Best Holiday Gifts for Your Clients
SOURCE: KPHO-TV Channel 5 (Phoenix, AZ) AUDIENCE: 416,028 DATE: 12/08/2011 HEADLINE: The best holiday gifts for your clients The best holiday gifts for your clients Updated: Dec 5, 2011 04:01 PM EST You probably wouldn’t give everyone in your family the same gift, so why would you choose the same gift for each of your clients? Here’s a trending story from Inc.com – featuring B2B CFO Partner Wendy Nelson. By: Marla Tabaka With the economy still in recovery, many small business owners are trying to decide whether they should give gifts to clients, what they should buy, and when they should send the gift so it stands out above the rest. Sometimes a simple, yet personalized, card is an appropriate solution to your budget woes. If you have a little more money to spend there is always the standard gift basket. But is “standard” really good enough for your best customers? “When choosing a holiday gift for clients, it is important to be thoughtful,” says Laurence Briggs, president and CEO of Republic of Texas Company Store. “When customers use our corporate gifting concierge service to add personalized touches to gifts, we always ask them to give us more information about their client. What holiday do they celebrate? What are their hobbies and interests? What is their industry?” Briggs reminds us that it is important to show your clients that you care by paying attention to the details. “You would be surprised to learn how many people who celebrate Hanukkah receive Christmas cards from their clients,” he says. That’s certainly not a good way to demonstrate your attention of detail...
A Cash Crisis
SMALL TALK MAY 17, 2010 Colleen DeBaise answers an entrepreneur’s question about when to call it quits Q: I’ve owned a small clothing boutique for three years. I weathered the economy, but now a construction project that will last three months has blocked foot traffic to my business. This is killing my cash flow so much that I had to delay paying my rent and my sales tax. When do I call it a day? —Susan, Burlingame, Calif. A: Fighting for survival is never easy, but keep in mind: If you don’t pay sales tax, the state could shut you down. When that happens, “you lose control—and that’s even more frustrating,” says Jerry L. Mills, founder of B2B CFO Partners LLC, a Phoenix firm that provides part-time chief-financial-officer services to small businesses. So, direct any reserve funds toward the payment of taxes as a first step in getting out of an already bad situation. After that, place a call to your insurance agent, and see if your business owner’s policy includes business- interruption insurance, which generally kicks in when natural or man-made hazards threaten your company. And while it’s best to avoid legal action, you might consider contacting an attorney to see if you have any recourse against the party—be it the city or a next-door neighbor—who’s jackhammering. Given the situation, you might also be able to negotiate a lower rent from your landlord, especially while construction continues. As far as deciding whether to close up shop, you should perform a simple cost-benefit analysis, looking at whether the positives outweigh the negatives if you remain open for six more...
Marking Your Territory
Protecting intellectual property rights can safeguard your company from copycats. by ELAINE POFELDT – January 2010 Aspirin. Cellophane. Thermos. These were once trademarked names. But because the owners of the trademarks were not careful to control their proper use, they became part of the public domain. Competing companies were then able to use them in marketing materials, reaping the rewards of the work the original owners put into creating them. The lesson? When you have an idea— whether it’s a great brand name or a hot new product—the first thing you should do is consider protecting it. Before you start, you should understand the ways you can safeguard your idea and realize that it will cost money, time and effort. “Protecting intellectual property is not a one-time event,” says Alexander Poltorak, founder and CEO of General Patent Corp., a management firm in Suffern, NY, and author of Essentials of Licensing Intellectual Property. “It’s part of an overall business strategy.” There’s no one-size-fits-all rule as to which types of businesses need to be aggressive about IP protection, but experts recommend considering your IP value before making a decision. If, say, you’ve invested millions of dollars and several years of work in developing a new technology, you’ll want to be very zealous. Your first step should be figuring out what protection you need. There are four large groups of IP rights: trademarks, patents, trade secrets and copyrights. According to Paul Craane, a partner with the intellectual property law firm Marshall, Gerstein & Borun in Chicago, “Sometimes, people confuse what each of these rights covers. You’ll hear people say ‘I’ll trademark my...B2B CFO® are media experts on, and can speak to the media on:
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