Golf entrepreneurs take a swing at e-commerce with expert advice from Verizon - Verizon

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Denny Rivas and Gia Mora credit one-on-one coaching from Verizon Small Business Digital Ready with helping them boost online sales of their product, The Original Cap Magnet.
Like many inspired business ideas, Denny Rivas’ company, The Original Cap Magnet, was born on the golf course. Rivas, an avid golfer and insurance broker based in Los Angeles, CA, conceived of a product that would easily keep a ball marker right where he needed it while playing—namely, at his fingertips. Rivas is a leftie, and saw a need for a magnet patch that you can place anywhere on your hat, rather than using the mainly right-sided, sewn-in cap magnets on the market.
Working with his business partner and girlfriend, Gia Mora, a full-time artist and writer, Rivas launched The Original Cap Magnet. The product is a flexible magnet that fits neatly into any hat (not just golf caps) or even in a shoe or golf bag.
But because of the nature of the product—it’s meant to be unseen, wherever you wear it—the Cap Magnet was tricky to market. “One of the challenges we faced is that our product is invisible,” Mora explains. “How do you convince someone that they need something that they don’t even know is there?”
To help transform their passion project into a full-fledged business, Mora and Rivas turned to Verizon Small Business Digital Ready.
Content marketing ideas from Creating Content That Matters: Compelling Content for Your Business helped the couple change their approach, as did one-on-one coaching with a marketing expert, “It was a long session that was really and truly about our business,” says Rivas. “There was no sales pitch with it. It was just for us.”
The courses and coaching inspired the entrepreneurs to rework their website with explanatory videos to help sell their product. The changes translated, in turn, to a 20% uptick in sales. “Everything we’ve learned through Verizon Small Business Digital Ready has helped transform our business,” says Mora.
Next up for the pair: turning the side gig into a full-time career for Rivas. “I’m very happy with where we are, especially since the advice and the experience we’ve gotten from Verizon Small Business Digital Ready,” says Rivas. “We’re really going full bore now.”

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