Legal is Better than Illegal

Today's Washington Times reports that a brand new poll it conducted with Fox 5 and Rasmussen revealed that, "77 percent of the adults surveyed opposed making driver's licenses available to illegal aliens."

Small business owners are being beat up by the mainstream media because it assumes that we are guilty, guilty, guilty of hiring illegals to earn obscene profits. I am sure that this happens but it is not standard operating procedure for those of us who are striving to deliver quality over the long haul.

The owners who play by the rules always win in the end. Laurie Snyder partners with specific sewing shops in Los Angeles because she can trust that everyone is working in the US legally. Learn more about Laurie at Small Business School.

Union Turns Writers Into Wimps

What a bunch of crybabies. I heard one Hollywood writer on the radio this morning and he made me laugh. He was whining like a four-year old who thinks she has a right to dessert every night. Any person who turns their life over to the Writers Guild of America, or any union, ought to know that their life is no more their own. They exchange their freedom for a paycheck. These are the wimps of the country and sadly the wimps are gaining on those of us who create the real prosperity.

These pitiful wimps don't understand how money works. This particular set of wimps ought to look at how our governor got rich. Early on in his acting career Schwarzenegger stopped thinking of himself as an actor and started thinking of himself as a partner in movie deals. His job on the deal was partly to act but the partnership meant he got no paycheck for the work; he only shared in the profits when and if they materialized.

Pay-for-performance, not pay-for-hanging around, is the way most small business owners run their business and certainly it is the only way we pay ourselves. If our idea works we get rich. If our idea fails, we go back and work on the idea and try again. If you're tired of being a wimp, you can change. Take inspiration from the owners of Renegade Animation. They used to get a paycheck but now they write them.

Being Green Goes Deeper than Cause Marketing

I grew up in San Diego, which we all know is a desert, and my parents had moved there from Louisiana which is a very watery place. My father was the original environmentalist as he was always knocking on the bathroom door telling us to save water for our children. I think he was panicked that there wouldn't be enough water in San Diego to last his own lifetime.

We small business owners should tap into the trend to use green efforts as a marketing ploy but those of us who have succeeded over the years at business are like my dad. We know that being conservative with every resource is at the core of earning profits.

I don't like being told by out-of-work old and young hippies and people who get a paycheck from my tax dollars (that includes every public school teacher from first grade through graduate school who are busy trying to convert our children to the empty religion of environmentalism) that there should be some law to tell me how to conserve resources in the process of running my business. Our customers and our common sense will guide us as we work to make our world a better place when we leave it than when we arrived.

One of my favorite green business owners is Lupe Fraga. He has an office supply company in Houston and years ago he stopped delivering in cardboard boxes and switched to sturdy bins he can use over and over again. You can learn more about him at Small Business School.

The Hillary Brand is Not Selling

My first sales teacher was Emory Rose. I was 29 years old and he was at least 70. He taught me that people will buy from you only when they like you, trust you, believe you and understand you.

Maureen Dowd wrote today that the while Hillary's staff called her tough after this week's debate, "she can break, just like a little girl, when male chauvinists are rude enough to catch her red-handed being slippery and opportunistic." What is she then, tough like a man or soft like a woman? I wouldn't buy a hot dog from someone called slippery and opportunistic. Hillary breaks all of the Emory Rose rules of selling. On top of that, her brand is tired, worn, tattered and torn.

Look back at the advice of Emory Rose in reverse order. He said that people will buy from you only if they like, trust, believe and understand you. If you are a small business or a new business or if you are selling a brand new product, start by making sure people understand you by crafting your message clearly. If people can understand you then they might try your product so they now believe you and they get real results so now they trust you and over time they come to like you.

One of the best brands in America is Cindy McIntee's little chain of restaurants called Mo's Chowder. You can see for yourself why people like her, trust her, believe her and understand her. Here she is at Small Business School.

Choose the Right Name

We just spent a couple of days with one of our favorite business owners, Cindy White. In 2002 she bought a company called, Estelle. It makes handcrafted woven ribbon jackets. The founder's name was Estelle and Cindy didn't think the name was a problem until she started talking to her customers who quickly told her that the name was old-fashioned and certainly out of sync with the direction Cindy has taken the jacket design.

With brainstorming she came up with her new name that is being applauded by everyone around her including a group of business owners who serve as her board of advisers. To attach herself to fashion and some of her suppliers who are French and Italian, she chose the name, Cici Bianca. Cici is term of endearment for her first name and Bianca is one of the ways the Italians spell the word white. Cici Bianca, now that's hot and sassy.

Choosing a name for your business is important.

You can read how others do it at Small Business School.

Charlie Rangel's Tax Plan Is Bad For Us

This week House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., made it clear that he wants to raise our taxes and not in a small way. We small business owners in general have ideas that are bigger than our pocketbook. We are trying to improve our quality, hire another person or invest in new product development which means we struggle with cash flow. It's not that we are poor money managers, its just that we don't like to stand still and rake in cash, we tend to learn forward to raise the bar which consumes cash.

Every penny that we have to give to the government moves us away from our dreams not toward them.

As a way to stay close to public policy, Bruce and I are members of the US Chamber of Commerce Small Business Advisory Council. You can meet some of our fellow council members at Small Business School.

Fires and Floods Were Too Close for Comfort

San Diego is my hometown and we were living downtown when the 2003 wildfires rushed through thousands of acres destroying everything in their paths. This year we are over the mountain in Palm Desert for the Winter and we received calls and emails from friends who were either preparing to evacuate or had already done so.

My sister has been living in New Orleans since she married a native New Orleanian in 1968. Their family business sustained damage while dozens of their friends and customers lost everything in the floods that followed Katrina's attack.

While economists calculate the losses that piled up, I suspect they did not have a clue how to measure the price small business owners had to pay due to lost data. I believe that data is more important than cash to a business owner. So, think hard about protecting your priceless data in the event fires and floods come your way.

You can learn how some owners do this at Small Business School.