Thank you!

Download audio file (BoogieWoogieBugleBoy.mp3)

Just in case you’ve been hiding from the headlines, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a health care reform measure last weekend, by a razor-thin 5-vote margin.

As the Senate gears up for its turn to dance in the health care reform spotlight, I decided to ditch my planned holiday-related November poll and ask you this instead:

(Technical note: Please do not try to use the sidebar version of the poll until this post scrolls off the front page here. There seems to be a glitch in this polling plugin that rebels if the poll appears more than once on a single page.)

So, it’d be nifty if you take a second to vote in this month’s poll and, if you have more to say, drop a comment and let’s hear it!

Weekly microbusiness news podcast

For the record, I am sick and I feel like … well, never mind. I expect you’ll hear that in this week’s podcast.

Now that the House has passed a health care reform measure, all eyes will be turning back to the Senate to see how much that chamber’s arcane rules add drama and interest to the proceedings there.

If other committees outside the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship are really interested in learning more about small businesses and health insurance, they could save themselves some hassle and simply visit the record of the expert committee here.

Then again, I don’t know how much time anybody has left here, so I doubt there will be that many hearings about small businesses to be had in the near future.

It’s always strange when the economy is doing one set of stuff but people’s perceptions have gone off in the completely opposite direction. The recession has not been officially declared to be over yet but both the housing and manufacturing sector have picked up just enough to be encouraging.

You can see the difference between consumer confidence, small business confidence and CEO confidence. Of that group, it’s the CEOs who are feeling a lot better these days. The rest of us are still waiting on the job market.

Plus, the ARRA and broadband deployment, and this week’s Policy Matters column, in today’s podcast.

Listen to the Microbusiness News Briefs Podcast: Download audio file (11092009.mp3)

For more information:

• Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions
• The Conference Board
• National Federation of Independent Business
• House Committee on Small Business

In case you hadn’t guessed by now, I ended up losing my political campaign.

I didn’t get a chance to sulk about it because of the feedback I have been receiving since Tuesday. Overwhelmingly, the message has been two-fold: (a) a lot of people were expecting me to win and were surprised when I didn’t, and (b) ‘don’t give up, Dawn.’

If I were to look at this from a political point of view, the folks in my community who I would ordinarily have expected to vote for me, and who uniformly told me they supported me (and I do believe them), simply did not translate their support into action (i.e., voting). If everybody who supported me had actually voted, I would have won.

(Pause for musical interlude … ) Download audio file (StandByMe.mp3)

So, yeah.

They reason they don’t vote is because they have never believed a member of our party can win in our town — even though members of our party have been winning here (in state and federal elections) with notable frequency.

Go figure.

If we look at this from the point of view of a marketing problem — and that is what political campaigns really are, aren’t they? — it would parallel the situation where you have a product and you get lots of great feedback on the product and it wins all sorts of awards and stuff … but nobody buys it.

So … what do you do?

This is a problem of conversion, isn’t it?

If you’re thinking that I’m about to impress you with my brilliance, I’ll confess that I have no clue. I’m hoping one of my marketing pro buddies will come to my rescue and leave some of their own brilliance in the comments here.

I’ll be the answer is so simple that I’ll want to kick myself when I read it but, at least for the moment, I’m stuck. So, somebody, please help me (us) out:

What is the piece of the marketing pie that is missing when you have a terrific product (you know it’s terrific because everybody tells you so, and you have reason to believe them) but can’t move people from admiration to action?

Weekly microbusiness news podcast

Before I get to this week’s microbusiness news, a bit of housekeeping.

Raw Voice (owners of Blubrry.com, the podcast network to which the Microbusiness News Briefs belongs) and several other podcasting companies have joined with The Association for Downloadable Media (ADM) on the “Consumers Attitudes on Advertising & Sponsorship in Audio and Video Podcasts” research project.

The project is a survey that should take about 10 minutes to complete and does NOT ask for personal contact information. The survey will record audience reactions to topics such as ad style, delivery and placement. The research will help podcast producers best fulfill the expectations of their listeners and viewers.

If you are willing to take a few minutes to complete the survey (and I hope you will), please visit http://www.takethesurvey.com/rawvoice. And thank you for your help!

Health care reform is back and the number one topic of the week, with two of our three stories focusing on that very interesting topic. The Senate Small Business Committee leadership (Landrieu and Snowe) are concerned about some of the issues facing the self-employed that are not addressed in proposed reform legislation. The NASE is concerned about that, too.

I don’t know why but … you’d think that eventually people would get it that they don’t get it, wouldn’t you? Personal paradigms are powerful persuaders.

Rounding out the weeks news is a recent proposal that says to businesses, “We don’t need you to site your factory or call center in our community. We just need you to hire our rural and small town constituents to telework for you. Isn’t technology wonderful?” New wrinkle on an old economic development tactic.

Listen to the Microbusiness News Briefs Podcast: Download audio file (10262009.mp3)

For more information:

• Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship
• National Association for the Self-Employed (NASE)
• (THOMAS) Rural and Small Town Telework Tax Credit Act of 2009 (H.R. 3627)

photo by emdot

I don’t do this very often but, given the credit situation for small businesses, I thought it would be a good idea to publish this article from American Bankers Association VP Robert C. Seiwert. Prior to joining the ABA, Mr. Seiwert was a banker for over 30 years, serving as President and CEO of a high-performing community bank and Director of Commercial Marketing for one of the nation’s largest financial institutions.

1) Get to know bankers at several financial institutions in your community. Before requesting a loan, find out which financial institutions in your market make loans to firms like yours. Not all banks specialize in business loans. Some specialize in lending only to firms in certain industries. Others lend only to those in certain stages of the business life cycle (no startups, for example). Work with bankers who understand your industry and find out how the current financial crisis has affected credit availability in your community. Not all banks have been equally affected by today’s financial crisis.

Another reason to deal with banks experienced in your industry relates to the financial advice they can offer. Because these bankers work with firms facing the same industry-related problems that may challenge you, they’re in a better position to provide helpful advice and financial products tailored to your firm’s needs. Many times the advice a banker gives is far more important than the product or service they sell. Seek a banker who can give financial advice that will help you survive and thrive in today’s economy. In turn, you should reward that banker with your business and your loyalty.

2) Be able to articulate your firm’s “value proposition” to its target markets and your business plan to reach them. If you can’t clearly articulate why other companies or customers should do business with you and how you’ll effectively compete in your chosen target market segments, the chances of getting a loan are slim.

Develop a business plan that has three different scenarios: best case, most likely case, and worst case. You want the banker to understand all three since you’re asking for support through good times and bad. Also, be prepared to discuss in detail the assumptions that underlie each of these scenarios.

3) Think like a banker. Understand the risks of operating in your industry. Have a plan to mitigate those risks and share it with your banker. Bankers are going to do a risk analysis anyway, so it’s important to help them. Most likely, you can provide a perspective that the banker hasn’t considered. It’s important for the banker to see that you recognize the risks of operating in your industry and that you have a plan for dealing with them.

4) Develop at least two ways to repay the loan. Bankers look for primary and secondary loan repayment sources. For the sake of your business, you should, too. You are in the best position to determine possible repayment alternatives. Be sure to discuss these options with your banker before the loan is made. Secondary repayment resources could include the pledging of business or personal collateral as well as the addition of a loan guarantee by the firm’s owners, suppliers or customers.

The more certainty that the banker has that the loan will be paid “as agreed,” the more likely it will be that you not only receive a favorable loan decision, but also the best interest rate. Smart business owners understand that now is the time to think about alternative repayment sources, not when their business gets into trouble.

5) Don’t ask for loans that should be funded with equity injections. Bankers aren’t paid to take equity risks; they get paid to make loans that will be repaid on time.

The amount of equity you need to operate your business will depend on several factors. One of the most important relates to your industry and what role your business plays in that industry. The amount of equity required for a manufacturer will be different from that required to run a wholesale distribution business. Retailers in the same industry will also have different equity requirements.

The stability of the industry is also an important factor influencing the amount of equity needed. Firms in stable industries need less equity than firms operating in industries undergoing rapid change. The reason is that firms in stable industries can carry a higher level of debt due to the greater certainty of their revenue streams.

Another factor that determines the amount of equity required for your business relates to your firm’s business model. Some firms offer easy credit terms to build market share and increase sales. Other firms operate on a cash-only basis. The sales terms your firm offers its customer base has an important impact on the amount of equity that your business will need to operate.

If your product or service is in great demand, consider asking your customers for upfront deposits on pending orders or extending favorable pricing terms to customers who pay their invoices within 10 days of receipt.

Another option is to ask suppliers for favorable terms of sale. Ask if they’ll let you pay invoices later with no interest or give you discounts for paying invoices early. Any additional customer or supplier financing reduces the amount of permanent working capital that needs to be funded with equity contributions from your firm’s shareholders.

The American Bankers Association brings together banks of all sizes and charters into one association. ABA works to enhance the competitiveness of the nation’s banking industry and strengthen America’s economy and communities. Its members – the majority of which are banks with less than $125 million in assets – represent over 95 percent of the industry’s $13.5 trillion in assets and employ over 2 million men and women.

It’s gotten to be that time of year.

Election day (which I happen to be paying a lot of attention to this year) is less than two weeks away and Thanksgiving Day is a little more than three weeks later. And, frankly, if you wait until Thanksgiving to tweak your e-commerce retail site for the holidays, you’ve left it too late.

Why? Well, for starters, that’s because whatever you’re going to do to your site, you need to give the search engines time to crawl through so that any SEO improvements you implement will do their job.

Besides, you don’t want your customers to show up when you’re still mopping the floors and dusting the furniture, do you? They’re not going to wait around while you work the kinks out of your soon-to-be-lovely holiday themed catalog. And you really have no business asking them to.

And, on a much more selfish note, it’ll be much better to get it over and done with. You don’t want to have to deal with web site maintenance chores when (you hope) you’re that busy filling orders, do you?

Along these lines, I came across this article recently, listing ten ways to prep your site for the holiday shopping season. And the nice thing about it is that nothing on this list is beyond the purse of an online microbusiness.

Here’s the list:

1. Offer something free to get customers’ attention.
2. Tweak your SEO.
3. Have a social media strategy.
4. Make sure your inventory is up to the challenge.
5. Ramp up email marketing efforts.
6. Ponder whether your web hosting company can handle anticipated traffic surge.
7. Test your site to make sure it works.
8. Get a gift certification program.
9. Prepare (plan) for the New Year.

Incidentally, retail sales rose in September (if you exclude auto sales). That’s a pretty good sign, unless you’re a car dealer. (The decline, I suspect, has to do with the demise of the Cash for Clunkers program.)

Consumers have been containing themselves, saving money and playing it cautious for a long time now. They might still be feeling cautious but it is possible that some of them will decide to splurge during the holiday season.

That is especially true if you are able to entice them with good deals and great services, packaged in a web site that is easy to navigate and that works (from a technical point of view).

So, don’t decide that the economy sucks and thus you have to resign yourself to crappy year-end sales numbers. Get that site spruced up for the holiday season right now!

Hey, remember those Red Flag Rules?

Okay, maybe not, so let me back up the cart.

After numerous delays, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) appears ready to start enforcing compliance with its Red Flag rules. Those rules are designed to get businesses to help in the fight against identity theft, by requiring them to have a written Identity Theft Prevention Plan that identifies ‘red flags’ that may signal a problem (hence the nickname “Red Flag Rules”) and that takes steps to prevent or mitigate said Identity Theft.

Unfortunately, it has taken quite a long time for the FTC to begin getting its act together to implement its own rules because of the number of trade organizations that argued the rules don’t apply to them.

Oh, that’s another thing. These rules apply to creditors; that is, any business that does not operate on a cash and carry basis. And that, as you may have already surmised, means an awful lot of firms.

Now, if you are among those worried about compliance chores for this new set of regulations, here’s some news for you: freshman Congressman Jay Adler (D-NJ) has introduced legislation to make a couple of fairly important changes to those Red Flag Rules.

H.R. 3763, which does not have one of those clever titles that make intriguing acronyms (CAN-SPAM, the SHOP Act, etc.), would provide for a few exemptions from the Red Flag Rules. Specifically, those exemptions would be:

• a health care practice with fewer than 20 employees;
• an accounting practice with fewer than 20 employees;
• a legal practice with fewer than 20 employees; or
• any other business that the FTC decides should be exempt, based on an application process through which the business establishes that it either (a) knows all its customers/clients individually, (b) only performs services in or around the residences of its customers, or (c) has not experienced episodes of ID theft and/or ID theft is rare for that type of business.

That last one is important because it is an exemption that will almost certainly account for most microbusinesses that would otherwise have to comply with this rule.

That means the FTC is going to have a time fielding all the applications for exemptions but it also means that an awful lot of micros (particularly in the B2B sector) will be able to remove this particular regulatory albatross from around their necks.

If, that is, the bill passes.

I bring this to you attention today because this particular piece of legislation is scheduled to come to the House floor today, under a suspension of the rules. That is a mechanism under which a bill can come directly to the floor, bypassing the Committee markup process. If anybody in the House objects, the bill continues on its way to the Committee pending tray — in this case, the House Financial Services Committee.

If it passes, it will the move on to the Senate and will, I suspect, fall under the wing of the Committee on Banking, Chaired by Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT). Stay tuned.

Weekly microbusiness news podcast

Before anything else, I need to apologize for all the bumps and thumps in this week’s recording. My podcasts usually sound better than this and I have no idea why my mic was loose during my recording. I plan to have that fixed before next Monday’s podcast.

This Congressional session has been a peculiar one so far, simply because there has been the usual amount of hot air expended on Capitol Hill but it all seems to be expended in discussing only one or two topics.

One might argue about how well lawmakers walk and chew gum at the same time but, I’ll confess, now that everybody has turned themselves into Johnny-One-Note, covering Capitol Hill is not at its most interesting.

This week, we have small businesses and access to capital (Microloan with a twist), the tax gap, and small firms and health care reform. There will be more on that last subject next week; Senate Small Business Committee Chairwoman Mary Landrieu will convene a hearing on that subject later this week.

Listen to the Microbusiness News Briefs Podcast: Download audio file (10192009.mp3)

For more information:

• House Small Business Committee
• GAO Report: Limiting Sole Proprietor Loss Deductions Could Improve Compliance but Would Also Limit Some Legitimate Losses (PDF)
• Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship

(I wonder what it is about my December 2008 interview with the NASE’s Kristie Arslan that draws so many spam bots? Ah, well!)

Once upon a time, I wrote a post in the blog about how important it is for microbusiness bloggers (or any bloggers) to let readers know when life is happening to them in ways that cause them to vanish from their blogs.

Now, what’s funny about that is that I am now in the position in which life is causing me to almost-but-not-quite vanish from my blog and it has left me in a quandary.

I know that I should take my own advice and tell you about that but I had already decided that I wasn’t going to tell you about it.

Not that it’s a deep dark secret or anything like that. It’s just that I had decided that it wasn’t appropriate for this venue.

Only I’ve changed my mind about it because “it” is causing me to pull way back on my blogging, leaving my readers treading water and possibly wondering why I don’t seem to have much to say these days.

“It” is the decision I made, some months ago, to run for local office. It was a decision prompted by an attack of “quit complaining if you’re not going to do anything about it” that hit me earlier this year.

(Pause for musical interlude … ) Download audio file (Mirror.mp3)

If you’re curious, I am running for Supervisor of this little town I live in. If I am successful, my position will combine town executive with county legislator. It is considered a part-time position (and it pays like a part-time position); I will continue to publish The MicroEnterprise Journal and my other newsletters and my blog.

But, as you might well imagine, with only 18 days left until Election Day, I’ve been a little busy. And, when I’m not being busy (and often when I am), I’m tired.

So, I haven’t exactly disappeared but I suspect that posting at The Journal Blog will be thin until after November 3rd. I hope you guys will cut me some slack.

Meanwhile, Happy Friday, folks!