OPPORTUNITIES; Small Firms Feel Large Effects - Blackenterprise.com
Eric Broxton is feeling pretty glum about the economy these days. Broxton owns two central-city tire repair and recycling businesses — Broxton Tire Service and A&E Tire & Recycling. Both businesses employ 24 workers at 3364 W. Hopkins St. “We’ve got

eThekwini seeks economic growth salvation in small-business sector - Engineering News
Technology and access to information have been identified by the Gauteng Shared Services Centre (GSSC) as key factors that play a strategic role in The development and growth of small, medium-sized and microenterprises (SMMEs) is a strong focus

PPL Electric Utilities Delays Begin Date for Rate Phase-in Option - Forbes
ALLENTOWN, Pa., May 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Expressing disappointment with the continued postponement of action by the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, PPL Electric Utilities stated Thursday (5/1) that it won’t be able to start a rate

Dozono is about a 5 on the ethics . . . - Oregonian
and credibility scale. The scale is from 1 to 100 with 100 as excellent. Over a three day period his story, i.e., fictional narrative, has changed three times as evident in the reports in three different news media. But, admittedly I am never sure

Tennessee Multicultural Chamber of Commerce Presents Business Loan Day - Chattanoogan
The Tennessee Multicultural Chamber of Commerce will host their first annual Business Loan Day on Wednesday, Might 21, from 8 a.m.–2 p.m. at the Kingdom Center (formerly the Central City Complex) located at 730 M.L. King Boulevard. “The Tennessee

U.S. Small Business Administration Names Comerica Bank Nancy Russell - MSN MoneyCentral
COSTA MESA, Calif., Might 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Nancy Russell, Vice President and Regional Sales Manager at Comerica Bank in Costa Mesa, and a resident of Yorba Linda has been named Financial Services Champion of the Year by the Santa Ana

Small, midsize automobiles strong - Detroit Free Press
Toyota Motor Corp. stated today that its April sales were hurt by high oil and gas prices, but the company still managed to boost overall sales by 3.4% to 217,700 cars as more customers shifted to Toyota’s hybrids, small and midsize cars

Mohave State Bank Announces SBA Preferred Lending Program Designation - MSN MoneyCentral
LAKE HAVASU CITY, Ariz., May 1, 2008 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) — Beginning February 16, 2008, State Bank Corp. (OTCBB:SBAZ), parent company to Mohave State Bank, is pleased to announce Mohave State Bank has received United States Small Business

Silverjet plc (’Silverjet’ or the ‘Company’) Working Capital Update - Forbes
LONDON, April 30 /PRNewswire/ — Silverjet, the British exclusively business class airline, this day announces an update on its working capital position and that it has entered into a memorandum of understanding (the “MOU”) with a UAE based investor

Launching a public-speaking career - CNN Money
Get small-business intelligence from the experts. Here’s a chance for YOU to ask your pressing small-business questions, and FSB editors will help you get answers from the appropriate experts. Dear Esther: Congratulations on forging a career as a

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Filed under: Small business

This week, I looked over the financials of a struggling business (essentially, the slowing economy is taking a toll). I was seeing if I could find some ways to cut costs.

Looking through the line items, I noticed some big legal bills. And, digging some more, I learned that the company was using a big-time law firm.

“You really don’t need this kind of level of legal services,” I said. “Besides, you can shop around for an attorney.”

I also had some other suggestions:

DIY (Do-It-Yourself) Legal: You can gather your own legal advice for free. Just doing a routine Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) search, you’ll notice many legal websites. However, you need to be wary. Do you know the quality of the content?

I think a better approach is to focus on well-established sources like:

• AllBusiness.com: The site is chock full of helpful content and is backed by Dun & Bradstreet (NYSE: DNB).
• U.S. Legal Forms: You’ll find thousands of vetted legal forms (at affordable prices).
• Nolo: Founded in the early 1970s, this company is now the premier publisher of self-help legal guides (and I’ve purchased quite a few books from them).

Inexpensive Service Providers: If a DIY approach seems scary, there is a middle ground. There are on the internet services that help with such things as incorporations, trademarks, copyrights, and even patents.

The top player in the sector is LegalZoom. Actually, I recently had a opportunity to visit the headquarters, which has an impressive setup. In a way, it’s an efficient supply chain - with a call center, experts, proofreaders and so on that process legal documents.

More importantly, you’ll only be spending a fraction of what a big-time attorney will charge you.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook (www.mergerbook.com) and is also a principal in Averiware, which provides an ERP system to small and midsize businesses.

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In today’s Wall Street Journal, David O’Reilly, CEO of Chevron, talks about some very hard energy facts, page B1.  We all know them, but we don’t really like to hear them out-loud. 

Netted out, he states that we’re stuck with our current energy technology for the decades to come.  If we could start this day to re-do the energy infrastructure, regardless of cost, it would take a generation, 25 years, to change over to something other than oil, gas and coal.  By the way, we don’t have the money or the technology to meet these new methods of energy delivery and production.  That’s inconvenient.

In reality carbon based fuels will be with us for a long time to come.  If we want to maintain a lifestyle similar to the one we currently have we will have to make come compromises.  We’ll have to drill in the oceans off our shores.  We’ll have to build many more nuclear power plants.  We’ll burn more coal.  We’ll have to drive more fuel efficient automobiles.  We’ll have to build more mass transportation.  Industries we rely on today to power our economy will go away.  Things we haven’t thought of us will take their place.  The laws of physics will not be repealed.  We might want to consider intermediate steps to develop a cleaner environment.  There is no silver bullet.

I’m  sure that the marketplace will work it out, but it will be expensive for each of us.  Remember, costly equals painful and risky.

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My husband has a pension coming to him.  I don’t.  I have some 403b/IRA money in place, but I’m concerned that I’ll outlive it.  So I’ve spent some time studying annuities, talking to people about a variable annuity that I “can’t outlive.”

I get two kinds of advice:

A.  They’re great. You should put all your money in one.  This, of course, if from the “financial advisor” who sells annuities.

B.  They’re awful.  No sane person would touch them.  This is a lot of people, including MarketWatch commentator Paul Farrell, who recently bashed annuities.  If you read his article, you would run from annuities.

So I read the comments about his article (all 83 of them).  Maybe they’re not so bad.  I also talked to an advisor from Fidelity (they don’t really sell annuities, and he stated they’re on salary, so they don’t have any financial incentive to sell them.

So now I’m really confused.  Have any of you bought a variable annuity?  Did you think the fees were too high?   Do you have any suggestions for me?

Tags: , fidelity, Paul Farrell, variable annuities

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It seems that each of us in the U.S. has 19 feet of retail space allocated for our use.  Historically we should have no more than 10 feet of retail space per person.  So, we’re overbuilt by 90%.  Not a good sign for retailers or those who own retail property.  For the moment retail is pricey.

There is a realtor in Coral Gables, Florida who takes people around in a green bus to view distresses properties.  I heard this on NPR.  Seems some folks think that distressed property in Florida is now cheap.  Tough call.  Economists who study the real estate market think that the price shakeout won’t end until late in 2010. 

Another point about Florida is that taxes have gone up.  A current study puts Florida at number 11 of all the says in tax burden, up from 40 something.  All those new residents need city services.  I live in Wisconsin which is 10, down from 3.  Don’t get me started on the insurance issues in Florida.

Still the free market is all about how people spend their money.  If someone will buy your distressed property then that’s the price of the property.  God love’em.  FYI  I’m not looking to buy in Florida soon.

I saw regular gas was $3.75 this morning.  The price of oil is up 85% over the past 12 months.  The dollar is down 10%.  What else is in the mix to account for the other 75%?  Demand?  It hasn’t jumped 75% in 12 months.  Speculation?  I think so.  Another, financial bubble about to burst?  Probably.  Will that be good for drivers in the U.S.?  Not if you borrow money from the people who have invested in oil.  And, you do.

Sam Zell, a man who has made big money on distressed real estate, thinks hotel real estate is cheap.  But, with the high price of gas, the high price of food, and rising unemployment will it be cheap in the winter?  Maybe, if you can get financing.  Oh, money is tighter now, too.  Well, what is it cheap or expensive?

Ethanol production causes unintended consequences.  Huge da.  What did the Congress and the Bush administration was going to happen when they put a big mandate on the use of ethanol?  Oh, these are the guys who invaded Iraq without listening to their critics.

Cheap or costly is a complicated question these days.  Things have moved faster than they have in other economic downturns.  More appears to be unknowable.  People are sitting on their wallets which makes it worse.  Risky times.

 What do you think?  Cheap or costly?

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“The chain-link gate yowled like an angry tomcat in the watery light of dawn.”  This is the first sentence of a book by a “New York Times bestselling author.”  I can’t say that I’ve seen a more hack-kneed or trite opening to a book since Snoopy wrote one.  There follows a number of quotes lauding the capabilities of the author and the series of books, all marketing BS.  If you’re a writer, and I like to think that I’m, you wonder how this book got published.

Okay, give the guy another 25 pages.  Maybe it’s just a bad start.  After all everybody has different tastes.  Not each style appeals to each reader.

Unfortunately, I spent another 15 minutes of my time wading through the next 21 pages before I couldn’t take it any more.  (I don’t review books or movies for a living because I can’t stand spending the few days I have in this life subjecting myself to crap.)  It was over-written and filled with cliche characters.  HarperCollins must have lots of money laying around to bet on this junk.  Grant you, I’m not a massive Jane Austin fan, but her stuff is very well done, interesting and readable.

The good news is that if publishers are willing to shell out good money on this inane book, eventually better writers will their fiction published.  Hopefully, I will be one of them.

If you are a writer, have some pride in your thoughts and in your work.  If you don’t have time to do a good job, don’t bother.  There is more to good writing than punctuation.

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I just read an article about Generation Y, who were born between 1982 and 2000. They grew up in a world of computers, never having known what it would be like to live without them.

My kids, Generation X. were born between 1965 and 1979, and grew up in a world of recording - 8 tracks to cassettes to VCR’s. They didn’t know a world without videos, walkman, CD’s.

My generation, early Boomers, grew up with TV, which was a new phenomenon in the early 1950’s. We didn’t know a world without TV.

My parents’ generation grew up with the radio.

Wonder what technology the next generation will grow up with? Any thoughts on this? What technology are your grandchildren focusing on? Wii? Virtual reality?

Steve Munday/ALLSPORT

Tags: baby boomers, Generation X, Generation Y, Wii

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If you have been following the news about National Small Business Week (which I guess is technically over), you might be interested in what the other b5media people have been saying about the phenomenon of Small Business from Accounting$olver:

Small is Beautiful (businesses, that is)

a Success Formula for your small business

The importance of Working Capital and

How to determine your Working Capital needs for your small business

Keeping customers through Trust-Loyalty-Growth

Good stuff here, and well worth your time to read.  Wish I’d thought of it.

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Which U.S. states are ideal and worst for small businesses? The Small Business and Enterprise Council has published a ranking of states in their friendliness for small businesses.

The friendliest states: 1)South Dakota, 2)Nevada, 3)Wyoming, 4)Washington, 5)Florida. The worst: 47) Iowa, 48) California, 49) Minnesota, 50) New Jersey, and 51) District of Columbia.

I have lived in Iowa for over 20 years, to I figure I’m an Iowan (or “Hawkeye,” I guess.)  But I wasn’t aware that Iowa ranked so low in business friendliness.  Maybe I should move to Florida.

Tags: National Small Business Week, Small Business and Enterprise Council

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This is National Small Business Week. In honor of this important week for small business owners, here’s how Baby Boomers rank as small business owners.

Some interesting stats on “older” business owners show that we’re the people who are driving the workforce. This disproves the myth that we’re retiring to just sit around.

Entrepreneurship among seniors is growing. In 2002, the rate of self-employment for the workforce was 10.2 percent (13.8 million workers), but the rate for workers aged 50 was 16.4 percent (5.6 million workers). Although those age 50 made up 25 percent of the workforce, they comprised 40 of the self-employed. Solo business formation in the future will be driven by people who take early retirement or whose jobs just disappear.

(Source: AARP/Rand Corp. “Self-employment and the 50 Population”)

So if you are a victim of age discrimination, begin your own business.

Tags: baby boomers, National Small Business Week, SCORE, small business

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