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Monday, 28 Nov 2011 2:52 PM ET
Restaurant Owner Plays Guitar to Drum Up Business
By: CNBC.com
When the going gets rough, the tough start ... playing guitar?
That's what 50-year-old Jack Allen, owner of Pappy Jack's Bar & Grill in Austin, Texas is doing in order to drum up business.
"The money for advertising is not there, so I thought I would just be loud and crazy," he tells CNBC. He admits, "It’s a desperate measure."
He's also sleeping on the roof of his building, a stunt he hopes will draw attention to his restaurant, which has seen slow traffic since it opened Sept. 1 of this year.
He blames time spent bringing the building up to code, as well as a lousy economy, for the lack of customers. "It’s so much harder for a small business man to start a business and keep it going," he says.
But he is attracting attention from shoppers in the strip mall where his restaurant is located.
One customer who was drawn by the music, walked around the parking lot trying to find out where it was coming from. When she saw Allen on the roof, she decided to duck inside his restaurant for a drink and a bite to eat.
Monday, 28 Nov 2011 11:26 AM ET
Millennial Entrepreneurs Bypass Unemployment Line
By: Ellen Lee
State Bicycle
Eric Ferguson and brothers Mehdi and Reza Farsi opened State Bicycle Co., right out of college. They now employ 25 people.
Mehdi Farsi, Reza Farsi and Eric Ferguson didn’t send out resumes seeking a corporate job after they graduated from Arizona State University a few years ago.
Instead, the longtime friends and avid cyclists turned their hobby into a business, launching State Bicycle Co., a maker of fixed-gear bicycles in Tempe, Ariz. Since its start in late 2009, sales have more than tripled, it has opened three retail stores and it employs nearly 25 people.
Now the three owners are part of a national movement to drive the Millennial Generation to become entrepreneurs and start their own businesses — rather than wait for more jobs to open up in today’s rough economy.
“It looks bleak for a lot of people out there. Jobs are hard to come by,” said Mehdi Farsi, 27. But “there is another way to make it right now. You take matters into your own hands.”
» Read More
Friday, 25 Nov 2011 12:09 PM ET
Black Friday's Best Deals? Try the Auto Aisle
By: CNBC.com
As retailers compete for shoppers' dollars on this kickoff weekend to the holiday shopping season, the best deals may not be at the malls' anchor stores, but at the auto dealership anchoring local business on Main Street.
CNBC correspondent Phil LeBeau writes in "Behind the Wheel" that auto dealerships are the place to go for deals this weekend. Driving those deals, he says, are a large inventory of 2011 automobiles, combined with flexible financing, and the all-important weather forecast: mild and dry, which should keep shoppers on the move.
He also reports that TRUECar.com, a car-shopping website, predicts that auto dealers will be offering an average discount of 9 percent off the manufacturers' suggested retail price. And other reports say those discounts could be as high as 20 percent, when additional incentives, such as military discounts and loyalty discounts, are thrown in.
With dealers able to offer such large discounts, we have to guess that even shoppers who swear they will avoid the mall this weekend might be tempted to stop by their local auto mall to check out the deals.
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Friday, 25 Nov 2011 11:07 AM ET

Beyond Groupon: Daily Deals Evolve, New Competitors Emerge

By: Nate C. Hindman, The Huffington Post

Consider it the daily-deal gold rush. First, there was Groupon's much-anticipated IPO in early November, which valued the market leader at $12.7 billion. Now its top competitor, LivingSocial, is reportedly set to close another big round of funding that would put its valuation at around $6 billion. While such nods of approval from Wall Street may offer some validation to Groupon, LivingSocial and the hundreds of imitators their business models have spawned, on Main Street, small-business owners still have their doubts.

Source: livingsocial.com

"These deal sites call up and claim their service is different from Groupon, but they're pretty much all the same," says Mike Scotese, an owner of Grey Lodge Pub in Philadelphia. Scotese started receiving regular pitches from daily-deal companies about two years ago. These days, they call at least once a week, offering to design and distribute a coupon for the pub's food in exchange for a cut of the sales it brings in. "'No thanks,' I tell them. We're guaranteed to lose money on sales to customers we'll probably never see again."

Many local merchants agree. And that's created an opening for savvy startups looking not to imitate the model, but to innovate.

With the Groupon [GRPN Loading... () ] model, to actually boost a business's bottom line, the thinking goes, daily deals need to attract at least one of two types of customers: Those who spend more than a coupon's face value and those who return after redeeming the deal. But recent research reveals that group-buying services often fail to serve up either kind of customer.

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Wednesday, 23 Nov 2011 5:32 PM ET
The Small Business Afternoon Report
By: CNBC.com
A Groupon cautionary tale, from Mashable.
Small businesses are feeling peer pressure from larger retailers who are opening their doors on Thanksgiving day, reports Entrenpreneur.
Technology start-ups that sell to businesses are hot again with Silicon Valley investors, who are moving away from consumer-focused social companies, reports The Wall Street Journal.
According to Portfolio.com, the amount of space available at local shopping centers has dropped for the first time in seven years. The reason? Retail sales are up, and construction has been scarce.
And finally, small businesses are revving up for the second annual Small Business Saturday. The promotion, started by American Express as a way to get smaller businesses on board with using the credit card, has taken on a life of its own. As Main Street looks forward to a rise in foot traffic on Saturday, business owners hope that shoppers are not ready to put their feet up this weekend. But, it's official: the holiday season has begun.

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Wednesday, 23 Nov 2011 1:59 PM ET
Gibson Guitars Weeps Over Federal Logging Rules
Source: www2.gibson.com
Fear of over-regulation is hitting ... the guitar industry?
The iconic Gibson guitar is manufactured in the United States, but it has not been easy to keep it here.
In August, Gibson factories in Nashville and Memphis were raided, and rosewood from India was confiscated. No charges have been filed, but it's the second time Gibson has been raided.
The action stems from enforcement of a revived Federal law concerning illegal logging, and Gibson was an early target.
"We are definitely paying the price to manufacture in the United States," CEO Henry Juskiewicz told CNBC.
» Read More

Wednesday, 23 Nov 2011 11:56 AM ET

In Washington, Odds Stacked Against American Small Businesses

By: Lloyd Chapman, The Huffington Post

The super committee was so politically deadlocked this week that they called it quits early (just in time for Thanksgiving).

The delay makes no difference though — whether it comes through mandatory cuts or congressional compromise, a $1.5 trillion cut to federal spending means that competition for federal contracts will heat up.

And with less federal money to be had, Fortune 500 corporations are going to stake claim over all federal contracts, which represent hundreds of billions in purchases a year. This is a disaster for America's 28 million small businesses, which employ more than half the private sector workforce.

The Washington Post reported last week that nearly 100 former congressional aides who had previously served for members of the super committee are presently working as lobbyists on K Street. These insider lobbyists are now employing old tricks to get their former bosses to support their new corporate bosses.

On the other hand, small businesses are not significant donors to these political representatives' campaigns. Small businesses also don't own properties alongside the Capitol and don't employ politically savvy former congressional aides.

Can you guess where small business interests register on these representatives' list of priorities?

» Read More

Wednesday, 23 Nov 2011 10:05 AM ET
Millennials Key to Rebuilding U.S. Economy
By: Dr. Jeffrey R. Cornwall, Christian Science Monitor
Based on the history of previous economic downturns, America's entrepreneurs will need to play a key role in helping to rebuild our economy.
So, just what is the current mindset and makeup of those in the entrepreneurial sector of the U.S. economy?
Even in a weak economy, or quite possibly because of it, there continues to be a strong interest among the millennial generation in pursuing an entrepreneurial career.
A recent survey of young Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 conducted by the Kauffman Foundation found that 54 percent of those surveyed have entrepreneurial aspirations, and about half of these have already launched a business.
An even higher percentage of young people of color — 64 percent of Latinos and 63 percent of African-Americans — expressed a desire to start their own companies. Although some previous studies have found an increased interest in business ownership among women, the Kauffman study found that women still lag in entrepreneurial intent (44 percent compared to 57 percent among men).
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Patricia Orsini
Editor of CNBC.com's Small Business section, has covered business and personal finance for more than 20 years. She loves to shop local.