Selling to Small Businesses

Turning your business into a franchise model can be an exciting time. You can’t wait to start selling franchises, and reap the benefits of being a franchisor …. You are ready to sell franchises if you have done the following: Written a complete operations manual Have your Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD) completed Have your franchise [...]

The Kauffman Foundation is out with a report that ranks the U.S. states according to how well they do in the entrepreneurial ”New Economy.” In “The 2008 State New Economy Index” the 50 states are ranked for such things as number of knowledge workers, IT jobs, inventor patents, and venture capital investment.  It also measures some puzzling [...]

The forum (discussion board) is still quite alive and kicking.  Many corporate brands use discussion boards on their own sites to build community and also assist customers in finding answers to technical issues. But if you are looking for proactive marketing to reach small businesses, don’t overlook forums and discussion boards run by third parties.  They [...]

So the NFIB’s Small Business Optimism Index for November 2008 came out this week. And it’s ugly. Bleh. But business, like the show, must go on. When last month’s report came out, we’d had two months in a row of improvement on what was an otherwise awful-looking downward chart. But for that short 2-month period [...]

DHL, the shipping company, announced it was cutting 9,500 jobs in the United States.  The move means it will focus its US Express arm on international only.   So what does its big competitor, FedEx, do?  Sends out an email blast to small business customers saying: “We’ll pick up where DHL leaves off. If you’re concerned about [...]

Cisco, the maker of networking equipment, last week announced they will be spending $100 Million internally to invest in the small business market.  Basically the investment will be in two areas: (1) reorganizing the company around markets instead of technologies (including creation of a Small Business Council made up of senior executives), and (2) creating new products [...]