Mine Your Own Business

Increased Business Spending

An article in USA Today reports that after reduced business spending for six quarters in a row that businesses increased spending on new computers and software at an annual rate of 1.1%. That may not sound too impressive, but after an annualized drop of 36.4 percent in the first quarter, it takes on a whole new light.

The government initiatives earlier in the year (such as cash for clunkers) were put in place to stabilize the economy until small businesses could bounce back and this latest news indicates that it looks like it has been at least partially successful. We still have a long way to go, but since it may take a while for consumer spending to pick up, maybe it makes sense now to consider selling to businesses whose spending is increasing

Gain Community Support

We've done several postings in the past about the importance of supporting local businesses such as the 3/50 Project posted on May 20th of this year. What we haven't mentioned is how small businesses can gain local support from their local community. An article from the Wall Street Journal suggests that small retailers or service providers should highlight their local roots to bring in customer from their community.

The article provides three recommendations to emphasize the origins of your business and win local supports. The piece then goes on to give some excellent and very entertaining examples of how some other businesses have had great success in this area, such as Nathan's famous International Hot Dog Eating Contest held every Fourth of July. There are many other great ideas and examples in this great article.

Vaccum Blowups Revisited

We did a posting on January 9th this year on how many municipalities were relaxing restrictions on sign ordinances due to the weak economy at Vacuum Blowups. The thought was that allowing more signs, banners, and other creative marketing could increase business and help the local economy.

There was an article in a local St. Louis newspaper that some municipalities have taken this idea to heart with businesses around Grant's Trail in St. Louis. For those who are not familiar with Grant's Trail, it is a paved biking, walking, running, rollerblading, etc. path that is hugely popular and does a great deal of pedestrian traffic. There have already been some businesses that have tried to tap into this traffic due to the fact that you have a lot more time to read a sign at 5 to 15 miles an hour as opposed to 60 or 70 miles an hour on the highway. Now that this bill has been passed there should be even more creative ideas put in place by local businesses. Talk about an almost captive audience.....

The Big Picture

Many of the postings on Mine Your Own Business concern the daily running of a small business such as keeping good employees, effective advertising, sales and salesmanship, or customer service. Here's an interesting piece that instead focuses more on the big picture in keeping employees motivated in these challenging times. Pay special attention to Bill Bridge's four P's mentioned about midway in the article.

Now for a follow up, as promised, on a previous posting. On October 29th we mentioned the incredibly rainy October we were having in St. Louis and now the final results are in. St. Louis received 12.38 inches of rain in October making it the wettest October ever in St. Louis while records have been kept (average rainfall is 2.7 inches). In fact it is also the fourth wettest month period. No wonder we are experiencing some flooding of some of the rivers here.

Something Really Scary

Halloween is over, but here is something really scary. You go into work on Monday morning and turn on your computer and nothing happens or you get the dreaded blue screen of death. When was the last time you did a back up? Here is an article that describes just how important regular back up of our computer hard drives is especially if you are a small business owner. In fact, a recent poll finds that 76% of small business owners have lost information due to defective drives and that more than half never recover any of the lost data.

There are more backup options available than ever before. An external hard drive with backup software is a great option for backing up your entire system, as mentioned in  the article. You can use a thumb drive to back up essential files. There was an 8GB thumb drive advertised in a local paper for $25 this weekend so this is really a low cost option. Another backup possibility is on line backup either through your anti virus software or many of the many companies on the Internet. Just do a Google search on backup software and you will find find numerous options. One way or another, be safe and find some way to back up your data to avoid a really scary situation.

Small Business Tips from Infomercials

Everyone is familiar with infomercials (especially insomniacs who catch them on late night TV). Who would think that they could provide some valuable tips to increase small business sales? Here is an article that provides 10 ideas that small businesses can use to sell more effectively regardless of the medium used. Be sure to read all 10 ideas, there are bound to be some you can use for your small business.

One other interesting thing about this article is that there are over 70 comments giving some more ideas from people who have read the article and have some other ideas. many of the ideas expressed by readers are very good. One other noteworthy aspect of the comments is that of the 73 comments, 65 were from Twitter.

 

Some Light at the End of the Tunnel

Tacony Corporation is based in St. Louis and we have already broken the record for the most rainfall in October in St. Louis since they started keeping records in 1873. We didn't break the record by just a little either, the previous record was 8.52 inches in 1919 and we are already at 9.47 inches as of yesterday. By the way it rained all day today and is supposed to rain most of tomorrow, so it looks like we will destroy the old record. If you would like to view the final total you can follow this link or we'll update you on a later posting. The good news is that early November weather looks like normal St. Louis October weather, sunny and dry.

So what does St. Louis weather have to do with small business? If we compare the lousy St. Louis weather in October to the lousy recent economy, this article may make small businesses feel a little better. The article describes how a recent survey of small businesses finds that 44 percent plan to hire new employees in the next twelve months. There are a lot of other positive statistics in the piece as well as some warnings on some struggles ahead as well. Let's just hope this optimistic outcome does happen in 2010 and for the sake of St. Louis, that November is dryer than October.

Social Media and Small Business

We did a posting on October 14th on Customer Contact Options where we mentioned social media, but focused on the best use of e-mail and actually making a phone call. We got a comment from one of our readers that they actually thought the best method of communication was some of the new social media and provided several excellent reasons.

Now Reuters reports on a recent survey of small businesses and the results were surprising. While overall use of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedln have increased, three quarters of small businesses have not found such sites useful for increasing business. There are a lot of other very interesting statistics in the article about how small businesses are using company Web sites, advertising,  e-mail marketing, and other methods to increase business.

2010 Economic Planning

The economy has been in decline forever (or so it seems), but it has actually been 22 months as mentioned in a recent piece from Business Week. There are many ideas about what is going to happen in 2010, but since crystal balls are in short supply how does any small business plan for 2010? The article goes on to recommend three possible scenarios for 2010:

1. More of the Same
2. Things Get Worse
3. Rapid Recovery

The author provides some possible reasons for each scenario, but probably more importantly he also gives a key marketing strategy for each of the scenarios.

So what do you think the 2010 economy holds in store for your business? Here at Tacony Corporation we were already planning  on the 2009 level of business and only increasing spending as we see an increase in revenue, but also have a scenario assuming the economy does rebound. As you can see, Tacony's strategy is very similar to the one proposed in the article.

Employee Morale

We do a lot of postings on employees, simply because having good employees is so essential to any successful small business. Times are still tough even though there are some signs of possible improvement. Here is an article that describes that employees are feeling the stress. The good news is there are some things a small business owner can do to reduce this stress. One thing the author emphasizes is that letting employees know how the business is doing can be a great help. Here at Tacony Corporation we have been putting this into practice even before the current difficult times. Ken Tacony hosts a meeting for all associates once a quarter in St. Louis and visits all of our branch locations for meetings at least once a year.

Some other reasons for more openness with staffers is that it can make them more effective employees by getting their ideas on how to positively impact the business. One last thing is that occasional incentives and rewards to employees can be a big help as well, and there are even some suggestions on some free incentives that can still have an impact.