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Local Business Leader: NYC Should be the ‘Best Place in America to Work from Home’
By Joe Connolly and Neil A. Carousso
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — Manhattan’s economy has changed drastically in the three years since the COVID-19 pandemic uprooted New York. Still, not much has been done to address the new needs of residents and workers.
Office occupancy remains below 50% and only a small percentage of those who have returned are working in-person five days a week. As a result, businesses that once thrived in office districts are struggling if they even survived the pandemic.
“I think we should make New York the best place in America, if not the world, to work from home,” said Jonathan Bowles, executive director of the Center for an Urban Future, on the WCBS Small Business Spotlight, sponsored by Dime Community Bank.
“That’s gotta be part of the strategy and certainly converting some of those office buildings, the ones that allow it for residential, it should happen. We’ve got to accelerate and expedite it,” he added.
Conversions to residential use have stalled due to government red tape. Bowles believes creating more of a residential borough will create more demand for the kinds of goods and services that small businesses are selling in those districts.
“Manhattan, certainly, is one borough where we’ve really seen the aging of the population, and so that’s led to kind of more doctor’s offices, healthcare offices, other things that I think are catering to an older population and we may see more of that going forward,” the business leader said.
The Center for an Urban Future is also reporting on many opportunities for small businesses to service non-profits who work in disadvantaged communities and launch technology companies in markets that have not been addressed such as “women and family tech” in which women are the main consumers.
“New York has a chance to be a real leader nationally or globally in that sub-sector of technology,” Bowles said. “E-learning is another area where New York has seen a real growth in local startups. There’s just so many different facets of tech that are still strong here and I think that that is going to continue to drive a lot of spending on small businesses and also kind of drive employment growth in the city.”
See ideas for new businesses and new markets on the WCBS Small Business Spotlight video above.
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In 2023, Businesses Face Changing Sales Landscape, Arrival of New Technologies
By Joe Connolly and Neil A. Carousso
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — The only constant in business is change.
Businesses are beginning the year with the damaging impacts of high inflation and lingering COVID-19 supply chain woes after mixed holiday results.
Bill Aulet, Ethernet Inventors Professor of the Practice at the MIT Sloan School of Management and Managing Director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, said business owners should brace themselves for new challenges.
“The biggest thing for business people.. is understand change,” Aulet said on the WCBS Small Business Spotlight, sponsored by Dime Community Bank.
“When you see something new, sit down, talk to your kids, talk to somebody else and say, ‘How does this affect my business?’ And do it before the other people do it. Use change as a competitive advantage for you because you have the right mentality. You don’t fear change. You embrace change.”
In a speech once, the former IBM executive told an audience that business owners must have the “mindset of a pirate and the skillset of a Navy SEAL.” In 2023, that means learning and accepting new technologies.
Most business owners, Aulet said, can no longer deny the use of artificial intelligence just like they had to embrace payment processing software and spreadsheets. Those that didn’t are no longer in business.
“I have a son who’s based in Brooklyn, started a company, he’s doing millions and millions of dollars the first year. I said, ‘How many salespeople do you have?’ He said, ‘None.’ Why? Because they’re using technology to do that now.”
He said AI is the future for sales because it will lower customer acquisition costs.
“What happens over society is you change to new jobs. You change the customer success jobs,” said Aulet on whether AI replacing salespeople is bad for the economy.
The new types of businesses being started by young entrepreneurs are not necessarily technology companies, though.
“They’re actually solving the problem of how do we identify when COVID or Zika virus, or now, polio shows up in a city in a region with a company like Biobot Analytics,” the MIT Entrepreneurship head said. “That’s the kind of stuff that young people are starting, and it gives me great hope because we as a society face great challenges.”
Watch the full conversation with Bill Aulet on the WCBS Small Business Spotlight video above.
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Less is More: How to Scale Your Business in the New Year
By Joe Connolly and Neil A. Carousso
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — Sometimes, less is more.
Jessica Spaulding, the co-founder of Harlem Chocolate Factory, learned that principle over the last seven years in business. It helped her grow the chocolatier from a small shop into a national brand.
Jessica always loved chocolate, and as a kid, it was the only sugary item allowed in her mother’s house. She went on to pursue the chocolate business while studying at Spelman College in Atlanta, GA.
“I took one semester, I took my refund check and started a chocolate company. No business plan, no sales strategy. My thought was I was just going to give away a bunch of chocolate and people were going to fall in love with it and just order it for me,” she said on the WCBS Small Business Spotlight, sponsored by Dime Community Bank.
The original business fizzled and was the first important lesson in Spaulding’s journey. Over the next several years, the chocolate-lover finished her education and learned marketing and supply chain management along the way. In 2015, she revived her dream business and opened a shop in Harlem where she was born and raised.
“When I really literally felt like I had nothing else, I was like, alright, why don’t we go back to the drawing board about this chocolate thing that I wanted, like I’ve always wanted to do, and that’s when I finally started,” said Spaulding.
Harlem Chocolate Factory quickly developed product after product. At one point, it sold 45 different chocolate products. When the pandemic hit, Spaulding realized that in order to scale, she needed to do more with less.
“It may feel like a lot to have 10 customers in your face like, ‘Where’s that product I really love?’ But when you look on the paper and you’re looking over the past like four or five years and realizing, okay, we’ve only sold $3,000 worth of this product… We were able to create an equation for how we keep products, and I think that that is probably the most valuable thing that could have ever happened to us.”
Supply chain issues forced Spaulding to innovate her packaging. She eventually found a supplier that could handle volume at scale, which helped her improve her margins.
“We used to order like stock packaging because we could just, one, between space and money, we could never just buy a shipping container worth of packaging to last us for the whole year,” she said. “So, we have to find a packaging that is good enough to kind of like display all of our luxury elements and our premium elements while at the same time being affordable enough to not put us out of business every quarter when we need to do reorders.”
Spaulding told WCBS 880 she spent years learning about different types of packaging and how it impacts sales and the quality of chocolate.
She also turned to Intuit QuickBooks to manage her business’ accounting and payroll.
“We took a real hit to our business due to supply chain and inflation, and QuickBooks’ various features and tools enable us to accurately track all of our finances and create a better path forward,” Spaulding said.
Despite being in a crowded field, the quality of Harlem Chocolate Factory stood out to several hotels that contacted the business.
“It’s always something we wanted to do, but we never felt like we were in a place operationally to handle it,” she admitted.
After performing well with the first hotel, others started calling.
“When you service one person and it goes really well, they likely have a colleague that may not be in the same business as them, but within the same industry and they will tell them about your business,” Spaulding said.
While she believes word-of-mouth has been the most effective marketing tool for Harlem Chocolate Factory, she often brings three team members to trade shows, which she grew up attending with her mother.
“One person’s there for education, one person’s there for sales, one person’s there for partnerships,” Spaudling explained, adding, “Each person has a specific task, they’re given a task, and that entire day, that’s the only task you do because it can be completely overwhelming.”
Her advice is to focus on genuine connections rather than exchanging business cards with a large quantity of people.
You can see more marketing and sales lessons and advice on the Small Business Spotlight video above.
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Thousands of Dollars in Savings for Climate Projects Create New Opportunities for Businesses
By Joe Connolly and Neil A. Carousso
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — New incentives for green energy projects go into effect in January, which has created a plethora of opportunities for businesses.
Tax credits and rebates can help homeowners save thousands of dollars on energy-efficient appliances and renewable electricity. But, the up-front cost, sometimes upwards of $30,000, has always been a challenge for the industry.
“We’re not sending a guy in to sit down at the kitchen table and sign a contract a half an hour later,” said NY State Solar CEO Reid Garton on the WCBS Small Business Spotlight, sponsored by Dime Community Bank.
“We’re going out, we’re inspecting their roof, we’re measuring their roof to verify how everything’s going to fit. We’re making sure that the roof we’re putting it on is going to last for roughly the life of the solar system so they don’t get halfway through and have to pull it off and put it back on.”
Garton, also a board member and vice president of the New York Solar Energy Industries Association’s residential solar division, said most customers finance their solar panel installation by taking out a loan and paying it back with the savings from their electric bills.
“What most of our customers do, and most in the industry, is they use one of the lenders that we’re partnered with to finance the solar system so that they’re reducing their utility bill by more than the solar loan costs in most cases, and then, they’re applying the incentives as they receive them,” he said.
Homeowners are able to claim a credit on their federal tax returns of 30 percent off improvements to home energy efficiency. The Inflation Reduction Act also established rebates for the purchase and installation of energy-efficient appliances such as air-conditioners, dryers, electric induction stoves and electric heat pumps. One of the largest federal incentives runs through 2034.
That has paved the way for businesses to pivot into installing solar panels, high-efficiency windows and high-efficiency modern heat pumps.
“Solar’s not the only thing that we need to do to modernize the grid and clean it up and help the environment,” said Garton. “We also need to consume less and energy efficiency is a very, very important element of that happening.”
The White House created a website where you can figure out what home improvement projects will qualify for tax credits and rebates.
There are also resources available through the U.S. Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy, which you can find here.
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How to Negotiate Anything from Business Deals to Dinner with Confidence
By Joe Connolly and Neil A. Carousso
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — There have been countless books written about negotiating, but only one man is considered the “World’s Best Negotiator.”
That’s Herb Cohen who has made business deals, advised presidents and even helped settle a baseball strike. His son Rich Cohen, a Wall Street Journal columnist and acclaimed author, shares some of his “timeless” lessons on the WCBS Small Business Spotlight, sponsored by Dime Community Bank.
1. Don’t Run Yourself Out of a Negotiation
Cohen said most people make business negotiations more complicated than they need to be.
“Often, dumb is better than smart, and inarticulate is better than articulate,” he said.
He suggested a technique he often uses in news interviews: ask “who, huh and why.”
“Sometimes you get in a situation where the best thing to do is to not talk. And that creates kind of an awkward silence and into that awkward silence, People will fill it in with things they shouldn’t tell you.”
2. Know Your ‘Real’ Deadline
Herb Cohen famously negotiated the release of American hostages from Iran. Rich told WCBS 880 the strategy his father used in 1981 can apply to anything in life or business today.
“Figure out what the real deadline is and to do that, you have to figure out the other side’s needs,” said Cohen. “With the Iran hostage crisis, (my father) looked at the Iranians and all these deadlines had been set. And he said for the Iranians, ultimately the deadline became the inauguration of Ronald Reagan.”
Reagan had aimed strong rhetoric at the Iranians who feared the incoming president would “carpet bomb” them if they didn’t release the hostages. The crisis was settled during President Reagan’s inauguration on January 20, 1981.
3. Take Yourself Out of the Situation
The elder Cohen recommends people should never negotiate for themselves, because they are too personally invested.
Rich Cohen said, instead, do your research and have someone negotiate for you.
“Gather as much as you can and then try as an exercise to see the problem or the deal, how it looks through the eyes of your opponent,” Cohen said, continuing, “You have to figure out how the world looks to that other person, what they care about, and then use that as leverage because what you care about might not be what they care about.”
4. Make it a Game
As a kid, Cohen would travel with his father to Sears or a used car lot where he would watch him negotiate for sport.
“His whole thing is approach business and life as if it were a game and you’ll have more fun and do better.”
The “Adventures of Herbie Cohen” author noted business deals are no different than menial decisions like deciding what you will eat for dinner.
“You don’t have to learn to negotiate. You already are negotiating every day. You just don’t know it. And if you could just realize what you’re doing, you could become good at it and actually have fun at it,” said Cohen.
See tips and examples on how to negotiate better and more confidently on the WCBS Small Business Spotlight video above.
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