By: Andy Santamaria, Small Business Research Lead at Square

A few decades ago, there were only a handful of computers in the entire world. Today, many of us carry a computer in our pocket with more computing power than those earlier machines. Through imagination and innovation, technology that was once only available for a select few is now at the fingertips of all consumers. At Square, we’re building on that revolution with a goal of making tools traditionally only available to large businesses accessible to anyone.

In my work at Square as Small Business Research Lead, I get to spend my days talking to our customers about how they run their businesses and how Square’s technology can better help them. Here are a few areas where technology that is available on everyday devices can help small retailers run their business smarter:

Credit card acceptance

180 million Americans and counting carry credit cards, and many won’t always have cash on them. Historically, the software and hardware required to accept credit cards was expensive and cumbersome (not to mention the contracts and processing fees). Gone are the days when small business owners have to miss out on sales because they don’t take credit cards. These days, all you need is a free app and card reader.

Mobile

For many merchants, being able to take payments and manage their business on-the-go is essential. Fortunately, this is no problem in the age of the smartphone, where you can do everything from answer customer emails to make a sale from anywhere. A New York restaurant owner I know told me he recently started ringing up catering orders by item on his iPhone and taking the payment right on the job site — a huge improvement over dealing with paper invoices and checks.

Analytics

The more data about their business a merchant has access to, the more strategic they can be in decisions about things like what to sell, when to open, and how much staff they need. Cloud-based point of sale systems, like Square Register, let business owners view in-depth analytics and sales data from wherever they are – in the store, in their back office or while on the road.

Cloud-based apps

Mobile apps are not only easy to get, they are easy to update. While a traditional point of sale might require a technician to come out and install the latest firmware or a new feature, apps can up updated anytime with the tap of a finger on a touchscreen. With the rapid speed of software development, it’s key to be able to get the latest updates quickly and easily.

If the last few years are any indication, we can all look forward to rapid innovation in the world of small business optimization in the near future. Here’s to more big business tools available to small businesses!

Source: CustomMade

Over 8,000 professional artisans (we call them Makers) use CustomMade to connect with Buyers and grow their business. These Makers are true small business owners that can offer custom Creations – from cabinets, to engagement rings, to upholstery and more – completely bespoke to a Buyer’s need or dream. But with the option of big box retail saturating our markets, why go custom and support local, small business? Well, when thinking of our economy and environment, here’s something to consider.

Click to Enlarge Image

Why Buying Local is Worth Every Cent Infographic by CustomMade

Spring is in full swing. Are your home improvement projects starting to pile up? Did your spring cleaning remind you how much you would love new floors? New carpet, hardwood, laminate or tile – what to choose? Carpet One Floor & Home is here to help!

New flooring is a great way to improve your home. But, it can often be an overwhelming process. Flooring is not something you buy frequently, and you want to make sure you make a purchase that you will be happy with for years to come.

If you dread the thought of trying to make this important decision in a warehouse, you’re not alone. But you want to make sure you get a good deal, right? Carpet One Floor & Home offers a cooperative business model to ensure that you get the beautiful floor you’ll love at a great price without the frustrations of a warehouse.

Carpet One Floor & Home stores are local businesses that are independently owned. That means you will get personal service from a business that is an active part of your community. You’ll benefit from years of experience with the personal touch you can’t find in a warehouse store. We specialize in flooring so you won’t be distracted by any hardware or power tools when you visit your local Carpet One Floor & Home showroom.

And don’t worry about selection. By teaming up with over 900 other Carpet One Floor & Home stores, your local store has access to an extensive product selection at competitive prices. As a local business, Carpet One Floor & Home store owners take pride in customer satisfaction. You can even be confident in the look you choose with our Beautiful Guarantee, which promises that you’ll love the new floor you’ve chosen or Carpet One Floor & Home will replace it – Free!

From the exclusive SelectAFloor system to highly trained sales professionals – a trip to a locally owned Carpet One Floor & Home store will turn an overwhelming process into a simplified one. What are waiting for? You can have it all when you’re shopping for flooring at Carpet One Floor & Home.

Find YOUR locally owned store at www.carpetone.com.

We’ve been approached by a reporter at a major business publication who is interested in interviewing small business owners for the following stories:

Story #1: How small-business owners are communicating their plans/concerns/ideas about the health law to their employees – and why this matters as far as recruiting and retention.

• Are you polling your employees to find out how many of them are likely to go on your company’s health plan next year, if they’re not on it already?
• Are you telling employees that you might drop insurance and pay the penalty, because it’s more affordable, but explaining that they could get coverage through their state’s exchange?
• Have you held a town hall meeting or distributed a company-wide memo about possible changes the company might make because of the law and/or asked what your employees think about these?

Story #2: When and why entrepreneurs should hire a CEO or other very senior person.

• Are you an entrepreneur working on your first business?
• Have you come to realize that you can’t do everything yourself, and maybe some else is better suited to manage the day-to-day aspects of the business?
• Have you hired a CEO and now focus on the big picture planning for your business?

If either of these scenarios relates to you and your business and you’re interested in speaking with the reporter, please send details as soon as possible to info@independentwestand.org.

Independent We Stand is proud to announce that Devoe Paint has signed on as the newest partner and sponsor of Independent We Stand.  Devoe Paint is the latest high-profile business to join the momentum of this movement and they will work with co-sponsor STIHL Inc. to increase awareness about the benefits of buying local.

Founded in 1754, Devoe Paint is recognized as America’s oldest paint brand. Devoe Paint’s products are known for competitive quality and performance at a great value.  The brand is a comprehensive program of specially formulated coatings for every application – residential, architectural, commercial, and industrial.  The brand, part of PPG Architectural Coatings, sells its products exclusively through independent dealers.

“The small businesses who sell Devoe Paint are the key to our business and we are committed to helping them succeed,” says John Trenta, Manager of Dealer Channel Marketing and Devoe Paint Brand Manager.  “Independent We Stand will help us leverage our strengths to help grow that awareness of our independent dealers and their importance in the community.”

Companies like Devoe Paint and STIHL Inc. make it possible for us to continue to help independent businesses. Because of their support, we are able to offer free resources to thousands of businesses from restaurants to mom and pop shops, to hardware stores and dealers. The more money these independent stores are able to bring in, the more they reinvest and the bigger economic impact it will have on their community.

To find a local Devoe Paint dealer, search here.

For more information about Devoe Paint visit www.devoepaint.com.

By: Resources for Entrepreneurs

American Express OPEN Small Business Monitor reports that the majority of small business owners purchase and source products from other small businesses.

The push to buy local has become a mantra for small businesses across the nation. But a new report by the America Express OPEN Small Business Monitor shows that buying local isn’t just talk–entrepreneurs overwhelmingly practice what they preach and buy from other local, small businesses.

The report showed that 70 percent of entrepreneurs purchase and source goods and services from other small businesses. Nearly all entrepreneurs (96%) are committed to supporting their local communities in other important ways including donations to local charities (70%), participation in community projects (49%) and shopping at small, local companies for non-business purchases (83%).

“We should all draw inspiration from small businesses that remain steadfast optimists and loyal contributors to local communities and causes despite an economic environment that remains uncertain,” said Susan Sobbott president of American Express OPEN. “Adversity is nothing new to the vast majority of entrepreneurs, and our research shows that while they have concerns about the near future, they have learned a great deal from recent trials and are better positioned to grow in the long term.”

Why do customers buy local? To succeed in their communities, entrepreneurs need to understand the motivations and concerns that drive local buying behaviors. In general, consumers support local small businesses for three reasons: community support, convenience and more personal service.

By focusing on these three characteristics, local entrepreneurs can improve their ability to connect with consumers and build a sustainable, local business. The findings of the American Express OPEN Small Business Monitor report show that small business owners are not only taking these business traits to heart, but are also incorporating them into their personal spending patterns.

Despite the churn of small business success stories in the mainstream media, the long-term prognosis for local independent businesses in the U.S. is not ideal. In a 2010 paper entitled “Out of Business,” Barry C. Lynn of the New America Foundation showed that the number of new entrepreneurs and business owners as a percentage of the working-age population declined by 53% between 1977 and 2010. According to business census data, the number of businesses in traditionally independent sectors has dropped dramatically over the last decade. Bakeries (-33.7%), florists (-25.9%), hobby shops (-23.6%), gift stores (-23.1%), book stores (-22.9%), garden centers (-14.8%) and furniture stores (-11.9%) have all seen double digit percentage decreases in the number of industry businesses since 2002. Given the growing number of vacant storefronts, its hard not to conclude that these publicized successes are the exception rather than the rule.

Independent businesses are the backbone of communities, demonstrating greater proficiency at sustaining local economies than those remitting profits and franchise fees to points elsewhere. Why, then, is it more difficult than ever to start and/or operate an independent business? The theories abound: mass purchasing power, tighter credit markets, various supply chain advantages, etc. But there is one additional theory to consider: that the consolidation of local retail and service industry businesses in the national economy increasingly mirrors the consolidation of the business “voice” in Washington, DC. As the advantages of operating a business increasingly tilt in favor of larger entities, perhaps the laws governing the field of play are changing in favor of larger businesses as well.

Last year, a handful of small trade groups started working together to educate federal policymakers about the benefits of supporting independent businesses in local communities. Focusing on two “bottom line” issues, the National Main Street Business Coalition advocates for better access to affordable capital and sensible tax reform policies that would better sustain locally owned, independent businesses. The most recent example of the group’s work is a letter, signed by 17 national and state trade associations in mid-April, asking Congress to consider the unique needs of independent businesses in rewriting the federal tax code.

Borrowing from ideas offered by bipartisan tax reform panels commissioned by President Bush (2005) and President Obama (2010), the group focused primarily on recommending the use of checkbook accounting — where the taxable income of a business would simply be receipts minus expenses. Imagine your bank statements as your “books.” This would reduce your cost of compliance by relying less on accountants to navigate through stacks of forms and complex code. Checkbook accounting would better position independent shop owners to reinvest profits back into their business without fearing the consequences of depreciating those investments over arbitrary periods of time. This is the type of federal policy that could actually stimulate local economies, empowering independent business owners to reduce overhead, improve profitability and grow.

The problem: independent businesses stand to benefit more from checkbook accounting than would larger corporations. The complexity of the tax system works to the benefit of businesses that can more easily utilize the laundry list of credits and deductions available to them for certain preferred operational behaviors.  Given their shrinking number, there are fewer independent business owners to make a case for something like checkbook accounting than the last time Congress and the President rewrote the federal tax code in 1986. This does not make the concept of checkbook accounting any less doable or appealing. It only makes it more difficult for the idea to rise above the buzz of special interest clamoring.

If the idea of checkbook accounting sounds appealing, maybe you can find a moment or two to “lobby local,” spreading the word amongst fellow independent business owners throughout your local community. Perhaps a small group of interested parties could invite your Senators or Representative over for a cup of coffee to discuss what something like checkbook accounting could mean for your business’s bottom line. As effective as the National Main Street Business Coalition can be at presenting the independent perspective on a particular issue, the most effective advocate on federal policies that can benefit your independent business is you.

To read the full letter to the House Committee on Ways & Means, visit: http://waysandmeans.house.gov/uploadedfiles/society_of_american_florists_.pdf

To “Like” the National Main Street Business Coalition on Facebook, visit:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/National-Main-Street-Business-Coalition/172233552883462

Corey Connors is Senior Director, Government Relations for the Society of American Florists. He can be reached via email at cconnors@safnow.org

By: Dr. Andrew Thomas in The ART Of Business

In our award-winning book, The Distribution Trap, Timothy Wilkinson and myself went to great lengths to praise David Oreck, the founder of the vacuum cleaner company that bears his name.

For decades, while his major competitors went through bankruptcies, painful acquisitions, and the outsourcing of production from the U.S., Mr. Oreck stayed true to his principles and built one of the best companies in America.

By controlling the sales and distribution of his innovations through a direct marketing strategy, bulwarked by a network of exclusive franchises, Oreck was able to build a loyal following of customers who would pay “that little extra” for an American-made product of high-quality.

As the rest of the industry was running to Bentonville to cut huge-volume deals with “China Mart”, as Mr. Oreck called them during a visit to the University of Akron in 2004, he consistently shunned the big-boxes.

It paid off. Oreck was able to consistently deliver high-value and profits, all the while still manufacturing here in America.

But now things have changed.

Mr. Oreck is long since retired and a new generation of leadership is putting the company on course for its eventual demise.

Today you can buy Oreck vacuum cleaners at Target.

The attached picture below, taken a few days ago at a local Target store, shows how the once awesome Oreck brand is just one among many others: a commodity and nothing else.

Even worse, the company announced last month a new “partnership” with Wal-Mart.

For anyone with any sense at all, a “partnership” with Wal-Mart really means loss of control; lower and lower costs; a cheapening of product quality; a diminishing of brand integrity; and, ultimately, the off-shoring of U.S. manufacturing jobs.

Listen to how Mr. Fred Whyte, President of STIHL, a company that stays away from the big boxes, describes what will eventually happen to the Oreck brand and its products.

What a shame

Wow! What a trip. Five cities in four states in seven days. 925+ miles. 14 – 16 hour days. And would do it all again in a heartbeat!

We kicked off the road trip in New Orleans, where we jumped right into the indie scene of this iconic town. Mahony’s Po Boy Shop was the first to welcome us to the city and we were blown away by their fresh ingredients and southern hospitality. With a long week ahead of us, we made our way to the Bourbon Orleans Hotel in the French Quarter, a historic locally owned hotel that is part of the New Orleans Hotel Collection. Dinner came from Luke on St. Charles Avenue, where the local seafood was out of this world!

Day two had us heading to Beloxi, Mississippi with a full schedule of indie businesses. First up was Jerry’s Lawn Mower, a locally owned and operated STIHL dealership that’s been supporting the Mississippi Gulf Coast for over 42 years. Next on the agenda was Coastline Home & Garden Supply in Gulfport. The good people at Coastline are new friends of Independent We Stand who carry Devoe Paint, America’s paint brand since 1754. Lunch was served up hot from locally owned Darwell’s Café in Long Beach. Man, were those some tasty ribs!

We stayed in Beloxi on our third day of the road trip to watch the STIHL Offshore Racing team compete in the 9^th annual Smokin’ The Sound Speedboat Race. The STIHL team took home the Super Boat trophy and we got to spend the day basking in their glory.

Day four was back on the road as we made our way to Destin, Florida, where the beaches were beautiful and the locals were welcoming. We had a great time interviewing the owner of Blast Arcade and Lazer Maze, and then caught up with the friendly owner of Sandestin Clothing Company, finished up at the Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort. We managed to squeeze in two more interviews before leaving town, one at Coastal Equipment Rental and the other at Elephant Walk.

The next day we were back at it again, this time en route to Tallahassee. After a long drive, we were ready for a local lunch and Piggy’s BBQ hit the spot. After lunch, we got back in the car and went straight to our first interview of the day at Southside Mower. Up next was Tallahassee Dodge Chrysler Jeep, where we had some fun trying out our “Honk if you buy local” decals on the different cars. We finished up at Hotel Duval, where we filmed our last interview and called it a day.

Atlanta was our final stop on Road Trip 5.0 and there was so much to do, we stayed for two days. We stopped in and saw our old friends at Hall’s Flower Shop in Stone Mountain, then headed over to Duluth, where we covered two interviews at once with Howard Brother’s and Highgrove partners. We finished up with Premium Members, Abbadabba’s. The next day, as exhaustion set in, we enjoyed one last local lunch at The Greater Good BBQ. We were honored to meet with the folks at the Big Green Egg, whose ceramic cookers are only sold through independent dealers.

From the southern hospitality, to being front row at our first speedboat race, to enjoying all the BBQ our hearts desired, it’s hard to choose a favorite part from this trip. But, hands down, the best thing about this trip was meeting independent business owners and hearing the enthusiasm in their voices as they described their piece of the American dream. To see the glimmer in their eyes as they show you around there pride and joy. To hear the emotion in their voices as they share the struggles of the past few years. It makes all the hard work and grueling travel schedule worth it.

We kept it all local all the time, proving that it is possible to “stay indie” while traveling. The Independent We Stand mobile app was a HUGE help along the way for finding locally owned restaurants, hotels, and anything else we needed on the road.

We had a great time and have plans to do it again and again. We’d like to say a special thanks all the merchants we interviewed and to the fine folks at Big Green Egg, Devoe Paint, and Chrysler Commercial Vehicles. Without their help it wouldn’t have been possible. And we’d like to thank the crew back at the Independent We Stand offices – you guys rock!

By: John Irving