Happy Valentine’s Day! With thoughts on romance it’s also a chance to spread some kindness. According to The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation, a small business can follow a few suggestions including:

• Donate a percentage of revenue for the day to a group in need.

• Buy a big box of donuts and give them to the business next door.

• Take up a collection to buy needed items for a non-profit.

Act of kindness don’t have to be a one time a year event. Your small business has a chance to become involved in a worthy cause. Add some meaning and mission to your business life. Explore how to “Show Your Business Heart With Cause-Related Marketing.”

Greece could unveil more cost-cutting proposals if its current efforts do not work fast enough, the head of the 16-nation eurozone has said.

Jean-Claude Juncker said Greece had agreed to outline additional measures in March if necessary.

His comments came following a meeting of eurozone finance ministers.

However, Mr Juncker also said the nations sharing the single currency would not be revealing details of their planned bail-out for Greece.

He said it would be “unwise” to discuss what was being prepared at this stage.

‘Stand determined’

Greece is seeking a financial rescue package from fellow eurozone members as it tries to reduce its giant public deficit from 12.7% – more than four times what single currency rules allow.

It has pledged to reduce this to 8.7% duting 2010 under an austerity plan that involves major cuts in public spending.

Mr Juncker, who is also Luxembourg’s prime minister, said further cost-cutting would be needed if Greece’s debt reduction plans were not shown to be on target by 16 March.

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A near-halving in interest costs has significantly improved the financial position of Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, one of Australia’s three remaining regional banks of any note, but it still faces challenges in what has become an increasingly fierce war for deposits to help reduce the pressures on its overall funding base.

Amid the optimistic noises emanating from the bank today at its latest half-yearly results, it was interesting to note that the bank’s interest income had actually declined by $664 million over the corresponding period from December 31 2008.

Thankfully for Bendigo, the costs of offering higher deposit rates to suck in the necessary funds to then lend out to customers fell by more, in both cash terms ($746 million) and percentage-terms to offset the large drop in interest income.

That was a direct result of the sharp cut in official interest rates which meant that all the banks – not just Bendigo – were able to lower the rates that they had been offering to depositors thus reducing the price of doing business in this key area of funding.

But in Bendigo’s case, this was of greater importance given that the bank relies on deposits for more than 80 per cent of its funding – a figure which is significantly higher than the big four banks, and one which has jumped over the last couple of years as the regional group has been forced to reduce its reliance on the securitisation markets.

This is by no means a bad thing and Bendigo is well within its rights to argue that it is a positive in its case.

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T. Boone Pickens has declared that “water is the new oil.” And in a sense, Pickens is correct, given the distinct interplay that exists between water, oil and food. If you have water, you can grow food. If you have food, you can manufacture biofuels. And if you have energy, you can produce fresh water through desalination. Pickens, by the way, owns more water than any other individual in the U.S. If water is indeed the new oil, Pickens owns an ATM and can get a cash advance any time he needs to.

Much of the water that exists on this planet is not fit for human consumption. Only about 3% is considered safe to drink. Of that, two-thirds is locked up in glaciers and not available for consumption. That leaves just 1% of total water potable.

What is nearly as remarkable as its relative scarcity is the relative abundance of fresh water beyond that which can be seen with the naked eye. As impressive as the Great Lakes are, the reality is that surface water accounts for just 3% of that readily accessible drinkable water. The Read more…

How to Connect with Your Customers

Some companies get it. Others do not. Connecting with customers is one of the most important and valuable things you can do to make your business successful. Consumers, whether they are end-users or business-to-business, want to feel like they are buying from someone they trust. How do you connect with customers in a way that will not only sustain your business, but help your business grow?

Listen to Customers

It can be easy to segment your customers into demographics and particular targets. However, there is more value for you when you listen and are actively communicating with customers. When you listen to customers’ needs, you will find profitable nuggets of wisdom you can use to improve your service or products to give customers a better experience.

But you can’t wait for the customer to say something. Always ask. That doesn’t mean you have to send a lengthy survey every week to your customer mailing list. Howev

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Toyota is to recall 8,000 Tacoma pick-up trucks in the US, over fears about defective front drive shafts.

The recall involves four-wheel drive Tacomas built from mid-December 2009 to early February 2010.

The move is the latest in a string of recalls in the past few months, totalling more than 8.5 million Toyota vehicles around the world.

Previous recalls – including the flagship hybrid Prius – were due to accelerator and brake problems.

Toyota said it was voluntarily recalling “a small production run of certain 2010 model-year Tacoma 4WD trucks”.

TOYOTA RECALLS: STORY SO FAR September 2007, US: 55,000 Camry and Lexus cars in floormat recall October 2009, US: 3.8m Toyota and Lexus vehicles recalled due to floormat problem November 2009, US: floormat recall increased to 4.2m vehicles January 2010, US: 2.3m Toyota vehicles recalled due to accelerator pedal problems (of those, 2.1m already involved in floormat recall) January 2010, US: 1.1m Toyotas in floormat recall February 2010, Europe: 1.8m Toyota’s in pedal recall February 2010, Japan, US: 200 reports of brake faults in new Prius. Read more…

The Link between Mid-Life Crisis and Entrepreneurship

A struggling economy could be improved through individual entrepreneurship. Interestingly, who is today’s leading group of new-business starters? The answer may surprise you. Rather than 22-year olds fresh out of Harvard or Stanford, today’s most prominent group is baby boomer entrepreneurs!

The Entrepreneurship Trends

Baby boomers are generally considered to be the generation of babies born between 1945 and 1964. Although the first wave of this demographic is starting to hit retirement age, there are still millions of baby boomers who are starting new businesses later in life as they approach retirement age, according to the report, “The Coming Entrepreneurial Boom” published by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

The report notes that the median age of the average entrepreneur is 39. This shows that more people are starting new businesses after years of being in the workforce and working for other companies. What is

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Survey reveals employee engagement at an all-time high among winners

Kingston, ON – Fifty organizations from across the country have been selected as the Best Small & Medium Employers in Canada in a study released today by Queen’s Centre for Business Venturing (QCBV) at Queen’s School of Business in conjunction with Hewitt Associates, a global human resources consulting and outsourcing company. Canadian organizations with between 50 and 399 permanent employees are eligible to participate in the ranking.

“Despite the challenging economy over the past year, employee engagement among the fifty organizations selected as the best rose to the highest level seen in the study’s six-year history,” said survey co-ordinator Einar Westerlund, director of project development at QCBV. “This reflects employers’ attention to the ‘people side’ of their enterprises during both the good and the not-so-good times. The best continue t

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