Category: Blog

Nonprofits a Loser in All This Mess

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Yesterday, July 20, there was an article in The Huffington Post called “Debt Ceiling Standoff Hurts Consumer Confidence.” In The Wall Street Journal today, an article says, “Layoffs Deepen Gloom“ and concludes, “The stepped-up pace of layoffs suggests companies are losing faith in the prospect of a second-half rebound.” Obviously, this is all bad news for small businesses, but it is awful news for nonprofits.

With less discretionary income to spend, both businesses and individuals can’t support their favorite charities like their heart tells them to do. Competition for nonprofit funding is fierce, and because nonprofits traditionally lag five years behind in a recovering economy, there are still several years of lean times ahead.

In spite of all this uncertain and disturbing news, our culture believes in supporting the right causes. I am seeing it increasingly driven by the younger generation, which seems to be better connected with what is happening not only in their neighborhoods but around the world. We get this information instantly now on our cellphones. Facebook has brought friends, groups and communities closer together. All of us, no matter how terrible the news is, are still experiencing the sense to do the right thing.

At DollarDays, we have established the DollarDays Wishlist Program for nonprofit organizations, which enables charities to select from thousands of much-needed items and […] allows their supporters to donate these products directly to their cause. This way, a donor can say, “I donated a case of socks” rather than wonder where their $50 donation went. […] If you are involved in a nonprofit or know one that needs this kind of help, let us know.

This country has got to get through this crisis together. No matter what your station in life is, don’t lose sight of those less fortunate that need our help. If you can’t help with money, help with your time.

Original article here:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/marc-joseph/nonprofits-are-a-loser-in_b_906150.html

School Supply Giveaway Contest

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The Wall Street Journal reported today “For Small Businesses, Recession Isn’t Over.” As a supplier to small businesses of over 140,000 general-merchandise products, we knew the recession wasn’t over months ago, because small businesses are still having trouble getting traffic into their business, [and] those buyers [are spending] less than last year. [O]n top of [that], [small business are still] not […] able to get loans [easily] from banks to help not only keep their business afloat, but, as all optimistic entrepreneurs dream of, expand their business, as well.

Nonprofits are suffering in the same way, because they just can’t raise the kind of funds they need to support the causes needed to sustain our American society. During these recessionary times, all of us, whether you are a business or an individual, need to dig just a little deeper to help.

At DollarDays.com, during July, we are running a school supply giveaway contest of $500 to the school that gets the most votes. In just two days, [more than] 250 schools have been nominated on our Facebook page. […]

Nominations of schools are open until July 18, 2011, [s]o if you know of a school in need, send them to this contest—[o]r, better yet, figure out a way where you can give back, [too]!

Original article here:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/marc-joseph/school-supply-contest_b_893471.html?ec_carp=4117238912175737153

Small-business Advice: Pay What You Wish?

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On the surface, it sounds crazy, but these days various types of businesses are experimenting with a format where customers are allowed to pay whatever they want for a service or product.

The trend has been going on for years, as can be seen in [a] 2007 Springwise trend-spotting article about restaurants in cities including Denver, Salt Lake City and Vienna [that allow] customers to choose their own prices (and sometimes even portion sizes). Today, it looks as if each of those restaurants is still going strong, which is some accomplishment in the unforgiving restaurant industry, especially in a recession.

Some of the restaurants in question do seem to have combined the pay-what-you-wish concept with progressive social activism, which may help them attract a clientele willing to engage in good faith and support the concept rather than freeloading and mooching of the proprietors.

In any case, the concept is not limited to restaurants. The best known example of pay-what-you-wish might be the opaque pricing site Priceline.com, where customers can bid for hotel rooms and rental cars by offering to pay whatever price seems fair to them.

Of course, Priceline is not a true pay-what-you-wish concept since there is a hidden price for each city or category below which rental car companies and hotel chains will not provide inventory. You can offer to pay $5 for a four-star hotel in New York City, but the hotel is under no obligation to accept.

On the other hand, Priceline does seem to have carved out a sustainable niche that allows customers access to good deals while also simultaneously giving hotels and car rental chains the ability to dispose of excess inventory without eroding prices across the board.

The question, of course, is whether pay-what-you-wish pricing makes sense in the big picture. A recent article on Inc.com’s retail blog by Tom Szaky, co-founder and CEO of TerraCycle, shows that the concept may have relevance for the general retail world. Szaky reported on his blog that TerraCycle had moved from a pure dot-com model into the brick-and-mortar retail world by opening a pay-what-you-wish retail store.

In defending/justifying his decision, Szaky pointed out that the concept has worked in other industries, including music, where bands like Radiohead have managed to make money by selling digital albums and letting users choose whatever price they think is fair.

The model may work best where the incremental costs of each additional product sold are very low or even nonexistent (i.e., digital content) or where brand loyalty (rock bands) is high.

On the other hand, one could argue that auction sites like eBay prove that retailers don’t need to set prices to make money. As long as buyers are operating in a situation of perceived or real scarcity, they will compete among themselves to set a price that may, in fact, be higher than what a retailer would get if he/she had set the price to begin with.

What do you think? Would you ever let your customers choose their own prices for some of the products or services you sell? Have you participated as a seller in any auction sites such as eBay?

Frugal Living Tip: Does Prepaying a Mortgage Make Good Financial Sense?

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Those who enjoy living a frugal [life] generally try to avoid debt. Debt is bad financially, of course, because it involves paying interest, thus ensuring that whatever you’ve purchased ends up costing more in the long run than it would have if you paid the whole price upfront.

Debt can also make you feel bad knowing that if a financial emergency like a job loss occurs, you’re still on the hook for whatever you owe (plus interest).

So, if you have a mortgage or any other large debt such as a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC), you might be tempted to prepay the mortgage/debt in order to reduce your debt as fast as possible and save money on interest payments.

But is that always a wise financial decision?

The author of [the] My Life ROI financial blog writes in his post, “To Prepay Your Mortgage Or Not,” that it might make better sense from an economic standpoint to resist the temptation to prepay your mortgage (provided that you have a reasonable mortgage interest rate, of course).

For example, if you have the investment skills to earn 8% in the stock market, why would you want to prepay a mortgage that cost you only 5% interest? (Remember that if you itemize your tax return, you may get a deduction on home mortgage interest, too.)

So does the argument on not prepaying a mortgage hold water on close examination? Perhaps, but even the My Life ROI blogger acknowledges that completely paying off a big debt can have major psychological benefits for lots of people.

It’s also important to note that lots of people end up losing money investing in stocks, commodities and other financial interests. If you opt to play the stock market instead of paying off your mortgage and your investments go sour, you’ll still have to make your mortgage payments plus work harder to make up your losses in the market.

Ultimately, the choice depends on individual psychology and risk tolerance. If you have an iron stomach for debt, a low-interest-rate mortgage and good investment skills, opting not to pay off your mortgage early could make sense. But, for many people, the prudent, safe and frugal thing to do would be to put at least some extra cash toward paying down your mortgage early when possible.

Does prepaying a mortgage make sense to you? Or would you rather use free cash toward investments?

Small-business Expert Interview: Peter Shankman, Founder of Help A Reporter Out

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DollarDays Blog is pleased to share the expertise of Peter Shankman, founder of Help A Reporter Out (HARO).

DollarDays Blog (DDB): Please tell us a little about yourself and HARO.

Peter Shankman: Since I founded HARO in 2008, it has become one of the fastest-growing social media companies in North America. Every day, HARO brings nearly 30,000 bloggers, reporters and journalists—over 80,000 news sources and thousands of small businesses—together to tell their stories, promote their brands, and sell their products and services.

Since its inception, HARO has published more than 60,000 journalist queries, facilitated nearly 7,000,000 media pitches, and marketed and promoted over 2,500 brands to the media, small businesses and consumers.

HARO is entirely free to sources and journalists. Unlike a majority of social media companies, HARO is independently owned and funded and has been profitable since day one. HARO’s tagline, “Everyone is an Expert at Something,” proves over and over again to be true, as thousands of new members join at helpareporter.com each week.

Beyond HARO, I would describe myself as an entrepreneur, author, speaker and worldwide connector. In addition to HARO, I am founder and CEO of The Geek Factory, Inc., a boutique marketing and PR strategy firm located in New York City with clients worldwide.

DDB: It sounds like HARO is meant mainly for reporters. What are the advantages for small-business owners?

Shankman: HARO provides small- to midsized businesses with 75% to 80% open rates on the ads that headline each of its thrice-daily email digests containing reporter queries. HARO also helps many small businesses directly market to their key audiences and make money. Everyone who receives the HARO newsletter must opt in, meaning they choose to receive the e-mail. The advertising messages are custom written either by [myself] or by a HARO family member and present the product or service in a fun and positive light that highlights its importance and utility. Furthermore, since HARO is a digital newsletter, hyperlinks are directly embedded within the message.

DDB:How can media exposure help a small business? Do you have any success story examples from your clients?

Shankman: Media exposure pushes a product or service into the spotlight, instantly gaining consumer focus and attention. The best way to demonstrate HARO’s success is […] by citing the successes of our users.

For example, Michael Jordan, owner of BullyStickDirect.com, called the response to his ad “overwhelming” and noted that he received about a 2,000% increase in website hits the afternoon his ad appeared and into the next day. Not only was HARO the most successful advertising venue Mr. Jordan had tried, he’s also used HARO to achieve additional visibility by getting quoted in a book and major publications simply by responding to HARO queries.

Another HARO user, Jason Sadler, has called his HARO ad the “tipping point” for his website, IWearYourShirt.com. Sadler said his first ad helped him sell two- to three-months’ worth of shirts in days, moving $8,000 worth of merchandise and generating “a ton” of press exposure.

DDB:Since HARO is itself a small business, what are some of the decisions you’ve made that enable HARO to compete with larger players?

Shankman: HARO was originally conceived as a Facebook group. Since Facebook caps group emails at 1,200 people, an e-mail newsletter was started. As HARO’s readership grew, HARO realized that there was great potential to include a simple, subtle and creative ad at the top of each message. As a small business of its own (HARO has only six full-time staff members), HARO has generated $1.4 million in revenue in 14 months. By utilizing technology and automatic distribution services, HARO is able to keep its overhead low while, at the same time, continually offering high yield ROI on its ads.

DDB: What are some of the best decisions you’ve made as a small-business owner?

Shankman: Hired people whose skills complement my own, listened to people I trust [and] ignored the naysayers I didn’t, believed in my idea, [and] listened to my customers and audience—[c]onstantly.

Frugal Living Tip: Sometimes It Pays to Spend

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We spend a lot of time talking on this blog about ways to save money, stay out of debt and live frugally. Living within your means is important, but it’s also good to have some balance in your life.

Over at Personal Finance Advice, guest writer Rebecka O. delves into the issue of excessive saving. In her article “Why I Don’t Save Money,” Rebecka shares a story about her mother who died with more than $1.5 million in savings—along with unfulfilled dreams of visiting Europe, attending a Broadway show, gazing at the Pacific Ocean and seeing penguins in the wild.

Rebecka says that her mother lived frugally and that she herself shared those frugal tendencies until her mother’s death, at which point she came to question the value of saving money if it meant missing out on longed-for experiences. So Rebecka devoted herself to fulfilling her most important lifelong dreams. In about six years, she blew through her entire share of the inheritance—about $300,000.

The responses by readers to Rebecka’s story are interesting in their own right. Some people questioned whether Rebecka should have spent the entire inheritance. Other readers were okay with her spending the inheritance but criticized her choice of even delving into retirement savings to fund her goal of fulfilling all her dreams. Several readers suggested that Rebecka should have sought some balance or moderation, splurging on some dreams while saving some of the inheritance.

[One reader of Rebecka’s post,] Pat Merritt[, shared] a nice story about [her] own experiences with saving and the satisfaction she has received from spending [those savings] on time with her family and a special artwork purchase. Here is an excerpt from Pat’s comment:

“You see, frugality is not just saving for retirement or a nebulous future that may not come. It’s also getting the things that you really want now. It’s a decision-making mechanism that lets you decide what is important to you and to set out and get the things that really matter.”

Do you agree with Pat’s definition of frugality? Do you try to minimize expenses in order to save the most possible money—either for a rainy day or to build an estate for your family? Or do you believe that money should be used sooner rather than later to fulfill your most important dreams? Or is some compromise path the best?

Small-business Advice: Save Energy, Save Money

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Last year, the government’s Cash for Clunkers program got plenty of attention for giving individuals financial incentives to trade in gas guzzlers in exchange for newer, more fuel-efficient replacements.

Cash for Clunkers was then followed […] in many parts of the country by other programs that promoted energy efficiency by giving rebates that encourag[ed] consumers to upgrade from old appliances to more efficient Energy Star-rated models.

Why should [the] government support efficiency programs? The idea is that everyone wins when the government helps consumers trade up to newer models of cars or appliances. Consumers get lower electric or fuel bills. Manufacturers are able to move products that would otherwise be harder to sell in the current economic climate. Governments benefit in a couple of ways—if manufacturers can stay in business, the government has fewer unemployed people to support, and if overall energy or fuel usage declines, the government feels less pressure to build new power plants or fuel refineries.

So how does all of this help small businesses? Well, as a recent article in the Small Business Trends blog pointed out, businesses, too, can benefit from government support for energy-efficiency upgrades. The article highlights benefits in several states, including California, where Pacific Gas & Electric Co. offers rebates of $10 to $125 for installing high-efficiency lightbulbs, and Indiana, where Duke Energy gives small businesses up to $50,000 in annual rebates for high-efficiency improvements to HVAC-type systems.

Even if a power company won’t subsidize the actual cost of upgrades, it might still help businesses figure out how to make improvements. That’s what Minnesota’s Xcel Energy does by covering most of the cost of heating-optimization studies.

The important thing for small businesses is to check for special offers and promotions in your state, city or local community. For instance, small-business owners in Austin, Texas, not only qualify for a general commercial rebate, but also an additional special 30% bonus rebate, plus a lighting program that covers up to 70% of installed costs.

Other small-business energy-efficiency grant and rebate programs exist around the country, from Pennsylvania to Arizona, where the state subsidizes up to 90% of incremental measure costs.

Rather than hunting all over the Internet, you can save yourself time and energy by using the handy guide from Business.gov that provides links to state and local energy efficiency programs for small businesses.

And remember—in addition to upfront savings from rebates or other forms of assistance from government and utilities, any energy-efficiency improvements you make to your business should end up helping your bottom line by reducing recurring expenses.

If you really go all out and achieve superior efficiency to the point where you’re powering your business with solar or wind energy, your efficiency could even become a marketing point among green-minded consumers. It’s a message that has worked for businesses from New Belgium Brewing to Horizon Organic.

Has your small business benefited from any government- or utility-sponsored energy-efficiency program? Or have you seen bottom-line savings from energy-efficiency improvements?

Small-business Expert Interview: Shel Horowitz

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DollarDays Blog is pleased to share the expertise of Shel Horowitz, ethical/green-marketing expert.

DollarDays Blog (DDB): Please describe your background and business expertise in a nutshell.

Shel Horowitz: I founded my own business in 1981 with a total investment of $200, of which $12 went for initial marketing. I am still in that business, although it has morphed several times and bears no relation to its original incarnation. These days, I break down the bulk of my work into these areas:

  • Marketing consulting, strategic planning, social media/PR strategy and copywriting emphasizing frugal, ethical, green approaches. My clients are primarily authors and publishers, small or micro-businesses, and nonprofits.
  • Helping unpublished writers become published authors.
  • Writing and speaking about frugal, ethical and green marketing and/or book publishing and marketing.

DDB: You describe yourself as an ethical/green-marketing expert. How does ethical/green marketing differ from ordinary marketing?

Horowitz: Ethical marketing does not overhype or mislead. I help companies find and harness the marketing value in the green initiatives they’ve undertaken [or] could undertake.

DDB: People tend to think of “green” anything as being more expensive and more complicated. Is that the case when it comes to marketing?

Horowitz: Nope. Done right, green and ethical marketing can cost less, build customer loyalty, open doors to strategic partnerships, and even turn marketing from a cost that brings in income only from its results into an actual revenue stream that brings in income through both the marketing itself and its results. For instance, you can get paid for speaking and writing, and those activities can lead directly to attracting more clients or customers.

DDB: One of your boldest arguments is that companies shouldn’t worry about marketshare because “marketshare doesn’t matter.” How can you say this? Shouldn’t small-business people be focused on becoming major players in their market? Or is this a comforting message for small-business people who generally don’t have the lion’s share of their markets, anyway?

Horowitz: Look at it this way. There are millions of people who need quality copywriting or who are trying to organize their thoughts into a published book. I can only serve the tiniest portion of them, anyway. If my calendar is full, what does it matter how much marketshare I have? This is true for all service businesses and many product businesses. The former CEO of Southwest Airlines criticized his competitors for chasing marketshare at the expense of profitability. Maybe it’s not a surprise that his was the only airline to stay profitable in the aftermath of 9/11. And yes, I think small businesses can take comfort from that.

DDB: Next year, you have a book coming out called Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green. First of all, please explain a bit about the definition and history of guerrilla marketing. Next, what does green guerrilla marketing look like?

Horowitz: Guerrilla Marketing is a concept invented by my co-author, Jay Conrad Levinson, in the mid-1980s. It’s the idea of being nimble in our thinking and our actions, seizing opportunities that are not open to big, cumbersome organizations that lack the agility to move fast. Guerrilla marketing is cheaper, more efficient, and makes it easier to build relationships with customers.

For instance, I can demonstrate guerrilla marketing in action by seizing this opportunity to tell your readers that they can get notified when the book is available by leaving their e-mail address at guerrillamarketinggoesgreen.com.

Green guerrilla marketing takes it a step farther: as consumers become more aware of issues like climate change, buying local and so forth, they want to patronize companies that understand these green priorities. The new book shows a whole lot of ways to use green principles and commitment to ethics in order to place your company front and center in the prospect’s mind, so when that prospect is ready to become a customer, you’re the company that gets seen as green. If the customer knows your company is concerned about doing the right thing, you are well-positioned to get the sale.

DDB: You claim that businesspeople can slash their advertising costs while seeing better results. How?

Horowitz: I discuss many, many ways to do this in the book and in my individual consulting. Here’s one of my favorites: find a company or organization that already reaches your perfect audience, and show that company why they will benefit from exposing that audience to your message.

DDB: Let’s say I am a small-business person who wants to try something green in my marketing efforts, but I don’t where to begin. Where should I start, and how can I get my customers to notice and to care?

Horowitz: Start with an initiative that not only wins your customers’ hearts and minds, but also saves you money. For example, the hotel industry has successfully positioned their don’t-change-the-towels initiative as a green move, but it also gave them enormous savings on energy, water and labor costs.

Frugal Living Tip: Saving for 2010

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Happy New Year! Hopefully this year will bring you health, happiness and good fortune.

Now let’s start talking about saving for 2010.

[You may be saying, “But the year just started!”] That’s right. That’s why this is the perfect time to start socking money away in a special savings account so that you have cash when the holidays roll around next year!

This article at eHow.com has lots of useful advice on getting out of debt incurred from excessive holiday shopping, but, of course, it’s much better to avoid going into debt in the first place.

How can you avoid holiday-related debts? LaToya Irby has written a useful article at About.com with eight suggestions for avoiding holiday debts. Some of her bright ideas include shopping with cash rather than credit (that way you can’t spend more than you have) and focusing on buying gifts for others, not for yourself.

Irby suggests saving well in advance to make sure you have enough cash to buy gifts without resorting to credit cards. If you’re very disciplined with money, you be able to store that cash in your regular savings or checking account, but it might also be useful to open a special (interest-bearing) account devoted just for holiday expenditures or any other special splurges.

Read more about the benefits of this approach in the “Open a Holiday Savings Account” article in the PT Money blog.

Just think—if you set aside $100 a month, you’ll have more than $1,000 for presents and gifts by the time the winter holidays arrive, not to mention a few extra dollars in interest income.

What if you have some extra cash on hand right now? Well, you could take advantage of post-holiday sales and stock up on presents early for next year. Or you could look into buying a short-term three-month or six-month CD. Sites like Bankrate.com let you find the best CD interest rates.

But depending on how much money you’re looking to sock away for the holidays, you may get a better return by looking for special offers that banks sometimes run offering cash bonuses of $100 or so for opening new checking accounts. Just be sure to read all the fine print. Sometimes you’ll need to make a couple of check card purchases (even small ones) within a certain timeframe to qualify for the bonus.

Why does the bonus make sense over the simpler CD or interest-bearing savings account? Well, imagine that you put $1,200 into each account on January 1. With the bonus offer, you get $100 and perhaps spend $2 on little debit card purchases. You then have $1,298 by December 1 for holiday purchases.

With interest rates so close to historic lows, you’d be very lucky to find a CD or interest[-bearing] savings account paying anywhere near 2%. Even with 2% interest, you would only earn around $20 by keeping your $1,200 in the bank until December.

The math works out even better if you can find a deal that lets you open a new account and get the bonus with a small opening deposit such as $100. In that scenario, where you’re […] building up your holiday shopping account incrementally, you’d get much less than $20 at 2% interest, but you’d still get all $100 from the new account bonus, making that clearly the best choice.

And if you don’t end up spending all the money in your holiday spending account? Well, you can easily transfer most of it into your general savings account as a special “Happy New Year” bonus to yourself in 2011!

Have you tried creating a special savings account for holiday purchases? Or do you have some other strategy for maintaining spending discipline around the holidays?

Small-business Advice: Getting Exposure Through Blogs

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Sure, it would be fantastic if your small business was featured on “Good Morning America” or in the pages of People magazine.

But let’s be realistic—the odds of getting covered in such a mass-market publication are low simply because of the massive level of competition for scarce pages or airtime. “Good Morning America”‘s producers need to attract the maximum number of viewers, and if it comes down to a decision between an interview with you or Brad Pitt, well, let’s just say that the bookies won’t be taking bets in your favor.

But, these days, there are lots of other ways to get exposure for your business, especially online, where more and more people are turning to business blogs for information, news and advice.

John Jantsch from Duct Tape Marketing has put together a good article for American Express’s Open Forum called “5 Tips for Getting More Exposure from Bloggers, Tweeters and Fans.”

John shows that with a bit of effort, your odds are good of getting covered in a respected, well-read business blog. One of his best ideas involves using sites like Digg, Stumbleupon and delicious to try to find up-and-coming blogs that aren’t yet inundated with pitches.

When you do find these blogs, John warns against simply firing off a press release and hoping for the best. The Internet is all about interactivity, participation and relationship-building. A far better approach would be to become a regular reader of the blog, subscribe to its RSS feed. If a blogger has a Facebook page, join [his or] her fan group. If a blogger uses Twitter, start following him [or her].

One of the best ways to show a blogger that you are an engaged reader is to make useful comments (not promotional fluff) and help stimulate conversation on [his or] her posts.

Finally, when you have established yourself as a credible and engaged reader, that’s the time to pounce and send along a brief pitch for a story, explaining why your idea would be a perfect fit for the blog and its readers.

Sure, such a strategy takes an investment of time and energy, but it could be worth it to establish yourself as a go-to source for a rising-star blogger. These days, the line is thinner than ever between traditional media and the blogosphere. Bloggers are invited to participate in White House news conferences and cover political campaigns. Blogs sometimes break major news stories that have offline papers scrambling to keep up. And since bloggers have an insatiable need for content, getting known as a valuable source of good story ideas could lead to extensive ongoing coverage for yourself and your business.

Also note that blog exposure can be especially valuable for companies that sell products or services direct to consumers via the Internet. A consumer reading a blog that mentions you or your company is just a few clicks away from making a purchase…

Have you had any luck getting exposure or sales through a blog? If so, what strategies did you employ to get noticed?