BizStratBlog2

If Rochester, Michigan can do it, why can't we?

Rochester, Michigan - a smaller city that shares our name in Michigan, has decided to make their downtown a "winter wonderland" - lighting every building downtown for the holiday season.  As we "enjoy" our dead downtown this holiday season - think of what doing something like Rochester Michigan has done, in combination with free downtown holiday parking and a strong police presences to ensure and maintain safety could do to improve the vital retail and business environment downtown...

http://www.ledgenlighting.com/slideshow3.php

CompUSA going out of business

CompUSA has decided to close or sell all their bricks and mortar stores after being sold to an investment firm that intends to liquidate it's assets.  They are attempting to sell stores in major retail markets, and close them in markets that are not profitable.  The local CompUSA in Rochester is already starting it's going out of business sale with discounts of 5-20% on everything in the store.  Popular and expensive products like Apple, HP, Audio Visual etc. are at the lower end of the discount range while products that have typically carried higher margins such as power supplies and computer cases are closer to the higher end of the spectrum.  Since they are selling fixtures I'll assume the local store is to be closed.

So what does this mean for the average consumer?  Well for one thing - if you know EXACLTY what you want and are happy with the manufacturer's warranty on it you can save some dollars buying during their "close-out sale".  No doubt discounts will deepen as the end approaches, and some real bargains can be had (current discounts just bring the price of the retail products down to roughly what you'd pay online for them).  But these discounts come at a cost.  Every receipt is tagged "no refunds, no warranty service" - you cannot trade the item back in if it's the wrong thing or not what you expected.  In addition, there will likely be no one on the other end of the phone to assist you if you have problems installing it or configuring it with your system.

It also means anyone who bought extended warranties from CompUSA directly will likely be out of luck. Once they close their doors - there will be no one left to fix anything.  Similarly if you have an item in for repair - better be sure you get it back within the next week or two - whether it's fixed or not. 

Dell sees the light...

Dell, in a move to recapture market share lost to HP, has decide to provide their products through brick-and-mortar retailser such as Staples.  You can be assured that this won't be a permanent exclusive arrangement.  My prediction is that Dell will eventually become another channel and direct model supported computer vendor - just like HP.

The fact is that, though computers have become commodities, they are complex commodities.  As such, people continue to feel more comfortable purchasing them from people or stores that they know, and knowing there's a local service organization to back them up.  This is especially true in the Server market where buying mail order is only for the technorati that already know what they want and how they're going to configure it.  I can't tell you the number of times that for employees of my clients, relatives, friends and sometimes casual strangers in restaurants will ask me "What computer should I buy".  For some of them I simply log onto the site and shop side-by-side with them for that new Dell or HP laptop.  That gives them the warm fuzzy and the inexpensive prices all wrapped into one.  For my clients I typically charge for this service - its reasonable that if they're tapping my expertise on what to buy - that has a value which I should be reimbursed for (since I'm getting no margin, kickback, or other compensation).

Windows XP given reprieve until June 2007

The popular Operating System Windowx XP will continue to be sold until June 2008, rather than ceasing sales in January 2008 as originally planned by Microsoft.  This means that for those of you considering Vista you have a little longer to evaluate it and get it up and running.  You can see in my next "This is IT" article my current evaluation of Vista.  Having made the leap myself I am very pleased with Vista's capability, stability and features.

So this reprieve means you have a bit longer to consider how you're going to move to Vista - but the change IS inevitable and you should start testing and planning sooner rather than later.

Cheers,

Lee Drake, www.os-cubed.com

Office 2003 - RIP

Microsoft is no longer selling retail or OEM versions of Office 2003.  If you want Office - you need to buy Office 2007.  Is your organization up to date and ready to deploy Office 2007?  OS-Cubed, Inc. recommends 1GB of RAM on a Windows XP machine or 2GB of RAM on a Vista machine for Office 2007 to run well.  In addition, you'll need to deploy the office compatibiity pack to allow your Office 2003 users to read and write the new 2007 format.

Be sure to pick the right Office suite for your needs.  Here is a handy matrix of what each one contains.

If you're going to upgrade your office en masse you should probably consider buying licenses instead of retail or OEM versions.  Contact your local Microsoft reseller for information about what license types are available and are right for you.

Eyes on the future - next meeting

The Small Business Council of Rochester, and Greater Rochester Enterprise have announced the next step in the ongoing Eyes on the Future process.  They identified the following 5 goals as a result of the summit's conclusions:

1. Be an Ambassador -- promote the Rochester Region
2. Be a Matchmaker -- connect businesses with resources to thrive in the Rochester Region
3. Be a Rainmaker - lead initiatives to increase resources for new and established businesses
4. Be Positive - positive thinking and positive action lead to a positive reality
5. Be Proud - proud to live, work and play in the Rochester Region

Are you looking for a way to further champion this mission? To find out how you can help, join GRE and SBC on September 17, 2007.  Their goal is to provide you with greater insight into actions taking place to revitalize the 9-county region and provide you with specific actions you can take to help us grow - concentrating on step one - Be an ambassador.

The "Eyes on the Future - Ambassador Program" meeting will be held on September 17 from 9:30 am to 10:30 am in the HSBC Auditorium at 100 Chestnut Street, Rochester, NY.  The meeting will be right after Greater Rochester Enterprise's board and investor meeting. You're welcome to come early on September 17 and attend GRE's meeting from 8:00 am to 9:30 am.

Please rsvp to Bridget Loyde (Bridget) by September 10.

How can we be both 1st and 93rd at the same time?

In an earlier post I remarked on how Rochester had been rated #1 in the country for quality of life by Expansion Management Magazine - they recommended that companies look at Rochester as a location to move to.  Another recent survey by BizJournals.com ranked Rochster as the 7th worst city in the nation for small businesses.  How can we be both!? The Bizjournals.com evaluated the potential for growth of a small business, rather than overall quality of life.

The special report entitled "Where the best markets are to grow small business" covers the growth potential using a 12 factor evaluation:

• Existing small businesses/100,000 residents
• The 2-year and 5-year change in concentration of small businesses/100,000 residents
• The 2-year and 5-year change in total number of small businesses
• The 2-year and 5-year change in total residents
• The 2-year and 5-year change in private-sector employees
• The 2-year and 5-year change in private-sector payroll
• Average pay per private-sector employee in 2006 dollars

They're looking for cities on the way up - cities that are growing in all these factors.  And Rochester is in fact either shrinking or staying flat in vertually every category over the 2 and 5 year trends.  BizJournals attributes this to our population remaining flat, and our shrinking major industry manufacturing companies (Kodak, Xerox, Delphi) not pumping new capital into Rochester to help it grow.

Read on to the post continuation for a more detailed comparison of our scores

Are you throwing your money away on web advertising?

Recently a potential customer called me to ask "Why isn't my web advertising working?"

He was spending around a hundred dollars a month on targetted Google Advertising, and had actually done a pretty good job of working out what keywords were the right ones for his business. But he was getting no results - no new calls, no new orders, no new sales.  What was he doing wrong?

In analyzing his situation we looked at two things - the advertisements themselves, and the website. The ads weren't all that bad - but they were very sales oriented. This is a common error that marketing people make when they create an online ad - they think in terms of print advertising. In print, radio, and TV advertising your goal is to get the advertisement reader to buy your product NOW, or remember you and buy your product LATER.

In search-based web advertising the ONLY GOAL is to get the user to click your link and go to your site.  You can sell them all you want on the site but you need to get them to click through first.

Click through on the post continuation to see what to do to optimize your web ads, and what this customer's second mistake was...

Eyes on The Future followup

This week Greater Rochester Enterprise (GRE) and the Small Business Council (SBC) will announce some conclusions and the next step in the Eyes on the Future program.  In the meantime we'd love to get feedback on the event.  What did you feel was great about Eyes on the Future, what could have been improved?  Leave your comments here.

Things are looking up for Rochester.  Being declared number 1 for quality of life in the country by EM Magazine is a bigger deal than you might think - thousands of business owners looking to locate their businesses read EM Magazine.  In addition, our 70 page insert in US Airlines magazine means thousands of travellers a day are seeing the best of our city and region.

How are you and your company going to take advantage of this momentum?  Are you reaching out to companies outside the region - as an ambassador, a dealmaker, a recruiter? 

Rochester rated number 1 in Quality of Life

According to Expansion Management magazine, a top magazine for executives looking to relocate their companies, Rochester, NY is number 1 in quality of life out of over 350 other cities in the "large metropolitan region" category.  Cities were evaluated on 50 different criteria.  See this link for the article, which shows how they evaluated cities.  You can check out how we ranked in the top ten at this link.

As a company you want to look for places to locate that allow you save money on salaries, while still allowing your workers to have the quality of life they need and deserve.  Rochester gives you that - in spades!

Basically EM magazine is looking for places where the average worker can have a comfortable home, in a safe neighborhood, with excellent schools, for a reasonable proportion of your salary.  The importance is not so much what salary you'll be getting, but what that salary will buy in terms of a lifestyle.  Overall in Rochester you get the best combination of quality of life at a low price, and reasonably good salaries to afford that quality of life.

Criteria included affordable housing, good public schools, low crime levels, adult education level, standard of living, traffic and commuting, continuing education opportunity, commercial air access, and the general labor market.  The quality of life ranking was for middle class lifestyle.  Here's how we faired in each category:

Affordable housing - #4 behind Oklahoma city, Buffalo, Louisville

Public Schools - #6 behind Washington DC, Austin, TX, Phoenix, Baltimore and Richmond

Low Crime - #6 behind Boston, San Jose, Providence, Pittburgh and New York City

Adult education level - we did not rate in the top ten for large metros, or overall

Standard of Living - Rochester did not rate in the top ten for large metros or overall

Commute to work - Rochester was #2 behind Buffalo

Continuing Education opportunities - Rochester did not rank in the top ten

Commercial air access - Rochester did not rank in the top 10

Labor market - Rochester did not rank in the top 10

Our overall ranking put is in the "5 star Metropolitan Service Area" category

- Lee Drake
CEO OS-Cubed, Inc.

Join the dialog about how to improve our rankings in some of the categories we did not rank well in by checking out the Eyes on the Future site at www.eyesonthefuture.biz.