Globalization and The Global Value Chains

Beyond North America: The New World of Global Value Chains
If you’re looking for new export opportunities, consider doing business in high-growth markets such as Brazil, Russia, India, China, Mexico, Gulf Cooperation Council, Vietnam, Chile, and South Africa.

EDC has developed a step-by-step guide that will help you through the exporting process and provide a primer on the most promising new markets for Canadian goods and services. To learn more about the Global Value Chains, Click Here:

Virtual Office--a 24/7 office space

Virtual Office a Real Success.

November 2008

By Entrepreneurship Expert Roger Pierce.

When small businesses need presence in major centres - but can't justify the overhead - a virtual office is often the preferred workplace solution. Virtual offices are shared spaces available for temporary use, with all the amenities of a real office. With premium locations and à la carte services, Intelligent Office (www.intelligentoffice.com) offers small businesses, consultancies, and start-ups a prime address and all the services they need - in an easy, cost-efficient, 24/7 solution.

Intelligent Office is a prestigious franchise of virtual offices with locations across North America. Brian Monteith, president of Intelligent Office in Canada, purchased one franchise in 2005, saw the success, and purchased the master rights to sell Intelligent Office franchises throughout Canada in 2006.

To promote the business, Brian advertises extensively on radio. He buys radio time with his Visa® Business Card. "It's more convenient than writing cheques. I earn points and defer the payment to the end of my card's invoice cycle. There is a huge upside to using my Visa Business card," says Brian.

Brian also uses his Visa Business Card for traditional expenses such as travel. "Because we're selling franchises across Canada I travel a lot. The card makes it easy to book hotels, travel, and entertainment." Then, when the statement arrives at the end of the month, it's used to reconcile the books. "The organization of the statement into categories like restaurants, entertainment, and travel shows me where I'm spending my money and helps with accounting."

Intelligent Office started in Boulder, Colorado in 1995. Clients can use Intelligent Office locations at over 50 locations across North America. With a complete menu of services and anytime-access to their offices, clients enjoy a complete office solution customized to their needs.

The remote reception services are particularly popular. Intelligent Office has up to 8 receptionists working at their call center at one time so that clients and their customers always get personal service. Receptionists will answer and screen a call, announce the call, and direct it anywhere in the world. If you're a home-based business, reception services give callers the appearance of a fully staffed office.

Intelligent Office helps small business avoid leases, equipment, and staff with a quality location and support at a fraction of the cost. The virtual office is an alternative to consider.

Exporting---key to survival and growth

SBA Says: Small Business, Wholesaler Exporting Declining

Exporting, while a bright spot in the U.S. economy, is something that small businesses and wholesalers still need to work on, according to a Small Business Administration report.

“Small businesses have often ignored the international marketplace because they could,” the report stated.”In a globalized economy, more and more small firms will need to consider export opportunities as an important key to survival and growth.”

In ten years, from 1996 to 2006, the total value of exports nearly doubled, from $500.7 billion to $910.5 billion. But within that same time period, the share of small businesses decreased from 31.1 to 28.9 percent, according to the report. The declining share of wholesalers became even more pronounced, dropping from 74.1 percent to 53.6 percent.

And while the weakened dollar helped make U.S. goods and services more competitive in the global market, the administration’s call for small business contributions is still timely. After all, the United States still faces a $560 billion trade deficit, and its consummation of imports continues to grow faster than real GDP.

“To shrink the trade deficit with the rest of the world, it will be important to either curtail the growth of real imports or to encourage rapid increases in real exports or both,” the administration said in the report. “A cheaper dollar helps, but the solution lies within finding new markets for American goods and services.”

Wholesalers have proven before that they can drive growth in U.S. exports and with this, the economy as a whole. After declining with the economy during the 2001 recession, the number of exporters rose back to peak levels by 2006. Wholesalers contributed to 51.0 percent of these exporters with fewer than 20 employees, whose value added up to $21 million.

Small businesses are also especially important, because they are more likely than large firms to create innovative goods and services, according to a cited study by Acs, Morck and Yeung.

For more information, call 202-205-6533 or read the report.

Filed under: exporting, SBA, small business

Small Business Marketing

How To Assess Your Marketing Options

By KERN LEWIS, FORBES.COM

You only have so much to spend. Better prioritize.

Getty Images

Marketing in the digital age offers entrepreneurs a bewildering array of enticing tools. But how to test them all with limited resources?

Answer: Only pursue the ones that align most closely with your strategic marketing plan. If you don't have a plan, prepare to blow a lot of precious cash on cool ideas that promise the world and deliver little -- not because they are bad ideas, but because they are bad ideas for your company.

Here are three rules of thumb for assessing your marketing options.

Build on Your Believers
Your typical customer deserves the lion's share of your marketing effort. That may sound obvious, but plenty of small businesses run aground casting about for any customers they can find while never establishing a reputation with one loyal group. Targeting is the difference between marketing as expense and marketing as investment.

I once had a client who received a great review in a local newspaper. He wanted to mail reprints to 100,000 "likely prospects" who had never heard of his company. I eventually talked him out of wasting what would have been $70,000 chasing those phantom customers.

Instead, we pasted excerpts from the review all over his electronic communications to past clients and known prospects, and we posted a link to the article on his Web site. Meantime, everyone in the company was encouraged to share the "good news" (and the link) with all their contacts. This strategy put the article in front of 100,000 people at a fraction of the cost of that broad snail-mail blast. Better yet, we could more easily measure the response rate on our targeted campaign.

The same focused approach goes for marketing to other businesses. For example, do you define decision makers versus order-takers within each target company? Both are useful to cultivate, but they require different approaches if you want to get the highest return on each marketing dollar.

Only Tackle What You Can Manage
You don't have to embrace every marketing fad in the book to look au courant to your customers. Yes, electronic marketing tools are very powerful -- but only if they're kept up to date.

Blogging is a great example. Blogs are cheap to set up, but they take huge effort to update on a consistent basis. Manage a blog poorly, and you will disappoint your customers. If you are in the business of offering sage advice (say, on insurance, financial planning or accounting), a blog makes sense and could be your main marketing tool. If you are in manufacturing, more traditional forms of customer service may suffice to keep clients engaged and feeling valued.

Social networks are another increasingly popular tool. But these, too, require a fair amount of administration. Would those hours and dollars actually boost awareness and, ultimately, revenues? For many small companies, the answer is no.

In making these calculations, remember that you also have to allot enough resources to spruce up your outgoing electronic communication. All prospects expect to interact with sellers and advisers online these days -- make sure they admire the cut of your digital jib.

Take All Vendor Advice With a Boulder of Salt
There are literally thousands of marketing agencies out there that buy media, optimize your Web site so it can be found more easily by Google and Yahoo! and promise to bring you "better quality leads," among other services. Keep track of these shops, but tune out their blandishments. Focus instead on establishing a rigorous marketing plan, complete with a set of firm priorities. That way, by the time you invite vendors to pitch their wares, you control the conversation by drilling down on what you need, not what they are selling.

Remember: Your plan should dictate the solution. The reverse is a recipe for failure.

Money for Entrepreneurs

Banks Eye Entrepreneurs

By DENNIS ROMERO, ENTREPRENEUR.COM

Loans, even some of those elusive TARP funds, are available. Just think regional banks and smaller.

Stockbyte

The economy might be on life support, but news about the death of business loans isn't telling the whole story. Some institutions, in fact, are doubling down when it comes to extending entrepreneurial credit lines. Some are even tapping some of that controversial Troubled Asset Relief Program money to help out clients in need of a little liquidity boost.

It's true that many big banks are against the ropes. More than a few got caught up in subprime home loans, derivatives and other real estate side bets that are virtually worthless. A January Federal Reserve Board survey found that 65 percent of banks it polled continued to tighten lending standards for commercial and industrial clients. But the survey also found that demand for such credit is down, the credit tightening is less severe than in October, and distaste for home loans has prompted "an increase in the extension of new commercial real estate loans" among 15 percent of responding institutions.

A safer bet than visiting a major bank, hat-in-hand, is to query your regional lending institution. Many have avoided the subprime mess and are sitting on liquid -- lendable cash. Some have even taken a sliver of that federal TARP rescue money specifically to do what Congress and the U.S. Treasury intended: Give entrepreneurs and the American economy an injection of greenbacks in the form of business loans.

"We're entering an era when specialized institutions and community banks are the go-to source for small business," says Chris Hurn, CEO of Mercantile Commercial Capital in Altamonte Springs, Fla.

Mercantile is not a bank. Rather it's a financial services corporation that focuses on administrating and supplementing the SBA's 504 loan program. With the help of the SBA, Mercantile can offer entrepreneurs a loan on 90 percent of the value of a commercial property, with terms as long as 25 years and interest rates in the 5 percent range.

"Office buildings and industrial warehouses, day-care facilities, restaurants and hotels" are game, Hurn says. "We don't do many investor projects with speculation. We don't do multi-family residential. We don't do gigantic development projects. Our niche is generally half a million to $7 million projects."

The institution's pitch, Hurn says, is to wean business owners off money-losing leases and rents. "I finance people who go from leasing a facility to owning," he says. "It's a wealth-building strategy."

At a time when troubled big banks are trimming their small-business loan departments to benefit their own troubled balance sheets, Hurn is concerned that the federal government isn't cultivating economic growth where it could count the most -- at the entrepreneurial level.

"There have been about 300 lenders get out of the SBA loan business" -- many that have taken TARP money, Hurn says. "It compounds the problem when we know that small businesses lead us out of recession. They're making the situation worse than it needs to be. Rather than strengthen the success of sectors like small business, we've got a government philosophy that says we need to prop up failure."

So don't expect Mercantile to prop up just any mogul-in-training. Most willing lenders are survivors of this mess specifically because they've been wary about who gets their legal tender. You can bet your bottom dollar that they're not about to weaken their lending criteria in this climate. But if you have good credit, if your business shows positive cash flow and if you have collateral such as property, you can probably get a loan.

Hurn says he asks one question when evaluating a potential customer: "Is there enough capital spun off by a company to cover the debt on the loan?"

"It's not that complicated," he says. "We look at tax returns, we take rent, profits, we look at non-cash expenses; add all that, and that gives an idea of the capital spun off on the business. We compare that to the annualized debt on the loan. Say the business spins $1.20 for every dollar of debt payments. If it's that or higher, chances are we'll approve the loan. We'll also look at credit scores and make sure you're a good boy or girl."

At Sterling National Bank the story's much the same: Those who wouldn't have gotten a loan before the markets' collapse in the fall still won't get one now. Still, the bank recently took $42 million in TARP funds, and president John C. Millman says "for every dollar we took in from the Fed, we could leverage 8 to 10 times that." Half of the TARP cash it has will go to new clients, he adds.

"We have lots of liquidity," Millman says. "But we saw it as a once-in-a-lifetime window to access more new clients."

Sterling's lending policy is conservative, too. Restaurants and construction companies are out of luck here.

"All of our clients are entrepreneur-owned, and we require personal guarantees," Millman says. "We have not changed how we lend. There's an effort to redouble our underwriting and our caution."

California Bank & Trust didn't get into the subprime real estate mess, and now it has plenty of money to lend, including TARP-backed funds. Its parent, Salt Lake City-based Zions Bank, took $1.4 billion in TARP money, with some of it -- including lines that range from less than $100,000 to a recent record-setting loan of $19.5 million -- flowing through the West Coast institution.

Senior vice president Steve Borg says it's important for the California institution's bottom line to keep lending: Many recession-wary business owners are concentrating on paying down debt, making it hard on banks that depend on interest for profits.

"Some businesses are paying down and paying off their debts," Borg says, "so it's important for us to keep the lending machine lending."

Indeed, while major banks focus on balance sheets, the leaders of some small, regional and midsize institutions want to make it clear that entrepreneurial lending is the lifeblood of American business. They want to keep it flowing.

"I think that's where the economic turnaround is going to come from -- small business," says Sterling head Millman. "It drives employment. The turnaround is going to come from the bottom of the economy, not from the big companies at the top."

Canada Consumer Prices Slight Rise

Consumer prices in Canada rose just 1.1 per cent in January, compared to a year earlier, and analysts say prices will likely slide in the near future.

20/02/2009 10:28:05 AM

CTV.ca News Staff

The 1.1 per cent increase is lower than the 1.2 per cent jump reported in December, reflecting price decreases for transportation items, which outweighed higher prices for food.

Economists had expected the consumer price index to rise 1.2 per cent in January.

"This is a softer than expected report, and suggests that not only is growing economic slack taking prices broadly lower, but also that the impact of the weaker Canadian dollar, which would otherwise push inflation higher, is not a formidable force," Charmaine Buskas, senior economics strategist at TD Securities, said Friday according to The Globe and Mail.

Statistics Canada, which issued the report Friday, said lower gasoline costs were the main factor preventing consumer prices from rising higher.

In January, gas prices dropped by 23.5 per cent, compared to the same time one year ago.

The cost of purchasing and leasing passenger vehicles - which fell by 8.2 per cent -- also helped push the index down.

Douglas Porter, deputy chief economist at BMO Nesbitt Burns, said inflation will likely decline even more in the near future.

"With the economic downturn gathering force and commodity prices still reeling, inflation is poised to move decisively lower in the months ahead," Porter said in a Friday note.

Statistics Canada said some upward pressure on the all-items index came from higher food and shelter costs.

Food prices increased 7.3 per cent during the 12-month period to January, identical to the increase in December.

"Bakery and cereal products and fresh vegetables exerted upward pressure on the food index," the report said.

Shelter costs were also a significant upward contributor, rising 3.3 per cent in the 12 months to January.

Excluding food and energy, seasonally adjusted consumer prices decreased 0.2 per cent in January.

Here's the annual inflation rates in the provinces and territories (Previous month in brackets):

• Newfoundland and Labrador 0.9 (1.2)
• Prince Edward Island -0.1 (0.0)
• Nova Scotia -0.1 (-0.2)
• New Brunswick -0.5 (-0.6)
• Quebec 0.5 (0.5)
• Ontario 1.4 (1.5)
• Manitoba 1.4 (1.9)
• Saskatchewan 2.4 (2.6)
• Alberta 1.2 (1.9)
• British Columbia 1.4 (1.2)
• Whitehorse, Yukon 2.4 (3.0)
• Yellowknife, N.W.T. 2.7 (3.1)
• Iqaluit, Nunavut 3.3 (3.4)

Economic Stimulus in Canada

Canada's Economic Action Plan

The Home Renovation Tax Credit

Home renovations are smart investments in the long term value of a home and also create economic activity by increasing the demand for labour, building materials and other goods. Renovations can also reduce energy consumption and the long-term cost of owning a home.

To provide some $3 billion of much-needed fiscal stimulus and encourage investments in Canada’s housing stock, Budget 2009 proposes to implement a temporary Home Renovation Tax Credit (HRTC).

Temporary, Timely and Targeted Stimulus

The HRTC will apply to eligible home renovation expenditures for work performed, or goods acquired, after January 27, 2009 and before February 1, 2010, pursuant to agreements entered into after January 27, 2009. The temporary nature of the credit will provide an immediate incentive for Canadians to undertake new renovations or accelerate planned projects.

The HRTC can be claimed for renovations and enduring alterations to a dwelling, or the land on which it sits.

How the HRTC Will Work

The 15-per-cent credit may be claimed on the portion of eligible expenditures exceeding $1,000, but not more than $10,000, meaning that the maximum tax credit that can be received is $1,350.

The credit can be claimed on eligible expenditures incurred on one or more of an individual’s eligible dwellings. Properties eligible for the HRTC include houses, cottages and condominium units that are owned for personal use.

Renovation costs for projects such as finishing a basement or re-modelling a kitchen will be eligible for the credit, along with associated expenses such as building permits, professional services, equipment rentals and incidental expenses.

Routine repairs and maintenance will not qualify for the credit. Nor will the cost of purchasing furniture, appliances, audio-visual electronics or construction equipment.

Who Can Claim the HRTC?

About 4.6 million families in Canada are expected to benefit from the credit.

Taxpayers can claim the HRTC when filing their 2009 tax return.

Eligibility for the HRTC will be family-based. For the purpose of the credit, a family is generally considered to consist of an individual, and where applicable, the individual’s spouse or common-law partner.

Family members will be able to share the credit.

How to broaden your customer base

A sure-fire way to broaden your customer base is to welcome everyone to your store, restaurant or services, including customers with disabilities. Thus, accessibility is not just the right thing to do --- it is the smart thing to do. Read more:

Crude oil price vs. gas price---a market controversy

Crude oil is getting cheaper _ so why isn't gas?

AP - Sunday, February 15, 2009 12:31:21 PM

By CHRIS KAHN and JOHN PORRETTO

AP

Crude oil prices have fallen to new lows for this year. So you'd think gas prices would sink right along with them.

Not so.

On Thursday, for example, crude oil closed just under $34 a barrel, its lowest point for 2009. But the national average price of a gallon of gas rose to $1.95 on the same day, its peak for the year. On Friday gas went a penny higher.

To drivers once again grimacing as they tank up, it sounds like a conspiracy. But it has more to do with an energy market turned upside-down that has left gas cut off from its usual economic moorings.

The price of gas is indeed tied to oil. It's just a matter of which oil.

The benchmark for crude oil prices is West Texas Intermediate, drilled exactly where you would imagine. That's the price, set at the New York Mercantile Exchange, that you see quoted on business channels and in the morning paper.

Right now, in an unusual market trend, West Texas crude is selling for much less than inferior grades of crude from other places around the world. A severe economic downturn has left U.S. storage facilities brimming with it, sending prices for the premium crude to five-year lows.

But it is the overseas crude that goes into most of the gas made in the United States. So prices at the pump will probably keep going up no matter what happens to the benchmark price of crude oil.

"We're going definitely over $2, and I bet we'll hit $2.50 before spring," said Tom Kloza, publisher and chief oil analyst at Oil Price Information Service. "This is going to be an unusual year."

On the last day of 2008, gas went for $1.62 on average, according to the auto club AAA, the Oil Price Information Service and Wright Express, a company that tracks transportation data.

The recession in America has dramatically cut demand for crude oil, and inventories are piling up. So prices for West Texas crude have fallen well below what oil costs from places like the North Sea, Saudi Arabia and South America.

That foreign oil sells in some cases for $10 more per barrel -- and that doesn't even include shipping.

Brent North Sea crude, which feeds some East Coast refineries -- and therefore winds up at many gas pumps around America -- now costs about $7 more per barrel than the West Texas crude. Deutsche Bank

analysts say the trend should continue.

Historically, West Texas International crude has cost more. So nobody bothered building the necessary pipelines to carry it beyond the nearby refineries in the Midwest, parts of Texas and a handful of other places.

Now that the premium oil is suddenly very inexpensive, refiners elsewhere can't get their hands on it.

"It's so cheap," said Lynn Westphall, the senior VP of external affairs at San Antonio-based Tesoro, which owns a half dozen refineries on the West Coast and Hawaii. "But you can't just build a pipeline to everywhere. We know we can't get it."

Tesoro's refineries in North Dakota and Utah use locally drilled oil and Canadian oil, which also has been running about $10 more per barrel than West Texas crude.

So why not build more pipelines? Because investing billions of dollars over several years makes no sense when the prices could just flip a year from now to where they were before.

"How long is WTI going to be cheaper than Venezuelan oil? Than Canadian?" asked Charles T. Drevna, president of the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association. "You just don't build a pipeline like that."

At the same time, refiners have seen the same headlines as everyone else about job losses and consumer spending. They've slashed production just to avoid taking losses on gasoline no one will buy. Result: Higher gas prices.

"Why should a refiner produce more gasoline when the stuff we produce is not being used?" Drevna said.

Of course, complex explanations of the diverging price paths of West Texas crude and gas are unlikely to placate frustrated drivers. Memories of last summer's $4-plus gas have not receded.

"Drivers are being ripped off even more now than before," said Stuart Pollok, who was filling up recently at a Chevron station in downtown Los Angeles

. He pointed out Exxon Mobil Corp. reeled in billions in profits last year when oil prices

neared $150.

Others see the conspiracy reaching higher.

"It got really low during the elections and now it's going back up," said Christel Sayegh, a 23-year-old graphic designer in Los Angeles. "They do that every election, though, right?"

------

AP Energy Writer John Porretto reported this story from Houston. Associated Press Writers Jennifer Malloy and Ryan Nakashima in Los Angeles contributed to this story.

Creating and Maintaining a Competitive Edge

Creating and maintaining a competitive edge over your competition can be the key to success of your business in a very tight marketplace. Generally, it requires your business to know, absolutely, all the details of your competition while, at the same time, being completely secretive of your own details, at all time. To get an idea about how this is done, read more.

Exporting---Expanding Your Business

As a means of expanding one's market, exporting can be a lucrative choice especially when dealing with a saturated domestic marketplace. It can also be a challenging task for small- and medium-sized businesses. In Canada, however, help is available through various Federal programs. Learn more.

Franchising Your Business

Are you thinking to franchise your business? There are pros and cons in franchising. If your business is humming and ready to grow, growth through franchising can be a probable option... Read More:

Canada Small Business Financing Program

Canada Small Business Financing Program (CSBF)

The Canada Small Business Financing Program seeks to increase the availability of loans for establishing, expanding, modernizing and improving small businesses. It does this by encouraging financial institutions to make their financing available to small businesses. Under the Program, a small business must apply for a loan at a financial institution (bank, credit union or caisse populaire) of its choice. Application is not made to the Canada Small Business Financing Program Directorate. If the loan is granted by the financial institution, the federal government will reimburse 85 percent of the lender's losses in the event of default.

The Canada Small Business Financing (CSBF) Act was enacted in April 1999 to build on the success of its predecessor, the Small Business Loans Act. The Program's objectives are to streamline loan administration, improve its ability to achieve cost recovery and to extend financing that would otherwise have been unavailable to small-and medium-size enterprises.

While Industry Canada is responsible for the administration of the Program, financial institutions are responsible for all credit decisions and for making the loans.

How and where to apply for a loan

Application for a loan under the Canada Small Business Financing Program may be made at any bank, credit union, caisse populaire and / or any other financial institution. Application is not made to the Canada Small Business Financing Program Directorate.

There are approximately 1 280 lenders with about 14 600 points of service in all provinces and territories. Lenders are responsible for all credit decisions, making the loans, providing loan funds, and registering the loans with Industry Canada. Lenders are also responsible for the administration of loans.

List of Lenders

Eligibility

Eligible Small Business:

• business carried on in Canada;
• its purpose is for gain or profit, and
• for an existing business: the estimated gross annual revenues generated from all the operations within the small business of the borrower must not exceed $5 000 000 for the business' fiscal year during which the CSBF loan is approved, or
• for a new business: the estimated annual gross revenues generated from all the operations within the small business of the borrower must not be expected, at the time the CSBF loan is approved, to exceed $5 000 000 during the first 52 weeks of operation.

Ineligible Small Business:

• "farming" as defined in the 1980 Standard Industrial Classification of Statistics Canada, Major Group 01 — Agricultural Industries;
• charitable or religious organization;
• any business not operating for gain or profit (i.e. private club).

Interest rates on loans

Interest rates on loans may be either floating or fixed. The floating rate cannot be more than 3 percent higher than a lender's prime lending rate. Fixed rates cannot be more than 3 percent higher than the lender's residential mortgage rate for the term of the loan.

What is eligible for financing

CSBF loans can finance up to 90 percent of the cost of:

• the purchase or improvement of real property and immovables;
• the purchase of leasehold improvements, or improvements to leased property; and
• the purchase or improvement of new or used equipment.

The maximum loan amount a small business can access is $250 000.

Forms

• Canada Small Business Financing Program
• Capital Leasing Pilot Program

FAQs

For Lenders
For Small Businesses

Business Opportunities

More Than Moonlighting

By LAURA TIFFANY

Filed Under: Management, Business Ideas, Starting a Business

These entrepreneurs reveal what it takes to run two completely different businesses.

A lawyer with a chocolate business, a pilot with a crawfish company, an accountant with an ice house venture. Entrepreneurs sometimes find their lives split between seemingly incongruous businesses. Some intentionally turned a hobby or interest into a moneymaking venture, while others saw an opportunity for a side business and seized it.

Just as fascinating as how they came to own two disparate businesses is how they manage to sustain this double life. Whether it means keeping a suit at the factory or calling on friends in a pinch, these entrepreneurs share how they make it work.

From the Courtroom to the Rainforest

Criminal defense attorney Shawn Askinosie has made a name for himself with headline felony cases that have been featured on Dateline NBC and Court TV. But these days, chocolate is his top priority

After two back-to-back murder cases in the late '90s, Askinosie began cooking to relieve the stress of the courtroom. He graduated from outdoor grilling to pies and finally to cupcakes and desserts using premium chocolate. In 2005, he had an epiphany and realized that he wanted to make chocolate--even though he knew nothing about the business. "At that time, I didn't have any idea where chocolate came from. I thought it just appeared in stores," says Askinosie. "So I did what I do, and that's research and find things out. Within a few months, I was in the Amazonian rainforest of Ecuador studying cocoa harvest techniques."

He contacted people in the chocolate industry, both farmers and manufacturers, but found it wasn't easy to learn the business, as most chocolate makers keep their recipes and processes a secret. Askinosie worked in an Ecuadorian chocolate factory, sourced cocoa beans from farmers in South America and Mexico, and began acquiring equipment from Columbia, Scotland, Italy and Germany, some of it more than 100 years old.

Last year, Askinosie began building his factory three blocks from his law firm, Askinosie and Bilyeu LLC in Springfield, Missouri. The first chocolate rolled off the line in January, and now Askinosie Chocolate is available in specialty food stores across the country.

While he spends most days making chocolate, Askinosie keeps a suit in the factory in case of emergencies. "The chocolate has been receiving increasing amounts of time ever since my last jury trial, which was one year ago," says Askinosie. "I have a partner and associate [in the law firm, who] handle most everything and really only contact me when needed. For the most part, I am a chocolate maker."

Askinosie hasn't yet reached profitability--he anticipates that happening in 2008--but he's already implemented the same profit-sharing, open-book policy he employs in his law firm for both the employees and the cocoa farmers he directly sources his beans from and pays above fair-trade prices.

"I could see the possibility of me doing chocolate making for a long, long time," says Askinosie. "But it needs to be profitable also. That hasn't happened yet. I hope it does in the near future. But I'll always have my law career to go back to, in some fashion."

Seasonal Balance

For David Snell, his hobbies and personal interests have always directed his business decisions. In college, he began giving airplane tours of Dallas while studying for his piloting license. Despite going into the tech recruiting industry, he never gave up Starlight Flight as a side business. Later, he and a former college roommate started throwing crawfish boils for fun. They purchased a beat-up trailer and set up shop--again, on the side while Snell was working full time.

Today, he runs both Starlight Flight and Cajun Crawfish Company himself, plus a third company he recently added to his roster. "I just bounce back and forth like a ball," says Snell. "I go from one thing to the other and if I get bogged down, I've got a handful of assorted people who I've built relationships with who can help out."

Cajun Crawfish Company is Snell's main business these days. He's booked during crawfish season, which runs roughly from January through June, and expects to bring in $400,000 in sales this year. With help handling the phones, he keeps Starlight Flight running, calling on local pilot friends, who also help with the crawfish boils, to fly during Valentine's Day and Christmas, both popular flight times.

"For the past few years, I've just been living the dream," says Snell. "I get done with crawfish season and go to the lake and try to improve on a very, very poor golf game." To cover his summer living expenses, Snell started his third business, DFW Custom Wood Floors, which offers hand-scraped wood flooring.

Snell had his own floors done and was impressed with the group of men who performed the work. He noticed, however, that they had no marketing expertise, so struck up a partnership. Snell now helps the floor installers find jobs and collects a fee of $1 to $2 on each square foot. "That's an extra $1,000 or $2,000 [per job], and all I'm doing is referring business because I had the vision of, 'Wow, this stuff will sell itself,'" he says.

Snell's motto is to work smart and lean. He uses voice mail to manage appointments, the web to market his businesses and relationships with friends to help him out in the busy times.

Dealing with Cold Hard Cash

Roger Laney has been an accountant for more than 30 years and owned his own accounting firm for more than 20 years. While investing in some property on the side with two partners, HT Waller and Ruben Laurel, he came across an intriguing and possibly lucrative side business: ice houses.

Yes, ice. When someone asked him to lease property to a 20-foot-by-40-foot self-serve ice kiosk, Laney's initial response was "What? That's crazy." But 14 months later, he and his partners now run Alamo Ice and own five ice houses in San Antonio, Texas--the closest non-saturated area to their home base of Chipley, Florida. They also sell the machines in 12 counties they have bought licensing rights for.

While Laney still works full time at his firm, the ice-house partners take turns traveling to Texas once a month, and Laney has spent many nights and weekends building the business. But he says that once the machines are up and running, it's hands off. "That's the beauty of the ice machine business," says Laney, who adds that two of the biggest headaches small-business owners have are employees and collecting money. The ice machines have neither issue as they're managed and maintained by a contract company in Texas.

The partners plan to invest in 80 machines total in Bear County, Texas, and continue selling machines in their 11 other territories. At $130,000 each for full installation, it's a deep investment, but one that Laney says breaks even in 30 months. "I anticipate keeping both businesses for an extended period of time," he says. "Once we get the machines on the ground and operating, there's not a lot to them."

The Finisher

The Finisher

New Year resolutions usually take the form of setting goals with a specific purpose in one particular realm of your life; such as stop smoking, losing weight or flossing daily. While all these goals are admirable and possibly life improving; I have decided to take a less anchored yet equally challenging road to my resolve this year. Perhaps you are brave enough to jump on the wagon with me? My resolve is to be a Finisher! Very few people in this world are finishers; this is why success is often seen as difficult or unattainable. It requires a certain amount of self-discipline and tenacity to be a finisher. Imagine; you are at the starting blocks of a race, 100 meter sprint, or marathon; your choice. The starting pistol sounds and you take off at top speed thinking of all the glory at the end of this race; then, at the halfway mark you stop running and begin walking the track. Then you start to perform another sporting event; the long jump or shot putt for instance…. absurdly most people live their lives this way. Without exaggeration how many things do you think you have started and never finished? Most people are Starters; even though starting can be difficult, most of us manage to get at least that far. Even the world’s worst procrastinators start their projects when it comes down to crunch time. How many of us out there started guitar lessons or tennis lesson when we were younger? Do you have crafts and household projects that are 2/3 of the way complete and are serving no purpose because they are not finished? How many half done projects lay cluttered in your mind with the “someday maybe I’ll get to it” reminder going off in your head at inopportune times. What you may not know is that though those projects are out of sight they are not out of mind. Somewhere in your subconscious, there is that little nagging voice trying to figure out when you are going to finish. Those nagging thoughts are a major cause of stress and sleepless night’s in our lives. Not being a Finisher is inadvertently bad for your health; taking a toll on you physically, mentally and emotionally. Sadly, this kind of behavior is also bad for your self-esteem because you start to doubt your own ability to follow through on your own promises. This is not the type of relationship I want to have with someone; especially not with myself. The secret to being a success is to become a Finisher; see the task or project through to the very end. If at first you don’t succeed; dust yourself off and try again should be the attitude taken instead of quitting. Make it a habit to follow through to achieve your desired results. Going back to the race, imagine at the halfway point, you dig down deep within yourself to muster all your strength, energy, and conviction. Focusing on your goal, you cross over the finish line; a feeling of elation and pride rushes over you; this is what it feels like when you see something to fruition. This year my plate will encompass many tasks and projects; but they will all have one thing in common I will work my hardest to see every undertaking through to completion. Not only will it better my opinion of myself, but I will be able to enjoy the fruits of my labor, whether it is in learning a new language, organizing my closet once and for all, or growing my income. “I’m finished!” is my new Mantra for the year!