Uncategorized – Page 9

Welcome, Tasteful Garden!

We’re pleased to welcome The Tasteful Garden as a new client. If you’re a lover of homegrown tomatoes – and who isn’t – be sure to check them out. They offer 49 varieties of tomato plants, all organic, and many of them heirloom. In addition, their products include a great selection of herbs, peppers, cucumbers, and other popular vegetables – everything for the kitchen gardener who appreciates having variety without the need to grow from seed.

Their web site includes lots of customer reviews, plus their own rating system indicating which varieties are easiest to grow. And oh, the photography – I get hungry every time I go to their web site!

An Easy Way to Help Entrepreneurs Reach Their Goals

Being an entrepreneur can be a lonely business. Small business owners need to know a lot about many things – not just producing their product, but marketing, advertising, bookkeeping, financing, customer service, fulfillment, and more. It helps to bounce ideas off other entrepreneurs who have some understanding of your business, but few business owners have that luxury. (Click headline for more…)

Can You Co-Venture?

The October 2008 issue of Catalog Success carried an interesting profile of Peter Cobb, the founder of eBags. (If you’re not familiar with eBags, have a look – it’s an impressive website selling 36,000 handbags, totebags, briefcases, backpacks and more.)

Four years ago, eBags tried expanding into the shoe business, only to find that it took them too far afield from their core competency. After selling the shoe portion of the business, they recognized that they could still take advantage of a synergy with that industry. They teamed up with Shoes.com to produce a joint catalog. Half the book offers eBags products, the other half offers Shoes.com merchandise. Customers of eBags receive a catalog with eBags on the front, Shoes.com on the back. For Shoes.com customers, the covers are reversed. A remarkably clever idea, I thought!

The idea reminded me of Kip Creel’s suggestion mentioned in our July 23 blog post for online nurseries to team up with garden centers.

What companies does your business have a synergy with? Is co-venturing a way to cut your costs and expand your business?

A Hard Lesson Learned in Backing Up

I called a client early one morning last week, and was greeted with “I can’t talk now. We had a break-in last night and they took a load of computers.” Not surprisingly, what should have been the easiest part – restoring the data – turned out to be much harder than replacing the actual computers. Even with insurance, the cost in both time and money is pretty huge.

For some time, I’ve been using an automatic online backup system called backup.com. At midnight every night (users select the specific time), it automatically backs up whatever files I’ve specified on every computer that is running. More than once, I’ve used backup.com to recover files that I’ve inadvertently modified or deleted. And even if there’s a fire or theft, data is easily retrieved since it’s off-site.

Rates vary depending on the amount of storage required, but are quite reasonable. A friend recently recommended a similar service, Carbonite, which may be even more affordable for some users.

Welcome, Kinsman Garden!

I’m pleased to welcome Kinsman Garden of Pipersville, PA as a client. If you’re not familiar with Kinsman, do check out their web site or request their catalog. They sell all manner of unusual and innovative planters, garden ornaments, tools and more. I’m finding it very hard to refrain from shopping their catalog while working on their account!

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