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It is good to see that some are picking up on this trend of small business and self-employment that is changing some economies as well as labor markets. Here is a great article on written by Daniel Weintraub of the Mercury News - check it out and if you think you can’t do it or you ready to give up on your dreams think again and remind yourself of the story your read about Servio Gomez.

Read the full article here: New Entrepreneurial Economy

Your Business Checkup

Whether you’re thinking it’s Spring Cleaning Time or time for an annual checkup, your business needs to undergo a checkup each year. No matter how large or small your business is, you cannot gauge the effectiveness of any changes you’ve made without analyzing the benefits and bottom line.

Here are 10 questions to get you started:

• How do your year-to-date sales compare to the last couple of years? Don’t be satisfied if you managed to match them because if sales stayed the same then you’ve achieved zero growth. With inflation, this flat growth line is a warning sign for more trouble down the road.

• What percentage of your business is from repeat customers? This is important to know because if it’s too low, then it needs to be improved. The estimated cost of getting a new customer versus retaining an existing one can be as much as five to one in terms of dollars spent. Keeping customers is more cost-effective than constantly seeking new ones.

• How long has it been since you offered a new product or service? Loyal customers like to see you changing and progressing with the times. If you’re stuck for an idea, ask your customers what they need.

• Do you consider marketing and advertising expenses or investments? How you look at the money spent in these areas affects your willingness to spend money at all. Would you look at prescriptions as a waste of money? Marketing is really investing in you, your vision, and your company. The old adage that you must spend money to make money is true, but you must spend it wisely. Spend it on ads that are pulling responses and orders, and if they’re not maybe you need to change publications.

• Do you know what PR is and how to use it to positively position your business in the media? I’ll bet that at least one of your competitors does. Nearly every mention of a company or business in the newspapers and magazines is a direct result of publicity efforts. Being quoted or featured in an article speaks volumes to your clients and readers who are your potential prospects. A good PR consultant can do that for you and show you ways to extend the shelf life of that article beyond its publication.

• Are you listed in the yellow pages? If you only have a line listing, consider including a small ad in the yellow pages. If you can afford it, it will pay dividends throughout the year.

• Do you teat your regular customers better than your drop-ins? You should. If your customers don’t feel special when coming to you for products of services, why should they remain loyal to you? Have a customer appreciation day or a special invitation only sale for your regulars. Create a mailing list of your regulars. Send occasional post cards or greeting cards for special events or just to keep in touch. Learn to recognize them on sight and greet them by name when they visit you.

• How long has it been since you really talked to one of your customers? Just as you appreciate when your Doctor takes time to talk to you, your customers will appreciate you if you take an interest in their needs. If you have a service business, have lunch or coffee periodically with some regulars – even if they only contact you once or twice a year. The personal touch in an impersonal world will be remembered.

• How is your business doing compared to your competition? Every company, no matter what the size, has competition – even home-based businesses. Is their business growing or downsizing? Is their pricing or service better than yours? If so, what can you tell potential customers about the price difference? Think about how you can improve your service to meet or exceed your customer’s expectations.

• Are your employees happy? Don’t ask them directly, but observe them throughout the day. Watch, listen and learn. Employees who like their jobs don’t watch the clock for quitting time, aren’t habitually late, don’t have poor body language, don’t spend time on personal phone calls, and don’t look like they never smiled. Observe how they interact with customers. Not everyone is a match for direct contact with the public, so make sure you don’t have an employee who is driving business away.

I can remember when I was working at my very first job out of school. It was a service business with just the owner and me at work. There was direct contact with the clients, and there was never a problem with smiling when talking face to face with them. I was given the best business tip of my life by that employer, when he pointed out to me that when talking to clients on the telephone I should smile too. For some unexplainable reason, when you smile as you talk on the phone, the exchange with the client becomes more pleasant and more productive. It’s as if that smile went right through the phone wires to the person to whom you’re talking.

Back in the early 1980s, Frank Crail had a dream that many of us harbor in some small corner of our souls. A successful - if harried - tech entrepreneur in sunbaked Southern California, Crail yearned for a small town in the cool mountains where he and his wife could raise a big family and savor the simple life. So he moved to Durango, Colo. (pop. 15,000), and started looking around town for a way to make a living.

“I realized I had two options: a car wash or a chocolate store,” Crail recalls. “I’m not a car-wash kind of guy, so I opened the chocolate factory.”

Crail wasn’t exactly a candy man, either. He mixed his first batch of chocolate on a Ping-Pong table and got it all wrong. The nut clusters were as big as hockey pucks. The peanut-butter cups were a size D. But it turned out that folks were hankering for supersized sweets. Crowds gathered, and not just for the chocolate. Part of the fun was watching the new shopkeeper fumble around in his open kitchen.

Today Crail’s Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory is the largest U.S. chocolate retailer in terms of locations, surpassing Godiva and See’s. Rocky Mountain has 325 stores in 44 states and this year plans to open 40 more. Revenues rose 13 percent, to a record $31.6 million, in fiscal 2007. (Same-store revenues, however, were flat.) Profits climbed 17 percent, to an all-time high of $4.7 million, propelling the company to No. 80 on the FSB 100.

Money CNN

I don’t have the jitters but I do shake a lot of hands in a week. I am the owner of a successful website design company in a metropolitan area and I am inviting you or your business to put whatever you want on my hands. I am always meeting people with local events, celebrations, fairs, festivals, and business meetings.

That’s right! BOTH of my hands with your ad! I got 2 of them!

Support a college student who needs a little book money!

Whether you want to play a joke on me, promote your business, or get attention for a new product or service I am the right guy.

I’m a semi-good looking guy, somewhat tall to grab attention, and ladies flock to me like ants on a cinnamon bun!

So place your bid today!

The winner will be called and sent a photo of their ad on my hands and a log of what my hands are doing from day to day!

If you wanna see where my hands will go and what they can do for your business, bid now!

AD LENGTH: 30 Days, applied with a black sharpie or colored sharpie marker done by a professional artist at my school. If you have a logo or graphic I can have it applied in whatever way you want.

Go To This Ebay Auction Listing

1. Record/CD Stores
2. 1 Hour Photo Shops
3. Video Rental
4. Camera Stores
5. Neighborhood Bookstores
6. Niche Art or Craft Stores
7. Travel Agencies
8. Neighborhood Grocery Stores
9. Neighborhood Movie Theaters
10. Independent Pharmacies

Entrepreneur

Fairlie-based entrepreneur Daryl Foy has chosen the internet as the way to retail his merino wool outdoor clothing.

With the outdoors his passion, Foy relishes being based in a remote location, backing his “hi-tech skills” as a way to sell products from adventure clothing to internet games.

Foy does travel to Christchurch and other centres to show off his clothing wares, but says his clothing website provides his preferred one-to-one internet-based business model.

The adventure sportswear was carried in traditional retailers like Run 79 in Tekapo and Bivouac Outdoor in Christchurch.

But it was on the iRULE website where he gained 90 per cent of his sales. Foy settled in South Canterbury about five years ago, leaving Melbourne and his homeland of Australia to be closer to the outdoors. He chose Fairlie over Dublin, Ireland, and Portland, Oregon, partly because it had “no traffic”.

The web had several advantages over the traditional retail outlet, he said. “There’s nothing stopping you (here). It’s all up to you what you achieve _ I like that sort of challenge.” Continue reading →

There is a little known technique combines both marketing and public relations in such a way as to greatly increase the visibility and branding of a company while also creating demand for product and increasing sales. This technique is known as ‘Marketing Articles’.

The invention of the Marketing Article is a fairly recent creation. The motivation for creating this kind
of article is primarily due to the incredible popularity of the Google search engine. Google has had phenomenal success with their domination of the Internet.

‘Some experts have estimated that over 60% of all searches are done using Google-, said Julie Taing a spokesperson for Caracom. ‘Yahoo is generally ranked 2nd, and MSN 3rd, but Google is the real target when we’re talking about making an impact on the Internet. Continue reading →

In business, sometimes things may get done back to front. But in FabTek’s case, this was deliberate. John McCrone hears about one way to solve a marketing problem.

Sometimes you just have to rip up the carpet to force yourself to get on with the tiling, reasons business owner Bevan Templeton, tilting back in his chair.

He runs FabTek, a Christchurch metal bender, turning sheetmetal into mounting brackets, cashboxes, trailer frames and other things. He can also do the design and product trouble-shooting for a client.

But anyway, he is at that tricky stage where his two-man business has been ticking along nicely for three years and it is time for a big step-up.

FabTek has been turning over $500,000 a year without sweat. However, it has a classic small business problem. Just two of its customers – one a government department, the other a multinational security firm – provide 70 per cent of its income. Continue reading →

The Get Safe Online campaign recommends ten simple steps for small business to protect themselves online:

1. Protect your IT equipment from theft
2. Secure remote access
3. Prevent data theft using removable devices
4. Use encryption
5. Protect your e-commerce website
6. Avoid the risks when selling commercially on auction sites
7. Control access to critical information
8. Prevent business fraud
9. Comply with the Data Protection Act
10. Bookmark getsafeonline.org to keep up to date

The Get Safe Online campaign, which is now in its third year, is the UK’s first national internet security awareness campaign. A joint initiative between the government, the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) and private sector sponsors from the worlds of technology, retail and finance, the campaign raises awareness of the need for internet security, and provides information, advice and updates through getsafeonline.org.

Business Opportunities

Bob Evans, 89, died around 12:30 p.m. at the Cleveland Clinic as a result of complications from a stroke he suffered in February, according to Columbus-based Bob Evans Farms Inc. He was at the hospital recovering from pneumonia.

The roots of Bob Evans Farms stretch to 1946, when Evans opened a truck-stop restaurant in Gallipolis - a 12-stool operation that stayed open around the clock. Faithful to the adage that “when you want something done right, do it yourself,” he took to making sausage from the hogs on his Gallia County farm to serve at the restaurant.

The products caught on and Evans decided to make the sausage business his full-time pursuit. By 1953, the Evans family and some friends partnered to establish Bob Evans Farms.

The business grew over the decades, finding success as a restaurant chain and as a food products supplier.

Evans retired as Bob Evans Farms president in 1986.

Evans, who was born in 1918 to Stanley Evans and Elizabeth Lewis in Sugar Ridge, is survived by his wife, Jewell, and six children.

The company said funeral arrangements are undetermined.

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