Cash Mob in Miramichi, New Brunswick. Cash mobs have gone international and events have been staged worldwide

In towns all over the United States, you’ll find the debris of modern urbanization. Run-down main streets with shuttered storefronts and the odd business eking out a fairly meager existence. Then a few miles away, you’ll see a modern strip-mall or shopping center, packed to the gills with everything a shopper might possibly need, often at cut-rate prices.

For better or for worse, the strip-mall effect (or  “Wal-Mart Effect” as investigative reporter Charles Fishman called it in his book) has undoubtedly made a huge impact on everyone in the United States.

The convenience of having everything you could possibly need in one place with generous parking (and possibly a Starbucks), was unprecedented for many consumers. For small businesses in small town America, the results were mostly devastating.

Jan. 21, 2012, Rob Schwind shovels the sidewalk in front of the Chagrin Hardware in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. The Shutts family, which has owned the hardware for the last 72 years, was preparing for a community-driven "Cash Mob" of the store to happen that day. (AP Photo/Amy Sancetta) AP

Of course, not everyone appreciated what Wal-Mart and Target did to the underlying social fabric held together by those small local businesses. The “Buy Local” movement has been around for decades, but only with the maturity of online Social Media with platforms such as Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter has it been possible for any kind of mass action like Cash Mobs to be done quickly.

We’ll have to give credit to blogger Chris Smith, a 37-year old engineer for Oracle, who organized the first ever cash mob back in August 2011 to support a wine shop in Buffalo, New York. Since then, hundreds of groups in the United States and Canada (as well as in isolated pockets elsewhere in the world) have organized their own cash mobs. This site gives you details on how to start your own cash mob. A quick search on Twitter will let you connect with several groups dedicated to the idea.

If your business is lucky enough to be chosen by a cash mob, you’re in luck. Businesses targeted by cash mobs have typically seen not just a short term boost in sales (obviously), but a lot of steady repeat patronage as well.

What Do Cash Mobs Mean For Small Business?

First, online Social Media makes a huge difference when it comes to reaching out to your customers. Before Facebook and Twitter made it all so easy to get in touch with people businesses that mattered to you, big retail chains were able to easily leverage their size to get their name “out there”. Now, it’s possible to do almost as much with far fewer resources. If one blogger like Chris Smith can use Social Media make that much of a difference, then it’s no stretch of the imagination that a small business can use the same to some positive effect. At the very least, it’ll get you found more easily.

San Diego Cash Mob, c/o constructbirmingham.wordpress.com

Next, businesses that fail to exceed or satisfy expectations or have a faulty model will never succeed in the long term, no matter how many cash mobs you throw at it. And the groups that organize the cash mobs would probably not pick those businesses anyway.

Cash mobs are not the “next big thing” that will change the fundamentals of how you run your business.  People who value low prices over everything else will still go to the major retail chains. Social media and cash mobs are actually not much more than tech-enabled super-targeted marketing, matching local businesses with consumers who feel the welfare of their community matters much more than lower prices.

Cash mobs by themselves will not save American Small Business. The things that made them possible just might do it, though.

“It is our goal at Buttercelli to bring you fresh-from-the-oven morning pastries, afternoon treats, and evening desserts that are rich in flavor while simple in ingredients so you can feel good about every bite” says Shelly Pennington, long-time UPrinting customer and co-owner of Buttercelli Bakeshop, a bakery that has been getting near-universal rave reviews.

In early 2011, sisters-in-law Shelly and Quinn Pennington began creating on their dream to open a bakery. It soon took shape as Buttercelli Bakeshop — an organic, small-batch, back to basics bakery providing people with treats to feel good about; treats made fresh daily without corn syrup, preservatives, or anything artificial.

How is Buttercelli Bakeshop different from all the other pastry shops with a similar shtick? For one thing, the people behind this extraordinary shop have things down to a science -perhaps thanks to Quinn’s background in biochemistry . Plus, the passion and attention to detail they put into every aspect of the bakery is incredible.  It’s not just in the pastries either- Buttercell’s meticulously-prepped freshly-brewed organic coffee is one of the reasons people keep coming back.

The baking’s just part of it- together Quin and Shelly make a great team. Quinn’s educational background in biochemistry coupled with her love of baking fueled her desire to make treats that people could enjoy without the harsh-on-the-body additives frequently found in processed foods. Shelly’s knowledge of business administration and her organizational savvy provided the perfect complement and she put the plan for the bakery into action.

Buttercelli aims for a deconstructed bakeshop experience, the way all bakeshops used to be. Nothing complicated here.“[We bring]a fresh flavor of bakery to Sherman Oaks and the San Fernando Valley” says Shelly.

Shelly explains. “[Buttercelli serves] simple treats you may already know and love but made with the highest quality organic ingredients… so your body can love them, too!”

Since Buttercelli Bakeshop opened early last year, UPrinting.com has been their go-to printer for all their print needs. Says Shelly “[UPrinting did] all of my promotional items – flyers, banners, handouts, posters, etc…UPrinting’s predictable and always providing a consistent product. I’ve never been disappointed with the quality.”

Buttercelli Organic Bakeshop

Address: 13722 Ventura Blvd, Sherman Oaks, CA 91423

Tel: (818) 387 – 8538

Email: organic@buttercelli.com

Website: buttercellibakeshop.com

Nowadays, with internet at the fingertips of every small business, there is no reason to avoid running with the big dogs. Social networking presents minimal to zero marketing costs, and a global audience. Infinite online resources give you everything you’ll need to learn how to use it. Still, in 2012, you have to be a brand champion to get noticed in an overpopulated sea that is the online world.

Customer Engagement

2012 is the year of the customer. You are at their mercy. With the single click of a button, any person could send your brand into a downward spiral. One bad review could catch fire and run rampant across the social media landscape. McDonalds, for example, just experienced this with their #McDStories on Twitter. You have to be willing to talk to and work with your fans and customers to create loyalty and a sense of community around your brand name. There are different ways you should consider doing this.

• Posing questions on Facebook garners more attention than any other status. According to Freelanceswitch.com, “Content that encourages discussion will be one of the best possible additions to your Facebook Page.”

• Responding to re-tweets, blog comments or Facebook posts

• Hosting contests on your various networks

• Using customer suggestions to modify products or services, and then thanking them

Making Email Standout

With the growth of smart phones over the last decade, it has become more common for people to check their email while on the go, than sitting at a computer. Because of this, emails are scanned and deleted quickly. With high levels of spam getting through to everyone’s inbox, you don’t want to get your company newsletter to get confused with garbage.

• Make your brand recognizable from the address

• Use numbers in the heading and subject line; people respond to numbers because they subconsciously think it pertains to a deal or saving money

• Create a signature using your brand logo/image, and include links to your various social accounts and website

Social Media Unity

Using social media has become a valuable tool for small businesses. Never before has there been an outlet for a minimally budgeted business to reach the audiences their larger counterparts can. With the introduction of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and blogging, your small business has the same audience of 800 million Facebook users as the competition. Getting your brand recognized, however, is the trick.

• If you are involved in more than one social media outlet, be consistent with color scheme, comments, etc

• Make your brand image the most important aspect of every platform, allowing customers to move back and forth between them without friction

• Allow your brand reputation to do the talking, rather than over promoting yourself

• Create brand loyalty programs

Being a small business puts you at less of a disadvantage than has often been the case. The internet is able to provide you with invaluable tools to run in the same ranks as large corporations. Being the brand champion is about using what has been given to you to become recognized as a positive brand on a level your customers can relate to.

With hundreds of thousands of confectioners out there, you’d wonder what makes Amella Caramels different from all the others. Amella claims to be the “World’s first Cocoa Butter Caramels made with pure Cocoa Butter, real fruits & vegetables, and the finest chocolate.” Emir explains the hard work behind creating the caramels, “Our major challenge was to create a caramel with pure fruits and vegetables. We didn’t want to use any flavoring oils or artificial flavorings, so we had to use a lot of fruits for the taste.” Seems simple enough, until you actually tried to make them.

Continues Emir,“…the caramel would fall apart due to the amount of fruits in it. We spent a year perfecting the recipe and literally cooking batches of caramel everyday trying different methods of cooking in order to perfect the caramels texture using pure fruits.”The final product has what Emir calls a “truffle and caramel hybrid sensation” with some Ganache-like qualities- all while being Kosher and preservative-free.

The story behind Amella Caramels is almost as fascinating as the confections themselves. While the Kiamilevs have been selling their caramels for just a little over a year, they had developed their craft over several decades. Elena and Emir had come from different backgrounds. While both Emir and Elena were born in the former Soviet Union, Emir’s family moved to the United States in the late 70′s while Elena grew up in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Emir developed a mind for business while Elena found her calling making cakes and other delicious confections.

They wouldn’t even have met had not Emir decided to focus on a business career that led to a chance encounter with Elena, back in the early 90s. One thing led to another, and in 2007 the pair enrolled in Ecole Chocolat’s Professional Chocolatier Program, then went off to Paris to learn the secrets of artisan chocolate making from Philippe Givre, a living legend among chocolatiers. It was only when Elena tried to deliver a new angle on her carrot cake that they went on the road that led to Amella Caramels.

Recalls Emir, “…one night when my wife, Elena, came home from a long day working at the local diner. …. That night she came home and saw me laboring away on a batch of caramels. All of a sudden she mentioned that the Carrot Cake was the single most popular dessert at her diner and that we should try to make it into a caramel. And, the Carrot Cake caramel was born along with our business”

While the Carrot Cake caramel still remains a bestseller, Emir and Elena’s takes on Black Forest and Passion Fruit are also on “must-try” lists all over the internet. Word of these unique confections is spreading. “People have quoted that Amellas are like little Petite Fours (traditional French desserts, often enjoyed with coffee),” says Emir “We love that people around the US have enjoyed our delicious caramels and have expressed this in their many great comments on our website.”

Spreading the happiness doesn’t all happen online. Emir and Elena have trusted UPrinting for over a year for their printing needs, (the gamut from from banners and business cards to hang-tags and envelopes) and to help get the word out on their wonderful caramels “Great quality, super price, and very reliable,” Says Emir “…we are able to print twice as much stuff so therefore we are able to stretch our marketing dollars that much further.”

Visit Amella Caramels at  www.amellacaramels.com.

Find Amella Caramels on Facebook!

Snail Mail at: 14 MAIN ST # 376 , EL SEGUNDO, CA 90245-3803

c/o petalsplanningco.blogspot.com

In the scramble to turn some of Pinterest’s 12 million unique visitors into paying customers, many companies are diving headfirst into the platform as a way to reach out to customers and earn more conversions. While the demographics of Pinterest is still in a sort of flux, you might want to look into a 3 important things first before you start putting your time into this unique social media tool.

Are the customers you want actually on Pinterest?

While Pinterest has a very considerable crossover appeal (for instance, the U.S Army has approximately 332 pins on 22 boards) over 95% of the people who follow Pinterest on Facebook are female.  While Pinterest itself has just an estimated 60-40 bias towards females in terms of accounts, an estimated 80% of active users (the ones that actually count) are still female.  Pinterest users are also overwhelmingly interested in design and DIY topics.

If your product by itself is not inherently engaging for women, it might be best to focus on things your products can do that may have the appeal Pinterest users need. If you sell power tools for instance, instead of pinning images of your products, it might be better to display interesting fixtures and objects you can make with them.

Can you spare the time it takes to develop your Pinterest account?

Using a Pinterest account for business effectively involves a lot more than just posting pictures of your products in action. You need to develop a connection with your followers and find out what they’re really looking for.

You can also adapt a few strategies that have been tried and proven on Twitter. Follow the right people, post updates regularly (but not too often as to overwhelm followers), and use your accounts other social media platforms (Facebook, Google Plus, Tumblr, etc) to add to your follower’s experience. You should also take time to post off-topic items that might catch your follower’s interests.

Implementing these strategies takes time, and there’s really no way to get around this. If you’re not prepared to put in the hours, don’t expect a huge return from Pinterest.

How much do you know about design?

Pinterest is all about the visuals. Cruddy design is a sure way to turn off potential followers. Unfortunately, based on our experience as a printing company, a lot of small businesses totally miss the mark when it comes to understanding good design. The last thing you want to look is out-of-touch. Do your homework and make sure you know the kind of feel and aesthetic Pinterest users are looking for.

If your business has more abstract services that don’t really translate visually, you might want to try focus your efforts on other social media sites instead.

Oh, in case you don’t know it yet, we’re on Pinterest too! Follow us on Pinterest for loads of fun and functional designs.

To better serve small businesses everywhere, we’ve just merged our Featured Business Reviews site with our Small Business Blog!  All past and future Featured Business Reviews will now be seen on this blog and there’ll be a few changes.There might be some minor issues while we finish sorting everything out.

Tell us what you think!

“Most inventors and engineers I’ve met are like me- they’re shy and they live in their heads. They’re almost like artists. In fact, the very best are artists. And artists work best alone …I don’t believe anything revolutionary has ever been invented by committee. Because the committee would never agree on it! ”

by Scott Adams

The Psychology of Creativity

c/o themogulmom.com

Almost anyone who’s ever worked in a field that requires a significant amount of creativity would agree with the Woz. And based on imperfect anecdotal experience, I know I would. But science bears us out. According to recent studies by psychologists Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Gregory Feist, recently highlighted in a New York Times article by Susan Cain, people are more likely to be creative when allowed to work by themselves- preferably without interruption.

Not the most surprising conclusion- after all we tend to celebrate and honor individuals for creativity. Effective creative collaborations where the sum is greater than its individual parts, like the Beatles for instance, or the Two Steves, become increasingly rare as more participants are allowed to add creative input. Even the best design teams are often run like dictatorships subject to the will of one or a few designers, and rarely as a democracies.

If both hard science and anecdotal evidence strongly suggest creative individuals be left alone and undisturbed to do their best, why are more companies pushing for even more collaboration in the creative process?

Introverts and Teamwork

Today’s corporate culture, perhaps even culture in general, almost mandates that every action be subject to endless meetings and brainstorming sessions. Could you imagine Leonardo da Vinci or Ernest Hemingway coming up with the Mona Lisa or A Farewell to Arms had they been part of a committee?

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak

Collaboration has its good points. Steve Wozniak wouldn’t even have dreamed of starting Apple if Steve Jobs didn’t convince him to. Studies suggest creative types are overwhelmingly introverts (again, not a surprise), so there is a tendency for them to be shy, as Wozniak observed. Shy people tend not to have the people skills necessary to be effective managers or salespeople. This is why they need talented extroverts to allow their work to really stand out. Team collaboration in this sense is crucial.

Finding the right balance between the need to collaborate and allowing overwhelmingly introverted creative types some alone time to perform their very best is very tricky. While obvious to most tasked with actually creating new things and ideas, the fact seems to escape a lot of MBAs, who are overwhelmingly extroverts.

Almost all regularly-employed Americans are part of a team, and the majority (over 70%) works in open-plan offices. Interruptions from email, instant messaging and office noise, and a work culture that increasingly values a misguided, committee-centric, ADHD-addled mindset are just some of the many roadblocks that keep your creative types from doing their best. These not only have a human cost in terms of morale- they all end up costing your company a lot of wasted time, opportunities, and money.

Let Your Creative Employees Breathe

If you require an employee to be prolific as well as original, it’s best that you don’t put them in a situation where they can’t get help but get interrupted. Keep them away from extroverts (the ones who should be on your sales team), noise, unnecessary meetings, and unfocused brainstorm sessions where they’d probably just keep things to themselves anyway. Give them an atmosphere where they could casually discuss ideas with others. And if they want it, give them privacy.

Intel Oregon's Jones Farm campus. Zones for informal communication and collaboration can help put employees at ease and help them be more creative. Smaller businesses can also benefit from a more casual atmosphere.

Offices should not just be about mindless lip-service to interconnectivity and collaboration- they should be about allowing everyone to do their very best.

“Scylla & Charybdis”, Forgotten Citizen’s second album will be released on Saturday, February 11, and will feature 12 tracks, all available for preview on their site.

Forgotten Citizen’s electronica-inspired sound and face-obscuring costumes are bound to inspire comparisons with Daft Punk. Says Forgotten Citizen “I maintain an anonymous identity to encourage listeners to connect with the music and the messages within it. My shrouded persona allows the music to become the messenger.”

In response to the comparisons, Citizen states “Forgotten Citizen has a sound unlike anyone else’s. If you were to compare Forgotten Citizen to another artist, you would have to compare minor similarities.”

He continues “many styles and ideas are visited but a unique sound is achieved through the calculated lack of any one particularly distinct sound. This is the result of a wide spectrum of musical inspirations and a desire to create something that stood apart from everything else.”

Citizen handles almost all aspects of marketing for the project. “I have used UPrinting to fuel my entire campaign for Scylla & Charybdis.  I have made flyers for the record release party, download cards to give out at the party and for promotional use, posters and stickers to be sold as merchandise, and even a banner to hang up at shows.”

“Usually by the next week my order is shipped and on its way to my door. And they check to make sure everything is right as far as bleed and margins so I don’t have to worry about anything being accidentally cut off… had everything I needed to promote the new album in plenty of time.”

Forgotten Citizen is releasing Scylla & Charybdis on February 11^th – preorder now at www.hearFC.com. Record Release party is on Friday February 10^th, 2012 at Surfer’s Pub in Cocoa Beach FL.

Website: www.forgottencitizen.com

Email: info@forgottencitizen.com

Tel. No.: 321-652-8137 (for booking/press inquiries only)

Address: PO Box 360088, Melbourne, FL 32936

It’s Different at the Top

The skills you need as an entrepreneur don’t necessarily match the ones you need as a CEO of a medium or large-sized company. Founders are removed from their executive positions all the time. Steve Jobs is perhaps the most famous example of this phenomenon, but he is far from the exception. Founders are removed or step down from their executive posts in a majority of cases where start-ups achieve significant success.

Charismatic leaders who found their own companies and run them for significant periods of time after they have established themselves and have achieved solid successes like Bill Gates or Michael Dell are actually quite rare, which is why they get a lot of attention. Founder-succession is a fact of life for most successful start-ups, and all companies I’ve worked for have experienced the same.

The Science Behind Founder-Succession

Noam Wasserman, assistant professor at Harvard, conducted a study on why founder succession is so commonplace. Simply put, a hired or promoted CEO of an already successful company can expect to stay when they lead their company to success, and expect to be forced to leave if they mess up. A Founder-CEO on the other hand, can expect to be forced out especially if they succeed.

Founder-CEOs often neglect to change existing systems to better handle the spoils of their own success

In the majority of cases, Founder-CEOs develop emotional attachments to their work that allow them to bring the company to the fore. However, this same passion can make them blind to realities (or even imagined situations) that investors and other (now more numerous) stakeholders of their now-established company might see. This is bound to happen if the Founder-CEO is unable to scale the business’s systems to handle growth.

Couple that with a prevailing attitude that companies should do everything to ensure better returns for their investors. Unfortunately for themselves, most Founder-CEOs think of maximizing value for customers.

So even when a Founder-CEO is successful, investors (especially in high-potential start-ups) tend to think “This guy isn’t making us rich as fast as he possibly could!” – and they would probably be right. Whether or not this attitude is conducive to sustainable growth is another issue.

How You Can Stay On

For an entrepreneur who wants to keep a controlling stake in their business it’s very important to take care where your investments come from. Have lawyers handy and draw up a company “pre-nup” if you will, when wooing risky venture capital. Venture capitalists will often make the assumption that founders will have to be replaced with executives experienced in dispassionately maximizing returns on investment- and VCs are more likely to have founders replaced whenever a new round of investments come in.

By Scott Adams

Many founders also acknowledge they might not be the best to handle the company when it starts to be really successful. In this case, Founder-CEOs may consider grooming or hand-picking a successor themselves, especially one that would be acceptable to other investors. While an imperfect solution for entrepreneurs who want to retain direct control, this can help them retain some form of influence over the company.

I’m Getting Fired From My Own Company!

What can the average beleaguered successful entrepreneur do? Wasserman explains “The ideal situation is where the board and the founder can craft an appropriate non-CEO role, one that the founder willingly takes on. However, given how hard it is to convince many founders that they should step down, there is also a big cost to keeping a disgruntled founder active in the company.”

So the next time you take on venture capital with the expectation of runaway success, always ask yourself “what is my company’s success worth- to me?”

Enter Reel Grrls, a Seattle-based non-profit group that aims to empower young women- through media production. Girls ages 9-19 participate in a variety of programs that teach them the ins-and-outs of film making. And it’s not just like any other filmmaking boot camp either. Many of the former participants went on to find their true calling behind and in front of the camera. Some even went on to become leaders in their communities.

If nothing else, participation helps young women (or should we say, grrls?) find it in them to stand up and be proud.“93% of our participants state that they feel more confident being a leader after participating in our program” says Karen Hirsch, Development Director for the Seattle-based non-profit group.

Karen explains, “Our mission is to cultivate voice and leadership in girls at a vulnerable age in their development.” She continues, explaining the difference between Reel Grrls and other similar programs. “What distinguishes our program is the high-level of support that our female mentors offer and the high level of commitment that we ask for in return”.

Several after-school, weekend, and day-camp programs are available; each with different goals, but all providing girls a real challenge. What makes them fascinating is that they are run purely by volunteers, many of whom are former participants of Reel Grrls programs themselves. The volunteers, called Mentors, come from all parts of the media industry. Most have had years of experience in their fields. In exchange for their services, they are provided with access to some Real Grrls resources.

The training the grrls get is quite varied. Courses in animation, screenwriting, music video production, video blogging, among many others are on offer. While this all sounds pretty neat, it’s not easy. They get to interact with other budding filmmakers and talented professionals but they also get a taste of all the gruntwork their chosen craft involves.

Karen says, “ Our participants don’t just drop into a computer lab after school — they develop lasting relationships with women filmmakers and learn skills that propel them to leadership roles in their community, college scholarships, and careers in the media industry.” Reel Grrls in a sense, doesn’t just doesn’t teach girls filmmaking- they teach them how live, and how to lead.

UPrinting is proud to feature Reel Grrls for its dedication to helping young women find it within themselves to not just speak up, but to be leaders as well. The non-profit orders its postcards from UPrinting and is also part of the printing company’s UCommunity Program as well. Karen opines,“[UPrinting] is a wonderful resource to have free, quality printing available to support our programs… Thank you for your support!”