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Pizzarev To Begin Strategic Nationwide Franchaising

August 14, 2013 by admin Leave a Comment

PizzaRev Set to Heat Up the U.S.A. With its Fast-Casual “Craft Your Own” Custom Pizza Concept

LOS ANGELES, CA (August 14, 2013) — PizzaRev has announced that their LA-based custom pizza concept will enter the franchise arena as part of its strategic growth plan. “We will continue to rapidly expand our corporate-stores, and we are excited now to offer others the opportunity to participate in the PizzaRev story. We have been steadfastly focused on honing our model for the past year, and now are positioned to achieve our long-term goals while satisfying the high-quality franchisees we intend to engage,” stated PizzaRev Co-CEO Rodney Eckerman. PizzaRev has hired an industry leader, Mark Lyso – CFE, to spearhead their Franchise initiatives. Lyso was most recently Director of Franchise Development for Sizzler USA, and he joins the PizzaRev team as Vice President – Franchise Development. “Mark’s insight and past experience in the industry, which includes his expansion of the “Famous Dave’s” franchise from 2 to 175 units, will be invaluable to achieving our growth goals.”

PizzaRev burst onto the scene in Los Angeles and quickly earned rave reviews from fans and critics alike for its unique format, which empowers guests to build their own custom pizzas, choosing from PizzaRev’s vast selection of sauces, cheeses, and toppings for one affordable price. “We have filed to franchise in all 50 U.S. states, and our goal is to partner with experienced multi-unit franchisees who share our vision for the PizzaRev brand,” stated PizzaRev Co-CEO Irv Zuckerman.PizzaRev opened in El Segundo, CA earlier this month and opens its newest corporate store in Oxnard, CA this week with additional LA-area locations currently under development in Burbank, Van Nuys, Bakersfield, Thousand Oaks, Camarillo, Los Angeles and Westlake Village coming in 2013 and 2014. Nominated for “Best Pizza in Los Angeles” by CitySearch, PizzaRev has earned one of the highest Yelp ratings of any pizza restaurant in LA. “PizzaRev is a truly interactive dining experience. Starting with our made-from-scratch dough, everything you could want on your pizza is displayed right before your eyes and crafted to your personal preference. Once your pizza is just right, it goes in our revolutionary open-flame stone-hearth oven and emerges perfectly cooked in less than three minutes,” explained Nicholas Eckerman, PizzaRev’s Chief Operating Officer.

PizzaRev is poised to continue its growth in the community and outward with its new partner Buffalo Wild Wings Inc., which earlier this year announced an equity-investment in PizzaRev. “Buffalo Wild Wing’s investment recognizes PizzaRev as a leader of an emerging restaurant concept with high growth potential,” said Kathy Benning, Buffalo Wild Wings Executive Vice President of Global Marketing, Brand and Business Development. “Along with chicken wings, pizza is one of America’s most popular foods and we believe that PizzaRev has great potential for continued growth and we are excited to see PizzaRev begin their franchise program. “ Sally Smith, Buffalo Wild Wings CEO and PizzaRev board member, recently announced PizzaRev is expanding to Minnesota, stating, “We’re going to open a company owned unit or more in Minneapolis with the goal of opening the first one in the first quarter of 2014.”

About PizzaRev
PizzaRev is a Los Angeles-based fast casual Pizza chain that has reinvented the way America eats its favorite food by presenting a truly interactive dining experience where customers craft their own pizzas choosing from a wide variety of high-quality ingredients, in any amount, for one price. PizzaRev fires its pizzas in a stone-hearth oven which produces a delicious, crispy Roman-style thin pizza in just 3 minutes. With an emphasis on quality and fast & friendly customer service, PizzaRev has earned its reputation for serving Better Pizza from Flour to Fire!

PizzaRev was founded by long-time entertainment industry executives Irv Zuckerman and Rodney Eckerman, who bring Fortune 500 executive operating experience along with their Management team of highly experienced and long-tenured restaurant operators.

Visit www.PizzaRev.com for franchise announcements, updated news, videos and updated location information.

Join PizzaRev on Facebook www.facebook.com/pizzarevco and Twitter www.twitter.com/pizzarevco.

View a short video clip of PizzaRev in action here!

SMB’s And The Unfair Marketplace Fairness Act

April 29, 2013 by admin Leave a Comment

2013 Marketplace Fairness Act

In 1987, John Beagle started CFR, Inc. dba Rent-A-Computer where he assumed the duties of sales, marketing and operations. In 1997 John registered the domain name “Rentacomputer.com”, which would prove to be a milestone event that would change our marketing focus from regional to national/worldwide. In the year 2000, John changed the name Rent-A-Computer to Rentacomputer.com to reflect a newly found focus on internet advertising and marketing, which exponentially increased the expansion of our business base. John continues to direct Rentacomputer.com’s major sales and marketing efforts as the company’s founder and lead visionary.

Today John is writing about the burden that will soon be placed on small business like his nationwide should the Marketplace Fairness Act become law.

The Marketplace Fairness Act of 2013 authorizes each member state under the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement (the multistate agreement for the administration and collection of sales and use taxes adopted on November 12, 2002) to require all sellers not qualifying for a small-seller exception (applicable to sellers with annual gross receipts in total U.S. remote sales not exceeding $1 million) to collect and remit sales and use taxes with respect to remote sales under provisions of the Agreement, but only if such Agreement includes minimum simplification requirements relating to the administration of the tax, audits, and streamlined filing. Defines “remote sale” as a sale of goods or services into a state in which the seller would not legally be required to pay, collect, or remit state or local sales and use taxes unless provided by this Act. (Source Wikipedia.org)

Marketplace Fairness Act is Unfair to SMBs by John Beagle

Who will enforce the collection of all these new taxes on small business?

The Marketplace Fairness Act, best known as the Internet Sales Tax would be too burdensome on the small business like mine. Most sales from small internet companies are just a few dollars in lots of different places.

To require sale tax recordkeeping, collection and distribution of sales tax in the thousands of sales and use taxing districts throughout the United States is far too burdensome for all small companies.

It takes hours to complete forms for California alone. How much time is it reasonable to ask the small businessman to spend on collecting taxes? How much business will be lost if there is no economic advantage to doing business with the small businessman?

Many of California’s cities, counties, towns, and communities have special taxing jurisdictions (districts), which impose a transactions (sales) and use tax. These districts increase the tax rate in a particular area by adding the district tax to the combined statewide rate of 7.50%. The rates for these districts range from 0.10% to 1.00% per district. More than one district tax may be in effect in a given location. As a seller or a consumer, you may be required to report and pay district taxes for your taxable sales and purchases. Source: California Board of Equalization

How complex it it to pay sales tax? In California for example there are 6 pages of ‘special tax rates,’ that every penny of every sales has to be accounted for, collected and then individually accounted for when paying. Any mistakes will be penalized.

Continued on Critical Politics

3 Tips To Avoid Internet Marketing Scams

February 26, 2013 by admin 1 Comment

The online world is full of scams. While this does not sound very promising for someone who is starting up their own business, it is important to be aware of the risks and dangers that are out there. Finding unbiased information is a lot more difficult these days, especially considering the amount of marketing that takes place on the Internet. There will always be people out there who are looking to make a quick buck. The first thing business leaders need to understand is what they have to do in order to avoid getting tricked or scammed. This is especially important for businesses like Pittsburgh Internet Marketing Exact and individuals who are just started to sell their services online.

Avoiding the Scams: Look for Reviews

Internet marketing scams can take a number of different shapes. This is often what can make it difficult to determine what is the truth and what is a scam. Some scammers are very clever and very good at hiding their true motivations from readers. If you receive an offer, it is a good idea to see if others have received it as well. What you can do is simply search online to see if others have had the same experience. By reading through the reviews of a specific company or website, you will begin to get an idea of what the company is like. It is important to remember that some customers may have it out for the company, and may falsely state that it is a scam. The trick here is to look at how many reviews state the company is a scam. Another possibility is that the scammer paid ‘customers’ to write good reviews of their website. Although this is not a completely accurate way of determining a scam, it is a good indicator that something is not right.

Contact Details

This may seem like a very simple thing to do, but it is vital that every business has contact details available. Normally when you go onto a website, there will be an icon that clearly marks out the company’s contact information. These will normally include a telephone number, an address, an e-mail and sometimes even a fax number. A lot of the time, there will also be a help desk available for customers who have questions. Steer clear of websites that have none of this. If you want to make doubly sure, you can always ask a question. See how long it takes for the company to get back to you. Companies that take themselves seriously and care about their customers needs will always respond to you promptly, even if it is two or three days later.

Look at Their Product Patterns

Scammers generally do not have sustainable products. Since these products generally do not last, they are going to constantly need new ones in order to replace them. Take a look at the product history of the company and, again, make sure to look at reviews. Patterns of new products being released only months apart is going to indicate a true scam here.

Keeping safe on the Internet is important, and it is also important to scrutinize anyone that you come across. There is a lot of opportunity out there for unscrupulous people to take advantage of others. By knowing some of the telltale signs, you will be able to avoid the worst companies.

Maintaining SMB Client-Associate Relationships

February 14, 2013 by admin Leave a Comment

By Nina Meranus, SurprisesByMail.com

Whether personal or professional, maintaining relationships requires a good amount of time and effort. Just as with personal relationships, it is important to be mindful of the business relationships we foster on a daily basis. If you take your spouse for granted or fail to make them a priority, it’s not likely to pay off for your marriage. The same is true of maintaining client and associate relationships. If it is an important relationship that you want to keep for years to come, than a little appreciation and recognition goes a long way.

This was the line of thinking that motivated entrepreneur Nina Meranus to start her online company SurprisesByMail.com in 2011, under the simple belief that “the world is a better place when people do nice things for each other”. In 2012, the small business saw a lot of growth as co-founder Andy Sheeks joined the team and the company grew to service all 50 U.S. states as well as Canada. In 2013, the company projects continued growth as they build their reputation as the go-to-site for personal and professional gifting.

SurprisesByMail.com makes corporate gifting easy, inexpensive and it’s a great way to make a personal connection with clients. Thoughtfulness and small acts of kindness go a long way in building lasting relationships. Sending a thank you for years of service, congratulations at a company millstone, kind words during times of personal loss and suffering or even just to say “get job” shows your client or employee that you care not only about their business, but about them. The simple truth is that people like working with people that they like and the more you work at improving professional relationships, the better they will be.
Small businesses know just how important good employees are – they are the lifeblood of your organization. SurprisesByMail is also a great way to show your employees how much their hard work is appreciated.

SurprisesByMail.com offers gift boxes that can be filled with your choice of goodies (like chocolates, fudge, baked goods, nuts, dried fruit, pretzels and even gift cards) and customized with a personalized message, image and company logo. It’s a great way to thank clients for a new customer referral, send appointment reminders or re-engage a stagnant or dormant account. SurprisesByMail.com allows companies an outlet for sending clients a visual reminder of their brand and how much their business means.

Using Proxy to Check SMB Competition

November 29, 2012 by admin Leave a Comment

By Sharon Robinson

If you are surfing the Net and don’t realize that every keystroke you make and every search you instigate is being monitored than you have no right to be on the Net. Information is being gathered at all times to feed this beast that is the Internet; information that is available to virtually everyone for the right price.

This information is vital if you are running a business with an online presence. Never has it been easier to monitor your competition than with the Internet. The Internet has served to destroy barriers to entry in most fields and encourages small and medium sized businesses to broaden their horizons and seek growth via exports to foreign countries. It is this fostering of competition that means that you must keep a closer eye on your competitors than ever because every niche that is perceived as being profitable quickly attracts an inordinate amount of competition. In cyberspace it is the quick or the dead.

If your competition is worth keeping an eye on then rest assured they are targeting overseas markets with tailored content and advertising to suit local tastes. The foreign sites will probably require different keywords and will attract local advertising as another revenue source. So why not monitor their offshore strategies and perhaps copy what you deem to be their successful campaigns. After all, imitation is the most sincere form of flattery and all is fair in love and business.

However, when you perform searches, the search is tailored to your previous search patterns and also localized for content. Via your IP address, the servers know where you are based and respond accordingly. Using a proxy server though, you can check your competition with impunity, safe in the knowledge that you cannot be tracked and your competition will never know you have been checking them out.

Similarly, you can receive accurate search results from foreign websites of your competitors by using a proxy server in the country from which you want to receive the search results. For example, if you want to see how your competitor is tackling the Swedish market, you can connect to a Swedish proxy server and receive localized Swedish search results.

Although there are free proxy services that usually compel you to receive free advertising, it is best to pay for a premium proxy such as GeoSurf where you are assured premium service and you may even select from over 100 countries from which to “surf.” The cost is not exorbitant and it is a legitimate business write-off.

Rayanne Buchianico, SMB Nation’s SBSer of the Year, Gladly Bucks “What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas”

October 18, 2012 by admin Leave a Comment

SBSer of the Year Award Winner Rayanne Buchianico

Rayanne Buchianico ABC Solutions

Las Vegas, Nevada, October 12, 2012 – For Rayanne Buchianico, what happens in Vegas won’t be staying in Vegas; it will be coming home to Tampa Bay in the form of an award. While many of Sin City’s visitors sleep off the previous night’s escapades, Rayanne will accept the SBSer of the Year award at SMB Nation’s annual conference.

SMB Nation is a publishing and events company working with small and medium business (SMB) channel partners, resellers, consultant, and VARs, to spread knowledge of SMB technology trends. Through conferences, books, SMB PCmagazine, and seminars the group draws an international audience of over 45,000 as it expands global knowledge of business, technology, and marketing solutions for consultants and resellers.

SBSer of the Year is awarded to two people annually – one man and one woman – who have shown leadership and have given the most to the IT community in the past year. Candidates are nominated and chosen by a committee of executives from SMB Nation and SMB Technology Network (SMBTN). The honor is presented on day one of the annual conference, which this year includes a PC World columnist, a senior contributing author at Information Week, a Microsoft product marketing manager, the chairman of CompTIA, a product ambassador at Lenovo, and marketing leaders from RIM, Intel, and Dell as speakers. The event is a veritable “who’s who” of the SMB IT world – not a bad place to pick up an international recognition.

Harry Brelsford, founder of SMB Nation, is extremely pleased with this year’s female award recipient. “When I think of women in IT, top of mind is Rayanne Buchianico from Tampa,” he says. “This award goes back to the early days of SMB Nation, when we select the Microsoft Windows Small Business Server (SBS) partner of the year that we called the SBSer of the Year. Rayanne was selected by a small committee of SMB IT pros who pride themselves on a fair and balanced approach. The result is right and proper and it’s Rayanne.”

Naturally, Rayanne is also extremely pleased with this year’s recipient. “I thought of SBSers of years past, and what an honor it is to be chosen for this designation,” she enthused when discussing the award, adding, “Harry and SMBTN discussed the possible candidates, and they felt it was time to recognize two people who work ‘behind the scenes’ in the community. I was one of them. My friend, Bob Nitrio, was the other.”

Rayanne earned this recognition by working behind the scenes to make critical things happen – things that make SMB Nation more valuable to members like…

Organizing the Birds of a Feather sessions at TechEd North America 2012
Connecting member Autotask to their accounting systems
lobbying Microsoft and other vendors for books and swag for user group meetings
helping members find user groups and organizing her own user group meetings

And, as she puts it, “Connecting people who need help with people who can provide it.”

Rayanne also serves the IT community as treasurer of the Global IT Community Association, and credits the group with “working together as a team to promote IT professional groups throughout the world. We are all passionate about bringing value to our respective groups and the IT Profession as a whole.”

Buchianico will also be awarded a complimentary admission to the coveted Pocket MBA. This twelve-week, multi-disciplinary program offers several business and IT-related concentrations that focus on the real world applications of the subjects they teach. When asked what she is looking forward to in the program, Rayanne says, “It will give me the opportunity to learn from the industry’s most successful business people – to learn the secrets of MSP success, which will help me when working with clients who want to grow their Managed Services business or IT consulting firm.”

After the award ceremony Rayanne will participate in the following days of the conference, which this year is themed “Back to the Future.” Sessions include How to Differentiate Your IT Offerings, The Future of Successful Channel Partnerships, and How to Install a Social Media Policy at Work, as well as a Windows 8 expert panel discussion and an AVG product launch party. For people passionate about SMB technology it just doesn’t get any better than these four days.

And for Rayanne, it’s likely that no future SMB Nation conference will be any better than this one.

About Rayanne Buchianico

Rayanne is the owner of ABC Solutions, an accounting firm providing complete accounting services to small and mid-size IT companies and MSPs throughout the US. In business for over seven years, the firm also consults on accounting systems and integrates PSA software, such as Autotask, to streamline billing and project/job costing and budgeting

Security Cameras in Business

July 6, 2010 by admin Leave a Comment

Here’s another good tip about placing security cameras: Place security cameras in your document center where records are being copied or documents are being shredded. Do you think I am being over cautious? Well two points if I may: The first point is to refer to my story on March 29 2010: Why you should treat the temp well or the $14,465.63 postage stamp.

Here’s another true story I encountered in my business career. I did not see this one first hand, but arrived shortly after the incident and had this story related to me by people in the know. A few years ago, a local clinical lab had some disgruntled employees. It seems that a well liked employee was terminated for stealing some toilet paper (seriously she was stealing T.P.). This greatly enraged some of her friends. It also seems that this clinical lab was not playing completely by the Medicare rule book. One practice was that doctors (and only doctors) could assign a diagnoses code or ICD 9 code. In order to speed the process, this lab had employees that either rewrote or added missing codes. The disgruntled employees were made aware that the government gave out large cash rewards for cases that it could prosecute for violations. One night under the excuse of “working late to process some claims” a team of disgruntled employees who had been collecting records for a number of months used the companies own copying and mailing facilities to reproduce and send out the “doctored records.” This company lost millions of dollars in fines from the government. The team of disgruntled employees became millionaires including the woman terminated for stealing toilet paper! If you would like to learn more about security cameras for your business try this fine firm for your business security camera needs or call 877-422-1907 to learn more about it.

Looking for a GeoVison Security Camera System to help secure your small or medium business? Call www.CameraSecurityNow.com today at 877-422-1907 for a free phone consultation. Ask about the new Hybrid DVR/NVR surveillance solutions.

Camera Secuity for excellent customer service

June 30, 2010 by admin Leave a Comment

Here’s a follow up to John Beagle’s excellent article about closed circuit cameras providing security against theft. Closed circuit TV’s allows, you the owner, to monitor your customer service employees.

I once was privileged to hear a true American success story by a guy known as “Kenney the Printer.” Kenny Fisher was looking to own his own business and had an idea that he might like to start a chain of dry cleaning shops, but was prompted by an idea when his son came home upset about the poor service he observed at a quick print shop where he worked. This give Fisher an idea. He went around scouting quick print shops in his area and found them to be sadly wanting in terms of cleanliness and courtesy. He started his quick print shops with a fanaticism to customer satisfaction. In his first year his shop reached the annual sales average for quick shops and now his revenue is SEVEN times that of a normal quick print shop. One tool he uses is closed circuit TV to monitor customer service. He cites many statistics about how poor customer service can absolutely sink your small businesses reputation. Also Kenny states how many marketing dollars it takes to bring one customer into your shop, a very eye opening figure. If you would like to learn more about what Kenny thinks is a vital tool for your small business, take a look at the site map of this fine business: Camera Security Now Site Map or call 877-422-1907.

Security cameras can not only be a vital tool for anti theft protection but can also be a powerful tool in ensuring that your customers are given world class service each time they enter your establishment.

How sales can help finance in your small business

June 17, 2010 by admin Leave a Comment

Every once in a while many company finance teams evaluate the profitability of your customer base. One of the important criteria is a measure called days sales outstanding or DSO. The calculation measures how long it takes an invoice to be collected once the product is shipped or service is preformed. There are certain customers who gain some measure of infamy with the finance department credit analysts and A/R collectors. If the situation continues long enough, the finance department will ear mark this customer to be dropped. Because this can affect company market share, the marketing department and the sales team generally have adverse reactions to this measure. So how does a good owner or president/CEO resolve the issue?

A good way to assist the finance group is to get the support of the sales team. Give them laptops so that when they are on sales calls they may access the invoices for the customer. If there are any invoices over a certain delta, the sales team should be involved in helping to collect the delinquent invoices. If you business can not afford to buy laptops for the sales team you could consider renting them from a source like www.rentacomputer.com who can assist your business in their temporary needs.

If the sales team works in conjunction with the finance department, then there wont be any surprises when its time to review the customer list. Both departments will have a part of keeping the customer with in financial limits. On the other hand, by keeping the customer within proscribed limits, the sales department keeps its hard earned customer and market share. In this case both departments and the company as a whole wins, and if in the unfortunate event a customer does need to find a new source, then there is buyoff from everyone that this unfortunate measure must be taken.

Have sales and finance view each other as a team and your company’s DSO will drop, and that is a very, very good thing!

America’s Return to Financial Greatness-some straight talk

June 15, 2010 by admin Leave a Comment

Ford Motor company in the early 80’s came up with the slogan “Quality is job one.” This statement really evolved out of its production manual called total quality management. It was implemented to combat the foreign car invasion of America as American’s were increasingly put off by the poor quality and highly plasticized cars coming out of Detroit in that time period.

In my last article, I reviewed Stanley C. Allyns extraordinary booklet about his life in Dayton and work career at NCR, rising to be president and CEO. In his booklet, Allyn gave his 4 big jobs for management teams. I would like to look at point number three: Earn the enthusiastic support of all employees. Sounds good right, but the problem is that many companies today have fallen victim to employing Temporaries, Contractors, Casual Hires, and Short term hires, and then expecting that they are gong to get the same attention to quality as the company would receive from an employee. This is pure fantasy!

Let me define each of the categories: Temporary (or temp) a person who comes in to substitute for a permanent employee. These people usually work 8-12 weeks, but some times as much as 6 months. Usually they do grunt work (although many these days are highly skilled and impressively experienced). A casual hire is much like a temp except he or she works directly for the company. A casual hire is not offered benefits or company perks and usually does routine work. Sometimes retirees fill out their income as casual hires. A short term employee does not usually know that they are what they are. These people are fully benefited and work for the company, but the company management knows that they are hired to work a certain project and then layed off or terminated. Sometimes working conditions become so bad that they leave of their own accord (and this is fine with the company). Contractor’s either can work for themselves or a contracting company (you will find Contractors in engineering and accounting very often).

The problem with this group is that they probably are being under paid and looking for the minimum they can do and then go home. The second is that these people are looking for another, better full time gig. If they figure out that this greener pasture is not with your firm, then you only have this employee’s partial attention, and they might leave at ANY time, some times not giving any or little notice. Some temporary agencies, try to tell temps that this job is “temp to perm” but experienced temps know that this is generally “the agency sales pitch to do a good jab and maybe you will get hired (but is rarely true).” Finally some companies still in down sizing mode (or their ridiculous term “right sizing”) even encourage employees to search on monster job or some related site! You will never have what Mr. Allyn states as point three: earn the enthusiastic support of all employees!

If in your small business, quality is job one, then you can not populate your work force with Temps, Casual Hires, Contractors, and short term hires. What you need from your employees is that they do everything that is both explicit and intrinsic to “doing a good job!” Your small business needs people who want to work for your success (and their own).