Hey all,
I think this video says it best, but the gist… everyone who entered August’s StormDawg Small Business Stimulus Package wins something, courtesy of infoGROUP. More details are coming soon from my StormDawg S.W.A.T. Team.
Don’t work too hard!
StormDawg
Hey all,
Last week I was in Fort Collins, Colo., helping my daughter get her house set up before school started. She is a junior at Colorado State University and just returned from an adventure called Semester at Sea. She got to see so many things and places that a whole new world of possibilities opened up for her.
I was thinking about all of this on the long drive back when we passed by Cabela’s world headquarters in Sidney, Neb. Sidney is not exactly a teeming metropolis with dozens of multi-national corporations. It is, in fact, a very small town in the middle of nowhere, yet home to the World’s Foremost Outfitter. Cabela’s started out from very humble beginnings struggling to make ends meet, meanwhile making plans to grow the business and the economy. Then I started thinking about the StormDawg Stimulus Package, and wondering if one of these businesses will turn into the next Cabela’s.
You just never know.
Keeping in mind that my team and I are learning as we go, I decided to pick two winners this month.
The first one – EvoApp – a small business organizational software company run by STUDENTS in North Carolina, represents the new age business and marketing model. Here’s their story and here is their website.
The second one – Texas Mountain Cedar – has a more traditional small business model. This small business is motivated by many of the same things that my sister Jeana is interested in – namely, independence and the ability to live their lives the way they want to. Here is their story.
They both face serious challenges in this economy, and it will take a different sort of plan to help each one out. Texas Mountain Cedar has already contacted us about buying mailing lists, but they really need our help figuring out what to do with the lists. It will be a great case study for our traditional business. EvoApp needs a different skill set as their needs do not fit the traditional model. We will help out both of these businesses and tell you how it worked….the good, the bad and the ugly. Hopefully, we all learn something along the way.
Congratulations and good luck!
Don’t work too hard!
StormDawg
Good morning, StormDawg fans!
This week, we received a very interesting email from Dr. William Osgood, President of the Knowledge Institute. Dr. Osgood draws our attention to BUZGate.org, a great online resource center for small businesses. They collaborate with the Wall Street Journal, IBM, the World Bank, Microsoft and others to provide targeted information and other support services. Small businesses use BUZGate for free, find the free public sector resources they need, and connect with private providers to gain awareness of and purchase goods and services they need. Public resource providers also learn about private sector products, services and technologies and share this information with their small-business clients, then refer these clients to BUZGate to learn more. It works because all of the participants are part of this network – they all add value and they all receive value. (Isn’t it great when everyone sets out to help one another?)
BUZGate provides a wide range of business information and resources, including:
Enjoy! And as StormDawg would say, “Don’t Work Too Hard!”
Bryan D. Jennewein – StormDawg S.W.A.T. Team
Here’s an interesting piece of research from ORC Guideline on the Small Business Administration and small business lending… it got me thinking…
For those of you who have active or past loans, this is a topic that I know brings mixed feelings. Whether you got your loan from the SBA or your local bank or Credit Union, you all probably remember signing the dotted line on your loan like it was yesterday. Some of you are cringing and some of you are smiling. Regardless, you became a business owner that day!
“Welcome to 14-hour days, no weekends off and thinking that maybe your old boss wasn’t really a cheapskate…” he was just cutting costs and keeping his profits up.
As you know, the small business loan application process is not exactly a walk in the park… the upside is “it’s getting better” and there is quite a bit more money out there for the taking.
Special thanks to the Treasury Dept in this case! (THANKS Y’ALL!) They are buying up small business loans from the Small Business Administration with help from their $15 billion stimulus initiative, which is in turn enabling the SBA to loan more money to people like you! (NICE!) As of August 24th, 2009, 55% of the SBA funds are spoken for. That means there are A LOT of new small businesses out there and some that got a breath of fresh air (or fresh financing). Do you have any thoughts on that one, folks? Good or bad, we want to hear what you have to say.
As for the rest of you budding entrepreneurs out there that have not applied for loans, are in the process of applying, or are just staring at the mounds of paperwork that come with the process, there is help available. (SCORE!)
No really, SCORE… it’s a nonprofit business counseling service that has access to volunteers in your area that can help you with the process! Good to know! You may also want to look up your local Small Business Development Center and see if they have volunteers and services to fit your needs. Seriously! Call them!
As always you can hire a business adviser. These guys know their stuff and can help push your loan through quickly for a fee. In any case there are multiple resources out there at your disposal. Check references as always.
Please let us know if you have any questions or know of any other resources out there for small businesses. (Don’t forget to check out the research… it has a lot of useful resources, too!) Please share them here on the blog, our Facebook page or Tweet at us. Thanks so much for your time.
Kudym OUT!
Hey all,
As promised! Here’s the first part of my experience with the Liminal Group event, The Articulate Executive. I received coaching from the legendary Granville Toogood. More details about the event are available at JulyEvent.com.
Don’t work too hard!
StormDawg
Robb Mandelbaum, in his New York Times article, “The S.B.A. Puts the Best Face on Small-Business Contracting,” tells a story quite different from the one the S.B.A. announced Friday. The Small Business Administration rejoiced in a record $93.3 billion in federal prime contracts awarded to “small businesses” in 2008… an increase of $10 billion. The crowd cheers, there’s more money going to small businesses, and the news seems quite good.
But these days, a dollar isn’t worth as much as it once was. Heck, I still roll my eyes when my parents tell me how much they paid for movies, food… even their home. The S.B.A. drawing attention to the amount of money awarded can leave us blind to how much work that money actually represents. Mandelbaum’s account focuses instead on the percentages of contract dollars, which actually FELL from 2007 to 2008.
This, ladies and gentlemen, seems like a classic case of misdirection. Who, then, becomes the magician? The S.B.A.? The media? Who is actually fighting for our small businesses?
Try not to find yourself too unsettled by this trick of sorts. Mandelbaum pulls back the curtain quite nicely. He asks us to examine the companies they’re calling “small businesses”… Textron, a Fortune 500 company with more than 30,000 employees and $14.2 billion in sales… ManTech International with 8,000 employees and almost $2 billion in sales. Now I’m not trying to make an elephant disappear or anything… are they (the media, the S.B.A.)? Can we honestly claim success in awarding more dollars, but less percentage dollars, to “small businesses” if those we’re awarding with the most of these dollars are companies such as these?
Mandelbaum draws to our attention to a few possible explanations, of which I find three most intriguing: businesses run by Alaska Native Corporations, no matter how large, count as “disadvantaged businesses” and qualify under this loose definition of “small business;” some larger companies acquire smaller businesses that hold federal contacts; and finally, some businesses just choose to misrepresent themselves as “small.” Forgive me if I’m not rising up to applaud. In fact, the only thing you’ll find raised is my eyebrow.
Good morning StormDawg fans,
While the Dawg’s away, I thought I’d take a moment to update you about the StormDawg Small Business Stimulus Plan and some other pro bono work StormDawg is doing.
We’ve had close to 200 submissions for this month’s contest, and let me tell you… these are some compelling stories. I’ve even noticed that many of you took the time to Fan the Stimulus Plan’s Facebook page, so thanks! StormDawg assembled his S.W.A.T. team early last week, and we can’t put your stories down! Picking a winner for this month’s free marketing giveaway is going to be tough, but we’re getting close. Members of the S.W.A.T. team might be calling some of you to ask a few questions and flesh out more of your story, so be nice and throw them a bone. We’re going to try and do something for everyone, even if you’re not picked as this month’s winner. And if you’re not this month’s winner, there’s always next month!
It occurs to me this morning that we’ve been so caught up in this contest, it’s easy to forget how it all started. Do you remember reading about Trinity United Methodist and Mick Doyle’s? (If not, take a quick minute to read them.) It’s how this how contest got started. Trinity and Mick Doyle’s were hurting because of our economy and needed help… so StormDawg came to the rescue. Here’s an update on each… think of it as a small taste of what our monthly contest winners can expect.
Trinity United Methodist
Trinity faced two challenges: building their congregation and funding their new community center. To help the former, StormDawg had Trinity work with American Church Lists (ACL), a division at infoGROUP that specializes in helping churches build their congregation, and Triplex, a division specializing in helping nonprofits. ACL has put together four postcard campaigns to help the church get its message out to local residents and new movers in the area. (We’ll post the designs online soon!) Triplex is doing a tremendous job getting the word out about the new community center. They are helping Trinity put together a benefit dinner and inviting local donors to attend. Triplex will send an introductory email to potential donors, asking them to watch for the invitation letter, then sending the letter, followed up with another email. What a great integrated marketing approach to getting the most attendance for their benefit dinner. (We’ll put these designs online, too!)
Mick Doyle’s
Mick Doyle’s has been marketing for years… their marketing just needed a bit of a kick. They currently market through word-of-mouth, Yellow Pages, and their website. And for a while, this worked just fine, but with the current economy, they just have not been seeing the traffic they need. The S.W.A.T. team decided to tackle this one together. We’ll help Mick with three tools: paid search advertising, an integrated marketing campaign, and we’ll take his word-of-mouth marketing into the social networking spaces. We’ll use Google’s paid search advertising to drive more traffic to his website, which we’ll also search engine optimize. We’ll do a targeted direct-mail and email campaign, aimed at his best prospects. Finally, we’ll make sure Mick has a presence on the area’s most popular social networking site, Facebook, and all the tools and training he needs to successfully engage in this space.
Think of Trinity and Mick Doyle’s as a small appetizer, and YOU can be the MAIN COURSE! Keep sending in your stories for the StormDawg Small Business Stimulus Plan, and if you’re picked, we’ll put together a plan like this for you!
As StormDawg would say… “Don’t work too hard!”
Bryan D. Jennewein – StormDawg S.W.A.T. Team
In addition to helping small businesses achieve success, did you know that here at infoGROUP we also have two divisions dedicated solely to helping nonprofits market smarter – Triplex and Triplex Interactive?
After all, most nonprofits are small businesses. In fact, according to the National Center for Charitable Statistics, a definitive source for information on the nonprofit sector, approximately 75% of nonprofits have annual revenues under $1,000,000 and most of these organizations have very small staffs. This mirrors statistics on small business. According to the Small Business Administration, 99.7% of small businesses have fewer than 500 employees. However, small businesses generated “60 to 80 percent of net new jobs annually in the last decade!” But I digress.
Nonprofits and small businesses are alike. They both have limited resources and many do not have professional marketers on staff. They both have to work hard to get the word out about their unique programs and services. However, they’re also different. Unlike small-business owners who are tasked with bringing in more customers, nonprofits need to connect new donors, members and advocates to their causes.
Are you a charitable organization looking for ways to improve your online or offline marketing success? Please check out Triplex or Triplex Interactive.
We can help.
Jocelyn
Jocelyn Harmon is Director of Business Development for Triplex Interactive. You can reach her at jocelyn.harmon (at) emailforimpact (dot) com.
Hello StormDawg fans!
First, a bit about who I am… I’m Christina Kudym, Social Media Coordinator for infoGROUP and a member of StormDawg S.W.A.T. Stormy is still on vacation, so he’s asked me to blog about a new piece of small business research that crossed his desk from ORC Guideline about small real estate firms. You can download the research here.
Realtors are saying that the housing incentives are really helping their business! This is great news, don’t you think? The real estate market provides millions of jobs and services, so hearing that the people in the thick of it are seeing some light at the end of the tunnel is encouraging. (Especially for those of you sending in your stories for the FREE marketing contest!) The most impacted areas in this housing crisis (Nevada, California, Arizona and Florida) are seeing the greatest increase in transaction volumes this past quarter. Good for them! If you are selling a home right now, you may not agree that things are getting better, and I see where you are coming from. Compared to a year ago, the median price of an existing home throughout the nation has dropped by almost 17%. Wow! This is however great for new home-buyers! Makes me wish I was buying a first home right now!
Keep sharing your stories and tell us your thoughts on this research!
Christina Kudym – StormDawg S.W.A.T. Team
Good morning StormDawg fans,
StormDawg is on vacation and has asked me to post his latest video blog: a Two-Minute Teaching on Small Business Marketing, courtesy of his work with The Liminal Group. What stands out to me most from StormDawg’s Two-Minute Teaching is the word “buzz.” He talks about how he created buzz with his blog and social media and how this buzz is a cost-effective form of marketing.
Folks, it’s network marketing… it’s word-of-mouth marketing… only super-charged with technology that creates and connects communities across any distance.
Enjoy this Two-Minute Teaching from The Liminal Group and StormDawg, and heed his advice at the end.
As StormDawg would say, “Don’t work too hard!”
Bryan D Jennewein – StormDawg S.W.A.T.
