Las Vegas Business are waiting to know what their fate will be with new taxes... but one things is for sure, Nevada's Jobless Rate is above the national average.
April’s jobless rate was 10.6 percent, up 0.2 percent from the month before. Nationwide, the rate is 8.9 percent.The report tallied 146,300 Nevadans out of work statewide, for a rate almost double the seasonally adjusted rate of 5.8 percent in April 2008. (facts taken from http://www.fox5vegas.com/news/19537583/detail.html)
Friday, May 22, 2009
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Freakonomics
Freakonomics is a great book... they also have a blog. Here's a recent excerpt...
Search Giant, Search Thyself
By Freakonomics Fewer Americans are quitting jobs that don’t satisfy, but as the Wall Street Journal reports, Google is worried enough about brain drain that it has developed an algorithm to identify which of its employees are most likely to jump ship. The algorithm has already identified some unhappy Googlers, giving the company time persuade them to stay. Creative H.R. maneuver or corporate spying? While this algorithm probably doesn’t have a speaking voice, we’d imagine it would sound just like Toby Flenderson if it did. (HT: derekgardiner)Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
Ideas on how to get referrals
Found a great article on: Duct Tape Marketing
Referrals most naturally happen when two people are talking and one of the parties expresses a pain in the neck. If the other party just had her pain in the neck fixed, she may very well say something like, “ooh, you just gotta call Bob, he’s the best pain in the neck fixer on the planet.“
Referrals most naturally happen when two people are talking and one of the parties expresses a pain in the neck. If the other party just had her pain in the neck fixed, she may very well say something like, “ooh, you just gotta call Bob, he’s the best pain in the neck fixer on the planet.“
Right? We’ve all done some variation of that exchange in making or receiving a referral.
Problem is, we don’t spend enough time teaching our customers and referral sources the types of complaints, frustrations, challenges, and situations our customers generally espouse when they are actually in the act of qualifying themselves as a great referral.
Here’s what I mean. We ask our customers and referral sources if they know anyone who needs a fully optimized, solutions driven lawn manicure specialist, when we should probably be asking them if they know anyone whose dog keeps getting loose because their lawn service always leaves the gate open.
I believe any salesperson worth their salt has developed a list of phrases, situations, and verbal clues that, if heard during a sales presentation, signal it’s time to take the order.
The same idea is true of a qualified referral.
My belief is that the best way to make it easy for people to refer business your way is to develop a list of “trigger” phrases that experience tells you are the exact words your prospects utter when then need what you’ve got.
For example, if you sell accounting software, it’s rare that a prospect might walk up to a golf buddy and say, I sure wish I had some better accounting software.
But, he might says – “I have no idea how healthy my business is because we never have timely data”, or,”I feel like I’m being help hostage by my accounting firm,” or “we keep everything on spreadsheets and it’s a real hassle to update.”
In many cases these folks don’t have any idea that your accounting software is the answer, but you do, so these utterances are your invitation to save the day.
Spend a couple hours brainstorming with anyone in your organization that has customer contact of any kind or call up a dozen customers and ask them to identify the true value your firm brings them with the goal of creating a top ten list of trigger phrases that everyone in your organization and anyone wishing to refer business could use as the perfect way to spot your ideal customer.
Then, clean this list up and create a document you can use in your marketing education processes. (This might end up being the best internal sales training tool you’ve created to date.)
You can even take it a step farther and publicize this content in some manner in your marketing materials because it’s likely that a prospect might be saying these exact things to themselves as well.
Close the loop on this process by also creating some tools, like gift certificates, special referral offers, or coupons, that your referral sources can use any time they hear a trigger phrase.
Prospect: “I’ve been waiting over a week for my lawyer to call me back.” – Referral Source: “Really, my attorney calls me back within 24 hours guaranteed – here’s her card, because I recommended you she’ll review your first contract for free.” http://www.ducttapemarketing.com/blog/2009/05/19/what-really-triggers-a-referral/?dsq=9592906#comment-9592906
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Friday, March 20, 2009
Small Business Awards
Fri, May 15, 2009 (midnight)
The Small Business Administration honored the best in Nevada’s small businesses at its annual luncheon May 7 at the Orleans.
The event, sponsored by In Business Las Vegas, sought to recognize strong businesses and their supporters at one of the most trying times for Nevada’s business owners.
“We came together today amid the most challenging environment we’ve experienced in our business community,” In Business Las Vegas Group Publisher Bruce Spotleson said. “It’s impacted every industry in the state.”
Small businesses employ 45 percent of the state’s private workforce. The SBA office in Nevada is tasked with supporting those businesses through loan and business coaching programs designed to make small businesses stronger.
The top award this year, the Small Business Person of the Year, went to Evergreen Recycling CEO Rob Dorinson, who started the business as a tiny recycling outfit near North Las Vegas in 1997. In the ensuing years he has built it into the most visible small recycling company in the valley.
Dorinson thanked the SBA for the recognition and In Business for creating a forum for so many small-business people to come together.
“In these tough economic times we’ve got to stick together,” he said. “We’ve got to meet, got to network.”
The company recently won another award from the federal government. The Environmental Protection Agency gave Evergreen one of its environmental awards at its annual ceremony in San Francisco. The EPA award acknowledges commitment and significant contributions to the environment in California, Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii, the Pacific islands and tribal lands.
Dorinson said it has been his company’s mission to not only make money, but to make Las Vegas a better place.
“If Evergreen helped to inspire somebody in some small way to help the environment, that means they care about their community,” Dorinson said. “That would be a tremendous legacy.”
The awards luncheon also unveiled the annual Michael Graham Entrepreneurial Spirit Award, which was created in honor of former UNLV Small Business Development Center Director Michael Graham. It will be given annually to a businessperson who shows entrepreneurial spirit and supports small business and the community.
The first recipient, Southern Nevada Courier Service President Horatio Lopez was a close friend of the late Graham.
The SBA also recognized John Holliday of Aloha Medicinals as the Small Business Exporter of the Year. Aloha Medicinals is a health supplements company specializing in a rare antiviral mushroom. The company left California for Nevada a few years ago, a change of scenery that Holliday described as “the best thing we ever did.”
Other SBA awards are: Microenterprise Person of the Year, Lisa McQuerrey of Professional Writing Services; Financial Services Champion of the Year for Nevada and Region 9, Mary Kerner of Rural Nevada Development Corp.; Home Based Business Champion of the Year, Shawn D. Lane of Cheyenne Marketing; Minority Small Business Champion of the Year, Janis Stevenson of Nevada Small Business Development Center; and Women in Business Champion of the Year, former Miss Nevada Carrie Henderson of the BEST Agency.
The Small Business Journalist of the Year went to Connie Brennan, CEO of the Nevada Business Journal.
Several banks that provide SBA loans were also recognized for their contributions with the Economic Independence Awards: Nevada State Development Corp. and U.S. Bank, Platinum Level; Mortgage Capital Development Corp. and Wells Fargo Bank, Gold Level; Nevada State Bank, and Capitol Bankcorp Limited.
For more information on the SBA Awards or on small business aid programs, log on to www.sba.gov.
The original article is posted at: http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/may/15/small-business-administration-honors-valleys-best-/
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
New Business Tax for Nevada?
If things weren't bad enough for small businesses right now...
The Assembly passed the first of four major components expected in a $780 million tax increase Monday, approving the doubling of the Nevada's business license fee in a 33-9 vote, mostly along party lines. (RGJ.com)
Read the whole article here: http://www.rgj.com/article/20090519/NEWS11/905190346/1321/NEWS/Nevada+tax+package+delayed+by+lack+of+agreement+on+benefit+reforms
The Assembly passed the first of four major components expected in a $780 million tax increase Monday, approving the doubling of the Nevada's business license fee in a 33-9 vote, mostly along party lines. (RGJ.com)
Read the whole article here: http://www.rgj.com/article/20090519/NEWS11/905190346/1321/NEWS/Nevada+tax+package+delayed+by+lack+of+agreement+on+benefit+reforms
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Sunday, January 18, 2009
How are you going to drive new business to your website?
Online directories are a great way to get new customers to your website. Make sure that you register with the big search engines, but don't overlook listing with local directories as well... www.isearchbusiness.com is a good one. Check it out!
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