The fashion industry is one of those industries which continue to do well even with the world wide economic meltdown. For those whose businesses are linked to the fashion sector, this offers them a sure opportunity to cash in and earn more income. To crown it all, it's possible to go ahead and choose wholesale fashion accessories, which would definitely make the company boost its profit margin.

By opting for wholesale fashion accessories, you won't just stock the company, but will even get attractive discounts and increase the profit margin. This happens because, by opting for the accessories as wholesale, you will enjoy the advantages of economies of scale. Basically, by purchasing the accessories in bulk you'll probably get charged much less, in comparison to purchasing them in small amounts. Besides, purchasing the accessories in bulk will ensure that you get all the products consumers would want.

Wholesale fashion accessories might include such things as handbags, bracelets, wallets for men, necklaces and pendants, as well as earrings. They all are available in different styles and fashions, and are all made from different materials. As a company owner, you need to be able to understand what consumers request most, so that once you are certain, you can purchase it in wholesale.

According to the company you buy your accessories from, some are going to deliver them to you for free or for a small fee. Others are as reasonable as accepting to refund your money, if on delivery, you notice some accessories are broken, missing, or defective.


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Source: Reuters


While data on Thursday also showed manufacturing activity rose in the nation's mid-Atlantic region in May, new orders and employment slipped. A separate gauge of the economy's prospects dipped for the first time in 13 months in April.

The reports showed more weakness than financial markets expected and contributed to a selloff on Wall Street, but analysts said the economy's recovery was largely on track.

"There are worries that the market turmoil will eventually trigger some weakness in the economic performance, but to date I don't really see that. What we are seeing in the data is pretty steady decent rates of growth," said Stephen Gallagher, chief U.S. economist at Societe Generale in New York.

Federal Reserve Governor Daniel Tarullo warned Europe's debt troubles, if not contained, could cause financial markets to freeze and spark a global crisis akin to the market meltdown of late 2008.

Initial claims for state jobless benefits increased 25,000 last week to 471,000, the highest level in five weeks, the Labor Department said. Markets had expected a drop to 440,000.

The claims data fell in the survey week for the government's closely watched employment report for May, and would normally be seen as suggesting weak jobs growth.

However, some analysts said the relationship between claims and payrolls had weakened, and they continued to look for a healthy pace of job creation in May.

"There hasn't been a particularly close relationship, we still expect employment growth to be fairly brisk in May. But there is a bit of a downside risk given the number this morning," said Peter Newland, an economist at Barclays Capital in New York.

Separately, the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank said its index of mid-Atlantic business activity rose to 21.4 from April's 20.2, a touch below market expectations for 22.0. A reading above zero indicates expansion in manufacturing.

Subindexes, however, showed weakness in employment and new orders.

In a third report, the Conference Board said its index of U.S. leading economic indicators, which aims to gauge the economy's future strength, slipped 0.1 percent last month, surprising analysts who had looked for a 0.2 percent gain.

It was the first drop since March 2009.

STOCKS TUMBLE

The reports added to pressure on U.S. stocks, already reeling on concerns Europe's debt crisis could hold back the domestic economy's recovery as governments in Europe cut spending. Major indices ended down more than 3 percent.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index .SPX is now down over 10 percent from its April's closing high, indicating a correction and marking the most significant break in the rally from March 2009's 12-year low.

Prices for U.S. government debt rallied, with the yield on the benchmark 10-year note touching a 5-1/2 month low. The U.S. dollar fell sharply versus the yen.

The debt crisis, stemming from Greece's fiscal troubles, pushed consumer confidence in the euro zone to a seven-month low in May.

Though analysts remain optimistic about the U.S. economy's recovery from the worst recession since the 1930s, they worry a prolonged decline in share prices could curb consumer spending, which rebounded strongly in the first quarter.

"The stock market has a fairly strong relationship with consumer spending in the U.S., so a sustained drop in the stock market could lead us to soften our forecast for consumer spending, we are not at that stage yet," said Newland.

The Fed's quarterly "central tendency" forecasts released on Wednesday showed greater optimism on the U.S. growth outlook among policymakers, who predicted gross domestic product would rise around 3.2 percent to 3.7 percent this year.

But the manufacturing-led recovery has been plagued by stubbornly high unemployment, creating a political headache for President Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats. The near 10 percent unemployment rate could cost the Democratic Party its majorities in both houses of Congress in November's elections.

New applications for unemployment benefits have been falling only slowly, even though payrolls have now grown for four straight months. Analysts believe this implies only a gradual improvement in the jobless rate once it peaks.

But there was some good news in the claims report. The number of people still receiving benefits after an initial week of aid fell to its lowest level in since late March in the week ended May 8. And for the first time since November 2009, the number of people receiving benefits fell below 10 million.

"The ongoing reduction in the total number of benefit recipients is consistent with continued hiring," wrote economists at Goldman Sachs.

The good news is that there are some real gems among the few releases we had.

Entrepreneurial Geography

In light of the frequently repeated jobs-jobs-jobs mantra, a policy brief out of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government answering the question “What Makes A City Entrepreneurial?” was both timely and intriguing.

On the surface, the answer to that question is fairly intuitive — although I’ll put it differently than the good researchers at Harvard did. The easier and cheaper it is to start and run a business, and the more room there is in the local or regional economy (less dominated by large companies that crowd out the smaller ones), the more independent small businesses there are.

That matters because these guys found that a 10% increase in average establishment size in a metropolitan area corresponded with a 7% decline in subsequent job growth due to new startups (and you’ll recall that the Kauffman Foundation has pretty well established that startups are responsible for all net new jobs).

For that matter, even new startups that are associated with older, larger, established firms don’t really help. In that situation, there was a 5% decline in employment growth due to new startups.

Conversely, they found that:

In fact, along with January temperature and share of the population with college degrees, an abundance of small, independent firms is one of the best predictors of urban growth, a fact that raises questions about the occasional local development strategy of chasing large employers with generous tax breaks. (Emphasis mine)

Since this is a policy brief, it would have been incomplete without a few policy recommendations. First on their list: lawmakers, stop with the smoke-stack chasing, they say. Those big boys “may provide an immediate headline associated with new jobs,” but for sustained job growth you do better with small business startups.

Another policy recommendation: instead of doing things that government isn’t good at (like playing venture capitalist), policy makers should focus on “quality of life policies that can attract smart, entrepreneurial people” and then, once they arrive, get out of their way.

The Real Voice of Small Business … No, Really

The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) came out with a rather bizarre piece of research this month in answer to the question, “Does the NFIB’s research reasonably represent the majority of small business owners?” (The paper can be downloaded with this link.)

In order to answer that question, they performed parallel surveys of their members and a group of business owners discovered by way of DUNS numbers. They found that the responses of the two groups were very close, except that, on occasion, the DUNS group was a bit more conservative. Thus, they concluded, their surveys were a valid voice of U.S. small businesses.

The only problem with that is that small businesses with DUNS numbers are not typical of the majority of U.S. small businesses either. Most microbusinesses, for example, don’t have DUNS numbers. So, given the nature of the DUNS number business population, this research hasn’t really proved anything — or at least, not to anyone who was inclined to ask the question to begin with.

Speaking personally, I don’t really know why the NFIB would care one way or another. They do good, clean small business research, and if their samples tend to better reflect the larger small businesses that would be called medium-sized businesses anywhere else in the world, that’s not a bad thing. Somebody needs to do research on them; they are seriously outnumbered by microbusinesses but they serve an important purpose for the economy, as important in their way as those feisty startups that everybody loves this week.

Microloan Under The Microscope

During the first half of last year, domestic microfinance outfits found themselves at the center of quite a bit of warm and fuzzy attention as one of only a handful of financial services providers still providing loans to small businesses.

In fact, there were some small business owners who would otherwise not have considered for a microloan (being outside their normal target market), who concluded after an experience with a microfinance organization that the typical combination of financing plus technical assistance was the best thing since sliced bread.

The Aspen Institute has been tracking outcomes for U.S. domestic microfinance efforts in an initiative called MicroTest and a recent report looks at five years’ worth of outcomes to get a bigger picture.

The picture is not what you might expect. There were not as many episodes of “build the business from scratch” stories to be had. Over the five years of data that had been collected, the most successful microloan borrowers came into the program with an existing business that was earning something along the lines of $100,000 in average annual revenues.

The five-year survival rate for these firms was 88% and earnings increased over the period (with microenterprise development organization support) to an average of about $170,000 per year. Successful microfinance clients also tended to stay small but they still tended to better-than-double the size of their workforce, on average, over the five-year period (from 2.1 workers to 5.6 workers).

Most significant from this study is its finding that success for these clients is positively related to borrowing. Getting business management training alone is not enough. Given the way that most microbusinesses are undercapitalized, that makes quite a lot of sense but is also only underscores the difficulty that microbusinesses were having with access to capital long before Wall Street crashed and burned.

LONDON – The Conservatives captured the largest number of seats Thursday in Britain's national election but did not get a majority, according to television projections based on exit polls, a result that triggered uncertainty over who will form the next government.

An analysis by Britain's main television networks suggested David Cameron's Conservative party will win 305 House of Commons seats, short of the 326 seats needed for a majority.

The projections also showed a substantial drop for Prime Minister Gordon Brown's ruling Labor Party, giving it 255 seats — its smallest number since 1987. Nick Clegg's Liberal Democrats were seen as winning 61 seats — far less than had been expected. Smaller parties got 29 other seats.

The three top parties immediately began jockeying for position.

If the vote does not give any party a majority, that could produce a destabilizing period of political wrangling and uncertainty. Brown could resign if he feels the results have signaled he has lost his mandate to rule, or he could try to stay on as leader and seek a deal in which smaller parties would support him.

The projection suggests that the Conservatives will gain 95 seats, Labour will lose 94 and the Liberal Democrats will lose one.

The result did not bode well for Brown, Britain's prime minister since 2007.

"Let's see how it pans out, Gordon will know whether he should stay on or not," Labour Home Secretary Alan Johnson said. "I think Gordon deserves the dignity to look at these things and make up his own mind."

Hard results began to trickle in about an hour after polls closed. The first seat to declare, Houghton and Sunderland South in northern England, was retained by Labour.

Voters in some British districts reported that they were turned away from polling stations after large queues formed shortly before polls closed at 10 p.m. (2100 GMT; 5 p.m. EDT). Problems were reported in Milton Keynes in southern England, and in Sheffield — the city where Liberal Democrat leader Clegg holds a seat — and Newcastle in northern England.

Theresa May, a senior Conservative Party lawmaker, said the exit poll result showed Labour's heaviest losses since 1931, and that the incumbent party had lost "the legitimacy to govern."

But Labour's Business Secretary, Peter Mandelson, pointed out that the sitting prime minister is traditionally given the first chance to form a government.

"The rules are that if it's a hung Parliament, it's not the party with the largest number of seats that has first go, it's the government," he said. "I have no problem in principle in trying to supply this country with a stable government."

He extended an olive branch to the Liberal Democrats, who have called to end the first-past-the-post system, where the number of districts won — not the popular vote — determines who leads the country.

"There has to be electoral reform as a result of this election," Mandelson said. "First-past the-post is on its last legs."

The results may yet change. Projecting elections based on exit polls is inherently risky — particularly in an exceptionally close election like this one. Polls are based on samples — in this case 18,000 respondents — and always have some margin of error.

Britain's census is nine years out of date and the polling districts haven't caught up to population shifts. Many voters also refuse to respond to exit polls.

Thousands have also already cast postal ballots but those results don't factor into the exit polls. About 12 percent cast postal ballots in 2005.

"I think we're going to see a very interesting night," Conservative Party chairman Eric Pickles said.

The Tories are hoping to regain power for the first time since 1997, when they were ousted by Labour under Tony Blair. After three leaders and three successive election defeats, the party selected Cameron, a fresh-faced, bicycle-riding graduate of Eton and Oxford who promised to modernize the party's fusty, right-wing image.

Whoever wins faces the daunting challenge of introducing big budget cuts to slash Britain's huge deficit.

The election result would be disastrous news for the Liberal Democrats, Britain's longtime third party, who enjoyed a big poll surge after the charismatic Clegg appeared in televised TV debates.

"It's obviously going to be very close. What is clear is that the country is going to need a strong and stable government to take us through the recession," Labour's deputy leader Harriet Harman told BBC News.

Liberal Democrat deputy leader Vince Cable described the outcome of the exit poll as "very strange" and insisted they had been "horribly wrong" in the past.

Sometimes the most important small business marketing tools and technologies start out as expensive enterprise solutions exclusive to big brands and agencies; only much later do they become affordable and accessible to small businesses.

During a recent trip to San Francisco, I stopped by the tradeshow floor at Ad:Tech and found myself staring into the not-too-distant future of small business marketing
. I didn't have a chance to see everything Ad:Tech had to offer, but I did have time to talk with a few innovative companies offering solutions that are sure to influence the way small businesses approach marketing.

Here's what I found that's worth sharing along with some tips for getting ready to adjust to new trends.

Innovation No. 1: Online Display Advertising
Banner ads may sound like an antiquated way to get noticed, but actually display advertising is becoming much more interesting due to two important trends.

One such trend is better local ad targeting. Several companies, such as Local.com, LinkedIn and Facebook, have announced that they're getting into the local targeting game by offering geography-based advertising along with the standard demographic or keyword targeting you'd expect. Local targeting is already prevalent in search engine marketing and it's good to know that display ads are heading in the same direction.

The other noticeable trend to get excited about is the movement toward ad pricing based on cost-per-action rather than cost-per-click. Paying for ads based on CPA means that you don't pay the publisher until you get the action you want from the ad. For example, if you want your online display ad to drive someone to an online store to buy the advertised product, you won't have to pay until someone actually clicks the ad and completes the purchase. Several companies--such as Hydra--have announced an emphasis on CPA tracking and billing.

* How to get ready
Get to know your acquisition costs on an intimate level. If cost-per-action advertising sounds attractive, you'll need to have a firm understanding of what you're willing to pay for each new customer or action your advertising obtains in order to know how to bid. If you're interested in the possibilities of targeted display advertising (and you're interested in getting sophisticated with your targeting) start building a profile of your best prospects and customers--including geography, demographic information and typical buying behavior. If you need help figuring out how to analyze your customers to get that information, online advertising company Ad Buyer offers a set of free audience profiling tools.

Innovation No. 2: Online Retail Promotions
Selling physical goods has long been about driving traffic to your e-commerce store so prospective customers can see and buy your products. That trend seems destined for a giant turn in the opposite direction, because it won't be long before smaller retailers have the ability to sell more of their products on other highly targeted consumer websites. One such website is Milo.com, where the CEO announced the company's intention to enable anyone to search real-time availability and local product information on every product, on every shelf, in every local business in America.

Another outstanding innovation for online retail comes from Pixazza. Pixazza is changing the way consumers shop by allowing people to browse and buy products that appear in any photos. For example, let's say you're reading an article in an online entertainment magazine and you see a photo of Jennifer Lopez wearing earrings that are to-die-for. Getting yourself a similar pair is easier than ever; as you hover over the photo Pixazza recommends earrings at suggested prices far below what Jennifer Lopez probably paid for hers.

* How to get ready
It's time to get your inventory database
in shape. Selling products on websites owned by other companies will likely require you to conform to their database and information technology standards. There's no need to get overly sophisticated here. If your company has the ability to publish real time inventory and product information to your own website, you probably already have enough technology to quickly enable a feed of that information to other online databases.

Innovation No. 3: Social Media Advertising
Social media is arguably the most innovative internet tool to emerge since, well, the internet. There are definitely good reasons to advertise on social media sites (this includes your own fan pages and networks). The challenge for a small business is the same challenge facing any business: How do you get enough people to pay attention to your ads while they are busy uploading photos or conversing with friends?

There are a number of companies working to make social media advertising more engaging and even fun, and it won't be long before there are a plethora of choices for small budgets. At the show, NTB Media announced an interesting video advertising product with built-in games and quizzes to get people to pay attention and remember the content in the videos, and Fan Appz announced access to an integrated suite of social media applications designed to attract attention and engagement in exchange for a subscription of just $50 per month.

* How to get ready
Test before you invest. Social media advertising is already accessible and affordable to small business, but affordability isn't the only reason to invest in a particular form of advertising. Don't invest in a new social media tool or advertising strategy until you are sure you have the ability and the time to track your results and compare them against other opportunities. As a small business, you can't afford to invest in everything. If you don't track and compare your results, you won't have the information you need to make budget-wise choices.

Innovation No. 4: Mobile Marketing
Advertising and messaging to mobile phones is definitely a hot topic among marketers. In the past, most mobile marketing tools focused on only one aspect of mobile marketing, such as text-messaging, application development or mobile websites. Those tools are now converging as integrated solutions. One such company, 2ergo, recently announced plans to offer a comprehensive suite of marketing solutions that include SMS, MMS, e-mail and mobile websites. Be on the lookout for companies offering comprehensive mobile solutions priced for small businesses in the not-too-distant future.

* How to get ready
Make sure at least a portion of your website is designed to display and function properly on mobile devices--especially the pages that contain contact information for your business. If you have a location-based business, start making your communications more mobile friendly so people can respond to your offers and information while they are on-the-go. Sending text-messages and e-mails with mobile coupons and snack-sized bites of product information are great places to start. Also, social media users are more likely to become mobile savvy than the average internet user, so make sure you have a presence on the most common social sites.

WASHINGTON – A surprisingly busy month for U.S. factories and a surge in home buying are the latest signs that the economic recovery is picking up.

Orders to U.S. factories rose 1.3 percent in March, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. That was much better than the 0.1 percent decline analysts had expected. Excluding the volatile transportation sector, orders gained 3.1 percent, the biggest increase since August 2005.

Widespread activity in many industries offset a big drop in commercial aircraft. The increase offers further evidence that U.S. manufacturers are helping drive the recovery.

A separate report showed that more people signed contracts on previously owned homes in March than was expected. The jump was in large part the result of tax incentives that have propelled the housing market this spring.

The National Association of Realtors said its seasonally adjusted index of sales agreements for previously occupied homes rose 5.3 percent from a month earlier to a reading of 102.9. It was the highest level since October and a 21 percent increase from the same month a year earlier. The index provides an early measurement of sales activity because there is usually a one- to two- month lag between a sales contract and a completed deal.

The two reports offered more evidence that the recovery is strengthening. They also follow a government report Monday that said consumers stepped up their spending in March by the largest amount in five months. As evidence of that trend, MasterCard Inc. on Tuesday said its first-quarter profit jumped 24 percent as more shoppers are feeling comfortable enough about the economy and their jobs to reach for the plastic again.

But Wall Street appeared to be more focused on the growing debt crisis in Europe. Stocks dropped sharply around the world over concerns that European countries would fail to approve a $144 billion bailout package for Greece. By early afternoon the Dow Jones industrial average was down more than 230 points, erasing a 143-point gain on Monday.

At the moment, manufacturing is the leading star of the economic rebound and economists are predicting that will continue for the rest of the year, helping to offset weakness in other areas. Manufacturers are benefiting not only from the rebound in the United States but also rising demand for U.S. exports as the global economy recovers at a faster rate than had been expected.

Factory orders have jumped in 11 of the past 12 months, and economist anticipate more gains in the coming months.

"Businesses slammed on the brakes too hard in reducing inventories during the recession," said Tim Quinlan, an economist at Wells Fargo Securities. "Now that the recession is over, the shelves are bare and that means they have to ramp up their orders to restock. We are seeing pretty broadbased strength in a lot of industries."

But Quinlan said factory orders are only 44 percent of their pre-recession peak from July 2008. Even with manufacturers producing more, Quinlan expects high unemployment and low housing values to slow economic growth.

"We are not out of the woods yet in terms of the job market," he said. "The biggest ongoing burden for the economy is that about 10 percent of the workforce is out of a job and another 10 percent are not working as much as they would like to work. That will be a drag on growth."

For March, demand for durable goods, items expected to last at least three years, fell 0.6 percent, a better showing than a preliminary report on April 23 which had put the decline in durable goods at 1.3 percent.

The overall durable goods number was heavily influenced by a big swing in commercial aircraft, a volatile category, which plunged 66.9 percent in March after having posted huge gains in the two previous months.

Total transportation orders were down 12.3 percent. That was the biggest drop since June of last year as a 2.7 percent rise in demand for motor vehicles and parts only partially offset the plunge in aircraft.

But excluding transportation, factory orders posted a 3.1 percent rise, the best showing since a 3.6 percent increase in August 2005.

The strength in other industries was widespread, Orders for primary metals, including iron and steel, increased 4.7 percent while demand for machinery was up 8.6 percent, led by a 28.1 percent surge in construction machinery.

Orders for computers and other electronics products increased 22.7 percent.

The report showed that demand for nondurable goods, products such as oil and chemicals, rose 2.9 percent in March. The strength in nondurables included strong increases in demand for petroleum, chemicals and tobacco.

The Institute for Supply Management reported Monday that its closely watched gauge of manufacturing activity rose to 60.4 in April, up from 59.6 in March.

That was the strongest reading in nearly six years and represented the ninth straight month that the index has signaled growth in manufacturing. A reading above 50 indicates manufacturing is expanding while readings below 50 signal that the factory sector is contracting.

Home sales have received a boost from the federal government's tax credit of up to $8,000 for home buyers.

These incentives have stimulated the market, but the deadline to get a signed sales contract was April 30. Many analysts project sales will drop sharply in the second half of the year.

"Strength in the spring was all but certain," wrote Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist at Miller Tabak. "A slump following the credit's expiration is likely although the exact timing is difficult to predict."

Some analysts expect prices to slump as well, especially if mortgage rates rise and more foreclosed homes hit the market.

Nevertheless, economists and real estate agents alike hope the economy will be strong enough to bring down the unemployment rate from the current 9.7 percent. If that happens, it "could be enough to stabilize the housing market," wrote Jennifer Lee, an economist with BMO Capital Markets.

The joy and fantasy of comic books and video games are often looked upon as fleeting childhood experiences. That was not the case for Gareb Shamus, who, as founder and chairman of Wizard Entertainment Group has successfully turned the nostalgia of his childhood into a multimillion-dollar enterprise. Since the first publication of Wizard Magazine in 1991, Shamus has built a pop culture empire that boasts several award-winning insider comic book magazines, with millions of readers in more than 40 countries, and has emerged as one of the leading faces of the growing pop culture industry.

As a child, Shamus had a passion for comic books and sports cards. He explains how growing up around his parents' Rockland County, N.Y., comic book store rooted pop culture in his blood. "The store, the items, the collectibles were always something we did together," Shamus says. The frequent family trips to comic book shows are etched in his memory. However, he never imagined that comics would become such a significant part of his future.

After graduating from State University of New York/University at Albany in 1991, Shamus began writing a small newsletter for the family store. The newsletter grew in popularity, and people seemed genuinely interested in the production of a larger publication. At age 21--and with little savings--Shamus borrowed money from friends and family and launched Wizard Magazine, the first color magazine devoted strictly to the comic book industry.

Since then, Wizard Entertainment has produced several leading industry publications, including ToyFare, InQuest Gamer, Anime Insider, Special Forces and Toy Wishes, all of which have become centerpieces in the world of comic books, video games and action figures. Wizard Magazine has been named one of the country’s top 20 magazine launches in the past 20 years. The popular magazine covers just about everything relevant in popular culture today, from the newest video games to toys and comic books.

"If there is something the collector, or the first adopter, is involved with, we are delivering it through print, online and at our conventions around the country," Shamus says. As the company evolved, the business transformed from newsletters and magazines to growing digital arm--including podcasts, newsletters and exclusive interviews--and convention business.

Shamus attributes this success to knowing what consumers are interested in and connecting them with what is hot today. "You have to want to be a leader and not go by the status quo all the time," Shamus says. "You also have to not be afraid to take chances and sometimes have to make unpopular decisions for the good of the brand. This cannot be an emotional process to be successful; it has to be very focused on progress."

Cultivating a positive working environment is key to sustaining that success. By surrounding himself with individuals who love the work they do, Shamus has created what he calls a "culture of success" within the Wizard Entertainment family. This, Shamus says, has enabled him to establish a strong foundation for his business.

He credits his father for instilling in him an unwavering entrepreneurial spirit. Shamus says that watching his father make sound decisions, he learned to follow his own path in business and stick to what he believes in, despite opposition. He adds that he enjoyed the freedom of growing up in an entrepreneurial environment as well as the process of building his own business. He realized that in order to do what he wanted to, he had to do it on his own. Despite collaborating with several major corporations to build his brand, Shamus still found a way to stamp the work with his personality.

What advice would Shamus give to young entrepreneurs looking to follow their dreams? Once they get the capital they need to launch their business and follow their dream, to , Shamus says, guard it like it’s a child. "As great, as unique as your ideas are, you must be properly funded and understand what it takes to get a business running successfully," he says. "The worst things we see are great ideas with not [enough] capital to execute them. You need the capital to make the business run properly and give you the chance to be successful."

WASHINGTON - Small businesses are still waiting for the economic rebound that's enabled larger companies to obtain low-interest credit and to boost exports and production in recent months.

Smaller companies aren't much more optimistic than they were in the depths of the recession, according to a survey released Tuesday by the National Federation of Independent Business.

That pessimism is slowing job creation and likely weakening the recovery, economists say.

The NFIB's small business optimism index fell 1.2 points to 86.8 in March, the lowest level since July 2009. That's a sharp contrast with other surveys showing larger companies rebounding.

"The March reading is very low and headed in the wrong direction," said William Dunkelberg, chief economist at the NFIB. "Something isn't sitting well with small business owners."

Small businesses account for about half of gross domestic product. Firms with fewer than 50 employees historically have created about one-third of new jobs, according to Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James.

The NFIB's index has been below 90 for 18 straight months, the longest sub-90 period since the survey began in 1973. It fell below 90 for only one three-month period in the steep 1981-92 recession.

Small businesses cite weak sales and uncertainty about the economic recovery as their leading concerns. Obtaining loans also remains difficult for many NFIB members. Fifteen percent said credit was harder to get than the last time they sought loans, the NFIB said, up from 12 percent in February.

On a more positive note, many small companies appear to have stopped laying off workers. The NFIB's members reported no change in employment in March, after shedding workers every month since July 2008.

But with sales and earnings weak, few are ready to hire. Over the next three months, slightly more said they planned to cut workers than add jobs, on a seasonally adjusted basis.

Roger Gerick, owner of Freightmovers in Tyler, Texas, with around 300 people on the payroll, doesn't expect to hire in coming months. Business hasn't picked up enough to warrant it, he said.

"Politicians say the economy is recovering, but my sales people can't find it," he said. "They just can't find this expansion."

During the lean times of the recession, Gerick says his company managed to survive by pursuing new work, such as hauling kitty litter, raw materials and used medical equipment.

The Institute of Supply Management, a trade group of purchasing executives at large companies, said earlier this month that surveys showed both the manufacturing and service sectors are expanding at a healthy clip.

"The recovery might not be quite as impressive as those ISM indices currently suggest," said Paul Ashworth, senior U.S. economist at Capital Economics. "The truth ... is probably somewhere between" the ISM and NFIB surveys.

Great advertising campaigns, like great companies, are always rooted in a big idea. The trick is to make sure they're in sync

Mere semantics? Not at all.

As a young company takes root and expands, it begins to establish its brand. With each passing day, the things it does enhance (or detract from) the value of that brand. Over time, that equation begins to work in the opposite direction as well, and branding can be used to enhance the meaning and value of the company. But for this process to be effective, the business and the brand must remain intertwined.

The world's best marketers understand that as valuable as their products and services are, products and services come and go. Brands, however, live on indefinitely. As a result, they invest in and celebrate and protect their brands in every way they can, wrapping them around big, everlasting ideas.

Apple's (AAPL) animating idea is innovation. Whether it's the design of the iPhone, the functionality of iTunes, the customer experience in the Apple Store, or the light humor of the "Mac vs. PC" ads, the company is all about providing pleasant surprises to its customers. As a result, Apple has a legion of loyal followers and is able to command premium prices for its offerings.

Intel's (INTC) big idea is performance. The chipmaker is determined to never be outperformed by competing technology on things like speed, energy efficiency, and adaptability. That's why when a computer sports an "Intel Inside" badge, people are more apt to trust it, even if (or perhaps because) they know little about the workings within.

Foundation for Lasting Success

For Wal-Mart (WMT), the idea is savings—a concept the company has so effectively owned over the past 48 years that it became the world's largest retailer. Occasionally it loses sight of its originating idea, but it always returns to the core.

What these and other dominant companies know is that sustainable success is built on the foundation of a singular idea, around which everything they do is oriented. Advertising is just one of those things.

Sometimes, as in the case of General Electric (GE), the company is closely associated with an actual word ("Imagination"). In other cases it's the underlying concept that's important. You won't see Nike (NKE) highlight the word "motivation" in its advertising, but motivation is what the brand ("Just Do It") is all about. Leading companies like these filter their strategic decisions around their evergreen, animating ideas, which enable them to sustain success over time.

Why do people drink Coca-Cola (KO)? For some, it's a matter of taste. For others, it's how well Coke quenches their thirst. Still others like the jolt they get from the formula's unique combination of sugar and caffeine. How can Coke effectively market to all the different people who choose its product for their own personal reasons? By planting its flag in an idea with which no one will take issue: happiness.

It's hard to argue with happiness. It's hard to be against happiness. And it's hard to find anyone who doesn't like happiness. Coke has decided to equate its brand with happiness, and orients its product, packaging, and promotion in that direction. (Ever see a "Happiness Machine"?). In a fast-paced, pressure-filled world, anyone can take a moment to "Have a Coke and a smile." (If that old slogan sounds familiar, it only proves the point.)

Your Animating Idea

GE puts its commitment to imagination this way on its Web site: "From jet engines to power generation, financial services to water processing, and medical imaging to media content, GE people worldwide are dedicated to turning imaginative ideas into leading products and services that help solve some of the world's toughest problems." As awkward as the company's major initiatives (Ecomagination, Healthymagination) sound, they further reinforce the idea around which the company is based. "For GE, imagination at work is more than a slogan or a tagline," CEO Jeff Immelt says on the site. "It is a reason for being."

Happiness. Motivation. Innovation. Performance. Imagination. Savings. These aren't advertising ideas; they're business ideas that have advertising implications. If you want your advertising to be more effective, ensure that it's rooted in the idea that animates your company. If you're not sure what that idea is, it's probably related to why you got into business in the first place. Rediscover your animating idea, make sure it's still sound (see "How Solid Is Your Brand?"), and orient everything you do around it—including (but not limited to) your advertising.

If you can prune away everything else and sharpen the point on your animating idea, your advertising will do its job better than you ever imagined.

Area rich in natural resources, entrepreneurial spirit


CHICAGO - Longstanding stereotypes of Appalachia conjure images of a backwater region blighted by poverty. Now the state of Ohio is working to change that perception by promoting the region as an emerging hotbed for startups in industries such as high tech and alternative energy.

Entrepreneurs like Craig Newbold, a software developer who grew up locally in the town of East Liverpool along the Ohio River between Youngstown and Pittsburgh, are betting on the area's future. Newbold returned home after retiring from an information technology career in Seattle to found software development firm Newbold Technologies in 2003, with the aim of creating local opportunities.

"To me, areas like this have a lot of diamonds in the rough," said Newbold, whose father made his living running a local filling station in the area once known as the ‘pottery capital of the world.' "People that want to live here have the aptitude and the ability, but need to be developed."

"We've created a domestic option to the Indian market," said Newbold. "What we're doing is creating an opportunity, at least in the technical field, for people to stay here."

Ohio has begun a new promotional push to bring entrepreneurs and investors to the historically industrial but blighted Ohio Appalachian region, which encompasses 32 central and southern counties that border Kentucky, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

Home to old-line automotive and food-processing industries, the area was hit hard by the recession. The average income in East Liverpool's Columbiana County is $36,610, well below the Ohio state average of $48,098, according to recent government data cited in the Columbus Dispatch.

Entrepreneurial spirit
Among the region's positive features are abundant natural resources, major transportation routes such as the Ohio River and easy access to cities like Columbus and Pittsburgh. Perhaps most appealing to cash-strapped entrepreneurs are the comparatively low costs for rent and skilled labor.

"The region will stand up very well," said Ed Burghard, executive director of the Ohio Business Development Coalition, a nonprofit group charged with promoting the state's economy. "Here you can reach 70 percent of the North American population."

In addition, federal stimulus dollars are helping to finish a highway bypass for Route 33 around Nelsonville in Athens County, a multimillion-dollar project aimed at bringing more economic development. Tax laws are also favorable. Ohio charges no levy on a company's first $1 million in sales and no tax on goods sold to customers outside the state, two of several benefits resulting from sweeping tax reform in 2005.

Burghard said area residents, including many skilled laborers, have long demonstrated ingenuity in the face of limited resources and capital, from Prohibition-era whiskey stills to quilting, pottery and homemade canned goods. "If you look at the history of the region, it's marked by entrepreneurism — the concept of working for yourself," said Burghard, whose organization has been coordinating with local institutions such as Ohio University and the Foundation for Appalachian Ohio to help foster entrepreneurship.

Youngstown, often associated with the depressed U.S. automotive industry, has been recognized as one of the top-10 cities for entrepreneurs by Entrepreneur magazine.

The state recently launched an Enterprise Appalachia Web site here to help create broader awareness of the area, which during the downturn suffered a decline in manufacturing jobs and state budget cuts that resulted in layoffs.

"It's going to take some time," added Burghard, who expects the transformation of the area into a seedbed for new ventures "will be a 15-year process."

Attracting investors
Those involved in bringing capital to this rural and often impoverished portion of the state said support for small and mid-sized businesses has been getting stronger over the past decade.

"Deals have gotten done; companies have grown and been successful," said Lynn Gellermann, an investor and president of Athens-based Adena Ventures, a $35-million early stage venture capital fund focused on Appalachian tech startups. "There's just a whole lot going on here now versus 10 years ago."

Adena has run point on a variety of local deals, creating syndicates that have brought in non-Ohio investors such as SJF Ventures of Durham, N.C., OCA Ventures of Chicago, and Mountaineer Capital of Charleston, W.Va., to name a few. Its portfolio includes ventures like Ed Map Inc., a provider of software that manages and distributes educational resources, and Game Plan Technologies, which offers coaches software to analyze game-related video and statistics.

The area has also attracted large corporations such as Boeing, TaTa, General Electric and Dow Chemical, which have invested in facilities in the area.

"I believe the region is poised at this point for the creation of many more startups, technology or otherwise," said Gellermann, who also serves as executive director of TechGrowth Ohio, a $15-million initiative that provides operational assistance to fledgling tech ventures.

In part, he points to the development of incubation centers such as Ohio University's Innovation Center and the Muskingum County Business Incubator among several regional catalysts for new technologies.

In Athens, a cultural oasis that likens itself to the "Berkeley of the Back Woods," the Ohio University Innovation Center now boasts some 13 resident companies, including several ventures seeded from university research. In 2008, the program generated 378 jobs and $15.9 million in labor income.

"Our community acts almost as a laboratory," said Jennifer Simon, the center's director. "We have companies run by faculty, companies that have university-based technology, and also individuals who were working out of their garage … and wanted a place with a professional presence to grow."

One recent success story occurred in January when Diagnostic Hybrids, a maker of medical diagnostic tests to detect flu and respiratory viruses that resided at the center for 20 years, was purchased for $130 million by Quidel Corp.

Despite such bright spots, significant hurdles remain. According to a recent Columbus Dispatch report, some counties in the area suffered double-digit percentage income losses during the recession, following a sustained period of improvement. Big job losses occurred in 2007 and 2008, when local auto-parts factories eliminated more than 600 jobs, the newspaper reported.

Innovators like Simon are undaunted by those trends.

"We still have pockets of poverty, pockets of unemployment," she said. "We're really changing that. We're really on a par and growing."

Having a presence on the mobile Internet is increasingly vital for a local business. Millions of consumers now search on their iPhones, Blackberries and other mobile devices to find what they need. In its first year, for example, the DexKnows.com mobile app saw local business searches skyrocket.

But standard websites don’t convert well to tiny mobile phone screens – they are slow, hard to read and hard to load. To gain traction with mobile consumers you need a streamlined site designed specifically for the mobile web – a costly and time-consuming step most local businesses have delayed taking.

One way to get a powerful and effective mobile presence instantly and cheaply is to register and set up a .tel domain for your business or brand. This is not like other domains or websites. The .tel domain is completely standardized. Everyone’s site looks essentially the same, listing phone contacts, store of office locations, email addresses, websites, social networking pages, map location link, special deal information and – importantly – keywords.

Riding off yesterday's post, "The Importance of Small Businesses Exporting," and questioning U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke's example of Caterpillar Inc. as a successful small business exporter, you must read this article by Emilia Istrate for The New Republic:

Recap of the latest on why small businesses should export. Looks like we're building momentum and getting a little traction:

Small businesses: Exporting to extend reach (Chicago Tribune)

Key quote: "If small businesses can sell more, they'll produce more, and more people can find work."

Size no barrier to export success (The Australian -- great little article)

Key quote: "Resourcefulness and self-belief are the keys to victory for small businesses in the global market."

Commerce secretary uses Cat subsidiary as export example (Peoria, IL, pjstar.com) ... somebody help me out here ... how does Caterpillar (mining truck shown above) represent a good example of a small business?

Key quote: "When traditional drivers of U.S. economic growth like consumer and business spending are facing headwinds, increasing exports must be a central part of America's economic recovery and job creation efforts."

Posted by: Global Small Business

Can the new wave of entrepreneurship worldwide be sustained? Read more (however, to read most of the material in its entirety, you have to become a subscriber except for what we preview below -- shame on The Wilson Quarterly for cutting off a great deal of our thirst for knowledge) at the Spring Edition 2010 of The Wilson Quarterly.

For 30 years, the United States has ridden a spectacular wave of technology-based entrepreneurship. Now, with economic lethargy at home and rising challenges abroad, can the wave be sustained?

• China’s Other Path by Yasheng Huang
  

The Enterprise of Nations

by David S. Landes

Critics have tried to explain away the West’s centuries-long economic domination of the globe; they would do better to study its lessons.

Fast-food in China and it's expected to increase by 10% this year as the middle class in that country grows.

Read how McDonald's plans to nearly double the number of Golden Arches locations in that highly coveted market.

McDonald's Seeks a Chinese Fortune

Related article here: McDonald's to Double Restaurants in China

Interesting sidenote!

Posted by: Global Small Business

Why do I feel like the whole world is catching up to us on the importance of entrepreneurs and small businesses taking their business global?

Take this special report on America's economy entitled, "Export or Die," published by The Economist (3/31/10). It drives home the point that with demand dwindling or in some instances totally disappearing on a local level, American firms are looking abroad to grow their business.

A quick snippet from the report:

More American companies will have to look abroad. They are the least likely to export out of 15 big economies, according to the National Association of Manufacturers, a trade group. Matthew Slaughter of Dartmouth College notes that only 4% of all American firms and 15% of American manufacturers do any exporting at all. And 80% of America’s total trade is conducted by just 1% of firms that export or import. This does not mean there is something wrong with American firms.

What interests the social entrepreneur? Take a peek:

... what defines the true social entrepreneur is that he or she simply cannot come to rest in life until his or her vision has become the new pattern society wide. Scholars and artists are satisfied when they express an idea. Professionals are when they serve a client well, and managers are when their organization succeeds. None of this much interests the entrepreneur. The life purpose of the true social entrepreneur is to change the world.

There's Doctors Without Borders, Teachers Without Borders and Scientists Without Borders, to name just a few of the many borderless initiatives that exist. Why there's even Mothers Without Borders! And of course, there's us: SMBs that operate without borders.

But did you know? There are lawyers that see a borderless world when it comes to offering free, or pro bono, work on global legal troubles. Guess what they are called? Lawyers Without Borders.

Read about this new twist here.

Photo credit: Peter Max "Without Borders" painting

Posted by: Global Small Business

With international Web sales lagging behind major competitors such as Amazon, Wal-Mart is stepping up its overseas e-commerce expansion, looking for staff, talking to vendors and mapping its approach to what could become the world's biggest Internet initiative.

Rest assure we will be reaching out to them to assist because we know exactly how this should be done.

Snapshot from article:

Wal-Mart already pulls in the most sales of any retailer—$405 billion last year, including about $100 billion from international operations in 14 countries. While the company doesn't disclose Internet sales, indications are the retailer has a lot of growing room. Trade publication Internet Retailer estimated that Wal-Mart's e-commerce sales in 2008, the latest projection available, were $1.74 billion. That compared with No. 1 ranked Amazon.com Inc. at $19.2 billion and No. 2 Staples Inc., at $7.7 billion. Other brick-and-mortar retailers like Office Depot Inc., OfficeMax Inc., Sears Holding Corp. and Best Buy Co. outranked Wal-Mart in Web sales, with Wal-Mart entering the list at No. 13. This was before Wal-Mart said it was making a great push to improve online sales.

Imagine all that and more with Adventures By Disney. ABD takes families (listen up global small business owners ... a vacation may be just what you and your loved ones need!) on guided tours, discovering the world like never before.

Learn more:

Go Global with AAA and Disney

Posted by: The Global Small Business Blog

John Byrne's last podcast (we're a little late with this news -- sorry) as editor-in-chief at BusinessWeek (Why Dubai Matters). He's off doing his own thing now at C-Change Media.

Congrats to John for finally becoming a true free agent.

One (wo)man's distractions (Ford's) can be another (wo)man's global treasure (Volvo).

Read about how Ford's sale of Volvo to Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co. could help the Chinese car maker further its global ambitions while allowing Ford to exit a money-losing business that was a distraction from its core operations.

Go here for the article.

Illustration source: Geely Holding Group

Posted by: The Global Small Business Blog

Listen to the podcast: Mansour Javidan, dean of research at the Thunderbird School of Global Management and co-author of the HBR article "Managing Yourself: Making It Overseas." Copyright 2010 Harvard Business School Publishing.

We've written extensively about what Dr. Javidan refers to as developing a "global mindset" (a major prerequisite to moving ahead in our world) and characteristics needed to achieve success as a leader in the global marketplace. So we are glad to see he's "on it."

Find out if you have a global mindset here (immediate download):

Are You Ready? Take The Global IQ Test To Find Out

And remember, even McDonald's was a small shop at one time. Why just click on the 1940 button and you'll see what I mean!

Posted by: The Global Small Business Blog

Here it comes. Brace yourself for a magical and revolutionary product that will change the way we do things on a global basis in the digital media sphere. It's called the iPad.

And we wrote about it first here (2/1/10). And then Mossberg over at the WSJ referred to it the same way here (4/1/10). Remember this piece too? "Who Has the Global Edge On Wireless Reading Devices?"

Looks like we are on to something. Are you ready?

Photo credit: Apple

Posted by: The Global Small Business Blog