Adventures in Networking!: Zipcar: Value and excellence on the road to social business

You work hard for your money right?

So when you consider who you HAVE to and even who you WANT to give your money to, mobile phone providers, grocery stores, gas stations, clothing companies, landlords… the question is who do you actually feel brings value? What about fun? Who brings excellence?

Could there be ONE company in your life that brings all three? In mine, it’s Zipcar. I encourage you to join too, here’s my pitch for why.

I’m trying to do the right thing for the planet and my community and drive as little as possible. Now, we own one car which my wife drives to take our little one and herself the 75km a day to work, daycare and back ( longer story, we actually bought our car because we drove it as a Zipcar before we had a kid. Big shout out to Westowne Mazda for wonderful sale, service with integrity and for joining me in seeking social business, but that’s another blog post )

Now, I ride the ‘rocket’ every day. Calling the Toronto Transit Commission a rocket is like calling Mike Tyson a people person – let me be more clear: Riding transit saves the planet, saves me money but drains my energy, destroys my dignity and eats my soul a little bit each day.

I love to drive. As a kid my parents drove us from PEI to Vancouver and through dozens of US States. ---- but I don’t like the lifestyle, cost, pollution and upkeep of a car.

In 2006 I changed jobs to a building on top of a subway station - even though I drove thousands of kilometres a year for work I didn’t need to buy a car. Why? There was two Zipcars in our office parking lot!! Since then, I have driven tens of thousands of km’s in Zipcars. Now I work in a building where parking is $38 a day and there is NO street parking… heh heh… except for Zipcars

I haven’t paid for gas or insurance, haven’t lifted a finger to clean or maintain the cars, I always drive virtually brand new cars, have over a dozen models to choose from and there are hundreds of locations all over the city! 2 seaters, sports cars, sedans, microvans, minivans, pickups, SUV’s and now ZipVans!!

Most importantly, the Zipcar team has NEVER let me down. Every problem solved, every question answered, every issue made right. I call it, platinum service.

As I embarked most recently in pursuit of the future of social business ( tied to social media yes ), Zipcar has been along for the ride. Engaging me, allowing me to promote their business to my network ( I’ve signed up dozens of friends, family, business peers and they are ALL grateful for the referral ). And hey, from time to time we have some fun too – just recently I won a high-end car rental from Zipcar on Twitter. I eschewed the BMW because fancy doesn’t appeal to me, like business, I choose performance and excitement. So I went with the Audi – took my wife and friends for a day in Niagara Falls and dinner for my birthday.

Do you have a company in your life that makes you feel like this?

Last week, we exchanged a little mutual business affection. I nominated Zipcar Toronto for Canada’s Passion Capitalist Award and I see that they are officially on the list. And Zipcar, as part of another social business contest is naming a car after me! Thanks Zipteam.