The heart is a symbol of passion which can make a difference in perseverence in internet marketing.

 Well, I’ve been struggling with the issue of passion. Back in the nineties, I worked with a nonprofit agency to bring a brand new program to Delaware where I lived at the time.

It was a microloan program called Working Capital that provided business training and very small loans to tiny companies. Based on the Nobel Prize Winning Grameen Bank model created by Muhammad Yunus, Working Capital was supposed to do for America’s inner cities and rural areas what the international loan program had done for India and some African nations.

I can’t remember a time when I felt more passion than those many evenings I spent meeting with groups of small business owners explaining the program and helping them form loan groups. Once groups were formed, members discussed their business plans and sought the group’s approval for loans.

I was a woman on a mission. I really believed in free enterprise and its potential to transform communities.

What made the whole experience so powerful was the atmosphere we created. We held networking events, brought in special speakers and formed a lot of business loan groups. The energy in our building was so powerful you could feel the excitement. During the five or six years the program ran, hundreds of entrepreneurs joined Working Capital.

Our Delaware program was so successful that we won a Presidential Award and were invited to help form loan groups for street vendors before the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.

Thinking back, I realized that I poured so much of my heart and soul into that program that something inside me died with the program. I had a vision of little businesses transforming Wilmington in a similar way as successful minority owned companies changed the landscape of Memphis’ historic Beale Street. My hope died hard.

I created Savvy Marketing Secrets hoping to rekindle some of the passion I felt with Working Capital. By helping very small businesses harness the power of the Internet, I hoped to relight that spark.

Of course it’s not as easy to feel passion sitting in front of a computer screen as it was when I was meeting with real business owners. But tapping into that experience helped me remember my passion.

Many of the smallest businesses are not even on the Internet. But the net holds tremendous promise for business growth for those who take advantage of the various marketing tools. So my passion now is to use this blog to connect the dots to help businesses similar to the ones I worked with in Delaware.

I would love to hear your stories about your passion and how you are shaping it into your small business. Please leave a comment below.