Savvy entrepreneurs are cracking open the door to the grammar school lunchroom with something many parents can’t get soon enough: healthier lunches.

School lunches are big business. In public schools they often are controlled by unions and federal subsidies, primarily the $7 billion-a-year National School Lunch Program, which covers about half the 54 million public school kids. The lunches rarely include fresh fruits and veggies at a time when 17% of children ages 2 to 9 are overweight, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

With growing concern about child nutrition and obesity, more alternatives are being offered by tiny start-ups with names such as Health e-Lunch Kids, Brown Bag Naturals and Kidfresh.

Besides fresh fruit and veggies, their lunches include organic or natural foods without trans fats, additives or preservatives. At $4.50 to $7.40, they also cost up to three times the price of the typical school lunch.

“It’s time to change our children’s relationship with food,” says Ann Cooper, author of Lunch Lessons: Changing the Way We Feed Our Children. “Cheap food means sick kids.” Says nutritionist Sharron Dalton: “The system is screwed up.”

USA Today

“Women - or men, for that matter - who are not golfing are choosing to neglect one of the most powerful business and career-development tools there is,” declares Hilary Bruggen.

Bruggen may be a tiny bit biased: A former head of global marketing for KPMG, she quit that job to start and run Strelmark, a Washington, D.C., firm that conducts corporate golf-etiquette workshops for companies like Microsoft (Bill Gates is an avid golfer), Deloitte & Touche, Wachovia, and Smith Barney Citigroup.

Still, Bruggen speaks from personal experience: “I got the job as head of global marketing at KPMG in large part because top management knew me - and they knew me from the golf course,” she says.

Read the article on CNN Money.

A new report highlights the importance of making new businesses appear credible to employees and customers.
The success of an emerging business depends largely on the owner’s ability to convince potential employees or customers that the nascent company is operational, according to new research.

“People are likely to buy products, work for, and give money to entities that are credible, that they perceive as operational,” said Newbert. “Organizations that make their fledgling operation appear more legitimate than it might actually be are better able to access customers and recruit employees.”

Read complete article on inc.com

Rhonda Abrams at USA Today

I’m a firm believer that the road to success for small companies is through specialization. A local hardware store has a hard time competing against home improvement big-box retailers, but if you specialize in unique knobs and fixtures, you can build a national clientele. It’s tough to get started as an accountant, but if you market primarily to health care providers, you can stand out.

Having a specialty — or niche — not only enables you to distinguish yourself in your market, it provides you with a built-in marketing plan. Imagine, for instance, if you made organic pet food (something of great interest with the recent pet food health scare). You could advertise in publications reaching readers concerned about the environment, sponsor Sierra Club events, and market to health food grocers.

How do you find a niche for your own business? You can break down your specialty by: Read the rest of this entry »

Sending an offer by mail can cost anywhere from 50 cents to $150 for each prospect, depending on the different components of the campaign. For the most part, direct mail is more expensive than advertising by e-mail or on the web, but it can also be much more effective in the long run.

How do you get the most out of the money you invest in your direct mailings, whether you handle them in-house or hire an outside firm? Here are seven approaches to incorporate into your marketing strategies:

1. Save the postcards for vacation
2. Impose a deadline
3. Emphasize your product’s benefits, not just its features.
4. Outdo the competition
5. Use real people
6. Rent the right list
7. Get personal

Tips by Lois K. Geller, president of Mason and Geller Direct Marketing. For tips from her latest book, Sold!: Direct Marketing for the Real Estate Pro, go to loisgeller.com/dmtips.

Having a sense of direction is essential to the success of a company, and as the business changes, so must the strategy and management style.

Sydney Finkelstein, the Steven Roth professor of management at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business, says that a company’s business strategy and management theory should be constantly evolving. “Standing still is the worst strategy of all,” says Mr. Finkelstein, author of “Why Smart executives Fail: And What You Can Learn From Their Mistakes.”

Below, Mr. Finkelstein shares his reading list on business strategy and management theory as well as a Web site and movie. Here are his picks:

You know how critical it is to follow up your initial contacts or mailings with a personal phone call, but somehow your list of calls to make always seems to get longer instead of shorter. Days or even weeks go by before you place important calls, and there always seems to be something more important to do. Why not make this the month you get off the dime and get on the phone? Here are seven steps to make it easy for you:

1. Know why you are calling
2. Prepare a “script.”
3. Get in the mood
4. Speak briefly, then listen
5. Make it a conversation
6. Be yourself
7. Ask for the next step

Your next step might be an in-person appointment, sending information, placing a call to someone else, or calling again after a length of time. Whatever it is, be clear about it, and get the other person’s permission for what you plan to do.

businessknowhow.com