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Visual Merchandizing
Glenn Muske, Oklahoma State University, takes us on a tour of ways that business owners can create compelling visual displays that will draw the interest of customers without breaking the bank. This is an adobe connect webinar courtesy of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension.(http://www.extension.org/) To access the webinar, click on the title below.
U.S. Religious Landscape Survey
There is an excellent new tool available to business owners who are interested in targeting individuals with religious beliefs or need to know more about their current market’s religious practices. The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life conducted a survey of more than 35,000 American age 18 and other to obtain information about their religious makeup, religious beliefs and practices as well as social and political attitudes of the American public. The data shows that religious affiliation in the U.S. is both very diverse and extremely fluid.
Market Research Tool
Need local market research information? Headwaters Economics, an independent, nonprofit research group based in Bozeman, Montana has developed an Economic Profile System (EPS) that is free to the public. The easy-to-use website allows users to produce socioeconomic profiles of their communities, counties, and regions. The information is available through a downloadable software package or you can select to receive a finished PDF version.
Renewable Energy and Economic Potential in Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and South Dakota
The most important issue awaiting action by this Congress for rural development in Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and South Dakota is renewable energy legislation. Expanding production of renewable electricity to 20 percent of the nation’s electrical generation has the potential to create a large number of new jobs in the rural Midwest and Great Plains, according to an unpublished analysis from the U.S. Department of Energy, National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The state-by-state projections were prepared in conjunction with the laboratory’s report 20% Wind by 2030, but were never formally published. Here, we will focus on Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and South Dakota. To view this pdf file simply click on the title below.
Renewable-Energy-and-Economic-Potential
This article is from the Center for Rural Affairs’ October 2009 monthly newsletter. The authors are John Crabtree and Kim Preston.
Health Care: What If Rural Really Mattered?
After August’s rancorous health care debate, it seems time to return to the question, “What would it look like if rural really mattered?” Making health care coverage affordable for the rural self-employed should be a driving force in the reform debate. Over half the jobs in rural America are tied to small businesses or self-employment – on family farms, ranches and Main Street businesses. As a result, rural people who own or work for those businesses are twice as likely to be underinsured as urban Americans.
Blogging: More Than Idle Chatter
By Leigh Buchanan, Max Chafkin, and Ryan McCarthy | Feb 1, 2008 Inc. Magazine
With 100 million blogs now online, you may feel as though the last thing your website or the world needs is another one. But if you don’t have a blog, you might want to reconsider. That’s because Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), the great arbiter of Web success, has a particular love for blogs. When compiling its vaunted rankings, the search engine appears to favor websites that are updated frequently and are linked to by other webpages. Given these criteria, blogs have an outsize influence on the results. And blogs are more than a way to game Google. A surprising 66 percent of North American consumers trust blogs as a source of product information, according to a 2007 survey by Nielsen. The trick, say experts and longtime bloggers, is restraint. “For marketers, it’s about being more authentic, which is so ironic,” says Peter Kim, senior analyst at Forrester Research.
Social Networks: Ready to Join the Party? Selling Yourself On Facebook.
By Leigh Buchanan, Max Chafkin, and Ryan McCarthy | Feb 1, 2008 Inc. Magazine
Though roughly two-thirds of all North American Internet users visit a social network at least once a month–and they spend four hours a month on these sites on average, according to ComScore, a Web-traffic research firm–most marketers have so far steered clear of social networks.
“The perception was that social networks were these crazy free-for-alls, basically an extended bar night,” says Max Levchin, co-founder of PayPal and founder of Slide, a San Francisco–based widget developer. “But the fear of putting brands on social networks is starting to subside.” (In the interest of full disclosure, Inc.’s parent company launched IncBizNet, a social network for the owners of private companies, last fall. Operators are standing by.)
How to Find Funds in a Credit Crunch
By Joanne Cleaver | Oct 1, 2008 Inc. Magazine
Banks are cutting back, but capital is still available for worthy companies that know where to look.”We have one of those mortgages that’s all over the news right now,” says Dave Tiller.That mortgage is an option adjustable rate mortgage, which allows borrowers to pay less than the interest that’s accumulating on the loan — so the amount of the loan grows over time. Back in 2005, when Tiller refinanced his house, such loans were the latest thing. Tiller figured that paying $1,100 a month on the mortgage and deferring $1,400 a month in interest would maximize the amount of cash he had to invest in Studeo Legal, the Peoria, Arizona, legal-document management and consulting firm he was launching.
Then came the credit crunch. His five-bedroom home, appraised at $390,000 when he refinanced, is now worth just $320,000 — $10,000 less than he owes. Meanwhile, his monthly payment has ballooned to $3,000, which is $1,000 more than it would have been if he had been paying interest all along. That means he has less to invest in his business, and, thanks to the credit crunch, virtually no other options for finding capital.
KFS Report on Credit Card Use
The Kauffman Firm Study reports that credit card debt reduces the likelihood that a new business will survive its first three years of operation. The report, The Use of Credit Card Debt by New Firms, states that for every $1,000 increase in credit card debt the probability a new firm will close will increase by 2.2 percent. However, the study did not find a statistical relationship between the use of credit cards to fund start-up costs and the subsequent business closures.
Virtualization and the Office Structure
Are you wanting to find an efficient design for a virtual business? Andy Hawkins and Tony Cody, owners of Concentric Corp. (Omaha, NE) (http://concentriccorp.com) describe the unique services they provide to small businesses that want remote or teleworking options. As a service, virtualization allows businesses to invest less in equipment and software and yet still have the same capabilities. Find out more. http://concentriccorp.com/ View Video
