Wise Uncle Ben

Please take the time to read this article about how to sell to the “Big Boxes.” I found the article very informative to say the least. After finishing all eight steps, you may feel a little bit intimidated by the process. Watch the video to help keep things in perspective.

Landing a Spot in the Retail Big Leagues

Trying to play ball with Target or Wal-Mart? Follow these eight steps for selling your product to a large, multiunit retail outlet.

Getting into the retail major leagues is something many entrepreneurs dream about. Have you ever envisioned your products on the shelves of a big box retailer but wondered just how to get your company ready for the prime time?

According to experts–and some entrepreneurs who’ve already made the leap as vendors or suppliers–there are some basic principles that can help guide you through the process. If expanding into the retail big leagues is your goal, these eight steps can help you get placement for your product.

1. Begin with questions. Before you try to make the leap to multiunit retail, ask yourself these basic questions: Does your product fit a demand just waiting to be tapped? Have you already found a multiunit retailer that’s a good fit for your product? What is it about your product that would make a buyer see fit to take a chance on your product? If you land the deal, can your production handle the volume? Do you want to sell your product directly to the retailer, or do you want to license your product to a manufacturer who’ll then distribute it for you?

To read the complete source article click here.

Refreshing Video

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The Atlanta-Journal Constitution:

Olav Kristoffer Bauer makes an unusual business mogul.

At 24, Bauer co-owns six restaurants in Beijing and is looking to expand.

The Buckhead native, who also lived for a time near Stone Mountain, has a tattoo of a Chinese flag on his back (he decided against a hammer-and-sickle design) and wears his hair in a shaggy mohawk. He figures he lost $100,000 last year by ignoring his accounting books and dreams of opening a charity school.

“It’s kind of unreal,” Bauer said over Chinese beers at the Kro’s Nest, one of two pizzerias he runs in Beijing. “I’m a 24-year-old sitting on six or seven restaurants. Where does that happen in America?”

Bauer’s eateries include one modeled on a combination of a Fellini’s pizzeria franchise and Fox & Hounds, the English-style pub in Buckhead. He’s not sure how much money he’s earned since 2006, when he opened his first pizzeria, but he estimates that the number might “push like six zeros.”

Read more.

Image by mckaysavage.

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Tired off having your house burnt to ashes every time a wildfire breaks out? Give these entrepreneurs a call and they will fight your fires for you.

Municipal firefighters could be joined by fall’s wildfire season by at least a private company that has started operations in San Diego County, according to fire officials.
The company, Pacific Fire Guard, is believed to be the first of its kind in the county, said Chief Bill Metcalf of the North County Fire Protection District.

Its founder, Bill Kneebusch, a Cleveland-based entrepreneur, said they will deploy what he called “the Navy SEALs of firefighters” to save homes in the path of wildfires from Oakland to the Mexican border. The service would cost individual homeowners about $1,800 a year, he said, and be ready for duty by May.

Firefighters would deploy to private residences and fend off blazes with a gel-water mixture proven effective —- if expensive —- in last fall’s fires.

To read the full article follow the permalink.

Technorati Tags: start up,fire suppression,entreprenuer

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Not so long ago our modern retail environment did not exist. There were no big box retailers or even chain stores. There was no branding to speak of and most communication still took place via the postal service. In 1883 Sears and Roebuck became one of the first competitors to go up against the general store. What if we could go back to those days just for a brief moment? What would we find?

Helping People Help Themselves

The answer is we can still get a feel for what it must have been like to start a business in a relatively undeveloped market. Through Kiva.org, a not-for-profit micro loan broker, you can lend interest-free money to small entrepreneurs in developing countries. What’s more you actually choose the individuals you lend to by perusing profiles and projects on the internet. Kiva has been covered extensively in the press and seems to do really good work for the people they serve. I would say that the most amazing thing about Kiva is their default rate is only 0.03%. It would seem that 3rd world business men and women are much more responsible with their finances than we are here in the US.

I would strongly urge you and others in your family to look through the web site, find a project you are interested in and fund it. This may be the only time that I will ask you to leave our site and to sacrifice the money you could spend on a dinner out to help hard working people feed their family. These people are the type of entrepreneurs that turned the United States of America into what it is today. Here is a look at my first loan to Constancio Giminez.

Find out more at Kiva.org

Technorati Tags: kiva,charity,business,entrepreneur,donation

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With all of the talk of an impending recession, are you second guessing your dream of starting a business? Has the decline in your stock portfolio made you want to reconsider your goals and just find a safe employer? You cannot pick up a newspaper or listen to the news without encountering a discussion of the credit crunch, the housing crisis or the inevitability of a recession.

Many economists liken our current situation with that of 1973. The United States was in an oil crisis. The stock market started a two-year downturn that saw the DJIA drop by 45%. Moreover, credit products were still evolving and generally less available than they are today. (Credit cards were barely twenty years old at that time.) As if that were not enough, the Watergate investigations were underway and the last U.S. soldiers were leaving Vietnam. Surely it must have seemed in 1973 as if it were not the best time to start a new business.

Why not start a transportation company?

Can you think of a better time to start an overnight delivery company than during an oil crisis? Fortunately Fred Smith did not let it hold him back, because FedEx began operations on April 17, 1973. To be fair, the oil crisis had not yet begun when FedEx started operating, but by October the oil embargo had begun. Fred had done his homework, literally as the business case for FedEx came from a 1965 class paper, and despite everything, FedEx moved forward. It took two years before FedEx made a profit, but just look at them now with a market capitalization of nearly $28.5B.

Of the companies founded in 1973, at least another 104 have gone public. Maybe you have heard of the Men’s Warehouse with it’s $1.25B market cap?

What to do?

Now more than ever, you should rigorously analyze the potential of your idea. Do a SWOT analysis, build your business case, etc. Maybe now is not the perfect time to finance your start-up with credit cards, but then again money is cheap if you qualify. As the saying goes: when the going gets tough, the tough get going.

Technorati Tags: start-up,fedex

Photo by spankmeehard

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