Rob's Blog: Gripes & Praises

I just wanted to share this wonderful piece of news with you. I am proud that our media platform is continuing to be a valuable resource for business owners and the small business community as a whole and thank you for your continued interest and support. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Contact Information: Beth SilverDoubet ConsultingBsilver@doubetllc.com(212) 472-4340 As Many Publications Succumb to the Economic Crisis, The New York Enterprise ReportExpands on its Position as a Platform for Small Business New York, NY, February 25, 2009 -- RSL Media LLC, publisher of The New York Enterprise Report (www.nyreport.com ), the only media that exclusively caters to small businesses in the New York tri-state area, today announced it has closed its first round of private funding. Among the prominent investors in this round of funding is Norm Brodsky, legendary entrepreneur, including CitiStorage, and columnist for Inc. Magazine. In an economic climate that has in recent months seen many publications scale back or fold operations, The New York Enterprise Report, producers of small business seminars, networking events and the highly acclaimed Small Business Awards, in addition to publishing print and online versions of The New York Enterprise Report, will use this funding to provide even greater resources to small businesses and further capitalize on its local and national ad- based revenue model. "Our reputation as a trusted platform geared toward the small business community has enabled us to grow as advertisers are looking for targeted and multiplatform advertising vehicles," said Publisher and Editor-and-Chief Robert Levin. Mayor Bloomberg echoed this sentiment recently in his State of the City Address. "Half of all New Yorkers in the private sector work in a small business, and believe me, I appreciate how difficult it is to start and run one." "The New York Enterprise Report has an extremely compelling platform where small businesses can share ideas, connect with each other and get real advice and feedback," said small business expert Norm Brodsky. "This investment highlights my belief that the small business community needs the right resources for business to grow." About RSL Media: Since 2003 RSL Media LLC, through its publication The New York Enterprise Report (www.nyreport.com ) features articles written by leading experts to help business owners and senior decision makers grow their organizations. In addition to its print and online properties, The New York Enterprise Report has many programs to connect marketers with small business owners and executives including events, direct mail campaigns, and custom publishing.

Once upon a time, employers had all of the leverage. They worked people, including kids, ridiculously hard, and for little money. Then came minimum wage, age and overtime rules. I think almost everyone would agree that given the time these rules were enacted (first half of the 20th century), they were the right thing to do. We could get into a much bigger discussion on how employees have a lot more power and how the country has changed to a knowledge-based economy, but that isn't the point I want to make.  Companies large and small are laying off people by millions.  While companies are trying to cut costs, they need more productivity. At the same time, wouldn't employees who are getting laid off kill for the opportunity to put in more hours to keep their jobs?  Unfortunately, overtime rules prevent a "non-exempt" employee from agreeing to work say an extra 5-10 hours per week in exchange for keeping their jobs. And by the way, if the employee and company did agree on the employee working more hours, in comes the state department of labor to take up precious time for an employee audit and probably assess a fine. I am not suggesting that companies use the economy as an excuse to get cheap labor. But I am sure some sort of relaxation of overtime rules will help alleviate the unemployment situation and help people put food on the table.

Last night, at 3am, I had a great opportunity to catch up on some reading and read a great article by Michael Lewis (Liar's Poker, The New New Thing, and etc) on the recent (and maybe somewhat permanent) fall on Wall Street.  If you are curious as to what happened, and how it happened, this article describes it to you in vivid, easy to understand detail.

In the five-year existence of NY REPORT, we have never gotten involved in political editorial or even small business advocacy.  Our mission is to deliver how-to content from experts to help business owners increase revenue, reduce costs and build value, and I never wanted to lose that focus. However, in the current economic situation, it is impossible to stay true to our mission without getting involved.  I am still an optimistic entrepreneur, but I am also really furious.  I am not furious about the fact that the economy is bad; economies go up and down in cycles. I understand that the recent — and future — government bailouts are necessary to protect the economy from cratering. But small businesses are paying the bill while many high-level banking and financial services executives who were responsible for making the economic situation much worse have made their money. More specifically, I don’t care if these executives made loans to people that they shouldn’t have or invested in financial instruments that they didn’t understand. I do care that they personally made millions while they helped exacerbate a bad economy and we (via the government) have to bail their companies out. Do you know what happens when small business owners take a big risk and it doesn't work out? We go out of business. In addition, the typical business owner will be personally on the hook for the company’s debt. There is no push from lobbyists to bail us out.  Actually, now that I think about it, a small business doesn’t even have to take a risk to go out of business. The deepened recession due to the reasons and perpetrators I mentioned above combined with the nearly frozen debt market can put a good company out of business. Talk about irony. And the government hasn’t helped.  Among other things, it encouraged financial companies to make loans to people who couldn’t afford them. Now, the government is making the situation harder on us by writing new tax proposals (e.g., MTA’s payroll tax hike), increasing enforcement (e.g., state audits to find incremental revenue), and proposing more pro-union rules (e.g., revising the union ballot legislation). This seems counterproductive considering that half the country’s private sector workforce is employed by small business and it is Main Street that will drive the GDP as well as create the most new jobs in 2009. The media is not helping much either. The truth is bad news sells, and that is what the media is selling us now. By focusing on the bad news, they are making the situation worse by perpetuating fear.  Without question, these are tough times, but all news is not bad news.  I know plenty of business owners who believe they will continue to grow in 2009. Somehow these stories never make the papers, let alone the front page. What can you do? There are several advocacy organizations that focus on small business, such as the NFIB and the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council. Also, as Jim Blasingame said in our December issue, stop watching the talking heads on TV and start calling your customers more often to ask how you can help them. At NY REPORT we will continue to provide expert content to help you protect and grow your business in the magazine (see our January "Success Guide"), at our events, on the Web and with webinars (for the latest listing see www.nyreport.com/events, which is updated frequently). What do you think?

NY Report and Verizon Wireless hosted a Holiday networking reception in Times Square on Monday night. It was a packed house full of NY SMB’s movers and shakers networking and enjoying hors d’oeuvres, all while checking out the new Blackberry Storm. For those of you who missed the sold out event, some of the attendees included: Inc. magazine columnist and serial entrepreneur Norm Brodsky; Dave Bagatelle of Heritage Bank(who just held the largest fundraiser in New York State for stand-alone startup); Wendi Caplan-Carroll of Constant Contact; Ilana Eberson of NYCBNG, a 3,000+ member professional networking organization; Jeff Stewart, founder of Memeo, Urgent Career and many others, along with other notable persons in New York’s small business community. Stay informed of all our upcoming events by signing up for the NY Report newsletter here.

I know a lot of you are excited about the annual NY XPO at the Jacob Javits Center tomorrow. For those of you attending , please feel free to stop by the NY Report booth (#1625) and say hi. We may even ask you to be a part of our video testimonial.