Foiled Cupcakes delicious treats (via Foiled Cupcakes)
In an earlier post, By the Bootstraps spoke with Mari Luangrath, owner of Foiled Cupcakes, a cupcake delivery service based out of Naperville. Mari did a great job speaking to us about how her business has used social media to grow, but there’s more to Foiled Cupcakes than just Facebook and Twitter.
For some small business owners in America, there'll be no "sunning and funning" this summer.
The slow days of July and August have always given small business owners an opportunity to tackle some of the chores that may get a lower priority the rest of the year, such as installing new software, painting the office or writing employee manuals.
It would appear from this article, taking a break during a recession is tantamount to losing your competitive edge. As many of the small business owners I’ve spoken to remind me, owning and running a store is a 24/7 job. The article says that since there are some positive economic indicators hinting that we may have passed the worst of the Great Recession, many businesses are using this time to act like the ant from the fable and store for the winter. Smart idea considering loans and outside capital, , are hard to come by.
Photo credit: “vacation cliche”
Now more than ever businesses are experimenting with social media to build a loyal customer base during the recession. By the Bootstraps spoke with Mari Luangrath, owner of Foiled Cupcakes, a cupcake delivery service based in Naperville that has a solid social media presence. The business delivers cupcakes to Chicago and the west suburbs. Within a few months of its opening, the store has more than 2,900 followers on their Twitter page and more than 600 fans on their Facebook page.
Mari Luangrath is the owner of Foiled Cupcakes
Just how does Luangrath use social media for her business? Listen to our conversation, or read the transcript below.
By the Bootstraps (BB): What drew you to Twitter?
Mari Luangrath: I have a college friend who was on Facebook and he kept tweeting and I said what is this? [laughter] We did a quick Facebook chat and he said you need to get in touch with my friend. So he put me in contact with his friend whose name is Adrian Dayton and we had a 30 minute conference call and he said, “You need to get on this.” And I got on and I said, “I don’t know what I’m doing. I have no idea what I’m doing.” And then about a week later I still had no idea what I was doing, but I had people following me and excited about cupcakes.
BB: How do you use it?
ML: My personal reason for using social media is just to reach out to people and develop relationships with them. I certainly don’t use social media strictly as a selling tool and I certainly try to balance out the whole personality of our brand along with some information about what we do and making it fun and keeping it exciting. I would say what we do is just a mix of relationship building and interaction with our consumer.
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More than 300 supporters of President Barack Obama’s push for health care reform gathered in Chicago’s Federal Plaza Tuesday evening. The crowd listened as national and local figures – for example Gov. Pat Quinn, Illinois State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias and former Cigna executive Wendell Potter – gave speeches on the need for quality health care and an end to denying coverage to those with pre-existing conditions.
The national health care reform debate has an affect on small businesses. Critics of Obama’s $1 trillion health-care makeover say its mandate that employers help pay for employee’s health care will deter small business owners from hiring (a big no-no considering small businesses hire 40 percent of the nation’s work force). Entrepreneurs whose businesses have a payroll of less than $250,000 are exempt but “businesses that do not offer health coverage to their workers would pay an 8 percent payroll tax to help subsidize coverage,” according to the New York Times’s “You’re the Boss” blog. This tallies up to 5 percent of businesses in the country who will feel the pinch in their revenues.
According to the Census Bureau, the average revenue of firms of this size was $1,768,000 in 2002. So these businesses will pay about 2 percent of their revenue as a penalty under the new law. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but it actually is.
Through the writer’s calculations, “You’re the Boss” says that these businesses stand to lose 39 percent of their revenue under tax policy.
It’s clear this debate isn’t as black and white as either side would have one believe.
The owner of Logan Square’s Mega Mall – which is home to 70 businesses – continues to battle with Chicago officials who want the property. Officials have “already taken steps that would eventually lead to a sale under eminent domain,” Chicagotalks reports.
Closing the shopping center would have both positive and negative effects. According to the report, officials want the site to become a park as part of its initiative to bring open spaces to the West Side neighborhood; the idea of a grocery store has also been thrown around for this “food desert,” an area with limited access to healthy food options. However the 70 business owners at the Mega Mall will lose their businesses – relocation in this economy may be a daunting prospect for some owners.
For more on this story, read the article “Future of Logan Square Mega Mall in Limbo” at local blog Chicagotalks.
Photo credit: “Sterile mall”
In the video from the last entry, President Obama had this message for small business owner’s across the nation:
I want to say to every American running a small business or hoping to run a small business one day. You deserve a chance. America needs you to have that chance. As president, I will continue to do everything in my power to ensure you have the opportunity to contribute to your community, to our economy and to the future of the United States of America.
Want to know exactly how he plans to go about that? Here’s a PDF of his and Vice President Joe Biden’s plans for small businesses. You can also check Politifact for updates and explanations of his campaign promises.
Something very prevalent in the world of small businesses is their inability to get loans. The lack of liquidity in the credit market makes it hard to get a loan, even for small businesses with the best of credit. Since many believe small businesses can propel the nation out of the recession, I wondered what President Barack Obama’s plans were to address the issue. read more »
I was walking down Sheridan Avenue in Evanston near the Northwestern campus when a man asked me if I would like a free sandwich.
Being the impoverished graduate student I am, my immediate response was “Yes!”
He handed me a flier for Wilddogz, a sandwich shop on 1625 Chicago Avenue. The flier included three coupons – a Greek Combo Plate packed with food for $6.99; buy one sandwich, get one free; and $5.00 off any order of $25 or more. A new eating option four blocks away from campus just became available to me because of the business’ use of street solicitation.
I usually don’t use those kind of fliers (though I always accept them because I feel so bad for the employees), but its convenience makes me more likely to check out Wilddogz.
Would you visit a business after receiving a coupon/flier?
Wilddogz, 1625 Chicago Ave., Evanston, IL (847) 869-WILD.
Chicago’s first openly gay alderman as reopened debate on including gays in “contract set-asides” used by minorities and women, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.
Alderman Tom Tunney of the 44th Ward brought this motion “during a Budget Committee hearing called to extend until 2015 a construction set-aside ordinance for minorities and women,” according to the Sun-Times. Corporation Counsel Mara Georges said that while there is no category including gays in those able to receive set-asides, multimillion-dollar contracts exclusively for minorities and women, she was not opposed to considering the move.
Tunney admits there is no push in the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered community for inclusion in the ordinance.
“We know we’ve been disadvantaged. But, there are programs for women already. And the perception is this would only enhance gay white males. That’s why there’s not consensus within our community,” he said.
Tunney first championed gay inclusion in contract set-asides in 2003. Mayor Richard M. Daley said he was “open to the idea” if the gay community could prove they weren’t able to get city contracts because of prejudice.
I’m not sure how this would affect the minority and women business owners who are currently eligible for these contracts, but this gets into larger social issues that the city may feel uncomfortable tackling. Is there pronounced discrimination in the business world for gays? Is it on an equal level of minorities and women? We’ll keep a close watch on this debate, but what do you think? Should gays have a shot at city set-asides for social minorities?
Photo credit: “Pride flag”
The New York Times has an article focusing on a Miami-based family operation that may face closure because of the recession and the unique nature of their business.
The Great Recession, especially its stranglehold on credit and new construction, appears to have mortally wounded what the Depression could not kill.
“It’s not ‘Oh, I don’t have a job, I have to go find a new one,’ ” Mr. [Scott] Peterson (who works for his family business, Harold A. Peterson Steeplejack) said. “We’re losing a corporation that is 83 years old. We’re losing our house. We’re losing our credit. We’re losing, other than our own physical bodies, everything.”
Harold A. Peterson Steeplejack, an 83-years-old business built on repairing steeples and flagpole installations, will close this year because it can’t afford the business’ steep overhead costs. In the report, Scott Peterson, the grandson of the company’s founder, said he had been rejected for small business loans because his credit score was too low.
Unfortunately the Peterson’s story isn’t an unique one: American businesses with only one to 19 employees lost 757,000 jobs from second quarter 2007 to third quarter 2008, according to the report. How many of these are small family businesses isn’t readily available, but the Times says the number of Americans with small businesses is in the millions.
Photo credit: Vintage family from England
