Businesses ready for spike in sales

AUSTIN (KXAN) - As Austin gears up for November's Formula 1 race, city hall folks have been spending a lot of time trying to educate Austinites about this years F1 race and as expected, a packed house showed up to find out what the big race is all about.

That's why Willy Pearce came to the meeting. As owner of Way South Philly, he's part of the 38,000 small business owners that call Austin home.

"I'm extremely excited," said Pearce. "Excited about getting people from all over the country and all over the world."

Willy knows a little about gearing up for a crazy sales week -- earlier this year was Willy's first large crowd experience came in the form of the SXSW crowds. Pearce said sales  during that event were nearly four times what he thought it was going to be.

"We were blown away. We felt everyone of those 250,000 people that came into town," said Pearce.

The workshop covered topics like "a day in the life of a fan" to "attracting international customers."

Many of the business owners who attended the meeting wanted to network and see how they can get a piece of the Formula 1 pie.

"I'm seeking to grow my business," said David Hernandez who owns Congruent Style consulting. "I'm ready to reach out to international clients, so this the perfect forum, the perfect medium to reach out to those customers."

So if SXSW was the warm up for the real BIG event, Willy says he's ready to turn Philly cheesesteaks at lighting speed just like F1 drivers do.

"I'm going to jump in it feet first! Get wet, roll my sleeves up and get to it man, I'm just going to learn by doing," said Pearce.

Whether or not you're excited about the F1 race coming to town, you better know a little bit about what's happening November 18, that way you can choose to make the best of it or like some folks do with other big festivals, run away from the City as fast as you can.