AlaskaYellowpages.com: better information faster.

• Author: Stomierowski, Peg
• Position: VIEW FROM THE TOP - Interview

The founder and president of AlaskaYellowpages.com, an Internet business directory, is Jerry Royse. He has restricted stock ownership to Alaskans, feeling that such a locally owned service was overdue, he says, and would be more responsive to state residents.

Before 2003, Royse had widely taught business planning, technology and marketing to small business leaders, and boasts that as a consultant for the National Association of Realtors, he'd coached and taught in 46 states, Canada, the Bahamas, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico and Nevis.

Royse, who maintains an active broker's license, also has served as president of both the Alaska Association of Realtors and the Anchorage Board of Realtors. He is president of Royse and Associates, a training company for the real estate and mortgage industries.

Royse has lived in Alaska and has been involved in technology here for several decades, coordinating technology conferences for more than a dozen years. He teaches, designs Web sites and backend efficiency systems, search-engine placement and network configuration.

ABM: So how's the view from the top, and how do you view your role ?

Royse: Incredible. Alaskans are the No. 1 Internet users in the country. Smart business owners and managers have shifted directory dollars online, achieving greater marketing returns while reducing pollution from out-of-state print directories. Owners of small- and medium-sized businesses are learning what large companies already had figured out: The Internet is critical for the future growth of their businesses.

Our team is committed to our advertisers' profit, while offering a better alternative to people looking for business information. With audio and video data, we help people find and learn more about leading businesses. My role is to support customer service growth, technology, data integrity and sales. Thankfully, I am working with brilliant people.

ABM: You appear to be experiencing rapid sales growth ... what are the benefits and risks?

Royse: In reinventing Yellow Page directories, we like to say this is not your grandmother's Yellow Pages. By adding training, networking, multimedia and other profit strategies, we look at the overall value proposition to guarantee that we service advertisers' bottom lines. Staying ahead of the service curve--and adding performance systems to support that process--keeps us working late.

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