The Entrepreneur

BY MAUREEN O’DONNELL Staff Reporter modonnell@suntimes.com  April 2, 2012 10:52PM Alvin Boutte Sr. was among a group of African-American businessmen who transformed the community.   Alvin Boutte Sr. led the nation’s largest black-owned bank and helped bankroll the civil rights efforts of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Ads by Google Show Up on Google Find new customers with a Google ad Give it a go for 60 days, risk-free www.google.com/AdWords He died Sunday at age 82 at his Hazel Crest home. He was born in Lake Charles, La., and earned a pharmacist’s degree at Xavier University of Louisiana. Mr. Boutte learned perseverance from his father, who was routinely turned away when he tried to vote in the South, according to the book,  African-American Business Leaders: a Biographical Dictionary. “You know, my father lived his entire life in America, and he never once voted,” Mr. Boutte recalled in the book. “I can remember how he’d dres...

Are you looking for new sales avenues for your small business? You may want to consider subcontracting with major corporations. There is lots of opportunity in this arena, because big corporations have huge budgets and many needs. But selling your services as a subcontractor to a big corporation requires different skills than you're probably using now. The following tips will help you succeed. SUCCESSFUL SELLING: DO YOUR HOMEWORK Selling successfully to big corporations requires a lot of research before you approach them. Start by pinpointing some possible prospects. Industry publications will give you insights into the future plans of corporations you might want to approach. Once you have some prospects in mind, read their websites and annual reports (if they are public companies) to discover what they are doing, and where they may need some assistance. Big companies have procurement departments that deal with subcontractors and suppliers and will require you to s...

After 25 years in business,  Ziva Jewels  decided to bring its designs directly to consumers via online sales. But the personal service customers found in the retailer's stores didn't translate well online: Despite spending an hour or more with customers on live chat to educate them about diamonds and gemstones, the effort failed to generate new sales. "Without pictures and diagrams, it was hard to get across the important points about buying fine jewelry," says Felicia Ceballos-Marroquin, Ziva Jewels's marketing director. Ziva's solution? Create an e-book to educate and keep customers engaged with the brand. A NEW TWIST ON TRADITIONAL BRAND-BUILDING "We developed the  Ziva Jewels Guide to Buying Fine Jewelry, Diamonds, and Gemstones  e-book to aid our customers in the buying process," Ceballos-Marroquin says. "It's been significant in helping us to close the deal with customers interested in buying online, since it incr...

If you, like a lot of businesspeople, have been wrestling to boost your credit score, get ready for a figure-four necklock. There's a new credit score in the ring and it's a monster, armed with mechanisms to assess your creditworthiness that make FICO look like a 98-pound weakling. It's dubbed the "super credit score" and, as it's now being perfected by a group of cutting-edge lenders, it judges your creditworthiness not by your financial data but by information on your social circle, your interests, your hobbies -- in other words, by how you live your life. An article titled  "9 Trends Reshaping Risk Software" at AmericanBanker.com  provides an inside look at the growing popularity of the super credit score. The third trend, according to the website, is "looking beyond the credit bureau report to assess consumer creditworthiness." "One idea banks are toying with is that of incorporating social media data into asse...

DMX : This episode of Behind the Music will trace DMX's journey from his childhood home of violent beatings and his experience with the juvenile justice system to becoming the voice of the streets.

7 in Share 8 Ways to Find Content for Your Company Blog Published on  August 17, 2011   by   Jessica McLaughlin An empty page is one of the most daunting things to overcome for any blogger. If your business is committed to  blogging , you want to keep the ideas and words flowing regularly. When you first set up a blog, there’s lots to write about; that’s probably one of the main reasons you started. After you’ve been blogging for a while, however, you may need a bit of inspiration to keep the articles and conversations with your audience flowing. There are many ways to get ideas for your next blog post, but some may require a bit of organization and set-up. Here are some insights into how you can keep the content flowing on your company blog. 1. Share Product Updates and Company News This may seem like the most obvious suggestion, but the inspiration for a company blog should come first and foremost from your company and its products. People who are interested in y...