Mine Your Own Business

More Google Tools

We did a posting on July 16th this year on a Slick new Google Tool (you can click on the link if you missed it).  Now Google announces that they have upgraded the Small Business Network to help small business owners and included a small business toolkit. The toolkit helps small business owners solve some of their largest business concerns. For some examples read the whole article here.

The article also describes how the revamped Small Business Network helps small business owners keep up on upcoming legislation and public policy issues via an e-mail sign up on the Small Business Toolkit page. As we all know (or should know) there are all kinds of government policies that can have a dramatic impact on small businesses, so make sure and check out the great links in the article. The comments at the bottom of the article are worth checking out as well.

Are Newspaper Ads Effective

There has been a lot of buzz recently on the demise of many newspapers as more and more people use the Internet as their primary news source. So if fewer people are reading printed newspapers is advertising in the newspaper a waste of money or can it still be an effective means of advertising? USA Today had an online article that makes the point that for the right type of small business, newspapers can still be very effective.

So what are some of the reasons newspaper ads can still be effective? Newspapers are still read by 62% of those with post graduate degrees, those that are 40+ years old, and those that are upper income. Pretty good demographics for some types of small businesses to say the least. There's a lot more other good information in the article, so read the whole thing if your business would like to target that demographic.

Paying for a Warm Body?

Here is a very short article about a recent telephone survey of 1,000 small businesses that reported that 41 per cent of their employees are paid for their attendance with no regard to their performance. 45 percent of their employees don't have any predefined goals and guess what, the businesses also responded that 45 per cent felt that the employees don't contribute to their bottom line.

Sure, it is a lot easier not to set up predefined goals and responsibilities and some employees are self-motivated, but for those employees who aren't it might help your bottom line to spend the time and effort to come up with some goals. It might even make for happier employees if they had some defined daily goals, especially if they received a little extra compensation for making those goals. It could help the bottom line of you and your employees.

The Joys of Business Ownership

Owning a small business is not always peaches and cream, there are the long hours, worries about the economy, and sometimes issues of dealing with the public. With that being said, the Wall Street Journal reported on a landmark survey of over 100,000 working adults and the results were surprising (at least to some of the "experts"). Business owners ranked over 10 other occupational groups in six areas of contentment, such as job satisfaction, overall life quality, and emotional and physical health among others.

The article then goes on to describe some of the reasons for the decline in contentment in some of the other occupations and the reasons for the contentment of small business owners. What were some of the main reasons? The article gives a much more thorough and detailed description of the reasons, but two that stand out are small business owners have the freedom to choose their own work and how they do it and that they are their own boss and thus feel that they have more control. Do you agree with the article or is there some other reason?

Swine Flu and Small Businesses

Technically speaking we're not supposed to call it swine flu, it is actually H1N1 influenza, but almost everyone still calls it swine flu. Whatever you call it, there is a good possibility that it may cause some real problems for small businesses this flu season. A Wall Street Journal article provides some very good advice on how small businesses can prepare for it and also provides some good links to some other sources.

The main point of the article in a nutshell, is that there are a number of steps small businesses can take to lessen the impact of swine flu. Some ideas are taking steps to help limit the spread of flu in the workplace in the first place and then to emphasizing that sick workers should stay home and definitely not come to work. These are just two tips of many and you can read the whole article here.

Short and Sweet Post

This is actually a short and sweet post on an article that is the same, but it does recap some of the important ideas we have covered in previous posts. The article provides three areas to focus on to maximize growth and profit and accelerate your business. It takes about a minute to read (of course your reading time may be more or less, how's that for a disclaimer).

Do you have some other tips that you have successfully used in your business to accelerate growth?

End of Summer Posting

Well technically summer doesn't end until September 22, 2009 at 5:18 pm EDT in the northern hemisphere (I looked it up on the Internet of course), but after Labor Day it sure does feel like the end of Summer. With that in mind, here is a very different and entertaining article from USA Today comparing running a small business to white-water rafting.

Some of you may feel that is a bit of a stretch, but the main point of the article is that white water rafting can be very challenging (this trip was a IV+ on a scale from I to VI) and so can running a small business. By the way class I is so easy you can take a small child and think of the great movie Deliverence as a class VI, so this trip was pretty challenging. The writer gives 9 parallels white water rafting has with running a small business. It's a thought provoking and entertaining article and well worth reading.

Lessons Learned from Baby Lock Tech 2009

 

Last week, over 500 independent sewing retailers and staff attended our Baby Lock division’s annual dealer convention, Baby Lock Tech (or BLT). Although this was our 20th BLT, it was the first BLT
during these tough economic times and we had some concerns before it started.  I thought I would share how our concerns matched the reality.

Concern 1:  Attendance would be off substantially.

Reality 1:  Attendance was up quite a bit from last year and was one of the largest ever.

Concern 2:  The mood of the independent retailers would be pretty depressed.

Reality 2:  In almost all cases, our dealers were very upbeat about the rest of this year and looked forward to things improving even more in 2010.

Concern 3:  The dealers’ business would have been significantly impacted by the economic downturn.

                Reality 3:  Most dealers I asked felt that although they had to work harder to make the same amount of sales their overall 2009 sales were about the same as last year.

Concern 4:  No one would be interested in new high-end, premium-priced products.

                Reality 4:  Although their customers are perhaps more value-conscious, most dealers felt that many customers would buy if they could be shown a product that was unique and worth the price.

Concern 5:  Consumer financing would be hard to find for big-ticket items.

                Reality 5:  While this was a problem last fall, most dealers felt that they had found options that would work for their customers this year.

Concern 6: St. Louis can be really hot and humid in the end of August.

                Reality 6:  It never got above 80 degrees and the humidity was low.  Michigan or Missouri?

My hat is off to Steve Jeffery, President of Baby Lock USA, and his entire team for another amazing job with BLT 2009. Also, a special thanks to all of our Baby Lock retailers who made the trip to St. Louis.

 It takes a lot of dedication to operate an independent retail business today.  We are proud that so many dedicated retailers choose to do business with Tacony Corporation.

Thanks,

Bill Hinderer, President

 

Scary Security Alert

We all know that the Internet can be a wonderful tool, but it can also be a real problem sometimes with spam e-mail, viruses, spy ware, etc. We recently came across a scary article that describes how NACHA - the Electronics Payments Association has warned members that cybercriminals are stepping up their attempts to steal online banking credentials, such as usernames and passwords from small businesses by using some new hacking tools. NACHA is not the only association to send out such an alert, a similar one was sent out to members of the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center.

The article then goes on to provide some of the details on how the cybercriminals are accessing usernames and passwords and thinks the reason they are targeting small businesses is their relative lack of certain security safeguards that a large corporation might employ. The really scary thing is that sometimes the comprised security is not immediately obvious so a complete takeover of a business account can take place. The stolen funds then are frequently sent overseas.

The final portion of the article describes some ways to reduce the risk of such and attack and makes some very important recommendations. The article is definitely worth reading and you can read the whole thing here. Just don't read it right before going to bed, it might give you nightmares.