Cloudwise Joe and co-host Chauncey Haworth are on a mission to help local businesses get their websites online and their products online the way customers want to buy them.

The goal of Project Hometown is to get all local businesses in Shasta county online the way their customers want them to be by train high school kids to do that for them. Reach Higher Shasta has made this program possible.

If you own a business and want to sell the way customers want to buy, contact us! Find out more about Project Hometown here: www.projecthometown.com

Joe: You’re listening to The Being Found Show, I’m your host, Cloud wise Joe, with my co-host Chauncey Haworth. Believe it or not you are listening to the best hour in radio for businesses. If your company’s not being found, who is? I’m your guide to being found by more buying customers. Your customers are using the Internet. The idea of this show is to help you understand how to use the Internet to find more buying customers.

Thanksgiving just passed and there’s a lot of news around and some incredible things happening on the Internet. We’re going to talk about that in this show. We are going to talk about Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Chauncey: I got to say that economically, Black Friday is probably an American holiday.

Joe: Yeah it might be, and as a matter of fact some of the stats we’re going to go over actually prove your point there. It’s more like Black month. You know it’s Cyber Monday, Black Friday or whatever. Well we’re going to talk about that and listen if you have a business, own a business, want to run a business, thinking about having a business, are an entrepreneur, I don’t care. If you’re involved in a business you’re going to want to listen to the show today because some of the stats that we’re seeing right now are crazy. Things are changing. Customers are changing how they buy. We want to go ahead and pull back the green curtain and explain that to you also.

I want to play a video about a coalition that’s going on called Project Hometown. The idea is to get every single business in Shasta County selling the way that customers want to buy. I’m telling you just about everyone that can be involved is involved. We’re training high school kids to help business build the right website and get products online.

We had our first high school class go through Cloud Wise Academy. I want to play a video, there’s about 8-10 kids in this class and they’re cute. Gosh I remember being a high school kid. I wasn’t as smart as these guys were or as cute. Jake, who was one of my first students and now is an instructor and works for me, was teaching these kid. Let’s go ahead and play this quick audio.

In this video, Jake interviews the 1st Project Hometown students.

Jake: You guys just finished the first ever Project Hometown class. You guys spent three weeks learning how to build a website. Can anyone tell me anything that they found shocking or surprising about the class?

Student 1:  I was surprised by how fun it was. I thought it was going to be pretty boring.

Student 2:  It was interesting to learn the business side of it because you don’t often think about that.

Student 3: I was surprised about how easy and simple it was.

Jake: That’s the mystery that people who charge a lot of money for this want to maintain and you guys are totally breaking up there.

Joe: So here’s the thing. The reason I wanted to play that is I’m super proud of these kids, I’m proud of Jake for teaching the class and here’s the thing. Those kids learned in three weeks what we teach the adult class in six weeks. Jake said he almost couldn’t keep up teaching his kids. Things are shifting. Average business people have talent that can help us manage this. This internet change, the shift in how people are buying, we’ve got talent everywhere around us. These high school kids do this naturally. The program that helped fund this is called ‘Reach Higher Shasta’. It helps high school kids get intern jobs for part of their credits. I don’t know much about how regular school works or why those things matter. But anyways there it is. Reach Higher Shasta thought it would be neat to help pay for these kids to go through our school, learn these skills, also help regular businesses get their websites and products online the way customers want to buy. The incredible thing is these kids get it naturally and they liked it. This is what they already do.

I’ve got to applaud the high schools and colleges and Reach Higher Shasta for working with schools like mine to help expose these kids to this. If you own a business right now and you want your website online you want to sell the way customers want to buy, you need to go over Project Hometown. You need to sign up because it’s really easy to just put your e-mail address in and we’ll get a hold of you. The next thing that’s going to happen is these kids are going to start working on websites with the other partners of Project Hometown and we’re going to get sites built for I think around $500 or $750. Half of that goes to the student and half goes to the partner, provider, or agency who’s managing that student. The time is here, there’s no reason businesses can’t be selling in the way your customers want to buy.

Chauncey: A lot of people come down on kids these days and their skateboards, the millennials and blah blah blah. But really this is a new business and these kids already know how to do practically everything. They just have no focus they have no linear path to getting it done. So, If you just give them a path they’re already on it.

Joe: Yeah it is funny. I can’t say that I am discouraged or disappointed in our youth because I’m not. I was probably the most discouraging, disappointing youth that ever walked the face of the earth.

Chauncey: Oh totally. People just cut to this disappointment thing. But then the next generation comes along and does something amazing. So imagine if we treated them like they’re going to do something amazing and like here let us help you you know.

Joe: Yeah you’re right Chauncey. Anyways it feels good. I’m super proud. Businesses, tap into this talent. Signup and see how we can help. There’s no reason not to.

Thanks for listening to The Being Found Show. Find out how Project Hometown can help you!

Join the movement at:  www.projecthometown.com