This website is not like all of the others. Since 2001, we've posted 15326 different business opportunities and ideas, so you're sure to find something here to inspire you!
Sher-Lee’s kids were intrigued by the idea of receiving mail but, unfortunately, they almost never received any. Inspired by their interest, Sherri-Lee formulated a business that would deliver postcards to those kids who loved to receive mail.
Service is more than just putting your hand out for a handshake. It’s making sure your customer will shake hands again and will introduce you to the other people to shake hands with. It is not something that needs to be obtained on an intellectual level, but also as part of your physical and emotional make up, that your business is really about relationships. That realization must support your organizations service philosophy.
At Premiere Global Sports we sell experiences. We deliver our clients unique experiences, or once-in-a-lifetime trips, to top-level events like the Super Bowl, the Masters, and the World Series. Our clients expect the highest experiences, and we do out best to make absolutely sure they get that service before, during, and after the event. But the service we deliver is part of the experience as well. After all, the experience of working with us starts long before people show up at the Super Bowl!
Starting TSE Sports & Entertainment, and eventually selling my company to Premiere Global Sports, I built the company on the foundation of my sports knowledge as well as business knowledge. But the most important thing to remember about service while juggling the other aspects of your company is the level of commitment and keeping your clients happy while providing ongoing exceptional service. The commitment is what closes the deal in the first place, what keeps those faithful customers coming back for more. It’s what helps you spot difficult problems, bounce back, and repair the relationship when there is a problem. And it’s what gets you happy clients to refer to others to you. If the service you deliver is lousy, none of those things will happen.
Most clients need to know that you are thinking about their business as much as they are. If they don’t hear from you on a regular basis no matter how much time and effort you are putting in on their behalf, they are going to assume that you’ve stopped thinking about them and stopped working for them. So just remember especially in the first year of providing service for your new company; servicing the client, supporting the relationship, thinking like the client have to be your number one priority in your business. If you want your business to make it past the one-year mark, you have to make your client relationships your primary concern.
LaunchYourLine.com released a new website today aimed at empowering entrepreneurs to start their own line of any number of products. With plenty of people starting new businesses in today’s challenging economy, LaunchYourLine.com is designed specifically for enterprising businesspeople who have dreamed of owning more than just their own business but establishing a brand in the market with their name and touch attached to it.
LaunchYourLine.com CEO Ruben Navarette first developed the idea for the website when his sister approached him about wanting to start her own line of cosmetics. “I had started a few businesses before and knew what it took to launch a line of products,” Navarette said. “But as I began figuring out what it would take to help my sister make her dream possible, I realized the process could be very complicated and overwhelming to someone who had never done this.”
Throughout his year-long research, Navarette took meticulous notes on every step of the process and began thinking about a way he could simplify the process not only for his sister but also for other entrepreneurs who might be interested in launching their own line. “I thought if someone could create something on the web, it would be able to help many more people do this on a massive scale,” Navarette said.
The result? LaunchYourLine.com, a free website that walks entrepreneurs through every step of the process from incorporating to marketing to writing business plans to finding a manufacturer and a distributor.
The Village Voice reports that Charmin (the toilet paper company) is holding auditions on Nov. 5 for “five super-fun, enthusiastic people” who “really, really enjoy going to the bathroom” to serve as Times Square Toilet Ambassadors from Thanksgiving through Christmas.
Their job, which will pay $10k for five weeks, is to entertain people who are using a public restroom in Times Square and then blog about the wacky human interactions that follow.
If you see this as your kind of bid for the big time, bring a head shot and a resume to the auditions, and be ready to tell a room full of complete strangers why the pleasures of the lavatory mean more to you than anyone else.
About.com has an interesting article about baby boomer trends and how to profit from them.
One of the big baby boomer trends is the compulsion to see it/do it before it can’t be seen or done anymore.
The Great Wall, the Great Barrier Reef, Venice – boomers feel a need to visit places, species and lifestyles that are vanishing and experience them for themselves.
Environmental concerns, such as global warming, seem to have exacerbated these feelings.
Seeing polar or spirit bears in their natural environment or visiting Antarctica, for example, are high on the “must-see” list.
Way to profit from this trend: Specialty tour provider, “Eco-experience” provider, Travel experience website or blog.
The Akron Beacon Journal reports that when Matt and Kathy Chappel decided to open the Indigo Imp Brewery in Cleveland, they wanted their beer to stand apart.
So they opted for an unusual beer-making process — at least for U.S. brewers.
They use open fermentation, which exposes the soon-to-be beer to the air and means that any wild yeast can jump in, splash around and affect the flavor.
In addition, the brewery doesn’t filter its beer, meaning the liquid is cloudy.
Also, the beer is bottle-conditioned, meaning the carbonation takes place inside the bottle and leaves a layer of sediment at the bottom.
In other words, Indigo Imp is brewing like many traditional European breweries, and more in line with how beer was made hundreds of years ago, before enclosed stainless-steel fermenters and computer-controlled equipment.
“I think it’s the most natural way to have beer,” brewer Matt Chappel said. “It has all the flavor in it with the yeast. And it has all the color it’s supposed to have.”
“We are selling as much as they can make,” said Heinen’s wine and beer buyer, Ed Thompkins. “It came out of the gate strong, and there has been a critical mass of the beer audience that has tried it and become loyal customers.”
Ask Cindi Witker what she does for a living and you could get a different answer every time.
Business First reports that the 59-year-old entrepreneur runs a marketing business that specializes in medical companies, does event planning, launched a medical job Web site in September and has operated a media consulting service.
Witker, whose rapid-fire descriptions of her endeavors reveal an inner energy, said she believes relegating herself to one pursuit would limit her success – particularly during an economic downturn. Instead, by offering an array of services she’s managed to continue making a living despite the recession – and Witker hasn’t let up on chasing new ideas, either
Witker represents a breed of compulsively entrepreneurial business owners who are always hungry for innovation and opportunity, said Karen Ferguson, program chairwoman for the applied management major at Franklin University. While not all businesses need to be on the hunt 24-7 for the next big thing, many could take a page from the playbooks of people such as Witker, she said.
“It’s definitely still an economy that still needs a lot of traditional services,” Ferguson said. “But where you see the most success is those people who can be very flexible and not be completely married to one specific thing.”
Maybe you’re thinking you’d boost business if you exhibited greater confidence, assertiveness or agility, or made clearer, faster decisions, or weren’t so irritable. No question, there’s plenty of upside to making some adjustments so writes Fortune Small Business.
But changing an ingrained pattern, whether behavioral or emotional, is one of life’s greatest challenges.
Entrepreneurs like to think they eat obstacles for breakfast, and there’s no shortage of gurus and pundits dishing out self-improvement advice. But real change is still very hard. As anyone knows who has ever made a resolution only to break it days later, it’s easy to backslide.
The first hurdle is a reluctance to address matters related to emotions and behavior. If your computer, car or air conditioner isn’t performing optimally, you probably won’t waffle on having it checked. But in working with entrepreneurs, I find that they tend to be more reluctant than most people to acknowledge emotional issues and ask for help.
The most typical reasons that I’ve encountered are the fear of feeling weak and the fear of being seen as vulnerable. Both are tough to defeat — so don’t. Instead, take these uncomfortable feelings as stage one in a complex project that will require strength and commitment to complete.
An article in The Columbus Dispatch reports that a couple of years ago, Michael Bragg of Apopka, Fla., noticed his girlfriend (now his wife) jotting something down in a small notebook. She was keeping track of her car’s fuel mileage. “Her family had always done that,” he said, “and she just started doing it, too.”
And it occurred to him that he had no idea of what fuel mileage he was getting in his Toyota four-wheel-drive pickup or how much he was spending on gasoline each year. When he tallied up that last figure, and found out that his annual fuel expense was more than $3,000, he suddenly got interested.
As a professional software engineer, Bragg, 38, worked up a simple computer program that kept track of his fuel expenses and his truck’s mileage.
He began adding features that tracked mileage trends and incorporated information on how to improve mileage. When he offered the program to friends, he learned they were as interested as he was.
Thus began the Web site FuelClinic.com, which launched in May 2008. It allows free access to the programs Bragg developed. And for that matter, it’s still developing because he has quit his job and is working full time on the next generation of FuelClinic.com.
Bragg said one of his goals is to take the idea of fuel savings more mainstream, away from the traditional dedicated, hybrid-driving environmentalist who makes a second career out of saving fuel.
CBS News has a great story about an entrepreneur who won $10,000 and met President Obama.
17-year-old Kalief Rollins got to the White House by spreading positive messages of hope and empowerment. He’s the future of America; He’s the promise of a new generation; He’s … the president of the Phree Country clothing company.
It all began 5 months ago, in his mother’s garage in Carson, Calif. Kalief and his brother Anthony started and still run a custom T-shirt business called Phree Kountry. What they lack in spelling, they make up for in message.
Their shirts are all about ending gang violence and empowering those kids to be something more.
“This one says, ‘Caution: Educated African American Male,’” Kalief said.
Anthony does the designs. Kalief does the sales. The only other employee is their mother, Shukriyah.
He won $10,000 in the National Young Entrepreneur Competition and a trip to meet the President. Kalief said they talked mostly about his company.
Ladera Ranch mom Kim Marquis was sick of dressing her 4-year-old and 1-year-old sons in boring clothes when she dreamed up Haute Boyz Clothing with friend and business partner Jill Hoffman of Laguna Niguel.
“We couldn’t find anything we liked, so we started making (shirts) ourselves,” said Hoffman, the mother of a young son.
Marquis, 39, and Hoffman, 40, started brainstorming designs and catchy sayings to silk screen onto T-shirts and “onesies” for boys in early 2006.
Their best-selling shirt features the silk-screened saying, “Dump Him I’m Hotter” in chocolate brown lettering with the brown design of a dump truck on a sky blue shirt.
The stay-at-home moms got started by approaching a graphic artist and a silk screener in San Juan Capistrano who created samples of a Halloween shirt, a Christmas shirt and a few other back-to-school shirts that Marquis and Hoffman had designed.
The business partners set up appointments to show their samples to local boutique owners, hoping some would choose to stock the shirts, which Marquis describes as soft and comfy. Among the stores that stocked the shirts were Rascals to Rebels in Huntington Beach, Bassinets and Blueberries in Costa Mesa, Hush Baby in Aliso Viejo (now Abbie Rose) and a Hush Baby in Costa Mesa, which has since closed.
PetSmart is looking for innovative pet products of all kinds.
After receiving such a great response to its first Live Product Search, PetSmart is back for round two and wants to see ALL of your innovative pet product ideas!
This time around, PetSmart is broadening the search to accept submissions for pet product concepts of all types and varieties to fold in to its offering of more than 13,000 unique and useful products.
Areas to consider include innovations in toys, travel and stay-at-home crates, gates and pens, collars and leashes, beds, grooming tools, waste management, upscale automatic water feeders and more.
PetSmart is all about keeping pets happy, healthy and finding innovative new ways pets and pet parents can enjoy life together. Products may be geared toward dogs, cats, birds, fish or small animals like geckos, hamsters or ferrets. Please keep in mind, safety is always a must!
Deadline is November 30th, click here for more information.
Lesley Mitchell at the One Cheap Chick blog has an interesting story. She reports that if you’re awash in candy after Halloween, you can trade it in for cash at South Mountain Dental.
Dentist Christopher Johnson is buying candy from kids of all ages at the rate of $1 per pound on Nov. 2 from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. He will then ship all the goodies he’s collected to U.S. troops overseas.
What a great idea – for kids and our loved ones overseas! For more information, go here and click on “Money for Munchies.”
Editor’s note: Free PR for a clever dentist. And while you’re dropping off your candy, get a checkup.
The New York Times is reporting that according to comScore YouTube surpassed 10 billion views in a single month in the United States for the first time. That made YouTube nearly 20 times more popular than its nearest rival in online video, Microsoft, which showed just 547 million videos.
But on the third anniversary of its $1.65 billion deal to sell itself to Google, YouTube is saying, in a sense, you may be underestimating us.
The company released more precise viewing figures than it had in the past, saying it serves more than 1 billion videos a day, or roughly 30 billion in a month.
Unlike the comScore numbers, which are for the United States only, the viewing data released by YouTube is global. But since Google gets roughly half of its business from overseas, it isn’t unreasonable to assume that roughly half of YouTube’s audience is overseas.
It won’t help anyone outside the company to know how soon YouTube may become profitable or how much revenue it brings in. But there is little doubt that analysts will be revising their financial projections for the site in the coming days.
At a La Mesa coffee shop called Java Mama, Nichole MacDonald shows off the latest in eco-friendly purses. One’s made of recycled polyester, treated to look and feel like leather. Another has a zippered compartment to hide your green shopping bag. Her year old business Bagonia is thriving, she says, in big part, because of the support she’s getting from other moms.
“I can’t even tell you what it’s meant to me and my business,” the single mom of a four year old boy says. “Being connected to some of the moms has gotten me into stores and has gotten other people onto my website, and that’s genuine support.”
And now MacDonald is part of a new online movement asking moms to pledge to do exactly that: harness their purchasing power to support women-owned businesses through the recession. It’s called “Moms Rock the Economy.”
The website asks moms to sign a pledge saying they will support women-owned businesses as often as possible.
“It doesn’t mean I can’t go to Target and buy my diapers if I need to do that it,“ Lacey explains. “Essentially, it says when I look at where I purchase my goods and services I’m going to take a look and really support other mothers and other women owned businesses so they can become financially stable and as well as successful.”
Thirty-five people showed up at TeleBrands’ headquarters in Fairfield, N.J. and were allotted just five minutes to present consumer product inventions to the ultimate judge, AJ Khubani.
He is the CEO and founder of TeleBrands, a leader in the direct response television industry and the “As Seen on TV” category, reports New Jersey Newsroom.
Set up like “American Idol,” Khubani and two other judges sit at a long table as inventors come in the room to pitch ideas. If Khubani and his team like the product idea, they will give a thumbs up.
The hope is a partnership will be formed between TeleBrands and the inventor, which will include product testing and eventually infomercial and retail store sales.
More than 300 people submitted requests to TeleBrands to attend the event, while 35 made the cut to present. At-home inventors traveled from all over including Thailand, Alberta, California, Ontario, Atlanta and Tennessee for the opportunity to have their invention considered.
One particular invention that caught the attention of TeleBrands earlier in the day was Patrice Dionne’s Roll ‘n Pour. Dionne came from Carolina Beach, N.C., to demonstrate how the Roll ‘n Pour makes it simple for people of all ages to pour liquids from gallon jugs, half-gallon jugs and two-liter bottles. Another interesting invention called No-PucksTM was presented by Fred Wallace from Louisville, Ohio and is a cure for those little pucker marks that come from clothes hanging on hangers.
Khubani and his team at TeleBrands seek products like the Roll ‘n Pour and No-PucksTM that can be used by all and sell from $9.99 to at most $19.99. Currently, TeleBrands only markets four to five products a year and some are selected from a pitch at Inventors Day.
Khubani explained that in a nutshell TeleBrands is looking for an invention to be, “A simple solution to a common problem.”
An entrepreneurial boom is on its way, but don’t expect it to be led by 20-somethings.
Instead, America’s best economic recovery plan is in the hands of those aged 50 and up, according to a recent study by the Kauffman Foundation.
The study found that over the past 10 years, most company founders were between the ages of 55 and 64 so says Emily Schmitt at BusinessWeek.
So what does this mean for the U.S. economy? Should we expect a decline in productivity if those at the helm of the workforce aren’t as spry as they once were? Not at all, says Dane Stangler, the researcher who put together the study.
He says the popular myth of boomers being a burden on the U.S. economy is completely unfounded. “We so often look at this aging population as a huge albatross,” he says.
“But really the people who start companies that allow our economy to grow and create jobs are also the most experienced—and generally wealthier.”
The study lists several reasons for the older ages of entrepreneurs. For one, there’s been a drop in “lifetime” jobs, meaning more boomers are bouncing from job to job.
Longer life expectancies account for the older ages, fewer barriers to entry, and lower transaction costs since the dot-com bust make it easier for someone to start a tech company. And then there’s the death of the “too-big-too-fail” mentality.
Most of the country has prohibited customers from smoking in restaurants. Yet a reminder of a time when it was okay to light up before dessert refuses to flame out: the matchbook.
Statewide smoking bans tend to slow matchbook sales initially, but restaurant owners always return to the matchbooks.
The New York Times says “in an era of instant information access and viral publicity, logo-bearing matches may have the edge as ambassadors that convey distinction in their very physicality.”
There’s an interesting article at Fast Company about solving problems by copycatting.
Pete Foley, associate director of the cognitive science group at Procter & Gamble, was looking for an inspired solution to challenges faced by P&G’s feminine-care business unit. Its R&D staff had pursued several approaches, but none of them offered the breakthrough that Foley craved.
So he did the next logical thing: He took his team to the San Diego Zoo.
The zoo is developing a specialty in biomimicry, a discipline that tries to solve problems by imitating the ingenious and sustainable answers provided by nature. In a working session with the company, the zoo’s biomimicry experts made an unexpected connection between P&G’s problem and the physiology of a gecko. Other ideas came quickly, inspired by flower petals, armadillos, squirrels, and anteaters. By the end of the day, the working group had generated eight fresh approaches to the challenge.
Most of us don’t solve problems this way. We start by tapping the local knowledge, and if it’s insufficient, we go looking for specialists. But what if we’re following the wrong protocol?
We should stop looking for experts and start looking for analogues. It’s a big world: Chances are someone has solved your problem already. And she might be an anteater.
Many business owners are getting on the Facebook train realizing it is a great way to achieve low cost social media marketing. However, some of them still don’t quite know the true full potential of Facebook and how they can use it to their companies advantage.
Companies can create a “business account only”, this is where you will list all of your companies information, companies blog, tips, advice and suggestions in your business niche. A place where your business can truly thrive without competing with other aspects of your life.
A company can also in turn create a special profile for personal use if they so choose to, this would be where they can put more personal information about themselves personally, photos that they can set privacy settings to secure them, and a personal blog all of their own separate from their company.
Personal Profile for Business and Fan Page for Business – when I started using Facebook my intent for strictly for business. (To my knowledge there are no pictures of me in hula skirts on my personal profile.) When Fan pages came along it became clear that this was also a great business tool so I added that as well. I think this approach of all business is fine way to take advantage of all that Facebook offers to those who choose to use this platform.
The Wall Street Journal reports that retailers are finally coming around to a concept I have long advocated: free shipping.
You don’t get charged a brick-and-mortar-store fee when you buy something in person – it’s built into the price.
Why shouldn’t online shoppers have the same experience?
Plus, the Journal says consumers are four to five times more likely to spend $5 when free shipping is offered than they are when offered an item for $2.50 that costs $2.50 to ship.
Some service providers are contemplating stepping back in time to the days of AOL when you paid for the time you used on the Internet, instead of paying a flat fee constant for broadband access.
The Journal says the switch is being floated due to the growing amount of time people are spending online watching or streaming videos.
