New Product with Old Roots Plans for Rapid Production Expansion

Lou Thomann makes delicious teas from yaupon leaves and twigs hand-picked in the wild near his hometown, Savannah. He also uses locally grown honey, muscadine and scuppernong as sweeteners. “Ours is an amazing American story,” he says when asked to describe his new business, ASI Tea, Inc. “We call our yaupon teas the ‘All-American Healthy […]
Small Business Marketing 101

One of the biggest marketing challenges entrepreneurs face is the ability to step outside of their own mindset and slip into the mind of the buyer. The most successful marketers and business owners are able to set aside their own bias and perceptions and ask two questions: “Why should someone exchange their hard-earned dollars for […]
Ten Mistakes that Sabotage Business Success
As a business consultant I have seen many businesses struggling because they had made very basic and avoidable mistakes. Here is my list of ten mistakes to avoid. They are not in order of importance since any one of them can have serious consequences for the business. Failure to Plan. This one pertains not only […]
Exit Strategies Take Time and Planning
Most business owners want to sell their business at some point. Unfortunately most fail to plan effectively for this eventuality. In many cases owners cannot find a good buyer and end up liquidating their business for only the value of the assets. Prepping a business to sell for a premium price takes a significant amount […]
Strategic Alliances Can Pay Dividends for Georgia’s Small Businesses

Strategic alliances have been commonplace for many in the corporate arena for a long time but it also becoming a staple for small businesses around the nation and Georgia as well. Small companies are seeing benefits in joining forces to provide products and services in a more efficient and profitable manner, often teaming up to […]
The Business “Map:” Don’t Leave Home Without It!
Not many of us would study an atlas, get in our car, and head out for Chicken, Alaska, without a map, relying solely on our memory to remember all the route changes. Yet that is the equivalent of what many businesses do when “driving” their businesses. The result is usually the same for both the […]
When to Exit? A Small Business Owner’s Biggest Dilemma

There are only a few certainties in life; death, taxes, and one thing few successful small business owners realize or want to realize, the day they will be faced with perhaps their biggest dilemma, “How do I exit and when?” In this regard, it is not unusual that few successful small business owners understand the […]
Business Survival in Tough Times
Being successful in business is tough–always. However, when the economy slumps and stays down for a period of time, many business owners’ thoughts turn from being successful to merely surviving. The successful owners do more than just think about it…they act! Businesses that were founded in the early 1990s cruised along for ten years or […]