Your Unwanted Gift Cards–These Guys Are Building An Empire With Them | Forbes.com

August 1, 2014 ~ lmehit ~ Leave a comment

Inside a dim office secured by a sensor lock, eight young men in yarmulkes sit before computer screens sifting through tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of gift cards. Toiling under a latticed ceiling, the workers some in their late teens field orders to buy pre-owned cards online, fetching each meticulously catalogued item from the company’s man-size vault, where at least $3 million worth wait for new owners at any given time.

Once assembled, orders are carried to a shipping and receiving room beneath the vault chamber, where another group of skullcapped employees mails them out. Newly acquired gift cards are scanned to check their value, catalogued and bar-coded for easy search. “You’ve got to find that exact card, and you’ve got to find it quickly,” says Elliot Bohm, CEO and co-founder of CardCash.com , a company in Lakewood, N.J. that grossed $56 million last year buying and reselling the gift cards that nobody wanted.

Female Entrepreneurs Are Happier Than Male Entrepreneurs | Forbes.com

July 30, 2014 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Statistics for women in business are mostly bleak. For example, women still earn 77 cents to every dollar men make and just 7% of female-backed teams get venture funding. A recently released study however, offers a glimmer of positivity. When women have established businesses, they are actually happier than their entrepreneurial male counterparts, as well as rating their well-being more than twice as high as non-entrepreneurs and non-business owners, according to the 2013 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor GEM U.S. Report.

There was one caveat – female entrepreneurs who are just starting out are less happy than male entrepreneurs in the start-up phase, says Edward Rogoff, one of the reports authors. One out of 10 women in the U.S. is starting or running a new business, the report also found. This rate is higher than any of the other 24 developed economies measured.

The #1 Thing You Forget In Your Marketing Budget | Wonderbranding.com

July 29, 2014July 28, 2014 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Type “marketing budget template” into a search engine and you’ll find several examples, from the most basic to impressively detailed.

But 99 percent of the time there’s one important line item missing – your Cost of Occupancy.

Cost of Occupancy = Yearly Rent or Mortgage

Your yearly cost of rent or mortgage payments should be treated as a marketing expenditure.

Why?

You sell a product or service that relies on foot traffic. The better your location, the more visible you are to potential customers.

The more visible your location is to potential customers, the less advertising you need.

Location = Advertising

Therefore, your Cost of Occupancy should be designated as a line item in your marketing budget.

Failed Entrepreneurs Find Success the Second Time Around | Businessweek

July 29, 2014July 28, 2014 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Given the slight chances of success, it’s a marvel anyone ever starts a business at all. One-third of new ventures close within two years, half within five years, and so on: only one in four is still around 15 years after opening day. But all that failure may offer its own reward, according to new research from a pair of economists from Stanford and the University of Michigan. They found that failed entrepreneurs are far more likely to be successful in their second go-around, provided they try again.The entrepreneurship studies that grab headlines tend to focus on investor-backed, technology start-ups. Those types of firms aren’t the norm. Most new businesses are still small, local retailers. To understand how these enterprises fare, Francine Lafontaine and Kathryn Shaw studied the successes and failures of retail entrepreneurs in Texas from 1990 to 2011. Over the 21-year-period, 2.4 million retail businesses opened and 2.2 million closed. Three out of every four were founded by first-time business owners.

4 Ways Entrepreneurs Can Help Save the Economy | Allbusiness.com

July 25, 2014July 24, 2014 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Forget about the politicians in Washington and don’t count on Corporate America to get our struggling economy going — it’s America’s entrepreneurs that will prove to be the saviors. American entrepreneurs, through their creativity, innovation, and willingness to embrace risk, are the real engines that power our economy.

So often we look to the huge, multinational corporations as the drivers and guardians of our economy when the truth is the millions of small businesses across America deserve the credit. A strong, vibrant economy is the result of America’s entrepreneurs embracing the risk of self-reliance and venturing out to create their own opportunities. New small business startups create over three million new jobs each year. The solution to getting this country back on its feet and moving in a positive direction won’t happen because of the government. It requires the fruitful minds and determined drive of everyday citizens who enthusiastically embrace risk and begin the entrepreneurial journey.

Want to be part of the solution? Here are four ways that entrepreneurs can help revitalize our sagging economy:

5 Simple Sales Lessons for Non-Salespeople | Entrepreneur.com

July 23, 2014July 22, 2014 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Garrett Buhl Robinson is not your stereotypical salesperson. But he is one of the most effective salespeople I have ever come across.Robinson is the author of three self-published books and, as any author will tell you, writing a book is much easier than selling a book.

My wife Karen and I caught a glimpse of Robinson as we leisurely strolled through New York City’s Bryant Park. I watched with growing curiosity from a distance as he initiated contact with scores of park-goers. And if you stop to chat with Garrett Buhl Robinson — trust me on this — you will buy a book.Robinson delivers a rock-solid presentation in his own very simple sales format.

Five lessons from John Lewis’ mobile commerce strategy | Econsultancy

July 17, 2014 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

At the start of the year, retailer John Lewis announced some impressive year on year sales figures, along with the revelation that more than three quarters of its site traffic on Christmas Day came from mobile devices.

Its profits continue to look very healthy, and mobile is an ever growing proportion of its sales. So what is it that John Lewis is getting right with its mobile strategy? And what lessons can we learn in order to apply to our own?

These are some of the elements that John Lewis delivered on…

4 Things That Will Improve The Checkout Experience | Wonderbranding.com

July 17, 2014 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Just because your customer is making a purchase in your retail location doesn’t mean you should relax at the cash register. Every moment she spends with you is an opportunity to improve your image and deliver a memorable customer experience.

Here are 4 things you can do at low-or-no-cost:

Clean off your counter and give room to maneuver. It’s very tempting to load your counter space with point-of-purchase displays and impulse buying options. Are they hindering rather than helping your checkout process? Customers need room – space for purses, shopping bags, wallets, checkbooks, etc. Not to mention space around the checkout area to park strollers, umbrellas, etc. while mom checks out. A large, spacious counter area is inviting and most welcome.

Doing Things Differently to Succeed in Business | Getentrepreneurial.com

July 16, 2014 ~ knjohn ~ 1 Comment

If you want to succeed in business there are certain things you’re going to have to do the same as everybody else, such as getting your name out there and, yes, paying your taxes on time. There are other things, however, that you should go out of your way to do completely differently, to buck the trend on, in order to secure your place in the history books of successful business owners of the twenty-first century.

With more and more people becoming self-employed and starting their own companies, the competition is stronger than ever before. Rather than letting that deter you, you should see it as a challenge, as something to thrive upon. Sure, you’re unlikely to get anywhere if you follow the same old rules and regulations. But if you choose to do things just that little bit differently to everybody else, success could be just around the corner.

To help you along your way, below are four thing you should start doing differently in your business, right now, to help ensure your success for years to come:

The Biggest Employee Deal-Breakers | Businessnewsdaily.com

July 16, 2014 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

What matters most to employees? Career advancement, work-life balance and money, according to a new study from human resources software provider BambooHR.

But the survey of more than 1,000 employees in the United States discovered something of a surprise. While most workers reported career advancement as the No. 1 reason for leaving their job, the biggest deal-breakers were related to work-life balance.

The study found four critical deal-breakers that affect employeehappiness and retention. The biggest employee deal-breaker is having a boss that doesn’t trust or empower employees, followed by being expected to work or answer emails on sick days, on vacations or after work hours. Management “passing the buck” when things don’t go as planned is third, and fourth is when work isn’t flexible with regard to an employee’s family responsibilities.