Why We Micro-Lend

If you’re not familiar with our company you probably have no idea what we do nor any idea why we do it.  If this is the case, consider this your introductory post at least in terms of Beacon Worldwide- Beacon Marketing’s non-profit micolending division.  For those of you already familiar with Beacon Consultants, Beacon Imports and Beacon Worldwide, consider this a refresher and a little more information to get you inspired.

In short 8% of every sale no matter how small or large from our Beacon Imports division (www.beacon-imports.com) goes to our microlending account.  These funds are then dispersed to aspiring groups and individuals all over the world.  We do this because we feel that capitalism in all its forms cannot thrive unless there are organizations, individuals and companies that are willing to give access to capital to each and every entrepreneur throughout the world.  Risks are part of our American heritage and Beacon Marketing tries to look for those business that closely mirror our own values and takes on this risk by working through that individual’s or group’s financial institution to provide funds for the startup and/ or continuation of that particular business.

We do this both domestically and abroad.  Our domestic partners allow people in poorer urban areas of the United States to better their lives by using their innovation and skills to develop products and services that will benefit their communities.  Our foreign partners disperse funds to areas of the world where access to capital and resources are scarce.  In essence we are trying to infuse a little bit of capital in the areas where it will make the biggest difference.

Recently Forbes Magazine’s cover story “Can Venture Capitalism Save the World?”  highlighted (on a much larger scale) how one organization’s quest to break into third world countries is offering skills, resources and hope to those who have only known difficulty and misery.  I invite you to read this article here (http://www.forbes.com/sites/helencoster/2011/11/30/novogratz/

 and see for yourself why we and other organizations lend our resources to individuals who, like us, still have a dream.

Giving Thanks and "Franksgiving"

Have you noticed that the Christmas season came early this year?  It was sort of a voluntary thing amongst the giant cabal that is U.S. retailers that consumers should undergo ceaseless caroling over in-store sound systems a full five weeks early this year.  But chintzy music and holiday crooning aside, as Richard Dryus said in Close Encounters of the Third Kind:  this means something.  This is important.

Was this the result of intelligent marketing or hopeless desperation?   To clue ourselves in on this answer let’s go back to last time that we faced an economy like the one we are in now.  As many media and political types like to point out (and I happen to agree with several of them), that would be the great depression.  For nearly a century Thanksgiving was held on the final Thursday in November.  This could mean that either the fourth OR the fifth Thursday might be any given year’s annual day of thanks.  Turns out in 1939, still in the throes of the great depression, Thanksgiving fell on such a fifth Thursday.

Now it seems laughable in 2011, but back then, it was poor taste to adorn a retail outlet with Christmas décor or have so-called “Christmas Sales” before Thanksgiving.  So in 1939 Lew Hahn, the general manager of the Retail Dry Goods Association  mentioned to the secretary of commerce that this date would be less than favorable for holiday sales at a time when retail outlets needed the revenue most.  By October, FDR had come up with a solution:  mandate Thanksgiving be held on the fourth Thursday in November.

It wasn’t until the 1950s that all states finally fell into line with what came to be knows as “Franksgiving.”  And without getting into too many details about the national difficulties and the debate of this move, it finally stuck and is the date upon which we celebrate Thanksgiving today.

This little history lesson does have a point.  In 1939, retailers needed to move Thanksgiving earlier to make way for Christmas, to give more time to spend more money.  Today, with the nation and the world busier than ever, if we were to wait for congress to act we’d probably have to wait until 2045 and by then we’d get some crazy piece of legislation that moved Thanksgiving to mid- July so that the Christmas buying season could begin in earnest while we are still buying our sunscreen.

It’s not the simple fact that we do not need, nor would most likely tolerate an act of congress to move Thanksgiving, but rather we as consumers have already made up our minds when and how our buying will take place for the holiday season regardless of when Thanksgiving falls.  Online retailers have shifted the entire focus of holiday buying from a specific set of dates and locations to one in which the consumer can more fully control the environment.  However, in both 1939 and 2011, the economics are similar.  The faster and longer people can get part time holiday work and the faster consumers can spend their hard- earned dollars, the better off the retailers and their wholesalers will be.  Thus the business cycle can once again begin spinning a little faster.  

Today, with the business cycle is fighting for its very life, there are stark differences between today’s retailer and the retailer of 1939.  Businesses no longer have to wait for an act of congress.  Thanksgiving, the federal holiday falls where it may within the specified law, but the sentiment for buying falls whenever the consumer decides.  So the answer here is that it is both desperation and savvy marketing that we hear Bing Crosby in the linen aisle so early in the season.

Is this a bad thing or a good thing?  Opinions vary widely and perhaps another post would be in order to properly assess the overall mood, but suffice it to say that while giving thanks for this holiday shopping season is not something that might be on the tip of every shoppers tongue, at least we can say we don’t have to wait for congress to begin the spending.

Forget the Recession

In an age where jobs are rare commodities, consumer discretionary spending has taken a plunge. That’s bad news if you are in the retail, wholesale or distributor business. Over the past few months, we’ve written blog posts about staying the course, biding your time, preparing for the worst, preparing for recovery. We’ve opined on such things as the gloomy economic forecasts, trying to stay upbeat while facing reality. We’ve advised clients and potential clients alike on matters such as cutting back your workforce, cutting costs, strengthening your inventory positions and keeping ideas and products fresh and new. So in this latest post (yes it is very late), I’m proposing a new direction not aimed at the economy or government or even business for that matter. As we begin the final quarter of 2011, it’s tough to see any bright spots on the horizon as far as business goes, so this month, Beacon Marketing (via me of course) is going to post something a little different. I’m going to list off how to forget about the current (potential) double-dip recession and start to feel good about the present environment by showing how some of those we’re worked with over the past year have made the best of an awful business situation.



1. Spend time with family

I know for some of us this is like…duh. For others this is like….no way, never. But I like to think that a grey area exists between “duh” and “no way.” For those of us who love our families and home life is bliss, this makes all the sense in the world and chances are you don’t have to read this or find any time for that matter to actually want to be with those individuals. But if you are in the “no way” category, you can have all the free time in the world and you’d rather be anyplace else. I think however for most of us, it is a matter of finding what used to be called “quality time.” If you set aside 30 minutes at home with your family and expect a spontaneous act of “quality time” to happen, you are only going to be disappointed. Instead, how about just showing up and seeing where it goes. Sometimes just being around is the first step.


2. Get outside

It’s amazing to think about how much time we spend each day in front of the computer or our phone screens. While the internet was supposed to make everything from shopping to photo-taking easier, it has now become the official medium for life as we know it. It has become a demanding master rather than an easy conduit. Everything is done online now. Even out phones are tied to online services that demand our time and attention. My advice is to go someplace where the weather is nice even your own backyard (if you live someplace nice). And get away from phones, screens, televisions, keyboards and even people if necessary. Take in a few hours of sun, autumn air or just do an activity someplace open. You’ll find that it gets your mind off work a lot better than that last adult beverage.


3. Get a massage

OK, so for the guys this may seem a little “metro” but regardless of your manliness, even the most intense (or laid back for that matter) guy’s muscles get knotted up and need some relief. Chances are you have a local massage clinic someplace close by. If not, you can scour your local ads or simply Google “massages” and your zip code and there is an even better chance an individual with the proper qualifications can come to your own house. Aromatherapy, soothing music, some controlled breathing all may seem like something that’s a bit “out there” for some people, but if you take the hour or so to actually do, the rewards can last for days.


4. Try a new place

This is fore everyone. If you are the thrill-seeker, get to an amusement park or bungee jumping center. If you are more laid back, try a new restaurant or diner. Regardless of what your idea of fun is, it is important to break the same old routines that you rely on for convenience and expedience. Take some time to try new foods or new activities. Many of our clients we queried for this report have found that there are restaurants and parks literally within 10 minutes of their office or homes that they had never tried but had been meaning to when they had time. Our advice is to make that time now.

There are literally countless other hobbies, locations and activities that can help you take your mind off whatever current situation you are facing, be it economic or otherwise. But the most important thing is to incorporate these new things into some kind of routine. Many business owners find themselves so tied to their business that they defer new activities until a retirement that either never comes or keeps getting further from their reach. The time to do things that relieve stress, expand your horizons and keep you happy and health is not in retirement, it’s today.

What To Do Now

As national and global news continue to weave their way into and out of our daily lives, a somber reality still remains. Our country’s economic growth is not keeping up the pace it should to sustain small business growth let alone prosperity. The reasons are varied, but one word tends to sum up the entire scenario: uncertainty. This wait and see approach has failed to get many small businesses out of the starting block and those that are running laps have slowed to a meager limp in many cases. It’s a lot like a surfer waiting for the right wave at the right time. Many businesses are standing on the sand with their surf boards, but just can’t seem to take the plunge. The wind isn’t right, the wave is braking too soon or too late, it just doesn’t make sense to go out there right now unless a series of events occurs repeatedly that tells us everything is going down the right path. And right now, none of that is happening.

During this difficult time, we have given lots of advice to small businesses on pricing, timing, logistics, business cycles and product value. Some of our clients who have been around for decades are still too frightened to try anything new let along hire any new employees, launch any products or bring in any new vendors. This is why the economy has slowed to the pace that it has. Too many business owners are resting on their old tried and true products and methods to get through rather than pushing into new frontiers.

So what can small businesses do to try to push ahead during a time when the situation seems to require staying put?

1. Test marketing. Ok, so you realize investing in large quantities of inventory on products that are not tried and true sellers is probably not the best idea at this point. We concur completely. However, one of the more prudent things to look at would be to try smaller quantities of product (even if the initial cost is higher) and test their results on your top customers.
2. Make variations on existing best-selling products. One of our biggest clients has a product that has been around for decades and gets reorders from big box stores on a weekly basis. A sure-winner, we advised them to keep the product, but change the quantity and packaging. The costs were slightly higher, but the profit margins added additional revenue to their second quarter sales.
3. Network. If your business does not have a website, you are back in the early 1990s, if your business does not have a FaceBook page, you are about a decade behind the eight ball. This is a great time to catch up with the rest of the world by creating your own community and advertising to your closest circle of business contacts. We like to think of social media not wholly as a way of attracting new customers, but as a way of solidifying your relationships with those whom you do business.
4. Cut operational costs. No one is a fan of unemployment, diminished pay or selling valuable assets. But we also need to be real as long as the economic situation stays at it is. We need to think smaller operationally. This can mean anything from selling property to cutting back workers’ hours to pulling the plug on the second phone line. While the options are painfully plentiful at creative, they still are necessary for the leaner, dynamic and more versatile business of the future.

There are things that businesses can be trying at this point in time to prepare for expansion. This is not to say that some small businesses are not expanding currently. There will always be those organizations that can still turn out new and innovative ideas even in a recession. On average however, most of our clients have expressed reservations about taking new directions and their actions tend to follow this line of reasoning.

No one can say for sure when the skies will clear and the time to take more risks, hire more workers and turn out new products will begin. In the meantime, there is no reason why your business cannot take the small steps necessary to prepare for that time.

Micro Work

It seems even more often than our products and services, I am asked about Beacon Worldwide- our global microlending initiative, partnering with financial institutions to lend small amounts of capital to aspiring entrepreneurs in impoverished nations. I find that it stirs a range of emotions among our clients and customers.

When we first decided to launch Beacon Worldwide, we knew that the risks of lending to other countries in fiduciary terms were many, but we also knew that our customers would want to know why we would sacrifice a portion of their sale towards an unknown and possibly foolish cause. We were also aware of the many views and opinions towards microlen

ding to poorer nations. Ultimately however, the decision to move forward with this initiative was a faith in the people who want to make their lives and their families’ lives better through business. Just as we put faith in our customers to grow their businesses with Beacon’s products and services, we wanted to lend a monetary hand to those businesses that would never have the possibility to benefit from what we are able to do domestically. As more and more individuals and businesses recognize the needs of workers, business owners and aspiring business owners in third world countries, some unique and creative ideas have blossomed beyond simple lending. We’ve included the copy of an article that highlights this trend from Forbes Magazine below.

Making the globe a better place for the exchange of capital, goods and services is one of the pillars of Beacon Worldwide. If you have not had the opportunity to check us out online, we invite you to do so when you have a moment. In the meantime, we’re happy to announce that our first Beacon Worldwide newsletter will go out to our customers in August. We have decided to go with a quarterly format and we will touch upon new directions in microlending, a summary of our lending portfolio, personal profiles and how your orders affect the individuals to whom we lend.

The following article was seen in the “Philanthropy” section of Forbes Magazine, 2011 Special Edition Investment Guide. The title is “Wealth Creation” and was written by Kerry A. Dolan.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Leila Chirayath Janah is only 28, but it didn't take her long to come to the conclusion that massive foreign aid isn't the solu­tion to poverty. She wrestled with the issue while working at the World Bank and, before that, at Harvard majoring in African development. What many of the poor people she m

et really wanted was a job that pays decently.

So three years ago she started a San Francisco-based nonprofit called Samasource, which serves a work link between tech companies in the U.S. and poor people overseas. So far she has found work for 1,200 people, often women, doing simple computer-­based tasks for such companies as LinkedIn, Google and Intuit. Most workers earn $15 a day or less, but that can go a long

way in her target coun­tries- India, Haiti, Kenya, Pakistan, South Africa and Uganda. "All of a sud­den you create a whole new channel for wealth creation:' she says.

Janah grew up in various suburbs of Los Angeles in a family she describes as not well-off and attended public high school. Her parents were immigrants from India; her father is a structural engineer. At Harvard she ~ worked three jobs to make ends meet.

The inspiration for Samasource came in 2006 while working at a con­sulting firm now part of Booz & Co. Helping a large Indian outsourcer go public, Janah hit on the notion that poor, educated people even in rural areas of developing countries could do

data-entry work, just as people living in large Indian cities do. In early 2008 she won $35,000 in a business-plan competition with her idea (she calls it microwork) and moved to Silicon val­ley to start the nonprofit.

Samasource takes work orders from a U.S. tech company, breaks them down into simple tasks and sends the work off to one or more of its 16 part­ner organizations in, say, Nairobi or Lahore. To date Samasource has paid out $1 million in wages. It keeps an undisclosed slice to pay its 16 employ­ees in San Francisco. It has also raised $2.5 million from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Cisco Foundation and individuals.

In the bare-bones offices of Adept Techno, a Samasource partner in downtown Nairobi, Eric Makokha, 26, earns between $140 and $230 a month performing tasks like transcribing oral tests for a U.S. teaching institute (Adept isn't allowed to name the school). Makokha has a degree in aero­nautical engineering but can't find a job in aviation. "Before I came here I was living with my relatives .... I moved out and [am] now fully inde­pendent:' he says in an e-mail.

Does Janah feel she's taking jobs away from Americans by using low ­cost foreigners? "Most of the work we do would otherwise go to large, for-­profit outsourcing firms in big cities in India and China:' she says. "These companies do not recruit marginalized

. women and youth, and do not guaran­tee living wages to their workers:'

Janah has seen how finding work for poor people gives them a sense of dignity and self. "It's a new path we are forging:' she says.

Would the Real Venture Capitalists Please Stand Up?

I was perusing the pages of one of this month’s editions of Forbes Magazine and came across an interesting article that speaks to the core of our mission at Beacon Worldwide. I have always found it fascinating that even though the world’s communications mediums have allowed us to link ideas and cultures closer together we have not maximized the usefulness of this idea-exchange to further the spirit of entrepreneurship towards third world countries. We have all seen the images devastating earthquakes in Haiti, mudslides in South America, tsunamis wiping away thousands of homes in Sri Lanka in the past decade. Lots of money from wealthier nations like the U.S. are poured into these countries to aid in the suffering. But in the end, this money is a palliative measure, not a cure. The systems of government in many of these countries exist only to survive, not to prosper their people. It takes money funneled to specific entrepreneurs in these nations to even begin to make a difference. That’s why Beacon Worldwide accepts donations and portions of Beacon Imports sales to channel the money towards microlending to nations with little financial infrastructure. With overseas financial partners, these loans help aspiring entrepreneurs start and build businesses and ultimately better lives.

I would encourage you to check out Mfonobong Nsehe’s blog “The Africa Chronicles” at blogs.forbes.com/mfonobongnsehe. I’d also invite you to take a look at our Kiva page to see first hand the difference that Beacon Worldwide is making through our generous donations and through our sales at Beacon Imports.

Why Google May Never Produce a Facebook, Groupon or Google

- by Mfonobong Nsehe (April 7, 2011)

Africa has its own Mark Zuckerbergs, Andrew Masons, Mark Pincuses, Larry Pages and Sergey Brins. But it lacks its own Yuri Milners, John Do­errs, Vinod Khoslas and Y Combinators.

There are many entrepreneurs out there waiting to break through, but their ideas might never see the light of day because of a lack of seed finance. Africa is undergoing a technology renaissance. More than ever before, the population is becoming more technologi­cally inclined, more Web-dependent. With the right fi­nancing our entrepreneurs can put Africa on the global map of technological innovation.

But until its financiers and the self-proclaimed "venture capitalists" are easily accessible and listen to these entrepreneurs, Africa may never have its own answers to such internationally famed corporations like Google, Facebook. Zynga and the rest of them. Africa needs several Y Combinator-type firms who will believe in and support the dreams of entrepreneurs and get those big ideas out of the boxes and into the pages of history. Africa's techies are equally as smart, gifted and visionary and if supported can transform big ideas into moneymaking, world-class companies that'll change the world.

So, will the venture capitalists please stand up?

Here are some of the responses that the article elicited:

MBWANA:

There are several VCs in Africa. From East Africa Capital Partners to Fanisi Capital.

I think there are just not enough angel investors willing to take that first-stage risk to get these entrepreneurs to the next stage. Entrepreneurs need to prove traction and a clear business model for lO-lOOX returns for the African VCs

to invest. What Africa lacks is an established tech ecosystem that Silicon Valley has that means success stories fund the next generation.

HIGHHEELEDTRADERS:

My guess is that it will be the Chinese capitalists who will come to African "diamonds in the rough," just like what they are doing with the oil and mining assets.

KOLIOBI:

I totally disagree with the premise of this article. It doesn't take "African" investors to fund "African" start~s. African startups should and will source funds globally. With the ascent of on­line funding sites like Angellist, access to funds will be further democratized, irrespective of a startup's physical location.

MFONOBONG NSEHE RESPONDS:

Koliobi, there are quite a few African-based VC firms. I'm familiar with avca-africa.org, but the companies listed there are private equity firms. There are no firms there that provide seed capital to tech firms.

Also, I never insisted that only African VCs should be the ones to fund African startups. I'm actually for the idea of VCs from any country funding African firms. It'll even

be better because these other guys tend to be more experienced in tech business than African VCs.

Japan, Libya and the State of Our Businesses

We do business in a fairly sheltered industry. While turmoil rages in Libya and Japan digs out from under what is possibly the largest tsunami in that country’s history, we continue to operate for the most part, unabated.

Certainly there has been some fluctuation in all of our portfolios based on the market’s response to these events. Some companies have experienced some delays in shipping and certainly gas prices are going higher based on the uneasy relationship between the west and the oil-producing countries in Africa and the Middle East. But beyond this, customers are still buying, producers are still producing and sellers are still selling. The problem is not particular world events, but the uncertainty that these world events bring with them.

Uncertainty is a key component in the downturn and eventual demise of any business or industry. Indecisiveness on the part of any large corporation all the way down to a small one-man operation can cost a company a huge amount of revenue. But what happens when uncertainty is thrust upon an organization? What happens when external uncertainty is greater than internal uncertainty?

In finance, there are two types of risk- firm-specific risk and market risk. Proceed with caution is the watchword for most companies at this time not because of the lack of ingenuity or creativity or a lack of desire to increase production, (firm-specific risks) but because of uncertainty (market risks). The United States has had its share of uncertainty over the course of the last few years. A financial system meltdown caused by unsustainable subprime mortgages, a waffling government, crazy legislative agendas and activist courts locking horns in a power-grab pandering to their respective, lucrative political bases. Add to the fire a number of seemingly inexplicable missiles fired into Libya for a cause no one is quite sure about, a healthcare bill that looks to overhaul the 1/6 of the economy. Two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq still have citizens scratching their heads over what plans for the two countries lie ahead and who will be paying their bills. In the meantime trillions of dollars have been pumped into the economic balloon that still seems too big to inflate in any meaningful way.

As a somewhat practical reminder of how all these events came upon us like a tidal wave, a real one, a tsunami, hit Japan a few weeks ago. And while no one in the U.S. suffered anything close to what the Japanese people endured, it reminds our businesses that disasters take many forms and none of them are at all predictable.

We get questions quite often from several companies about when we think business will begin to thrive again, when we think unemployment will drop below 5%, when do we think certain industry segments will begin to grow, etc. None of these answers are easy as long as there is this incredible amount of uncertainty within our current business sphere. And while we cannot prevent popular uprisings in the Middle East, or violent civil wars in North Africa or tsunamis in the Pacific Ocean, we can take a few steps towards easing the uncertainty in our own environments. While putting these things in place for your own business will not take the country into an economic boom, it will help you cope with the uncertainty in this economic timeframe.

[….our next post will include a Business Uncertainty Toolkit that will allow you to focus on new ways if thinking about cash flow, savings and investing during uncertain times.]

The Evolution of the Digital Marketplace- From Spam to the Ecosystem

How many of us remember when we typed and sent our first email? I can recall being amazed at the notion that a letter that used to take days to get to its recipient would now take seconds. The fact that one could do this several times a day- literally send hundreds of letters (emails) to hundreds of people in such a short amount of time was an astounding notion. Companies soon jumped on the email bandwagon. Everyone had to have an email address for their customers or risk falling behind. Offering customers an informational email address soon was not enough, a place on the World Wide Web, the information superhighway as it was known was needed to establish a web-based presence. Soon thousands of companies had their own addresses; the dot-com boom of the mid to late nineties saw an explosion of web-based commerce with customer information, transaction information and all types of digital data. This informational mudslide threatened to bury up and coming companies to the point where no web-surfing individual would be able to find them. (Yes it was called surfing back then)

The solution for many was mass email marketing. For decades companies had relied on the time-tested procedure of mass mailing fliers, coupons, brochures and other collateral materials to a broad range of customers. The idea quickly disintegrated into what we know today as spam. Millions of emails piled up as organizations from drug-makers to coffee wholesalers jumped on the mass email bandwagon. What was once touted as the one-to-one future, the way to connect personally with your customers on a level that was unprecedented quickly overwhelmed potential customers with offers, specials and sometimes even outright fraud. It would take years, but the government would finally put a halt (albeit an unenforceable one) to the madness.

As the millennium turned so did the outlook for digital marketing. As spamming became more rampant, customers gradually weeded out those emails that truly did not represent what they were looking for until the weeding became just another chore. New spam filters provided some relief, but the system remains far from perfect. Web advertising by this time was no newcomer, but the ads became more intrusive, larger and slowed the pace it which a user could view the internet. Web ads were far from personal and it would take a revolution in hardware and software before a new frontier in digital advertising could be established. They called in Web 2.0, a faster, more versatile and efficient way to use the internet. But what Web 2.0 turned out to be was something much more radical. What was supposed to be a better way to "surf" became a tidal wave. You wouldn't surf the web anymore, the waves of information would now be controlled by the user. In essence the web content providers would become, well, the users themselves.

It began in many forms, but the first revolution was in social networking. Sites like MySpace began to make email a thing of web antiquity. While online chatting and instant messaging had made some inroads by making messages shorter, faster and more omnipresent. It would take a hardware revolution in mobile technology to realize their true potential.

The proliferation of social networks coupled with advances in mobile computing once again forced companies to rethink their digital advertising agenda. It forced companies to become more personal, not so open-minded anymore, but more single-minded. The idea that each customer had their own personal tastes and that taking those preferences and pulling them into a circle of friends and like-minded people was now a real possibility. The information superhighway was no longer a road (speed by now was taken for granted), but an ecosystem of like-minded creatures, chatting, messaging, tweeting, blogging and sharing.

At this stage and to the present, companies focused many of their advertising on personal community pages like Face Book and Twitter. Instead of flashy graphics or other wow-factors, simple updates that personally told the user what the company was launching, what they were doing and where they were headed sufficed to bring about an customer ecosystem and less of a mass marketing campaign.

Web advertising is still very much a present factor, yet its impact diminishes the less it is linked to some type of ecosystem. Likewise, any email user will still find spam to be alive and well presently. However its effect has also diminished not only from better software filters and government regulation, but from the overall decreased use of email as a communications medium and of course any spam or email advertisement that is not part of a web ecosystem will surely be ineffective.

In short, selling ones products and services on the web has gone from simply showing up towards facilitating a biosphere, an ecosystem of like-minded or semi-like-minded individuals. Businesses on the web don’t just push their goods and services anymore; they embrace interested individuals as friends.

Now it’s on to the future. No one can say for sure exactly where social media is headed nor can anyone predict with pinpoint accuracy what new hardware will revolutionize the web experience. But at Beacon, we feel there are at least a few key trends that will unlikely disappear:

1. PCs will eventually die. Just as desktop computers have fallen to notebooks and net books, the software, operating systems and hardware of the PC will eventually fall by the wayside. Evidence of this is seen in many forms. Tablets have taken a firm hold over casual personal computing user and smart phones offer an easy way to do just about everything. Where design, graphical creativity, server functions and other large-bandwidth programs are concerned, PCs will most likely still have a place. But much like an old appliance whose purpose is still useful, yet outdated, new ways of designing and retrieving information are becoming too great for the PC to stay in its current form.
2. The clouds will gather. Cloud computing takes the hard drive out of the computer and replaces it with streaming information from some far off server or cloud. No longer will you “own” a song or software program on your device, rather the cloud will stream this information to your device such that the hardware itself is only a means of receiving all information you could ever want whenever you want it in the palm of your hand.
3. The internet will be omnipresent. Eventually, there will be no place on earth where you can escape an internet signal. The Cat5 cables and Ethernet connections of the past will no longer be needed for internet use. Simply tap on your device in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and you will have access to more information than any civilization in the world’s history.

Of course these trends are general at best; we are consultants and importers, not techie prophets. What we can say is that taking the above trends, businesses now have to take the ecosystem approach to selling goods and services. The web, once an ocean, became a highway which became a landscape which became an ecosystem. What it becomes from here will certainly present very exciting opportunities.

A Global Beacon

When we first began, we started by assisting small entrepreneurers get their products to the marketplace. We did this for items ranging from jewelry to stationary to home décor. Many benefitted from our efforts and many went on to have successful businesses and products.

Taking a cue from these successes, Beacon Imports was born, our model of import marketing through the use of a sold sales force, a growing web presence and a keen eye on customer needs. We used this model as a baseline for tracking what our clients and our customers needed not only in terms of product, but as a way to identify barriers to entry and pass along valuable business lessons of the 21^st century.

Towards the end of 2010 however we began to reach out across the oceans in a way that we felt would be the most helpful to our fellow business men and women in third world countries. We began to establish a fund based on our net sales that could be used towards microlending in impoverished nations. It is in these locations where the need for free enterprise is most needed. Knowing our limitations as a small business, we began sponsoring grants to help African businesses procure needed materials to begin and continue their enterprises. After this, as revenues permitted and new steps put into place, we began Beacon Worldwide, our microlending branch of Beacon Marketing and Beacon Imports.

Beacon worldwide currently has a portfolio that includes business partners from Algeria, Mexico, Cameroon, Kenya and Nicaragua. We’ve helped food wholesalers, clothing manufacturers, educational suppliers among many others. We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished and continue to receive funds both online, through our web store and through Beacon Marketing. We set aside a portion of this income strictly for Beacon Worldwide. The thanks that we have received for this endeavor have been numerous and the results have been magnificent to observe. We invite all of you to check out what we are doing with Beacon Worldwide by signing up for our newsletter. You too can be a global beacon.

Have We Changed?

Has the floral business changed over the past decade? When it comes to the basic wants and needs of your customer, the answer is, well, not really. The floral industry has changed just like every other industry. But the people driving these changes have not changed very much at all. Look at it this way- ten years ago, people liked receiving flowers. Today, people like receiving flowers. Ten years ago people had flowers at funerals and weddings. Today people have flowers at funerals and weddings. Ten years ago, people had babies, today people have babies. Ten years ago, you spent a lot of time and effort on an arrangement that sold on a razor-thin margin. Today, the same deal applies and probably the margins are even thinner. Or worse, many of your arrangements are selling at a loss.

What has changed are your costs, your uncertainties, your method of fulfilling orders, your styles and your product mix. The days of the local hardware store have fallen to the likes of Home Depot and Lowes. So too the days of the local florist have given way to the big fulfillment centers based on the Internet and wire services. Now a customer in Utah can order flowers for her sick aunt in Delaware all with a few swipes on her iPhone. With the notable exception of the perennial male "last-minute syndrome" on Valentine's Day, foot traffic in your business is down and many florists just simply cannot afford the overhead of a storefront at all. Many now work from home to fulfill orders online and center wholly on event planning, shifting costs to transportation and manpower for help.

So taken together these changes have not represented so much a shift in the demand for flowers, though certainly the economy has provided a shift in that regard, rather these changes have a significant impact on how people get their flowers and the prices they will pay for them. This has created an environment in which florists have to work faster, harder and with less resources than ever before.

We've worked with, listened to, and collaborated among many industry leaders to help meet your product needs. By knowing and understanding the challenges that you face, we are able to provide you with products that meet your daily needs. Our hope is that these products will allow you to turn out artistic, profitable arrangements that promote the sentiments that they convey.