Ask an Expert: Want to start a franchise? Try this quiz

Q: One thing I am thinking about for the new year is starting a franchise. There is one out there I like a lot and which I think would be successful both in this economy and in my area. But how do I know if I would make a successful franchisee? I have always worked for someone else. Sam

Understanding Customer Needs and Expectations

Do you provide good customer service? The answer to that question really isn’t for you to decide. Your customers make the ultimate determination of whether or not your organization actually has outstanding customer service. So, when trying to do a “customer service checkup”, you have to pay attention to what …

Video: 2009 Small Business Forecast

What does 2009 hold for small business? Find out from William Dunkelberg, NFIB Chief Economist and Patricia Greene, Entrepreneurship Prof. at Babson College. (MSNBC)

Shoppers haggle for deals from retailers

Looking for a holiday bargain? You may only have to ask. With sales shaping up to be the lowest in years, retailers say they’re taking consumers’ demands for good deals seriously.

Video: When the family business needs an overhaul

What happens when a successful company is also a family business, and making needed changes means changing the family legacy? (MSNBC)

5 Ways to Kill a Great Marketing Plan

Are your marketing campaigns too creative? Here’s what separates a marketing plan that works from one that doesn’t.
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Beat Procrastination with Action Day

Procrastination. Why do we do it? How do we beat it? Do you have certain things that you procrastinate about? Or are you a general procrastinator where nothing is exempt? Either way, if it’s time to get something done, Action…
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More Concerned About Falling Sales Than Access to Credit

Despite ongoing alarms about the credit crunch, small business owners are actually more concerned about sales than they are about access to credit. That’s according to a recent National Federation of Independent Business survey on the impact of the nation’s financial problems on small business.

The survey of 750 employers with fewer than 250 employees shows 45% of respondents cite slowing or lost sales as their company’s most important immediate problem, 23% cite unpredictability of business conditions, 9% cite falling real estate values, 9% cite the cost and/or terms of credit, and 8.9% cite an ability to obtain credit.

At the end of the report (p. 13) there are a few suggestions directed at policymakers:

Efforts to make additional capital available to small business through directed(encouraged) bank lending or indirectly through government guaranteed lending is not likely to be generally helpful. Unless there is a plan to massively subsidize those loans, firms who most often want credit and cannot now get it are high risk and typically not able to absorb additional debt with reasonable prospects of repaying it. Such action simply saves a few while condemning others to worse circumstances than they otherwise would have encountered, leaving a third party to hold the debt.

The policy response lies elsewhere, in efforts to stimulate the economy in order to instill confidence and generate sales, thereby improving balance sheets and reducing the need to borrow…

What do you think?

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Cold snap adds to retail woes

We’ve been checking in with some small retailers to see how their holiday sales have been. Keri Holmes, who actually reported stronger sales than last year at her independent bookstore in Hampton, Iowa, emailed this weekend to say sales continue to be pretty decent:

My sales have been steady so far. I wish they were stronger. We’ve had a few snow days — with virtually no traffic. But what is interesting is that the sales totals continue to build, with each day stronger than the previous. Even yesterday, when the streets weren’t clear until about 2pm, was above average (for a normal friday).

The cold snap that hit much of the nation on the last weekend before Christmas probably added to some stores’ woes. The AP, citing a Sears spokesman, notes that “store traffic was slower in some parts of the Midwest and New England where storms dumped snow and ice, he said. In the Midwest, wind chills dipped to minus 30 or lower, and shoppers in Iowa and Illinois had to brave blizzard warnings.”

Thanks to Keri and others who’ve taken the time to share their stories with readers. Retailers, keep us updated with what you’re seeing in these last days of holiday shopping, and please check in after with post-mortems and analysis. Tell us in comments or email me.

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New Administrator for the SBA

I was happy to learn that Karen Gordon Mills is President-elect Barack Obama’s choice to head the Small Business Administration. I talked to Mills in September when I was working on a story about why it’s so difficult for small businesses to act as a cohesive political bloc. She impressed me with her depth of knowledge about entrepreneurs and the role of some start-ups in job creation.

During one of our conversations, she had this to say:

“It is very important that we have a more granular understanding, particularly at the federal policy level, about the voice of small business. It is not a one-size-fits-all category. There are differences in small businesses. A restaurant needs capital, too, but a different kind, and it needs a different approach from the Small Business Administration. The SBA needs to be evolved enough to recognize that a lot of business will come from high-growth small businesses and, once again, we can’t have a one-size-fits-all approach.”

Here’s a link to my story, which appeared in BusinessWeek Small Biz in October. A podcast with Mills, in which we discussed some of these issues, is embedded in the story.

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