The Daily Times editorial praises senators for finally crossing party lines to approve a bill that will grant tax incentives to businesses that will hire veterans.  To recall, Republicans had been blocking President Obama’s American Jobs Act because of politics.  For its part, the IFA has promised to hire 80,000 veterans and military spouses by 2014, US First Lady Michelle Obama announced.  President Obama has been undeterred and continues to look for ways for returning soldiers to find jobs.

Just in time for Veterans Day, some Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill were finally able to agree on legislation that is designed to help put veterans back to work.

Finally, last Thursday, Republicans in the Senate put aside politics and joined Democrats in approving a bill that provides tax incentives to employers who hire veterans.

While unemployment is beginning to incrementally decline, it continues to rise for veterans, many of whom left jobs to serve in two wars launched during the administration of George W. Bush who left the country with a more than $1 trillion dollar deficit. At the same time, Bush and his fellow Republicans instituted tax breaks to the wealthiest 1 percent of the nation, with little or no job creation in return.

Consequently the U.S. was left in a recession implemented, in part, by some of the same Republicans who, up until last Thursday, obstructed every effort by the Obama administration to remedy it.

Not to be deterred by their obstructionism, Obama has instituted some job-creating measures that didn’t need the approval of Congress. More than 120,000 veterans have been hired by the federal government in keeping with Obama’s directive to hire more.

Read More

The National Federation of Independent Business reports that the October level of small-business optimism index is the highest since June. “Owner optimism improved a smidge, mostly because the outlook for business conditions and real sales growth became less negative,” said the NFIB report. However, the new-jobs subindex weakened in the same month as there was a reduction of 0.1 employees per firm. The following data were reported by The Wall Street Journal early this month.

Small-business owner confidence increased in October but still hovers just above recessionary levels, according to data released Tuesday. The National Federation of Independent Business‘s small-business optimism index edged up to 90.2 in October, from 88.9 in September. The October level is the highest since 90.8 posted in June. During the last recovery, the index often ran near or above 100. In October, “owner optimism improved a smidge, mostly because the outlook for business conditions and real sales growth became less negative,” said the NFIB report. The subindex of expected business conditions in the next six months rose 6 percentage points, to -16%, and the expected higher real sales subindex increased 2 points, to -4%. The new-jobs subindex weakened, falling 1 point, to 3% in October. Last week, the NFIB said small-business owners reported an average reduction of 0.1 employees per firm last month. That is better than September’s net decrease of 0.3 employees per firm, but still extremely dismal.

Read More

GE Capital, Franchise Finance, specializing in financing restaurants and hospitality industries with over $10 billion assets, has agreed to refinance the existing debt of BAJCO Group, a Papa John’s Pizza franchisee.  Papa John’s is the world’s third largest pizza company where BAJCO owns and operates 74 units in various states of America.  This news was reported by Market Watch.

GE Capital, Franchise Finance recently completed a $9.5 million transaction with BAJCO Group, a Papa John’s Pizza(R) franchisee for the refinancing of existing debt. Funding was provided through GE Capital’s bank affiliate, GE Capital Financial Inc.

“We were highly impressed with the expertise and industry knowledge of everyone on the GE Capital team,” said Faisal Bajwa, CFO, BAJCO Group. “We have been a customer since 2010, and this latest financing was another very professional execution. We look forward to working with GE Capital again.”

Based in Niles, OH, BAJCO currently owns and operate 74 Papa John’s units in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Florida.

“The BAJCO team is a pleasure to do business with,” says Paul Cantieri, senior vice president, GE Capital, Franchise Finance.

Read More

 
After meeting with Vice President Joe Biden, major lenders are increasing loans to small businesses. According to American Banker, Biden met with executives from 13 banks including Citigroup, KeyCorp and M&T Bank.  Citigroup pledged $24 billion in loans to small business in the U.S. over the next 3 years.

 President Barack Obama has said that small-business lending is a key element in the economic recovery, and several banks have announced initiatives to increase their lending. Vikram Pandit, Citi’s chief executive, said in a press release, “We recognize the vital role small businesses play in our economy.”

Citi said it committed $7 billion in loans to small business this year, $8 billion next year and $9 billion in 2013. Last year, the company made $6 billion in small-business loans, and in 2009 the amount was $4.5 billion.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and Small Business Administration Administrator Karen Mills met with 13 banks in Cleveland on Tuesday. After the meeting, KeyCorp, a big regional bank in the Midwest and Alaska, said it would provide $5 billion to small-business owners over the next three years; M&T Bank Corp. of Buffalo, N.Y., said it would increase small-business lending by $50 million from 2010′s level in each of the next three years.

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. pledged in April to provide $12 billion in small-business loans this year alone — 20% more than last year’s commitment.

Read More

Last week Ms. Rosanna Fiske, chair and CEO of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), issued a news release in response to the News Corp. phone hacking scandal.

“News Corp.’s misguided response to the escalating phone-hacking scandal will undoubtedly become a case study for business schools and public relations professionals on the potential perils of not properly managing the reputations of all of a company’s assets. In trying to make excuses for unethical actions by some News of the World reporters and editors, Rupert Murdoch has demonstrated a profound lack of understanding of how his actions and words influence the public’s perception of his company and its employees.”

We found the public pronouncement to be a thinly veiled news hook for the association rather than a condemnation not only of the apparent illegal activities of News of the World staffers and others in the organization but of the changing view of privacy and personal (forget professional) ethics. It reminds us of the scene from Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End where Jack Sparrow uses a gun as a scope to see the enemy sighting down the wrong end.  If this were simply a public relations crisis issue then Edelman which has suffered through its share is probably better equipped to assess the true situation and assist in responding appropriately. We simply do not believe it is in the best interest of anyone at News Corp and beyond that the association should put out a narrowly focused pronouncement on the damage that may be done to the company’s “image” or the stockholder value.

Damage Control
What about the damage that was done to the individuals – alive and dead – who were involved? Image and stockholder value are minor compared to the larger, more basic damage that has been done to people. Ms.

Read More

After the first social media frenzy you’d think/hope people learned so things won’t go wrong this time around. If understanding is overpowered by greed, things won’t go wrong…they’ll go seriously awry. Screenshot – “The Hangover Part II,” Warner Bros (2011)

A friend recently gave us a flyover of the island he owns out in the middle of the ?????  Another’s son took us on a tour of his farm complete with cows, chickens, pigs, tractors and a horse out in the middle of ???? It was fast, simple, easy…they just went to SecondLife, Farmville respectively and showed us around. You may think it’s the virtual world, but they paid real money for their property and improvements. The new round of online, social media fervor/fear is as interesting as the stuff we saw in the 1995-2000 dot-com bubble. Could it happen again? Sure…
- VCs are hungry to recover their early investments
- Investors are hungry for new technology buzz offerings they don’t understand
- Underwriters, brokers, investors want some upbeat option to our recent recession
- People with more money than brains are again looking for the fast bucks
- Young kids who put in their time (a whole year, two) want their big home in Portola Valley, Los Altos Hills; their sexy race cars; planes/boats like Oracle’s Ellison

There are some good social media companies…there are some great social media companies…there are some cheap copies…there are some duds. Every one of them started by guys/gals sure they’ll be touched by the financial gods. All of them feel their enterprise idea is as insanely great as Amazon, Google, Facebook, YouTube, Yandex, Baidu, LinkedIn, Zynga, you name it. These firms are the same as, yet different from the last bubble.

Then, Now – At the height of the dot-com era, 308 companies went public.

Read More

Orly Taitz will earn a brief footnote in history as the “Birther” movement leader. She was at the forefront of a movement of Birthers who doubt that the president’s birth place was the United States. She famously took the issue to a California court to find out if Obama was U.S. citizen and to hold a special presidential election if he wasn’t. Since then the movement and the intensity of volume has increased. Donald Trump took up the issue and found yet another way to get the mainstream media to interview him.

This red herring would serve as the comic relief in a play. Trouble is that all of the players have taken it seriously and it went from a side note to a major plot point. It is understandable that those in the Obama camp would think enough is enough; they’re going to release the long-form of the birth certificate and put an end to this foolishness. The flaw in that logic is that there is absolutely no logic behind the Birther movement and it is not a movement in search of logic or facts.

If there was video that showed President Obama being born and that video was released to the media, it wouldn’t matter a bit. The Birther movement revolves around accusations and diversions and you do not (and more importantly you cannot) battle that type of attack, at least via the media, with facts. This is akin to a religious cult; you are not going to weaken their faith with something as cumbersome as reality. This is also a politically motivated buzz. It is a dangerous game. Push it too far and the American middle ground is going to tire of the noise and relegate Birthers to the status of reality stars. America loves to watch and listen to reality stars, but no one takes them seriously.

Obama’s strategic PR mistake was that he in fact did begin to take them too seriously. He then took them on with proof and details. A losing game: not unlike trying to put out fire with gasoline.

Read More

According to the just released findings of analysts employed by the federal government of the United States of America to monitor real estate transactions in the wake of recessionary property depreciations, the Mortgage Debt Relief act has done rather more than merely alleviate the debt of deserving homeowners since taking effect on January 1, 2011. If the studies compiled by the U.S. Department of the Treasury are accurate, a little less than half a billion dollars may have been dispersed on the behalf of potentially ineligible citizens who fudged parts of their documentation or willfully submitted fraudulent information to the overwhelmed governmental arbiters. To make matters worse, the majority of misspent funds, some three hundred twenty million dollars at the federal accountants’ last reckoning, didn’t involve stipends sent directly to home owners (therefore able to be easily reclaimed) or debt relief tax waivers that could be reassessed.  Instead, the brunt of the monetary outlay went directly to the lending institutions who’d foreclosed upon the over mortgaged residences of borrowers owing significantly more than what the properties managed to garner when auctioned off by local officials.

Prior to the establishment of the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act, Americans who qualified under a governmental program for the alleviation of some or all of the equity loan burdens placed against their home would still have been subject to eventual income tax assessments that perceived the amount of debt relinquished as tantamount to income.

Read More

Ten independent YouTube stars made over $100,000 in 2010. That is the finding of a study done by TubeMogul. By independent they mean YouTubers who were not part of a traditional media company or corporate campaign. A prime example is Natalie Tran, who is reportedly the most subscribed to YouTube user in Australia and is said to bring in over $100,000 from her YouTube video postings. An article in the New York Post reports that some YouTube partners are making over $1 million from their efforts.

How? It varies. There are a few potential revenue avenues for YouTube entrepreneurs. These include banner ads, pre-roll and overlay ads sponsorship and merchandise sales. Some YouTubers have sponsors, but for most, revenue comes from banner ads placed near their videos. YouTube splits its ad revenue with partners 50-50. And although it’s an incremental process, it’s amazing how much some are generating from their banner ads.

Few are getting rich, but some have quit their day jobs and are full time YouTubers, and others have hit the big time. For videos and YouTube channels that generate a real buzz and drive traffic, the rewards can be amazing. Not only do these YouTube stars generate a following and various money streams, many establish themselves as personalities. By passing the traditional star making machine these trailblazers have been able to create their own opportunities. Not only are they establishing themselves via YouTube and generating various cash flow streams, many of these are crossing over from the net to more traditional media outlets establishing themselves in print, film, CDs, and TV. Welcome to the new star making machine.

Read More

According to a YouTube press release:

More than 13 million hours of video were uploaded during 2010.

35 hours of video are uploaded every minute.

More video is uploaded to YouTube in 60 days than the 3 major US networks created in 60 years.

YouTube reached over 700 billion playbacks in 2010.

Less than a month after its fifth birthday, YouTube has announced that it has exceeded two billion video views per day.

That is a lot of video. How does anyone break through all of those images, music talk and clatter? The amazing thing is that many do and some ride it on to major success. That Bieber guy for example.

Although it’s only been around since 2005, and was sold in 2007 for $1.65 billion (yeah, billion with a B) to Google, YouTube is now a household name, a major player and a launching pad for new careers. The list of those who have emerged from YouTube includes Justin Bieber, Soulja Boy, and Tay Zonday, among others. The list is varied, from Bieber to the Bed Intruder to the double rainbows guy. John Jacobson and his Double Dream Hands video became a huge hit thanks to YouTube. Jacobson ended up on Ellen’s TV show teaching her staff how to do the dance on her birthday segment. There is now a Double Dream Hands phone app and a book and DVD are on the way.

Whereas YouTube used to be the site to visit to watch goofy, crazy videos, it is now the new engine for launching talent and careers. It is a community where viewers go to find news, sports, science, music and how-to information. Like a social network it also allows viewers to subscribe to different channels, friends, etc.

YouTube creates stars and sensations; Auto-Tune the News’s “Bed Intruder Song” was the year’s most-watched, non-major label video on YouTube. The site helped take it from obscurity to online sensation.

Read More

Generally those who have the most trouble trying to utilize the media are those that have no real idea how it works. Simply because someone is a celebrity, or head of state, and has been continually highlighted in the media, doesn’t mean he or she truly understands the inner workings of the press. Appearing in front of the camera day after day does not make one an expert in the process. Those who have had the most media coverage are often the ones that have the most naive or delusional take on how the media actually works.

Often when celebrities run into a damage control situation (such as the Charlie Sheen fiasco) they believe they are the story, where generally it’s the train wreck that’s the real story. They simply happen to be the ones driving that train. They eventually end up trying to put out fire with gasoline and their media and image problems only continue to grow.

It used to be that newspapers, magazines, along with network and cable TV, defined and shaped the stories we read or watched. We’re now in the world of citizen journalists and social media. Twitter or Facebook not only distribute information, now they become stories in and of themselves. For example, when Sarah Palin or Charlie Sheen posts a Tweet and you suddenly have a news story. But, as we’ve all seen, they don’t necessarily control that story. Tweets and posts take on a life of their own and can often backfire.

Whereas many have tried to utilize the media for their own ends and have failed, there are cases where individuals have been able to achieve their ends. Howard Stern was certainly a master of utilizing the media. Those that are most successful, like Stern, generally have a media outlet where they can actively control the message if it starts to run amok. Glen Beck comes to mind. He has a nightly forum where he can shape his message. It’s much more difficult to control if you are outside of the media.

Read More

Perhaps the strangest aspect of the whole Charlie Sheen media storm, at least from my perspective, is that the furor has been about his drug use and his tirades against his producer. Don’t get me wrong, those aren’t good things, but physically and verbally abusing women seem like activities that should be a bit higher on the outrage meter. Yet Sheen always appears to get a pass when it comes to those behaviors.

One would think that such actions against women would cause overwhelming media furor, some national outrage, maybe a few raised eyebrows on the part of CBS. And Sheen didn’t simply accost one woman, there were a number and he did it repeatedly over the years. Why was this behavior so forgivable, whereas drug abuse and name calling caused production to come to a halt? Much of this behavior started before his current TV show, but it has continued throughout the years. To give credit where credit is due, CNN did report on these issues with a report called: “Scandals Don’t Faze Charlie Sheen’s Career”. The segment echoed the fact that no one seemed to care.

Just to cover some of his history on this front, Sheen served two years’ probation for a 1996 assault on then-girlfriend Brittany Ashland. A year earlier he settled a case out of court with a woman who claimed he’d hit her when she refused to have sex with him. In 1990, in an incident deemed an accident; he shot his then fiancée Kelly Preston in the arm; not to mention the accounts by ex-wives Denise Richards and Brooke Mueller. Other accusations coming from hookers and porn stars have followed. His choosing to take drugs, or going off on a tirade against his employers just doesn’t seem to fall in the same category as physical abuse; yet it was his most recent actions that caused CBS and Warner Bros. to (at least temporarily) pull the plug.

Granted Sheen was not overly polite to his producer.

Read More

Let’s start by saying 2011 is going to be the year we wanted three years ago when the financial institutions “borrowed” our global wellbeing!

It was the first time we entered unfamiliar territory because the financial meltdown didn’t affect just one country but all of us.

Economic Outlook
Internationally governments are feeling their way along the precipice because the depth and duration of the recession was beyond what most could clearly recall.  They are moving – hesitantly – but still slightly dazed by the headlights of the near miss.

At the same time the U.S. government ground to a near halt because of the partisan politics that could last for two years.

Fortunately as in past recessions companies have finally become sick and tired of being sick and tired and realized that government – any government – can’t move things forward…it is up to business to get the job done!

Most of the 80+% of the employed U.S. population (10% tracked unemployed, 8% dropped off the grid) are certain that conditions are and will continue to improve.  This was apparent over the holiday buying season where PC/CE/communications sales increased more than 7% with a greater percentage being cash sales…resisting mounting additional personal/family debt.

While company management is optimistic about growth they are paying closer attention to market changes, have enhanced their risk management and have much more effective, stringent cost control efforts in place.

That undoubtedly means low to modest workforce expansion and greater attention to product line extensions rather than revolutionary new product introductions at least for the next two years.

Read More

Ah. the story idea, the lifeblood of PR companies. But as PR professionals we are paid (in part) to dig deep for those ideas that the media will find interesting and newsworthy.

What do small businesses do to find those ideas? Here are a few things you can do to find the story idea that is “fit to print”.

Firstly, remember that timing is everything in this game so scan the newspapers every morning to look for ideas that might work for you.

When you find a story of interest, make a note of the writer of the story as well as their contact information. Add this to your database along with a few points about the story.

Scan the papers with a few things in mind and try to come with something we call “a story angle”.

Look for a story angle that might be applicable to the Industry you are in, or a regulatory angle, political, cultural etc :

A potential story line for an on-line back up service might be a regulatory angle – since there are requirements for certain types of businesses to maintain records for a certain period of time. If information is lost then you run up against these regulatory issues.

Use that information to write a letter to the editor or craft a media release or conduct a media pitch.

As you are building these ideas (and it is an ongoing process) think about your target audience. If you are scanning one of the major dailies – you may take that idea and pitch the local paper as it may be challenging for a small business to get the attention of the major newspapers.

Read More

“Life as a priestess to the virgin goddess Hestia isn’t all that hard, the most important rule is to know who you are.” – Leah (Xena Warrior Princess, TV Series)

Thanks to the one billion (each) consumers in China and India, the world economy is bouncing back. Good, but … We tend to overlook the world’s best market influences…the 3.25 billion females.The truth is, we need to understand them a little better.

Why? Well, the “female economy” will drive $5 trillion in incremental global spending during the next several years. More than 1 billion women work worldwide. More than half of college students are women. Women control more than half of the wealth in the US.So maybe we should have them participate a little more in the industry processes. Of the recent Fortune 500 list of CEOs, only 16 were female.

Load Bearers
Only 16 women were the best qualified to run a major corporation when 484 men did such a lousy job of managing their businesses?Man, even these 16 weren’t “worth” as much as their male counterparts!Sure, we have our tokens – Carol Bartz, at Yahoo; Ursula Burns,  at Xerox; and a few others.Referring to Ms Burns as a token is really a disservice.This straight-talking boss became the first black female CEO on the Fortune 500.  In addition to strengthening a company that’s still rebounding from near bankruptcy, she does her own shopping. That’s leadership by example!

It’s difficult to believe that there aren’t more prepared, enabled, willing to be industry forces, market changers. A recent report by Booz & Co recently noted that more than one billion fell into the not prepared/enabled categories.

Read More

Titans Turf Wars Hurt Us All

“Have you seen what’s happening out there? Have you even bothered to look?” – Andromeda/Alexa Davalos – Clash of the Titans, 2010 (Warner Bros)

Maybe people like Jobs and Schmidt aren’t omnipotent gods, but don’t tick them off.

Adobe insulted Steve back in ’96 when they helped Gates first and wouldn’t do a special version of software for the lowly Mac.

Now Jobs looked down to the apps developers and said, “They need to be reminded of the order of things…”

BAM!!!  he eliminated Flash from their iPhone connection and wouldn’t let it on his tablet.

Of course, he gave a good reason…their stuff is buggy and crashes (a Mac crashes???…OMG!!! )

The Titans can scuffle in the stratosphere, but when they get serious, it makes things miserable for mere mortals.

1984

Jobs started his rise with an ad.

1984 –  The Apple only paid once to play their Think Different ad on a Super Bowl Sunday years ago, but it appeared millions of times since and still lives in the virtual world of the Web.   The theme?  Don’t mindlessly follow the crowd…hhmmm.  Source – Apple

Told everyone to “Think Different.”

For years, life for the Titans was good. 

They’d show us something new, hot, sexy…we’d emote over it and buy it.

Each Titan had his/her own turf.

Things were so smooth, Steve invited Eric over for board meetings. 

Eric was making a ton of money selling cloud clicks, ads.

Steve was making a ton selling things.

Read More

In March this year, the Small Business Administration (SBA) placed a limit on the guarantees it was extending on “goodwill” financing, capping them at $250,000, or 50% of the total SBA loan amount, whichever figure was lower. “Goodwill” financing is a part of a SBA business loan that is used to acquire the intangible assets of an existing business. The aforementioned limits were introduced to prevent the inflation of the value of intangible assets. This is just one example of why you have to be prudent about asking for a SBA business loan to fuel your entrepreneurial ambitions. There are several other things you need to know about using SBA loans to finance a business acquisition.

SBA Loan Limits
Getting a SBA business loan is a very widespread method of financing a small business establishment. Essentially, the SBA can provide a bank with a guarantee on a small business loan, so that the bank would be willing to offer such a loan.

There are two main SBA business loan programs:

• 7(a) SBA loan program, the organization’s most flexible and popular initiative, designed to provide SBA commercial loans to small start-up and existing businesses
• CDC/504 SBA loan program, which provides long-term, fixed-rate funding aimed at acquiring fixed assets

These programs have different maximum loan amounts:

Read More

The financial planner, in this day and age, is often seen as something akin to the proverbial fox in the hen house- and may be treated likewise. The economic outlook is grim, and this doesn’t inspire confidence in clients; open any paper and dire predictions are handed out like candy at a pre-school playground. The catch-22 is that, while talking about one’s financial future is something many clients would rather avoid, now is the exact time solid financial advice is needed. This is particularly true for Baby Boomers. Here is the bad news:

• Baby Boomers, in general, don’t save the way their parents did, or the way they should. One-fourth of Baby Boomer households have so far failed to accumulate significant savings, and will most likely have to rely on government benefits to retire.
• There are currently 79 million Baby Boomers in the United States. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, only 20 % of them have a clear plan for their retirement.
• The aging of an enormous generation is combined with the lengthening of the average life span. Many Americans, therefore, expect to work longer, more often than not until death.

What is the financial planner to do in this type of climate? The task of re-creating trust, exuding confidence, providing realistic advice and even results, seems daunting; it is no wonder that many advisors are feeling the pressure. In addition, as Newsweek’s columnist Anna Quindlen pointed out in her recent article Dollars and Sense: “Many Americans don’t understand the basics of the economy”(Newsweek, 3-30-2009, p. 62). If that statement rings true for your clients, you have to address some serious issues. Don’t worry, you are not alone, and there is a solution.

Identifying your problems is essential; they may include some or all of the below:

Read More

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 …
… Is the official name of what is known among the general population as Obama’s Stimulus Package, occasionally called “The Stim” by various news talking heads – the ones who are clever, that is.  An Obama Small Business plan does not appear to be in the works, but even critics acknowledge that the Obama Stimulus Plan contains a number of “good news” elements for small business owners, especially in certain sectors.  The entire package totals $787 billion, and this amount is arrived at by combining the value of tax cuts, direct cash infusions, and loan guarantees over and above those that already exist.

Barack Obama’s Stimulus Package – Obama For Small Business
In numerous stump speeches during the 2008 election process, Barack Obama consistently came out in favor of locally owned businesses.  That concern has carried over to his presidency.  Here are some elements of the Obama Stimulus that directly benefit small businesses:

• Larger loan guarantees – The U.S.

Read More

Michael Jackson – Icon
Beginning with his recent death at age 50, there has been enough Michael Jackson news out there to satisfy even the hardest core fan.  Without question he enjoyed an iconic presence in the world of popular music, stretching back to at least the 1980s.  More than one music expert has declared him to be Michael Jackson, King of Pop.  The album, “Thriller,” has sold more copies than nearly any other recording, and there can be no argument that the concept of the music video – ushering in what became MTV culture – was the perfect medium to show off all of Jackson’s talents.  But few people realize that he was as much an entrepreneur as he was an entertainer.

Read More