GlobalBX Entrepreneur Business Articles - February 2012

Will Debt Restructuring Save Quiznos?

Denver-based Quiznos is a national chain of quick-service restaurants that offer sandwiches, soups and salads using premium ingredients.  The chain grew to nearly 5,000 stores but because of competition from Subway, about 1,500 of these stores closed.  It ran into debt when its current owners, CCMP Capital Advisors LLC and Consumer Capital Partners, purchased Quiznos “in a […]

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Franchise Risks – The Wrong Way to Franchise Success

Michael Seid at AllBusiness.com writes about the sad reality that federal and state regulatory agencies could not and do not tell prospective franchisees which are the good franchise investments and which are the bad ones.  He says most states do not require franchisors to submit to their respective regulatory agencies disclosure documents.  He wrote “The […]

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Business Loans Debate: Do Big Banks Lend Enough to Small Business?

The Wall Street Journal got Ami Kassar, chief executive of MultiFunding LLC small-business loan advisors, and Marc Bernstein, executive vice president, Wells Fargo small business segment, to write about small business loans of big banks. Ami Kassar urges big banks to  increase their lending to small businesses.  He cites the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) […]

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7 Ways Your Business Can Benefit from Exhibiting at a Trade Show

Trade shows and exhibitions are a great way of getting your brand out there to the people you really want to notice it. But you need to know what you want before you go in order to get the most out of exhibiting. It’s an expensive business after all. You’ve got travel costs, the cost […]

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Private Equity Groups – Potential Buyers for Your Business?

It’s February – the month of groundhogs, love and presidents.  If you’re a business owner, you’ve probably got more on your mind, especially if you are a business owner who’s thinking about selling their business. Recently, we’ve discussed the different types of buyers we work with and how the buyer market has changed during the […]

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LinkedIn: Some Thoughts From a Long-Time User

This past weekend I read a book excerpt in Fortune magazine entitled, The real way to build a social network. Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, co-authored The Start-Up of You, the book from which the excerpt was taken. What got my attention in the first place was the opening: “Forget Dale Carnegie. He understood […]

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The Best Customer Service I’ve Ever Seen

Great teams of any sort are rarely great without great leadership. When I think of great team leaders, I think of Kristi Fox, Second Vice President of Group Client Relationships, at Minnesota Life, a Securian Company. The Client Relationship Department at Minnesota Life includes 24 associates who manage group life insurance relationships nationwide. Many of […]

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What Those Who Present to Male Audiences Can Learn From The NFL RedZone Channel

First, for those who don’t know what the NFL RedZone Channel is, let me explain.  This is from their Web site http://redzonetv.nfl.com/about/. “NFL RedZone, produced by NFL Network, whips around every NFL game on Sunday afternoons delivering the touchdowns and most exciting moments as they happen and in high definition. When a team goes inside the 20-yard […]

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Customers Favor Greener McDonald’s, Chipotle and Starbucks

A Forbes article reported that restaurant chains McDonald’s, Chipotle and Starbucks are starting to source for natural ingredients and promote recycling.  These green and environment-friendly measures cost these chains but will likely benefit them through tax breaks and better sales from increased customer loyalty in the long run.  Chipotle has prided itself with using antibiotic- and hormone-free, and […]

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Growing Restaurant Chains Retain Local Culture

Not everyone is a fan of franchises.  There are some small town locals who fear that their favorite eateries might open new restaurants in other locales and forget about what made them popular in the first place.  Local eateries, no doubt, dream of adding to their restaurant, first in the neighboring towns then later through […]

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It’s Time to Play – Heading Toward Gamification Nation

Gamification, the use of game design techniques to solve problems, motivate and engage people, is poised to become a leading digital marketing trend, according to brand consultancy Millward Brown. Although at present, gamification is largely driven by novelty and hype, Gartner forecasts that by 2014, 70+% of major companies will have at least one “gamified” […]

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Going Viral

Not that long ago I was sitting in a meeting with a client (a local college) and he told me he had some great news. “We just started a new class at the college and we videotaped the first class. The professor is fascinating, the subject is fascinating. We want you to take this video, […]

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What Should Hiring a PR Firm Cost?

After you’ve made the decision to retain the services of a PR firm, the hard part starts. How do you find the right firm? How do you know they will provide what you want and need? And perhaps most important, can your budget handle their cost requirements? It is first important to understand the billing […]

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The Real Crisis With Crisis PR

One of the fastest growing areas of the public relations business is crisis management, or crisis communications, or crisis PR, or issues management, depending on what you want to call it. Simply put, crisis PR is the art, and I do mean art, of helping a corporations, organization or individual manage their image when a […]

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Crisis Communications in a Transparent World

The public relations business can be categorized in two parts. Pre-internet and post-internet. While some may argue that there really is no difference between how PR was handled pre-internet and how it it handled now, it cannot be argued that journalism is the same. And, with journalism being at the crux of corporate and crisis […]

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PR Starts with a PR Plan

When embarking on a PR / marketing campaign, it is critical that you first start with a plan. Achieving goals and objectives is what PR is all about, and you need to clarify what your goals and objectives are so you have a way of measuring that the plan is working or what needs to […]

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Non Profit PR – Marketing With a Mission

If you’re the executive director of a non-profit organization, you come to work each day with two things on your mind. First, how can your agency best fulfill its mission, and second, how will you get the funding you need to fulfill your mission. The two are intertwined, a Catch-22 if you will. While most […]

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Public Relations Is Not Just For PR Pros

If a company hires a public relations firm and then sits back and expects the PR firm to work magic, the company will be terribly disappointed. Effective public relations is not a job — it is a process. It is not just writing news releases and doing special events. And, it is not the sole […]

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How to Publicize a Start-Up Business

Many people who start a new business sometimes have an inferiority complex. After all, if you are the new kid on the block with the new business, why should anybody trust that your product is any good, you know what you are doing, or that you will be around to stand behind your product? This […]

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Finding the Right PR / Marketing Firm

Engaging the right public relations, marketing and / or advertising agency is not always as simple a task as it appears. When companies venture out to find marketing representation, they often do what most people do when searching for a new business relationship — ask someone who has worked with a PR consultant for a recommendation. […]

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