 
|
Business owners are encouraged to share ideas of potential changes to Cabarrus County regulations during three "listening" sessions this month. The goal is to identify regulatory changes that may help increase employment and job growth. Organized by the Cabarrus County Council for a Sustainable Local Economy recommendations will be forwarded to the Cabarrus County Board of Commissioners. The three forums all start at 6:30 pm: Feb. 16, Kannapolis Train Station, 201 S. Main Street, Kannapolis; Feb. 23, Vintage Motorclub, 325 McGill Avenue, Concord; Feb. 28, Buddy’s Restaurant, 1470 S. Main Street, Mt. Pleasant. Comments may be emailed to regulatory@cabarruscounty.us. The Cabarrus County Council for a Sustainable Local Economy was established by the Cabarrus Board of County Commissioners and charged with performing research and analysis, educating the community, developing strategies and making policy recommendations that encourages entrepreneurship and supports local, independently owned businesses. More info: Shannon Johnson, 704-920-2181. |
|
|
Feb. 2 Hendrick Automotive Group has purchased Tim Marburger Dodge Chrysler Jeep in Concord for an undisclosed amount. Wes Watkins is the executive manager of the dealership which has been renamed Hendrick Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram of Concord. |
|
|
.gif) |
| Jan. 27 The cost to live in an authentic French chateau will now set you back $5.9 million, not $8 million. The luxurious lakefront home in Mooresville, built by the former owner of Boyles Furniture for upwards of $22 million, is listed by Debbie Monroe and Amber Garchar of Lake Norman Realty. Like a lot of homes in all price ranges, this one is bank-owned. To see the brochure, click here. |
|
|
|
Jan. 25 A "Hiring Our Heroes Job Fair," designed to help military personnel adjust to civilian life, will be Feb. 13 from 9 a.m. to noon at Embassy Suites in Concord. |
| Full Story Here |
|
|
Jan. 25 Karen Bentley, a business-friendly representative on the Meck County Board, will run again. |
| Full Story Here |
|
|
Jan. 24 John Bradford, the owner of Park Avenue Properties in Cornelius, has been named business person of the year by the Lake Norman Chamber of Commerce.
Bradford, who is also a member of the town board in Cornelius, received the award at the chamber’s annual dinner last week. Matthew Hayes, principal at North Mecklenburg High School, received the Duke Energy Citizenship and Service Award , while David F. Peete, the principal planner for Huntersville, was named volunteer of the Year.
The new chairman of the chamber, Jack Salzman, president of Lake Norman Chrysler Jeep Dodge Ram, said the chamber would focus on “customer relations” with members and former members to ensure that all see value in their membership. Emphasizing that the chamber’s board of directors would “not be a puppet board,” Salzman stated: “In every thing we do as a board our focus must be always to benefit our community where we live, work and play.”
|
| Full Story Here |
|
|
 |
| ANERALLA |
Jan. 21 N.C. Senate hopeful John Aneralla, a conservative Republican who has lined up endorsements from Cornelius Town Commissioners Lynette Rinker, Chuck Travis and Dave Gilroy, reports that he has $30,000 in his campaign treasury.
|
| Full Story Here |
|
|
Jan. 21 The Town of Cornelius will host a special meeting 9 am Wednesday, Feb. 8 in the Community Room of Town Hall to hear an analysis of the Red Line by a senior fellow of the Cato Institute, a Libertarian think tank in Raleigh. Randal O’Toole will discuss the business/finance plan behind the proposed 25-mile freight-commuter line between Mooresville and Charlotte.
|
| Full Story Here |
|
|
A business plan competition sponsored by the Centralina Workforce Development Board, Greater Statesville Chamber of Commerce, Iredell County, Mitchell Community College, Mooresville-South Iredell Chamber of Commerce, Mountain State University, the Small Business Center and the Small Business and Technology Development Center is getting under way in Iredell County. Meetings will be held in the Continuing Education Center Auditorium at 701 W. Front Street in Statesville. There will be hands-on workshops for participants to develop and assemble a complete business plan. More info: Suzanne Wallace 704-878-3227
|
|
|
The Lake Norman Chamber will host a presentation on the Red Line by the consultants from Parsons Brinkerhoff and Jeff Hare, Cornelius Commissioner and chairman of the Cornelius Red Line Task Force. The session starts at 8 a.m. Jan. 27 on the second floor of the chamber building on West Catawba in Cornelius. |
|
|
Author and motivational speaker, Nathan Jamail, reminds us not every hire is the right hire and not every job is the right job, but accepting a bad decision is wrong — for everyone involved. |
| Full Story Here |
|
|
 |
| DeMAO |
Sherre teaches us the most effective business owners know how to get things done beyond the confines of their minds and their capabilities. As a result, they make more effective decisions and take more effective action when choices need to be made. Make 2012 the year you become a manager of your destiny. |
| Full Story Here |
|
|
 |
| KANE |
Cheryl Kane teches us that time allocation, prioritizing how time is used, and controlling access to your time for specific efforts are all necessary to efficiently and effectively use your most rare and valuable asset: time. |
| Full Story Here |
|
|
Saavy Business Owner |
Are you playing Offense or Defense?
In this ever-changing playing field of business, what position are you taking within your company? Are you playing offense or defense? Or are you in a holding pattern to ride out the storm? As the economy continues to fluctuate, it is forcing companies to do business differently, more effectively, more efficiently, or all of the above. You have a unique opportunity for your business to take the lead, while your competitors vacillate, by taking the position of offense. Savvy businesses are already taking the offense. As a result, they are not feeling the economic crunch as much as others are. They are in a growth mode while everyone else is in a survival mode.
When strategically thinking from an offensive mindset, you are looking at ways your business can be better than anyone else. You are creating a sense of real value in the mind of your customers. Your customers will be attracted to you because they feel they will not get this perceived value anywhere else. Once they realize the value to be real and they believe they are not going to get it anywhere else, they will stay loyal to you.
There are three Best Value Offenses you should consider when defining your strategic advantage against competitors. Of the three, you will focus on two for strategic advantage. They are:
1) Best Total Solutions
2) Best Product/Service
3) Best Price.
Best Total Solutions: To be a best total solutions provider, you want your customers to see you as an expert resource. Your business is the first place your customer thinks to call because if you don’t know the answer, you will either get the answer or know who does have the answer. You are creative and resourceful, bringing to the marketplace unique solutions that no-one else can do as well as you. You are intimately knowledgeable about your customer and how they want to do business. You can anticipate their needs inside your business, as well as outside your business. You keep an extensive referral network in order to effectively be that total resource to your customer. You also share your expertise on a regular basis with your customers so they can gain knowledge in the process in order to make better buying decisions themselves.
Best Product / Service: To be a best product or service provider, you want customers to believe you have the best products or services and then you must continually strive to prove and validate this. A best product or service provider is all about high performance, innovation, or excellence in every sense of the word. If you are stating you have the best product or service, then you are literally declaring a standard for the rest of the industry to step forward and attempt to match or exceed. You most likely have won recognition and acclaim and make being recognized with awards and honors a part of your proof that you are doing something exceptional. Your products or services are at a higher price point, and worth it.
Best Price: Being a best price provider is quite simply being the least expensive. You can also take it to the extreme of being fast and cheap or cheap but in a volume order situation that requires time to receive.
The key to using the Best Value Offense to your advantage is to choose one of these that your company will do better than anyone else in the marketplace. Then choose a second one that you will do as well if not slightly better. Then the third you simply don’t worry about as you cannot do all three. I am going to give you a hint as you start to look at what your company should do offensively. Don’t focus on best price as your number one. And if you do focus on best price being number two, make it competitive and value-added, not the cheapest. Too many small businesses lowered their prices as a means of “temporarily” competing in the last economic downturn, and they are not around to take on the challenge of this one.
Take some time to do some due diligence on your competition and see if you can pinpoint which offenses they might be using. You may be pleasantly surprised that they are not really distinguishing themselves in this manner, giving you a real opportunity to set your company apart and come out a winner now and for a long time to come.
Sherré DeMao is President of SLD Unlimited Marketing/PR Inc., a full-service marketing and public relations firm based in Denver, N.C. Her column seeks to help entrepreneurs and business owners become more savvy marketers and strategists. DeMao can be reached at sherre@sldunlimited.com or 704.483.2941. |
|
|
 |
|
Guest
Opinion
MARY HOPPER
|
By Mary Hopper
The University Research Park (URP) remains a bright spot in office activity in the Northeast submarket. Located at Harris Boulevard and I-85, the 2000-acre park has a 45-year history of fostering cutting edge technology dating back to its early days when IBM was making ATMs there and Verbatim was producing floppy discs. Its growth came in spurts over the years, with First Union’s CIC complex and TIAA CREF as two of its past wins.
The latest uptick began in 2008 when SPEED renovated a former Verbatim building to become home to a state of the art, all-digital TV network. The motorsports channel now reaches 84 million homes in North America with additional worldwide distribution. The pace continued with David Bowles’ 2009 acquisition of the 70,000 square foot Louis Rose building that had housed IBM and then First Union Mortgage. Bowles used his skills to create Environmental Way as one of the region’s first LEED Platinum buildings and a workplace laboratory of sustainable systems and design. |
| Full Story Here |
|
|
 |
| Mooresville: This home on Easton Dr. in Mooresville sold for $880,000 |
|
In Mooresville
A house at 171 Easton Drive in The Point has sold for $880,000 after being listed by Doris Nash of Ivester Jackson Distinctive Properties at $929,900 two months ago.
|
|
| Full Story Here |
|
|
By Dave Yochum
New statistics from the N.C. Secretary of State indicate North Carolinians gave less to charity in 2011 than 2010. However, the same report also indicates people supported the non-profits that got better returns.
The Charitable Solicitation Licensing Division Annual Report says that charities licensed by the state collected $26.7 million from North Carolinians during the 12-month period.
The 2010-2011 report shows that of the money collected, $13.2 million went directly to the charities for which the fund-raising campaigns were being conducted. That’s a 49.46 percent return to the charities for each dollar donated. |
| Full Story Here |
|
|
 |
|
Full PDF versions of Business Today are available to be read online...
Read Current and Archived issues!
|
|
| Full Story Here |
|
|
.gif)