Archive for August 2009
Use Your Referrals To Create More Revenue
photo credit: Anonymous Account The fact is, referrals can generate much more new business than most companies realize. Yet you can’t just sit back and wait for your current customers or clients to send new business to you. You need a plan. Here’s a simple three-step process for generating more business to increase revenue through [...]
Mom & Daughter Designer Make Biz Out Of Pillows
Mlive.com: Shelly Klein is a wisp of a woman with a little fluff of a dog but her ideas are huge. “I’m just about to make some pillows,” she says, as Sugar frolics around her Northeast Grand Rapids studio. Her commercial embroidery machine whirs as Klein explains the designs on her pillows that have caught [...]
Eliminate The Clutter From Your Website
photo credit: jluster If you don’t know the primary goal of your website or you have a variety of goals, objectives and ideals for your website than you may be suffering from what I like to call, “MPNS” or “Multi-Purpose No Success” syndrome. Pick the most important goal that you have for your website and [...]
Economic Trends That Couldn’t Go On Forever
photo credit: macroninja I recently came across an article listing U.S. economic trends that had no chance of lasting forever in this economy. The article argues that the current recession and economic downturn is causing the need for realignment between our U.S. Government and private sector’s. It is no shock that with the way the [...]
Les Paul, Jazz-Guitar Virtuoso and Inventor, Dies at 94
Washington Post: Les Paul, 94, a Grammy Award-winning guitar virtuoso and inventor of the solid-body electric guitar who helped bring his instrument to the forefront of jazz and rock-and-roll performance, died today at a hospital in White Plains, N.Y. He had pneumonia. Paul first came to prominence for his fast and flashy jazz-guitar style, which [...]
Bicycle Repair Shops On Wheels
Springwise: With cycling gaining ground as a regular mode of transportation, flat tires and broken chains are on the up, too. Which creates an opportunity for bike-loving entrepreneurs: mobile bike repair shops. In the Netherlands, for example, we’ve spotted companies like Fix Fiets and Bikemobiel, both of which do house calls in vans or trucks [...]
Jet Blue just announced “all you can jet” travel. Think about this kind of pricing for your business. Is there a way that you could get people to prepay for the ability to use your service an unlimited amount?
photo credit: Pardesi* Being an employee, whether it is for a small company or a large one, can be stressful at times, especially in today’s economy with record high lay offs and unemployment. An employee often feels uncomfortable at work around their higher up co-workers and boss, wondering what they can say and not say, [...]
Shorten Your Web Page Loading Time
photo credit: Simon Davison From Monday 27th July 2009 to Friday 31st July 2009 we ran an experiment on the website for our server monitoring service, Server Density. The aim was to reduce page load time by as much as possible with the minimal amount of work. With just a few tweaks to the site, [...]
photo credit: Svadilfari When you are first starting your new business, you generally reach out to many different networks and people for all of the tips and advice that you can get, especially if this is the first time ever that you have opened up your own business. Here are some key lessons that every [...]
Furniture Biz Starts From Scrap
Fortune Small Business: Some people need a kick in the pants before they change course. For Carlos Salgado, 41, it took a knock on the head. In 1998, the art handler and sculptor was working at the Guggenheim Museum SoHo in New York City. One moment he was disassembling a 400-pound steel sculpture by Italian [...]
photo credit: lemonjenny Today it is no secret that many people and businesses alike are experiencing higher volumes of debt. Creditors are most likely at their all time high when it comes to collecting on debt in the U.S. today. I recently came across some different strategies you can use to shrink your debt, courtesy [...]
Twitter-Based Shopping Website Seeks Retailers
Reuters: Buying something online can be a frustrating process. The shear numbers of websites offering the same product can lead to endless hours of surfing to try to find the right deal. Prashant Nedungadi has been one of those people and decided to use that frustration to launch IMshopping.com, a website that utilizes a combination [...]
photo credit: Per Ola Wiberg (Powi)..away Today we keep hearing about several companies laying off people left and right or even just out right firing people on a daily basis, cutting wages, vacation time and sick leave time. When a manager gets a list of people to ax, it must go through their mind at [...]
Immigrants: The New, High-Tech Entrepreneurs
Reuters: Picture the founders of any big-name tech company in the U.S. and you’ll probably think of Twitter’s Biz Stone, or Apple’s Steve Jobs, or Bill Gates from Microsoft. In other words: white American men. But a report released this month reveals that 16 percent of high-tech, “high-impact” companies are founded by immigrants. The study, [...]
Social Networking Saving Small Businesses Money
photo credit: luc legay In today’s economy we as business owners are all trying every possible avenue we can take in order to save a few buck’s here and there, keep our heads a float while waiting for the shore line of economic downturn to surface. One of the thing’s that a business owner can [...]
Small Biz Promises: Where Obama Stands
CNNMoney: Recent efforts to help small businesses haven’t mirrored those implemented in the aftermath of 9/11, but new measures from the stimulus have been productive. Obama’s $787 billion stimulus plan includes incentives for banks to make more loans backed by the Small Business Administration. The program temporarily reduces fees associated with those loans and ups [...]
Mom's Supergoop Sunscreen Featured On Today Show
eMediaWire: The TODAY Show’s roving weather star, Al Roker, has packed up his Penske truck once again to hit the road for the annual “Lend a Hand” trip. In its eighth consecutive year, “Lend a Hand” continues its mission to help small charities across the country that work toward improving conditions in their communities. When [...]
What Does Hair And Salsa Have In Common? Lulu.
Keloland.com: You may not think this would be an easy time for the entrepreneur to find success. But one KELOLAND mom says business is heating up in the salsa industry. When you see it on grocery store shelves, you can’t help but notice the label, along with the unusual name, “LuLu’s Big Hair Salsa.” That [...]
You Can’t Just Build a Better Mousetrap
Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door. Ralph Waldo Emerson may be one of America’s most influential authors, poets, and philosophers, but judging by this saying, I understand why he wasn’t a successful entrepreneur. Better mousetraps are built every day, but waiting for the world to line up [...]
In The Shark Tank has a good recap of the first episode of the The Shark Tank: Tod Wilson of Mr. Tod’s Pie Factory was first info the tank, he needed money to expand his business to meet demand. Although he ran a profitable retail pie business over 50% of his business came from wholesaling [...]
Reuters: We’ve all heard of summer camp, boot camp, even fat camp. But how about a camp for young women with a knack for business? That’s the idea behind Girls Inc. Corporate Camp for Entrepreneurs, a week-long workshop held earlier this month in New York City for 20 girls between the ages of 15 and [...]
Do The Yellow Pages Really Benefit You?
photo credit: How can I recycle this I recently came across an article posted on Small Biz Survival suggesting that the yellow pages really don’t serve as much of a purpose for small businesses as they used to. The days of people relying on the yellow pages to find a company or service are coming to [...]
Fortune Small Business: Shri Thanedar’s job is to help companies beat the competition. His secret? Chemistry. Take Devro, a Columbia, S.C.-based sausage-casing manufacturer that was losing business to a rival with a shinier product. Devro called on Thanedar, whose firm, Chemir, does chemical analysis and manufacturing. After paying Chemir $7,000 to reverse-engineer the competitor’s product, [...]
How To Find the Right Business Opportunity
A reader wrote: How do I find the business opportunity that’s right for me? Unfortunately, not all business opportunities were created equal. Some businesses opportunities are better than others and you may be better suited for one, more than the rest. How do you decide which business opportunity is right for you? Ask yourself these [...]
photo credit: electricnude Below are some recession indicators that you may never have thought would be a sign that we are in a recession, but when you sit down and think about each one of them, they make a lot of sense actually. Movie rentals at home are up more than before. More people are [...]
Remember Where You Parked Your Car…..
Wisebread: Creativity, frugality, and, on occasion, desperation can inspire innovative uses of your phonecam/digital camera. For example, if you have trouble remembering where you parked your car, especially when you are traveling to unfamiliar places, take a photo of the car in its space and the location signs. Here are some more uses: • Capture [...]
Inventor Cooks Up Top-Notch Cutting Board
Inventors Digest: When you walk into Joe Casale’s design studio, one of the first things you notice is a bulletin board filled with sketches. “When I get an idea for a new product, I do a concept sketch and post it on my bulletin board,” he says, “so I can think about it and let [...]
Inmates Selling Jailhouse Fire Hot Sauce
Wallet Pop: Calling it “murder on your taste buds” and “lethal,” jail inmates in Florida are making and selling jailhouse fire hot sauce to the public as a way to add some spice to their food and add a little revenue to the inmate canteen. “It packs more heat than the heat,” is one line [...]
Getting Your First Customer Takes Work
Rhonda Abrams, USA TODAY: In virtually every business, the first customer is the hardest to land. While the Starship Enterprise may go “where no one else has gone before,” customers follow where others lead. If you’re a consultant, prospects want to know who your other clients have been. If you’re a dentist, you’re going to [...]
Mompreneurs Are Building Empires
Atlanta Metro News: Like any small business owner, Tanya Primo-Jones spends many hours a day managing inventory, making sales calls and minding the finances of her home-based company, Primo Activewear of Alpharetta. Unlike most, she does it with three young boys underfoot. Primo-Jones is a mompreneur. She is one of an unknown but, observers believe, [...]
Gluten-Free Has Never Tasted Better
If you’ve ever had a gluten-free cookie and you were left unimpressed, it was probably because you didn’t buy it from the Helping Hands Bakery. While they are recognized as the maker for some of the best gluten-free cookies available on the market, that isn’t all they have to contribute. As the mother of 3 [...]
Small Businesses In Tough Economies
photo credit: giuvax Blinded by mass layoffs and the financial follies of Fortune 500 companies, we have overlooked a smaller but more important transformation: the increasing importance of small businesses in our economic recovery. Action is the single most important part to a small business surviving during tough economies. Those who just sit around waiting for [...]
INFORUM: Kimberly Hess has been an inventor her whole life. She’s also been a gardener, a florist and a seamstress. Now she’s found a pursuit that allows her to practice all those skills at once. Hess has invented The Tomato Bag, a hanging, cone-shaped container made of recycled tarp remnants. “It keeps remnants out of [...]
Home-Based Means Making Some Adjustments
The Associated Press: First, they had to deal with being laid off. Then the challenge became figuring out how to run a business from a spare bedroom while the kids are fighting and the dog is barking. Many members of the latest generation of entrepreneurs are people who lost their jobs and decided to start [...]
WalletPop: Did you get a chance to check out the reality TV program Shark Tank Sunday night on ABC? How did a young nanny with no business training manage to persuade a real estate magnate into investing $50,000 of her own money in her hand-made idea? And what does an Frankenstein costume have to do [...]
The Mommy Minds Behind the Miche Bag
Examiner.com: Examiner: What is your business all about? Michelle: It’s all about every woman’s first love! Convenience, low cost and cute HANDBAGS! We achieve this with interchangeability! Check it out at www.michebag.com. The Miche Bag eliminates hassle by letting you change the outside of your hand bag in 3 seconds flat with a new “shell”. [...]
Inventors Digest: A design patent protects the ornamental appearance of a physical product. A utility patent protects how the product works, or possibly the steps used to manufacture it. For example, automotive rims often are protected with design patents. You cannot get a utility patent on what is basically a wheel and therefore already in [...]
Entrepreneur: Here are eight franchise myths that will help you realistically evaluate whether buying a franchise is right for you: Myth 1: I’ll only be successful if I find the right business. Myth 2: I can only be successful doing something I love. Myth 3: I’ll instantly know the right opportunity when I see it. [...]
Originally Invented For Space Travel
radaronline.com: Smoke Detector Originally installed on the Skylab space station in early 1970s to alert crew members of unexpected fumes, smoke detectors are now required by law in every U.S. residence to prevent house fires. Cordless Tools Recruited by NASA in 1971, Black & Decker constructed cordless, battery-powered instruments that allowed Apollo astronauts to collect [...]
Inventor Launches High-Tech Pillow
Leader-Telegram: Dr. Scott Augustine wants to breathe fresh air into allergy treatment. More specifically, a bubble of fresh air. Augustine, a medical device inventor, is raising $5 million to back PureZone Technologies. The Eden Prairie, Minn., start-up is developing a pillow-based air filtration system that creates a bubble of fresh air around allergy patients while [...]
Developer Selling iPhone App Code on eBay
iPhone Central: Ever wanted to have your very own iPhone app without having to go through the trouble of actually creating one? If you’ve got more than $386 lying around, you could be the proud owner of an already-created iPhone application without having to write a single line of code. Developer Rod Cambridge had been [...]
Teen Entrepreneur: Popsy Cakes
AOL Small Business: Having your cake and eating it, too, used to be the hallmark of success, but as Jessica Cervantes has learned, it’s even better if you just sell it instead. Cervantes, 19, didn’t plan on becoming an entrepreneur; she wanted to be a doctor. But she was enrolled in a business academy at [...]
More People Choosing To Become Own Bosses
The Modesto Bee: Stanislaus County workers increasingly are going it alone. They’re creating one-person companies and depending on their own wits to earn a living. About 7 percent of the county’s adults — 25,236 residents — reported income from go-it-alone businesses in 2007, according to tax records accessed by the U.S. Census Bureau. This doesn’t [...]
The New York Times: Is your Gmail inbox sprinkled with old electronic newsletters and mailing-list messages from companies you don’t really care about anymore? Google recently introduced a new Gmail feature that lets you automatically unsubscribe from unwanted mailings with one click. It doesn’t work with every sender yet, but Google is slowly adding more [...]
Mom's Business Makes Sure You Will Stay On Task This School Year
Examiner.com: The back-to-school rush is imminent and that means saying farewell to lazy days and hello to organized structure. Enter, Mom Agenda–a company with great products that help you get back on the (school) bus with relative ease and a sense of calm. The Mom Agenda itself is a terrific planner that enables moms to [...]
Wired: From 1790 until 1870, U.S. patent law required inventors to submit actual physical models of their novel machines along with their drawings and descriptions. These miniature testaments to innovation — “not more than twelve inches square … neatly made” — are the subject of a new exhibition at Harvard University, Patent Republic. The display [...]
Nutty Idea Paying Off For Entrepreneur
FOX4KC: It might seem risky to start a new business in a recession, but many economists say that now is a great time to try. A Lawrence, Kansas, woman took her knowledge of nutrition and some help from friends to start a successful, if a little nutty, food business. Nancy Prather sells a unique product [...]
Bubbles, Zubbles, Toys And Troubles
Wired: They’re bubbles. And they’re in color. And they wash out, rub away or plain evaporate after splattering. Describing Tim Kehoe’s invention – Zubbles – is simple. The 15-year journey from concept to this summer’s product launch was anything but. “If you said to me, ‘You’re going to spend a quarter of your life playing [...]
Children’s Toys Examiner: August is National Inventors’ Month and what better way to celebrate than to get the kids working on some right-brain activity. How do we get the future, aka our children, to start thinking about innovation? One step is to get their creative gears turning with some fantastic, creative activity kits. And, we [...]
