U.S. Presidential Candidates And Their Small Business Records |  |
- U.S. Presidential Candidates And Their Small Business Records
- The Next American Startup Hub: Ohio
- Report Finds Small Employers Don’t Use Health Care Credit
- New Google and New Foursquare Offerings Call Attention to Local Business Marketing
- 4 Things Brand Advocates Want You to Know
| U.S. Presidential Candidates And Their Small Business Records Posted: 13 Jun 2012 02:00 AM PDT Focus on small business has been growing more intense as the U.S. Presidential election heats up, with each candidate stressing what they can do for the that sector. But attention to small business in U.S. policy and abroad seems heightened, too. Here’s a look at the debate over the kinds of policies that affect small businesses the most. The Debate Heats UpMore than just rhetoric. In the U.S. Presidential election, Obama and Romney camps have been keen to talk about the importance of small business to the U.S. economy. But in recent weeks, the debate has gone beyond just rhetoric, as in this address in which Romney calls current White House policies an “anti-business” agenda. The Washington Post The small business candidate. Professor of entrepreneurial studies at Case Western Reserve University Scott Shane gives some reasons why he believes small business owners overwhelmingly support GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney. In a recent poll, Shane says, 57 percent of business owners support Romney, while only 37 percent prefer Obama. Entrepreneur Out of touch on healthcare. The Obama administration’s major trouble may be in Healthcare, where in a recent interview, the President claimed the signature piece of legislation of his first four years in office wouldn’t affect small businesses. That’s certainly not the opinion of some small business leaders who claim the legislation could have serious consequences. Real Clear Politics The Record on Small BusinessThe White House version. A May report from the Obama administration argues the President’s leadership has led to tax cuts, (in the form of greater expensing and a call for an end to capital gains taxes on investments in small businesses) and the establishment of two small business lending sources, plus the expansion of the Small Business Administration’s lending fund. National Economic Council Reality check. But for all the talk of small business lending the Administration claims it has worked to facilitate, the government’s own numbers indicate that small business lending is headed in the wrong direction, falling in both the number and value of loans since 2008, the year the President took office. Small Business Administration Following the rules. Another issue is that, while the Administration has claimed to help streamline small business regulations for many entrepreneurs, one industry group maintains that the sheer number of rules affecting small businesses has significantly increased since President Obama took office. Competitive Enterprise Institute Other Policies ConsideredHow to manufacture opportunity. Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Eugene Stiglitz says the real problem with the U.S. economy isn’t increases in taxes or spending on social programs, but the widening inequality and decreasing opportunity in the U.S. today. Though Stiglitz stops short of suggesting how more opportunities can be provided, his post starts a lively debate. Vanity Fair The right kind of government spending. The White House pushes for maximizing opportunities for small businesses when making small dollar awards, increasing opportunities for small businesses under multiple award contracts, and strengthening accountability for small business goal achievement. Office of Management and Budget What Say Small Business People?Healthcare tax credit too complicated; small businesses don’t use. Dawn Rivers points out that the government’s GAO report shows that the healthcare tax credit is too complicated. Small businesses are not taking advantage of it. Her opinion? While it may have been small-business friendly in intention, in practice it “is every bit as useless for microbusinesses as most of the other small business policy that emerges from Capitol Hill.” Small Business Trends Legislators keep making government bigger, hitting small businesses hardest. Famous last words: we’re the government and we’re here to help. The next time Federal, state or local lawmakers tout all the laws they’ve passed to “help,” they might remember that small business owners don’t necessarily view those boasts as good news. Small businesses pay 36% more per employee than larger businesses, complying with regulatory burdens. To small business owners: more regulation = more expense. Small Business Trends
From Small Business Trends |
| The Next American Startup Hub: Ohio Posted: 12 Jun 2012 01:00 PM PDT While we’re accustomed to hearing about startup accelerators in Silicon Valley, or even New York, here’s one that might take you by surprise: LaunchHouse is starting its new Accelerator Program in…wait for it…Ohio.
LaunchHouse is a public-private partnership that fosters entrepreneurial success and job creation through seed capital, education and innovation located in Northeast Ohio. Members get office space and resources to grow their startups. The newest addition, the Accelerator Program, will provide 10 startup teams with $25,000, as well as mentoring, networking and business tools through an intensive 12-week program. Why Ohio? You may wonder about the placement of such a program. Turns out, Cleveland is home to many Fortune 500 companies, as well as venture capitalists and private equity funds that will draw startups from all across the country. Sam Krichevsky, Chief Operating Officer and Managing Partner of LaunchHouse, explained:
Ohio has many industries, including Tech, Healthcare and Manufacturing, but the program hopes to draw from beyond the state’s borders. It models itself on successful accelerator programs like Y Combinator and Tech Stars, which gets hundreds of applications from all over the country. The Details Applications are being accepted until July 1, 2012. Thirty startup teams will be selected to attend the Techie Unconference on July 18, 2012. There, the teams will pitch investors and the LaunchHouse team, and ten of the applicants will be chosen to participate in the 12-week program. These ten teams will receive $25,000. The accelerator itself begins September 3, 2012, and participants will meet with mentors who will help them reach milestones to become more attractive to investors after the program.
Preference is given to startups in the technology, Internet and mobile space. Apply for the LauchHouse Accelerator Program here. Why Not Ohio? For startups located on either coast, the idea of relocating to the opposite coast for several weeks away from family can be a turnoff. But Ohio, slightly more centrally located in the country, may open up the possibility of participating in an accelerator more appealing. Krichevsky says:
From Small Business Trends |
| Report Finds Small Employers Don’t Use Health Care Credit Posted: 12 Jun 2012 10:00 AM PDT Did you have a pleasant National Small Business Week? Or perhaps, like most microbusiness owners, you were too busy to notice?
President Obama issued a proclamation declaring National Small Business Week to take place May 20-26, 2012. Both the House and the Senate passed resolutions acknowledging the occasion and declaring their undying love of small businesses … like they always do. And the Small Business Administration held its own shindig, during which it crowned its Small Business of the Year … like they always do. For the record, the Small Business of the Year honoree has never been a microbusiness, in spite of the fact that nine out of ten U.S. firms has fewer than five employees. Make of that what you will. Meanwhile, while President Obama and Congressional Democrats and Congressional Republicans were all bragging about all the great stuff they’ve been doing or trying to do for small businesses — none of which is likely to be of much use to microbusinesses — the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report that is something of a case in point. The Obama Administration is particularly proud of the small business friendly provisions in the Patient Care and Affordability Act. For example, there is a tax credit available for small employers that pay at least half their low-wage employees’ health insurance premiums (“low-wage” here means earning $11.50 an hour or less). The idea behind the tax credit is to create an incentive for those small employers to start offering health insurance to their workers, something only 17% of them were doing as of 2009, and to make the premiums more affordable for said small employers. Senate Small Business Committee Ranking Member Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and House Small Business Committee Chairman Sam Graves (R-MO) were wondering how that tax credit was working out, so they asked the GAO to look into it. The GAO has found that the tax credit might be working out a lot better if small businesses were actually using it. It turns out that only 170,300 small employers from a pool estimated at between 1.4 million and 4 million eligible firms claimed the tax credit. The cost of the credit, pegged by the Congressional Budget Office at $2 billion in fiscal 2010, was only $480 million. So, what happened? It’s very simple and fairly typical of what happens whenever Congress does something to the tax code as a favor to small businesses. The GAO report confirmed that the tax credit is so complicated to figure out that small business owners don’t want to take the time to figure it out. That includes figuring out which of their employees qualifies to be counted as an FTE (full time equivalent) worker, whether they qualified in terms of wages, and which employees could be used for a partial credit or full credit. This is not the only tax benefit that microbusiness owners don’t use because of the issue of tax complexity. It is estimated that only about one-third of eligible firms use the Business Use of the Home deduction, and only about 9% of qualifying small businesses use the Section 179 business expensing deduction. Complicated rules, computational complexities and a general sense that the tax benefit isn’t worth the hassle is what keeps may microbusinesses from taking full advantage of the tax code. In addition, and this is also confirmed by the GAO report, it is difficult to incentivize the spending of money that small employers, and especially microbusiness employers, simply don’t have. Before you can qualify for the credit, you have to spend the money. Before you spend the money, you have to have the money. I never thought this was a difficult concept but they have never seemed to “get” this one in Washington, from what I can see. As a general matter, microbusiness employers care about their employees. They also know that they are competing for workers with larger companies that have more resources and can offer better benefits. Microbusiness employers would offer health insurance benefits to their employees, without government incentives, if they could afford it. The fact that most of them don’t is not an indication of negligence or poor personnel management or miserly inclinations on the part of small business owners. It is simply an indication of the fact that their cash flow does not allow them to offer those benefits and a tax benefit that they won’t realize for a year isn’t going to make that money magically materialize in their company bank accounts. Interestingly, neither Chairman Graves nor Ranking Member Snowe have released statements in response to the GAO’s findings, which were released in mid-May. It is possible that the report did not tell them what they wanted to hear or was otherwise insufficiently damning of President Obama’s health care reform initiative. However that may be, this much is clear: whatever the President and Congress intended by way of a small business friendly health care reform law, what they wound up with is every bit as useless for microbusinesses as most of the other small business policy that emerges from Capitol Hill.
From Small Business Trends |
| New Google and New Foursquare Offerings Call Attention to Local Business Marketing Posted: 12 Jun 2012 07:45 AM PDT With the release of new Google+ Local pages, Google is increasingly promoting local business, and they aren’t alone. See some of the other tools you can use to promote your local business today. Google Goes LocalThe new Google+ Local has local business as its focus. Or so says Jen Fitzpatrick, VP of engineering for Google. The pages are designed to create a simple experience for customers, help people find, rate, and share your business with others, and still allow you to manage through Google Places. Google and Your Business What Google+ local pages mean to your business. If you haven’t yet gotten up to speed with the new Google+ local pages, here’s your chance. Find how the new local pages affect SEO, how business reviews are handled, and how the changes affect other Google offerings like Place Pages, and Google+ Business pages. Small Business Trends Have a look. If you want to know what the Google+ Local pages will look like, Google has worked with a select group of businesses to give us all a better idea of what’s coming next. For now, local businesses will need to manage both a Google+ Business Page and Google+ Local Page, though eventually both will be merged. Google+ The Meatball Shop More about how Google+ Local influences SEO. The new Google+ Local pages may have an impact for local business owners that goes well beyond increased social features. Remember, all data collected on the new pages, including information and ratings on local businesses, are indexed by Google. Enterpreneur Other Local Tools from GoogleA local ad push is coming soon too. Google has been trying to crack into local advertising, a $20 billion market, for some time. The company will launch a renewed effort beginning in July, according to recent reports. The Wall Street Journal Local marketing surveys now also an option. Whether you’re an international brand or local business, Google Consumer Surveys now provides a fast, accurate, and affordable way of doing marketing research crucial to your company. Watch this video for more on how it works. Google and Your Business More OptionsThe all new Foursquare is here. Foursquare is another option for small businesses seeking to market to and research their customer base locally. Foursquare was founded with the lofty goal of helping people make the most of where they are, according to a blog post from the company on its “Extreme Makeover.” How might you use the new Foursquare? Foursquare Blog How the Foursquare app will help you market. The new Foursquare is using big data to figure out what customers crave next. Of course, like other aspects of the app, this is happening at the local level. On Facebook, the emphasis is on social interactions and shared photos, while on Foursquare it’s about location and detecting patterns. How can you use this to research and market to customers? The Verge Under the hood of the new Foursquare. For more about how the new app can change Foursquare from an online curiosity to a true utility, here is a closer look at all of the changes. Foursquare has described the redesign as a whole new app. The app will allow users to browse locations by category and specific search. How will it change your local marketing? PC World The local small business marketing trend continues. Entrepreneurs are keen to jump on board the local marketing bandwagon and are using social media and mobile technology to target customers where they are. Here are some inventive ways other small business owners are already using the tools available to them. What efforts are you using to improve your business’s local marketing online? The Miami Herald From Small Business Trends |
| 4 Things Brand Advocates Want You to Know Posted: 12 Jun 2012 05:00 AM PDT Who are your brand advocates, you ask? They're the folks in your community who evangelize your product or service to their own audience simply because they love it. They can't be bought or gamed, but their social activity can booster your brand online and help you to find new customers. eMarketer recently told the tale of why brand advocates are here to help, which featured some fantastic takeaways for small business owners to learn a bit about the people motivated to help them.
To help you take better advantage of the advocates that rest in your own community, below are four truths they want you to know. Because the more you understand your advocates, the better you can reach out to them. 1. They're Regular Joes Sure, it's easy to use social media as an ego game. When creating influencer programs we look for the people with the most followers, the biggest audiences, and the highest Klout scores. We believe that it's these high-impact influences that are most worthy our time. But the truth is that's not necessarily the case. A powerful brand advocate doesn't need 10,000 Twitter followers; just a genuine passion for your brand. When trying to identify brand influencers, look deep within your own community. '
Make notes of these people and create a spreadsheet to help you keep track of them. Most often, these are the people you want to work on engaging. Not the folks on Twitter with the high follower counts but who have never interacted with your brand. 2. They're Motivated by Good Experiences If your brand advocates aren't motivated by money, what are they motivated by? eMarketers compiled information aggregated by Zuberance, a company which works to identify brand advocates, and found that 87 percent of brand advocates are motived by one of two things:
And that's often why those Regular Joes are the most powerful brand advocates. Because their goal isn't to increase their Klout score or earn a commission, they're simply trying to help a friend make a more informed decision. And because the recommendation is coming from a friend, people are more likely to believe it, to give your company a shot, and then recommend you to others if/when they have a good experience with you. As a brand, this is where going above and beyond to serve your customers becomes so important. It used to be that one person would tell 10 others about their experience with your brand. Now they have the power to tell thousands with just the push of a button. Focus on creating good experiences with your product or service and you'll also be empowering people to talk about and share your brand. 3. They're NOT Motivated by Money Take another look at the graph represented above. Just one percent of respondents said they recommend brands to get incentives and/or rewards. I think many business owners would be surprised by that. We think that in order to get reviews or to get people talking about our business, we need to pay them. But this survey shows this is not the case. Your customers are motivated by their love of your brand and by the desire to share that experience with other people. Give people a reason to take ownership over your brand and help them to feel invested. If you can do that, you put yourself on a good path to attract advocates. 4. Brand Advocates Frequently Recommend Products/Services Brand advocates are obsessive. They don't just recommend one brand, one time. They actually seek out opportunities to educate other people about the brands they love. In January 2012, found that 38 percent of Internet users in the US made a recommendation about once a month, with 12 percent doing so several times a week.
For users who enjoy evangelizing products or services, it becomes a habit. As a business owner, you want to work to identify these people, understanding their needs and expectations, and then doing your best to exceed them. because if you leave that person with a good taste in their mouth about your company, you can be certain that they're going to share it and the experience may go viral within your community. To attract brand advocates, you have to think like a brand advocate. Above are four truths that I think every business owner could learn from when looking to identify and reach out to the folks passionate about their company.
From Small Business Trends |
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