Top Ten Reasons to Shop Local

Karen Payne, yet another Okie, sent me this list. Though I couldn't find an author or attribution, I want to share it with you. You can share it with your local community.

Top Ten Reasons to Shop Local

10. Local stores are more likely to carry locally produced foods which supports local agriculture.

9. Local business owners contribute to more local fundraising and 501(c)3’s.

8. Local businesses provide a majority of jobs.

7. Local businesses support other local businesses.

6. The business community becomes reflective of this community’s unique culture.

5. The sales taxes I pay support this community and county: fixing my roads, maintaining my recreational facilities, . . .

4. Competition and diversity result in fair prices and more choices.

3. Shopping local reduces my carbon footprint.

2. Local business owners invest in the community and have a vested interest in the future of this community.

1. My hometown is more important than a cheap pair of underwear!

Need more reasons, or more explanation? Check out the Top 10 Reasons to Shop Local put together on New Orleans' Staylocal.org.

[Photo: Karen's store in Waynoka, Oklahoma.]


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The difference between failing and failure

"A man can fail many times, but he isn’t a failure until he begins to blame somebody else."
~John Burroughs

Hat tip to Twitter pal Shawnz, aka Shawn Zehnder Lea

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Carnivals of small business articles

Blog Carnivals can introduce you to many great new writers and resources. A carnival is a roundup of excellent articles that may move to a new host for each issue.

Here are some wonderful carnivals that just happen to feature one of our articles this week:

• Carnival of Business and Entrepreneurship
• Working at Home on the Internet Carnival
• 4 entrepreneur Blog Carnival
  

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Small Business Summit in NYC

On February 11 our friend Ramon Ray is co-producing the Third Annual Small Business Summit 2008 in New York City. (OK, that's not very small town, but, hey, you New Englanders might want to make the trip.)

He expects 400 attendees, up from 330 people last year and 40 exhibitors. Speakers include small business owners, small business experts and executives from small business service providers such as Dell and Network Solutions. Sponsors include Google, Intuit, the US Postal service and many others.

Browsing the agenda, I'm excited to see some of our friends presenting sessions:

• Anita Campbell, Small Business Trends, leading a panel on From the Trenches: Reinvention Case Studies
  
• Laura Allen, 15SecondPitch, on How to Pitch Your Business in 15 Seconds

Sessions include:

• Marketing in a Digital World: How Technology and New Media are Changing the Game
  
• How to Transform Your Business in 40 Minutes
• What You Need Now to Succeed
• Technology is Not the Answer
• Bounce! The Path to True Business Confidence

What’s at the all day Summit? Fun. Information. Breakfast. Networking. Lunch. Exhibits. Awesome Raffles. Prizes (2 computers and more). Panels. Your Questions.

Ramon sent me a special link, where you can get tickets for $69 before Feb 1. Regular tickets are $99 before Feb 1 and $149 after that. If you want that special deal, email me at becky at small biz survival dot com.

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Brag Basket is open to everyone

Each Friday, I open the brag basket as a fun place to brag or promote yourself and your projects.

Fridays are doubly special, though. We are also celebrating Frozen Pea Friday for Susan Reynolds. I encourage you to join me and donate the cost of a bag of frozen peas (or more) to cancer-fighting research at the Frozen Pea Fund. Then come brag about it!

Regular brags on any topic are still welcome!

Last week, Neenz bragged on a Burt Lum aka @bytemarks for the first UNCONFERENZ in Hawai'i. Colleen was proud to brag on her client, Ames Ingham, for making the cover story of Domino magazine. Neenz and Colleen, thanks for bragging!

You can brag on a friend, your own project, yourself, others, anything! You don't need special permission or anything. Just leave a comment right here, or DM beckymccray on Twitter.

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Promoting your media to the offline world

Chris Brogan wrote a great post about promoting your media to the online world. That made me think about increasing your audience by reaching out to new people.

Jon Swanson and I decided to collaborate on a follow up, how to promote your online 2.0 media to the offline 0.0 world.

Here are my suggestions:

• Talk about it. Tell people what you are working on. Ask for their opinion.
• Invite offline friends and experts to co-author or contribute.
• Mention your media project in your regular printed materials.
• Print business cards specifically for your blog or podcast. (credit: Vaspers)
• Put it in your bio and resume.
• Teach a class on how to create new media.
• Reprint your writings in offline venues: newspapers, newsletters, journals.

And here are Jon's ideas:

• On your regular business card include the data for your Flickr and blog and LinkedIn and...
• Talk about it all the time.
• Use online friends as references for 0.0 jobs.
• Collect your posts and print as a book.*
• Email your posts from reader to people who only check email.
• Have low expectations so you are more subtle.
• Talk about online friends as real friends.
• Get family members involved.

*In fact, compilations of all kinds of media would make great handouts. Booklets, audios, workbooks, PDFs, etc.

What other ideas do you have for reaching new people?


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Gene Marks can't make these technologies work, but you can

I love a small business technology challenge!

BarbaraKB on Twitter asked for someone to respond to an article in BusinessWeek, wherein Gene Marks listed off some tech 'solutions' he says small businesses "can't use." Can't? All small businesses? Marks is, I think, off the mark. Let's go through his list of 10 "overhyped and underwhelming technology" tools "that don't work" and see if we can make them work for small business!

[Photo: Three small businesswomen push forward with online technology.]

1. RSS Feeds: "an endless stream of meaningless items displayed in an overly large browser window that winds up distracting more than informing."

RSS and feeds can be an exceptionally useful tool, but only with a bit of coaching or some experience. Ask a techie friend to help you get set up, or to improve your setup, so you can avoid the stream of meaningless items. I'm helping our co-author Jeanne "OkieJ" Cole learn to use this tool right now. One key to RSS: know how to delete a feed you no longer want!

2. Spam Filters: "They all suck." "[Y]ou're going to waste money on the latest filtering technology, which does nothing more than block that key e-mail you were awaiting from a prospective customer."

If you don't get much junk email, you don't need to worry. But ask Jeanne about excessive spam. Her work email had no spam filtering. So she spent hours a day sorting and deleting, just like Marks advises. I advised her to switch to a service with built in spam filtering, like GMail. She is much more productive and much happier. Really, ask her! Reclaiming hours and reducing stress sounds like a benefit to a small business to me.

3. Anti-Virus Software: "Betsy's spent more money with her IT firm trying to work around antivirus software than she probably would've spent if she received an actual virus."

Marks laments the degraded performance and difficulty of installing new software while running AV software. I'm no fan of resource-hog AV! I have experimented with several different packages, and I recommend reading some reviews on CNet to find the best program for you.

If you think Marks is right, and it's cheaper to do without, ask what a catastrophic failure would really cost. How current are your backups? If you have any idea of going without, please, please, backup regularly, religiously, daily. And unhook from the internet and your office network.

4. Blogs: "[Y]ou'll need to set aside about 17 hours each day to keep it fresh." "If you don't have something new to say each day, no one's going to bother to stop by and check out your blog. It'll be, like, so lame."

Dude, get a grip. My liquor store blog gets updated when needed, and that's once a week on average. It brought me two major customers and about $1000 of revenue last year. Just got a phone call today from it. Word.

5. Search Engine Optimization: "SEO probably does the job for companies with oodles of money, but not for the typical small business."

Typical small business, a customer of mine, asked me to improve his site's returns from searches. OK, so I spent several hours researching and learned enough SEO to bring his site from ranking in the 100's to the top 10. What did I change? A few simple edits in the text, a bit of link-building, and a submission to the DMOZ open directory. It didn't cost him much, and I apply those lessons to every client site I do now.

I'm not a fan of add-on SEO services, like the one that stung Marks. I do like to see SEO considered from the beginning of a website design.

6. Mobile Applications: "Mobile applications will be a great thing…someday. Just like hovercrafts, telepods, and renewable energy. But for a small business on a limited budget, it's still science fiction."

Marks gives examples of entering orders or looking up inventory via cell phone. I don't see those working for tiny businesses yet, but I do see some great, valuable services available now. Twitter, Goog411, and plenty more services can make your cell phone much more productive right now. What about Jott? Jeanne and I love Jott! Call the 800 number, leave a message, and Jott will email it to you, or post it to your blog, or text it to your buddy or client! How cool is that? And free! Amazing!

7. Customer Relationship Management Software: "A CRM system can be a good thing, but it takes more than paying for the software and training. Without a substantial internal investment, CRM won't work."

I'll break the pattern and agree with Marks on this one. For most tiny and small businesses, CRM is useless. For some, though, it's priceless. Depends on your champions as Marks notes, as well as your size, your uses, and your needs.

8. AdWords: "Are you interested in a mind-numbing exercise? Give AdSense a shot. Or Yahoo SM or MSN AdCenter."

I hate to agree again, but I don't like AdWords, or other pay-per-BS ads. That's just me. I have a client who uses them, and he seems reasonably pleased. Of course, he had a friend help him set up. If you are interested, I recommend that you only consider very, very finely targeted words and phrases.

9. Online Video: "Online videos are great—if you've got the budget of Time Warner behind you."

Back to normal, I can disagree once again. Online video has great potential for small businesses, as a feature on our own site. I like Blip.tv for hosting and then embedding videos in my site.

Live video opens whole new realms. Jeanne and I also used Operator11 to create successful live video that generated new clients. Without the budget of Time Warner.

For more real-world ideas read my article How to use video to promote your small business and also Chris Punke's follow up Using video to promote your business.

10. Web 2.0: "All I really see are the same accounting, inventory, and order entry programs from the days of Reagan, albeit with new window dressing. I think we're supposed to be using Web 2.0 technologies to do more work online. But unless you're running an online business, these tools seem to have little relevance."

A quick glance at the list of web 2.0 type tools that we've reviewed might make you realize that some new ideas are out there. Here's the key to web 2.0: when it works, you won't notice it. As a small business person, you are most likely using plenty of advanced tools now, but without paying any attention. As well it should be.


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Put your good news in the Brag Basket

Each Friday, I open the brag basket as a fun place to brag or promote yourself and your projects.

Fridays are doubly special, though. We are also celebrating Frozen Pea Friday for Susan Reynolds. I encourage you to join me and donate the cost of a bag of frozen peas (or more) to cancer-fighting research at the Frozen Pea Fund. Then come brag about it!

Regular brags on any topic are still welcome!

Last week, Kim bragged on Kellie for helping the Twitter friends headed to SXSW (like me!). KevinKS was proud to brag on a client, Michelle, getting some great publicity. And Neenz bragged on a deserving Dan Mosqueda for helping the family of AshPEAMomma (aka AshPreggo, aka Ashley Spencer), a Twitter friend who was killed in an auto accident. Kim, Kevin, Neenz, thanks for bragging last week!

You can brag on a friend, your own project, yourself, others, anything! Leave a comment or DM beckymccray on Twitter.

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Failure quotes: blunders are good!

Why are failures important? We learn from our blunders. Here's another perspective on this idea.

"The capacity to blunder slightly is the real marvel of DNA. Without this special attribute, we would still be anaerobic bacteria and there would be no music." - Lewis Thomas, author of Lives of a Cell

Hat tip to "Pistachio" Laura Fitton, via Twitter.

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An effective internet presence for your small business

Ted Demopoulos is a frequent speaker at conferences, conventions, and other business events, author of What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting: Real-Life Advice from 101 People Who Successfully Leverage the Power of the Blogosphere, and coauthor of Blogging for Business. He's also a friend of mine, and he contributed to The Great Big Small Business Show podcast. Since then, we've been talking about doing an interview, but never quite connecting, until now! I cornered him, via email, to talk about his new project, Effective Internet Presence.

Ted, I've written a bit about having an active online presence, but you have a major project starting. What can small biz owners learn from it that will help their business?

People are more and more commonly going to the Internet for information, whether they are looking for a local dry cleaner, a bottle of wine from their birthyear anywhere that will ship to them, or checking out their sister’s new boy friend. Obviously this trend is continuing to pick up speed as well.

I’ve even been known to google businesses in the same building as myself in order to call them, rather than walking the 20-30 feet to their office.

If you are a small business, whether local, national, or international, you had better be easy to find online. Most small businesses need the three following -- at a minimum.

1) A Web site. Simple, non-fancy, even one page Web site works fine for many businesses.

2) The ability to easily and quickly modify your Web site yourself. Even if someone else designed and built it, which is normal, you need to be able to change it yourself to do things as simple as changing the hours you’re open or upload the specials of the week. You cannot depend on someone else and their availability for thing like this.

3) Googleability. You need to show up appropriately in the search engines, which is relatively simple if you’ve designed a good Web site and/or use some kind of search engine pay per click advertising.

For a local business, this means show up on geographic searches, for example “Ford Dealer, Memphis TN” or “Dentist, Hampton New Hampshire.” This is not hard.

A business should also keep up with any reviews and comments about themselves online. You should know what others are saying about you.

What types of small local businesses can benefit from blogging and other internet presence tools?

I can’t think of any businesses that wouldn’t benefit, although I’m sure there must be some. Maybe businesses that don’t want new customers or ONLY operate on the basis of referrals? Even “illegal” businesses are online and benefiting from it; I don’t find any hitmen, but certainly prostitution and other illegal businesses are online.

Is there a way for a small business to tell if they will have enough content to blog successfully?

I think the right question is whether an individual has enough excitement about their business to generate content, not what the business is. A friend of mine is an accountant. Not just an ordinary accountant, but one that (in my opinion) works in the most mundane and ordinary areas of accounting possible. But when she speaks about accounting, there is such passion and fire, that I get excited even though the underlying topic is hideously boring to me. She would make a great blogger due to her passion!

How have you used blogging and your overall internet presence to promote your own services?

Potential clients both find me and hire me online, and when it’s a decision between me and other consultants or speakers, my rather vast online presence is a definite edge. There is no question it positions me as a credible expert, and can do the same for you.

Of course you need to back that up with real experience and expertise as well!

Tell us about your small town connections. How are you managing to maintain an nationwide business from a small town?

Although I grew up in a small town, I’ll admit I love the excitement of big cities. They are like zoos; great places to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there. I’m home now, and since it’s winter and the leaves are off the trees I can sort of see one neighbor’s house through the woods, and I love that!

With the Internet and modern connectivity, I can work and live almost anywhere in the planet. Although I do fly a few times a year to speak at conferences and other events and visit clients, the majority of my work can be done from anywhere.

If I lived in a city I might travel less and spend more nights at home. For example if I lived in Las Vegas or New York I could probably earn a great living speaking and consulting only locally, but I chose to live in a very rural area and travel maybe once every month or so. It’s great to have choices, and an Effective Internet Presence allows that!

I asked Ted if he had a picture of him in a small town setting to post. He sent this one, and said, "Well, at least I AM outside in this picture :)"

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Brag Basket bursting with good news

Each Friday, I open the brag basket as a fun place to brag or promote yourself and your projects.

Fridays are doubly special, though. We are also celebrating Frozen Pea Friday for Susan Reynolds. I encourage you to join me and donate the cost of a bag of frozen peas (or more) to cancer-fighting research at the Frozen Pea Fund. Then come brag about it!

Regular brags on any topic are still welcome!

Last week, our basket threated to burst, it was so packed with good news! Dayngr bragged on Sim of Utterz for his community work. Neenz from Hawaii dropped in a brag on her new site. John Piercy turned the tables on Dayngr by bragging on her efforts to support the troops. AIDG got in a brag on their development accomplishments and their anniversary. Connie Reece bragged on Mike Chapman and reaching the Top 25 Marketing Blogs. Toby bragged on a client's successes with blogging, entering their third year. Communicatrix Colleen bragged on completing sample chapters towards being published. She made the connection through her blog! OkieJ Jeanne has been asked to take on a State Chair position with the Oklahoma Business and Professional Women; the Audit chair, no less! Chel Pixie bragged on Chris Penn for his community work. What a week!

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Small town business trends for 2008

Want a trend report that pays attention to small town trends? Read the top 10 trends for 2008 from Jack Schultz, author of Boomtown USA.

My top 5 picks from his list are:

NWOSU Ranger Rodeo Team,
These Millennials are shaping
the future of small towns

1. Millennials-Hard to believe that this generation, ages 10 to 27, dwarfs the Baby Boomers in size. Schultz says these young people are going to be the most entrepreneurial in the history of the USA. Are you ready to recruit and retain these forward-thinking young people?

3. Education-Schultz puts the emphasis on world class primary and secondary schools, entrepreneurial education, community colleges and technology centers. Are you partnering now with local educators?

7. Enviropreneurs-No matter what your business, start taking action on this one. If you are looking for business ideas, look in this field.

8. Niche Ag-This is another place to look for ideas. Schultz talks about diversifying crops and promoting local and organic food. He's absolutely right.

10. Birds Beating Birdies-Golf is slipping in importance, Schultz says. Bird watching, hiking and biking are rising.

What trends are you planning for?


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See you at SXSW

This year, I'll attend my first all-technology conference.

South by Southwest Interactive festival in March in Austin includes all sorts of interactive technology. Austin is close enough to drive, so I'm going!

Before I go, I'm taking Jeff Pulver's pre-conference advice to plan and set some goals.

So, if you're going, leave me a comment. One of my goals is to meet as many of you as I can!

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Hot Trends

I found this article by Cheryl Russell really interesting and an eye-opener! I was not very old in 1950, but many statements were still factual in 1960, when I was a teenager.


What the Time Traveler Sees

The year is 1950, and you have been transported (magically, of course) more than half a century into the future to the present time. What would you see? What would surprise you the most? This is a no-brainer: technological change would be the biggest stunner-cell phones, computers, and the Internet. But beyond the obvious technological marvels of the day lie profound changes in our demographics and lifestyles that would be just as shocking as our high-tech gadgets to the 1950s' time traveler. Here are the ten jaw-dropping demographic trends that make us different from the way we used to be-and what they tell us about our future.

1. We are fatter Much fatter. In 1960, the average woman weighed a reasonable 140 pounds. Now she weighs an oversized 164 pounds. The average man has seen his weight rise from 166 to 191 pounds. A new study study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research estimates that 75 percent of our weight gain is from eating too much rather than exercising too little.

2. We are diverse. In 1950, fully nine out of ten Americans were white-and virtually all whites were non-Hispanic. Today, only 66 percent are non-Hispanic white, and Hispanics-who were not part of the mix in 1950-are now the largest minority. Every year the U.S. population grows by another 3 million, and Hispanics account for half the gain. Most of the increase is occurring in the nation's maternity wards, not at the border crossings.

3. We are richer Much richer. The median income of the average household climbed 31 percent over the past forty years, after adjusting for inflation. This is good news, but unfortunately it is also old news. Median household income peaked several years ago, in 1999. Even more alarming, the median earnings of men with full-time jobs peaked all the way back in 1986. Only one factor fueled household income growth until 1999: working women.

4. Most women (including mothers) work In 1960, only 28 percent of married women with children under age 18 were in the labor force. Today, fully 67 percent have jobs. Americans once disapproved of working women, especially working mothers. No longer. The working mother is now the only factor that keeps many families from falling out of the middle-class. But mother's touch may be fading. The median earnings of women with full-time jobs peaked in 2002, after adjusting for inflation.

5. We are better educated In 1950, only 34 percent of adults had a high school diploma. Today, fully 85 percent of adults are high school graduates. The percentage of Americans with a college degree has climbed from just 6 to 28 percent. But the college boost to incomes may be waning. The median income of households headed by college graduates peaked in 1999 and has fallen 5 percent since then, after adjusting for inflation.

6. Food is cheaper Food prices have plummeted since 1950. The average household spends 40 percent less on food today than in 1950, after adjusting for inflation. But cheap food may not be entirely beneficial. The NBER examination of the reasons for our weight gain finds that as food gets cheaper, we eat more-adding to our girth.

7. We have more stuff Houses are bigger than ever, but they are home to fewer people. More than one in four households (27 percent) are now home to just one person, up from 11 percent in 1950. Our growing affluence has allowed us to buy larger houses, second and third cars, more television sets and other stuff-which is why we also have 2.2 billion square feet of rentable self-storage space available for our use, according to the Self Storage Association.

8. Fewer households have children Since 1950, the share of households with children has plummeted from nearly half to less than one-third, imperiling the public education system as childless homeowners balk at rising property taxes. It doesn't help that nearly half-45 percent-of children are Asian, black, or Hispanic, while non-Hispanic whites pay 82 percent of property taxes.

9. More children are born out-of-wedlock As men's incomes have fallen, women have become less willing to make a lifetime commitment to one man. Consequently, out-of-wedlock births are now commonplace. The increasingly dire economic plight of men can be read in this trend: the percentage of babies born out-of-wedlock has climbed from 4 percent in 1950 to 38 percent today.

10. We are living longer Our life expectancy is at an all-time high of nearly 78 years. Life expectancy is rising in part because the death rate from heart disease has plummeted thanks to new medications and the decline in smoking. Disturbingly, however, a shrinking share of young and middle-aged adults report being in very good or excellent physical health, and their mental health is eroding as well.

To the time traveler, it is obvious that Americans have come a long way since 1950. Our rising standard of living over the decades has made us the richest people on earth. But the time traveler can also see-perhaps more clearly than we-warning signs that we may have reached the summit as the Internet levels living standards around the world.

By Cheryl Russell, editorial director, New Strategist Publications For a comprehensive look at the demographic and socioeconomic trends that have transformed us since 1950, see the new edition of Demographics of the U.S.: Trends and Projections, 3rd edition. If you have any questions or comments about the above editorial, e-mail New Strategist at demographics@newstrategist.com.

Top 3 Year-end Accounting Tasks

Before you let the new year carry you away, take care of three important year-end accounting tasks.

1. Run your year-end reports on paper.

There are four important types of reports to document your important business info for the year. Put them on paper to protect against changes in software systems, lost data, or other vagaries of modern technology. Store them off site.
Run them for January 1 through December 31. Some are really long, so you may want to run them month by month to break it up.
I'll also list the report names in QuickBooks, although I'm sure any software has its own equivalent.

• Your basic financial position: Profit and Loss, and Balance Sheet
  
• Totals for tax filings: Income Tax Summary
  
• Detail of every transaction: Transaction Detail by Account
  
• Important payroll tax totals: Employee Earnings Summary

The payroll tax totals protect you in case an employee ever questions withholding, perhaps even years after the fact.

2. Submit your required tax forms

In the USA, you'll have three basic forms to tend to before January 31:

• W2: one form for each employee, and one form W3 as a summary of all employees
  
• 940: year end payroll report
• 1099-Misc: one form for each independent contractor you paid over $600, and one form 1096 as a summary of all 1099's.
  

Each of these applies only if you have paid employees or independent contractors.

Be sure to check with a tax professional, like our own Maesz, for more specifics on tax filings.

3. Do an annual backup

And store it off-site. Consider taking advantage of one of the many great online backup services. A good list is at Storage for Nothing, Backup for Free. Carbonite is too new for the list, but gets good reviews. If you prefer to keep your backups off the internet, Comodo offers free backup software.


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Brag Basket is back!

Each Friday, I open the brag basket as a fun place to brag or promote yourself and your projects.

Fridays are doubly special, though. We are also celebrating Frozen Pea Friday for Susan Reynolds. (Why all the peas? Susan used a bag of frozen peas as an ice pack after biopsy and found the courage to write and laugh about it.) I encourage you to join me and donate the cost of a bag of frozen peas (or more) to cancer-fighting research at the Frozen Pea Fund. Then come brag about it!

Regular brags on any topic are still welcome!

In our last Brag Basket, co-author Jeanne "OkieJ" Cole talked about her continuing social media growth. Twitter-er @ChelPixie bragged on her Frozen Pea Fund cohorts @ConnieReece, @CathleenRitt and Bryce Moore (@abiteofsanity). Neenz from Hawaii joined in, bragging on the good-hearted individuals surrounding her online. Ted Demop was proud of his new Effective Internet Presence project, and Paul Merrill was too modest to mention his Blog of the Year award, even though he dropped in a comment.

You can leave a comment right now, or dm beckymccray on Twitter.

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