"Weathering the Storm" -- the economic crisis is impacting businesses of all sizes, and there appears to be no end in sight. Some of the largest financial institutions in the country have crumbled, and small business owners are getting hit hard too. Find out from the experts how you can protect your small business during these volatile times.

Panelists:

--Sandy Baruah, Acting Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration
--Jeffrey Carr, Executive Director of the NYU Stern Berkley Center for Entrepreneurial Studies.
--Phil Town, investment advisor and author of "Rule #1: The Simple Strategy for Successful Investing in Only 15 Minutes a Week!"

How to Succeed in Small Business:

Brian Liu, Chairman of LegalZoom.com, a Web site that offers online legal document preparation services for estate planning, trademarks, and corporations, provides tips on how to launch a business and survive in the most difficult economic times.

Elevator Pitch:

Dori DeCarlo, Founder and President of S1 Safety First, makers of a full line of clear bags and backpacks designed to assist with the safety measures being implemented in schools, offices, airports, sports arenas, and other public venues. She is looking for capital to for corporate sponsorships to donate the bags and backpacks to disadvantaged schools.

www.technorati.com allows you find out what blogs are saying about your company. The site allows you to type in any term of company name and it will come up with a list of blogs that have been written about them.

1. Splurge on a chair
2. Create a cordless desk
3. Buy an inexpensive desk
4. Purchase art
5. Put up a whiteboard
 
Source: Outlaw Design

Click here to see previous Top Five tips

"Your Business" travels to Washington to D.C. to cover Inc. Magazine's annual Inc. 500 / Inc. 5000 Conference, a gathering of executives from the fastest growing businesses in the country. Rod Kurtz, Senior Editor for Inc., moderates a panel discussion of questions from attendees. And the election is just weeks away, find out how both candidates plan to help small business owners if they are elected.

Panelists
Doug Tatum, Founding Chairman of Tatum LLC., a national organization that provides executive-level CFO services to companies undergoing rapid and significant changes.
Greg Alexander, CEO of Sales Benchmark Index, a strategic advisory firm that helps executives understand how well their sales force is performing relative to other peer groups.

Learning From the Pros
Find out the secrets of success from the CEO's of the top 3 business on the Inc. 500 list of the fastest growing companies in the country. John Baackes, CEO for Senior Whole Health a Massachusetts-based health plan for low income people age 65 and older, Brian Eliason and David Eliason, co-founders of Eliason Inc., a Wisconsin based real estate investment sponsor, and Warren Wilson, CEO of The Snack Factory, makers of Pretzel Crisps, discuss the strategies that have helped them manage booming businesses.

Elevator Pitch
Norm Brodsky, Inc. columnist and co-author of "The Knack: How Street-Smart Entrepreneurs Learn to Handle Whatever Comes Up," and Sam Horn, author of "POP! Stand Out in Any Crowd" take part in a special edition of the Elevator Pitch. Find out what they think about Dave Beckham's Conservative Café, an eating establishment in northwest Indiana that celebrates the values of hard working conservative Americans. He is looking for capital to develop a franchise model.

When a big conglomerate comes knocking, it can be tempting to sell off all or part of the company you nurtured and grew.

But sometimes it can spell doom.

Whatever happened to Mad River, a tea and soft drink company that was bought by the Coca-Cola Company in 2001?

"Coke bought Mad River, put it into its distribution system and killed it," says Seth Goldman, the president of organic beverage company Honest Tea.

It's a strange quote coming from a man who recently sold 40 percent of his firm to Coke.

Goldman doesn't think his company will suffer the same fate.

"We looked at the Mad River deal and why it didn't work," he said about the research he did before partnering with Coke. "It was a total buy out. The founders handed the keys over."

Goldman's strategy was to control of the business. Of the firm's five-member board, he points out, Coke has two seats.

Coke has been bolstering its healthy beverage offerings, having bought Vitaminwater last year, but Goldman stresses he didn't want Honest Tea to get lost in the corporate fray.

Even when discussions started with Coke, Goldman says he made it clear to the beverage giant he wasn't interested in selling or giving up control of the brand.

"We developed enough as a brand and a company that we were able to say that. We knew what we stood for," he said.

Right after Coke bought a stake in Honest Tea, there were some fans of the small firm that worried about how the new owners would alter operations at their investment.

On a Fast Company blog about the deal reached in February one customer wondered:

"Will they get buried by Coke, will they lose their innovation? I was disappointed to hear they were joining forces with Coca Cola, will they be able to keep their honesty?"

Goldman maintains the company will keep it honest.

One of the only things that's going to change at Honest Tea, he adds, is that now the company has access to a bigger distribution network via Coke.

Coke is also giving a boost the Honest Tea's purchasing power.

"Now when we talk to suppliers we are part of larger buying organization," he explained.

(He gets a better deal on bottle caps, for example.)

So far, the transition has been smooth and last week they started selling Honest Tea products on Coca-Cola trucks.

Time will tell if Honest Tea becomes a household name or it ends up going down the same old Mad River.

Technorati.com allows you find out what blogs are saying about your company. The Web site allows you to type in any term or company name and it will come up with a list of blogs that relate to them.
Click here for previous sites of the week

I recently interviewed a small business owner in a lavish conference room where he showed me his new idea for large screen video ads, but I kept walking into walls and the conference room's table.

No, I wasn't drunk folks. I was doing a bad job navigating my avatar.

An avatar is a computer simulation of you. I created one in the virtual world known as Second Life. I made the mistake of having my eight-year-old daughter help me design the avatar, which looks like a six-foot Lara Croft bunny rabbit.

My avatar met up with entrepreneur John Westra's avatar in Second Life so he could show me a video system he has created using large flat panel screens that he wants to sell to big retailers and airports to advertise products.

Westra didn't have to spend a dime on the hardware to build a prototype for his idea. Why? Because he created a simulation of the video system in Second Life.

I know, most of you probably thought virtual worlds were only for technology nerds who want to play weird games online and avoid interaction with humans.

But you'd better get your head out of the sand. More and more entrepreneurs are turning to virtual worlds for a low-cost way to design, test and even launch new business ideas.

I wrote the cover story this month for BusinessWeek's Small Biz magazine. It's titled "First Stop: Second Life. How to use virtual worlds to test your business ideas," and the article delves into this growing phenomenon.

During my research it really blew my mind to see how entrepreneurs were using virtual worlds to test their ideas and products, and it makes total sense -- why spend money on equipment, raw materials and focus groups if you can do everything virtually?

One business owner designed a toy in Second Life and met up with an engineer from a Hong Kong factory in Second Life to show him the design and have him create a real model.

Another small business owner who runs an architectural firm created simulated homes in the virtual world and has his customers create avatars so they can virtually walk through the homes before a single brick is laid.

It's all about thinking inside the box -- your computer.

You don't even need a real office anymore to meet clients.

When I met Westra in Second Life we were able to communicate via instant messaging, so our conversation was essentially held in real time.

Even though I had trouble navigating my avatar I was able to eventually walk over to the simulation of his new product and go through a presentation (I have difficulty making my avatar sit down, so we stood throughout the meeting).

Strangely, after the meeting was over I felt like I had actually met Westra.

The potential for virtual worlds is just beginning to be tapped. I suggest all of you get over to Second Life, or any of a host of cyberworlds available to the public.

I'm not saying every business can benefit from testing products in cyberspace, but maybe there's some potential for exploiting these worlds for the greater good of your company, or future company.

What do you have to lose?

This week, Al Cothern watched as laid-off workers streamed out of Lehman Brothers' headquarters in midtown Manhattan with boxes in hand, and his heart went out to them.

Cothern spent 11 years working for a national subprime mortgage lender as a senior vice president and had visions of some day becoming an executive vice president before retiring from the world of finance.

It didn't quite work out that way. He was laid off from his job a year ago this week.

"It's like a slow chain of dominos falling," Cothern said, referring to the bloodbath of lost jobs in the financial sector.

"I was worried when I lost my job, but I saw it as an opportunity to make a change and get away from the things that were bothering me throughout my career, mainly the ups and downs of the markets," he explained.

And boy, did he make a change.

Cothern became the proud owner of a franchise, and now that he has tasted the life of a small business owner he may never go back to working for a company.

About 45 days after he was laid off he started the process to purchase a FASTSIGNS, a signs and graphics franchise. He did his homework, attending a franchising conference and researching a host of franchisors.

In April, Cothern opened the doors on his franchise in West Palm Beach, Fla., and so far the company is generating the sales he initially expected, although, he admits the bad economy in Florida has been challenging.

A franchise is a good option for someone who doesn't want to start a company from the ground up and could use a bit of hand-holding from the franchisor when it comes to building a business.

It has definitely been an education for Cothern.

"I have learned a great deal about the small business world that I never knew about before. People who work in the corporate world, like I had for my whole career, are insulated from a lot of things they don't even know about. There aren't dedicated departments like legal, accounting, HR and IT to help anymore. Now, it's all my responsibility -- and if I need help from a professional, I have to pay for it."

"Another big difference for me, changing from the financial services business to the sign and graphic business, is the change from selling a non-tangible product to a tangible one. For example, in financial services we competed on the basis of service -- responsiveness, speed, flexibility to name a few specific examples -- and terms and rates, for example. But with a tangible product it becomes critical that we produce a quality product. It requires us to be better listeners up-front to ensure we understand what the customer wants, and it requires us to be better managers to ensure we produce a quality product."

Here's Cothern's advice to those of you who have just lost a job in the financial industry:

"Immediately cut back on expenses," he advises, adding that he sold his boat and got rid of extras like satellite radio after he was handed a pink slip.

Cothern also suggests that people figure out fast if there really are other opportunities in finance, and if not, look for something new.

"I have associates who after a year are still trying to replace that $200,000 salary and a corner office," he explained. "You just have to open and broaden your horizons."

Sunday night, Eduard Slinin, the owner of Brooklyn-based limo service Corporate Transportation Group, was watching television when he heard news Lehman Brothers might file for bankruptcy.

"I was afraid and worried. Lehman is one of my biggest clients," says Slinin, whose business services financial firms on Wall Street, driving everyone from top executives to investment bankers to their destinations.

On Monday morning, Slinin's worse fears turned out to be a reality. Lehman Brothers had filed for bankruptcy.

"I've been in this business for 28 years and I never would have thought something like this could happen," he says.  "We went through the '87 crash. The 2001 crisis. This is the worst."

The storm that's raining down on what were once Wall Street titans is also soaking some small business owners who rely on major financial sector companies for their livelihoods.

For most business owners throughout the country with few ties to the financial world, the havoc on the Street will have little impact, says Bill Dunkelberg, chief economist for the National Federation of Independent Business. That is, unless consumer spending is significantly derailed as a result.

But for entrepreneurs like Slinin, it's a different story.

He got a call from Lehman on Monday telling him that Lehman employee vouchers would no longer be honored, and if employees used his car service they would have to pay by their own credit cards.

With the loss of Lehman, his company, that employees 96 people, could see at 15 percent drop in sales and some layoffs.

Christopher Morgan is president of Corbeau Technologies Inc., a company that implements financial systems for a host of major financial institutions including investment banks.

"We expect to be significantly impacted by the financial crisis that we are seeing today," he says.

"Our entire business involves implementing back-office systems in financial companies," he explains.  "These are large-scale, capital projects, that typically are an investment in the tens of millions of dollars at the large financial institutions and millions at smaller companies."

The crisis on Wall Street could go two ways for Corbeau.

Financial firms may decide capital expenditures need to be put on hold and that could put projects Corbeau now has in the pipeline at risk. Or, on a positive note, he notes, those firms could want "more out of their investment accounting systems -- the systems we implement and support -- therefore needing more from companies like Corbeau Technologies."  

So basically, entrepreneurs like Morgan and Slinin are holding their breath and hoping the financial industry turmoil won't ravage their bottomlines.

"Today there's a lot of panic," says Slinin about recent Wall Street events. "I believe things will rebound."

Are you all as optimistic as Slinin? How will Wall Street's woes impact your business?

Hurricane Ike is pounding Texas and there's a good chance many small businesses in the path of the storm are not prepared if major damage occurs or it they can't return quickly after it's over.

When David Beahm, a vice president at New Orleans-based Blachard and Company,
 evacuated right before Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, he admits no one took the storm very seriously so there was little planning for a business backup plan.

"We packed a bag for a long weekend with the family and went to Houston and figured we'd be right back. When the hurricane went through everything looked fine," he recalls.

Then news reports hit about the levees breaking and the city being flooded, and suddenly everything got serious.

Small business owners have always had to deal with and prepare for potential business disasters, but their growing reliance on computers for storing data and running their companies has made them even more vulnerable to a devastating loss in business or possible closure. And in addition to having to deal with the prospect of natural disasters, fire or theft, the growing specter of terrorist attacks and the proliferation of Web-based problems such as virus and spam, are only adding to the list of concerns.

A survey of small business owners conducted a few years ago by The Gallup Organization for the National Federation of Independent Businesses' Research Foundation, found that at least 30 percent of small businesses had to close for 24 hours or longer in the last three years as a result of a natural disaster.

After Katrina, it became clear that Blanchard, an investment brokerage firm that specializes in precious metals, wouldn't be able to keep operating running unless something was done fast, Beahm recalls.

What Blanchard faced and what the company did after the fact serves as a lesson to many small businesses who are now heading out of town as Ike approaches, and for any firm that doesn't have an emergency plan just in case a disaster strikes.

Beahm says they quickly signed an agreement with a company in Dallas to get the company's server and telephones up and running, a key for a firm that relies mainly on the phones to buy and sell products.

They also heard about a disaster recovery company called The Regus Group that had office space for rent on a temporary basis and Blanchard was able to secure offices and equipment quickly for its 70 employees.

The original lease was for one month, but Blanchard ended up working out of the space for three months.

"It took five days for us to have everything we needed," he says, but even that short disruption cost the company thousands of dollars.

That won't happen again, Beahm maintains, because now they have a recovery plan, including a permanent office space in Dallas and backup servers outside of New Orleans.

When Gustav hit last month, he says, "we flipped a switch" and operations were easily moved to the Dallas location.

You have to take your business seriously and prepare just in case.

Here's some information from the NFIB on planning. And there's a great piece on US News & World Report offering some ideas on what you can do written by Matthew Bandyk.

But the bottom line is deciding you need a plan and actually crafting one.

First it was Bear Stearns, then Fannie and Freddie. The government seems to have bailout boogie fever these days, but no one is asking small businesses to dance.

When a small business owner screws up and their business tanks you know who typically bails them out? The small business owner.

Take Maureen Borzacchiello, who owns trade show products company Creative Display Solutions along with her husband Frank.

Borzachiello's brother-in-law died suddenly in the winter of 2005 when he was 47 years old. The shock of the loss had an impact on her entire family and the business ended up at the brink of failure.

"We hit this wall in June of 2006 when we were out of money," Borzachiello recalled. "I said, 'Oh my God. I'm going to close my business.'"

It's not an unusual story. Small businesses have a high failure rate, and when things go bad there are few options open to entrepreneurs, especially in today's tight credit market.

"The government talks out of both sides of its mouth," Borzacchiello said. "Small businesses make up 84 percent of the businesses in this country, but somehow the top tier gets bailed out. Small businesses can't even get a small business loan there's so much red tape."

Is the little guy, and gal, getting the shaft?

I recently wrote about how it took the federal government nearly seven years to submit a proposed rule that would help women-owned small businesses get a level playing field when it comes to the federal contracting procurement process. And even after the rule was drafted many small business advocates said it didn't go far enough to help women out.

The government has never reached its goal of giving women business owners at least 5 percent of U.S. procurement dollars. That goal was set by Congress in 1994.

And the Bush administration recently cut funding for the Small Business Administration, the U.S. government agency that provides support to small businesses, by 15 percent for 2009.

So what are small businesses to do? Pull themselves up from their own bootstraps.

And that's just what Borzacchiello did.

She approached her staff of seven at the time and told them about the precarious future they faced. She told them there were mistakes made and there was a cash crunch, and all the workers agreed to scale back their hours until the company was back in the black. She and her husband did not take a salary and the focus was now on building new business, which was lacking in the months following the death of Frank's brother.

"If I was going down, I was going down with a fight," she said. "I basically mapped out a plan of what we needed to do, and Frank and I hit the phones."

She also got business coaching help through American Express OPEN's Make Mine a Million $ Business Program -- it helps bolster women-owned businesses.

"That was pivotal during all this chaos, she explained. "I learned how to sit back and dedicate time for strategy of the business."

As a result, Creative Display Solutions was able to rebound within three months, breaking $1 million in sales for 2006.

When Borzacchiello heard about the bailout of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, she was furious. She asks simply: "Where's the accountability?"

At least small business owners seem to know where it is.

Anthony D'Ambrosio

I walked into my local butcher shop in Wilmington, Del., last week and there it was behind the glass counter -- the Biden Burger.

It's Bidenmania here in Delaware, with everything from Biden burgers to Biden childhood tours available.

But you've got to give The First State a bit of a break -- it's small, and it has a big self-esteem problem. So any Wilmingtonian that makes it big is going to get lots of attention here.

What's Chicago's excuse? A restaurant there called Juicy Wine Co. just introduced the ObamaBurger.

Seems like small businesses everywhere are well aware of a tried-and-true marketing strategy -- celebrity sells.

I don't mean to play down the pride these small business owners say they feel for their state superstars, but the bottom line is the bottom line, no?

"If it means we make a buck off of being very proud of Biden, so be it," said Anthony Melhem, executive chef at Haldas Brothers Meats, the butcher that came up with the Biden Burger.

Turns out those burgers are selling well: "When people come in they laugh at first, and then they say, 'I'll take three,'" Melhem explained.

It sounds yummy too.

"It's got three classic American ingredients," said Melhem, "American cheese, fried onions and bacon."

(Coincidentally, the ObamaBurger has bacon too.)

This from Juicy Wine's website:

"This isn't just any cheeseburger. Why? Well, other than being named after the next President of the United States, it's got bacon on it. (Proving Barack Obama is not Muslim. Not that there's anything wrong with that!)"

At the risk of being called partisan, I called John McCain's press officer to find out if any small businesses in Arizona have named products after the Republican presidential nominee. As of Thursday night no one from his campaign got back to me, which is understandable since the Republican National Convention was in progress. I called two of the restaurants in Arizona that McCain supposedly frequents and neither had a dish named after the senator.

I also called a restaurant in Wasilla, Alaska, that McCain's pick for vice president Sarah Palin reportedly frequents called Mat-Su Family Restaurant, and the head waitress there told me there was no dish named for Palin -- yet.

"The owners of the restaurant are big supporters of hers, so you never know," she said.

I did get an email from a pet products company called Bamboo Pet that told me they created a chew toy for dogs called "John McCanine." They also have a "Bark Obama" chew toy.

Having products that feature both candidates is probably a good idea for small business owners.

"When people name products after local celebrities, the people in the community embrace the new product quicker than they would if it was under another name. This works particularly well when a small business owner's clientele are all within that certain community, as they can all share in that proud feeling over the local celebrity. However, this can also backfire. If a celebrity's stock drops, so will the product," explained marketing expert Paul King.

Clearly, only one candidate can win this November's election, so the other's stock will inevitably fall.

Right after Hillary Clinton lost her bid to become the Democratic nominee, a gift shop I stopped into in Washington, D.C., was selling pink Hillary baseball caps for 90 percent off.

And the novelty of presidential products may wear off before the election is even over, and small businesses should beware: Consumers are already getting maxed out on the political dog-fight, and that could mean fewer sales for presidential chew toys and burgers.

Sean O'Rourke, owner of a technology consulting firm in New York called Syzygy 3, doesn't yet know which presidential candidate he'll be pulling the lever for this November.

"I'm undecided," he says, even though he considers himself a Republican.

And Rae Hostetler, who owns Zionsville, Ind., -based Hostetler Public Relations, says, "At this point I'm the skeptical voter and I can choose to skip the polls or exercise my vote. I choose the latter. My pick is with caution -- the lesser of two evils."

While you might think John McCain would be the slam-dunk choice for entrepreneurs at this November's presidential election because Republicans are often thought of as pro business, many small business owners don't see things that way.

There was a great article in The Wall Street Journal yesterday titled "Small Business Looks at Where Candidates Fall on Its Issues: McCain Seems to be Favorite, but the Picture Isn't Quite that Simple."

The article delves into how challenging it is for both McCain and Obama to court the small business vote.

Rather than a monolithic voting bloc, the small-business community covers a vast swath of geography and ideology. At the same time, lobbyists and business owners are frustrated at the scarcity of details from the candidates on many small-business policies.

"We'd like to see more specificity on almost everything. A lack of specificity breeds worries," says Todd Stottlemyer, president and chief executive of the National Federation of Independent Business, a lobbying group.

Indeed, one of the key topics small business owners are concerned about is healthcare, and many of the entrepreneurs I talk to are skeptical either candidate will have the backbone to revamp the nation's failing healthcare system.

"Healthcare is one of the big issues for me," said O'Rourke. "I'm a cynic and a realist when it comes to healthcare. It's going to be expensive to keep everyone alive and healthy for as long as they want."

While choosing a candidate that will help their businesses is important, it's not the most important factor for many small business owners.

"I don't just vote based on my business," maintains Hostetler. "As a business owner, I'm also very involved in my community and work with several non-profit boards related to women moving toward economic independence."
 
"I also don't see the Republican economic theories benefiting all Americans -- look at where we are today compared to eight years ago," she adds. "I also have concerns about the Republicans pandering to voters based on their vice president pick last week."

O'Rourke doesn't see it that way.

"I'm leaning toward Republican because the choice of [Sarah] Palin could be a brilliant move," he said.

It just goes to show that when it comes to a presidential pick, even entrepreneurs look beyond the bottom line.

Which candidate do you think is best for small businesses?