myRetailer.ca

A Booming Business? A Challenging Business? Revelling in Both Seems to be the Answer

Enjoy the business challenges and use your strengths every day.

Owning and operating a small business is not a ‘job’, it truly is a lifestyle. Ask anyone who operates their own company what drives them and you’ll receive a vast array of answers. A common thread in all of them, or at least I would hope, is that every entrepreneur that I know, revels in the challenges of today.

I recently heard an interview with a gentleman, who at 84 years of age, is still working everyday in his car dealership.

When asked why he didn’t just retire and sail into the sunset, he said, “When the car business is good, it’s the greatest thing in the world, and I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. When business is bad, I absolutely love the challenge of making it good again.”

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Unique Shopping and Retail Experiences That Help Differentiate

This past weekend I took my family to Kings Landing Historical Settlement, a local New Brunswick historical park where they served a pancake breakfast with all the maple syrup you could ask for. After the breakfast, patrons lined up for an experience to taste a small sample of maple syrup candy rolled in snow. Never tried one before? It is an old traditional treat that the early settlers would make each spring when the maple sap started to run and maple syrup was in full production.

Last Saturday morning patrons were lined up by the dozens to pay $2 for a small sample of this sweet maple treat. For a small candy treat, that you would probably expect to pay maybe 50¢ for in a store, they were selling literally hundreds for $2 each.

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April 6 – 12

Toronto Encourages Food Business to Grow

Business incubators are growing in popularity across North America. And Toronto, in particular, is a hub for many. The business case is strong: Statistically, 80% of companies that go through an incubator program are still around three to four years after startup. That compares with 25% of startups that go it alone.

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Using Points to Attract Clients, Reward Staff

Increasingly, small businesses keen on maximizing the return for the dollars spent on travel, office and other expenses are turning to corporate credit cards, especially those with rewards attached.

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Optimism Key to Entrepreneurial Heart

Where some people might only see economic upheaval, lost jobs and shrinking retirement savings, the entrepreneur sees opportunity. “I’m not trying to downplay the significance of the changes in the global economy, but the reality is new businesses will still begin, and existing businesses will still make profit,” he says.

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Middlemiss: Consider Renegotiating that Lease

A growing commercial vacancy rate and an eroding economy is bad news for landlords, but for small and medium-sized businesses looking to negotiate or renew their leases, the new economic reality can spell opportunity, say lawyers.

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Failure and Risk

Innovation is the result of taking big leaps, but failure is often the downside of taking those leaps. While media profiles on successful companies have long celebrated how business encourages creative risks and embraces the possibility of failure…

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Photo Credit: Coops Paints, Columbus, Ohio

Think Creatively

Does your advertising stand out? Does your business stand out? Do you stand out?

I took this picture not long ago in Columbus, Ohio. I got so excited about how this paint company really thought outside the box, and created something that stood out among the hundreds of billboards throughout the downtown.

Talk about a company that refuses to colour inside the lines!

Companies don’t always require an original medium to stand out. Quite often a new twist on an old advertising vehicle will do the trick.

How does your company stand out? How much do you try and colour outside the lines?

Andy

P.S. For other creative adveritsing check out the Milky Way Caramel Seat Belts and the Batman Returns Batbus.

Long-Term Planning and Outlook

How are you going to get to your destination if you don’t know where you’re going?

Your business may be brimming with success, but if you don’t have a goal, where is your business going? Before you can set out to go anywhere, you must first have a plan.

Do you know where you’re going to be one year from now? How about five years from now? What about 20 years? If you don’t know where you’re going with your business, how do you know which direction to head in the coming year?

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