Small Business Sales & Marketing

August 22, 2008

Marketing to Millennials

Ask Dan McDonald about millennials—those elusive 12- to 26-year-olds raised among text messages and Twitter—and he'll chuckle emphatically. "They're the ...

August 15, 2008

Where Customers Go to Praise (or Bash) You

If you run a consumer business, chances are pretty good a few of your customers are posting their opinions about it on the dozen or so Web sites that review local ...

August 8, 2008

How to Sell Against the Tide

Last month, Batman: The Dark Knight put up the biggest opening-weekend box office numbers in history. That certainly was no surprise, given the overwhelming hype that ...

July 28, 2008

Cheap Photo Sites Pit Amateurs vs. Pros

As barriers to the design and photography industries fall, the professionals are getting nervous. Independent graphic designers and commercial photographers, as well ...

July 18, 2008

Vying with Starbucks: A Love-Hate Thing

In July 2004, Kinley Pon was throwing his annual block party at his El Paso (Tex.) coffee shop, Kinley's House, on the same day that a Starbucks (SBUX) across the ...

July 11, 2008

Five Don'ts for Marketing in Tough Times

Unpredictable. Slow. Bleak. Grim. Gloomy. All words that have been used to describe the economic outlook for the balance of 2008—and depending upon who you talk ...

July 7, 2008

Convincing Consumers Your Food is Safe

I've always enjoyed shrimp, but it has been a year since I've grilled it, ordered it in a restaurant, or sampled it as a party hors d'oeuvre. Last June, the U.S. Food ...

June 5, 2008

Indie Filmmakers Hit Their Target

As they waited in line outside Cinema Village, the art house theater in downtown Manhattan, Carol Frohlinger and Lindsey Pollak didn't know they were part of the ...

May 30, 2008

Wolfgang Puck vs. Wolfgang Zwiener

Earlier this year, a large sign appeared in Beverly Hills that read: "Coming Spring 2008 Wolfgang's Steakhouse." For most of the denizens of the gilded Los Angeles ...

May 16, 2008

The Escalator Pitch

Forget the elevator pitch. Forget the press release. Forget the PowerPoint deck. If you were making a "Twitpitch" about your business, it would be over by now. A what?...

May 9, 2008

How to Build Brand Friendship

Human beings are social creatures. We need interaction with one another. It's the way we're made. When we meet someone new, we tend either to be drawn to them or to be...

April 21, 2008

From Bricks and Mortar to Digital Music Master

Josh Madell needs to invent a new business model, and soon. The 37-year-old co-owner of Other Music, a New York retailer specializing in obscure CDs and vinyl, has ...

April 14, 2008

Low Prices Are Not Always Your Friend

The economic news has not been good of late, and that may lead you to believe you should find a way to lower your prices. After all, consumers will be looking for ways...

April 11, 2008

Business Advice for Artists from Artists

Nearly 10 years ago a Japanese real estate developer paid $51.3 million at auction for Pablo Picasso's "Pierrette's Wedding." The buyer, Tomonori Tsurumaki bid by ...

March 21, 2008

From South Asia to iTunes

Anjula Acharia-Bath made sure she was in the right place at the right time. The co-founder and CEO of online entertainment portal DesiHits had heard nothing but no ...

March 7, 2008

When Your Ad Tactics Don't Fit Your Brand

In 2004, Oprah Winfrey made a big splash when she gave away a new car to every member of her studio audience. You probably have some memory of that event and the ...

February 11, 2008

A CEO Manning the Phones Each Day?

When Alden Kellogg discovered a glitch on Wesabe, he went to the personal finance tracker's home page, looking for a tech support number or e-mail. Instead, he found a...

February 8, 2008

Get the Most Out of Your Ad Agency

Few relationships in the business world are as rewarding, or as rocky, as those between advertisers and advertising agencies. There are many reasons, from the inherent...

February 6, 2008

A Conversation with Barbara Brabec

The Internet has been an undeniable boon for independent arts and crafters. Artisans once limited to local art fairs or farmers' markets now have a global platform ...

February 6, 2008

Creative Artists Confront Sales Anxiety

Raven Hanna, 34, approaches her art with the practicality one might expect from someone holding a PhD in molecular biophysics who quit the laboratory-rat race to make ...

January 11, 2008

Advertising: Think Before You Speak

Recently a colleague told me an anecdote from her personal life. She went out with a guy who had one of those bumper stickers on which an ersatz Calvin (from the comic...

January 9, 2008

Market Research on the Cheap

Large corporations spend millions on sophisticated surveys and focus groups from established researchers such as Harris Interactive (HPOL) and Survey Sampling to ...

January 9, 2008

The Hot Dog Professor

Do you need a degree to run a hot dog cart? Mark Reitman, the founder of Hot Dog University in Milwaukee, thinks so. For $300, the former elementary school teacher and...

November 16, 2007

A New Entertainment Destination for Latinos

Do the 44.3 million Latinos in the U.S. want a new one-stop Web site where they can watch TV and make phone calls, among other entertainment options, for free? Manuel ...

November 8, 2007

The Cost of Bedbugs

Rosemary Salinas is a property supervisor for five apartment buildings in San Francisco. The first time she saw a bedbug was in 2004, when one of the tenants in a ...