Delta Regional Authority Chairman Masingill Urges Delta Small Business Owners: "Don't Let Time Run Out On Small Business Tax Relief"

The Small Business Jobs Act signed into law earlier this fall includes an estimated $12 billion in savings through eight tax provisions encouraging small business investments. These tax savings are currently scheduled to expire on December 31, 2010. Businesses must act this month to secure the much needed tax relief. Today, while in Kentucky addressing the Paducah Area Chamber of Commerce, Delta Regional Authority (DRA) Federal Co-Chairman Chris Masingill urged small business owners “not to let the time run out on small business tax relief.” Chairman Masingill views business development and small business entrepreneurship as “a significant components of long-term recovery for the Delta region.”

Under Chairman Masingill's leadership, the DRA is ramping up its role in helping to create a climate of opportunity, ripe for job creation, through the coordination, collaboration, monitoring and leveraging of existing small business programs in the region. In the coming weeks, the DRA will be unveiling its own new strategy to help small businesses. “In this tough economic climate, we must leave no stone unturned in terms of financial assistance for small businesses and entrepreneurs,” said Chairman Masingill. “We are grateful to the Senate Small Business Committee, under the leadership of the Delta’s own Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA), and the Small Business Administration for fighting to secure tax relief for businesses. I encourage small business owners to take advantage of this last chance to secure real money in the bank for new investments. The clock is ticking, as small business owners must act this month to benefit from the expiring tax provisions.” “With small businesses in the Delta facing so much economic uncertainty, the Small Business Jobs Act offers them a vital lifeline through $12 billion in tax cuts and greater assistance accessing capital,” said Senator Mary Landrieu, Chair of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship and a lead sponsor of the legislation. “Unfortunately though, many of the most important provisions in this bill will expire in a few weeks. I am working hard to extend these benefits further but time may not be on our side. Ahead of these deadlines, I encourage the small businesses in the Delta areas to take advantage of these badly needed tax cuts while they are available. These tax savings can be used by small businesses to expand their businesses and hire more workers, at a time when millions of Americans are still out of work.”

Before year’s end, small businesses can take advantage of the following eight tax provisions: 1. The highest small business expensing limit ever, of $500,000; 2. Carry-back provisions on net operating losses of up to 5 years; 3. Accelerated/bonus depreciation; 4. Zero capital gains taxes for those who invest in small businesses; 5. Increased deductions for start-ups; 6. Deductions for employer-provided cell phones; 7. Deductions for health insurance costs for the self-employed; and 8. Limitations on penalties for errors in tax reporting that disproportionately affect small business. Small business owners with questions about the provisions or in need of assistance in securing the relief should visit the Small Business Administration’s local resource page (http://www.sba.gov/localresources/index.html) to locate a district office or Small Business Development Center. Or, Kemp Morgan, the Authority's head of project development, can be reached at (662) 624-8600, ext 18 or kmorgan@dra.gov.

The Delta Regional Authority is a federal-state partnership that serves 252 counties and parishes in parts of Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi and Missouri. Chris Masingill, appointed by President Obama, as DRA's Federal Co-Chairman and the governors of the eight states comprise the Authority's board.

Kentucky Business Goes To China

My apologies for the lack of posts in recent weeks. We have been traveling around the district marketing the GRADD Revolving Loan Fund Program to potential stakeholders, and we are making significant progress in getting our $2 million recapitalization out on the street.

I wanted to take a brief moment to discuss a wonderful event undertaken by our friends at the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce. In September, members of the Kentucky Chamber (headed by former Owensboro Mayor David Adkisson) traveled to China on a fact-finding trip. The Chinese marketplace (and continual growth of their national economy) will have a direct impact on American business owners. The global economy and the digital connections between the United States and China offers a wealth of opportunity for American (and yes, Kentucky) business owners and entrepreneurs. China is not a perfect country, but its presence as a global economic superpower will continue to impact the way we do business. It is important now, more than ever, for business owners to make efforts to understand the potential of this economic relationship, and what it means for all of us and future generations. Read more about this great adventure here and here.

Innovation and Growth

The National Science Foundation recently completed a survey regarding innovation. The results are in. How does this impact entrepreneurship in our region? We welcome your thoughts.

Kentucky United Delegation Visits Detroit

Greater Owensboro Economic Development Corporation President Nick Brake recently blogged about his trip to Detroit with the Kentucky United delegation. Dr. Brake outlines the significant problems that have plagued Detroit in recent years, including singular reliance upon the automobile industry and the adoption of suburban sprawl development practices. However, despite the problematic aspects of the Detroit economy, its leaders are looking toward diversification and the development of local and regional talent to combat these trends. What does this have to do with entrepreneurship and small businesses in our region? Everything. Our regional leaders have been proactive rather than reactive in growing existing industries and entrepreneurship. Read more about their findings here.

Entrepreneurship Corner

Stanford University's Entrepreneurship Corner offers over 1,600 free videos and podcasts from business leaders and entrepreneurs. Check it out!

Football and Entrepreneurship

In honor of college football kick-off weekend, I thought I would share some organizational and entrepreneurial advice from one of the game's most successful coaches. Enjoy!

--Joe

How to Grow Your Business Globally

We have had several discussions in this forum regarding "a networked world" and the role of connectivity in the future of business in our region. However, the interconnectedness of global business can open up additional opportunities for you and your business to grow, explore new markets, and foster new partnerships that would not have been possible twenty years ago. Dan Brutto has written a fantastic article for Bloomberg BusinessWeek outlining some tips for growing your business in an increasingly globalized world.

A Networked World

A lot of our posts recently have regarded the importance of social networking for businesses. Let's face it folks...this stuff is NOT going away anytime soon! However, social networking has also been utilized as a tool for governmental agencies, NGOs, nonprofits, and other organizations to spread their message. In essence, these organizations are selling a product, just like an entrepreneur. Two great articles discuss these trends and their implications, from the New York Times Magazine and Foreign Policy.

If you are interested in learning more about how to utilize Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other sites to grow your business, please join GRADD, eMerging Ventures, and SCORE on July 27th at 5:15 for a Social Networking Seminar! If you would like to register for the event, please call (270) 926-4433, or visit the GRADD website at www.gradd.com.

GRADD, Emerging Ventures, and SCORE to Host Social Networking Seminar

The eMerging Ventures Center for Innovation, the Daviess County chapter of SCORE and the Green River Area Development District are hosting a free two hour seminar to help you best utilize social networking to build your business. In the first hour you will learn the basics of using Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking tools that can help you communicate with your customers/clients and grow your business. The second hour will be hosted by Agent511's Ankur Gopal who will provide tips and advanced techniques that will get your business noticed. Participants are asked to bring their laptop computers. Our goal will be for you to create and have in place a ready to use social networking strategy for your business before you leave.

The seminar will take place on July 27th at 5:15pm at GRADD's offices in Owensboro on Highway 60 West. Participants are encouraged to pre-register by calling GRADD at 270-926-4433 or by going to the GRADD web site, www.gradd.org.

Ohio County Hosts Sucessful Social Networking Event

The influence of social networking is not a temporary fad. However, many businesses are afraid to embrace this new reality and attempt to rely only upon more traditional marketing techniques. Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc. each offer unique ways to market your product or service to an audience, obtain immediate feedback from customers, and numerous other benefits. The Ohio County Chamber of Commerce has recognized the need to foster social network marketing and on May 25th hosted "Using Facebook to Market Your Business" at the Ohio County Public Library. Over a dozen Ohio Countians were present for this event, which was facilitated by Mr. Nick Zellich, Coordinator of Marketing & Social Media at the Madisonville-Hopkins County Chamber of Commerce. A special thanks goes out to Nick, Laurie, and Valorie for all of their hard work in putting this event together! If you have any ideas for a similar event in your county, please pass it along to us by emailing joeberry@gradd.com.

Resources to Help You

I often hear requests for the latest ideas and trends in entrepreneurship. So, from time to time, this blog will provide links to resources that can help you with your own business prospects.

*Been There, Done That

*Can You Learn To Be An Entrepreneur??

* Austin or Bust!

* Challenges Facing Entrepreneurs

* 10 Tips for a Strong Start

* 9 Way to Prepare for Growth and Success

We hope the information provided here will be useful to you. Let us know what you think!

Ohio County Entrepreneur Club Meeting On Thursday!

Please join representatives from GRADD and the Ohio County Chamber for an organizational meeting of the Ohio County Entrepreneur Club! The meeting will take place on Thursday, March 11, 12:00 p.m. at the Ohio County Chamber Office (1350 Clay Street, Hartford, KY). If you have any questions please feel free to contact us at (270) 926-4433. See you there!

Social Entrepreneurship Offers New Way Of Doing Business

Various economists, sociologists, politicians, and pundits have often argued that the underlying principles of the free market economy(i.e. the pursuit of profit) and the ideals of charity (i.e. helping others without regard for one's own self-interest)are diametrically opposed to one another. On one pole you have the greedy, self-interested business tycoon, who buys and sells goods and services without regard for the human costs of such transactions. On the other pole you see the selfless idealist, who values collective good over that of the individual. These extreme stereotypes are both misleading and potentially irrelevant in the 21st Century due to the fact that a few creative thinkers have decided to think outside the box. In this post, I would like to highlight two of these social entrepreneurs with the hope that some readers within our small GRADD region in Western Kentucky will see that helping others is not an anathema to turning a profit.

Have you ever heard of Muhammad Yunus? Neither had I, but he is truly an amazing humanitarian and businessman. Yunus was trained as an economist at Vanderbilt University, and witnessed abject poverty in his home country of Bangladesh when that nation experienced a severe famine in 1974. During this time of economic and social hardship in Bangladesh, Yunus made a loan $27.00 U.S. Dollars to a group of 42 families so they could create and sell items without having to undertake stringent loan guidelines offered by traditional financial institutions. From this experience, and through his economics research, Yunus founded Grameen Bank to specialize in providing credit and banking services to the working poor. To most people, this would make zero sense. Hypothetically, the working poor do not have the resources nor the collateral to secure loan funds, so why take on the risk? Sounds crazy, right? Wrong. Today, Grameen Bank maintains 2,563 branches and services approximately 81,343 villages throughout Asia, the Americas, and Africa. Grameen has provided $8.86 billion (USD) in microloans, $7.86 billion (USD) of these monies have been fully repaid, and they have a recovery rate of 96.54%! Yunus was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009.

Another great example of an innovative and dynamic social entrepreneur is Blake Mycoskie. Mycoskie is the "Chief Shoe Giver" of TOMS Shoes. The story about how he gained such a strange job title is a heartwarming one. In 2006, Mycoskie was a serial entrepreneur (he had started a laundry company, a billboard service, and drivers education website, all while in his 20s), and a former contestant on the reality show The Amazing Race. Following his stint in adventure-reality TV, he decided to return to Argentina for a vacation. He was expecting delicious red wine, excellent food, and was excited to learn the game of polo. However, Mycoskie noticed two things: 1) that the native-Argentinian shoe known as the alpargata was comfortable, versatile, and not available in the United States; and 2) that the majority of Argentinian children he encountered did not wear nor own a single pair of shoes. In poor nations, citizens do not maintain the luxury of automobiles or even bicycles and must rely on their own two feet as their singular mode of transportation. The lack of shoes within these regions perpetuate disease and infections that are otherwise preventable. Mycoskie's entrepreneurial mind went to work. Why not create a business model where for every pair of shoes you sell you then give a pair away to a child in need? He took $500 and created 250 shoe prototypes, and created TOMS:Shoes for Tommorrow. Previously, Mycoskie had anticipated that he would spend the first half of his life making as much money as possible and the second half giving that money away. By converging the concepts of a for-profit enterprise and acts of charitable giving into one cohesive and sustainable business model, Mycoskie has now distributed (as of April 2009) more than 140,000 pairs of shoes to children in Argentina, Ethiopia, South Africa and the United States. TOMS are sold online and in 500 stores nationwide. Mycoskie also encourages participation in the one-for-one movement by his customers by inviting interested individuals to join him on "Shoe Drops." The work of Blake, the TOMS Shoes Team, and the idea of the one-for-one model have been recognized by the Clinton Global Initiative, the U.S. Secretary of State, and numerous others. Mycoskie rightly states that "Business and matters of the heart do not have to be mutually exclusive. That one does not need to choose between passion and business, or the Peace Corps and corporate America, but a blend can exist, and when the model is sound, great things can happen."

As you can see, the perception of what is "acceptable" in the world of entrepreneurship is evolving and changing. Those who are revered in business--Jobs, Walton, Buffet, Ellison, Koch Winfrey, or Zuckerberg--created opportunities by defying convention. Perhaps social entrepreneurs will usher in the next epoch in global business? Could we be on the verge of an era in which profit and goodwill are not viewed as mutually exclusive? Please feel free to share your thoughts on these figures, their business models, and offer your own ideas about social entrepreneurship and what it means for all of us. We want the new incarnation of this blog to not only be about sharing news, events, and networking, but also to facilitate a discussion about the nature of entrepreneurial ideas and what these ideas means for GRADD, Kentucky, the United States, and the world. And, as always, thanks for reading.

19 Blogs You Should Bookmark Right Now

Entrepreneurs are learning everyday that social networking is crucial to business growth through marketing, customer relations, market expansion, etc. Sites such as Twitter, Facebook, the Blogosphere are not merely temporary fads, but could hold a valuable place in the future of American commerce. The folks at Inc. Magazine recently released a listing of the "19 Blogs You Should Bookmark Right Now." Check out these sites here and let us know what you discover.

A NEW Green River Entrepreneur Club!

At its inception, the Green River Entrepreneur Club was met with enthusiasm and great attendance at monthly meetings. The dynamic and dialogue amongst the regular membership was enriching for the entrepreneurial climate for the seven-county GRADD area. However, attendance dwindled as the meetings continued. When we examined the attendance at each of the meetings, we noticed some trends that illustrated the need for outreach throughout the GRADD Region: 70% of attendees were from Daviess County, 17% from Henderson County, 7% from Ohio County, 3% from Union County, and 3% from Webster County. The pressing question that arises from these statistics is simple: How do we tailor the existing Club to aid and assist entrepreurs in each of the GRADD counties? After careful deliberation, we feel that a new incarnation of the club will allow for expanded membership, a diverse range of events, and, ultimately, provide opportunities for all GRADD citizens to achieve their business goals.

The new structure of the Entrepeneur Club involves a two-tiered approach. Our goal is to establish chapters of the Green River Entrepreneur Club in each of the GRADD counties. We hope that each chapter will include local civic and business leaders, young people who are eager to learn about the business world, aspiring entrepreneurs, Chamber of Commerce members, and the like. Moreover, the club chapters themselves will be autonomous and individual to each county. For example, the preference of one chapter may involve monthly lunch meetings that include a speaker. Other chapters may prefer a more relaxed approach that evolves with each meeting. That is the beauty of this type of organization: each club will embody the individuality of the local community! Once these club chapters are established, the existing Green River Entrepreneur Club (operating out of the GRADD Office) will organize and facilitate larger events that bring each of the chapters together for networking, larger speaking events, learning seminars, etc.

Therefore, GRADD is pleased to announce that--with the invaluable assistance of the Ohio County Chamber of Commerce--we will hold our first organizational meeting of the Ohio County Chapter of the Green River Entrepreneur Club on Thursday, March 11, 12:00 p.m. at the Ohio County Chamber Office (1350 Clay Street, Hartford, KY). This meeting will be a strategy session to define the direction of the Ohio County Chapter. We are in the process of planning the organization of additional chapters in other GRADD counties, and will have news on that front very soon!

We hope to see you on the 11th! Please do not hesitate to contact me at joeberry@gradd.com or at (270) 926-4433 if you have any questions.

I'm looking forward to meeting and working with all of you!

--Joe Berry