Anybody doing business today?
It's a Monday. A Monday that follows a weekend that follows a week that many people took off because of Christmas. And it's a Monday that precedes New Years Day - when many of you will be off.
To top it off, we have a ton of snow falling during the commuting hours.
So I have to wonder. How many of you are working today?
Friday, the Commerce Department reported sales of new homes dropped to their lowest level in more than 12 years. If you're the kind of person who worries about stats like that, you had the weekend to get over it.
Today, the National Association of Realtors releases numbers on sales of existing home sales. There's at least one economist who thinks they won't be so bad. Probably nothing to celebrate - especially if your house is on the market still.
It's obvious what these stats say about your business if you are in real estate. But for all you non-agents and non-mortgage brokers, what does the housing market mean to your business?
UPDATE:
It's out. Existing home sales increased 0.4 percent in November. But the prices fell.
Happy New Year
Tuesday is the new year, and I'm going to be off. Look for the Takeaway on Wednesday morning.
Connect. Share. Profit.
Good morning and welcome to the new MaineBusiness.com. I am building a site that will allow you to keep track of what small business owners are doing and find ideas to keep your business successful.
This site still is in the building stage but I have enough to start helping you.
Business headlines
Each morning, I will seek business stories from news sources around Maine. This will be your one stop for comprehensive business news.
Events
Who has a better business calendar than this? This is the place to find a comprehensive list of educational and networking events.
You can post your organization's events easily. Be sure to classify the "Event category" as "Business" so it shows in our calendar.
Expert advice
I have bloggers who are sharing their expertise about subjects such as marketing, Internet promotion, finance and management. And more are being developed. Stay tuned.
Speaking of bloggers
There is this blog. It's called The Takeaway because it is about my take on the business news and how it affects your business. I'm going to concentrate on news you can use. I promise to keep it short. Shorter than today's entry. You don't have a lot of time, and I promise not to wax poetic.
What kind of news you can use?
I found this story today in Slate magazine - Don't Fear Starbucks. It's about how a local coffee shop can do well when Starbucks moves into the neighborhood. Basically, the local stores benefit from the traffic a Starbucks generates. And Starbucks prices are so high, its not impossible to compete with them that way.
But works for a coffee house won't necessary work for the business that competes with Walmart or Home Depot or another big box retailer. Pricing would be the major disadvantage there.
But big box competition isn't necessarily fatal. To prove the point, I found a Kate Arno column we published in 2005 - Thinking outside the box. Arno talks to the owner of the Bow Street Market and how it survived the opening of a Shaws in Freeport.
Both pieces are worth reading for all business owners.
How are we doing so far?
None of this is written in stone. I want to make this useful so I need to hear from you when I miss the mark.
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