A survey by Bibby Financial Services last year found 25 per cent of small business experienced serious cash flow shortages in the previous 12 months due to late payment by customers.
And the problem of late payment by businesses appears to be getting worse. According to the most recent Dun & Bradstreet Trade Payments Analysis – which examines firms’ ability to pay their bills – the number of bills left unpaid for 90 days or more grew by 20 per cent in the December quarter compared to the year previously.
How do you battle against late payments in your business?
How can you tell your golf balls from others on the green? If you use the Tin Cup stencils to mark your balls, it should be easy, reports The Street.
A golfer simply traces a chosen logo or design onto the ball with a fine-point Sharpie pen. What seems like such a simple idea has become a multi-million dollar business for two golf lovers who turned their passion into profit.
Based on U.S. Golf Association rules, players must be able to identify their ball during play. Apparently up until a few years ago, no one had thought to capitalize on ways to help players comply with the rule. Tin Cup was launched in the spring of 2009 by Jim Millar and Cabell Fooshe and now has roughly 100 designs in its repertoire. The marker sells for $19.95 and can be found online, at retail stores and in pro shops across the U.S.
Tin Cup says it had a 300% sales jump in 2011 over 2010 to $1.2 million.
If you have you ever lost your child, even for a moment, you know that it is every parent’s worst nightmare.
Here’s a product to make you feel better about that eventuality: SafetyTats are temporary child identification tattoos that when applied to a child’s arm provide an immediate and highly visible form of identification and contact should your child become lost. Unlike just writing your telephone number of your child’s arm, the temporary tattoo is waterproof.
Where’d the idea come from?
The idea for SafetyTat temporary child ID tattoos was born of necessity one weekend at an amusement park. On Labor Day Weekend, Baltimore Mom, Michele Welsh and her husband, there with their three small children, felt out-numbered. To stave her panic, she quickly wrote her mobile phone number on each of their arms with a ballpoint pen. As she did this, she thoughtfully explained to each of them the importance of staying close to Mommy and Daddy. She also told them that if they were separated that the number on their arm was a way to reconnect with them.
Throughout the day of fun, Michele had to rewrite the number several times as it smeared or washed off. Several parents in the park stopped her to ask if that was her number on the kids’ arms. Each time, they loved the idea.
The day was a success and the idea for SafetyTat temporary child id tattoos was born.
Having already developed a working airbag sewn into clothing for motorcycle racing professionals, Dainese has now produced a version suitable for street riders. The protective gear comes in two parts – the J-Kit, which is the clothing unit, and the M-Kit, which is the bike unit. The J-Kit features a pneumatic gas system fitted into the rider’s clothing, which generates the air needed to fill the 12-liter airbags positioned at key points in the armour. An electronic radio system sends data between the bike and the riding gear to release the airbags upon detection of an event.
The company claims that the D-air reduces the force of an impact by 92%.
Cracker Jack, peanuts, hot dogs. It almost seems like ballpark food is more exciting than the game itself. And if Pati Grady has anything to do with it, we’ll soon be adding shortbread cookies to the list of iconic ballpark snacks.
In 2004, Grady searched online for a baseball cookie cutter to no avail. Improvising, she used a drinking glass to cut rounds out of dough made from her family’s shortbread recipe and used a crimping tool to make stitches.
Coincidentally, the cookies were the exact size of MLB regulation baseballs, and Grady sensed that she had the seed for a new business. She incorporated and named the company Cooperstown Cookie, in honor of her hometown and the location of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.
