Mine Your Own Business

Bankruptcy and small businesses

On May 15th we posted about whether your small business was thriving or surviving, here is a link to our original posting if you would care to read it. Now comes a new article from USA Today that states the case that many small businesses are not thriving or even surviving, many small businesses are being forced to declare bankruptcy.

The second part of the article describes how small companies may be the hardest hit and combined with fewer start ups this can be especially troubling for our fragile economy. Bankruptcy doesn't have to be the end of a small business and the article goes on to give some further information on small business and bankruptcy.

Small Business and Health Insurance

Here's a timely article on some new health care reform being considered by the United States House. Under the plan small businesses would be required to pick up some portion of health insurance premiums for full time employees and some of the tab for part-time employees. If they don't provide the coverage, they would be forced to pay the government a fee based on their payroll.

The article then goes on to provide some ways that small business would fare under the proposal. It also gives some responses from some small business owners on how they think it will impact them. An important point is that the House plans to exclude very small businesses. So what do you think, should the government impose some of these new requirements?

A Followup on the 3/50 Project

We did a posting on the 3/50 Project on May 20th of this year. If you missed it, you can read the posting here and check out some of the links included in the posting.

There is a new article from the Wall Street Journal that provides many real world examples of benefits to small businesses due to participation in the 3/50 Project. The article also raises some questions from some of the small businesses on whether the positive results from the Project are permanent or will decrease over time. It also provides some strategies to help in continuing to get positive results.

So have you heard about the 3/50 Project and if you are a participant  have you had any results?

A Business Growth Strategy

There are numerous strategies on ways to grow your small business. An article from USA Today that compares growing your business to squeezing oranges, certainly a novel comparison. What are the oranges? The article makes the point that the oranges or baskets of oranges are the products, services, customers, and employees your business already has. A second major point of the article is that is always easier to squeeze the baskets of oranges you already have as opposed to creating new baskets of oranges.

The article provides many options for growing a small business and recommends some of the most effective and at the same time least expensive ways to get more juice out your baskets of oranges.
You can read the whole article here.

A List of Best Independent Retailers

We ran across a recent article in BusinessWeek on a new book by George Whalin providing his take on the 25 best independent stores in America.  To be considered for the book the stores had to meet certain criteria, such as being in business for over 25 years and setting their stores apart from the competition in some way.

He then provides some of the same practices that most of the stores employed to maintain their success over time, as well as some individual store practices that have proven very effective. Even if you don't have time to read the whole article, one of the highlights is a slide show of profiles of some of these success stories and the slide show includes links to their Web sites as well.

More E-mail Tips

We've done a few postings on e-mail in the past few months. On April 21st we posted about an article that focused on the importance of effectively revising an e-mail in order to make it more likely that your e-mail would actually be read. On May 12th we posted on an article on how to do more effective e-mail newsletters. Both of the postings are in the archives of Mine Your Own Business if you would like to read the original posting.

Today's posting is about another article in BusinessWeek with tips on writing e-mail that get a reaction. Why another posting on e-mail? Simply because we all know how much of the e-mail we get is ignored and because e-mail is still a very important means of communication even with all the other social media that is now available.

A different way to sell a small business

Over the years, we at Tacony have watched as businesses have been sold by long-time customers who end up financing the deal.  In many cases, things work out well.  However, in at least three cases that quickly come to mind, the prior owners ended up taking their former business back.  In a recent case, the business plan by the new owners was to put none of their own money into the business but rely on terms from vendors.  In this economy, that’s a very hard sell to a vendor and certainly we could not go along with it.  So, as the article says, be sure to review the business plan to see if it make sense.  If you need help reviewing it, Tacony and your other vendors would be glad to assist.   

 

Bill

 

Are you satisfying your customers?

Here's an interesting article making the case that during our current difficult economy it is easier to make sales to existing customers rather than look for new ones. The article provides several tips for finding out what customers think about your business. One thing the article doesn't mention but that might be a useful tool is a followup call or e-mail to the customer to see if they are satisfied with their recent purchase and the buying experience. Has your business come up with anyway to find out what is on your customer's minds?

One other big question is whether your business is seeing any changes in your core customers. If you do repairs are you seeing more repairs and less new purchases? We'd like to know what your experiences have been.

Small business optimism about the economy

The National Federation of Independent Business reports in their most recent survey that small business optimism rose 2.1 points in May after a gain in April as well. Gains were posted in several areas in the survey that small business owners took, such as improved sales and increased capital outlays. The overall results of the survey are very positive, but small business owners do have some concerns. To view some of the concerns expressed in the survey and more details, please click here.

New proposed legislation on interchange fees

A new measure called the Credit Card Fair Fee Act has recently been proposed as legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives. The measure would address the interchange fee that businesses pay banks for credit card-related purchases. This comes on the heels of the major credit card reform bill passed by Congress last month, and needless to say the banks have some objections.

Store owners and retailers have commented for some time that banks collude to set fee structures thus stopping them from negotiating lower rates. The banks say not so and that store owners and retailers can negotiate lower rates. For further background and to read both sides of the issues you can read the article here.