The UPS Stores: Locally Owned, More Flexible Than a Chain |  |
- The UPS Stores: Locally Owned, More Flexible Than a Chain
- Fauna And Flora Aren’t The Only Things Flourishing In Oregon
- Gary Whitehill, Founder of EntrepreneurWeek: Bringing Entrepreneurship to the Masses
- It’s Not a Conspiracy, Just Imprecise Jobs Data
- Apple Commemorates Steve Jobs
| The UPS Stores: Locally Owned, More Flexible Than a Chain Posted: 08 Oct 2012 01:00 PM PDT When you think of UPS, what comes to mind? One image that probably pops into your head is delivery agents in brown uniforms picking up and delivering packages from big brown trucks. But there’s another aspect of UPS that you may have seen in a shopping center near you: a UPS store (pictured below). Here’s something that surprises people. Did you know that those are franchise locations, owned by local business owners like you?
Independently Owned The stores may carry the UPS brand and have the marketing power of UPS behind them — but the success of the stores rides on the backs of the owner-operators in each location. When you frequent a franchise-owned UPS Store, you’re really supporting a local small business in your community. The UPS Store brand was born in 2003, after UPS acquired Mail Boxes Etc. Most of the Mail Boxes Etc. locations were transformed into the UPS Store brand, although the Mail Boxes Etc brand still exists in some places. Today there are 4,800 local franchise-owned UPS Stores across the U.S. and Canada. Each of the stores has a business owner or owners, such as a husband and wife, operating it. According to the company website, a franchise owner has to invest between $150,000 and $375,000 of their own money to become a franchise owner and start up a UPS Store. For many, it’s an alternative to corporate employment. One store owner, Jim Westcott, says that he had worked for someone else for 26 years, but started a UPS Store to control his own employment. A typical independently-owned UPS Store offers copying and printing services; packaging; shipping; even direct mail services. You can also get a mail box if you need a real physical address, and get mail forwarding from that box along with package notification. Do Whatever it Takes The UPS Store franchise headquarters just launched a new campaign to make the public aware of the locally-owned nature of the locations — and that because the stores are locally owned, each store can offer customized services. According to a UPS Store spokesperson, the “do whatever it takes" campaign grew out of research showing that small business owners often feel they don't get enough support when it comes to all the day-to-day tasks necessary to build and run a business. Said Vice President of Marketing and Small Business Solutions, Michelle Van Slyke:
The local ownership model offers flexibility that a chain structure cannot offer. Local stores can customize solutions to suit a customer. According to Van Slyke, the current marketing campaign is more than just messaging. It follows on the heels of some substantive changes. The franchise owners underwent extensive training on how to serve small business customers better, and also how to tailor offerings to suit small business needs. The store interiors were also revamped to serve business customers. The UPS Store website offers a store locator with maps, if you don’t know of a store close to you. Next time you’re in one, ask for a business card. You’ll likely get one with the owner’s name on it — tangible proof that your local UPS Store is really a small business. The post The UPS Stores: Locally Owned, More Flexible Than a Chain appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| Fauna And Flora Aren’t The Only Things Flourishing In Oregon Posted: 08 Oct 2012 11:00 AM PDT While I live and work out of Silicon Valley, our incubator works with a global charter of nurturing a million entrepreneurs to reach $1M and beyond in annual revenue. Consequently, I get to see a tremendous number of businesses in pretty much all corners of the world. One region that people might not automatically think of as having a thriving entrepreneurship eco-system is Oregon. This is a mistake. Let me introduce you to a set of players who will, inevitably, change your mind.
Investor Eric Pozzo of the Oregon Angels Fund points to the state's willingness to not simply support entrepreneurship but actually invest in promising companies. EthicsPoint, based in Lake Oswego, Oregon, is a company that offers clients integrated telephone and Web-based reporting hotlines and case management services that they can use to identify, report, investigate, and resolve issues and events that may not be in line with their codes of conduct or governance policies. Then there's ShopIgniter, a Portland-based company that provides solutions to help companies promote and sell their products on the social Web. Act-On Software, in Beaverton, Oregon, is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) email marketing company that intends to commoditize marketing automation and make it available to businesses of all sizes. Another Portland-based company, JanRain offers clients an enterprise-class solution that enables a website to expedite the registration and log-in processes with a user's third-party account, import user profile information and address books, and make it easy to publish website activity back to multiple social networks. There’s also PaloAlto Software, which, despite the name, is based in Eugene, Oregon. Although PaloAlto Software was incorporated in 1988, it didn't become a successful venture until 1995. The business came about as the result of founder Tim Berry, whom happens to be a contributor to Small Business Trends, creating something called a Business Plan Toolkit, which was a set of templates that people could use to update their business plans as needed. Here's how Tim explained it to me:
Instead, Tim launched Business Plan Pro, a business planning software, which gave the company its real break. Within the first year after launching Business Plan Pro, PaloAlto Software earned nearly $2 million in revenue. By the time the company started offering a downloadable version online in 1998, that number had increased to $4.5 million. The crash of 2001 caused the company to suffer significant losses, but Berry and his team held on and by 2002, PaloAlto Software had earned $5 million in revenue. Over the next five years, the company grew to nearly $10 million in revenue. Recently, Tim approached his daughter, Sabrina Parsons, to get her take on things. She ticked off a bunch of things that she would do if she were in charge of the operation. A third of them were obvious, a third were things that Tim would have done anyway, and the remaining third sounded like things he definitely wanted to try. As a result, Sabrina became the company's CEO on the condition that her father resumed blogging and writing. He did. Tim is a well-known fellow-blogger in the domain of entrepreneurship. In 2012, Tim and Sabrina expect PaloAlto Software to earn $14 million in revenue. As the company continues to evolve with changing times, embracing Software-as-a-Service for example, it is sure to continue growing, making Oregon just one of many places where entrepreneurship can and does thrive. Act-On Software is another promising company that has been growing very fast. Act-On was founded in 2008 by CEO Raghu Raghavan. The idea for Act-On came up when Raghu and Subrah Iyar, the founder of WebEx, spotted a major gap in the marketing platforms of the time; no one was offering any way to organize webinars as an integrated marketing effort. As a result, webinars were completely isolated from all other marketing activities people usually followed. Raghu brought together many members of the founding engineering team from Responsys, his previous company, and developed a prototype that bundled WebEx, Salesforce.com and online marketing in a single solution. Cisco agreed to fund this venture, and the company was all set to go. Initially, Raghu planned to use Cisco as the sole sales channel, but later decided to set up an independent sales team. The initial funding of $2 million came from Cisco. But as Raghu set up an independent sales team, both he and Subrah had to back the company until the sales model was validated. In 2010 and 2011, the founders brought together Voyager Capital and U.S Venture Partners for a $4 million round and then Trinity Ventures for a $10 million round. According to Forrester numbers, e-mail marketing is a $4 billion market and marketing automation is a $250 billion market. Act-On is playing in at least $4 billion market if not more. And Silicon Valley's VCs are playing with them in Oregon. DiscoverOrg is another company that is on track to make $14 million to $15 million in revenue this year. The company was started in 2007 by Henry Schuck and Kirk Brown. They went to school together and worked for a small lead generation company that sourced leads to technology firms. Henry and Kirk used their savings and credit cards to create DiscoverOrg, a small startup addressing the need of IT vendors to generate sales leads for IT buyers at major enterprises and SMEs. They worked from the second story of their home in Columbus, Ohio. DiscoverOrg only had a formal office when they moved to Vancouver, Washington, part of the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area, in 2009. The company got its first customer in 2007 in the range of $15,000 to $20,000. At that time, all the founders had was a database of 5,000 contacts across 1,000 companies. In 2012, DiscoverOrg has 13,000 companies and 215,000 contact profiles in its database. Henry receives requests to offer the similar service in finance, marketing and engineering, but his and Kirk's main focus is on IT buyers. In the second half of 2007, DiscoverOrg made $110,000 in revenue and in 2008 it jumped to $270,000. In 2009, Henry and Kirk observed significant improvements in terms of revenue. They hired people to work on sales, marketing and research. And that is when they started building the organization. DiscoverOrg's revenue reached $880,000 in 2009. In 2010 and 2011, the company's revenue went up to $2.7 million and $5.5 million respectively. The company is expected to earn $14 million to $15 million in revenue in 2012. As you can see, very interesting companies with considerable revenue levels are being built in Oregon. To me, that is what exemplifies a strong entrepreneurial climate. It is extremely important for America to disperse the tribal knowledge about entrepreneurship that has accumulated in Silicon Valley over the last two decades to other parts of the country, in meaningful ways. The country has been in a deep recession for almost five years now. Silicon Valley continues to boom, but we need to make entrepreneurship bloom elsewhere as well. Stories like the ones I have shared with you today present a hopeful picture that entrepreneurship eco-systems are actually developing elsewhere in the country as well. Oregon Photo via Shutterstock The post Fauna And Flora Aren’t The Only Things Flourishing In Oregon appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| Gary Whitehill, Founder of EntrepreneurWeek: Bringing Entrepreneurship to the Masses Posted: 08 Oct 2012 08:00 AM PDT
He sits on several advisory boards, and founded Entrepreneur Week, a global initiative that brings together small business owners and future entrepreneurs. He also mentors young entrepreneurs on strategy, sales, and business development. Gary says:
Connecting Entrepreneurs Globally With events peppering the globe throughout the year, Entrepreneur Week provides the rare opportunity for entrepreneurs to connect with others in participating countries, which include Brazil, the UK, Greece, the US, and Chile. And the events have had an interesting side effect, says Whitehill:
A Whirling Dhervish of Entrepreneurial Energy In addition to consulting through his company, Whitehill International, where his focus in helping businesses centers around positioning strategy, fundraising, mergers and acquisitions, and more, Whitehill is a frequent speaker and guest on programs like CNN, CBS News, and FOX News. Never one to slow down, Whitehill says he’s currently in the midst of building a tech product for entrepreneurs in emerging economies around the world as well as a project that will revolutionize the marketplace space, globally. Whitehill was selected as one of the Small Business Influencer Top 100 Champions for 2012,which was, he says, a true honor:
Editor's Note: This article is one of a series of interviews of key players in the Small Business Influencer Awards. The post Gary Whitehill, Founder of EntrepreneurWeek: Bringing Entrepreneurship to the Masses appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| It’s Not a Conspiracy, Just Imprecise Jobs Data Posted: 08 Oct 2012 05:00 AM PDT Almost immediately after the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released Friday's employment report, conservatives claimed a conspiracy to cook the books to help get President Obama reelected. How does the unemployment rate drop 0.3 percent, they asked, when GDP growth is miniscule and there's barely enough job growth to absorb a growing population? There's no conspiracy here. Sometimes you get unbelievable numbers when you combine an imprecise survey with tricky data adjustments. It's wrong for the Republicans to claim that the hard working analysts at the BLS are behaving dishonestly. But it's also wrong for Democrats to claim that the 0.3 percent drop in the unemployment rate indicates a healthy job market. Let's start with the problematic numbers. The BLS's survey of households showed an 873,000 person increase in employment in September, the largest increase since 1983 not resulting from a statistical adjustment. By contrast, the establishment survey showed just 114,000 jobs being created, resulting in a 759,000 job gap between the two surveys, the biggest since 2003. The BLS household survey also showed that the number of people officially unemployed declined by 456,000 last month. Because 114,000 jobs is only slightly more than is needed to keep up with population growth, this number seems wrong. While these numbers are not believable, measurement error is the most plausible explanation. The BLS's survey of households has a huge margin of error. The statistical agency is 90 percent sure that it's household employment measure is within ±436,000 jobs of the actual number. That means, of course, that the actual number from September's household survey could be as low as 437,000 or as high as 1.3 million. The two series also define employment differently. The household survey includes people who work in agriculture, are self-employed, are on unpaid leave, and household and family workers not receiving a paycheck; but it does not count the multiple jobs that some people hold. To make the household survey more comparable to the establishment survey, the BLS also reports an adjusted household measure of employment, which showed that only 294,000 jobs were created in September. The BLS adjusts its data for seasonality and sometimes its seasonal adjustment factor needs to be changed. The September jobs number might be evidence of that. The big increase in employment lies in the 582,000 people who started to work part time for economic reasons last month. But in 2010 the BLS estimated that the number of people working part time increased by 483,000 in September and declined 480,000 in October. Similarly in 2011, part time employment rose 579,000 in September and fell 419,000 in October. These offsetting movements suggest that something might not be right in the BLS’s adjustments for seasonality. The BLS might need to fix its population estimates. As Harvard economist Greg Mankiw writes on his blog (http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/), "If the BLS uses incorrect estimates of the size of the population, these errors will be reflected in its estimates of household employment." Finally, the household survey is prone to mistakes that occur when surveyors call people on the phone and ask for information. If those being queried refuse to answer or give inaccurate information then the survey results may be biased. All of these measurement issues suggest that the drop in the unemployment rate to 7.8 percent isn't an indicator of a robust job market. If it were, then the BLS’s measure of the percentage of the labor force that is unemployed plus those who are marginally attached and those who are working part time for economic reasons (called U6) should also have shrunk. But it remained at 14.7 percent in September. While it is more interesting to claim political conspiracy than measurement error, the truth is that inaccurate economic data is a better explanation than ill intent for what happened to the unemployment rate in September. The post It's Not a Conspiracy, Just Imprecise Jobs Data appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| Posted: 08 Oct 2012 02:30 AM PDT Whether the business is large or small, the founder or leader at the top is critical. A leader creates the culture, sets the overall vision, and has oversight, if not direct control, over development of products and services. Last week, Apple began a period of recognition for its late, legendary founder Steve Jobs on the one year anniversary of his death. Let’s look at how leadership effects business today. The Big GoodbyeA MacBook for Steve. So identifiable is Jobs with the products he helped bring to life that a design firm is creating and selling a special tribute edition of one of the company’s legendary laptop devices in his memory. You might not pay $12,368 for a Steve Jobs tribute MacBook Pro, but it is a challenge for every business owner or entrepreneur to be as closely associated with their product or brand as Jobs has been with Apple. Tech 2 Thanks for the memories. Jobs is also being honored with a memorial video posted on the Apple Website. The video contains images of the tech visionary and many of his words too. See a report on the video and thoughts from current Apple CEO Tim Cook about his illustrious predecessor. Think about what a video on your life’s accomplishments might say about your leadership and legacy. USA Today Leadership ClassesExceptional leaders. Let’s face it, that’s what all entrepreneurs want to be. To figure out how to be the kind of visionary who can guide your company to success, fame, and fortune, it’s a good idea to look at the best. In this case, Martin Zwilling outlines the qualities of two other well-known tech founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google. These are qualities any founder would be proud to call their own. Startup Professionals Musings Training for tomorrow. Perhaps knowing the importance of such visionaries to the future our economy, we should, as guest blogger Christa Avampato recommends, focus on teaching entrepreneurship in our schools. Such qualities as critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and communication must all be nurtured. These are the characteristics of future business leaders. Noobpreneur Great management on a budget. One of the most important aspects of being an effective leader or manager in your business is to successfully motivate your employees or team. However, sometimes you face limitations in your funding, and need to find creative ways to accomplish this. Fortunately, there are many ways to improve your team’s performance while on a budget. IFC Coaching The Best AroundGot mantras? Sometimes learning the qualities of leadership may be easier than you think. For example, some simple, easy-to-follow advice may be just the thing to help you better understand what leadership is and how to cultivate it in yourself and others. These might even be called mantras, but, of course, business consultant Chris Farmer calls them “one-liners,” and here are 50 to get you started. Corporate Coach Group Outside hire. When all else fails, there is the option of hiring a manager or leader for your business from outside the company. While this may not be doable for some entrepreneurs and the idea itself may be abhorrent to others, here blogger Harry Vaishnav shares some of the reasons hiring leadership from outside your company might actually be a good idea. Small Biz Viewpoints The post Apple Commemorates Steve Jobs appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
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