Blind entrepreneurs boost eBay sales
EBay is recruiting an unlikely group of new entrepreneurs into its selling ranks – the visually impaired.
Blind citizens have staggeringly high rates of unemployment, with some 70 percent of working-age, legally blind adults out of work, according to the National Federation of the Blind.
So the online marketplace, in partnership with NFB, began recruiting test sellers in the blind community late last year. In February, it began a pilot program with 15 blind entrepreneurs. In total, they have sold more than 2,100 items, including everything from packing tape to clothing and makeup.
“We have a commitment to making our pages accessible,” said Jonas Klink, senior product manager of accessibility for San Jose, California-based eBay. The company was also the title sponsor at NFB’s national convention in July.
“These 15 pilot program participants have been selling above and beyond even the majority of our sighted community,” said Klink, adding that word has spread through the blind community. “A number have become top-rated sellers.”
The blind sellers use enhanced tools such as screen access software that verbalizes content on the Internet, which has primarily been designed for sighted participants.
“When you look at the Web as a whole, you’re looking at a very visual medium,” Klink said. “Designing for the visually impaired is in some cases harder because you don’t have the luxury of well-known graphics.”
Hearty 2011 seen for restaurateurs
This year the restaurant industry is poised to put up its best numbers in four years, buoyed by an increase of roughly 2 million jobs since the depths of the recession and improved household income.
Sales are seen rising 3.6 percent to $604 billion in 2011, according to forecasts from the National Restaurant Association, the industry’s trade group.
“When employment moves up it creates additional demand for convenience such as pizza,” said Hudson Riehle, the association’s senior vice president of research and information services. “Barring any unforeseen shocks, the future for the industry will continue to improve.”
The NRA said its predictive restaurant performance index – a monthly composite that tracks the health and outlook of the industry – stood at 100.9 for the month of April, roughly unchanged from March. It was the fifth consecutive month the number was above 100.
Restaurant operators continued to report net positive same-store sales in the month. Meanwhile, capital spending was also trending up, with 48 percent of operators indicating they had spent on equipment, expansion or remodeling in the last three months, the highest level in nearly three years.
Riehle pointed out that optimism among operators was highest among those establishments with the lowest check prices such as quick-service outlets, cautioning that “consumer confidence remains fragile” among a budget-strapped public.
In fact, one of the factors helping to drive improvement in restaurant figures may be rising inflation in grocery stores, which Riehle said is nearly double that of inflation on menu prices in restaurants.
GroupPrice targets small business with daily deals
Price and value is what led Chris Gafoor to purchase a press release distribution plan from GroupPrice.
“It gives you more bang for your buck,” said the president and CEO of Miami-based BluStar Media Inc, who paid $39 for a GroupPrice deal that he estimated would have cost $200 elsewhere. The deal guaranteed Gafoor’s company a minimum of 5,000 views of its press release in 30 days.
GroupPrice is a business-to-business version of the group-buying trend that offers deals specifically for Internet-based small businesses. Van Jepson, CEO of the Redwood City, California-based firm, got the idea for the business when he ran a previous Web company.
“I was trying to grow the type of online services that were offered to our members, but I didn’t have enough resources,” he said. “So I had to reach out to outside suppliers, local service suppliers and office suppliers to find solutions. I realized that this was a problem that all Internet-centric companies have.”
Jepson initially funded the website with $30,000 before attracting five investors. GroupPrice subsequently attracted $285,000 of funding. The startup closed its first seed investment last July.
GroupPrice publically launched in January and targets online companies with up to 25 employees. Jepson said there are five million such companies in the U.S. and one million such merchants.
There are so many sites for b2b group buying and many of them following the footsteps of Groupon. I would like to add that http://www.huddlebuy.co.uk is another such site that provides exclusive group deals for small businesses in UK. The world of marketing is ever evolving and this venture is another stepping stone especially for SMEs that could not avail such deals that were earlier available only for large enterprises.
3 rules for selling in the new economy
-- Lisa Nicole Bell is a serial entrepreneur and CEO of lifestyle consultancy firm Inspired Life Media Group. This article originally appeared on Under30CEO. The views expressed are her own. –
Every entrepreneur knows that the key to a thriving business is sales. Without it, cash flow dries up, checks turn to rubber, and heads roll. With it, few things are impossible. The challenge for most entrepreneurs is understanding how to sell what they offer.
Throughout the years, the sales gurus of our parents’ generation have offered their conventional wisdom about “building rapport” and “explaining the features”. In the new economy, this advice just doesn’t cut it anymore.
The new wave of Generation X and Y buyers wants more. As far as we’re concerned, the earth revolves around us – we want everything in our own size, color, design, and layout complete with our photos, our favorite team, and our iPod picks playing in the background. With this “first me, then me” mentality, the science of selling has changed.
Check out these 3 simple rules for selling in the new economy:
Rule #1: It’s not about you – it’s always about them.
How narcissistic we Gen Y entrepreneurs can be at times! We get our degrees and have the epiphany that we’re more focused and awesome than most other 20-somethings. We start our businesses and offer our glorious services, but when sales lag, we’re confused. How could anyone not want what we have? It’s not about you. It’s all about your clients. Your average prospect sees 3,000 advertisements and sales messages each day – that’s more than 20,000 a week! If you’re not focused on your client – what they need, what they want, what their buying triggers are – you’ll find yourself lost in a sea of commercials, tweets, posts, blogs, and banners. You must communicate with a client-centric attitude. What does your client need? What do they really want right now? What are their thoughts about you and your competitors? Learning to see everything through the eyes of your current and future clients will put you head and shoulders above the competition and help you stay relevant, even in a tough economy.
Businesses trim costs to combat lagging sales
Tina Bean’s wish for 2011 is that people will open their wallets more.
“People don’t want to spend money,” said Bean, the owner of Port Arthur, Texas-based pet food dealer, Five Star Feed Store. “They are buying necessities and that’s it.”
Annual sales at Five Star Feed Store have declined approximately $100,000 since the recession, said Bean. She has been forced to lay off three workers and has given pay cuts to the remaining five. The cutbacks have also had a personal effect. “For a long time, I didn’t draw a paycheck,” she said.
Bean’s experience is highlighted by recent financial data from Sageworks Inc., which showed a number of sectors are suffering from declining sales. The report analyzed 2010 sales, profit per employee and payroll as a percentage of sales data for private companies in six major industries: construction, manufacturing, wholesale trade, retail trade, healthcare and education.
All the sectors except health and education experienced a decrease in annual sales. Manufacturing was down 3.6 percent, wholesale trade declined about 4 percent and retail trade dipped a little more than 1 percent in sales for 2010.
Construction showed the most marked decline as sales plummeted by more than 13 percent this year, but that was an anomaly according to Mike Lubansky, a senior financial analyst at Sageworks.
“There are just not a lot of new (residential) buildings going up,” he said. “We haven’t seen a substantial rebound in housing yet. In commercial construction because businesses aren’t investing in additional overhead, they won’t be expanding so they won’t need additional commercial space.”
I am in the IT industry and see more and more companies engaging us for internal process and systems improvement. As stated in the abovearticle, companies are increasing profits and cash flow by working smarter.
Unfortunately, there are still many companies out there still using outdated and manual processes that are draining cash flow and profits. I wonder when they will “wake up” an look within for higher profits. If wages are froze or decreased, their employees will not be fueling increased consumer spending.
On the other hand, if companies with increased profits would share the wealth with their employees, maybe that’s the starting place for increased consumer spending……
If companies with increased profits would share the wealth with their employees, maybe that’s the starting place for increased consumer spending……
Running a successful sales office
- Michael K. McKean is the CEO and director of new product development for the Knowland Group, a leading provider of business development solutions for the global hospitality industry. The views expressed are his own. -
“A-B-C. A-Always B-Be C-Closing…you close or you hit the bricks.”
This may work for Blake in the classic sales film Glengarry Glen Ross, but sales directors today know it’s not always that simple. No one can create the perfect sales office overnight, anymore than someone can wake up one day as a golf professional ready to win the Masters. Building a successful sales team takes skill, patience, and hard work.
But just as any golfer can quickly up their game with a few short lessons from a knowledgeable instructor, so can you improve your team with a few easy steps.
1. Make your sales managers cold calling experts
Teach your people valuable telesales techniques from the beginning. Things like:
- Start out honestly by telling the prospect why you’re calling and how much of their time you’re going to take.
- Don’t waste the prospect’s time. No one likes a salesperson who rattles on for 30 seconds without letting them get a word in.
- Make sure to schedule a follow-up appointment or phone call before you hang up.
Good post. I’m in a situation right now where pro-active sales is a necessity, when 4 years ago it was a luxury if I had the time.
I have begun creating sales material and quality leads – but I’m new at this part of the business. I spent all my time learning presentation, but if I can’t get the appointment, it isn’t going to do me any good.
You paragraph about networking events was refreshing. I’ve never had success at those events. When everyone is presenting themselves to everyone else, it becomes a talking game instead of listening – which is the antithesis of my strength in a first meeting.
Is it time for do-gooder to cash out?
TOMS Shoes founder Blake Mycoskie created his Santa Monica, California-based company as a vehicle for giving away shoes to needy children, but should the Texas entrepreneur be looking ahead to selling the company and using the money to pursue other philanthropic goals?
TOMS, an abbreviation of “Tomorrow’s Shoes,” is based on a simple concept: for each pair of shoes sold, a pair is donated. Mycoskie, 33, conceived his “One-for-One” business model on a trip to Argentina, when as a volunteer on a shoe drive, he witnessed how a simple pair of shoes could change a child’s life (read original story here).
“Many of the kids’ feet I saw were really badly cut up and infected and just really gross, for lack of a better word,” said Mycoskie, who also noticed how much trouble the non-profit organization he was helping had in getting the right size shoes for the kids, as they were completely reliant on donations. “It dawned on me that instead of looking at this as a charity thing, which is what they were doing, why not look at it from a business perspective and create a business where you sell a pair of shoes and give a pair.”
In the first year Mycoskie sold 10,000 pairs of his South American-inspired canvas espadrilles, which retail for $45. Conversely that meant he was able to give away the same amount to kids in Argentina. Mycoskie refused to give specific revenue figures, but said it’s easy to extrapolate his overall minimum revenues since his 2006 launch – based on 400,000 giveaways at an average cost of $45 – as roughly $18 million.
THE PITCH
To date, TOMS has been entirely bootstrapped by Mycoskie, who would prefer to keep it that way. He said the orders are still essentially processed as they come in, allowing him to carry little in the way of inventory.
“We get the orders from Nordstrom’s and then we make it and then we ship it to them and then we get paid 30-60 days later,” said Mycoskie, who has benefitted from a long-term relationship with his small Texas bank, which has never balked at extending him the necessary credit. This has allowed him to resist bringing in outside investors that might try to impose a more financially-based corporate focus. “A few times I almost took the investment, but ultimately decided not to because I figured it would potentially hurt the culture.”
Taking outside capital to expand may be a necessity to grow; however, it does not have to mean hurting the inside culture if the source comes from private individuals sharing TOMS core values. Even if the business would just break even, the pool of such potential investors can very likely be large and readily available. Other sources of capital such banks, traditional joint ventures, public offering, and the like, would quickly destroy the vibe of this commendable company.
