Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with smallbusiness

Their lovin' don't pay my bills

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 21:32:22 -0800

I'm a freelance writer who's considering suing a client for nonpayment. Before I go there, please give me the benefit of your experience. I'm being stiffed by a client for almost $10K. After several months of collections efforts, a demand letter from my attorney resulted in assurances of goodwill but nothing more.

Now I'm considering filing suit for breach of contract. The total is too large for small claims, and my attorney tells me it will cost a couple grand up front in legal fees. In the meantime, I fear my former client will soon close their doors and may file for bankruptcy.

I'm looking for experiences from other freelancers or small business owners who have been in similar situations. Did you decide to sue, or walk away? How much did you recover, and what did it end up costing? What do you know now that you wish you'd known then? Thanks for sharing your hard-earned wisdom.

Help me come up with best Mac based server and backup solution for a small business.

jesseendahl — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 12:27:02 -0800

Help me come up with best Mac based server and backup solution for a small business. Hi,

I have been considering either an XServe or new Mac Pro to replace our aging XServe G4. Either way, I would like to have 8TB (4 x 2TB drives) on-site and 8TB off-site storage. Preferably this storage would be rack-mountable, hot swappable, and eSata. Also, hardware RAID is not really important to me and seems to add a lot of extra costs.

I am currently using SuperDuper for backup since it is a) very fast, and b) retains all permissions and ACLs, which is very important to me. I would like to continue using SuperDuper as my backup software.

The XServe's internal hard drives have to be Apple Drive Modules, which are limited to 1Tb each but have many benefits. See: http://db.tidbits.com/article/10166

Due to the space limitations of the internal XServe hard drives, I am considering using an external rack-mount solution for both the on-site drives as well as the off-site ones.

If I go with a Mac Pro, I would be able to use the internal drive bays for the 8TB of onsite storage, and then only need 4 bays of external rack-mountable hard drive bays.

What are my best bets: XServe with 8 bays external storage or Mac Pro with 4 bays external storage? For the external storage, is it standard practice to purchase "server grade" hard drives for backup purposes?

What brand of eSata card is best for this purpose?

What is the best rack-mountable hot-swappable eSata storage solution?

Last but not least, are there any alternatives to all of the above that I may be overlooking?

Thanks in advance!

What was the name of the service that provided you with a free 800 number and credit card processing?

thinktwice — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:17:47 -0800

What was the name of the service that provided you with a free 800 number and credit card processing? Their model was that they took a percentage of the credit card fees and you billed your customers through them. It was a very neat way to setup a small service business with almost no overhead. Are they still in business?

The little library that could

Dandeson Coates, Sec'y — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 19:25:58 -0800

Mini-libraryFilter: My small gallery has a reading room, with probably a couple of hundred books. I want a cataloguing and lending system that can turn these books into a real library. I'm ideally looking for a web-based system that will let me enter published and unpublished books, have a publicly-available online catalogue, and let me easily keep track of what's been lent out and who has it. LibraryThing seemed like the trick, but there's no lending system, and the only workaround seems to involve a lot of futzing around with private comments and the like. As I'm not going to be the one using the system most of the time, I'd like it to be easier than that.

The other online services I've found seem to involve lending to other users only. We're on Ubuntu, so Delicious Library is out, even if it could publish an online catalogue. At the moment we're dangling over the precipice of a spreadsheet, and no one wants that.

If anyone has any suggestions, fire away! You can come to our next opening and have wine.

Business Buying Best Practices

undercoverhuwaaah — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 11:48:15 -0800

I'm a potential small business buyer. I'm unsure about the protocol of dealing with business brokers. I've been browsing listings on various business brokerage websites to get a feel for what's out there, but the different listings all list different brokers. These brokers have been hired by the seller, so I am not obliged to pay any fees during the process -- is it therefore ok to contact a variety of different brokers in searching for a buying opportunity?

I'm looking for a specific type of business, which I think complicates things. It'd be easy to contact one broker for a certain type of business and another broker for another type of business, but within the same industry, based on my dealings with territorial apartment brokers, I'm worried about creating a mess.

Any personal experiences? Advice?

help me create my site!

Salvatorparadise — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 08:02:55 -0800

help me get my Web site up and running through Verio... Hi - I'm new to Web sites and have never put one up. I have registered my domain name with verio and paid for hosting through verio too. I have the Windows Basic hosting package. Their "easy site" creator looks handy, but it's pretty limited. In fact, It doesn't even let me change their cheesy graphics. I'd like to create my own site using a program or templates I can find online. Can anyone take me through the basic steps of how to do this? I sell antiques, and the site would have a main page and then links off to several categories of items that would contain photos, descriptions and prices.

Is there a good site that will guide me through the creation of a site?

Once I do that, what do I do? How do I upload the site I've created to Verio to get it running?

Man, i know nothing!!!

Thanks,
Adrian

How to move to Canada and bring my UK small business with me?

dflock — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 18:31:13 -0800

We currently live in the UK and my wife has secured a job in Vancouver, so we're moving to Canada! Yay! However, I am self employed and run my own small business in the UK. All the Canadian Work permit stuff is geared to people who've got a job offer from a Canadian employer, not someone bringing a small business with them. Anyone done this (or something similar) before? Got any advice? It seems there are some Business/Entrepreneur/Investor visa/work permit schemes available in Canada - but that these only apply to people who've got $300k-800k+ kicking around, which I don't. The self employed one is, for some reason, only for Artists, Athletes or Farm Managers. My web development business doesn't really fall under any of these categories.

My research so far indicates that my wife should get one of these: Temporary Work Permit and I should get one of these: Spousal Open Work Permit. Does anyone know if that's the best way to do it, or have any personal experience of this?

Bonus Round: What do I do with the biz when I get there? Setup a new Canadian company, or what?

Thanks!

At least it was a shit job.

Anonymous — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 20:35:25 -0800

In Queensland, Australia: I've been laid off from a job for which I've never had a contract. No notice, no redundancy payments offered, etc. I'm screwed, right? I imagine so, but just checking. I wouldn't even be asking this but for a friend I spoke to last night suggesting I look into it. I never signed a contract at my current place of employ: contract-signing was put off because my employer was an IT start-up, intending on registering a new company name and having me sign a contract once that happened; however the aforementioned registration was put off and put off, and then just never happened (because we're all terrible workers and nothing got done as quickly as it ought to've, etc etc; insert terrible, emotionally manipulative boss here). I can't even provide any evidence of current employment there because in another dodgy move I've been on the books of another family member of the boss's for the past 7 months (doing work primarily for her organisation as well as just odd jobs for the regular boss who was concentrating on another project); apart from these 6 months with this family member, I'd been working where I was for 1.5 years. I was going to be returned to working 100% for the initial gig once work for the family member's organisation was completed; now that it has been, I've been told there's nothing else for me to do, and ta-ta now!

I understand YANAL, or my lawyer, but, sans contract, does employment on its own imply any rights? I've been getting paid holidays and sick pay and superannuation like any fulltime employee, and was assured (when I asked specifically) that I had no need to worry about the economic downturn impacting on my job security, which is why I was prepared to accept this situation in hopes of just remaining employed through this difficult period in the world's financial history.

Now that that's fallen through, is there anything I can expect or appeal to the employer's ethics (heh) to offer at the end of this engagement?

Please, to the snarks out there, no harping on about my stupidity in not having a contract thanks. Unemployed person at the receiving end doing what I can to remain cheery; I don't need taking down to make that more difficult. Assume the lesson is learnt; please be as nice as you'd like people to be to you in the same situation! Thanks!

good research materials on the subject of electric cars, 3d modeling and/or entrepreneurship?

groovinkim — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 14:40:29 -0800

good research materials on the subject of electric cars, 3d modeling and/or entrepreneurship? my boyfriend is the son of a mechanic and dreams of starting his own electric car company (not for the everyday consumer, more like higher end sports cars). he does a lot of online research. he's very intelligent and relatively knowledgeable about cars, engineering, etc. when he gets that dreamy look in his eye and starts rambling about the technical specifics i usually don't understand a word he says. his feelings were hurt initially because i was skeptical about the project. he has viable ideas, but he's more of an archetype of a creative genius/professor than a pragmatic businessman. but i do think that his business has potential.

his birthday's coming up relatively soon, and i'd like to help him by getting him some books and magazines on related subjects.

some things i can think of that i could possibly get him reading materials about:

- electric cars in general. manufacturing processes, the market overall, engineering of them, etc.

- 3d modeling. he's mentioned that he plans on acquiring dual lcd monitors, a 3d scanner and whatever else he needs to make clay models. i don't want to buy him any of that stuff (not that i could afford it anyway) because i'm sure he's very specific in what he wants/doesn't want and probably already has his software of choice picked out. but if there are good books or magazines for a beginner, that could be useful.

i'd much rather have him rent or share a workstation somewhere here in seattle than invest a bunch of money in equipment, but he's weirdly paranoid about using public workstations and the slight possibility of his designs getting disseminated without his knowledge. i really doubt that would happen but haven't been able to successfully talk him out of his paranoia. i'd really like to find local people doing it that would be willing to talk to him about it so he doesn't accidentally buy something crappy, but if there's a consumer reports type magazine that covers related products that could potentially help.

- starting a business, specifically the economic aspects (licensing, getting funding, attracting investors, patent laws and copyright laws, etc.) i do sales/marketing for a voip company currently. although it's not my passion in life and i plan on switching careers, i think i can help advise him on marketing, networking and related topics. but i know nothing about starting a business... i've always worked for other people's small/midsize companies.

also, if anyone happens to know about related college or non-credit programs in seattle, that'd be of interest too. he's currently a programmer making a good living but he never finished his bachelor's. he preferred teaching himself. although he's generally good at self-education, i really feel like it'd be helpful for him to get hands-on experience with 3d modelling, advice from someone knowledgeable on the subject etc. while i don't think you need a degree in business to start one, i've also seen several friends start small businesses that were great ideas that failed miserably. my outside opinion is that they failed in part due to lack of sufficent research/knowledge.

i also feel the need to include a rambling offtopic paragraph about how i <3 metafilter. i work full time and go to school full time so i don't have much time to spend here, but it inspires me that there are still little pockets online where intelligent people communicate in a usually-respectful way. i'm sad that there was no seattle meetup and i didn't have time to organize one myself.

How can I start making my money work for me instead of spending it?

Not Supplied — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 04:49:38 -0800

How can I start making my money work for me instead of spending it? - put my creativity, time and energy in to make money. I don't want to give the impression that I'm a crazy spendthrift cause I'm quite good at saving money on everyday things and not spending more than I need to. However, I've never really made my money work for me. Whenever I've had savings from a job or windfalls, I've always seemed to gradually spend it on projects that cost a little more than my means etc and not done anything to turn it into more money.

I think I may have a mental block in this direction for some reason that's hard to put my finger on.

Obviously one side of this is keeping track of what I spend and being strict about budgeting, which I think I have a handle on improving.

However, the other side is ways to be productive with money which is what I'm really asking about. Not so much savings although some backup is important.

I saw a program some time ago where a financial guy helped a couple to pay their mortage off quickly - they came up with several small businesses using their skills and other little ways of making cash.

I'm quite creative, hardworking and can put a lot of energy into things, but haven't found a way to make things click in this direction.

So, looking for 1)practical ideas and places to get more ideas

2) How can I start thinking in the right way?

3) Is there some sort of professional that I can hire to help me like the guy on the programme?

How to choose an accountant.

thebestsophist — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 18:25:10 -0800

I am looking for a good accountant in the Milwaukee, WI area. I am starting a two-person LLC, any tips on either what to look for in an accountant or know of good ones in the area?

Better fax solution for small business

Protocols of the Elders of Sockpuppetry — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 10:58:23 -0800

Need help improving medium-to-high volume small business faxing. I manage a small business that provides timely reports to its clients - overwhelmingly, by fax. I have been using a small HP multifunction printer/scanner/fax (model LaserJet 2727nf) to send outgoing faxes.

Pros of the current system are:

- It works, usually. The report is generated, we print the report right out of the report generating software, the fax option is present in the print dialog box, and the fax software (usually) pops right up and faxes it.

- The printer holds 150 fax numbers, and the software polls the printer on software launch to load these, slowing workflow considerably. However, that database is accessible to anyone using that fax, on the whole network.

Cons:

- It doesn't work all the time. The fax software leaks memory. Sometimes it hard hangs, requiring manual reboot of the system, which is not good, as a lot of users work remotely.

- We fax frequently to about 200 numbers and rarely to about 300 more, so the database is not adequate in size.

- There's no easy way to develop fax distribution lists and use them to send batches of fax spam (ideally scheduled at night when offices are closed), which is a function we'd like to implement. If you care, it'd be rare message of immediate importance to our clients, such as "our phone number and address have changed."

- Sometimes the fax software backgrounds itself to accomplish its task; sometimes it doesn't, hanging the system up completely until all the faxes are complete. It always leaves a foregrounded window right in the middle of the screen work area, which is a nuisance as it hangs up my employees' workflow.

- The only way to note that a fax has not sent is to request a hardcopy printout. This has to be reviewed by an employee physically present at the fax machine, which is suboptimal.

Question is, what is the best software or hardware available to accomplish our purposes? Really looking for an upgrade, relative to the HPToolBoxFX software, which I feel we're outgrowing. We could drop a couple thousand dollars on this if it was best of breed, but not a couple hundred thousand.

Not interested in: whether we should be using fax versus a newer technology; whether 'fax spam' is appropriate or not.

Tips for a small business/freelancer?

Wolfster — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 11:05:21 -0800

What are your best tips for a small business/entrepreneur/freelancer? I’ve been running my freelance writing business for 6 months now. There have been lots of highs and lows as I try to find clients, but I am paying my bills and am earning 2/3 of the pay I earned at my full-time job – I also have larger jobs/clients lined up (although I won’t count on any of this until I see a contract, but whatever). I’m also happy with the progress because I am finally getting projects that I want.

However, I know I have the potential to do much better, but I need to learn more about running a business.

So this is the part where I try to tap the hive mind.

For those of you who run/ran a small business or worked as a freelancer, what helped you turn your business around or improve significantly? Your resource can be a book, blog, organization, or just tips/lessons learned.

In addition to the financial aspect, were you able to get a great project/learn something new/”have multiple streams of income”, and if so, how did you get to that point? I guess what I am suggesting is that success of a business is more than just $ to me, and I would like to know how others got to that point. In other words, if there is down time, is there a way it could best be spent to improve the business (besides looking for more clients).

Just curious and hoping the hive mind can once again be a useful resource for me

Can my VA employer pay for individual health insurance?

88nemeth — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:26:06 -0800

Can my Virginia employer, a small business/sole proprietorship, pay for my individually-issued health insurance premium? I just started a new job and the owner, a sole proprietor, has offered to pay for up to $250 a month in individual premiums for me and my coworker: she doesn't want to get group coverage because, with only two employees, if one of us leaves then the other will lose insurance also.

I went through the application process for Anthem BlueCross of Virginia only to find at the end that I had to agree to the following statement: "the Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield policy, if issued, shall not be used as an employer-provided health care benefit plan. I certify that no employer of any person covered under the Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield policy may pay any premium for the Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield coverage, directly or indirectly, including through wage adjustment."

Some googling found examples of employers in other states paying for individual premiums, but I couldn't find any Virginia examples. My boss is offering to just give us a raise instead, but if possible I'd like to have the tax-free advantages from an employer-paid plan.

Does anyone know if any Virginia insurers are amenable to such arrangements?

Moxie Cinema blog is great -other examples in other industries?

bystander — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 04:51:02 -0800

What blogs/sites like Moxie Cinema offer similar insights and real discussion of the business elements of their operations? Cafes, restaurants, book shops, video stores, bars, widget makers, whatever! I think I've learned more about the cinema business from the Moxie blog than I know about my own industry. Which other blogs do the same for other industries? Also keen to hear about books that offer the same 'real world' insights, rather than idealized examples.

Help tune-in my station-ery store.

pantsonfire — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 10:35:48 -0800

What would you find in an ideal stationery store? I have just moved my letterpress print shop into a building with a storefront on a busy street.

The presses are in the back, but there's a really nice storefront just begging to be filled with cool merchandise.

Are there any products you want to rave about? If so, I'd love to learn about them, and try to stock them!

Do I have to assign percentages?

TungstenChef — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 15:06:04 -0800

Mixing business and pleasure as a small businessperson, I need a little advice regarding taxes and business travel. I'll be traveling to Minneapolis twice in August for personal reasons. A friend has asked about commissioning a web site and it may make sense for me to stay in Mpls for the intervening two weeks and create it. I assume that food and lodging during the business portion would be deducitble, what about plane tickets? Also, if I buy a cheap bike from Craigslist for local transportation, can I deduct that as an expense? Anything else obvious I can deduct?

I suck at buying birthday presents. Please help me find a book on home businesses!

badmoonrising — Tue, 19 May 2009 16:17:39 -0800

I need to find a helpful book about starting home businesses for my friend. My good friend is planning to start up her own home-based company over the summer. She already has a number of creative money-making schemes up and running, including painting murals and selling (wonderfully) painted shoes by commission, but she mentioned to me recently that she'd like to get a business going during the summer to tie together all her different endeavours. She plans to keep it ticking over during the next academic year and then really get things moving once she graduates next summer. Her dream is, I think, to open a shop one day selling her various work. I include these details a) because the craft aspect may be relevant to the type of book, and b) to show that she's not planning to spring straight into renting a workshop and hiring staff, but she is thinking long term and taking it fairly seriously.

So, for her birthday I'd like to get her a decent book about small/home businesses to show that I'm supportive of her plans.

But after browsing Amazon, I find myself a little stymied. To be honest, since I know absolutely nothing about home businesses, I don't know what's useful and what's completely irrelevant at this stage. All the books seem to be either incredibly patronising and 'For Dummies' style, (which admittedly may be useful but they're rather insulting to give to someone as a present!), or dense tomes about interviewing prospective staff and buying office furniture in bulk, which isn't relevant to her at this point. I'd like something in the middle.

Specific to the UK is a bonus, but if it's a really useful book otherwise then I can be flexible on that.

So. Does anyone have any recommendations of books they've found helpful? Or, on the other hand, books to avoid like the plague?

Thanks very much everyone!

Please tell me why this business idea will or won't work

cosmicbandito — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 19:41:14 -0800

I have an idea for a small local business. However, I want honest feedback from a group of my peers about whether or not it's viable or marketable. That's where you come in... I've been asked by a colleague at work to help her control her children's access to the internet. She is a very intelligent woman, but not technical by any stretch. She is also a therapist in behavioral health and has horror stories to tell about kids with unfettered web access 24/7. I have agreed to help her set up some basic access controls and monitoring software. If she needs this, how many other parents out there need it?

Here is my business idea: teach parents how to monitor and control their children's internet access in an age appropriate manner. Provide in home training on their own hardware. Sell them extra hardware if they need it. Do this in a friendly, courteous manner at a reasonable cost.

Details: for little kids, install sand-box white list controls and only allow access to what the parent okays ahead of time. For older kids, more freedom, but continued monitoring. For tech savvy teens, locked down configurations with router based filtering etc, but a clear explanation that there's only so much you can do once they really understand computers.

I see this as being an in home service, with the basic package being an hour of teaching/setup. Additional services could be wireless network setup, additional teaching, and maybe networking hardware.

Before you all scream at me for wanting to limit kids access to information, relax, I'm with you on that. That's one of the reasons I want to offer this service. I hate filters like NetNanny because they don't work and provide a false sense of security. I want parents to understand what the web is about and have an honest dialogue with their kids.

Here's where you can help:
1. Tell me why this idea will or won't work.
2. Point me to other people offering a similar service.
3. Profit???

setting up a bank account for a small business

bingo — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 15:49:27 -0800

Help me make sure I am setting things up properly dealing with invoices and checking accounts as a small business. I know that my prospective clients won't pay anyone without either a SSN or an EIN number. So I went online and filed with the IRS as a legal partnership (with myself) and got an EIN number under the name of my business-to-be.

Now, my plan is to use that EIN number to invoice my client, and have them make out a check to the name of my new company. Then I will take that check and the IRS document giving my EIN number to the bank, and will tell them that I want to open a business checking account under the company name. Then I will use that checking account to pay myself and anyone else who works with me.

Is this a sensible plan, as far as it goes, or am I missing something? Will the bank accept the check and the IRS document as sufficient documentation to open the account? (I can supply my own ID too, of course, but I want the account to have the company's name, not mine...though I should of course be listed as the person authorized to use the account.)

Looking forward to thoughts/advice, and happy to share more info as needed.

$50k for a small business, what do you got?

ibechase — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 19:08:49 -0800

If you were starting a business in the current economic climate and you had $25k-50k start up capital, what type of business would you start? I'm in a situation where I have access to a large amount of cash, plenty of time on my hands and I'm looking to start a business. I have a list of ideas and I'm looking for input on what type of businesses *you* think should be started.

I'm a graphic designer and am comfortable in most facets of business (design, branding, marketing, advertising, bookkeeping, etc.). I'm very computer-saavy and have a very strong work ethic.

I'm going to start a business, so there's no need to tell me how I'd be better off saving the money. I look forward to hearing what you guys think would be great businesses that could be started for $25k-50k and could thrive in the current economy. Thanks for any and all input.

How do I identify a company that develops online registration/scheduling software?

ewiley28 — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 12:09:11 -0800

How can I identify software for online registration for soccer training sessions? I'm thinking there are some solutions out there that are basically blackbox that can then be tailored to my site, but I haven't been able to turn them up. I don't want to use just something like regonline.com because I have people signing up for each session and there are dozens of different sessions in a week. I've seen a couple of software programs on website that look like they could work, but I wasn't able to find any information on the development of any of these, so I don't know if they are in-house software or if they are some sort of commercially available product.

Ideally, I would like to be able to show initially two months (current and next) when a person signs in with the date clickable if there are spaces available for them to register that day. Then, by clicking on the date, it would show the specific sessions available. There are 8 sessions most days and can be up to 8 individuals in a session, but the software would need to be able to note when 8 had been met and show that session as not available.

So, how do I go about identify a product that can be used to provide this type of service? I'm thinking that it's probably something that will need some development/tailoring to make fit my needs, but I'm guessing the company that has developed something like this would be designed to handle that.

Help me revive the arts in my comatose little town

Spike — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 12:03:25 -0800

How should I go about buying/starting/running a small business? So, there's this gorgeous old Streamline Moderne theater downtown that's fallen into dilapidation, and I want to buy it, renovate it, and make an indie/art theater out of it. The only problem is, I don't really know how. I've tracked down the current owner, who has been using the place as storage for the past decade or so. I've found gobs of info on the building's history, how it used to look, and so on. What I don't know (in order of ascending importance) is how to run a theater, how to get financing to buy one, how to go about renovating it, and most pressingly, how to broach the subject with the current owner. I've found sparse info here and there on the first two, but not much that applies well to my particular situation. Any other relevant advice on this cockamamie scheme is welcome, too.

Testing-the-Waters-Filter

webhund — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 11:43:24 -0800

What are the realities of running a small online business while working a full-time job at the same time? I've got a fairly well-developed concept for an online store that would market, sell, and ship a physical product, but I also work a full-time "real" job. Mrs. WebHund would not be pleased if pipe dream interfered with real job that is paying the mortgage off. So I need a little more "here's how I do it" information. While developing my concept and poking around the AskMe archives looking for ecommerce how-to's, I noticed that a lot of MeFites have small online web stores selling all kinds of cool stuff. (You know who you are). Presumably, many of you are also likely working 40+ hours for "the man" and running your online store on the side. Obviously, there are lots of MSM articles about this, but they tend to be fluff/feature pieces that don't go into the nitty-gritty details that I'm looking for. I've got the concept, product, labeling, invoicing, shipping stuff, and all of the other logistics worked out, so not really looking for "what's the best online shopping cart?" or "should I use PayPal or Google Checkout" and similar how-to information.

Instead, what I'd like to know is what kind of experiences you've had doing this on the side, how you juggle/manage customers, emails, orders, doing the shipping, books, deposits, and all of the order stuff that goes along with selling a real product to real customers for real money.

Basically, looking for "day-in-the-life" descriptions and suggestions of your online store management routine and how you do it while working full-time for Acme MegaCorp.

For this pilates studio owner, marketing is a stretch...

lgandme0717 — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 13:41:25 -0800

Ideas for marketing a new pilates studio in Manhattan? Trying to help a new Web client market herself. She has opened a new pilates studio and has offerings in Gyrokinesis classes and Stott pilates matwork. Her business is located in midtown Manhattan. I can help her with SEO, but I think there is much more she can do with marketing to local businesses, putting together promotions, etc. Unfortunately this kind of marketing is not my area of expertise. Do you have any words of wisdom I can share with this new entrepreneur? Thank you in advance for all your insights.