| Fleece and Flannel Mean Comfort and Security Posted: 29 Jun 2009 03:45 PM PDT 
Fortune Small Business:
When consumers get cold feet, what’s an entrepreneur to do? Sell them footed pajamas: a grown-up version of Dr. Denton’s kiddie sleepwear. Four years ago Valerie Johnson started Big Feet Pajama Co. from the basement of her Las Vegas home. The former stockbroker, who says she can’t even sew a straight seam, sold $360,000 worth of pajamas in 2005; revenues hit $2 million in 2008. Despite the recession, she expects to top $2.5 million this year, thanks to strong advance orders for next winter’s holiday season. “Fleece and flannel mean comfort and security,” she says. “My pajamas are a small, practical indulgence when all the fun has been squeezed out of the family budget.” From Business Opportunities Weblog. 
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| Getting Blogs To Cover Your Business Posted: 29 Jun 2009 01:30 PM PDT 
 photo credit: jmerelo
For those seeking coverage, blogs have developed into an ecosystem where there are hundreds of thousands of specialized media outlets, creating unprecedented opportunity to get your business' story in front of the right people.
In order to obtain coverage from blogs on your business, first things first is you will have to establish yourself in that community. Introduce yourself, say hello, maybe make a few comments on blogs already posted and possibly give some good advice. There are thousands and thousands of blogs out there to choose from, so don’t just go with the first one you see, shop around online a little and read a few before making your final decision, recently suggested on OpenForum. Make sure you don’t beat around the bush when your pitching your business to a blog to cover. Tell them flat out why your business is worth them writing a post about, add some information in attachments that helps support the statement that your business is worth the post. From Business Opportunities Weblog. 
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| Avoid Selling Your Soul Posted: 29 Jun 2009 12:30 PM PDT 
photo credit: h.koppdelaney
When we think of selling a product or service, sometimes it almost seems as though we have to damn near sell our own soul in order to make a sale. This does not have to be the case! Here are some selling tips for you that should make your sale going smoother without giving away your soul in the process. BPlans recently suggested to make sure you really listen to the other person and actually absorb everything they are saying to you. A customer loves nothing more than a sales person who empathizes with them. Put yourself in their shoes even for just a moment to get a glimpse of what they are feeling, when you can show them you REALLY do understand how they feel, it makes the sale much easier. Grow thick skin. Yes, I know, it's somewhat contradictory to include empathy and thick skin in the same post. If you really empathized with the people who ignore messages, you might not persist in calling back. But business and life is full of paradox.
From Business Opportunities Weblog. 
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| Unleashing Your Employees Creativity Posted: 29 Jun 2009 11:30 AM PDT 
photo credit: EraPhernalia Vintage (somewhat busy)
As managers and owners of companies, we all look for new way’s and inspiring ways to help our employees unleash their creativity side within boundaries of course, which can be difficult at times. Below are some tips on how to help unleash your employees creativity sides located on Inc.com. Try making brainstorming a mandatory thing. It is up to you to encourage the brainstorming that goes on within your company, which can be accomplished by holding weekly or monthly meetings that require everyone’s participates. Make the creativity fun for them. Set up some sort of a little contest with very few and simple rules that includes a prize to go to the most creative person at the end of a set time frame. Remind everyone this is a fun exercise for everyone and by no means a fight to the death competition. At the culmination of a company brainstorming session, you are bound to have a number of ideas, some good and some bad. Feedback is essential in order to build a culture of employee creativity that lasts beyond this one meeting.
From Business Opportunities Weblog. 
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| Teens Are Building Their Own Job Engine Posted: 29 Jun 2009 11:11 AM PDT 
The New York Times:
Periods of high unemployment tend to be particularly hard on teenagers, who wind up competing for jobs with more experienced, laid-off adults. When Faith Borden, 16, of Metuchen, N.J., applied for a job in March to be a counselor at a summer day camp, she looked around and saw "all these 30- and 40-year-olds," she said. "Usually it's just teenagers." She also applied at pizza restaurants, drugstores and most of the stores at her local mall, and even attended a job fair in Edison, N.J., but didn't receive one offer. So she decided to work for herself, selling Avon products. Also facing a competitive job market, Max O'Dell, 14, of Cary, N.C., started Smiley Inc., a custom T-shirt design business. He paints shirts in his driveway and hangs them in the garage to dry; revenue so far has been $170. "Business is very steady, and I would much rather work for myself than at a fast-food place or something like that," he said. "It feels really good to be my own boss." Unemployment for 16- to 19-year-olds is at its highest rate since 1992 — at 22.7 percent in May, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That is causing some teenagers to rethink their notion of work and to embrace entrepreneurship. Laura Durst, 18, a recent high school graduate in Woodstock, Conn., in the state's northeast corner, said that there were so few jobs for teenagers there that two years ago she began setting up a Web-based business, WorkInMyRoom.com. It provides teenagers with information and online resources to find jobs that can be done from home. Durst's revenue comes from advertising. She uses Google Ad Sense — which displays relevant Google ads on her site — and earns money when users click on them. She says she is making about $250 a month. Teenagers start a wide range of businesses, from selling art, jewelry or collectibles online to Web site creation and design. They also do non-Web-based things like yard work, house cleaning, dog walking, pool care, tutoring and party planning. Photo by WorkInMyRoom.com.
From Business Opportunities Weblog. 
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| Words That Dont Work In Ads Posted: 29 Jun 2009 10:30 AM PDT 
photo credit: Pink Sherbet Photography
Very good reminder here about the way words get diluted, and then useless. In my early days in the PC industry all software was supposedly "user friendly." And that phrase ended up mocking, humorous, a caricature of hype.
I read a recent post by Tim Berry that listed five words that just don’t work in ads anymore today that i had to agree with fully. Quality, Value, Service and Caring are the first four words that were mentioned as dead words to use. When you think about it, it makes a lot of sense on how these words wouldn’t work. Everyone has their own idea in their heads of value, quality, service and caring, so what you may think fits these four words someone else may not agree with you. The final word mentioned is Integrity, and with a point blank reason, either you have integrity or you don’t. Either your business is well known as a trusted company or it isn’t. There’s no in between with this word, and advertising in an ad that you have this even when you don’t will not make it come true. From Business Opportunities Weblog. 
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| Sewing Bizs Finding Niche In Midst Of Recession Posted: 29 Jun 2009 10:10 AM PDT 
Loveland Reporter-Herald:
Instead of a seam ripper, Bonnie McLeod uses a razor blade to rip out the outer seam from her old red jeans. She plans to add a strip of material down the leg to jazz them up into an original. McLeod, a seamstress by trade, trims, cuts and tucks old clothes into a better fit at the Rip Club Sewing Center, which she opened last month in Loveland. "I call it Rip Club, because you just rip it," McLeod said. "In times of economic hardship, people don't want to buy new clothes. It's cheaper to repair what they have." McLeod and others in the sewing business are finding that altering and restoring old clothes is a profitable business in the recession. Photo by Loveland Reporter-Herald.
From Business Opportunities Weblog. 
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| Bill On The Table For Home Offices Posted: 29 Jun 2009 09:30 AM PDT 
photo credit: Travis Isaacs
Home based businesses are one of the most rapid growing in our nation today. Many people all over the nation are switching to working from home, and over time are adding employees to their home based office providing jobs to those who are out of work. U.S. rep Charles Gonzalez is supporting a new bill that is on the table that will simplify the tax deductions for home based businesses and offices at the end of the year, recently stated in a post on Business Journals. Under current law, qualified individuals can file for a home office tax deduction if they use a portion of their home as a principal place of business or a place to meet with clients. However, although studies indicate that 53 percent of American small businesses are home-based, few take advantage of this tax deduction.
From Business Opportunities Weblog. 
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| Entrepreneur Aspires To Sell 1 Million T-Shirts Posted: 29 Jun 2009 09:09 AM PDT 
Everyday Christian:
In his business and his faith walk Rob Gettemy has felt blessed by the circumstances around him. His business—producing and selling T-shirts—is hardly uncommon. How he got to the point he is now and what his shirts represent is. Gettemy is the co-founder of 1M4JC, shorthand for "One Million for Jesus Christ." His goal is to sell one million shirts with the acronym wrapped through by an Ichthus fish. The twist is each shirt sold has a serial number printed on the sleeve to show where within the prospective one-million Christ followers the buyer falls. "The idea with the numbers on the sleeve is to represent that we are all made in God's image and that we all have unique characteristics. It parallels our lives," he said. Since launching his Web-based venture in April 2008, Gettemy has sold just over 4,000 shirts. Acknowledging there is a still a long way to go, the Marion, Iowa, entrepreneur has been energized by the reception and business he has drawn through social networking, particularly Facebook. "The effect of using Facebook has been amazing," he said. "It's helped sales, but even more so are the relationships you build. People all over the country and the world have connected with us through Facebook and shared pictures with us in their shirts from all over. Things may not have developed as fast I envisioned, but it has been an amazing ride with the interconnectedness that has been created. Photo by 1M4JC.
From Business Opportunities Weblog. 
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| Charge Card Or Credit Card? Posted: 29 Jun 2009 08:30 AM PDT 
photo credit: Andres Rueda
Business owners often times think of charge cards and credit cards as being the same thing, just using a different name to refer to them. However, they are actually two totally different things and should be completely understood before you choose either one of them. With a credit card you are allowed to make minimum payments on your total balance until it is paid off. Where as with a charge card you are required to pay off the total balance accumulated each and every month. Charge cards often times have much higher limits on what you can spend than a credit card does. Which is a trade off, you can spend more if you need to, but remember the above mentioned where you have to pay it all off every month. A charge card does have more benefits in terms of their rewards programs being quite a bit more generous than the rewards programs a credit card offers you, as stated on OpenForum. While a charge card won't make you a better person, some people do get a certain satisfaction out of flashing an American Express charge card, as it may suggest a certain credit level, business authenticity, or other nebulous grandiosity that potentially could impress someone, Credit cards, not so much. Winner: charge cards.
From Business Opportunities Weblog. 
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| Michael Jackson: King Of…Patents? Posted: 29 Jun 2009 08:08 AM PDT 
MediaBistro:
As the world mourns the death of Michael Jackson, we remember his patented anti-gravity footwear. That’s right, intellectual property fans, Jackson is listed as the first of three inventors on United States Patent 5,255,452, granted in 1993 for a “method and means for creating anti-gravity illusion.” Translation: special loafers fitted with heels that can slot into the stage floor to allow the wearer to lean forward, Smooth Criminal style, at gravity-defying angles. Jackson co-developed the technique as an improvement upon a previous method in which he and his dancers were rigged up with harnesses and cables. This worked fine for videos, notes the patent in the required “description of the prior art,” but not in front of a live audience. The shoe-based system has the added advantage of “permitting an entertainer to freely move about a stage.” Photo by MediaBistro.
From Business Opportunities Weblog. 
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| Simple Steps Towards Good PR Posted: 29 Jun 2009 07:30 AM PDT 
photo credit: visualpanic We often think of obtaining good PR as being difficult in business, with so many different avenues to take and choices to make. Below are some simple steps towards obtaining good PR that are sure to work for everyone in business. - Obviously the first step is making sure you are aware of your market. It doesn’t do any good obtaining good PR if you don’t know who to target it towards.
- Make sure your product or service stands out, it’s unique and grabs peoples attention and eye as something that will better their daily life.
- Do research within your media market and use the media for PR that serves your immediate targeted market. This will simplify things a great deal for you, recently stated on Entrepreneur.com.
- Follow up. Call your contact when you said you would to confirm whether or not they received the information you sent and offer to provide more information if necessary.
From Business Opportunities Weblog. 
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| Biz Poll: Breaking News! Posted: 29 Jun 2009 07:07 AM PDT |
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