Great Ideas for your Small Business: Set Up a Cart in a Mall Veteran silversmith kent mCcustion used to travel to about fifty craft shows a year, often driving hundreds of miles to shows around Illinois. In 1997 he cut back to six or seven shows because of the Colorado Silversmith’s kiosk he opened in … Read more
Great Ideas for your Small Business: Turn Your Anger into Energy Carmen muñoz knows how tough it is to make it in a man’s world. She’s been in the automotive parts business for more than thirty-five years, starting out as the sole saleswoman for a small firm in the Detroit area. In 1984, when the … Read more
Great Ideas for your Small Business: Launch New Products with a Media Blitz Avi sivan, a former israeli commando and stuntman, gives new meaning to the expression “media blitz.” Through an aggressive and expensive combination of magazine advertising, infomercials, and direct mail, Sivan has created a marketing machine for his personal care products sold under … Read more
Great Ideas for your Small Business: Serve the Market’s High and Low Ends One of the most successful and creative entrepreneurs I know built an incredibly lucrative frozen-pizza manufacturing business by serving all ends of the pizza market with specific products. A former potato saleswoman, Kathy Taggares cashed-in her condo, jewelry, and insurance policies in … Read more
Great Ideas for your Small Business: Create a Fad People used to stand in front of dave kapell’s refrigerator for hours, even when they weren’t hungry. They were mesmerized by his collection of hand- made magnetized words—-an idea that evolved into a major 1990s fad: the Magnetic Poetry kit. Kapell, a songwriter and cab driver, … Read more
Great Ideas for your Small Business: Get Certified as a Minority Supplier Marguerite thompson browne, director of special projects for San Francisco–based Washington Sportswear Inc., was among the 4,000 people attending the National Minority Supplier Development Council’s (NMSDC) twenty-fifth annual conference in New York City. “This conference gives you access,” said Thompson Browne, whose sportswear … Read more
Great Ideas for your Small Business: Think BIG – It Doesn’t Cost Any More than Thinking Small I learned an important lesson from all the entrepreneurs I profiled for my “Succeeding in Small Business” column before starting my own multimedia communications business: It doesn’t cost any more to think big than it does to think … Read more
Great Ideas for your Small Business: Send Pizza to Potential Clients Everybody loves pizza. it’s not just hot, gooey, and delicious—it’s also a business opportunity. You probably never thought of pizza as a powerful business tool, but it is. Scott Jackson, founder of the Jackson Design Group in Orlando, Florida, has used pizza as an … Read more
Great Ideas for your Small Business: Know the Difference between Marketing, Advertising, and PR Too many entrepreneurs use a scattershot approach to marketing, advertising, and public relations, primarily because they don’t understand the subtle differences between the three. But knowing which to use, and when, can save you time, aggravation, and money. Marketing encompasses a … Read more
Great Ideas for your Small Business: Give Away a Seminar Seat Karen tate, president of the griffin tate Group in Cincinnati, teaches employees of big and small companies how to manage complex projects. Although she earns most of her money conducting group seminars for big corporations, she attracts new individual clients by raffling off a … Read more
