Co-ops
While many of us think of consumer cooperatives, where members join together to get discounted merchandise, few of us are aware of...
Co-ops
While many of us think of consumer cooperatives, where members join together to get discounted merchandise, few of us are aware of business cooperatives. In business cooperatives, independent producers or retailers join together to buy wholesale merchandise, share marketing costs, and other back office costs to get rates normally only available to much larger national chains and big businesses. This story will focus on an independent carpet and flooring store located in Detroit. The store is flourishing even in the bad economy and in a terrible market because they are able to buy their wholesale merchandise and marketing materials at rates that are as good or better than the big-box stores like Home Depot and Lowes. They are able to compete because they are members of CCA Global Partners, a member-owned umbrella organization which is home to several different industry cooperatives. CCA Global is in fact bigger than Starbuck or Bed Bath and Beyond, and is therefore able to negotiate highly competitive prices.
Panelists:
Stella Grizont, founder of WOOPAAH & managing director of Ladies Who Launch, NYC
Micah Rosenbloom, founder and partner of Founder Collective
Adam Schwartz, founder and principal of The Cooperative Way
Top 5: Make Your Company More Social
In this week’s top 5, we take a look at five ways you can encourage your company to be more social.
1. Give interactive tutorials
2. Find influencers within the company
3. Launch a fun contest
2. Engage
1. Focus on fun ways to use Twitter
Source: Mashable.com
Small Biz Sounds Off
Just last week, President Obama proposed a series of tax breaks and other incentives including a 10 percent income tax credit for small businesses which hire new employees, and the elimination of taxes on capital gains for small business investments. Then, House Republicans announced their own plan which proposed giving a 20 percent tax cut for companies with fewer than 500 employees. There are a lot of ideas on the table and we wanted to know which ones you thought would help your small business. So, we took the proposals to our focus group of small business owners around the country and got their reaction. Rob Burke, owner of Wayne Auto Spa in Wayne, NJ, and Rob Basso, owner of Advantage Payroll Services in Freeport, NY, join us to talk taxes in this installment of “Small Biz Sounds Off.”
Elevator Pitch: Curvy Girlz Lingerie, LLC
Precious L. Williams creates, designs and sells lingerie that she says “Celebrates the beauty of a curvy woman.” She calls her designs original, stylish, fashion forward, saying they are built to support the full-figured diva's physique. Precious came up with the idea after she gained a lot of weight and needed to find intimate apparel in her size and couldn't find anything that was “beautiful, pretty or appealing.” She says that most major lingerie companies only made lingerie in limited colors for women her size. She says that what makes Curvy Girlz unique is that from the beginning, she wanted to create pretty underwear that was also supportive of a full-figured woman's shape. So she makes great use of textures, patterns and shapes. She says she’s already sold almost $11,500 worth of Curvy Girlz Lingerie at major trade shows and house parties. She’s seeking $500,000.00 to purchase additional inventory, create and manufacture her own house brand of lingerie, develop her online marketing campaign and revamp her e-commerce website. The ROI would be to give investors a 25% stake in her company.
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