ABQ Find uses many methods to send customers to your business. First, when customers use a major search engine such as Google, Yahoo, or Bing to search for a locally-owned business, then there is a good chance that ABQ Find's members are included in those search results. In fact, there are some categories that we promote that are the #1 search result!

Secondly, we make appearances at public events where we have our remote kiosks available for consumers. Consumers can browse the ABQ Find site at these events, and we can explain to them one-on-one how shifting the purchases they already make to locally-owned businesses will help create jobs and support the local economy as opposed to shopping at big-box stores.

And finally, our Customer Localty Program is the best and most innovative way to attract consumers to your business. Learn more about the program.

We charge a low monthly fee of $20.00 for our paid business listings and $0.00 for our free business listings. When you upgrade from a free to a paid listing there are no long-term contracts and your rate is guaranteed to never increase as long as you keep your account current and are using our PayPal payment option (no matter what features we add to your listing). We use PayPal's recurring subscription service to keep costs down, automate a large part of our system, and ensure your financial information stays safe.

There is the option of invoicing for those who do not want to use PayPal or a credit card. Unlike the monthly automatic option, the invoice will be billed quarterly at the beginning of each cycle and will be charged NM Gross Receipts Tax.

That's a tricky question. The ABQ Find website is open 24/7 and to date has never been closed. If you want to contact someone at ABQ Find, then that will depend on a lot of things. We try to make ourselves available as much as possible. As such, we don't have any 'official' hours.

Our schedules revolve around where ABQ Find is setting up their LocalMobile station at public events and meeting with other local business owners. Some events are on nights and weekends. Your best bet is to send us an e-mail or call us and we will get back to you as soon as possible if we aren't able to answer you right away.

Absolutely! We love visiting our local businesses and can walk you through the sign-up process step by step. We will do everything at your side except for choosing a password and secret question as well as entering any financial information if you choose to upgrade.

We also take the time to learn about our member businesses and work with our paid listings to make sure they are "search engine friendly" to maximize effectiveness. If you have a website, we will make sure that your text in the listing matches what you are selling. We even review our customer's websites from time to time to make sure that they are effectively attracting web traffic as well!

We aren't trying to cheat anybody. We want to level the playing field for locally-owned small businesses. Small businesses hate price increases as well as long-term contracts. We know every dollar counts. With that in mind we made ABQ Find automated in a way that we don't have to work hard to promote our listings on the internet. The major search engines basically do all that work for us for free!

We did away with price increases for customers who keep their accounts current as a "Thank You" to staying with us and being a part of the local family. And finally, we don't waste money on ineffective methods of promoting businesses. Each paid listing is promoted as a part of the "buy local" group AND individually while still keeping costs down.

We want as many businesses to sign up as possible. We don't want to price out really small businesses or start-ups. Keeping the prices low means more businesses can participate. And when more businesses participate, the group of owners fighting together to keep the Albuquerque economy flourishing grows larger and larger. It's a snowball effect.

We get this question a lot...it's yes and no. ABQ Find DOES have a profile that is posted on the Thrive!ABQ website under the advertising category, but that is about as far as the affiliation goes.

Thrive!ABQ is a website where ANY BUSINESS THAT HAS A PERMIT TO OPERATE IN THE CITY can post information about it's business. It is in no way locally-owned companies, not by a long shot. Technically, any business within the city limits is allowed to use the site to promote its business. Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and Target can be included on Thrive!ABQ. The site as well as the program is part of an initiative to get more money spent locally by businesses and government bodies. We think the whole concept of Thrive!ABQ is silly from a consumer perspective and the amount of jobs and money it creates will be negligible, if any. The math just isn't there to support the idea that an economic impact will be created by campaigning in this manner.

There are a lot of micro-economic metrics that come into play when we decide if a business can be promoted by ABQ Find. As a general, hard-and-fast rule, we don't allow any companies that are headquartered outside of the ABQ metro area. These business only "recycle" a small portion of their revenue back into the local economy.

The same goes for franchises. Yes, we know that some local person owns that particular franchise. We know exactly how they work and how many thousands of dollars they send away to another region every month. It's unacceptable. They are not a locally-owned business. They are taking money from a person's sales to use their colors and name, buy only their products (which most aren't from here either), and a little more extra for other things such as marketing, accounting, and special fees. There are plenty of small, locally-owned shops around and no franchise needs our help getting promoted. They have millions of dollars at their disposal.

That being said...if someone objects strenously and we can do the math and their particular franchise or brokerage has extremely small fees, lots of flexibility to the owner, and isn't getting much from said franchise, we may approve it based on it's ability to creat jobs and keep more money in the local economy.

We review every submission that comes in. We do some research and, if necessary, contact the owner for more information. If anyone feels they should be included, but weren't, we will hear their case. On the flip side, if anyone feels we slipped and let a business in we shouldn't, we try those cases, too! =)