BizSense makeover

We just launched a new version of the website, and boy are my arms tired. The new site has tons of extra features, many of which are too nerdy to discuss here. The BizWire lets any Richmond business (with a membership) to share news about itself. We’ll also be adding video and podcasts to our stories. After going through this process twice in the last year, I know now that it might take a few weeks before the site fully incorporates all the bells and whistles we want.

This Bud is Bound for Brazil/Belgium

Busch Gardens in Williamsburg might be put up for sale if a foreign brewer follows through on plans to buy the Anheuser Busch Company, according to a story in the Financial Times.

InBev, which has operations around the world, would also likely layoff some of the Williamsburg brewery staff if a deal goes through. The company would also slash marketing budgets, which could lead to job losses in Williamsburg and deal another blow to local ad-sensitive media.

“InBev, the Belgian-based brewer plotting to take Anheuser over under a plan code-named Project Aluminum, doesn’t see itself getting into the theme park game. Any takeover of Anheuser would be part-financed by the sale of the entertainment division, according to a source with detailed knowledge of InBev’s plans.”

It stands to follow that InBev would have little interest in owning Kingsmill Resort.

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Feel-Good Marketing

Cause-related marketing, as the marketing technique is known, owes its origins to an American Express program from the 1980s, when the credit card company donated funds to help restore the Statue of Liberty. In years since, the marketing style has become an increasingly popular tool for companies to create a positive association among potential customers.

Lower your chances of pulling a retirement goose-egg

It seems some lessons need constant repeating. You’d think the fall of Enron and WorldCom taught investors a valuable lesson in the dangers of having too much of their company-sponsored retirement plan in company stock. But judging by what appears to be the pending demise of Bear Stearns, whose stock plummeted from $160 per share to less than $10 per share, apparently not. Bear Stearns employees owned about one third of the investment firm’s stock.

The “Recesion-Proof” Myth

When I ask small business owners if they’re seeing a slowdown, I’m told that invoices are taking longer to get paid, that expansion plans are getting put on hold, or that new contracts are slower in coming than in the past. Construction and auto dealers so far appear to be suffering the most. But any admission of slower growth is always followed by the same phrase: “But we’re pretty much recession proof.”

Wanna Trade: bartering can help conserve cash

Most business owners have at least a few good yarns to tell about a trade gone screwy (possibly involving a goat, if you’re lucky). No hard statistics exist on the volume of bartered transactions because much of it is off the books. One accountant said it happens, “all the time.” Sometimes Scott Brown likes to treat his employees to boxed lunches and trips to the spa for free massages. Only Brown doesn’t does write a check to the catering company or the masseuses. Nor does he pull out a wad of cash when it comes time to pay People’s Tax Service. Instead Brown, the owner of telecommunications vendor Centritech Solutions Inc, reverts to the oldest of all forms of commerce: bartering. As a member of James River Trade Exchange, he trades services with other Richmond-area businesses to the tune of around $5,000 a year.

Make Your Own Web Commercial…just don’t fall of a ladder

A number of startups think there’s a market for helping businesses make videos of their products – sort of a QVC for the masses. In Tuesday’s New York Times, Bob Tedeschi describes the nascent TalkMarket: “It begins with an online tutorial of how to shoot product demonstration videos: light well, change camera angles, speak as if you are talking to a friend and look directly into the lens…Is this something manufacturers or retailers want to mess with?

Managing Expectations: how local wealth advisors steer clients through rough seas

whenever the stock markets take a dip, Chris Williams, Director of Investment Products and Services at Virginia Asset Management, likes to tell the story about the guy who would always impulsively buy a stock at the market peak and ride it all the way to the bottom and then sell everything, ending up with a 1% return after three years when most clients made 15%. “His timing was so impeccable I was almost tempted to invest every time he wanted to sell out,” says Williams. So, with stagnant stock indices, crunching Save credit markets and a housing sector with no roof over its head, you might think the phones of local wealth managers would be ringing off the hook with clients screaming, “SELL, SELL, SELL!” Not so, say area financial advisors.

Begging for donations leave a bad taste in patron’s mouth

Next week restaurants around Richmond will be asking patrons who order tap water to donate $1 to The United Nations Children's Fund, commonly known as UNICEF. VCU BrandCenter is promoting the event, called Richmond Tap Project . In their push to be creative, the BrandCenter effort shows a lack of understanding about incentives and basic business principals. Frankly, it isn’t very catchy.

A brothel is a small biz, right?

A few keys to operating a profitable brothel include having a website and selling advertising. Josh Levin in Slate writes about how Eliot Spitzer’s favorite escort services diversified beyond just whoring. Richmond brothels don’t have websites, according to a cursory search by me. Freelance hookers use Craigslist. Read the story here.

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