MCbiz : Enterpriser Zone

Welcome to the Enterpriser Zone! We focus on opportunities and tools for small business owners via its pages: Business Strategies, Workshops, Seminars, Conferences, and Success Stories.

The Business Strategies page consists of tools and articles written by small business owners, providing advice and tips for the small business community.

The Workshop, Seminars, and Conference pages highlight various scheduled sessions by internal and external entities.

The Success Stories page showcases small businesses that have provided products and services to MaricopaCounty , and their respective owners� personal journeys to business success.

“Bigger Businesses Helping Smaller Businesses Help Each Other”
MCbiz’s Consulting Initiative – HELPbiz – Sponsorship Inauguration

Harvesting
Entrepreneurial
Leadership &
Profitability
b          Small
i    for Business
z Enterprises

HELP biz is MCbiz’s Consulting Program, which has a mission of promoting the growth of the small business community. The program is regenerative in nature – a cycle of help beginning with bigger businesses providing funding to MCbiz – administrator – and smaller businesses receiving no-cost consulting services, allowing small businesses to reach their respective next levels. Consulting hours are awarded via an application and a fee. Awardees are held accountable via the initial investment, which may be returned after respective assigned consultants verify that Customized Business Performance Plans are implemented successfully.

Selected consultants will be considered SBEs under MCbiz criteria (under 100 employees or less than $4million in gross annual receipts), and each consulting firm is responsible for providing a final report with the individual businesses annually reporting results for three subsequent years. Success is measured via the consultant reports and subsequent business reports.

Our ultimate objective is promoting the growth of the small business community and positively affecting the core of the local economy. We can be a catalyst for change, economic growth, providing a boost in the economic vitality of the region. In turn, we can harvest sustainable businesses (subcontractors for our Design and Construction primes and additional responsible businesses providing goods and services to the County and the larger community).

 Since the consulting services are provided by Small Business Enterprises (SBEs), the cycle of help comes full circle. Each segment (Bigger Businesses, Smaller Businesses, & SBEs) of the HELPbiz initiative function interdependently, which strengthens the sustainability of the economy and the larger community. It is a win-win-win, and coincides with the MCbiz motto: Won by One – Initiating Opportunities, Promoting Growth.

MCbiz invites Bigger Businesses to HELPbiz in its inauguration year. Sponsorship will provide amplification of firms’ participation via MCbiz’s existing marketing stream.

Any interested party should contact MCbiz Manager, Andres Chagolla, for further details at 602-506-8707 or achagolla@mail.maricopa.gov .

Enterpriser Zone - Business Strategies
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SBA Advocacy 2007 Small Business Report

Paper: “Uncovering Knowledge Structures of Venture Capital Investment Decision Making“ - The study posits that venture capitalists (VCs) may be willing to fund a marginal team with better venture potential than a good venture team with limited venture potential. In other words, entrepreneurs need not only to assemble an effective team, but also to clearly demonstrate the venture potential of their proposed business. This finding contrasts with most prior studies, which identify the venture team as the key funding criterion.

 
 
 
Will Paid Search Go The Way of CPA?
by Aaron Goldman , Tuesday, February 5, 2008
 IN MY LAST COLUMN, I raised the question, "Will CPA Become the Default Pricing Model for Paid Search?" The topic stemmed from a panel I participated in at the recent Digital Media Measurement and Pricing Summit. My first instinct was to write CPA off as nice in theory but "never gonna happen." In turn, I feared my conference session would turn out to be the "shortest panel ever."

I'm happy to report that my dialogue with fellow panelist Jason Clement of Neo@Ogilvy was bountiful and we used the entire 45 minutes allotted. However, the net-net as far as CPA goes is that we landed somewhere between "nice in theory" and "never gonna happen." The responses to my column, both in the Search Insider blog and directly to me via email, also fell in-line with that sentiment.

Would You Like Some Cons With Those Pros?

2 weeks ago, my assessment focused primarily on the benefits of CPA to the search ecosystem, namely:

1.       Minimized risk for marketers and elimination of click-fraud

2.       More relevant ads and post-click experience for consumers

3.       Higher eCPM for search engines

Today I'll focus on the barriers to adoption of CPA pricing and the potential downside of its widespread implementation.

CPA (Control Preserving Advertisers)

Kaitlyn Smeland posted a well-articulated response to my column over at the Search Marketing Sage Blog. Here's an excerpt:

"But even beyond website design and usability, there are certain basic marketing elements which will always influence conversion and can only be controlled by the advertiser/client. Pricing, quality, value proposition in the competitive landscape, existing brand equity, inventory management, the security of the checkout process, the length of the form required to register for a newsletter, the product color selection... How could SEM professionals or search engines ever control these variables? And, really, what advertiser would ever put those decisions in anyone else's hands?"

In the same vein, Tom Pick from KC Associates offered this analogy in the Search Insider blog:

"Asking a search engine to be responsible for CPA is like holding a marketing department responsible for corporate profitability -- it just won't work, as there are too many variables outside direct control."

Where Are My Learnings?

Another comment in the Search Insider blog highlighted an additional challenge to the perceived value of CPA pricing to marketers. This one came courtesy of Brian Hadley at Cole & Weber United:

"In most CPA arrangements the placements are often blind, and I think that there may be a tremendous loss of information/knowledge on the client/agency end of table. You can lower your risk in the short term, but long term you may end up of losing valuable campaign performance data. More specifically, you may lose the ability to learn how consumers are interacting with media across multiple touch points."

What's In It For Me?

Kaitlyn, Tom, and Brian underscore an important point here: In order for search engines to successfully deliver CPA programs, they'll need to be able to control most, if not all, campaign variables (or at least have visibility into them). Otherwise, they are essentially operating as affiliates -- clearly not the business they want to be in, nor where they can provide the most value.

When search engines are tasked with delivering actions, not just clicks, there's little incentive for them to make available all the learnings that come with running a search campaign. Rather than report on which keywords and creatives are working, it would be in their best interests to keep all that data in a black box to improve their algorithms and, in turn, their margins -- just like affiliates.

What's In A Name?

Using pay-per-click as the model makes it clear what the scope of the work is for search engines -- driving traffic to marketers' Web sites.  In this model, marketers take on the risk of converting that traffic. Therefore, they're entitled to access and control all relevant KPIs pertaining to that click -- keywords, copy, bid prices, etc. -- and associate them with post-click data to optimize the campaign. As a bonus, they can use those variables to activate and integrate cross-channel marketing efforts.

A shift to CPA means the scope includes action/acquisition, so everything that happens on the SERP and the marketer's site would fall within the purview of the engines.

CPA? No Way

Tasking the engines with managing the back-end of your campaign is like asking your real estate broker to do your interior design. And giving the engines full visibility into campaign performance is like letting the fox into the henhouse. The result is a dead chicken in an ugly house. And no one wants that mess.

 Aaron Goldman is Vice President of Marketing & Strategic Partnerships at Resolution Media, an Omnicom Media Group Company. Resolution Media helps marketers connect their brands to their audience through queries. Aaron can be reached at AGoldman@ResolutionMedia.com. 
 
 
NPR Business News - Courtesy of NPR

Morning Edition, February 6, 2008 · The dollar's fall against the euro and other foreign currencies has hurt American tourists overseas and boosted the cost of imported goods. But the weaker greenback may not be all bad for U.S. businesses and the economy.

"The weak dollar has had a significant impact on companies' raw material costs," Kate O'Sullivan, a senior writer at CFO Magazine, tells Renee Montagne. Companies buying those raw materials overseas are able to buy less with their dollars.

And companies that manufacture on foreign soil but sell their products in the United States have also been hurt by the sliding dollar.

But U.S. exporters are benefiting from the lower dollar. Compact Power, a South Carolina company that makes tractors and landscaping equipment, has doubled its foreign sales in the past year "because their products look cheap compared to local competitors," O'Sullivan says.

The weak dollar is also encouraging foreign manufacturers to set up factories in the U.S. European auto manufacturers are looking to increase their presence in the U.S., but foreign exchange isn't the only reason.

"It's part of a strategy to be closer to their [customers] as well," O'Sullivan says. "But with the weak dollar, it looks a lot more attractive to set up manufacturing here than it did, say, five years ago."

The dollar may also be having an impact on outsourcing. Because of India's strengthening currency and rising wages, some Indian companies are looking to hire workers for customer-service call centers in the U.S. because it's more cost-effective, O'Sullivan says.

Will all this end up helping the U.S. economy overcome its weakness?

"We're seeing corporate earnings boosted by this phenomenon, we're seeing exports boosted, possibly an employment boost if many [foreign] manufacturers do decide to expand here," O'Sullivan says. "So, in fact, the weaker dollar will help balance a little bit of the economic weakness that we're seeing. But I'm not sure it'll be enough. We'll have to wait and see."

http://www.entrepreneur.com/ebusiness

Check out the MCbiz Resource Bin - Useful Links for more resources.