Author Archive

The Miami Herald:

Eric Poses rolled the dice in 1997, when he founded All Things Equal and took off on a cross-country sales trip in his car. Since then, revenue has grown and he now finds himself in a countercyclical sales boom.

Board games traditionally do well during tough economic times. After all, Monopoly was launched in 1935, during the Great Depression. Last year, as total U.S. toy sales declined, board game sales rose 6 percent to $794 million, according to market research by NPD Group.

Poses said All Things Equal brought in $1.45 million in revenue last year. This year he projects that to grow to more than $2 million. But he will have to wait to find out if that projection is accurate, since about 75 percent of his company sales occur during the fourth-quarter holiday rush.

Board game makers attribute the recent boost in sales to consumers looking for a way to socialize without going out.

“When the economy is bad and people are feeling financially pinched, board games are very attractive,” said Cliff Annicelli, editor-in-chief of Playthings Magazine, a toy industry publication. “You can play them over and over again.”

Everyone — from kids and parents to young adults — has been getting into the game, according to industry leaders.

“It’s growing across all demographics,” said Pat Riso, vice president of global communications at Hasbro Games.

Reyne Rice, a toy trend specialist at the Toy Industry Association, said board games have been selling well even during the spring and summer, a time when sales normally experience a lull.

Poses said his company is having a good year. The company added Kmart as a distributor and sales were bolstered by a deal with retailer TJ Maxx, which bought the entire inventory of four games that had not sold well. Poses said ridding himself of the slow-selling inventory was not just a financial boon, but also an opportunity to start fresh.

Image from All Things Equal, Inc.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

Reuters:

Small businesses in need of a new image will have the chance to receive up to $15,000 in prizes to transform their brand in the Deluxe Business Makeover Sweepstakes launching today.

Deluxe will randomly award three grand prize winners a $10,000 gift certificate from Target Commercial Interiors(TM) featuring HON((R) )furniture and a $5,000 DeluxeBucks((R) )gift certificate to use toward logo and Web site design, promotional products and additional marketing and branding solutions. Ten second-place winners will receive $500 DeluxeBucks((R)) gift certificates.

“The Deluxe Business Makeover Sweepstakes allows us and our partners to celebrate the important role small businesses play in our economy,” said Joanne McGowan, leader of Deluxe for Business, a business unit of Deluxe Corporation. “We’re proud to be offering our proven marketing solutions such as logo design, Web site design and hosting, promotional materials, business forms and email marketing to help them get and keep customers.”

The sweepstakes is open to any U.S. small business with fewer than 50 employees. To enter for a chance to win, participants can visit www.businessmakeoversweeps.com.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

The Dallas Morning News:

There’s a brush fire bearing down on your business. You have one hour to evacuate – which means you have one hour to execute a disaster preparation plan.

This is a scenario similar to what thousands of small business owners face each year. Luckily, that’s enough time to take care of a company’s most valuable assets – its employees and its data.

Disaster prep is one of those tasks that many small-business owners keep putting off.

While it’s understandable that some owners don’t get around to disaster planning, they’re courting danger.

“This is wrath-of-God stuff,” said John Toigo, a disaster recovery consultant based in Dunedin, Fla.

Minimal preparation – the kind you’d have to resort to if a disaster were in fact on the way – can be accomplished in an hour. And you can do much more if you have an entire day.

Toigo said the first thing to be done is to put together a list of contact phone numbers and physical and e-mail addresses for everyone on the staff, and to be sure everyone has a copy.

Luis Yepez, vice president of Mainstream Global, a Lawrence, Mass.-based computer reseller, said that it’s also important to know how you’re going to stay in touch with your clients, customers and vendors. They need to know your situation because what happens to you affects them.

Toigo noted that it’s easy to pop a flash drive into the USB ports of your computers and back up all your information, including customer and vendor lists, your firm’s books and inventory lists and the projects you’re working on. You can also e-mail data to a non-work address for safekeeping.

Photo by Timm Williams

From Business Opportunities Weblog.