"I always thought it was odd that there were lots of reviews about new cars, but no one ever bothered to provide information about whether it would be a great vehicle after 3 years and 25,000 miles. I try to accommodate that need as well as provide a wide range of auto-related information."

"Until I started blogging about problems between insurers and collision repairers over fixing vehicles, most people weren't aware that we don't have used motor vehicle safety standards. In other words, if your brand new car is involved in an accident two days after you buy it, it may not meet any of the crashworthiness or safety standards it had to meet upon leaving the factory after it's repaired and returned to you."

• 81% of all entrepreneurs plan to increase tech spending by 20% in the next two to three years



• 68% say they'll adopt new tech products in the coming year



• 36% plan to buy laptops in the next year



• 10% include blogs in their marketing plans



• 51% of all U.S. small firms lack a website



• 60% of all companies on the Internet use their site primarily to provide information about their business



• 10% of small firms with websites use the site primarily to sell goods and services over the Internet



• 26% of small firms use the company website both to provide information and to sell goods and services



• One-third of all small firms have been affected adversely by a computer virus. Some 83% currently use antivirus software

"The room where Crawford trims beards, shaves necklines and offers hair replacement has a babbling rock fountain and a view of a lush courtyard. Clients in the waiting room relax in overstuffed chairs to the tunes of Kenny G.

Upscale barbering is beginning to spread outside trendsetting areas such as New York and Los Angeles as more barbers try to win back customers lost over the last decade to the more stylish, male-friendly salons.

* * *

Since 2001, barbers have been making a slow resurgence, and the U.S. Department of Labor expects the number of barbers to grow 6 percent by 2012. That's lower than the average 28 percent expected for all personal care services, but it represents a turnaround in a trade that had been on a decades-long decline."

This is an admirable story about how to reinvigorate an aging industry when consumer tastes change. I wonder how many other small business industries could benefit from such forward-looking innovation.


Tags: Business; small business; retail; trends.

"Designers don't have time to market, and this is our way to help them market themselves. We announce each interview in advance and get the word out as widely as possible. Including these interviews has resulted in some clients for the designers. It's been a very effective way for us to demonstrate to designers that it makes sense for them to work with us, not only because of the quality furniture we have to offer, but the marketing support we give them."

"Mention this blog when you visit our store, and we'll have a token of appreciation for you."

"With the old-line manufacturing economy almost a thing of the past and service and information economies taking its place, the enticements that make a city attractive for entrepreneurs also are changing. The traditional menu of tax incentives, low office rents, and favorable regulatory environments remain in play. But more frequently, observers say, a host of variables that emphasize quality of life, population diversity, infrastructure, and a culture of creativity have become weightier matters to consider when choosing a city.

Indeed, in his book, The Rise of the Creative Class, Carnegie Mellon University professor Richard Florida argues that more than 30% of the American workforce -- some 38 million people -- now makes up what he calls the "creative class," in which he includes artists, scientists, architects, designers, musicians, and the like. That trend, in turn, has caused a fundamental shift in values, attitudes, and subsequently, the economy.

THINKING SMALL. From this creative class come some of the most innovative business ideas, and from those come employment -- roughly three-quarters of all new jobs are generated by small businesses, according to the Small Business Administration. The net result is that a number of unexpected cities are becoming fertile breeding grounds for entrepreneurship."

At the same time, though, the fast-growing undocumented population is coming to be seen as an untapped engine of growth. In the past several years, big U.S. consumer companies -- banks, insurers, mortgage lenders, credit-card outfits, phone carriers, and others -- have decided that a market of 11 million or so potential customers is simply too big to ignore.

"The mobile phone has become the most essential work item for Theuri, a Kenyan plumber, electrician and small businessman who, like so many others in the East African nation, makes a living from various different jobs at the same time.

Thanks to an explosion of growth in the mobile phone industry in Kenya over the past five years, Theuri says his plumbing-electrical business has grown by about 50 percent.

He also operates a community payphone via the mobile network and further cashes in on the boom by charging batteries for a fee. "Mobile phones have helped me very much," Theuri said.

"Sometimes I receive as many as five calls a day for different jobs. Were it not for mobile phones, jobs would have been very minimal. With the phone, I am well known."

Theuri says his phone number goes around by word-of-mouth from satisfied customers.

He is among thousands of Kenyans, many of them poor, who have taken advantage of the phenomenal mobile expansion to ease the way small businesses operate.

Painters and masons now advertise their numbers on trees by the roadsides in Nairobi. In the past, they would have sat outside hardware shops looking for work from people who have just bought nails, cement and other building supplies."

"I provide breaking business news and include a variety of news items such as store openings and closings, business expansions, major hirings and layoffs, and stock news that can help readers in their business decisions, marketing plans and sales calls."

"Since I launched the blog earlier this year, it has easily generated at least six items that can be used for my weekly print column. The
blog has connected me with more sources and deepened my link with my existing sources."

"Both Terri and I enjoy your blog. She finds it helpful for keeping in touch with new businesses coming along. Your announcement of Coldwater Creek led her to contact them and get their lodging and meeting business."

"For the last six years, I've had exactly one employee. Me. This has changed my worklife in ways that I hadn't predicted. The biggest changes are:
1. the kind of project that's "interesting" is now very different. It doesn't have to be strategic or scalable or profitable enough to feed an entire division. It just has to be interesting or fun or good for my audience.

2. the idea of risk is different as well. I can write an ebook and launch it in some crazy way and see what happens. I can build a dot com enterprise with a questionable business model and just see what happens. Because my costs are a whisker compared to a large organization, there's just no comparison in the way I can approach something (compared to, say, a publisher).

Does this mean that little companies just do little things? Of course not."

"Most of the jobs on offer are from hotels, amusement parks and campgrounds. With the supply of seasonal workers limited in many rural areas, some employers have been pushing to draw RV-dwelling workers.

Last year, for example, Kampgrounds of America Inc. launched an incentive program designed to attract working campers, offering them free nights at member campgrounds as they motor between jobs, as well as discounts and sweepstakes drawings.

* * *

Managers at Adventureland, an amusement park outside Des Moines, Iowa, also have recruited RVers. Until five or six years ago, virtually all the park's seasonal staffing was done locally, and included mostly younger workers.

This year, about 400 of the 900 employees are RVers, most in their 60s, a boon for a park that was increasingly competing with retailers, casinos and other businesses for local employees. The older workers often arrive with an optimistic attitude and better work ethic than younger workers, said Steve Anderson, the park's personnel director."

• Personalization - "Knowledge of customers' birthdays, favorite colors, time of day they like to shop, and other information is not just pleasantry any more. It can be an essential driver of sales. So while big companies employ slogans like 'reach out and touch someone,' it is more likely the small independent retailer who can actually shake their hand."



• Value equation - Customers are more becoming more demanding and expect more value. "And so, the traditional retail power structure has permanently shifted from sellers to buyers. Doing business as usual can mean doing no business at all. Buyers now hold the trump card."



• Increased Competition - Competition is growing in strength and numbers. "Because of the presence of the Internet and the increasing clout of large national chains, small independents must not compete on price. To do so is a death wish. It is not sustainable. It is not winnable. And it will likely lead to ruin.
  
  The real strengths of successful small independent retail revolve around specialization, differentiation and finding profitable, defendable and sustainable niches."



• Changing Demographics - Three demographic trends are bringing profound change and opening up new opportunities to serve these demographics: (1) the aging American population, (2) the growing Hispanic population, and (3) Generation Y -- born between 1981 and 1995 -- which is the largest American consumer group in history.



• Community Activism - "There is a growing national trend of community resistance to unrestrained retail development in order to protect local community personality, feel and values."



• Health Care Costs - "The most important domestic problem in the U.S. is the healthcare insurance crisis. While this affects everyone, it hits the small business especially hard due to the runaway costs of providing benefits to employees. It creates a real competitive disadvantage."
  
  
• Changing Consumer Attitudes and Behavior - "The traditional customer definitions and delineations have been blurred by the sheer volume of marketing activity across the entire socioeconomic spectrum. * * * Consumers want a transparent buying process devoid of hassles. A retail experience that fulfills these dual emotional needs will be highly valued."



• Urban Sprawl and Real Estate Development - "A recent trend in new retail development is to create community spaces of mixed-use that exhibit a strong sense of place. Many of these developments called 'the new urbanism,' incorporate features more in keeping with feelings of towns and neighborhoods vs. traditional large retail centers."

"I do know that inertia keeps me from making more use of Linux than I do. Distribution channels for open source systems are thin, and the assumption is help will be hard to come by.

So I want to throw this open to our small business readers, especially those who continue to use Windows in their operations. Is it inertia, can that inertia be broken, or is there another reason we don't give Linux a chance?"

Here's some other information I can tell you: Vertora, Inc. is my main focus that everything sort of "falls back" to. It's a brand consultancy focusing on building amazing brand experiences (focusing on customer interaction, more so than graphic design and the like.)

AerialText, Inc. is a text message advertising firm that I'm currently selling. It's opt-in text message advertising. Currently there is no site for it because of this sale and how things are moving over.

Digital Charisma, is a web development firm I've had for years. it provides top notch web design and user experience - bottom line.

My favorite project, outside of brand experience consulting (which I absolutely love) is coming up. It's called OpenBeat - it's an internet radio center for independent music. Musicians will be able to sign up for a small annual fee, and we will promote their music on our 10 radio stations, give them a personalized artist website which we will also promote, and handle all payment processing for any CDs they wish to sell. It's a very exciting project, and we ran into some big delays with it, but it'll be going live in the next 2 months or so. Anyone will be able to go to the site and listen for free, and buy artist CDs right through our site. I can't wait till it's live. (E-mail, 07/09/05.)

Marketing is not an afterthought. It should be integrated into the entire product or service right from the beginning. So many businesses focus on rushing to create a product or service, but never really think about the marketing behind it. (JosephDePalma.typepad.com, 05/16/05.)

"For many small and midsize enterprises in Europe and North America, the prospect of doing business in China can be daunting. In fact, as a result of their reluctance, such companies seem increasingly vulnerable on several fronts: they are not only forfeiting opportunities to sell goods and services in China and to source low-cost products in its factories and workshops but also face new Chinese competition at home.

But rather than wait passively for the day when these competitors show up on their doorstep, they can pursue strategies that could help them overcome the barriers to entering China's domestic and export markets. To be sure, those barriers are considerable. Many small and midsize companies are hardly eager to deploy scarce management resources to identify qualified Chinese vendors or to research and understand the tastes of the country's consumers. Nor do they have the time and resources to recruit staff and manage operations there."

"The data show that, across sectors, 66 percent of new establishments were still in existence 2 years after their birth, and 44 percent were still in existence 4 years after. (See chart 1.) It is not surprising that most of the new establishments disappeared within the first 2 years after their birth, and then only a smaller percentage disappeared in the subsequent 2 years. These survival rates do not vary much by industry."

• The number of manufacturing businesses is low. Instead, the trend is to import and distribute goods that have been sourced in low cost economies.


• Freed from capital intensive manufacturing, firms have more time and money for research into creating new and better products.


• The business services sector is booming, in part because Ireland has become a prime location to outsource services to.


• Construction is thriving, and craftspeople and tradespeople are finding opportunity.

"Delaney said changing lifestyles and increased wealth have created new business opportunities. 'People see ideas all around them and create a new market for something which was lying idle,' he said, adding that garden centres and DIY shops have mushroomed as more people socialise at home and use their garden as an extension of the living area. 'It's an area where there's a lot of innovation and product development,' said Delaney. 'In the past, we wouldn't have thought of having outside gas lights on a decking because nobody would have put decking down.'"

• Hardware is cheaper;


• Infrastructure software is free;


• Access to global labor markets means inexpensive access to talent;


• Search engine marketing lets you affordably reach small markets.

"I've read other reviews, and they seem generally very positive. Sorry, but I can't help but feel that this book's premise is a metaphor in search of an idea. Maybe I didn't get that 'I can change the world' feeling, however short-lived it may be, that I get from reading other innovation visionaries I respect and read. However, I wouldn't recommend this one."

• Credit risk. As he began to do business in China, he faced the need to finance large purchases by Chinese customers. He would have to carry their debt until the parts arrived and were weighed and checked. This could mean several weeks to months. Unfortunately, banks view lines of credit on such accounts receivable as too risky to finance even if only for a few weeks. He was able to speed the process along, but had to tie up all of his cash on a single order.



• Currency issues. More of his European customers now do business in Euros rather than dollars. This opened him up to significant currency exchange risks. Even as a small business person, he was able to buy a large stake in Euros for twelve months to stabilize his exchange rate.



• Credit card fraud. Sadly, credit card fraud is a major issue for international trade, and many clients insist on using credit cards for purchases. Ian said that he can no longer accept credit card orders from his international clients due to the high rate of fraud.