Teaching Musicians to Be Entrepreneurs

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In most areas of higher education, entrepreneurship has long lost its stigma as a career path for those without one. But at the nation's top music conservatories that stigma is still very much alive, despite the fact that the "traditional" career path for classically trained musicians—one that ends with steady employment in a symphony orchestra—is difficult.

At Manhattan's Juilliard School, one of the country's preeminent performing arts conservatories, Career Development Director Derek Mithaug admits that the business-y connotation of the term "entrepreneur" still rubs a lot of artists the wrong way. "We try to avoid that word," he says. But getting support for entrepreneurship training is about more than semantics: Some in music education still firmly believe that the role of the conservatory is to train musicians, not businesspeople.

That's why at many conservatories, entrepreneurship training—where it exists—has tip-toed into curricula under less-threatening guises. Most schools offer at least one elective or workshop in "career development" or "the music industry." At the Eastman School of Music, entrepreneurship programs are run out of the Rochester (N.Y.) school's Institute for Music Leadership.

Converting the Old Guard

The Institute's director, Ramon Ricker, says it took some effort to convince some old-guard faculty—firm believers in "art for art's sake"—that the school wasn't selling out by offering courses that emphasized practical skills. At one meeting, Ricker went around the room pointing at each faculty member: "You've got a summer chamber music program, you've got a string quartet, you publish books— you're entrepreneurial!" And teaching those skills, he says, is about more than building individual careers—as the nation's symphony orchestras continue their struggle for survival, they're also vital to the future of classical music.

Bringing music schools in line with the future of classical music is exactly what Manhattan School of Music president Robert Sirota is most interested in. "The whole infrastructure of music is experiencing seismic shifts, and music schools have to move with those changes," Sirota says—and just adding a business course or two in isn't enough to keep up with the times. Although getting even one required course on entrepreneurship into a packed conservatory curriculum is more than most schools are willing to commit to, what's really necessary, Sirota says, is a radical rethinking of the whole centuries-old conservatory model.

One of Sirota's sea-change ideas: Instead of requiring all graduating students to perform a senior recital, conservatories could give students the option of producing their own recording. "It sounds like a small thing, but it would be revolutionary," Sirota says. "Can we do it? Well, that remains to be seen."

As an end goal, Sirota envisions "a new generation of performing musicians who function more like individual small businesses, who work the hypersegmented musical marketplace in an entirely different way." Figuring out how to get there, Sirota admits, is the $64,000 question. In April, he's holding the first of several think-tank discussions with various music industry leaders to discuss just that subject. And in a year or two—as soon as he nails down the funding—he hopes to open a new Center for Music Entrepreneurship at the Manhattan School.

Funding from Wealthy Foundations

So far, most of the funding for arts entrepreneurship programs has come from a few wealthy foundations. Among the first was the College of Music at the University of Colorado at Boulder, which opened the Entrepreneurship Center for Music with a grant from the Price Foundation in 1998. Since then, the Coleman, Morgan, and Kauffman foundations have funded numerous other initiatives to further entrepreneurship in music, including grant competitions and mentorship programs.

But critics say music schools still aren't doing enough to prepare students for the real world. "How in good conscience can we continue to graduate thousands of students a year who have no hope of getting a job in the field they were trained for?" asks Michael Drapkin, a business consultant and former symphony clarinetist who got funding from the Kauffman Foundation to support an annual conference in North Carolina on music entrepreneurship called BCOME.

A New Way of Thinking

He's not the only one asking that question. "If you talk to people outside the academy, this is a no-brainer," says Gary Beckman, a PhD student in musicology at the University of Texas at Austin and a leading academic researcher in the growing field of arts entrepreneurship. But in order for music entrepreneurship to gain more mainstream acceptance, he says the topic has to be academically legitimized. On Mar. 31, he'll present research at Pepperdine University, at the first-ever panel discussion devoted to arts entrepreneurship as an academic discipline (see BusinessWeek.com, 10/2/06, "Business Plans with Legs").

Still, says Juilliard's Mithaug, "It takes time to change culture." From a very young age, musicians are taught how to take direction, to be the best by being the same. "[Entrepreneurship] is a new way of thinking for people who have spent most of their lives in a practice room," he says.

And Juilliard is already a much different place than it was when Mithaug was a student there; the Career Development Office he now directs didn't open its doors until 2000. Before that, he says, "there was no office, no nothing." Now about 25% of Juilliard students participate in the school's professional mentoring program, which matches students up with a faculty member or with an outside professional to work on a project of the student's own design. Mithaug says interest in the four-year-old program has grown each year, and over the past decade he's seen a profound shift in student attitudes.

Stigma Starting to Fade

Gillian Gallagher, a 22-year-old viola player, says she has no qualms about identifying herself as an entrepreneur. After earning her master's degree from Juilliard she hopes to play professionally with the string quartet she formed as a Juilliard undergraduate with three other students. Besides playing, Gallagher says the group members do all of their own self-promotion—everything from writing bios to contacting programmers.

While Gallagher says most students still seem focused on a traditional career path that begins with auditioning for symphony orchestras, "I can see the stigma starting to fade all around me," she says.

"There are a lot of musicians who come here thinking that the most important thing is their art, and that other concerns—like making money—don't matter." Around the beginning of fourth year, though, "People start to get a little scared. They start thinking, 'what am I gonna do next?'"

An Alternative to Ramen Noodles

Angela Myles Beeching, career services director at New England Conservatory in Boston, says she sees her students go through a similar rude awakening during the professional artists seminar required of third-year students. But she says the point isn't to scare students away from pursuing their dreams. "Whether you call it entrepreneurship or not, what it comes down to is helping young musicians see themselves as the masters of their future—that they can create opportunities, not just wait to be handed something."

For some students, entrepreneurship is an alternative to what many artists have turned to in the past: the day job (see BusinessWeek.com, 7/10/01, "Portrait of the Artist in Red Ink"). At UT-Austin, Gary Beckman says that while the students he teaches certainly don't buy into the 19th century myth of the starving artist, they're not interested in entrepreneurship for the same reasons as students in the business school, either. "They're not looking for a six-figure salary," he says. "The reason they want an entrepreneurial lifestyle is so they can continue to practice their art—and maybe not eat ramen noodles every night while they do so."

And Gallagher says that's not the only reason. "Every conversation I've had about the future of classical music comes down to the fact that as musicians, we need to be more proactive." For example, she says, "a major problem today is orchestras failing—maybe if musicians were more entrepreneurial, that wouldn't be happening." But no matter what, Gallagher says she's convinced that entrepreneurship skills are useful for any musician in the long run—even those who aren't planning to strike out on their own. After all, she says, "If you're in some symphony that starts to go under, you're out of a job."

How a Funky Ice Cream Truck Can Change Your Business

Austin inventor tells mosquito bites to buzz off

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It was one "skeeter" bite too many for Austin lawyer Blair Dancy. Dancy's two young boys had walked in from backyard play covered in mosquito welts from the garden and patio areas. The sight of his bump-covered, itching boys was the last straw and the mother of invention.

"I remember having relatively bad mosquitoes in Houston growing up, but never anything like this problem," says Dancy, a 38-year-old University of Texas and law school alumnus.

A natural problem solver, he invented a new trap designed to stop the skin-penetrating tyrants before they take their maiden voyages.

Dancy used a vast network of contacts and Austin resources to develop and manufacture the Mosquito Swallow. His wife, Allison Dancy, an artist and senior marketing manager for Vignette Corp., also pooled her network of contacts to bring the new invention to market. The innovative, environmentally friendly contraption is designed to trap difficult-to-catch container breeders before they become adults.

Dancy said neighbors seemed comfortable blaming nearby Shoal Creek for the multitudes of mosquitoes. After clearing intrusive, non-indigenous bamboo in his backyard, Dancy discovered something that amazed him.

"I got down to the creek, there were no mosquitoes. None. That's when I started to think: If they are not originating down in the creek, where we all thought they were coming from, then where are they breeding in such abundance?"

Climbing up the creek's banks to the house, Dancy re-entered the thick, haze of vicious mosquitoes. Pondering what attracted droves of cantankerous mosquitoes to his home, the commercial litigation attorney with Van Osselaer, Cronin & Buchanan LLP started his research.

Thumbing through countless books at the library, Dancy was introduced to the Asian tiger mosquito. He learned that there were more than 2,500 mosquito species, more than 160 of which are in the United States. The research he found was primarily done because of the mosquitoes' role in the transmission of diseases: malaria, yellow fever, West Nile virus, dengue fever and encephalitis.

Dancy noted that the Asian tiger mosquito is more aggressive than the indigenous Texas mosquitoes. He learned that the Asian tigers were believed to have been stowaways in water-filled tires that were shipped into the Port of Houston in the mid-1980s. And since then, they have been found east of the Rockies.

Dancy figured out that these mosquitoes with bad attitudes were the same variety as the ones in his backyard.

"I didn't have a positive identification in my own yard, so I got a book with detailed sketches, my boys' magnifying glass from their little science set and I caught a mosquito."

"One of the key traits is a single white racing stripe down the middle right between the head and the back section," Dancy explains.

Dancy and his wife did not wish to "nuke" their scenic backyard with pesticides, extinguishing the fireflies, butterflies and beneficial, unintrusive insects. He also didn't want to use greenhouse-gas traps that are sold in home improvement stores, which his neighbors had found unhelpful with the mosquito problem. He wanted another option.

"The thing that struck me about the Asian tTiger was where it bred," Dancy says. "There are mosquitoes that breed in creeks, rice fields, swamps and all sorts of different places. This one particular kind needs small containers that are usually dark with stagnant water and debris in them."

Dancy studied other mosquito-control inventions, but he wanted to find a simpler approach.

"I was thinking, you know, they are really over-engineering this thing," he says.

Most mainstream solutions on the market only address adult mosquitoes, he says. So, he focused on reducing the number of eggs, larvae and pupae.

Dancy learned that there was no single solution to the mosquito problem, even with chemicals.

The Sardinian Project was a massive effort funded by post-World War II relief money and administered by the Rockefeller Foundation to rid malaria-carrying mosquitoes from the island of Sardinia. In the 1930s, more than 70,000 Sardinians suffered from malaria. Tons of the insecticide DDT were dropped on Sardinia in an effort to wipe out the mosquito population on the island. While the Sardinia Project successfully ended the island's battle against malaria, mosquitoes still persisted.

Concentrating on the breeding sites, Dancy found a way to reproduce the optimum environment for mosquitoes to lay eggs. He located countless products, bins, corn cob holders, hoses and funnels from home organizing stores, resulting in humorous observations by his wife and kids. He studied the behavior of the mosquito larvae using clear containers that he set on his kitchen counter for months.

"I'd watch and study them while we all ate breakfast. I'd bang on the side, see how they swam and I'd test how they reacted to light."

Dancy sketched some concepts for his new trap based on his concept of preventing mosquito larvae from maturing. After a few years and many trips back to the drawing board to fine-tune his invention, he drafted a final prototype and had the new trap manufactured in Austin.

Dancy's trap is designed to be an ideal breeding spot for the Asian tiger and other container- or tree-hole-breeders. When the eggs hatch, the larvae and pupae will not escape. The trap itself is small, unobtrusive and easy to manage.

The trap requires a little water each week and the addition of a few dead leaves occasionally, and homeowners must be cognizant of other breeding areas around the home. Dancy's trap has a patent pending and sells for $34.95 online at MosquitoSwallow.com. It will be released in some Austin-area garden centers in the coming months. The Web site also offers helpful information for homeowners to minimize the mosquito swarms this summer.

"You have to take steps to get rid of breeding sites around your home. That's when this trap will make a difference. It's a part of a holistic approach, not a silver bullet," Dancy says.

In Dancy's product testing, one trap caught 100 mosquitoes and larvae in one week.There's no formula for how many traps are needed for each home, because mosquitoes look for areas where air flow is stagnant, and the number of high-concentration areas vary from one yard to the next.

"Where you notice the mosquitoes most is where you'll need to place a trap," Dancy says.

16 Rules You SHOULD Violate, If You Are A Direct Response Copywriter.

IRS may shift AMT gap burden to small biz

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(FSB Magazine) -- Carson Stanwood has no problem with the Internal Revenue Service going after tax cheats. The founder of Stanwood & Partners Public Relations, based in Jackson Hole, Wyo., understands that paying their taxes in full puts small-business owners like him at a competitive disadvantage against the corner cutters.

But when contemplating some of the Treasury Department's recent enforcement proposals - such as vastly expanding the number of Form 1099s he would have to issue and requiring him to verify his independent contractors' taxpayer IDs with the IRS - Stanwood, 47, changes his tune.

"I applaud them going after this until I hear that it's going to vastly increase my paperwork. I believe it would add 20 to 25 percent to what I pay my bookkeeper - another $6,000 or $7,000 a year - which would suck," says Stanwood, whose firm took in about $1.5 million last year. "That's two or three laptops the employees won't get, smaller Christmas bonuses, or an epic vacation my wife and I don't take."

It's not shocking that the IRS is being pushed to improve its reported collection rate of 86 percent. Faced with a gargantuan deficit and demands to reform the alternative minimum tax - a levy initially aimed at the very wealthy that is now snaring millions of middle-income taxpayers - Congress and the Bush administration have been looking for cash under the cushions. And they seem to have found some in an IRS report that shows the amount of unpaid taxes (known as the "tax gap") to be $290 billion a year, of which $109 billion is attributed to underreported business income, largely from small companies.

But while no one wants to stand up for tax cheats, Stanwood is in good company when he rejects the proposals made so far: Three trade groups - the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Federation of Independent Businesses and the Small Business Legislative Council - have formed the Coalition for Fairness in Tax Compliance (taxcompliancefairness.org) to ensure that IRS plans don't amount to a swipe at law-abiding business owners, who according to the U.S. Small Business Administration already pay 67 percent more per employee in annual tax-compliance costs than do companies with more than 500 workers ($1,304 vs. $780).

"I have no problem with tracking down tax cheats. But I don't believe in creating additional burdens on people who are doing everything right," says Jason Speer, vice president of Quality Float Works, a Schaumburg, Ill., leveling-device company with $2.2 million in annual sales. "Why penalize everyone? That doesn't make sense."

From the carpenter who offers discounts for work paid in cash to the freelance designer who doesn't report income from corporate clients he bills less than $600 annually (the limit that trips an IRS Form 1099), some small businesses and independent contractors clearly understate their income on tax forms. IRS data show that independent contractors report 96 percent of the income for which they get information returns (Form 1099, for example), but only 46 percent of income for which they don't.

So the administration's budget for the 2008 fiscal year proposes getting more information by making credit card companies report each merchant's credit card sales to the IRS.

Another proposal would require businesses to issue a Form 1099 not just to all independent contractors but also to all corporate contractors they pay more than $600 a year (say, the local Roto-Rooter or messenger service).

A third proposal would make businesses verify with the IRS the taxpayer ID numbers of all independent contractors and withhold taxes for any who ask.

What angers many small-business advocates about the proposals, beyond their invasiveness and red tape, is that they represent a scattershot approach that makes little attempt to target the likeliest tax cheats. IRS data do not break down under-reported business income by transaction type or industry, so the tax authority doesn't know how much revenue is lost to the under-the-table auto mechanic vs. the eBay merchant who doesn't report his credit card sales - or someone else entirely.

"There is no data available to identify what payments aren't reported - cash, credit card, under or over $600, business-to-business, business-to-consumer," says Macey Davis, tax counsel at the NFIB (nfib.com). The administration is "coming up with proposals prematurely without data to back them up."

It's easy to see how small businesses could feel unjustly picked on. A study from Citizens for Tax Justice (ctj.org) found that through tax breaks and shelters, profitable Fortune 500 companies paid an effective corporate tax rate of 17 percent in 2002 and 2003, far below the 31 percent paid by the average company with less than $2.5 million in annual revenue.

"We have 20 employees. We don't have the advantages of a big company with accountants and tax shelters," says Quality Float Works' Speer, who says his company, an S corporation, paid 28 percent in taxes on net income after expenses in 2005.

Finally, for all the burden they would impose on small business, these three enforcement proposals would fill less than one tenth of 1 percent of the tax gap, collecting $187 million in 2008 and $19.2 billion over the next ten years. By comparison, improving tax collection on offshore accounts held by U.S. residents would generate about $50 billion a year, estimates Reuven Avi-Yonah, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School.

It's no surprise, then, that business owners such as Carson Stanwood have little desire to make the effort to comply with IRS rules of dubious efficacy. "If the IRS wants this money, go find it yourself," he says. "I'm not going to do it for you. I don't have the time."

SEO Basics - Good Link, Bad Link

Bob Parsons' Rules Of Success

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I'm a sucker for any article promising "rules for success."

You too?

If you're like me, deep down you suspect that you already know whatever the rules are going to be. But you harbor a glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, you'll uncover a gem, an "obvious" secret that has somehow eluded you all these years and will now lift your performance to a new level.

Even if not, such lists can be quite valuable because, as one of my mentors used to say about the rules for writing good copy, "We need not so much to be taught as reminded."

When I came across the following list, I was pleasantly surprised. Yes, the list expresses mostly insights I "knew" in some form or other, but have sometimes forgotten, for which I've always paid a price. (Rule #10 is my favorite in that department! I also like #1, #3, #6, and #16 a lot.) I'll bet that you, too, will find yourself nodding in heartfelt agreement with these rules, as they resonate with your own hard-won life experiences.

The list was posted online recently by Bob Parsons, a high achiever who started with little in life and has founded several wildly successful companies, including GoDaddy, the Internet domain registrar and hosting company. His 16 rules sum up the lessons he's learned along the way.

No, I'm not an affiliate for Bob, GoDaddy, or anyone else. I don't even know Bob personally. But I really enjoyed his 16 rules. Reviewing them is a great way to start any new year...or any new day.

So here, with his permission and in his own words, are...

Bob Parsons' 16 Rules to Live By

1. Get and stay out of your comfort zone. I believe that not much happens of any significance when we're in our comfort zone. I hear people say, "But I'm concerned about security." My response to that is simple: "Security is for cadavers."

2. Never give up. Almost nothing works the first time it's attempted. Just because what you're doing does not seem to be working doesn't mean it won't work. It just means that it might not work the way you're doing it. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it, and you wouldn't have an opportunity.

3. When you're ready to quit, you're closer than you think. There's an old Chinese saying that I just love, and I believe it is so true. It goes like this: "The temptation to quit will be greatest just before you are about to succeed."

4. With regard to whatever worries you, not only accept the worst thing that could happen, but make it a point to quantify what the worst thing could be. Very seldom will the worst consequence be anywhere near as bad as a cloud of "undefined consequences." My father would tell me early on, when I was struggling and losing my shirt trying to get Parsons Technology going, "Well, Robert, if it doesn't work, they can't eat you."

5. Focus on what you want to have happen. Remember that old saying, "As you think, so shall you be."

6. Take things a day at a time. No matter how difficult your situation is, you can get through it if you don't look too far into the future and focus on the present moment. You can get through anything one day at a time.

7. Always be moving forward. Never stop investing. Never stop improving. Never stop doing something new. The moment you stop improving your organization, it starts to die. Make it your goal to be better each and every day, in some small way. Remember the Japanese concept of Kaizen. Small daily improvements eventually result in huge advantages.

8. Be quick to decide. Remember what General George S. Patton said: "A good plan violently executed today is far and away better than a perfect plan tomorrow."

9. Measure everything of significance. I swear this is true. Anything that is measured and watched improves.

10. Anything that is not managed will deteriorate. If you want to uncover problems you don't know about, take a few moments and look closely at the areas you haven't examined for a while. I guarantee you problems will be there.

11. Pay attention to your competitors, but pay more attention to what you're doing. When you look at your competitors, remember that everything looks perfect at a distance. Even the planet Earth, if you get far enough into space, looks like a peaceful place.

12. Never let anybody push you around. In our society, with our laws and even playing field, you have just as much right to what you're doing as anyone else, provided that what you're doing is legal.

13. Never expect life to be fair. Life isn't fair. You make your own breaks. You'll be doing good if the only meaning fair has to you is something that you pay when you get on a bus (i.e., fare).

14. Solve your own problems. You'll find that by coming up with your own solutions, you'll develop a competitive edge. Masura Ibuka, the cofounder of Sony, said it best: "You never succeed in technology, business, or anything by following the others." There's also an old Asian saying that I remind myself of frequently. It goes like this: "A wise man keeps his own counsel."

15. Don't take yourself too seriously. Lighten up. Often, at least half of what we accomplish is due to luck. None of us are in control as much as we like to think we are.

16. There's always a reason to smile. Find it. After all, you're really lucky just to be alive. Life is short. More and more, I agree with my little brother. He always reminds me: "We're not here for a long time; we're here for a good time."

The above rules are republished with the permission of Bob Parsons (www.BobParsons.com) and are copyright © 2004-2007 by Bob Parsons. All rights reserved.

What Offers Work Best In Direct Mail Campaigns

Seven Ways to Make Money with Your Web Site

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The Web has come a long way from its military/academic origins. Today, the Web is an intensely commercial medium, offering plenty of ways to make money. And because the Web is still defining itself, your best strategy is to raise as many cash cows as possible. Even if some run dry, you can milk the others to make sure your company?s Web site pays off.

1. Sell advertising and sponsorships for your site. This is the classic Web business model, selling "eyeballs" to advertisers who want to reach the audience your site attracts. Times are tough for companies selling banner ads -- as response rates drop, so do the rates businesses can charge for ads on their sites -- but this is still the most common way businesses try to make money from their Web sites.

2. Sell products and services from your site. These days, commerce is king on the Web, as everyone scrambles to enable e-commerce on their Web sites. Despite the competition, online merchants can rack up impressive sales. Be warned, though: doing it right is harder than it looks.

3. Point people to other sites. The Associates Program at Amazon.com and other online retailers may be simplest and easiest way to make money with your site. Simply point visitors to your site to a related book or other product on Amazon.com, for example, and you collect a commission on anything the user buys.

4. Collect and sell information. Creating a database of your users isn?t just a good idea -- it?s good business. Demographic information about your users is a potential gold mine, and specific information about a user?s preferences and interests is even more valuable. But don?t sacrifice your credibility with customers for a quick buck -- always respect your users? privacy, and never sell personal information without their permission.

5. Charge a fee to access your site -- or at least part of your site. Even though the Web offers a cornucopia of free content, if your content is unique and valuable, you can make money charging for it online. If you?re not comfortable charging for all of your content, offer a premium area, or sell critical bits piece by piece. Some newspapers, for example, offer free online access to their daily editions but charge to view their archives.

6. Do email marketing. Remember, there?s more to the Internet than just the World Wide Web. In many ways, email is an even more lucrative revenue source than the Web. You can sell ads on email newsletters, and use targeted emails to alert customers about special deals or new products. Just lay off the spam, please -- make sure that a customer wants your email before you send it.

7. Rent software online. Some businesses now supply software on a "pay per use" basis. Instead of licensing software on a permanent basis, users can run it over the Net, whenever they need it, from your servers. For users, rented applications mean no boxes to lug home, no bloated files to download, and no high prices to pay for applications they use only occasionally. Businesses that rent software don?t have to pay the fulfillment costs associated with standard software sales, and they also enjoy the benefits of an ongoing relationship with their customers.

Go to source.
Seven Short Leadership Lessons for Anyone Who Runs a Family Business

Breathe New Life Into Your Online Advertising

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A weekly look at the latest products and services designed to help you run a better business.

For some companies, online classified ads remain an affordable and effective marketing tool. Problem is, they're ugly. A newly updated service now lets business owners use maps and video to jazz up their postings.

VFlyer, a San Francisco-based online-content and classified-submission platform, has added new multimedia tools to its service. VFlyer, which enables users to create a classified ad once and then have it posted on leading online marketplaces such as eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY) or Craigslist, now lets users display a small video thumbnail within each ad that expands to an embedded version of a video clip on YouTube or other video-sharing site. The service also supports Yahoo Maps (NASDAQ:YHOO) mash-ups, so that vFlyer advertisers can easily place a graphical map within their ad.

Enhanced classified ads created through vFlyer can also be distributed via e-mail as HTML files.

VFlyer offers a free, ad-supported service, as well as a number of subscription options ranging from $19.95 to $79.95 a month, depending on the number of active classified listings.

The Ultimate Classified Ad

The first step in finding the perfect new employee is spreading the word. For small-business owners who want an inexpensive way to broadcast job openings, Geebo.com, a Sacramento, Calif.-based online classified ad website, now lets employers feature their employment ads on some of the most-trafficked websites in the United States through partnerships with Yahoo, Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), and MySpace.

Geebo.com, a regional community-based classified service currently in 83 cities nationwide, offers unlimited character space for job descriptions. Job seekers can search postings by keywords, industry, or location, and can upload their resume to the site. Employers and recruiters can search the resume bank for free.

A 30-day job posting costs $75 and Geebo.com listings may also appear on Indeed, Jobster, Oodle, and Simplyhired.com.

Protect Your Employees

One out of five full-time employees is impacted by domestic violence, yet only 4 percent of workplaces provide employees with training and support, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The Corporate Alliance to End Partner Violence, based in Bloomington, Ill., is expanding its website to be a better resource for employers trying to educate their employees about issue of partner violence.

Caepv.org provides information, research, and tools related to domestic violence, as well as best-practice and program ideas from employers across the nation. The site provides sample policies, articles, and training materials that employers can use to minimize the effect of partner violence on the workplace.

"Because domestic violence's impact does not stop at the office front door, America's employers need to take action -- by putting in place accessible programs and policies for colleagues and victims alike," Kim Wells, executive director of the alliance, said in a statement.
Do Sales Contests Work?

Low-cost ways to keep staff motivated

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Money has always been a great workplace motivator.

But as a small-business owner, you can't afford to shower your staff with cash and bonuses.
Not to worry. There are plenty of low-cost ways to motivate your staff without breaking the bank, experts say.

"Small companies will rarely ever be able to provide the benefits and compensation that large companies can," says Chason Hecht, president of Retensa Employee Retention Experts in Manhattan.

"However, where they can excel is in providing meaningful and challenging work."

Employees are more productive if they are happy with their jobs and feel as if they are making a difference, Hecht says.

Still, not enough employers bother to ask their workers what they want out of their jobs and are surprised when they either leave or lose motivation.

At least two key questions to ask your employees are, "How are you doing?" and "How are we doing as a company?" Hecht says.

These questions should be asked at a new employee's 14-day mark, as well as at 90 days, six months and annually, all critical junctures in the employee-company relationship, he says.

Also ask if employees need anything to help them do their jobs better and if any obstacles prevent them from doing their jobs, adds Bob Losyk, president of Innovative Training Solutions, a consulting company in Greensboro, N.C.

These are all simple questions - but ones managers often don't think about asking, Losyk says.

They are so caught up in the day-to-day operations that it's easy to forget about actively keeping in touch with the people around them - and employee retention can have a huge impact on the bottom line.

"As a rule of thumb, to replace an employee, figure that it will cost you one third of the new employee's salary," Losyk says.

To be sure, it's a lot more cost-effective to keep a good employee motivated and happy, experts say.

It doesn't have to take a huge effort on your part, either.

A gesture as simple as offering praise can make a world of difference, experts say.

"Praise is the most underused tool in the management toolbox," notes Hecht of Retensa. "It's also the cheapest."

And it's the most effective, experts say.

"People crave verbal appreciation," notes Laurie Altschuler, a trainer with Dale Carnegie Training in Hauppauge.

Keep in mind, though, that it should be specific and pointed to the task at hand - like thanks for working Saturday or for showing patience, she notes.
Training is also a top motivator, Altschuler says. As an incentive, companies can either offer training on-site or reimburse employees for off-site training programs.

"It makes people feel like they are being invested in, and that breeds loyalty," she adds.
Need more ideas?

Well, being flexible and, where possible, allowing employees the option of working from home can be big incentives.

That's what Austin Travel in Melville has done to accommodate some of its staff's work/life needs. The company allows about 20 of its 100 full-time employees to work from home, according to Stewart Austin, senior vice president at Austin Travel.

"Last year, with the fuel prices, our people were coming to us and begging us to allow them to work from home," he added, noting that the practice has yielded more "upbeat" employees.

Other tactics used by local companies include taking employees on retreats or to off-site team-building exercises.

HJMT Communications in Westbury has been doing this for the past five years, president Hilary Topper says. She's taken her 12 employees rock climbing, on helicopter and boat rides, and even to the East End vineyards.

Sometimes, she'll add a touch of mystery to their adventure. "I won't tell them where we are going, and a limo will just come and take us there," she says.

The gesture seems to be appreciated.

"I look forward to them," says Lori Alexy, senior event planner for the public relations, marketing and advertising firm. "It really brings the company together."

And who couldn't use a little more togetherness in the workplace?

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How to Use Yahoo Answers to Promote Your Business

Individual Retirement Accounts: 2006 Changes

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On August 17, 2006, President Bush signed into law the Pension Protection Act of 2006. Several of the act's provision directly impact Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs). Here are some of the significant changes...

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