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TMCNet: The Fresno Bee, Calif., Word on the Street column: Word on the Street: Honda North rolls into bigger digs

[January 11, 2009]

The Fresno Bee, Calif., Word on the Street column: Word on the Street: Honda North rolls into bigger digs

Jan 11, 2009 (The Fresno Bee - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
The Honda North dealership moved last week, but customers don't have far to go: less than half a mile down the street.

The dealership opened its new location at Herndon and Willow avenues in Clovis, leaving its previous location of 17 years at Herndon and Peach avenues.

Penske, which bought the dealership more than four years ago and bought Bingham Toyota last year, decided to invest in the Honda dealership and the central San Joaquin Valley, said general manager Gary Revis.

The newly constructed building, at 46,000 square feet, is more than double the size of the old one, and the property size jumped from about 3 to 8 acres, he said.

The new space allows the dealership to have separate used and new car sales areas, something it didn't have before. An on-site car wash is also new. And new equipment came with the move.

The service and parts departments closed for a day last Monday, but the sales department remained open during the move.

The move happened about the same time the auto industry reported a 36% drop in December sales, but Revis said he isn't worried about making big changes now.

"We'll be positioned when the market changes," Revis said. "We have faith in the car business that this will pass."

Print consolidation
Professional Print & Mail in Fresno has remodeled its downtown office allowing it to consolidate two of its businesses under one roof.

The company recently relocated Jet Print & Copy, formerly near Fresno Yosemite International Airport, to the Professional Print & Mail office at 2818 E. Hamilton Ave.

The $250,000 remodeling project updated the interior of the downtown office, giving it the space it needs to operate more efficiently.

The company employs about 50 people.
"Because of the advances in digital technology as it applies to the printing and mailing industries, we will be able to consolidate our equipment and people into one location and continue to provide our customers with the high quality products and outstanding service they require," said Doug Carlile, president of Professional Print & Mail.

The company provides printing and direct-mail services for large and small businesses, nonprofits and government agencies.

To help celebrate its remodeling project, the company is holding an open house from 4 to 7 p.m. Wednesday.

Outreach
Fresno marketing entrepreneur Eric McCormick hopes to help businesses use the Internet to reach out and touch their customers' iPhones, Blackberries and other smart phones.

McCormick, a 14-year veteran of the Valley's advertising and marketing scene in print and radio media, launched McCormick Mobile Media in August and scored a big hit helping the Tournament of Roses in Pasadena launch a Web site devoted to small-screen mobile devices.

He also has several local businesses, including restaurants, targeting on-the-go customers with text messages to their cell phones promoting specials or aiming them to mobile versions of their Web sites.

The explosive sales of Apple's iPhone in 2007 helped McCormick, 37, realize the weather change such devices mean for marketing and promotions, and it sparked the germination of his business plan.

"What we're starting to see is more and more people migrating to smart phones," he said. "When people aren't sitting at home watching TV or at work sitting at their computer, they're using their phone, and almost any business is going to need a mobile Web site to complement their regular Web site."

"Mobile marketing" not only includes mobile versions of Web sites and text messages to customers, but also text-to-win and text-to-vote campaigns, mobile alerts and other efforts geared toward customers' cell phones. McCormick said the effectiveness of the concept was deftly demonstrated by Barack Obama's presidential campaign and the organization's skillful use of text messages to develop not only a corps of followers, but a database of potential donors.

"This sort of technology is the sort of thing that usually trickles into Fresno a couple of years after everywhere else, and people have to go out of the market to find it," McCormick added. "But when something does arrive here, it gets embraced very quickly."

The interconnected nature of the Internet means McCormick, a Fresno native and California State University, Fresno, graduate, can base his business here and still cater to businesses anywhere in the country or around the world.

"I can do this anywhere and can stay here where I was born and raised," he said.
Bethany Clough, Robert Rodriguez and Tim Sheehan contributed to Word on the Street. It was compiled by Nax. The reporter can be reached at snax@fresnobee.com or (559) 441-6495.

To see more of The Fresno Bee, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to
http://www.fresnobee.com Copyright (c) 2009, The Fresno Bee, Calif. Distributed
by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email
tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax
to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave.,
Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

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