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Subscribe to RSSThere are over 27 million small businesses operating around the country, so how do you grow your company? msnbc's J.J. Ramberg, author of "It's Your Business," shares tips to give you a leg up on the competition.
Unlike Humpty Dumpty who took a fall and couldn’t be put back together again, there are a lot of small business owners out there who seem to have a sixth sense about how to take a fall without breaking!
Either through good luck or good sense, some entrepreneurs seem to have a knack for making the right moves at the right time to keep their businesses solvent.
TV news reporter JJ Ramberg, and two of her producers, Lisa Everson and Frank Silverstein, have been keeping track of these so-called "naturals" ever since the economy went south more than four years ago. They’ve just published a book of practical advice and usable wisdom from these natural born survivors called: "It’s Your Business: 183 Essential Tips that Will Transform Your Business."
BOOK EXCERPT: ‘It's Your Business’: Getting your company off the ground
Here’s a few of the survival stories from those who’ve learned from the school of hard knocks.
The soft touch
Meet Paige Arnof-Fenn (Tip No.108), owner of the Boston-based marketing company Maven’s & Moguls. When the work dried up, Paige went on a "listening tour." Instead of pitching new business to people who couldn’t afford it, she offered to meet former clients to talk about their current problems and long-term plans, with no strings attached. Now that the economy is showing some small signs of life, Arnof-Fenn reports that many of those same people are now hiring her.
The sharp elbows
Mike Michalowicz (Tip No.104), founder of New Jersey-based Obsidian Launch, took a more aggressive stand. “When a competitor goes out of business, immediately call the phone company and ask to have their number redirected to yours.” He told us. “You’ll have to train your staff to politely explain that the company they intended to reach has gone out of business, and you can provide them with excellent service.” Same goes for URLs as well. You might have to call the business and persuade them to sell you the Web address, but it might well be worth it.
The fancy dance
Juliea Kushnir (Tip No.84), owner of New Jersey-based Tax Solutions, kept herself afloat not by offering profit-killing discounts and price reductions, but by increasing "value" instead. She says she offered packages of services with a few extra bells and whistles (that didn’t actually cost her much to add) but made her services stand out from the crowd while keeping her fees at the same level.
The modern David and Goliath
Tom Egelhoff (Tip No.142), owner of smalltownmarketing.com, says one of his clients didn’t throw in the towel when the big box stores came to town. Instead, he beat them at their own game. How? By charging less for popular products than the big guys did. Are you wondering how he still turned a profit? While a small company can’t compete with a big chain on price for every product every day, it can beat them on price for a few hours on a few products on a given day. “Once you’ve got them into your small town store,” Tom said “then you can get them to return by showing off your better customer service, your more convenient location and the other competitive advantages that make small-business shopping more enjoyable.”
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I'm getting tired of the small business talk. When I see the TV shows Restaurant Impossible and the similar show about hotels/motels, these people are lousy at their business. I had a large dead tree in my yard and had to call 10 tree cutting businesses to get one to actually return my call and come. Or, when a big business comes and squeezes out the little man...like Romney does. It's not the President nor the government fault if a small business fails. Let's get real. It's often that small business provides a loosy service and/or products or big rich businesses squeezes out the little guy.
What this guy said. I've known a few small business "owners" who really just had no business trying to run a company. Of course now they've been given someone else to blame.
Also, the WORLD is in a recession. That means people are going to be more conservative with their spending. That means a lot of Convenience businesses aren't going to have the demand they need to survive.
'Whom the Gods will destroy, they first subsidize.'...
I've never seen a debate between Adolph Hitler and Josef Stalin on who's plan is better for the World's economy, but last night's Presidential debate between 'Socialism' and 'Corporate Fascism' is as close as you're going to get to it.
Wake up folks! If you can't identify the real enemies, you can't defeat them.
Exactly, there is a local hardware store in my town that continues to do plenty of business because they can offer prices and service much better than the Lowe's that moved in 6 years ago. Also, the staff is much more willing to help you find something elsewhere if they do not carry it. I will always support that business because the prices are fair and the service is amazing (they'll usually replace any made key if it doesn't last more than 3 months and they know it's theirs because of the certain brand of key they use)
Dump Obama November that is the Tip...
Those who still believe an Obama or Romney, or for that matter any other member of our corrupt Political Class is a solution, are sadly mistaken!
Here are my tips for small businesses to survive; start selling guns, ammo, fatigues, and boots. Great market out there.
I consider myself an independent voter, but going back to the Reagan days and with the only exception having been Perot, I’ve always voted Republican. A month ago, I wouldn't have even considered voting for Romney. But after the last two debates and especially after he finally talked about using tariffs to level the playing field and bring jobs back home, I'm considering him more seriously. But, I still don't really believe or trust him yet. I'm hoping that, since he put use of tariffs out there, that he could be held accountable. But even the way that he worded it, was very clever and leaves him a way to back out.
It was good to see them both finally talk more seriously about bringing manufacturing back home to the USA and about protecting American jobs. Although, I didn't like Romney's comment that we should automatically staple a green card to every foreigner’s new college diploma. That sounds too much like, "let's bring in cheaper educated foreigners to do take the place of higher paid US Citizens" (i.e.: the H1B immigrant issue)
Also, I don't agree with Obama's comment that we only need to bring back high wage/high skill jobs. Although if we had to choose, of course, we'd rather bring back the higher skill/wages jobs. But even lower wage/skill manufacturing requires plant managers, safety managers, office personnel, supervisors, maintenance, warehouse personnel, truck drivers, etc. Plus not every person in this country that needs a job is highly skilled or highly educated and we'd be better off if they were working and paying into the system, rather than just collecting from the system. Not to mention the jobs created by the smaller companies and shops that we spring up around such a plant.
President Obama did every well in this debate and appears to really care about doing right by America and our people. So, I'm still undecided.
If Both Parties don’t actually start doing something about the real problems in our country like “out-sourcing”, illegal immigration and the out of control costs of health care insurance, by the next election – American citizens may just have to run a nation-wide campaign to vote out every single incumbent elected official, so that maybe they’ll finally get the message.
Seems in previous elections that both parties were always able to distract and polarize voters with insignificant peripheral issues, which ended up getting most of the voters so caught up in the BS that they lost sight of the bigger picture.
Now that that abortion and gay marriage are not legitimate distractions, they're going with gas prices and Social Security.
Wouldn't it be More Productive if Our Elected Leaders Started Working Together as AMERICANS for AMERICANS and AMERICA, instead of just bickering, stalling and posturing for the next election as democrats and republicans! The American People have had it with this unproductive BS! The sad thing is that both parties stink! Neither party is really looking out for the best interest of the US citizens who elect them and who they're supposed to represent.
ps: We also really need to start actually increasing the safe harvesting, production and distribution of our own natural energy here in the USA, rather than paying for fuel from countries where they hate us. - Let’s keep that money and those jobs here in the US.