What does it take to grow a business from a single consumer to 100? For Joe Alvarez and Erick Casillas, founders of iCareClean in Montebello, CA, the remedy was a lot of tricky work—and a small enable from free Verizon courses.

When Alvarez and Casillas released their commercial cleansing provider in 2016, the two friends—who’ve regarded each individual other given that superior school—made a desire into a actuality. “It was generally a aspiration of ours to start off our personal firm,” suggests Casillas.

The entrepreneurs had been accustomed to aged-fashioned marketing approaches that worked for them at to start with. They knocked on doors and relied on phrase-of-mouth referrals to create up their client foundation. But when the pandemic strike, their promoting program floundered. “We experienced to alter our way of contemplating,” Alvarez states.

By having free on the net classes with Verizon Smaller Small business Electronic Prepared, Alvarez discovered new strategies to marketplace the enterprise digitally, with qualified, area-dependent procedures for on the net adverts. “I commenced undertaking things outside of my consolation zone,” he suggests. Alvarez utilized resources such as digital business addresses, placing up accounts that assisted the business develop throughout Los Angeles. He also transformed the social media technique to promote the duo’s do the job in the film and Television set industry, which held employment flowing in.