill set he was able to offer through the printing services that Creative Soulz provides and decided to get to work in providing coupon books for local Black Nashvillian businesses that would benefit both the stores and the consumer.
While first gathering all the pieces needed to take on such task Kelly reached out to Black Business Boom’s Co-Owner Danielle McGee, with whom Kelly says he already had a good working relationship. Kelly says that it’s Black Business Boom’s deep and positive relationships throughout Nashvillian Black-owned local businesses through providing great resources for them to grow that led to his contacting McGee. Upon hearing about the project, Kelly says that McGee was “all on board for it because it’s something that goes along with what she stands for and supports as well.”
To stay on schedule for an annual summer release, Kelly says that he begins reaching out to as many businesses as he possibly can whom he believes may be interested in the opportunity at the beginning of the year. From there he coordinates with the businesses via email regarding the kind of deals they would like to offer through the coupon book.
“We have one option where you can just have a basic coupon,” Kelly says. “That’s where you put in what your offer is for your business, whether it’s money off, it’s a free item, it’s a percentage off, whatever works best for you. And then we put your social medias and logo on there.”
Kelly continues that businesses that want to invest more into a deal with the coupon book can also select an option that helps their business better stand out from the crowd. These options include a half-page ad within the book that can also include different graphics that fit the theme of your business, as well as a full-page ad. Next, Kelly moves on to what he calls the “design stage” of the coupon book, which he admits can take “a little longer” than the previous stages of putting together the book.
In this stage, Kelly says he takes special care in making sure that the information of each business looks nice and professional, something which he says with a smile, he can be very particular about. The Nashville Black Business Coupon Book is now currently available on the Creative Soulz website creativesoulzprinting.com for $24.99.
