Tag: marc joseph

5 Red Flags Signaling the Need for a New Wholesale Supplier

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Every business owner knows the importance of a quality supplier. The supplier forms the very foundation of the business, providing you with a vast selection of quality merchandise, partially determining your profit margin and ensuring your shelves are always stocked. With the wrong supplier, your business will suffer, and keeping your doors open will feel like a perpetual challenge. Here are some signs that your wholesale supplier isn’t a good fit.

  1. Your profit margin is struggling. Settling on an appropriate profit margin is always a challenge for business. You need to keep prices high enough that your own profits are healthy, but prices need to remain low enough to compete with other businesses in the area. If you’re struggling to find a balance that’s conducive to business success, the problem could be your supplier. If your wholesale supplier is charging too much for merchandise, it will be impossible to maintain healthy profits while ensuring your prices are reasonable for customers. You need a wholesaler who puts your profits first by offering the lowest prices possible on high-quality merchandise.
  2. Your customers are complaining. Have you noticed an increase in customer complaints? If customers are routinely expressing concern over the quality of your merchandise, then you may need to find a new wholesale supplier. A great supplier is one that provides excellent merchandise at fair prices, and if customers are regularly irritated at the lack of quality, then this is a major red flag.
  3. Your shipments are late. To operate a business successfully, you need to streamline your inventory management so supplies are always ordered on time and always arrive when needed. If your shipments arrive late, it throws off countless aspects of business, making it difficult for employees to do their job and leaving a bad impression on customers. A shipment may be late every once in a while if items are out of stock or if weather is bad; however, if your shipments are perpetually arriving late, it may be time to find a new supplier who takes their deadlines seriously.
  4. They’re calling all the shots. As a business, you are the supplier’s customer, and it’s their job to take you seriously. You need a supplier who’s willing to work with you and can continually meet the commitments they’ve signed up for. If they’re routinely out of stock of the items you need, if their pricing is constantly fluctuating, or if their shipments are inconsistent, this is a huge red flag that the supplier isn’t the right fit for your store.
  5. They offer poor customer service.You need a supplier you can communicate with and that’s available to hear your concerns. You need someone who will perpetually be in contact and update you about the status of your orders. If communicating with your wholesaler feels like pulling teeth, then you’ll end up doing more work than necessary to ensure your shipments arrive as expected. It’s time to find a supplier who offers the customer service you need.

The supplier you choose for your store can greatly improve your ability to operate your business effectively. With the right supplier, you’ll be able to meet your own deadlines more efficiently and remain on top of inventory management. […]

Original article here: http://globalbizcircle.com/wholesale-supplier/

35 Top Experts Share Their Tips for a Winning B2B Content Marketing Strategy

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How do I beat the market with content marketing? What consists a great B2B content marketing strategy? How should I proceed with my content marketing efforts? If you’ve been asking yourself these questions lately, you can stop worrying. We gathered for you the best tips from the biggest global experts. Read, learn, and join the success club!

Define Your Audience

“Developing an effective content marketing plan requires you to clearly define your target audience or ‘buyer persona.’ It’s important to remember that you’re not targeting yourself. Once you have a better understanding of your target audience, you can model them based on different buyer personas.”

—Shane Barker, Independent Digital Strategist, Sprout Social

Target Creatively

“My main tip for B2B content marketing is to not restrict your options to targeting business publications and influencers; everybody is using B2B publications and networks in the same ways, and it is very hard to be heard above the noise. Remember that everybody who has a business is an individual with a life outside of the office, so you can target these people outside of their business roles, whether through social campaigns or wider awareness or brand exercises. It’s about getting the attention of businesspeople in and outside of the office. I believe that this can generate real success; it feels less like a hard sell to the audience, and you have an opportunity to forge a more naturalistic relationship between a brand and its audience this way.”

—Mike Bates, Organic Search Executive, We Are Boutique

Create a Documented Content Marketing Strategy

“Having a documented strategy gets everybody on the same page. One result of this is that your audience is less likely to be confused by inconsistencies in messaging when content creators work without a set of guidelines.”

—Ron Seld, Head of Marketing, Start a Fire

Target the Right Stages of the Marketing Funnel

“Try to choose. When you’re creating your content, when you’re designing the strategy for why you’re going to produce a particular piece, decide what it’s going to help with. Point it at the area of the funnel that is in most need of assistance.”

—Rand Fishkin, Founder, Moz

Create a Content Calendar

“It is a best practice to create a content calendar so you can plan ahead of major events in the year and create a rhythm of content suitable for your audiences. Regular content generally achieves greater results.”

—John Kennedy, Digital Marketing Director, Brands on Digital

Consider Creative Ways to Scale Content Production 

“You’re regularly publishing, blog traffic is increasing, and you’re even seeing a decent amount of conversion. You just need to do more of it. Don’t fret if you can’t justify an increase in headcount because you may be able to tap into other existing resources. Don’t be afraid to republish content that did well in the past. Look at your blog analytics, see what an impact, and republish popular content with a fresh introduction and/or updated links and images. Not only is this now an accepted content strategy practice, it’s a highly effective one that enables you to make the most out of the polished work you put so much time into creating in the first place.”

—Sachin Kamdar, CEO, Parse.ly

Market Before You Launch

“Content marketing can be a powerful tool to fuel B2B product launches. Don’t wait until your product hits the market to create quality content assets and deploy campaigns. Prepare the market for your solution by using content marketing to talk about the problem you are solving, explore current (and perhaps inadequate) solutions, and educate them about unknown or unmet needs. Leverage these campaigns to foster a community and build a key contact list you can reach out to when your offering arrives!”

—Michael Passanante, Senior Director of Marketing, BESLER Consulting

Monitor Your Competition

“If you’re going to play the content game, play to win. To do so, you need to know your enemies. Monitor competitor activities and make sure you’re on top of the latest trends for your industry and your customers’ industry or industries.”

—Rich Missey, Director of SEO, Insureon

Turn Down the Sales, Turn on the Value

“Content marketing is only effective to the extent that it meets some need on the part of the audience it is reaching. That seems logical; however, too often, marketers focus too much on what’s important to them (sales!) and too little on bringing value to their audience. Bringing value equals engagement, which, ultimately, will yield sales. It’s not an immediate process, but it’s a powerful one if done well. If not done well, marketers will fail to engage their audience and, worse yet, turn off those they have connected with. Turn down the sales pitch and turn up the value by gaining a clear understanding of who your audience is (very specifically) and what’s important to them and then finding the connection between what you’re selling and what they value and producing content that connects the two.”

—Linda Pophal, Owner, Strategic Communications

Engage Other Teams in Content Creation

“Involving multiple teams in content creation opens up your blog to new ideas and perspectives. Someone in HR is much more qualified to write about a new skill requirement, while the production team is better at explaining their new product. Involving the company as a whole in your content will make it more real and more enjoyable for the audience.”

—Amanda Dodge, Contributor, Copypress

Write in Conversational Language

“Write the way you would talk to an old friend. You don’t ever have writer’s block in a casual conversation, right? So write the way you would talk. Even better, exaggerate the tone—let yourself be silly. Try to make yourself smile.”

—Joshua Nite, Content Marketing Lead, TopRank Marketing

Resonate Your Customer’s Stories

“Make sure you include detailed customer stories in your content marketing mix. Prospects want to know exactly how your product or service affects their day-to-day working life. This approach resonates much more than claims about product features and benefits. If prospects can ‘feel it’ in the content they read, they will consider it and move closer to buying it.”

—Christopher Fox, Managing Partner, Syncresis

Go Deep

“B2B readers are proud of their knowledge and rightly so. They have invested their lives, their education, their careers and their time into acquiring professional skills. They love it when people speak to them on their level—a deep level. That’s why the B2B content that you produce should go deep.”

—Neil Patel, Co-founder, Crazy Egg

Focus on the Pain

“Understanding customer pain points and their decision-making journey are especially useful, because B2B clients are more savvy about their challenges and often need guidance to help overcome them. Broad-scope content can be a great honey pot and is necessary, but more specific content focused on detailed industry or vertical ‘pain points’ will build more authority amongst customers that take action on your CTAs. Add ‘actionable’ directives that decision makers can apply immediately or a concise picture of benefits they can use to get approval or buy-in from other members in their organization. Solve immediate and common problems with detailed guidance—rinse, repeat.”

—Adam Johnson and Justin Brown, Content Managers, Quote Wizard

Use Content That Converts

“Content marketing is not only about increasing visibility, social shares and traffics that look nice in the statistics. In the end, it’s about generating leads and converting them. That is why you must focus on content that helps you push leads down the funnel, content that makes them sign up for newsletters or free trials, and gives you direct contact to them.”

—Daniel Slomka, Content and Social Media Specialist, Boost the News

Focus on Relevancy

“The problem businesses have in unattractive industries is they can’t easily brainstorm topics. It’s challenging to develop engaging content that centers on things like office chairs, hearing aids or insurance. As such, the temptation can be to create unrelated content just for the sake of gaining backlinks and traffic. Don’t do this. It’s far more valuable to focus on relevant content, even if it doesn’t have link-bait qualities. While it may not provide the same SEO boost as link-bait articles, do you really want to build a faulty foundation of users who don’t make up your target market?”

—Samuel Edwards

Make People’s Life Easier

“Provide value to your audience. Don’t talk about yourself—just give them something you know they’re looking for, something that makes their job easier. This isn’t hard to do, and you should already know what your target clients are looking for. You can use SEO to see what people in your space or businesses in your target audience are searching for, put a list of tools or tips which will help them reach their goals, and do your best to make the content you share as easy to navigate through as possible while spending the time to create high quality ‘11 out of 10’ content.”

—Vincent Magaline, CMO, Rebrandly

Make People Care

“Make sure every single piece of content—email, blog post, what have you—quickly and clearly answers the question, ‘Why do I care?’ This is the key to creating relevance and urgency. Far too many people think making a piece ‘accessible and fun’ means, ‘I can get away with yammering about stuff and amusing myself.’ Nope. Now, granted, that’s not usually B2B’s issue, but if the piece does more to serve your needs than the reader’s or customer’s, then you’re not really helping them at all, and you haven’t created value—and if content has no value, it ain’t content.” 

—Terri Trespicio, Co-founder, Lights Camera Expert

Write P.E.A.C. Content

“P.E.A.C. stands for Practical, Entertaining, Awe-Inspiring and Credible. If you can achieve this, you will build up a reputation for yourself as a producer of great content. Not only will your outreach process be easier since your writing will be providing readers with useful and actionable tips, but it will also be more likely that those you outreach to will continue to read your content in the future. As a result, your content will also get more social interactions and more people linking back to it.”

—Nadya Khoja, CMO, Venngage

Write Guest Posts & Articles

“To boost your B2B content marketing efforts, use contributed articles. Whatever industry you may be in, there are vertical publications who are looking for content. If you have an idea you can pitch for a contributed article, many times these publications will allow to submit an article that may be published on their site and/or in print. This will help you with content marketing, as well as PR and social media (as you may post the article to your social media channels once it appears). You may link to the article from your site, as well, and perhaps even use it in your customer newsletter.” 

—Michelle Garrett, PR Consultant, Garrett Public Relations

Be an Expert

“Carefully plan the topics you are going to present in your content, and make sure they are meaningful to your audience. This is a great approach that allows you to discuss how your product or service can save money, increase the efficiency of production, or streamline tasks. Not only does it provide a chance to introduce your product, it establishes your expert status in the industry. The most important point is to post not only about your own products but other products your target market is sure to find useful. This way, your audience knows you are genuine in your efforts to enhance their business and find you and your company to be trustworthy.”

—Daren Low, Founder, Bitcatcha

Give Back to the Community & to the Audience

“Give back to your customers and the causes they believe in. Our strongest content marketing and social media effort to giving back is through Facebook. We have 248,000 followers. For a B2B business that sells 225,000 general merchandise products, this is quite a following. To create such a following, we give back to our community with a different giveaway each month. We also have a program where any of our customers can designate 5% of their purchase dollars to their favorite charity, and [we’ve] created a free wishlist program for nonprofits to get what they need.”

—Marc Joseph, CEO and President, DollarDays

Don’t Forget the SEO

“My advice is to remember that content marketing is married to modern SEO. You need to optimize both onshore (native to your website) and offshore (published on social media or by a third-party site) content with your SEO keywords, proper link structure, and rich contextual clues such as keyword-named images. Google’s algorithm has shifted significantly in the past decade to favor sites with the highest-quality and most visited content over those that game the system and use tactics such as keyword cramming or landing pages designed only for SEO. Do your research, and consult with your SEO professional before launching any new content marketing strategies.”

—Molly Phillips, Senior Account Manager, Greenroom

Go Video

“Go video. YouTube is more effective than Facebook in generating B2B leads. I’ve long preached the value of video marketing for brands, including B2B. Keep in mind, YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine and is owned by Google, which means greater potential visibility in organic search results. Considering the fact that video also has 5x greater recall than the written word, why tell your complicated B2B story in text when you can tell it with a concise, compelling video?”

—Kent Lewis, President and Founder, Anvil Media

Invest in Content-marketing Software

“As companies continue to invest in content marketing, there is a tremendous opportunity for content marketers to focus on content operations. Selecting the right content-marketing platform can help marketers create more and better content in less time. Once my own company started using our content-marketing platform, we found that we saved 74 minutes of staff time per piece of content produced now that we were no longer emailing Word documents around and trying to track it all on a spreadsheet. For the average company, that kind of inefficiency comes with a very real price tag; companies pay an extra $120,000 per year to produce the same volume of content as firms that invested in workflow software, according to a recent Gleanster Research study. Taking a close look at your content operations is more than worth the effort.”

—Scott Severson, President, Brandpoint

Create Leaderboards

“The best way to engage a B2B audience with easy repeatable content is to create a ‘power 100’ leaderboard of top influencers in the sector. Update it every week, and you can be sure it will become the de facto standard ranking for your industry sector, bringing everyone to your site and content.”

—Toby Beresford, CEO, Rise

Go Where Your Audience is

“You should only focus on social media platforms that you know your audience is using and is generating great results for your business. If Facebook is performing better than Twitter, then shift your time and resources to promoting your content on Facebook. It’s tempting to be on every single platform, but, starting out, focus on the places that will give you the most bang for your buck.”

—Kristian Rivera, Digital Marketing Associate, Fit Small Business

Used Paid Promotion on Facebook

“Use social ads as a way to amplify the reach of your content marketing when you push it out through your social channels. A $10 to $20 boost on Facebook can go a long way.”

—Sujan Patel, Co-founder, Web Profits

Used Paid Promotion on LinkedIn

“A very cost-effective way to get your B2B content into the right hands is to use LinkedIn sponsored-content ads. You can define your audience by title, industry, company size, company name, age, gender and more. Thousands of people will see your content, so you build brand awareness, but you only pay when someone is interested enough to click through. The average cost is about $5 per click. It’s a great tool for B2B content marketers.”

—Judy Schramm, CEO, Pro Resource

Automate Where Possible

“You’re only one person, and you’ve only got 24 hours in a day. Even if you’re highly productive and efficient, automation can help you make even better use of your time by removing bottlenecks and rendering processes infinitely scalable. Automated tools also help your audience—bots might not have the same nuanced touch as a human, but they also never make mistakes like humans do, and they respond far faster.”

—Ben Jacobson, Director, Action Packed Media

Contact Industry Influencers

“Did you mention anyone in your article? If so, send them a link to it. Who are the most influential people in your niche? Contact these people and ask what they think about your article. Who knows? They might even decide to share it with their followers!”

—Daniel Tolliday, Chief Content Officer, B2B Marketer

Link out to Other Websites

“Link out to authoritative websites when referencing research, studies and reports. Linking out to external sites has three main benefits:

  1. “It’s good for SEO. Linking to authoritative websites can improve your own website authority.
  2. “It’s good for UX. When you reference a report, the reader might want to learn more, and a link to that site will improve their experience.
  3. “It builds credibility. By referencing a study, it shows you know your stuff.

“Another benefit of linking is that you can tag them when sharing your content on social media.”

—Steven Macdonald, Digital Marketing Manager, Super Office

Reuse Your Content

“Reuse your content whenever possible to reinforce your message and save time. For example, after you write a blog post, you can use it as an article in your e-newsletter or share it across your social media platforms, or you could take a few of your blog posts that are related to each other and turn them into an infographic. You could even pull a helpful paragraph from a blog post and turn it into a helpful ‘quick tip’ video! By repackaging the same content in different ways, you can generate content that’s a good fit for your brand more efficiently.”

—Emily Sidley, Senior Director of Publicity, Three Girls Media

Create e-briefs

“Create an e-brief from your existing materials. Every organization has a sales sheet or case study or even some general statistics they may use in sales presentations. Put all three together and create an e-brief. Make sure to remove sales-y language, use proper citations for statistics, and make the tone expert and informative for your readers.”

—Anita O’Malley, CEO, Leadarati

Continue to Promote Your Content After the Initial Push

“Most content creators give the content a push on social media just after publishing and usually see a spike in traffic numbers, which then falls away, and they move on to the next task or piece of content, but only a tiny fraction of their social network ever got to see that content. That’s where social scheduling tools come into play—you should be sharing each piece of content regularly on your social networks. Some fear that over-promoting a piece will irritate their followers, but if you do it properly, you should avoid doing that.”

—Alastair McDermott, Technical Director, WebsiteDoctor

Original article here: http://www.boostthenews.com/35-experts-tips-b2b-content-marketing-strategy/

Give Me Shelter

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Homelessness is not a modern phenomenon. The first cases of the homeless in America date back to the 1640s, according to Street News Service. Wars fought between the settlers and Native Americans displaced people on both sides. Back then, people would show up to a town and make a case for why they should be allowed to settle there. In most New England towns, the newcomers would sit before the town fathers and explain how they would pull their weight and not be a drain on everybody else. The people who were denied and told to move on were Catholics, people with physical disabilities, mental disabilities, alcoholics, widows, orphans and the elderly. We ended up with a transient class moving from town to town, so this new world did not offer opportunity for everyone.

When the Industrial Revolution was starting in the 1820s, people were moving from farms into cities, creating a poor urban underclass. [This] led to our first anti-panhandling ordinances, and our jails soon became our shelter system. [I]n 1830, Congress passed [the “Indian Removal Act,”] the first federal policy that caused massive homelessness; [this act] uprooted Native American tribes in the southeast and moved them to Oklahoma. [Workplace injuries during the] Industrial Revolution, [disabilities caused by] the Civil War, [and, then, large-scale displacement as a result of] disasters like the Chicago fire in 1871, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and the massive 1927 Mississippi River flood […] created more homelessness. Then the Great Depression hit in 1929, and massive numbers of homeless people hit the streets like America had never seen before or since.

The same issues that caused homelessness 300 to 400 years ago are still haunting us today. Tragic life occurrences like the loss of loved ones, job loss, domestic violence, divorce, family disputes, depression, untreated mental illness, natural disasters, war, post-traumatic stress disorder and physical disabilities are responsible for a large portion of the homeless. In this land of plenty and this land of opportunity, over 600,000 Americans experience homelessness on any given night, with 138,000 being under the age of 18. According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, the [U.S.] rate of homeless persons is 18.3 per 10,000 people, ranging from 120 in Washington, D.C., to seven in Mississippi. Veterans are at 25.5 per 10,000, with the high again in Washington, D.C., [at] 146 and the low in Virginia, at nine.

[W]e, as a society, need to focus on the homeless children in our communities. Homeless children, as defined by the federal “No Child Left Behind” program, include not just those living in shelters or transitional housing, but also those sharing the housing of other persons due to economic hardships; [those] living in cars, parks, [or] bus or train stations; [and those] awaiting foster care placement. According to NBC News, the National Center for Homeless Education reported local school districts have 2.5 million homeless children […] in public schools, [or] one in 30. […] Of [this total], 76,000 homeless students are living on their own and […] exchange sex for food, clothing, shelter and other basic needs, [and] 75% percent of [these adolescents] have either dropped out or will drop out of school. […]

America has not been able to solve the homeless problem for close to 400 years. What would make us think we can solve it now?

Throughout our history, we have learned that homelessness cannot be solved by the government alone, especially in times of government gridlock and lack of funds. This is a major issue that affects all of us, and, at this time of year, it involves the classmates of our kids. This is truly a local issue causing hardships on our […] schools.

There are many ways the average citizen can help out, either by volunteering their time or donating their money. The Covenant House opens up its doors to help homeless youth in 27 cities. Safe Horizons helps out children and families. Stand up for Kids helps get our children off the streets, and Move for Hunger helps feed them. […]

We all suffer when we allow our neighbors to go homeless, even for just one night. Our society suffers when we deny any of our children a good night’s sleep and a nourishing meal. With the limitless potential that many homeless youth have to make a lasting positive contribution to our communities, whether it is in science, humanities or sports, we cheat not only them but ourselves by not allocating dollars, either in taxes we collect or the disposable income we can spare. Every child should have a shot at attaining our American dream. This is not a political or religious issue; it is a moral issue that our entire society must embrace. With a little help from all of us, these 600,000 Americans can find shelter for another night.

Original article here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marc-joseph/give-me-shelter_b_11297282.html

5 Products That Can Reduce Your Environmental Impact

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Environmental awareness has become more prevalent in recent years as people become increasingly concerned with global warming, water scarcity and the depletion of fossil fuels. Whether out of concern for the environment or a desire to save money, decreasing your impact on the Earth offers numerous benefits. There are countless ways to ease your environmental impact and reduce monthly spending simply by switching out some common products in your home for their sustainable counterparts.

  1. Compact fluorescent lightbulbs. Compact fluorescent lightbulbs are considerably more energy efficient, and they can drastically cut down on the energy consumption of your home and office. Not only will it result in a cost savings for you—about $57 in energy expenses per bulb—but it will allow you to reduce your environmental impact, as well.
  2. Biodegradable trash bags. Each year, 5.3 million to 14 million tons of plastic enter the oceans and landfills of our planet, polluting the Earth with ecologically harmful materials that pose a danger to wildlife and aquatic ecosystems. By switching out your regular trash bags for biodegradable trash bags, you’ll be reducing landfill waste by about two to three bags per week, or 100 to 150 bag per year.
  3. Water-saving showerhead. It’s estimated that about 0.007% of all water on Earth is available to fuel and nourish the growing human population. With many areas of the world becoming increasingly arid and major droughts plaguing much of the United States, water scarcity is a pressing concern. A water-saving showerhead can reduce your water consumption considerably. On average, a person uses about 6,000 gallons of water for showering each year. With the right showerhead, you can cut that number in half, saving 3,000 gallons of freshwater annually. In addition to saving water, you’ll also be saving about $32.50 per year due to decreased water expenses.
  4. Reusable shopping bags. We’ve all heard of “plastic island,” the large conglomeration of trash that’s floating around in the ocean and has already surpassed the size of Texas. The average U.S. family uses about 1,500 plastic shopping bags a year, which, with the help of reusable bags, can be completely eliminated.
  5. Recycled paper products. The global demand [for] paper is rapidly growing, even as technology usage increases. In fact, global demand has increased by 400% in just 40 years, with 35% of the world’s trees being cut down and milled for paper. […] Deforestation impacts local ecosystems, contributes to global warming, and requires considerable energy consumption to cut, mill and manufacture the trees. By using paper products [composed of] recycled materials, you can make a dent in energy consumption and reduce your reliance on deforestation. With recycled tissues, toilet paper, stationary and more, there are countless ways to improve the energy efficiency of your home.

There has long been an emphasis on going green for people and businesses alike. Going green allows a person to considerably reduce their own environmental impact while also reducing their monthly expenses. A simple switch of your lightbulbs and showerheads can help you save a few hundred dollars per year while also promoting healthier and more sustainable lifestyle habits.

Visit DollarDays.com to explore a range of sustainable, energy-efficient and biodegradable products that will enable you to reduce your environmental impact.

Original article here: http://globalbizcircle.com/5-products-can-reduce-environmental-impact/

DollarDays & the Walmart Supply Chain

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Marc Joseph is the founder of DollarDays, the premier online wholesaler that helps small businesses compete against larger enterprises and [assists] nonprofit organizations [in finding] the products they need to support their causes. DollarDays offers more than 225,000 high-[value] products at wholesale and closeout prices.

Mr. Joseph has helped build some of America’s most known retail stores, including Federated Department Stores, Bill’s Variety Stores, Everything’s A Dollar Stores and Crown Book Stores. Most recently he started a chain of hair salons in Arizona and built it up to 11 stores before selling them to devote full-time to DollarDays. He is the author of the book, “The Secrets of Retailing…or How to Beat Walmart.”

In this interview, Marc Joseph breaks down his powerful company, DollarDays, and the Walmart supply chain.

Original video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF2lpzYAOts&amp=&feature=youtu.be

Why America Loves Dollar Stores

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American families have tightened their belts in the current economy, and they’re looking to smart sources for products they need to run their homes. The dollar store has answered the call, and many Americans are routinely shopping at these venues for great savings—and the feeling of pride in being penny-wise.

“I routinely visit my local dollar store for everything from shampoo to paper goods to dish towels,” Carole Purcell, 52, of Baltimore, Md., told LifeZette. “I have always liked dollar stores for value on certain items. You’re not cheap—you’re smart if you shop at a dollar store. While I wouldn’t buy bath towels there, I would certainly buy many things that just two years ago I never would have.”

Dollar-store stocks are surging in response to America’s steady patronage, according to CNBC. Dollar Tree stock hit an all-time high last Wednesday, and the day before, Dollar General hit a record high for the company. Investors may look for safer stocks during a turbulent time in the stock market, and dollar-store stocks are just the right fit.

Retail analyst Joseph Feldman of the Telsey Advisory Group told CNBC, “We’re favorable on both stocks. We like dollar-store space. It’s a bit of a safer trade.”

Have the American family’s spending habits really changed that measurably in the wake of President Obama’s disastrous economy? Apparently so.

“The true underlying reason why both store segments are growing faster than retail in general is the economy and the backlash of the recession we all just experienced,” Marc Joseph, CEO of America’s Suppliers, Inc., of Scottsdale, Ariz., said. America’s Suppliers sells over 225,000 products to the nation’s discount and specialty stores.

“Middle-class America was forced to shop differently to save money, and even though we are recovering today, the experience Americans had when forced to shop the dollar-store industry was not a bad one,” Joseph said. “They learned that private-label products do perform as well as branded goods, so even though they may have a few more dollars in their pockets today, they liked getting a deal—and that is why they continue to support the dollar-store industry.”

Feldman of Telsey Advisory Group told CNBC that Dollar General has begun rolling out new store formats and more efficient single-line checkouts to their locations. They’re also expanding their refrigerated and frozen-food selection in the hopes of becoming an even more desirable shopping destination to lower- and middle-income shoppers, he said.

Dollar Tree, said Feldman, is also expanding its brand after buying Dollar General’s main competitor, Family Dollar, last year. Everything in Dollar Tree literally costs just one dollar—as opposed to Dollar General, which is a multi-price point selection of products.

“In my opinion, we’re not seeing a recovery, and people are still feeling pressure on their discretionary income, so they will continue to shop to save.”

Daniel Celia, President and CEO, Financial Issues Stewardship Ministries

“I have been unemployed for a year-and-a-half, and I routinely shop for our family at dollar stores,” a Massachusetts 52-year-old husband and father of two college-age kids said. “I don’t have pride about it—you do what you have to do, and, honestly, a lot of the products are every bit as good as the name brands.”

Despite President Obama’s words about an improving jobs picture, […] some economists think the employment situation is dire. That’s partly because of the sluggish participation rate, which actually fell 0.2% to 62.8% this past April.

Additionally, construction employment rose only a fraction, and the retail sector shed jobs for the first time since December 2014, the Labor Department said on May 6.

“One of the key factors in dollar-store stock is definitely the economy, but not how you might think,” Daniel Celia, President and CEO of Financial Issues Stewardship Ministries of Westtown, Penn., told LifeZette. “The economy has been so weak and consumer spending so cautious that discount stores such as Dollar General are doing very well based on an increasing market share and consumers wanting to shop to save.”

He added, “Right now, the stock is showing two things: consumers needing and wanting to save, which indicates a weaker economy and less consumer confidence, and, as we know, wages continue to decline. The other factor is that in this kind of environment, consumers often change their spending habits [to stores like this], and habit generally sticks well into a real recovery.”

The smart dollar-store franchise has an “a little of this, a little of that” mentality.

“These stores must turn themselves into a treasure hunt, where they carry some basic [everyday] products such as toothpaste and batteries but continue to surround these basic items with products customers don’t necessarily need but will buy because of their novelty,” explained Joseph of America’s Suppliers. “Many of these items are closeouts, which show real value.”

For Celia, the writing on the wall is obvious. “In my opinion, we’re not seeing a recovery, and people are still feeling pressure on their discretionary income, so they will continue to shop to save.”

Original article here: https://www.lifezette.com/2016/07/america-loves-dollar-stores/

Who is Helping the Kids Left Behind?

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America now has 1,571,056 tax-exempt organizations, of which 1,097,689 are public charities, according to Urban Institute. [A]nother 105,030 […] are private foundations, and 368,337 are […] chambers of commerce, fraternal organizations and civic leagues.

Nonprofits accounted for 9.2% of all wages and salaries [last year], 5.3% of U.S. GDP [and reported] $1.74 trillion in revenues. [Approximately] 25.3% of Americans over the age of 16 volunteered for a nonprofit organization [in 2015], [and our nation’s total] volunteer time translates to 8.7 billion hours, which has a value of $179.2 billion.

All of these are big numbers, [s]o why do we still have so many Americans struggling to get by each day? […]

In New York City, there are 23,000 children between the ages of six and 13 [who] live in the city’s homeless […] shelter system. As we all know, homelessness places profound stress on a child’s life. [One] nonprofit, Homes for the Homeless, […] provide[s] a 16-day summer camp at […] Harriman State Park, […] 30 miles outside of NYC, for […] inner-city kids, [many of whom] have never left [the city, let alone] experienced nature up close. It gives these homeless children a chance to escape the stresses of everyday life and engage in healthy activities. What if every town had a program like this?

[In] Cleveland, [which] has a 58.5% poverty rate for children (compared to the national average of 21.1%), [t]he Footpath Foundation was founded by two mothers to help underprivileged and at-risk children by connecting them with positive life experiences. Like [in] NYC, these Cleveland kids are sent to local camps that temporarily help them let go of the pressures of life and begin to feel safe and at peace. […]

When schools close, millions of youths are cut off from access to education and nutritional support systems. This leads to [a] “slide,” [with] students [losing] educational achievements made during the previous year. In 2015, 46% of [students] who applied for summer jobs were turned down, so helping out our youth this summer is crucial.

[The White House has taken notice, and they’ve stepped in with several new initiatives.] The Department of Education [has issued] a grant […] to open five new achievement centers [to house] mentoring program[s] for underserved middle-school students [in Baltimore, Md.; Washington, D.C.; Pittsburgh, Penn.; and Richmond, Va.] The Corporation for National and Community Service [has] committed $15 million to launch Summer Opportunity AmeriCorps, which uses service-learning projects [to enable] 20,000 youth to gain new skills and earn money for college. The Department of Labor, [meanwhile], launched a $20 million grant competition [that provided] young people [in 10 communities] summer and year-round jobs connecting them to career pathways.

Cities are [also] stepping up to help. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced a [plan] to hire 15,000 young people in 2016 through his Hire LA Youth program. This program targets youth from low-income families, families on public assistance, foster youth, youth on probation and homeless youth. Seattle Mayor Ed Murray committed to reach out to 15,000 youth in his community with summer jobs and enrichment. The city will also serve 5,000 children over 200,000 meals and invest in 23 summer learning programs. In Charlotte, Mayor Jennifer Roberts, in a partnership with the Microsoft Charlotte Campus, is holding high-tech camps for 4,000 underprivileged kids. What is your city doing?

[At the national level, Big Brothers Big Sisters is the oldest and largest youth mentoring organization, serving hundreds of thousands of six- to 18-year-old kids. The Boys & Girls Club serves four million young people in 4,100 clubs throughout the country. […] The Children’s Defense Fund was formed to leave no child behind and works [to give] every child […] a healthy start [in life]. Southwest Key is [another] national nonprofit organization that is committed to keeping kids out of institutions and home with their families in their communities. […]

As much as our government and our cities are reaching out to pull the less-fortunate kids up, they are only affecting a small portion of those who need our help. We […] have a vibrant nonprofit system in place to begin to help those children in the most need, [b]ut these nonprofits need our help both financially and as volunteers. Giving is as good for your own soul as it is for the people you help. If you don’t have the cash, do what 25% of Americans do: volunteer to help a nonprofit that helps our youth. Giving your time or giving your hard-earned dollars [has] a rippling effect in our society; [a] single act of kindness can change several lives while helping to reduce the daunting statistics that [are] poverty and lost opportunity in this country.

Original article here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marc-joseph/who-is-helping-the-kids-l_b_10818040.html

Teachers Create Our Future

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All of us have bragged about the great teachers we’ve had who have helped us along in life, but not every teacher is wonderful. Some teachers just don’t strive to improve and help kids.

According to About Education, ineffective teachers share similar characteristics:

  • They lack the ability to manage their classrooms. If they can’t control the students in their classrooms, they won’t be able to teach them effectively.
  • [They] lack real content knowledge. They will quickly lose credibility with their students if they do not know what they are teaching, making them instantly ineffective.
  • [They] lack motivation. [These] teachers do not challenge or stay engaged with their students.
  • [They] lack organizational skills, [making them] unproductive and overwhelmed.
  • [They possess] poor people skills, which affects students, parents, other staff members and administrators [and] can quickly become the downfall of a teacher.

On the other hand, greatly effective teachers:

  • [L]ove to teach and have a passion for teaching young people
  • [D]emonstrate a caring attitude
  • [R]elate to their students one on one
  • [T]hink outside the box
  • [A]re willing to be creative and adaptive to individual needs
  • [A]re proactive rather than reactive
  • [A]re excellent communicators to everyone who surrounds a student
  • [C]hallenge their students to do better

[W]hy would anyone ever want to become a teacher? The budgets for our classrooms dwindle each year, and teachers continue to take money out of their own pockets to provide their students with supplies. [S]chools are getting older, and fewer new schools are being built annually. Based on the school shootings over the last few years, teachers must now worry every day about the security of their students and themselves. […]

[Despite] these [concerns], teachers continue to inspire, and new, idealist[ic] college graduates are joining their ranks. This year, 284,000 new teachers joined public schools, compared to 222,000 a decade ago, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics. Public schools employed 3.1 million teachers this year, putting the average pupil-to-teacher ratio at 16 to 1, […] the same as it was in 2000. Public school expenditures this year were $634 billion, [or] $12,605 for each student. The […] average [percentage] of high school [students who dropped out fell to] 6.8% […] from […] 10.9% in 2000. The percentage of students enrolling in college in the fall immediately following high school […] is 65.9%; in 1976, it was 48.8%. Looking at the decline in dropouts and the increase in kids starting college, […] our current crop of teachers must be doing something right.

It does pay to stay in school. Today’s working adults age[s] 25 to 34 with a bachelor’s degree earn around $46,900 [annually], while those with an associate’s degree earn around $35,700. High school graduates earn around $30,000 [per year], and the median is $22,900 for those without a high school diploma.

The fact that the United States is ranked the 14th best educational country in the world according to Pearson is a real wake-up call. […] South Korea is ranked first, followed by Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Finland, the United Kingdom and Canada. Pearson found the top-ranked countries offer teachers higher status in society and have a culture emphasizing education. Society’s attitude about education and its underlying moral purpose seems to be stronger in the top-rated countries. […]

It continues to amaze me that people want to become teachers. New teachers make around $36,000 [annually] and can earn $58,000 after 20 years, so striking it rich does not seem to be the reason to pursue this noble career. These teachers have a spirit that the rest of us just don’t possess. This school year, teachers took an average of $513 out of their own pockets for classroom supplies, food for hungry kids in their classes, instructional materials and books for their student. […]

It is up to concerned citizens and parents to make a difference for our kids and give teachers more help. The National Teacher Assistance Organization gathers donations […] for professional assistance to teachers. At Donors Choose, public school teachers post classroom project requests, and you can donate to the project that most inspires you. At Class Wish, you can help fund any teacher in the country. […]

It takes an entire village to bring quality education to the next generation. Our teachers care about their students [and] their neighborhoods, and they want to mold our kids into adults who care about our community. Great teachers start to move the minds of their students along the path of knowledge, preparing them for the journey of life and propelling them into the future of adulthood. Now that teachers are finishing up this school year and preparing for the next, it is up to our legislatures, our community leaders, parents and ordinary citizens to support all of our kids before it is too late. Our teachers have the compassion and willingness to bring our kids back into the top-10-rated countries in the world, [b]ut it is up to the rest of us to realize that a highly educated society means success and prosperity for all. […]

Original article here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marc-joseph/teachers-create-our-futur_b_10325238.html

DollarDays Selected as Finalist for Internet Retailer Excellence Award

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DollarDays, the nation’s leading supplier of wholesale goods to small businesses and nonprofits, has been selected as one of three finalists for B2B E-commerce Marketer of the Year at the prestigious Internet Retailer Excellence Awards.

Internet Retailer‘s panel of judges has selected DollarDays as a contender for this award, which is given to the manufacturer, wholesaler or distributor that makes the best use of a range of online marketing channels, including social networks and blogs, to expand its reach, boost its reputation, and increase website traffic and sales.

“It is DollarDays’ dedication to help small businesses grow, as well as helping nonprofits stretch their dollars, that propelled us into becoming a finalist,” said Marc Joseph, CEO & President at DollarDays. “We are thrilled to be a recognized among such large players in e-commerce, like Amazon, The Home Depot, Nordstrom and Wayfair. It shows our continued efforts to expand our reach through online marketing channels and social media is really making a difference. I want to thank the entire DollarDays team for a job well done.”

The B2B E-Commerce Marketer of the Year award is one of 13 awards Internet Retailer will present to recipients of the inaugural Internet Retailer Excellence Awards on June 8, 2016, in Chicago during the Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition, the world’s largest e-commerce event.

About DollarDays
Founded in 2001, DollarDays is the leading supplier of wholesale goods for nonprofits, businesses and betterment organizations. By sourcing affordable products, backed by exceptional service and meaningful community engagement, we strive to inspire and empower our customers to accomplish their missions to improve the lives of people around the world. Recognized as the City of Phoenix Mayor’s Office “2018 Product Exporter of the Year” and Internet Retailer Magazine’s “B2B E-commerce Marketer of the Year” for 2016 and 2017, DollarDays is headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona. For more information, visit www.dollardays.com.

The Poor Are Getting Poorer

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Today, 83% of people living in poverty are either children, elderly, [disabled], students, [caretakers] or [the unemployed], according to The Washington Post. There are six million families with children living in poverty right here in the United States, [considered the] wealthiest nation in history, which means one in five families are living in poverty. For the U.S.A. to ensure no children grow up in poverty-stricken households, it would cost us $57 billion a year, or $578 [annually for families not living in poverty].

So are [we] all going to pitch in to make this happen? […]

[O]n Jan. 8, 1964, President Johnson declared “an unconditional war on poverty in America.” […] He pledged better schools, better health, better homes, better training and better job opportunities, [as well as] more libraries, public transportation and food relief for the poor. […] The Food Stamp Act was passed in 1964, and the Child Nutrition Act came in 1966. Both Medicare and Medicaid were launched in 1965. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) became a cabinet department in 1965, and the HUD Act of 1965 expanded funding for existing federal housing programs, added rent subsidies for the elderly and disabled, gave housing rehabilitation grants to poor homeowners, had provisions for veterans to make low down payments to obtain mortgages, and set money aside to have community centers constructed in low-income areas. […]

Our poverty level […] in 1964 was one in five families; [o]ur poverty level today [remains] one in five families. The Heritage Foundation reports that since 1964, U.S. taxpayers have spent over $22 trillion on antipoverty programs, [or] three times the cost of all U.S. military wars since the American Revolution. Are we just spinning our wheels?

Nationally, all of these numbers are very scary, [b]ut if you look at it locally, it is even worse. In my own state of Arizona, The Arizona Daily Star reported in April that Tucson’s poorest residents are about to get poorer. Five thousand residences were just notified that the state is taking them off the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and several hundred are losing their Temporary Assistance to Needy Families benefits. [T]he Tucson City Council is [also] voting on reducing funds sent to the Community Food Bank and the Primavera Foundation, which provides pathways out of poverty through safe and affordable housing. […] Primavera reports that over the last couple of years, with their current funding, they could only service 42% of the 3,600 families that needed shelter, and half of those had children. How many more families will now have to suffer because of the city council vote?

It is a given that [the] government is under pressure to curtail their spending, so ordinary citizens and nonprofit organizations need to step in to fill the void, as our poor are getting poorer. Luckily, there are several nonprofits[…] where we can turn […] with our donations and also volunteer to help. The Children’s Defense Fund is a strong and effective independent voice for all children. The Salvation Army […] feeds, clothes and comforts those in the most need. The Gospel Rescue Missions provide social services to help the less fortunate with 300 missions serving 50 million meals and providing 20 million nights of lodging. […]

The numbers of those in need in America are staggering. Our government has no more money to allocate to additional programs. It hurts all of us when our neighbors go hungry or can’t find a place to sleep. Our total society suffers when we deny children a good night’s sleep and a nourishing meal, because they are the future of America. This is not a political or religious issue; it is a moral issue that we all need to embrace.

Original article here: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/marc-joseph/the-poor-are-getting-poor_b_9830104.html