Five Green Business Trends for 2010
Filed Under: Trend Report
Tags: Small Business, Trend Report
Here’s a great article from smallbusinesstrends.com with Five Green Business Trends for 2010, check it out. Below is an excerpt:
Small businesses are no longer cutting edge by calling themselves “green.” Big corporations like Wal-Mart and Nike down to the corner café are cultivating a greener image as consumer demand for environmentally responsible products and operations quickly goes mainstream.
What this means: Businesses genuinely trying to limit their environmental toll must now work harder to authenticate their green practices and convince consumers they’re for real – not just throwing around green lingo.
The next phase of green business evolution will focus on businesses being more earnest an all-encompassing about their environmental sustainability practices and marketing. Here, then, are some green trends to pay attention to in 2010.
1. Transparency. Consumers want to know where products are sourced, what they’re made of and why they’re better than the status quo. Businesses are responding by giving them more information than ever before. Some restaurants, for instance, include the name and location of the local farm it buys chickens from and the conditions they were raised under. A “green” dry cleaner might describe its cleaning process on its Web site, so customers understand why the process is less environmentally harmful than traditional dry cleaning.
2. Measuring footprints. To be transparent, businesses must themselves know how much carbon they generate, how much water they use and other factors contributing to their environmental toll. What’s more businesses are paying more attention to environmental friendliness of their supply chain. Many big companies have take steps to measure their carbon footprints. But small businesses increasingly are, too. Some online tools are making it easier for businesses to calculate their footprints.
3. Engaging customers. Savvy green businesses aren’t just trumpeting their own environmental good deeds. They’re engaging customers in the conversation. Some are starting their own green initiatives, such as handing out reusable bags or encouraging customers to recycle products they buy. One green cleaning service I know hands out customer tip sheets on how to clean green, using household basics like baking soda, vinegar and lemons.
Read the full post HERE.
Trends for Small Business in 2010
Filed Under: Articles of Interest, Trend Report
Tags: Articles of Interest, Small Business, Trend Report
USA Today has a fantastic article on the Top Ten Trends for Small Business in 2010 written by Steve Strauss. Below is an excerpt with the top five:
5. Social Media Grows Up: Have you noticed that “social media” is a term that doesn’t really describe the experience that well anymore? Yes its social, and yes its media, but for business it has become so much more than that. Tapping, nay, mastering, social media is one of the hottest of all online trends:
• Everyone from Jet Blue to Comcast has turned to Twitter as a customer service tool.
• Companies like Whole Foods and Popeys increasingly use it to get feedback, post company news, etc.
• Big business has discovered what many small businesses already know: Facebook is a great place to advertise. “Facebook” in fact was the most searched term in 2009. (Source: Experian Hitwise)
Hop on the social media train, Jane, because it’s headed out of the station at light speed.
4. Going Local: Consumers are increasingly looking for a local angle when looking where to spend their hard-earned dollar. Example: The explosion of farmers markets across the country. According to Entrepreneur, “there are almost 5,000 farmers markets across the country, the result of more than 5% annual growth for the past five years.”
Additionally, with people staying closer to home right now because of the economy, with folks focused ever more on community and family, and with the green ethos growing, home is where the heart (and dollar) is.
3. Sharing vs. Shared Experiences: According to a recent NPR podcast, we used to share national experiences. The nightly news was a shared ritual for instance. The OJ Simpson trial was a shared experience, the same with Vietnam, and so on.
But that is changing, for two reasons. The first is the fragmentation of the media. With innumerable news outlets, websites, cable channels, mobile options and the like, the opportunity to create shared experiences is diminishing. We are all not watching or experiencing the same thing nearly as much.
Secondly, with the advent of easy to generate user-created content, sharing experiences and opinions is becoming ever more prevalent. YouTube, blogs, Facebook, Yelp, email even, all contribute to both the media fragmentation as well as the sharing culture.
For the small business person, it is vital to realize that 1) people look for, and increasingly expect, the personal, and 2) small, localized, immediate user-created media are where the eyeballs are headed.
2. Mobile Mania: Maybe the only marketing trend that is hotter than social media is mobile mania. Why? Maybe because there are four-times more cellphones than PCs worldwide, or because they are the favorite product of Gen Y, or because in 2000, there were almost no texts sent but this year, 130 billion texts will be sent a month, and only 23% of those will come from my daughters.
So yes, mobile marketing is exploding. Whether it is creating the Next Big App, offering customers a real-time mobile coupon, or creating a text marketing campaign, in 2010 there will be mobile options galore for small business.
Even better maybe: The variety of ways to measure the success of your mobile campaign. According to the Mobile Marketing Association, they will include: “The number of eyeballs, shakes and finger swipes. The number of blogs, articles, tweets and diggs. The number of acquisitions, conversions, calls, responses or purchases. Total basket size, consumer recall, loyalty and recommendations. Check-ins on foursquare and check-outs on Amazon.”
It is a new world indeed.
1. The Start-Up Economy: Last year, 2009, my top trend was entitled “Economic Tumult,” and tumultuous it indeed turned out to be; the Great Recession is great in all the wrong ways.
But this year, while the state of the economy will continue to be the most significant trend effecting small business, the outlook is both brighter and calmer. It is calmer because things are slowly getting back to, if not normal, at least something recognizable. And it is brighter because out of the rubble, a new, vital, innovative start-up economy is being born.
We have entered the era of small business. Whereas GM president Charles Wilson once said “What’s good for the country is good for GM, and vice versa,” it can now safely be said that what is good for small business is good for the country. Consider these statistics.
Small businesses now
• Number almost 30 million
• Employ more than half of all workers
• Constitute 99.7% of all employers
• Constitute 97% of all exporters
• Create the majority of business innovations
(Source: U.S. Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy, 2009)
With 10% unemployment for as far as the eye can see, with the unemployed running out of benefits, and with benefits not what they once were for the employed, start-ups of all shapes and sizes are taking root: One person shops, home-based businesses, part-time ventures, online enterprises, high tech companies – you name it. These are the folks who, with their creative energy, drive, ingenuity, and hard work will be leading us out of this anything but great recession.
We will have to wait until next year’s list to see just how far they will take us. My hunch is that the companies born in this recession will be the stuff of legend by the end of the decade.
Read the full article HERE.
Top Ten Homepreneur Trends for 2010
Filed Under: Top Ten Lists, Trend Report
Tags: Entrepreneur, Top Ten List, Trend Report
I found a very interesting article on the Top Ten Homepreneur Trends for 2010 from smallbiztrends.com. Check it out.
More than half of all U.S. businesses are home-based. These firms are often dismissed as hobbies or part-time ventures with limited economic impact.
But our research shows otherwise. We estimate that about 6.6 million home-based enterprises provide at least half of their owners’ household income and together employ more than one in 10 private-sector workers.
The rise of the homepreneur is a long-term trend that will continue to accelerate over the next decade. Fueled by technology and enabled by low costs, businesses of all kinds are finding there is no place like home.
With a troubled but recovering economy as the back drop, here is our list of the Top 10 Homepreneur Trends for 2010.
Economic Trends
1. The Job-Challenged Economy: Despite clear signs of economic recovery, job growth and traditional employment options will be limited in 2010. Employers will continue to be concerned about the economy, focused on costs and timid about hiring. Because of high unemployment and the lack of jobs, many will turn to self-employment and home-based businesses in 2010.
2. Bootstrapping: Bootstrapping was one of the most popular business terms in 2009, and 2010 will see continued small business focus on cost containment and cash flow. The obvious cost advantages of being home-based is leading to more small businesses – including employer businesses and high-tech start-ups – choosing to be home-based.
3. The Home-Based Artisan: Most think of home businesses as knowledge, commercial or office businesses. But a new do-it-yourself movement of crafters, digital tinkerers, green advocates and other “Makers” are using their garages, basements and backyards as their factories. These new artisans are combining digital technology and tools with traditional methods to create innovative products, processes and business models.
Read the full post HERE.
Small Business Tax Breaks
Small business tax breaks may expire soon. As the year 2009 comes to an end, Americans who run small businesses are scratching their heads. While the federal government seems hell-bent on nationalizing health care – at a great cost, but little benefit, to currently successful businesses – it is ignoring the elephant in the room: THE TAX LAW.
On December 31, 2009, less than two weeks from this posting, NUMEROUS tax breaks for small businesses will automatically expire as we ring in the new year. INCREASED TAXES will result automatically. In other words, instead of raising taxes by NEW TAX LAWS, the taxes that small businesses pay will go up next year dramatically due to the expiration of tax incentives many small businesses have depended upon for years. These incentives were carefully crafted – by a prior and much wiser congress — to stimulate economic growth and incentivize entrepreneurs to invest in technology and new equipment, while at the same time, providing the maximum gross tax revenue for government.
During tough times businesses fall into two categories, those that make it and those that don’t. Those that don’t make it fall either quickly or slowly. Both are painful, for everybody involved: the owners, the employees, the vendors, the lenders, the chauffeur, the gardeners and the cook. Failure trickles down just as prosperity does, contributing to the downward spiral.
The ones that make it fall into three categories: Those who have saved and have adequate resources to make it through, those who make strategic improvements quick enough on every level that turn out to be correct, and those who can take advantage of an unusual uptrend in the storm that drowns out the others. For example, if you’re in the business of installing or producing solar and/or wind energy systems right now, you’re not concerned about the current recession.
At Harvard Business Services, we reacted early to reduce costs across the board. When the State of Delaware DOUBLED many of its filing fees, we were forced to raise our prices to customers.
Survival in 2009 is one thing. Survival next year is another. Those of us who think we KNOW how to adapt to what’s coming in the way of new and increased costs of doing business are just BS-ing. We’re scratching our heads. Sure, we’ll have to increase prices; sure, we’ll have to trim the staff by another 15%; sure we’ll grow at the same time… requiring more people. Sure. Hmmmmmm. Scratch-scratch.
Hard Times Can be a Gateway to New Beginnings
Filed Under: Articles of Interest, Trend Report
Tags: Articles of Interest, Entrepreneurs
One of the best parts of our job at Harvard Business Services is talking to budding entrepreneurs everyday. We are inspired daily by the passion our clients have for making their dream become a reality. Over the years we have certainly seen that being optimistic through tough times is a key ingredient to being a successful entrepreneur. We know that these are tough times but we have noticed a strong positive trend of people who are reinventing themselves very successfully. USA Today has a great article showcasing a few entreprenuers who are turning lemons into lemonade.
Below is an excerpt:
For millions of Americans, the recession has been a curse. For a relative few, it’s something more complicated: A catalyst for change. An opportunity to grow. A kick in the butt. In some cases, economic necessity has been the mother of re-invention. It has forced people to pursue careers they might never have considered if they hadn’t gotten — or quit before getting — the ax. So a lumber mill worker becomes a nurse, a bus driver turns to welding, a paralegal sets out to sell cosmetics, an interior decorator learns to cook barbecue. Some unpack an old skill, like the piano. Others trade on a personal passion — for people, pets or, in one case, piñatas. Some get help from the government. Others go it alone. Their optimism is based on two convictions: That even in hard times, people still will spend on things like their dogs, their kids and their looks; and that things such as flexible hours, casual dress and a shorter commute are worth a few lost dollars. Above all, they agree that if they hadn’t been pushed, they never would have made the leap.
Andrea Kay, author of Life’s a Bitch and Then You Change Careers, says many people hang onto jobs they don’t like, oblivious to the fact that their unhappiness — which they mistakenly think they can hide — hurts their performance and attitude. “Typically, not until someone is forced out of what they’ve been accustomed to doing do they feel the need to change,” Kay says. It’s the same in every economic downturn, says David Kyvig, a Northern Illinois University historian who wrote Daily Life in the United States, 1920-1940: “When things are going well, we tend to stay with what’s working. When they don’t, we explore something new.”
In a surprising number of cases, we’re happier — “if, after the shock, anger and fear, someone is willing to see there’s an opportunity to do something different,” Kay says. “Then they ask, ‘Why did I wait so long?’ ” Research indicates that workers who change jobs generally are more satisfied in their new positions than their old ones, even though they often take cuts in salary and benefits, AARP economist Sara Rix says. In this recession, “I don’t want to whitewash things — some people barely scrape by,” she says. “But there are success stories. They give other people encouragement that there is something out there.”
Here are seven stories of the unemployed (and underemployed) who possess one or more of the following.
Read the full post HERE.
Let us know your recession success story in the comments, we would love to hear from you!
