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Yesterday, our small business team had the privilege of spending a little time with Cope Norcross, the new Director of the Weill Institute for Small Business Development here in Bakersfield.

The conversation with Cope kind of blew my mind a bit to be honest. I knew that the Weill Institute hosted top-notch business seminars... but I was totally  floored when I found out they also offer FREE BUSINESS COUNSELING!

It's hard to believe that something as valuable as business counseling is FREE!

Whether you are a start-up or existing business, their experts will help you at no cost! They're funded through special federal, state and community college programs to provide Bakersfield business with expert counseling services.

Cope and his expert team offer confidential one-on-one consulting on all aspects of running or starting a business: Business Plans, Loans, Cash Flow Analysis, Marketing, Tax Preparation, Regulations, Exporting, Procurement, Patents and Copyrights, Manufacturing Improvements, Mystery Shopping, Web Site Development and much more!

To learn more or to take advantage of their resources, call 395-4126

Small Business Development Center
2100 Chester Avenue
Bakersfield, CA 93301
661-395-4126 
Weill-sbdc.com

--Mary Russo

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I love makeover shows. It's my guilty pleasure!

Now there is a Business makeover show and I'm a super addict!

Celebrity hairstylist Peter Ishkhans, who has coiffed celebrity heads from rock legends to Tinseltown hotties has a business makeover show on the Style Network- Peter Perfect.

During each episode ,Peter faces the daunting challenge of helping struggling business owners in the Greater LA area, revive their business and brand.

 In addition to giving the stores some much needed floor to ceiling pizazz (not without a fight), Peter also transforms the owners and their employees with a more polished and professional look and helps them kick start their marketing efforts.

When the Peter Perfect crew is finished, the before and after transformations of the store and the business overall are totally unbelieveable .

Click here to view the airtimes.
Watch it on YouTube!

--Mary Russo

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According to the NFIB’s Small Business Economic Trends July 2008 Report:

The top concern for small business owners is now inflation, the first time since January of 1981. Inflation beat out taxes, insurance, weak sales and all other business problems for the top spot. 

Every time the owners open the “back door” for supplies, new inventory etc., prices and charges are higher.

  Since 1983, the average percent of owners citing inflation as a top problem has averaged three percent, it is now 20 percent.

 Forty-one (41) percent of all firms reported raising average selling prices in June, compared to 13 percent reporting reductions. Low inflation would demand these two percentages be roughly the same. Instead, they have been diverging, and average price levels are rising as a result.

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• on everything you print including business cards, stationary, envelopes, product labels, packaging
  
• in all of your advertising, online and off
  
• in the greeting and "hold" message on company phones
  
• on all trade show displays
  
• on signs in your stores and offices
  
• in email signatures 

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We're happy to announce our second seminar on Wednesday August 6th: http://people.bakersfield.c...
 

We'll help you find out  what's being said about your business at this FREE "brown bag lunch"-- plus, we'll teach you tricks you can use to create a postive buzz about your business.

Learn to improve and manage word-of-mouth marketing for your business-- from person-to-person contact to online--even if you don’t have a marketing budget.

Space is limited, so please RSVP soon!

Facebook is one of the fastest-growing social networks on the Internet, and most of the activity on the site is about people socializing and communicating with each other.  But VISA and Facebook sees an opportunity to use Facebook to help small businesses promote themselves.  The article below from MediaPost describes the new offering.  If you want to get started, you can sign up here.

Visa Inc. on Tuesday unveiled a new marketing initiative on Facebook providing small businesses a total of $2 million for advertising on the social networking site. The credit and debit card processing giant is awarding $100 ad credits to each of the first 20,000 businesses that join its Visa Business Network, an application aimed at connecting small businesses via Facebook. About 80,000 small businesses have created pages on the site since last November. The Visa network will offer a set of tools and advisory services to help them add new customers, operate more efficiently and boost sales. Companies can also use the platform to share ideas and even strike deals. Google is supplying many of the new features including its maps, word processing, calendaring and site-building applications. Through The Wall Street Journal and Entrepreneur magazine, small business owners will be able to pose questions to business experts via Visa's Facebook network. Other partners including AllBusiness.com, Forbes.com and Microsoft will also provide news feeds, videos, blogs and articles on nuts-and-bolts topics such as cash flow management, attracting new customers and holding down costs. "We started thinking it was the right time for us to step in, help small businesses get more benefit from networking," said Alex Craddock, who heads small business marketing for Visa. The company partnered with Facebook because it already had a large population of businesses it could cater to rather than trying to build an online community from scratch. Michael Diegel, a spokesman for the National Federation of Independent Businesses, said the Visa program on Facebook could help small companies. "One of the things we hear from our members most often is their desire to build their businesses through networking," he said. "To the extent that this initiative can help them to do that, it will be a valuable tool for entrepreneurs." For its part, Facebook will certainly welcome the $2 million in advertising that Visa is paying for as part of the program. Despite its popularity, the social network has struggled to monetize traffic from its large but fragmented base of 80 million users. Market researcher eMarketer last month reduced its 2008 revenue estimate for Facebook to $265 million from $305 million because of a faltering economy and the inherent challenges in advertising on social networks. Meanwhile, the 24,000 applications built on Facebook over the last year typically generate ad revenue for developers rather than the company. Like other developers, Visa wants its new business-to-business app to go viral. Visa is hoping to drive people to the Visa Business Network via word-of-mouth, referrals from business to business as well as blogs about small business tools, Craddock said. The company will support the service with a multimedia marketing campaign beginning in July. So what will $100 buy in advertising on the social network? The credits are for Facebook Ads, the company's self-serve ad platform designed for smaller marketers. It allows users to select their target audience based on factors such as age, gender, interests and location and launch campaigns for as little as $5. How much a given amount buys depends on how much someone bids for an ad via Facebook's interface. Facebook is hoping that if small businesses like the results they get from using the ad credits, they will be willing to spend more on their own. "The Visa Business Network greatly enhances what small business owners can do on Facebook," said a company spokesman. "With the ad credit, the small business owners have an opportunity to go a step further and promote their businesses to a targeted audience on Facebook."

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If you ask one of your employees or co-workers to describe your company, do you think you would hear the same story? No!

 Probably as many different versions as people you ask. You may even have a few variations of your own too!

Well, if this is the case for you and your business, in marketing lingo, you need to come up with an "Elevator Pitch."

Basically a short & sweet statement about your business that you could say in the length of an elevator ride.

To me, this is such an odd term! Who talks in an elevator in the first place?  Everyone is feeling so awkward staring at the floor or wall, just waiting for the ride to be over.

An example of an elevator pitch would be:

"Northwind Traders is the only floral and gift service that guarantees delivery anywhere within 12 hours, using a network of affiliates and delivering quality gifts at affordable prices."

So, let's get started getting yours together!

According to Microsoft's  Small Business Center, there are three things every elevator pitch should have:

1. What your company does.

2. Why it's better/different than your competitors — first, only, best, largest, service-focused, whatever that is.

3. Where to get more info & the next step... "I'd be glad to send you a business plan," "Our Web site has all the details," or "Can I set up a meeting to tell you more?"

Your pitch needs to be interesting, easy to understand and give the listener a reason to remember your company. It's your verbal business card.

Need help or assistance with your elevator pitch? Let us know! I look forward to riding with you in the elevator!

-- Mary Russo

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I've been a slacker lately. I joined a business book club that was formed here at The Californian at the beginning of the year and in the past month or so, I've stopped going. It's not that our books are bad or my co-workers don't have really interesting insights. They're great books and great people! I've just been distracted by life and other non-business books I've wanted to read.

I have kind of had this nagging sense of guilt that I'm behind in my book club reading. Well that, and my co-workers are nagging me too.

 So when I stumbled across this section on BNet.com called The Best and Worst Business Books, I was very curious how my to-read list measured up.

The list of overrated books includes “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" which was actually next on my personal reading list. But, should I really take this seriously since they have a "Dummies" book on their underrated book list? Well, actually, I shouldn't rag on "Dummies" books since I do own a few.

Unfortunately, none of our book club books were on the bad list, so I didn't get the excuse I was hoping to rationalize my flaking out on the club. I guess I better get back in gear!

-- Mary Russo

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About 25 small business turned out early Tuesday morning to learn about listing your business online for free. What does that mean really?

Well, even if you don't have a website, there are many places you can list your business online for free. This is important even if you do have a site since it makes your business information and website easier to find.

If you are interested in listing your business, but unable to make it to our class, we went over our list of top sites  for local businesses to create profiles and listings:

• Google Business Maps
• Yahoo Local
• Inside Guide to Bakersfield
• Localeze.com
• YellowPages.com

There are new sites popping up online all the time where you can list your business. Even though it's an older article by internet standards, I found this article to be helpful.

Have you found other great online resources? Please share your tips & tricks.

-- Mary Russo

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The Internet is today's Yellow Pages.  If you're invisible online, then you are invisible to a growing number of your potential customers.

The good news is that there are free and easy ways to make sure your business is listed on services offered by the big guys such as Google and Yahoo, as well as local online directories such as Bakersfield.com's Inside Guide. 

At a free seminar sponsored by The Californian, we'll show you how to set up your business profile online leave you with printouts of step-by-step instructions and even give you some hands-on help afterwards.  Here are the particulars:

Date: Tuesday, June 17

Time: 7 am to 8 am

Location: The Bakersfield Chamber of Commerce, corner of 18th and Eye streets (park in the parking structure on 18th Street, not in the Chamber lot)

Cost: Free!  But please RSVP to Mary Russo at 395-7318 by 5 pm on Friday, June 13.

We hope you'll join us!

Mary Lou