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Jeff Bezos, the genius behind Amazon.com has a product that may turn out to garner more buzz than Mr. Apple' latest little I-Gizmos....
Continue reading "Blog Alert! Amazon's Kindle is Sold Out Already!" »
The 5th annual Vets event took place at Lorain County Community College, and was attended by well over 300 Veteran's who are small business owners themselves, or wanted to learn how to be.....
Continue reading "5th Annual Veteran's Small Business Symposium is a Hit!" »
The 29th of November..already? Cmon! It seems like yesterday that I wrote the monthly lease check for my upscale Chagrin Blvd.office...........
The older I get, the faster time seems to move.
Remember sitting in class in junior high school, watching the clock on the wall not move?
Now I am finding that I start writing, or doing some paperwork, and an hour went by in what seemed like 5 minutes.
I am starting to think about finding a franchise that stops time.
Signing off.....
Here is a commercial free link to my interview today on Jim Blasingame's "The Small Business Advocate" radio program....Click Here to learn about franchises and the US economic outlook!
Jim Blasingame, host of The Small Business Advocate radio program, just interviewed me on franchising, and my feelings on the economic outlook for the coming year.Here are some things we discussed, along with a link to the interview....
Continue reading "This Week's Radio Interview/Franchising and The Economy" »
Locally, over 300 people from Progressive Insurance were downsized two weeks ago. Pitney Bowes is laying off 500 workers. Citigroup is downsizing between 17,000 and 45,000 workers over the next few months. Are you one of the "downsized"? If so, read on....
Continue reading "Recently Downsized? Is It Attitude Adjustment Time?" »
This week on Jim Blasingame's "The Small Business Advocate" nationally syndicated radio program, two well known Cleveland small business experts will be interviewed live......
Continue reading "2 Cleveland Small Business Experts on The Radio This Week!" »
I trust you had a full Thanksgiving holiday....Well, the votes are in on this blog's design. Most of you liked the new colors, with the blue-green motif being described as "professional, and soothing."
{Not my adjectives}
Anyway, a lot of the comments that came to me privately asked for a wider page, and larger fonts.
I have decided to go with Typepad's "Ragged Darkwater" Theme. It will give you, my readers, the best of both worlds....
I hope you enjoy it, as I continue to provide great franchise, and small business related musings.
{With a little Cleveland stuff on the side}
Dr. Ellen Weber, who writes on brainbasedbusiness.com, discusses brains in this interesting franchise article. Thanx, Doc!
Does anyone read blogs on Thanksgiving? If you run a blog, should you be writing on Thanksgiving?
Should it be just another day? Or...should it be a reflective day? A day where some of us actually do not go online. Where we force ourselves to hang out with family, and friends? Where we just kick back, take our shoes off, and enjoy a slower, non technologically based 24 hours or so?
I think so. Happy Thanksgiving. A gratitude day.......
Some quotes:
"The Pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts. No Americans have been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving." - H.U. Westermayer
"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity.... It turns problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow." - Melodie Beattie
"If you can't be thankful for what you receive, be thankful for what you have escaped."
-Unknown
With the economy not feeling too stable, is now the right time to invest in a business of your own?
If the economy starts really tanking, are people still going to need products and services?
Is there ever a perfect time to invest in a business of your own. While I was giving a seminar on franchising this morning, a woman who was recently downsized from her company, and was happy to leave a miserable situation, said this:
" If my son wasn't going to be starting college next year, maybe I would consider an alternative career option."
My question to her was this:
"Just how long do you you want to be miserable working for someone else again"?
Sometimes, one just has to do what one has to do. Sometimes though, one just has to take a shot...before it is too late!
As someone who is getting more and more into the marketing mix, I am seeing better and better Web 2.0 applications-and where they might fit in,marketing wise..... 
In Part 3 of this 3 Part series, I will finally get down to the nitty-gritty!
{No offense to the commercial cleaning master franchises out there!}
Continue reading "The Master Franchise/Build An Empire Part 3" »
On the Nov. 16th JoelPost, I brought up low cost franchise opportunities that may make sense if you have a sales and marketing skill set. Maybe you have no experience, but are outgoing. Or, maybe you are skilled at sales and marketing, but could use a tune-up.
Resources abound. Like Clevelander Diane Helbig, President of Seize This Day Coaching. In this article of hers, she discusses follow up techniques...
Sales. Networking. Creating business relationships.
Are you great at those skills? Is that your highway to success?
Or do your skill sets in business lean more to the background operations?
Everybody has different skill sets. Some folks are better in the operations area of a small business. Some folks are better at the technical end. Some folks are good at sales, and marketing.
In the world of franchise ownership, one way to really lower your risk is to match up to opportunities that utilize and benefit from the things that you are the best at. Really.
Currently, several of the concepts I am trying to find great franchise owners for are focused towards the sales and marketing model. This model requires a lot less of an investment. $$ Really.
I am reposting this article on working with franchise consultant/brokers. I have added some more tips. Bottom line:
Use experienced professionals that live in your city, and are well connected there.
Getting ethical, and professional assistance to help you find and purchase a franchise of your own can be a very wise choice! Using a local franchise consultant-broker, if done right, can help you define what types of opportunities could be a nice fit for you.
For those of you that are thinking about checking out some franchise opportunities, you will eventually run into so called "franchise brokers" or "franchise consultants". Here are 10 must ask questions for you to ask them, before you decide to work with them....
Continue reading "10 Questions {Plus 3} To Ask a Franchise Broker/Consultant" »
Iron Chef Franchise-Cleveland
{November 14, 2007 Cleveland, Ohio} - Michael Symon, the owner of Lola and Lolita, two of Cleveland's finest restaurants won The Iron Chef award, Sunday night! Congrats to Michael...read his thoughts on CNN.com. Here
Good Swordfish!
Dear Jim,
Congratulations on the 10 year anniversary of your nationally syndicated radio program....
Continue reading "Congrats to Jim Blasingame on Your 10th Anniversary!" »
Learn how the franchise industry is in sync with this country's demographic changes that are taking place...The numbers just don't lie.
read more | digg story
On this Veterans Day, I have posted an interview I had with a great couple from Canton, Ohio that I was able to help find a great franchise opportunity for. One of them is a Purple Heart recipient, and they have turned into very successful small business owners!
read more | digg story
Today, I am in gratitude mode. I guess with Thanksgiving coming up shortly, I am becoming more aware of the great things in my life. It is so easy to whine and complain about doing extra work, or helping our elderly family members with errands. I can also just go to my list:
1. High local taxes {Another levy passed}
2. $3.00 a gallon gasoline {Nice}
3. This slow internet connection {so?}
4. Cloudy days {Yep}
And on and on, and on...........
But I won't. Well not for the rest of the day.
Congrats to the first Scratchback sponsor on this here blog. Thanx for "showing some love."
For 10 bucks, who could blame him?
Are you going to attract some business, and be on this blog's top links?
You have heard it for years. "Location, Location, Location.............."
Continue reading "Your Franchise/Location..Location...Lo...." »
About 2-3 times a year, something on the internet really makes me want to say, WOW.
Please check it out, Here
A mix of Cashmere, Blogging, GPS, and who knows what.
Look and see what the folks from Tokyo have come up with...
Today is really good quote day....
1. One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn't do.
Author: Henry Ford
How true.
John Herman, a fellow blogger, in a post today, talks about cuttin the cord. This is aimed at those of you thinking about starting a business of your own, part time. {HAHAHA} good luck.
Excerpt-
"People ask me what business they should go into to make money. When
they have little or nothing to invest in a business. And another issue
is the fact that they don’t want to leave their current job due to the
need for income before jumping off the bridge to own a company.
Even in my early days of business ownership I stuck with a full time job by switching my hours to the night shift so I could stay employed while I started my first enterprises. As a hint here, nothing got “bigger” until I finally cut the cord and spent all my time concentrating on my business, despite the loss of that bi-weekly check with benefits."
Good food for thought. Read the full post on John's Hermanisms. Smart dude....
After working through some technical glitches, I am re-posting an interview I did with The Cleveland Small Business Administration's John Renner. He is the Business Development Specialist, and received a national award last year for his work with war veterans...
Continue reading "Let's Try Again/Interview With John Renner of The SBA" »
This blog's new look...............
For those of you familiar with The Franchise King Blog, dark red has been the color of choice this year.
I have been playing around with different page designs,column styles, and other assorted font types for a couple of months, and I have decided to go with a totally new look, courtesy of Typepad.
I hope you like the new look, and find it easy to read. Any comments would be welcome, concerning the new look. Thank you!
Joel et al
TechCrunch gives the thumbs up to Cleveland internet marketing guru-Jim Kukral!
I just saw Jim tonight at the pre-BlogWorld Expo gathering at CSU. He is real happy with the results of the Scratchback release, thus far.I added it to my Veteran's Blog on Tuesday. Look-Right side
Go Cleveland!
This blogger wants your opinion! 2008. What will our economy look like????
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