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Twice as Nice: BNH Announces Expansion
Publication will double frequency to biweekly schedule
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Business New Haven
7/3/1995
By: BNH
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Business New Haven, which has published monthly since its September 1993 debut, will double its frequency this September, announced its corporate parent, Second Wind Media Ltd. of New Haven.
According to BNH Publisher Mitchell Young: “Our initial goal for Business New Haven was to establish a quality editorial voice and a solid business-to-business advertising opportunity for the region's business community. Our new objective is to add more variety, immediacy and special features to better serve our now-established readership and advertising base.
“We'll be stepping up to the plate with a significantly increased effort and investment,” Young continued, “but we think that we've demonstrated that a quality business publication is a necessary component to greater New Haven's economy and to the success of many individual companies.”
Added Editor Michael C. Bingham, “This change will allow Business New Haven to respond in a more timely way to important developments in the business community as they take place. As the leading provider of information to the south-central Connecticut business community, we are always looking for ways to help our readers get and maintain their competitive edge. Giving them more information more often is the best way to achieve that aim.
Added Bingham: “We're excited to be expanding our voice at a time when more Connecticut newspapers are losing their voices - and their independence.”
Business New Haven currently publishes 14,000 copies, distributed by direct mail to business owners and managers throughout New Haven and upper Fairfield counties, as well as newsstand circulation in that area. Headquartered in New Haven, Second Wind Media also publishes ConnTact, a statewide small-business quarterly, in partnership with the Southern New England Telephone Co.
And Not a Cubic Zirconium in the Bunch
Area retailers to get a change to strut their stuff on QVC
Twenty out of 260 Connecticut companies vying for the privilege have been chosen to showcase their products nationally September 23 on QVC, the money-magnet television shopping network that directly markets 50 million homes in the U.S. and 18 million homes in the U.K. and Mexico.
In the market for new products to sell seemingly insatiable consumers (the cable channel sold $1.4 billion of merchandise in 1994), QVC has launched the “Quest for American's Best - QVC's 50 in 50 Tour.” From a state-of-the-art mobile television studio, QVC will telecast live from each state, showcasing products made by winners of each state's vendor competition.
Looking for entrepreneurs, QVC contacted the state's Department of Economic Development (DED) to tap into its database of small businesses and coordinate with the Connecticut Economic Resource Center Inc. (CERC). DED and CERC organized a two-day trade show last month for businesses to compete for the opportunity to give their products national exposure.
Vendors had to meet certain criteria for their products to be considered by QVC judges: made in the USA, not distributed nationally, have a retail value of at least $15, be shippable by UPS and fall into specific merchandise categories. Vendors paid $25 for exhibition space, and for 20 companies it turned out to be a good investment - participants estimate their sales increased anywhere from ten to 100 percent as a result of the QVC orders.
The winners will have eight to ten minutes to sell their products during the live telecast from Connecticut. QVC vendors sell out of merchandise as quickly as 90 seconds into their presentation - which can be more merchandise than the vendor might otherwise sell in a year. A few days after the telecast, QVC merchandisers will choose the three vendors who sold the most “units of their product within a specific amount of time” to continue in “regular QVC programming,” competing, Jeopardy Tournament of Champions-style, against other winners from around the country.
The chosen few say they're thrilled about the upcoming national exposure. Mary Skowronski of Wallflowers Inc. in Waterbury, which designs and hand makes dried flower garlands, said the event “opened doors for small entrepreneurs” that might not otherwise seek out QVC on their own. Doris Crary and Frank Bush of Prostrong Inc., also of Waterbury, will remember being chosen to sell on QVC for days to come - the same day they heard the good news, they also found out that they had been allowed a patent for the first fluoride treatment for nails. Their nail treatment bonds with calcium in the nails to make them stronger and harder within four weeks, they say. After a combined 20 years with Chesebrough Ponds as a chemist and marketing specialist and (in Crary's case) taking Aziza women's cosmetics from $2.5 million to $60 million and other public successes, the pair decided to market their own ideas.
Ron Borruso, treasurer of East Haven's Prime Products International Inc., which attracted QVC's attention for its Bayanu skincare line for woman of color, says it was perfect timing to get on the shopping network. “We started out as a multi-level marketing company, which is the same concept Avon and Mary Kay Cosmetics use, but we found that it takes too long and is too costly to develop a customer base that way,” he says. “In February, we were changing our direction of marketing” and wanted the “power of selling on television.”
Sharon East of Jeffrey Norton Publishers in Guilford thinks much of what makes her company's music-history cassettes right for QVC is that, aside from the cassettes' intrinsic value, Norton has broad experience in responding quickly to large orders.
Street Smarts During the Games
Steering clear of the Special Olympics car wars can be done
The moment you've all been waiting for - 50,0000 to 75,000 people per day and their cars during the Special Olympics World Games July 1-9 - is at hand. But contrary to what some fear-mongers would like you to believe, all those people won't be in one place at the same time every day for nine days. Rather, they will be in five cities and towns attending 28 events scheduled at different times through the day.
Still, this is no time to be a free agent. As Timothy Shriver, president of the Special Olympics, has warned, don't try to beat the system and pull up in front of a venue and expect to be able to park. It's not going to happen - no matter how much pull you may have. Be a good sport, put your away your runaway imaginations and fears, take heed of traffic tips and don't contribute to traffic jams.
Mark these days on your calendar: July 1 (opening ceremonies), July 4 (Independence Day and a kaleidoscope of simultaneous fireworks displays and cars on the Shoreline) and July 9 (closing ceremonies). On these days, either avoid the vicinity of New Haven Harbor and the Yale Bowl if you aren't joining in on the festivities - or, if you are in for the ride, park your car in downtown New Haven and take a shuttle to the Bowl or walk the new Vision Path to the harbor.
Creatures of habit may find themselves most disgruntled and disoriented by restricted access to principal byways. Certain streets will be closed or restricted (converted to one-way traffic) during some events to streamline traffic or accommodate specific contests such as the 40-kilometer cycling event (July 4) or the marathon and half-marathon (July 9). Before you hyperventilate, take solace in the planning committee's consideration to start these events virtually at the crack of dawn (7 a.m.) and end by noon or 1 p.m. Again, the streets banned for parking or with restricted access are primarily around the Bowl and the Harbor.
Special Olympics organizers have worked closely with city officials to offer accessible, affordable (free is pretty affordable) and convenient rides to and from shuttle sites to the events. You can call the operations center at 946-7070 for maps and details of closed streets and alternate routes.
To add some charm to the festivities, the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce and the Greater New Haven Convention & Visitors Bureau are sponsoring free trolley service that will make a loop from the Yale Bowl to neighborhood shops, restaurants, museums and galleries.
Don't fight it. Go with the flow and don't get in a jam.
Love the One You're With
As negotiations with developer lags, city eyes long-term management of existing mall
While the now more than year-old discussions between New Haven officials and the Newton, Mass.-based New England Development Co. (NED) about the possibility and shape of a new downtown mall continue to drag, downtown shoppers may have to get used to a retailing concept far removed from the much-discussed giant regional malls or high-end factory outlet centers.
The same old thing.
Chapel Square Mall, acquired this spring from the financially troubled Rouse Corp. by a city- and chamber of commerce-invented for-profit corporation, has been in the retail doldrums since the recession and the departure of R.H. Macy & Co. left downtown without a department store. To fill the hole in the downtown doughnut, city officials have for years sought “control” of the property as well as the neighboring former Malley's building, which remains in the hands of owner Mordecai Lipkis, whom the city is battling in the courts.
“Control” was widely assumed to mean, simply, the ability by the city to smoothly transfer the property to a preferred developer. Now, with a deal with that developer (NED) still apparently far on the horizon, the city finds itself in the business of managing an aging, and ailing, mall. And it may be forced to continue to do so for years.
“We're running the mall right now,” explains chamber President Matthew Nemerson, who in May hired the firm of Lexington Heberger to manage the mall's day-to-day operations. In addition, the new ownership entity, Chapel Square of New Haven Inc., is preparing to hire a person to implement marketing strategies for retail development.
Although the mall has lost “a couple” of retail tenants since the ownership change, Nemerson says occupancy remains “essentially flat since Christmas,” hovering around the 65-percent mark. Asked if the mall is losing money, Nemerson allows that “We don't know yet,” although his financial projections show break-even or better performance. He adds that overhead costs have been “significantly” reduced, in part through privatizing services such as security and janitorial. “I think we'll also be able to stabilize things to give people a sense of the future - which they really didn't have for the last five or six months under Rouse - which I hope will encourage people to make some investments in their own stores,” Nemerson says.
“We're looking at this as a relatively short-term challenge,” Nemerson says.
Still, Nemerson doesn't expect to be operating the mall forever, and outlines the possible outcomes.
“From the chamber's standpoint, option A is still a regional mall with three anchors,” he says. “Option B might be a high-end mall with one free-standing anchor or some other large project. Option C might be what we've got now and investing in it and fixing it up, as well as doing something with Macy's and Malley's in terms of a performing arts center and with some surface parking.” One of the alternatives floated by the mayor recently was transformation of some of the Chapel Square space into a regional performing arts center.
“We're all struggling with the issue of critical mass, and clearly, with only one major department store in the region, critical mass is eminently create-able by having a large-scale project,” Nemerson says.
For now, “We owe it to the tenants in the mall and the shoppers to make sure that Chapel Square Mall - or whatever it's called, should we choose to re-market it - is viable, successful and profitable,” Nemerson says. “That's our goal right now. What this place looks like two or three years from now is a whole different set of questions.”
Family Values Inc.
UConn program places the focus on family businesses
Business sees more than its fair share of broken families - only 30 percent of family businesses survive transitions to the second generation, and only ten percent make it to the third. A notable recent example is the sale of the New Britain Herald to the Journal Register Co. after three generations in family hands.
Connecticut boasts some 69,000 family-owned businesses, and to help them beat the odds, the University of Connecticut started the Family Business Program within its School of Business Administration. Under the direction of Richard N. Dino, the program helps family businesses find ways to manage succession, bring offspring into the business, motivate non-family employees, work with a spouse, control family rivalries and division of responsibility, do estate planning, find competent advisors and create winning alliances with large companies, and more.
These are tall orders, and the program draws on the resources of the UConn business school, family business owners and organizations with expertise, interest and track records in helping family businesses survive and succeed through seminars, workshops, roundtables, panel discussions, specialized services and an executive breakfast series. The program is for family businesses open for at least three years with annual revenues exceeding $5 million. Annual membership fees are $2,500, and each program is limited to 50 businesses so that members get the attention they need.
Dino gives vivid examples of problems that make best sellers. The business-owning parents (first generation) pass the torch to their children (second generation). Life follows its course and the kids marry. Life takes a turn for the worst, and one of the kids ends up divorced. The spouse is entitled to 50 percent of his/her spouse's assets - including stock in the family business. Now a non-family member owns stock in the family business; how do they manage? Or, first generation creates a successful business and brings the second generation in. Suddenly, the kids are hit with “silver-spoon syndrome,” and get lazy. The parents have to find a way to either rekindle dedication for the business's interest - or fire their kids.
Such scenarios are all in a day's work at the Family Business Program, and if you find yourself facing similar situations, interested business people can learn more about the program by calling 203-486-4483.
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