Indonesia has implemented new rules that require large franchise chains to take on additional Indonesian partners and purchase 80% of their supplies from local vendors. The new rules, which could affect expansion plans for franchisors such as KFC, Starbucks and 7-Eleven, were enacted in response to an influx of chain stores and are meant to protect smaller Indonesian establishments.

SBOMAG.com and 1&1 Internet Celebrate Banner

Anniversaries With Website Makeover Offer

Small Business Opportunities magazine, celebrating 25 years of publishing moneymaking ideas for entrepreneurs, and leading web hosting company 1&1 Internet, proud to announce their 25th year & 10^th anniversary in the U.S, is offering a free website makeover!

In today’s business world, a professional website can be the deciding factor when consumers are choosing between companies. The online experience often reflects directly upon the business owner thus affecting your profit margin. Broken links, slow loading times or poor design aspects all contribute to consumers clicking away and onto the site of a competitor. No matter the industry, a successful website is the key to 21^st century business success.

According to research by 1&1 Internet, searching for new small businesses via the Web trumps traditional methods like local advertising. Search engine searches was the most popular method among those surveyed (66%) while viewing a direct website was a close second at 62%. This proves that the first impression your business makes on a majority of consumers is online.

Creating a professional website is only half the battle. It is important to make frequent evaluations of how it is performing. When reviewing your website ask yourself: Does my website have an eye-catching design? Are my professional social media accounts linked directly to my website? Are all elements of my website truly up to date? If you answered no to any of these questions, there is a strong chance that your website could be in the need of a makeover.

Small Business Opportunities and award-winning Web host, 1&1 Internet are coming together to help you create the best online presence possible.

As an international Web host, 1&1 specializes in equipping small and medium sized businesses with the tools necessary to succeed online. From domains and email to website design tools and servers, 1&1 is the ideal partner to support your business growth.

In celebration of the 25^th Anniversary for both 1&1 and Small Business Opportunities, we are launching a Website Makeover! If you think your website is in need of some fine tuning or a complete overhaul, submit your full name, company name, phone number, email address and website domain to websitemakeover@1and1.com. Include 100 words about why you want a new website, what you are looking for and what you need to make your online presence great! Once all the nominees are gathered, the most makeover-worthy websites will be selected and announced as winners!

If selected, your company will get a once in a lifetime opportunity to have a 1&1 website design expert customize your website especially for you. A personal consultation will help identify the needs and wants for your business website as well as your overall company goals. After combining your ideas with a designer’s expertise, the website will get a complete makeover and be reintroduced through 1&1’s MyWebsite product – Free of charge for 6 months. Additionally, a feature in an upcoming issue of Small Business Opportunities will showcase your new and improved website as well as your business.

Details: You must have an existing website in order to win. Deadline is October 1, 2013. Makeover results will be announced on sbomag.com on December 3, 2014 and in Small Business Opportunities, March, 2014 issue, on sale December 3, 2013.

Here’s How To Submit Your Site For The Makeover?

- Email websitemakeover@1and1.com with:

o Full name

o Company Name

o Phone Number

o Email address

o Domain

o 100 words of why you need a Website Makeover

What You Will Win:

- 1on1 consultation with a website design expert

- A professional website customized to your business by industry experts

- 6 months FREE of 1&1’s MyWebsite

- A Small Business Opportunities feature on your new website

A global climate expert from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will share the 2013 Atlantic Hurricane Season forecast during a free webinar Tuesday, May 28 hosted by SBA and Agility Recovery. After the weather discussion, disaster preparedness tips will be presented by Agility.

Dr. Gerry Bell has been the lead scientist of NOAA’s Long-Range Hurricane Outlook Team since 1998.  He was instrumental in developing NOAA’s Atlantic and East Pacific hurricane activity outlook, and has done weather analysis on CNN and The Weather Channel.

The Atlantic Hurricane Season begins June 1. Last year’s season ended memorably when Hurricane Sandy pounded the Eastern Seaboard in late October.  The storm caused billions of dollars in damages, and so far the SBA has approved about $370 million in disaster loans to more than 3,500 businesses affected by Sandy.

Now is a good time to protect your employees, customers and business from the devastating physical and economic toll of disasters by making a plan to be safe and stay in business.  During the webinar, Agility Recovery President Bob Boyd will share practical business continuity tips.

SBA has partnered with Agility to offer disaster preparedness strategies through its “PrepareMyBusiness” website. Visit www.preparemybusiness.org to access past webinars.

The SBA provides disaster recovery assistance in the form of low-interest loans to homeowners, renters, private nonprofits and businesses of all sizes. To learn more, visit www.sba.gov/disaster.

WHAT:  “Protect Your Business This Hurricane Season” – A forecast from Dr. Gerry Bell, with preparedness tips from Bob Boyd, Agility Recovery President & CEO, followed by a question and answer session

WHEN: Tuesday, May 28 – 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. EDT

HOW: Space is limited. Register at https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/327979008

The conventional, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., five-day work week is a thing of the past for the overwhelming majority of workers at small to mid-sized businesses (SMBs), according to a new survey on work-related email habits. Due to the widespread availability and use of smartphones and tablets, email is more accessible than ever and, as a result, it has become deeply embedded in the daily workplace and personal lives of most employees. The independent, blind survey of 503 employees in SMB workplaces in the U.S. was conducted by Opinion Matters on behalf of GFI Software. The results highlight employee habits around email usage, including response frequency during the work day as well as after hours.

The new 24/7 paradigm

• Based on the reported email habits of survey respondents, the line between work and home life has become blurred. More than three-quarters of respondents (81%) said they check their work email on weekends, 55% check email after 11 p.m. and 59% keep on top of their work email while on vacation.
• Outside of regular work hours, more than six in 10 (64%) check email at least once a day. 12% of employees said they check work email in real time beyond the standard workday.
• One in 10 respondents admitted to checking work email at a child’s school event, 9% at a wedding, and 6% at a funeral. An additional 6% said they logged into their work email while they or their spouse was in labor.
• On the flip side, nearly one-third (30%) of employees also said they send personal emails from their work account.

Email used at the office more than any other form of communication

• Despite the growing use of instant messaging platforms, email dwarfs other forms of office communication.  44% of respondents use email at work more than any other communications format, with 28% relying primarily on the phone, 22% on face-to-face, and 6% on instant messaging.
• Email is a constant presence in the lives of SMB employees during the workday. More than three-quarters (76%) of respondents said they typically reply to emails within one hour during work hours, with nearly one-third of them (32%) replying within 15 minutes.

An organizational and business intelligence tool

• Many employees use email for more than just communicating. Well over half (58%) use it as a means of storing and retrieving information.
• Nearly two-thirds (62%) of respondents use specific folders to organize their email for easier access, and 29% of employees archive their email.
• The oldest saved email by a survey respondent was received back in 1994.
• Less than one-quarter (24%) of SMB employees said they use their email as a business intelligence tool, identifying a massive missed opportunity to extract value from email data.

Differences among regions and professions

• Employees in the Southwest are the quickest to respond to email, with 42% replying within 15 minutes of an email arriving. Only 27% of residents in the Midwest respond as quickly.
• Residents of the Southwest are most likely to have checked their email while they or their spouse was in labor (14%). Just 3% of employees in the Northeast have done so.
• Professionals who say they have checked email at a funeral are more likely to work in IT and telecommunications (14%) and finance (13%). People working in sales, media and marketing and health care said they have never checked email at a funeral.
• Legal (38%), IT and telecommunications (32%), and manufacturing (34%) professionals are more likely to respond to emails within 15 minutes. Professionals who think that responding to an email within one working day is sufficient are more apt to work in education (23%), retail, catering and leisure (20%) and arts and culture (20%).
• Employees at larger companies are more likely to check email during off hours.  Two-thirds (66%) of respondents who work at companies with fewer than 10 employees  check email outside of regular work hours, while 75% of those who work at large companies said the same.
• During vacations, 74% of sales, media and marketing professionals said they check their email. In contrast, less than half (46%) of manufacturing and utilities employees do so.

Overwhelmingly, email is viewed positively, not negatively

• Workers overwhelmingly appreciate the value of email, despite its omnipresence in daily life.
  90% of respondents said email is a “blessing,” with just one in ten (10%) considering it a “curse.” Regardless of all the stresses and strains that a deluge of email can bring, it is still preferred to the way we used to work.

“Email has transformed the way we do business globally, but it has also had a fundamental impact on the work/life balance for many employees, especially in smaller organizations where speed of response to orders and queries is critical in retaining a competitive advantage against larger competition,” said Phil Bousfield, general manager of IT operations at GFI Software. “The research results have affirmed how critical it is for organizations to manage the use of email effectively, not only to prevent employees from being overwhelmed by a deluge of data, but also to ensure that email is exploited as a revenue generator and benefit to the business, rather than an inconvenience.”

“The research also revealed some worrying trends, including that many organizations are failing to efficiently use their collected email archives for customer relationship management and other business intelligence functions, and that many users are putting their email at risk by maintaining unnecessarily large Outlook PST repositories in order to use their inbox as a living database. This is inefficient and puts the organization at risk of substantial data loss from email archive corruption,” Bousfield added.

A copy of the full survey results is available upon request.

About GFI
GFI Software™ develops quality IT solutions for small to mid-sized businesses with generally up to 1,000 users. GFI^® offers two main technology solutions: GFI MAX™, which enables managed service providers (MSPs) to deliver superior services to their customers; and GFI Cloud™, which empowers companies with their own internal IT teams to manage and maintain their networks via the cloud. Serving an expanding customer base of more than 200,000 companies, GFI’s product line also includes collaboration, network security, anti-spam, patch management, faxing, mail archiving and web monitoring. GFI is a channel-focused company with thousands of partners throughout the world. The company has received numerous awards and industry accolades, and is a longtime Microsoft^® Gold ISV Partner.

Small business owners and entrepreneurs will gather in Philadelphia for the inaugural America Talks Business conference on July 25, 2013. The event is produced by marketing expert David Newman, author of the book “Do It Marketing: 77 Instant Action Ideas to Boost Sales, Maximize Profits and Crush Your Competition.”

“The conference is a gathering of entrepreneurs, executives and business owners under the theme of ‘Big ideas for growing companies.’ The Philadelphia America Talks Business event is the first in a series of one-day entrepreneurial conferences with plans to expand into Atlanta, New York City, Minneapolis, Phoenix, and San Francisco by 2014,” said Newman, who delivers keynote speeches and marketing seminars for corporations, entrepreneurial groups and association meetings nationwide.

America Talks Business has been called the TED conference for business – “but more interactive, more fun, more relevant, and more actionable. Unlike the TED conference, ATB is affordable to everyone, not just the elite. And unlike TED, you leave ATB not only thinking differently, but with an action plan for doing differently — and growing your business,” Newman says.

The inaugural event takes place at the Arts Bank, a performance space at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia at the corner of South and Broad Street, better known as Philadelphia‘s Avenue of the Arts. The Arts Bank has an intimate theater space that can hold 225 that Newman calls “the perfect venue in which to experience the America Talks Business keynotes, mini-seminars, mastermind roundtables and strategic jam sessions.” Tickets are available online at www.AmericaTalksBusiness.com.

Choice Hotels and Yelp are teaming up on a “Official Hotel of Summer” campaign with an online road-trip guide and sweepstakes, among other elements. Yelp has “reviews for every type of summer fun place we’d want to highlight and with thousands of hotel locations across the country, we needed someone that could provide content in just as many locations,” says Melissa Romig, vice president and group account director at Havas Media, which came up with the idea

Economic growth and a rising tourism demand have placed Africa’s hotel market in the spotlight for some of the world’s largest international lodging firms. Hoteliers are largely focusing on business-oriented hotels to capture the burgeoning business travel market in urban cities, coupled with a significant undersupply of rooms

If your employees just won’t stop whining, you should take them to lunch and explain the impact they are having on your business, Biz Wiz Kevin Daum says. Try to help them resolve their problems if they have legitimate complaints, but consider removing them from your business if they continue to complain about every little detail, he advises. If that’s not an option, try to separate chronic whiners from the rest of the employee population, he recommends.

Multigenerational franchise ownership has become increasingly common as laid-off or retired parents partner with their children to start their own businesses. “You have a lot of seasoned executives getting packages, and they’re looking for new careers. And you have this disproportionately high unemployment in the under-25 group. With that you get the dad/grad trend,” Nurse Next Door CEO John DeHart said