WORK is Play at Cardinal Selling Services

We think our work day is better than our friend’s best vacation!

Here at Cardinal Selling Services we talk a lot about community and the value we bring to our business clients, friends and neighbors by helping them get maximum value for their high-value assets. We are now over 10 years into our journey here in Dubois County, in our most recent office in Jasper, IN. Our founder, Vicki Wiederkehr, gave our business it's start with a desire for helping people, a strong work ethic, and an intense drive for creating selling strategies that work.

Strassenfest in our hometown of Jasper

Hustling to make great deals on behalf of our clients is a part of our lifestyle here at Cardinal Selling Services. Some weeks that might mean driving 200 miles to look at an office building full of cubicles, and others it could mean we are in a whirlwind of activity making sure all our eCommerce channels are up-to-date and working their magic. No two days are the same.  

Related:  The Daily Grind

Over the past months our Franchise Model has been refined as we continue to talk to prospective partners and qualify some initial leads and markets. This process led our founder, Vicki Wiederkehr to visit Gulf Shores, Alabama last week to explore the potential viability to place a successful Cardinal Selling Services franchise in this community.  

One of the top priorities for Vicki on this trip was to get a sense of the business landscape. Meeting with the local Chamber of Commerce was the obvious place to start and the folks there were extremely friendly and eager to share the positive aspects of the Gulf Shores business community. The Director, Mike LaCroix provided all the important demographics that need to be considered for a business like ours. Vicki hustled to meet restaurant owners, the Habitat restore manager, and speak with other business owners.  She was excited to report the need for a Cardinal Selling Services location in their city.

The sale of classic cars, boats and RVs was another area of high potential in this marketplace. There are plenty of new dealers to choose from, but if you are looking to buy or sell a used vehicle the consensus was that there really is no option that will promote those type of assets front and center. Dealers have been treating this category as more of a last-resort option if they cannot sell a customer a new product.  

Being a tourist destination, there is a restaurant on every corner. Flora-Bama is a restaurant/bar that is a long-time institution in this community that Vicki also had a chance to meet with and talk about local dynamics. The primary options to buy or sell used restaurant equipment or office furniture are down the road in Mobile and relatively expensive compared to most options in this category. Flora-Bama alone has an entire warehouse of idle equipment that needs to be sold.  

Shrimpfest along the public beach in Gulf Shores

Learning about a community means trying to get "local".  It is a tough job, but someone has to do it. Remember, we advocate making work fun and a part of your lifestyle. Vicki took full advantage one  afternoon to fish off the dock on an inland channel where she landed several barracuda. The annual Shrimpfest also happened to be taking place as well.  This is the 45th year this event takes place and attracts over 250,000 people. It is a celebration of all the great things about living and playing in this coastal community. There was plenty of great food, local artisans selling their wares, and music on multiple stages. This all took place along the public beach with the sparkling gulf waters as a backdrop.  

Overall this fact-finding mission was highly successful. Gulf Shores is a vibrant community full of wonderful people. Vicki gained tremendous perspective into how to approach new markets to apply the Cardinal Selling Services franchise model. Each community will offer unique challenges and opportunities that need to be taken into consideration to insure success.  We believe that at the end of the day the most important variable will be how well Cardinal Selling Services makes the efforts to get to know our new friends and neighbors and become a contributing member of the community just as we have in our hometown of Jasper.