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Recent Press Releases (U.S. and international) for magazine issues and staff changes may be found below. Please note that for many issues there exists only a highlights sheet, while for others there may also be a full press release. The cover of FSB's current issue is pictured at right. Please contact the appropriate communications staff member with any questions.
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Highlights of the September 2006 Issue of FSB: FORTUNE Small Business
The full stories are available at FSB.com. COVER STORIES The Time to Sell Is.Now, by Justin Martin, page 28 The economy is, by many measures, in its best shape since the dot com bubble burst in 2001. Banks are aggressively lending money for all kinds of acquisitions. As a result a small-business feeding frenzy is in progress. While the timing today may be ideal, nothing about selling a business is ever easy. There's simply too much at stake. Those who have successfully sold their businesses have taken a systematic approach, planning for the sale far in advance, getting their books in order, stirring up multiple bidders, and operating their business full bore until the day it was sold. PLUS: • Fresh Ways to Find Buyers - finding prospects online • Wall Street Courts Main Street - A Seattle M&A firm offers white-glove service to small businesses • What's Your Business Worth- Really ? - Tackling Ebitda. • When Not to Sell - The owner of MFG.com was about to unload it. Then Amazon's Jeff Bezos persuaded him to hang on.
TECHNOLOGY Get Right With Google, by Justin Martin, page 70 In the lives of small-business owners, Google looms as the new Wal-Mart. Many entrepreneurs fear and despise the retailing giant for mistreating vendors and vaporizing small competitors and entire business districts. Yet Wal-Mart also is lauded for delivering a vast range of consumer goods at rock-bottom prices. Supplier contracts with Wal-Mart represent a boon to thousands of entrepreneurs and a dream to many more. Whatever one's attitude, the wise small-business owner learns as much as he can about Wal-Mart and its ways-and weaknesses. He adapts or dies. Smart entrepreneurs are taking a similar approach to Google, which can decimate their sales through a whim of search-engine encoding, or deliver a flood of new customers and ad revenue. How Google affects your company depends on how quickly you accept its power and how cleverly you accommodate it. FSB set out to take a snapshot of this protean company in full flight. Our goal was to gauge how Google is affecting small-business owners in America today, and what entrepreneurs can expect from future versions of Google.
WHEELS Mileage Plus, by Alex Taylor III, page 104 FSB takes a look at the most fuel-efficient cars and trucks to hit the road this fall.
STARTUP Who's Afraid of the Minimum Wage?, by Elaine S. Povich, page 14 This election season, the minimum wage has once again become a political rallying point. Democrats in Congress are renewing their efforts to raise the federal minimum wage-stuck at $5.15 since 1997-as a way to paint themselves as the party of the little guy. Most Republicans, while wary of polls that show public support for a higher wage, oppose it on free-market grounds, especially when addressing small-business audiences. But the issue may no longer hold the power it once did to provoke heated passions among most business owners or even many low-income workers.
The Many Meanings of 'Small,' page 22 Sometimes it's good to be small-when it comes to ducking regulations, for instance, or applying for small-business loans. But different agencies and marketers define "small" in different ways. FSB takes a look at some of the thresholds that face a growing business.
SECURITY Your Own Border Patrol, by Fawn Fitter, page 49 Congress has yet to nail down any of the details on immigration reform, but federal officials are already stepping up their enforcement-with an eye on small employers. All U.S. employers must fill out federal I-9 forms on new hires that document applicants' Social Security numbers and permits to work in the U.S. , and those documents must be saved for at least three years. Smaller companies usually lack the time and staff to check every new hire's documentation against federal files. Some small employers might see checking as a problem, but Tricia Smith, owner of a background-screening firm in Columbus called Secure Check, identified it as an opportunity.
CUTTING COSTS Green Profits, by Ron Stodgehill, page 63 A brewery and bar in Salt Lake City wins over customers and boosts the bottom line with aggressive cuts in energy and water consumption. The owner of Squatters Pub Brewery, Jeff Polychronis, has found an ingenious path to the moral high ground and to cost savings-going green. Flushless urinals saved Squatters 35% on its yearly water bill, fluorescent bulbs and a more efficient dishwasher pared 13% from the annual power bill, and the pub's vans now run on used cooking oil, saving 33% in yearly fuel costs.
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