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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 June 2008 Issue of FSB: FORTUNE Small Business
COVER STORY: Get Customers to Sell for You, by Justin Martin, page 74 More entrepreneurs are embracing a simple metric that measures referrals — and helps boost profits. What exactly is this magical metric? It's called a Net Promoter Score, and essentially it measures customer satisfaction and referrals. The score represents the proportion of customers who are promoters — those so delighted that they praise a product or service to all within earshot — minus the detractors. Posting the score to employees, and encouraging them to boost it, can help a business owner focus her staff on customer service. The NPS may not be appropriate for every small business. If you have only a handful of customers and know them well, there's no need to set up a new system. But for business owners who want to keep in closer touch with their customers, FSB explains how this metric can provide valuable feedback that you can use to turn an unhappy client into one who will sing your praises.
Guns at Work,, by Amy Haimerl and Malika Zouhali-Worrall, page 24 Do employees have the right to bring weapons to your business? Florida legislature is telling business owners they must allow employees and customers with concealed-weapon permits to keep firearms locked in cars parked on company property, joining a trend set forth in Oklahoma and adopted in Alaska, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, and Mississippi. All the measures claim to exempt employers from liability, but some entrepreneurs still fear the consequences. FSB details the debate.
Zapping the Little Guy, by Ian Mount, page 14 Why is the IRS auditing fewer big companies — and more small ones? The IRS recently made an inexplicable decision to increase audits of small companies while easing up on large firms. In fact, the smallest companies saw the taxman 41% more often in 2007 than in 2005 and companies with $10 million to $50 million in assets were 29% more likely to be investigated, according to one study. Meanwhile, companies with more than $250 million in assets were almost 40% less likely to be audited than in previous years. FSB investigates why the little guy is getting zapped.
King of the Mountain (Bike), by Maggie Overfelt, page 82 Mike Sinyard built Specialized into a top bike brand by listening to what serious cyclists wanted. When Mike Sinyard started importing Italian bike parts in 1974, his toughest challenge was finding space to store them inside his eight-by 30-foot trailer. That turned out to be the least of his problems. Over the next 30 years he battled bankruptcy and monster competitors and competed for customers among finicky, demanding cyclists. Today Specialized, whose products sell in 1,200 of the nation's high-end bike shops, is a profitable $500-million-a-year company that will relaunch 150 of its models by the end of the year, including one designed specifically for women. Sinyard's secret? Specialized has fostered a culture of innovation that has generated a long line of bike industry firsts — it's 1981 Stumpjumper is enshrined in the Smithsonian Institution as the first mass-produced mountain bike. From the shop floor at his headquarters in Morgan Hill, Calif., Sinyard, 58, tells FSB his story.
How to Navigate Customer Service, by Jonathan Blum, page 27 Travel website Kayak.com uses a do-it-yourself online database to help keep millions of users happy. QuickBase, hosted by Intuit, is a database that automatically gathers many kinds of information — in Kayak's case, the more than 200 feedback forms that customers fill out each day. Kayak's version of QuickBase divides the feedback evenly among the 58 employees so that everyone is answering about four messages a day. FSB explores the reason behind Kayak's unusual rule.
Rocking the Casbah, by Carla Power, page 40 How two U.S. entrepreneurs cracked the Moroccan property market. It's a cliché to say that business hinges on relationships, but they're priceless in the Arab world, particularly in close-knit communities such as the Fez medina. So it's all the more remarkable that David Kellar and Brian Smith, owners of Fes Properties, have penetrated the medina's byzantine property market. Fes Properties is dedicated to providing a "cultural bridge between Eastern sellers and Western buyers," according to its brochure. FSB details how a little finesse from a couple of Western entrepreneurs has gone a very long way.
Gorilla Marketing, by Maggie Overfelt, page 49 A California restaurateur bets on big attention grabbers. For the nearly 20 years that Champ Gabler and his wife, Peggy Sue, have owned the 250-seat Peggy Sue's 50's Diner, they have used outsized marketing campaigns as their recession buster. And each time their bottom line has been rewarded. FSB explores how this gorilla marketing has become a major slump buster.
Breakfast with Cheetahs, by Maggie Overfelt, page 88 A small U.S. tour business sends animal lovers into the bush to help threatened species. Ecotourism — trips where travelers help preserve the communities they visit — is the fastest-growing segment of the tourism industry. A growing number of small U.S. travel firms have found their niche creating trips that combine some element of giving back with comfortable accommodations that don't stress the environment. FSB details this leisure pursuit for — and by — entrepreneurs.
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