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| ABOUT | ||
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| SMALL BUSINESS TRENDS brings you daily updates on trends that influence the global small business market. | ||
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Anita Campbell, Editor |
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| Past life: CEO, corporate executive, tech entrepreneur, retailer, general counsel, marketer, HR ... (more) | ||
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| FREE BUSINESS MAGAZINES | ||
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| Trade publications FREE to qualified professionals. No hidden offers and no purchase necessary. | ||
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On Wall Street The Deal Computing Canada |
CIO Employee Benefit Oracle Magazine |
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| 100+ additional titles. Click to browse. | ||
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| ARCHIVES & SEARCH | |||
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Previous Small Business Trends articles can be found at the links below: | ||
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October 2003 November 2003 December 2003 January 2004 February 2004 March 2004 April 2004 May 2004 June 2004 July 2004 August 2004 September 2004 October 2004 November 2004 December 2004 January 2005 February 2005 March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 |
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Or, use the search box below to find a specific post: |
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| Sign up for our FREE Small Business Trends newsletter. (View Current)
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| SMALL BIZ INFO & RESOURCES | |
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| BLOGS TO READ DAILY* | |
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| * Don’t have time to read several dozen blogs a day? Pick two or three. Your brain will thank you for it. | |
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| ONLINE COMMUNITIES | ||
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| THE BUZZ |
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SPECIAL RESOURCES | |
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Small Business Trends Radio Tuesdays, 1:00 PM Eastern U.S. time on Voice America network Click to listen November 1st: Torsten Jacobi, CEO of Creative Weblogging, joins host Anita Campbell. Sponsored by Six Disciplines. Show details. |
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Sunday, May 30, 2004 | |
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Carnival of the Capitalists | |
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It's time to kick off this week's Carnival of the Capitalists. We have a bunch of great posts on a wide variety of subjects -- everything from satellite phones, to bond-market vigilantes, to music and drugs (well sort of). The Carnival is open, and the fun begins now.
Wayne Hurlbert, at his excellent Blog Business World blog, has an extremely interesting post about why you need a website marketing plan. His advice: start with the end goal in mind. Zach Maxfield has a post at Bankstocks.com that takes a look at how soon-to-rise short-term interest rates may force some banks to put themselves on the auction block. If you have ever been curious about acquisition accounting in the banking business, this post is for you. Torsten Jacobi takes a look at what has happened to the satellite phone business and lessons that can be learned from its failures and applied to other high-flying concepts. Steve Verdon has two posts this week. Left over from last week is his take on the cost of repairing Iraq's water and sewage systems. He points out that much of the expense is a result of long-term neglect during the Saddam years. On a totally different note he comments on Nathan Newman's blog post about Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposal that 75% of punitive damages in civil suits go to the government. A spirited discussion followed with at least nine responses. David Tufte continues his chronicle of the economic lessons of the HBO series Deadwood with a look at the relative value of a Chinese life stacked up against an American life in the old west. For a really interesting look at what is driving up the price of gasoline and the possible consequences of high oil prices, you can't do much better than Jeremy Wright's post on Ensight.org. For those of us who are married the fact that this thinking grew out of a discussion with his spouse gives the post added spice. Milton Friedman's four purchasing situations dictum is applied to the US Congress and how it works by Paul Smith in a short but pithy post at Freedom's Fidelity. Russell Buckley explores MMS and the problems in front of it. If you're like me, clueless may best describe what Buckley is talking about without the explanation that MMS stands for multimedia messaging service, which is the next step up from text messaging (SMS or short messaging service) on mobile phones. Lots of good info in this post, especially for the technically-inclined. Goal setting and planning to achieve those goals is the subject of a post on Sam Decker's blog that was submitted to the Carnival by Rob Long. To find out what Greyhound racing has to teach us about goal setting check out what Decker has to say. Follow that rabbit! Jeff Cornwall tells the story of Australian John Wamsley's efforts to create a publicly held for-profit company to further conservation efforts. It's interesting reading both for the novelty of the concept of using an IPO to fund conservation and for the perseverance on an entrepreneur with a dream. Attention all you starving bloggers. Les Jones takes a hard look at advertising on blogs from the perspective of someone who has both bought and sold Internet advertising. Should you quit your day job and wait for the money to roll in? You'll have to read his take on blogs, advertising, and money to find out. The Federal Reserve is behind the curve on monetary tightening, and the bond-market vigilantes are leading the way says Arnold Kling. Michael Kantor follows up his Jessica Cutler scandal success by ruminating about what causes people to read blogs. Why is Mitsubishi Motors Corp. laying off 22% of its workforce and closing plants? Mike Pechar gives some intriguing answers to that question on his Interested-Participant blog. Evelyn Rodriguez explores creativity as a renewable resource/skill and puts forth the suggestion that time off is a needed commodity if we are to recharge our creative batteries. She wants to hear from others about whether they find vacations and holidays as recharging times. Overconfidence is the topic for Melissa Hershberger in a post on the Synergy Partners blog. Starting from a paper she read about Overconfidence, Investment Policy, and Executive Stock Options, she moves on to question the effect of overconfidence and optimism in team building. Micha Ghertner at Catallarchy defends Libertarianism when it is accused of being the "new" communism. This is an old argument that Libertarians have heard before and Ghertner does a good job of meeting it head on. The next four weeks could be especially volatile for stocks, says Barry Ritholtz. He explores the past week's market signals and the question of market turn, bounce-back rally, or something else in this post at The Big Picture. Kevin Brancato sent a post of his own to the Carnival and suggested one by Bob Arne. Brancato takes on the question of whether the recently announced seven new Wal-Marts in Vermont is the disaster that the National Trust for Historic Preservation proclaims it to be. Comparing what is happening in the music industry and the pharmaceutical industry makes for some interesting thoughts by Bob Arne. Even he admits to getting a bit confused and making his own special music late at night under the mood-altering substance of his choice. David Foster tells a story about the man at the top of a corporation seeing a man at the bottom of the pecking order in need of help to get his job done. The guy at the top pitches in when others don't. There's a lesson none of us should ever forget. Oh yeah, the guy at the top was nineteenth-century inventor and capitalist George Westinghouse. Overcoming the wall that holds us back from leading change is the topic of this post at Fouroboros that explores each of the elements that make up the wall and how to take that wall apart a brick at a time. Consumer satisfaction, financial ratios, and stock price: how they might fit together intrigues Martin Lindeskog. He cites an article in a Swedish newspaper that points to a pattern linking changes in the American Consumer Price Index and Gross Domestic Product. And finally, our own Anita Campbell writes about the sizzling hot RFID technology. Should we assume that RFID is a slam dunk just because Wal-Mart has gotten behind it? Or, could this be a case where Wal-Mart is not infallible? UPDATE MAY 31: We have two post-holiday entries. First, Bill Callahan at Callahan's Cleveland Diary, a new face on Carnival, has submitted a thought-provoking piece outlining four ideas to improve the City of Cleveland, Ohio and its economic outlook. This is a piece that deserves some attention and debate. And -- Steve Rucinski of the Small Business CEO blog has entered a post posing an excellent question: why don't economic development efforts simply focus on helping local companies get more customers? Sounds like a good question. OK! The tents are up, the lights are on! Have fun at this week's Carnival. And thanks to all our participants for their excellent posts. Oh, and if you sent a post and don't see it, please re-send it (it probably just got spam filtered). Since this is a holiday weekend in the US and many people are away for the weekend, we will happily post any late-arriving entries on Monday, May 31. You might want to send late entries directly to us at anita@anitacampbell.com. Next week's Carnival will be at The Window Manager. Send your entries to capitalists -at- elhide -dot- com. Don't know what Carnival of the Capitalists is? Go to the Carnival of the Capitalists home page for information and for details about becoming a future Carnival host. |
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Saturday, May 29, 2004 | |
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VCs and Bootstrapping | |
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One of my favorite columns is Guy Kawasaki's "Art of the Start" in Forbes.com. I like it because he delivers insights for startups, in a wise-cracking kind of way.
When asked in a recent column about VCs who leave companies hanging without saying yes or no, this is what he had to say: I'll translate VC-speak for you. "Let's start doing due diligence" = "Yes, we're interested." Every other response = "No." It's that simple. Do you know how you can tell if a VC is rejecting you? His lips are moving. I'm not sure if I am seeing a trend or not, but it strikes me that I'm hearing less from entrepreneurs these days about seeking venture funding. More frequently I am hearing about bootstrapping, i.e., small businesses growing from internal and customer-funded efforts, rather than external funding. Maybe the hype from the dotcom era has petered out, and entrepreneurs are back to reality. If so, that would be a positive thing. Going after venture funding can be frustrating -- and a business-threatening distraction. I've seen many companies that should have been out getting customers instead chasing after venture money, only to be in a worse cash crunch 6 months later when sales have flagged and no VC money is forthcoming. The odds of getting VC funding are not in the entrepreneur's favor. According to the most recent Global Entrepreneurship Monitor report, in 2002 fewer than 38 out of 100,000 companies were funded by venture funding. |
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Friday, May 28, 2004 | |
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Today's "Anywhere" Businesses | |
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The Dayton Business Journal has an article about a small business that is so "virtual" it can just pick up and relocate the company because the owner desires to make a lifestyle change.
John Wilfong writes about Support Air, a small business that is relocating its entire operation from Miami Florida to the Miami Valley in Ohio. Support Air is a US$5 Million business that sources replacement aircraft parts, operating as an intermediary between the parts suppliers and the aircraft operators. Like an increasing number of small companies it is international in scope. Most of its business is done by Internet and fax. What makes the relocation so feasible is the "virtual" nature of the business. This business does not necessarily need to be near its customers, suppliers, raw materials or transportation facilities. It can locate in a place that's simply convenient to its owner. The virtual business model is a trend that small businesses have adopted with enthusiasm. We were asked for our opinion in the article whether this was unusual. Here's what we said: "Quickly developing technologies, such as Web-based purchasing systems, cell phones that transfer photographs and video streams have allowed companies to not only shed overhead costs, but to set up shop wherever they want, she said. "It's the epitome of 'less is more,'" Campbell said. "There's less expense and more profit. The less you have to burden yourself with plants and equipment, the more you can put toward profit. It doesn't really matter where you're at nowadays." |
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Thursday, May 27, 2004 | |
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SMBs Rely on Web for Tech Purchases | |
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Spending more than $75 billion a year on technology, small and medium-size businesses (SMBs) remain hard to reach for tech vendors says a research study commissioned by Yahoo, Inc. and the marketing agency Grey San Francisco, a part of Grey Global Group. Conducted by the market research firm IDC, the study says that SMBs have a distinct set of priorities and use different resources for researching their tech purchasing.
Because small business is a multi-tasking environment, the people who make technology-purchasing decisions are likely to have multiple areas of responsibility. Only 33% of businesses with 20-49 employees have a full-time IT professional. For those with 50-99 employees that number increases to 50%. For SMBs with more than 100 employees, it is 90%. When asked what factors are very important when making purchase decisions, 90% of SMBs listed product reliability, 83% cited product quality, and 79% said seller trustworthiness. Without these three attributes, products do not receive strong purchase consideration. While SMBs are demanding in their need to see a highly favorable value proposition in any technology purchase, they also find it important for the seller to be perceived as caring about SMBs as a specifically identified market segment. SMB decision makers are constantly digesting information from diverse media sources. On average more than five hours per day is spent perusing print and electronic media. Often missed by mass marketing, SMBs are nevertheless hard to target with traditional individualized marketing efforts. Here, their small size and great numbers can create a prohibitive expense barrier for vendors. The Internet is the medium of choice for prospective SMB technology purchasers to research and validate products and services. According to Bill Burkart, co-managing partner of Grey San Francisco the Internet "...is now an essential part of a complete marketing communications solution. To maximize the effectiveness of a brand's campaign, the Internet must be factored in to compliment print, direct, and other more traditional vehicles." And the winner is...the Internet. No surprise there. No medium is better suited to delivering product information to an audience looking for that information. Small business people like to be in control of their work processes, and the Internet allows the process of tech acquisition to be one of making purchasing decisions rather than being sold to. What works well for tech will work equally well in other areas. Internet selling is definitely a trend to watch in the SMB marketplace. |
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Wednesday, May 26, 2004 | |
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Agritourism Discovers the Web | |
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Small farmers in the agritourism industry have discovered the benefits of the Web to attract new business.
USA Today has an interesting article outlining how small, family-run farms are using the Web for marketing purposes. Gannett News reporter Maureen Groppe, quoting a representative of a "pick-your-own" orchard writes: "We've found that, at least for what I would call the agritourism business, the Web site is a necessity," said Dennis Norton, Webmaster for the family operation.Via Core Components Web Marketing blog. Agritourism businesses have also discovered the benefits of blogging. For instance, one of the blogs I link to here, the Oklahoma Wine News blog, is written by the folks at Nuyaka Creek Winery. It contains all sorts of interesting links and information about wineries, wine tastings, festivals, local bed-and-breakfasts -- everything a visitor might need to know. |
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Tuesday, May 25, 2004 | |
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Join the Carnival | |
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It's "Carnival" time at Small Business Trends. Yep, next week we're hosting the ever-popular Carnival of the Capitalists. The Carnival will be going live at Small Business Trends late Sunday evening May 30. So start sending us your posts right now and we'll make this a really memorable Memorial Day.
Come and join the party. Email your post to capitalists -at- elhide -dot- com. Don't know what Carnival of the Capitalists is? Go to the Carnival information page for details. And don't forget to check out this week's Carnival at Startup Skills. |
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