When Blaise Scibetta started Southern Ocean Consulting, his original idea seemed straightforward: take the skills he had developed over roughly two decades in the automotive industry and use them to help other business owners run their companies more effectively.
As Blaise explained during his Commercial Craft Talk at the Ocean County Business Association’s October 1 meeting, turning that idea into a business required something every entrepreneur eventually encounters—the willingness to adapt.
Today, Southern Ocean Consulting works with businesses on marketing and advertising as well as a variety of business development needs. But the company didn’t start with such an easily understood description.
Blaise’s experience building the company offers some practical lessons for Ocean County business owners, particularly those trying to determine how to market themselves, develop their teams, find new customers, or simply figure out what their business needs next.
Building a Business from Years of Real-World Experience
Before starting Southern Ocean Consulting, Blaise spent approximately 20 years in the automotive industry.
He started by washing cars and changing oil and worked his way through sales and finance before eventually becoming a general sales manager and general manager.
That progression gave him hands-on experience in many of the areas that determine whether a business succeeds: sales, customer service, marketing, advertising, employee development, management and operations.
Then COVID changed his career trajectory.
Like many people, Blaise suddenly found himself reassessing what came next. In 2020, he decided to put his accumulated business experience to work by starting Southern Ocean Consulting.
His original vision was broad. He believed that many of the responsibilities he had handled as a general manager could be applied to businesses outside the automotive industry. In effect, he wanted to provide businesses with experienced management and business-development assistance without necessarily becoming their full-time general manager.
There was just one problem. Potential customers didn’t immediately understand what he did.
An Early Lesson: Your Customers Need to Understand What You Do
Blaise quickly discovered that having useful skills isn’t enough if prospective customers can’t understand what you’re offering. His original description of Southern Ocean Consulting was producing too many versions of the same question:
“What do you do?”
Instead of stubbornly sticking with a message that wasn’t working, Blaise changed it. He began describing Southern Ocean Consulting as a marketing and advertising company that also specializes in business development.
That change created conversations.
Marketing and advertising gave people an understandable starting point. Once Blaise began talking with a business owner, however, he often discovered that marketing wasn’t necessarily the owner’s biggest problem.
One company might need greater visibility. Another might have difficulty hiring employees. Another might need better customer-service processes. Another might need help developing a manager or employee.
Those conversations helped Southern Ocean Consulting evolve into the broader resource Blaise originally envisioned.
It’s also a useful reminder for other business owners: sometimes the way you describe your business needs to evolve before the business itself does.
Marketing Can Be the Beginning of the Conversation
Blaise views marketing and advertising as skills he has been developing throughout his career—even before he owned a marketing company.
Selling cars required marketing himself to customers. Working in finance required building trust and getting deals completed. Advancing into management required communicating his value and producing results.
Today, marketing and advertising often serve as the entry point for Southern Ocean Consulting, but Blaise’s experience allows the conversation to go further.
His clients have included businesses and professionals in automotive, legal, medical and other fields. He has also worked with franchise operators, including helping coordinate grand openings, promotional campaigns and recruiting efforts.
In some cases, his role can become very hands-on.
For example, a business may not need to hire another permanent manager but may need an experienced person to spend several days training an employee on customer service, telephone procedures or gathering the right information from callers.
That type of short-term, targeted assistance is increasingly described as fractional support. Whatever terminology is used, the objective is practical: identify a business problem and bring in the appropriate experience to help solve it.
A Marketing Campaign Can Accomplish More Than One Goal
One example Blaise shared during his presentation demonstrated how marketing, community involvement and business exposure can sometimes work together.
While consulting with an automotive dealership, Blaise recommended an October food drive. Customers who brought qualifying nonperishable food donations to the dealership could participate in a related promotion, while the collected food would support local food pantries preparing for the Thanksgiving season.
Then outside circumstances dramatically increased the relevance of the campaign.
As concerns about food assistance and funding became a major public issue, demand at local food pantries increased and the dealership’s food drive attracted considerably more attention. Media coverage surrounding the issue helped amplify the campaign, generating significant exposure while supporting a genuine community need.
Blaise acknowledged that some of that attention came from timing that couldn’t have been predicted.
That’s another useful marketing lesson: a business can develop a strong campaign and a meaningful message, but sometimes circumstances create an opportunity that can’t be planned in advance. Businesses need to be prepared to recognize those opportunities when they occur.
Why Showing Up Still Matters
One of the most relevant portions of Blaise’s presentation for an OCBA audience involved networking.
When he first started Southern Ocean Consulting, Blaise made a point of attending business events—some large and some with only a handful of people. Not every event produced an immediate lead. That didn’t mean the event was unsuccessful.
Through networking, Blaise eventually met a franchise operator with numerous locations in New Jersey and Florida. That relationship led to opportunities to assist with grand openings, marketing and recruiting. It also led to introductions to other franchise operators and additional work.
His experience illustrates something that can be easy to forget when evaluating networking strictly by immediate results: The person you meet today may become a customer, referral source or connection months—or even years—later.
A room doesn’t need 100 people in it to contain the right person. Showing up consistently gives those relationships an opportunity to develop.
How Southern Ocean Consulting Can Help Ocean County Businesses
For a local business owner, one advantage of working with someone with Blaise’s background is the breadth of the conversation.
A business may initially reach out because it needs marketing or advertising assistance. But the underlying problem could involve sales, customer service, staffing, training, business development, messaging or another operational challenge.
Blaise’s experience allows him to look at the larger business picture and help determine what kind of solution may make sense.
He also recognizes where his own services end.
During his presentation, for example, Blaise explained that although he can offer insight about websites from a marketing and lead-generation perspective, he isn’t a website designer. When a business needs that specialty, he can refer it to someone who provides it.
That ability to understand both what you do and what you don’t do is important in a local business community where trusted professional relationships can connect a client with the right resource.
Learn more about Blaise Scibetta and Southern Ocean Consulting at HelpMyBoss.com or https://southernoceanconsultingllc.com/.
Build More Business Relationships Through OCBA
Blaise’s experience also demonstrates one of the principles behind the Ocean County Business Association: meaningful business opportunities frequently begin with relationships.
OCBA brings together trusted business owners and professionals from throughout the area to learn about one another’s businesses, exchange information and ideas, develop referral relationships, and create opportunities to do business together.
OCBA maintains an industry-exclusive membership structure, helping members build relationships within a diverse group of local professionals rather than competing against multiple members representing the same business category.
Members also have opportunities to educate the group about what they do through Commercial Craft Talks like Blaise’s, while guest speakers and other OCBA programs provide information relevant to running and growing a business in our community.
If you’re a business owner or professional in Ocean County and your industry category is available, we invite you to experience OCBA for yourself.