It’s hard to be positive these days about Hawaii’s economy, and more specifically, Kona’s economy. I saw last weekend that the unemployment rate was 13% overall for Hawaii. I imagine it is close to 20% for the tourism-driven economy of West Hawaii. A walk down Alii Drive, our main tourist shop area, will show “For […]
Stay out of trouble by doing things right. Register your business with the state. Get insurance. Pay your taxes. Follow the law. Be “all in” all the time. Running a business, any business, takes hours and hours of dedication, focus, and hard work. If your business is your livelihood and not a hobby, give it […]
We have a saying in our office: “No one regrets a sign.” There are very few more direct and visible ways to promote your business than effective signage. As they say, “a business with no sign is a sign of no business.” Here are some options: Paper – A great option for indoor signs. It’s […]
One thing I try to keep in mind with the Covid pandemic is that we are all figuring things out for the first time. As such, I don’t Monday morning quarterback the decisions of others, and I try to give as much patience and understanding as I can to the viewpoints of others. Many people […]
One of the not-so-secret secrets in business is that companies do not treat all customers the same. This should not be shocking: retailers have “preferred customer” programs; the TSA has a PreCheck program that allows some to skip the long lines; our local big box hardware stores have preferred parking for some customers. Our favorite […]
Marketing is the activity of promoting and, hopefully, selling products. It is rare that a business can become sustainable without significant marketing efforts. One website has identified 52 types of marketing, giving a great overview of the possibilities for businesses. In our experience, a small business might focus on a handful of these, and a […]
A cognitive bias is a deficiency, an error in the way we process information. We’re all guilty, at times, of letting our cognitive (thinking) biases cloud rational decision making. Good business decision making will sometimes come from “the gut” unexplained–at least to some–ways of reaching decisions. That said, rational decision making based on good data […]
We’ve heard it for years: retail is brutal. Competition with big box stores and online channels make it very hard for a locally-owned retail store to survive. This is certainly true to some extent; the traditional models of retails are quickly failing everywhere, but that’s the ‘glass is half empty” perspective. Some retail shops in […]
The first day of the work year is a good time to think about some ways to make 2019 better than 2018. Not that last year was bad at all: it was quite good in all respects, but being an entrepreneur I have to believe that 2019 will be even better! Here are five things […]
This year was like most others in Kona: we lost some businesses and we gained some new businesses. We typically see a churn of 10-15% of the businesses in our 2,000+ businesses database a year, and this year was no different. Why are so many businesses lost each year? Well, we define a business as […]