Texas

Jeremy Denson was looking for a way to supplement his family’s income. “I’d always had a knack for entrepreneurship,” he says, and frequent hunting and fishing trips helped him recognize a market gap for mid-priced, quality coolers. “I thought, why aren’t more people making premium products at an affordable price point?,” he recalls. He co-founded Bison Coolers in 2011 as the company’s president; it soon became his full-time job. Issues with the quality of imported items led them to pivot to U.S. production, and “American-made” quickly became a core company value when their manufacturing plants told them the work was creating jobs. Plus, customers loved the American craftsmanship behind their products. “We take a lot of pride in being one of the few cooler companies that produce domestically,” Jeremy says.

With a challenging year behind them and tough market conditions for premium goods, the company is focused on strategic growth. “As a small family-run company, it's hard to compete in big stores. But we can compete online,” says Vice President Mike Lewis. “Google Ads is our number one channel for reaching and acquiring customers.” Today, 30-40 percent of their customers come from Ads. Google Analytics 4 helps them optimize and manage ads in real-time. “We do all our marketing in-house,” Mike says. “With Google Analytics 4, we can be nimble and make changes when they have the biggest impact.” Gemini in Google Workspace tools like Docs helps them write product descriptions, and helps organize data in Sheets. “When I need to put my finance hat on, I can just ask it for a formula and it walks me through it. It streamlines day-to-day operations,” Jeremy says. Bison Coolers now makes hard and soft coolers, tumblers, and even hammocks, all built for adventure. “We want to make a ridiculously high-performing product with a lifetime warranty,” Jeremy says. “We want to own the whole campsite.”

Force of Nature is a Texas-based regenerative meat company using agricultural principles that mirror nature instead of tilling, hormones, antibiotics, or synthetic chemicals. When childhood friends Taylor and Katie Collins and Robby Sansom began offering bison ranch tours and sharing their passion for sustainable agriculture practices, people were often brought to tears by how it aligned with their own values. Robby, CEO of Force of Nature, wondered why more ranchers weren’t taking this approach. “I was tired of doing these tours and seeing people have these epiphanies, and then not having a call-to-action for them that they will follow up on,” he says. In 2019, they answered their community’s call for better-raised meat and began selling in retail stores, but they wanted more ways to communicate how their product was different from other organic meats on the shelves.

So in 2020, the co-founders launched their website and decided to go direct-to-consumer. Orders quickly started coming in, and between packaging them up, they turned to YouTube and other sites to tell their own story. “We really wanted to be a content creation company. We wanted to create stories and inspire people to support this movement–it’s way bigger than us,” Robby says. It resonated. Force of Nature’s YouTube channel now has more than 2,000 subscribers and 88,000 views, and in just a few years they’ve grown to 31 employees. “Our goal is to be an educational and inspirational leader and resource for the regenerative movement,” Robby explains. “We are really excited about putting efforts into video this year, and want people to follow along.” Digital tools like Google Workspace have also been integral to their success. “Google has helped us grow and to ultimately serve our stakeholders: The ranchers, the animals, the earth, and the community,” he says.

Joey and Delanah Suarez started A&A Plumbing in 2007, when the opportunity “fell in my lap,” says Joey, a licensed plumber since 1998. What began as a favor for a friend turned into a business doing plumbing for the local construction industry. But in the 2008 recession the business struggled, and by 2015, Joey and Delanah decided to shift focus to residential plumbing. They saw a need for plumbers who could offer friendly “old-fashioned” customer service, Joey says: “We’re here to help people first–we just happen to do it through plumbing.” That big shift meant they quickly needed to reach people searching for plumbers around San Antonio, Texas. They set up a Google Business Profile and began using Google Ads to get the word out. It worked: Since 2015, their business has grown 30 percent each year.

Family-run A&A Plumbing now employs 37 people, including veterans and people transitioning out of military careers. Joey says Google Ads cost-per-click advertising, where they pay only when a customer clicks on their ad, has helped “get the phone to ring” and results in thousands of leads and clicks each year. “You can only have so many existing customers. New customers are what help you to grow,” Joey says. “Our Google reviews and the Google Ads we put out there drum up new business and fuel the future growth we’re trying to achieve.” A&A also works with a local fire station and charities like the Randolph Area Christian Assistance Program to help people on low and fixed incomes. Joey says the Google Guarantee badge–available to businesses that pass a Google screening and verification process through Local Services Ads–and Google reviews have helped them build trust in the community. “People trust Google, and when Google says ‘Hey, we’ve done our due diligence on these contractors and they’re good to go,’ people know a credible person is coming into their house,” he says.

Growing up, Patricia Bedford watched her grandmother, Suga, bake and cook for family gatherings. “Her house was the hub of the family,” Patricia says. She learned to bake cakes at her grandmother’s side, and continued baking while working as a successful computer engineer, giving cakes as gifts to friends and family. Soon, they encouraged her to start a bakery. “I took cake decorating classes, but it was still a hobby–I kept my full-time job,” Patricia says. Though she didn’t leave her day job at first, Patricia set up a Google Business Profile in 2014, becoming a Texas Cottage Law home baker. She named her new business Suga’s Cakery in honor of her grandmother, who died in 2002. By 2018 Patricia had made the leap to full-time baker.

Google plays a central role in Suga's Cakery marketing efforts. For instance, Patricia uses Google Voice exclusively for her business. “I would see the call come in from Google and get so excited because I knew it was for my business,” she shares. Long active in Pflugerville (TX) Black Business Builders organization, Patricia was searching for a speaker for a symposium when she came across the opportunity to learn from Google Digital Coach Vicky Sepulveda. “She talked to us about how to use Google Ads effectively,” Patricia says. Today, Google Ads drive about 80 percent of the business, and their Google Business Profile has collected almost 300 five-star reviews. “I’ve doubled my revenues year over year and that has pretty much been the trend,” Patricia says. In 2020, she raised $17,000 through Kickstarter for the commercial bakery trailer that houses Suga’s Cakery. After landing a contract with a national franchise company, Patricia is now planning for a brick-and-mortar location.