Know an SEO person?

eMergent Marketing is lookin'. And you can make two grand if they hire your referral!

This is the kind of news we love to hear about entrepreneurial ventures in Northeast Ohio. Congratulations to Paul Elliott and his team on their fast-track growth curve!

Big kudos to NEO blogpreneur Anita Campbell

Boy, when some people decide to go for it, they do it up right.

Anita Campbell has been passionately applying all her previous online marketing experience (she's a former CEO of a web-based division of Bell & Howell) to making her blog a smash hit in the Internet world. And lots of big guys are recognizing her for it. The Plain Dealer just reported that "Anita Campbell: CEO and publisher of Small Business Trends LLC has walked off with a couple of star industry awards for
2005: Forbes magazine's Best of the Web for small-business blogs; honorable mention from MarketingSherpa as Best Small Business Marketing blog; and the No. 1 Most Practical Blog for Entrepreneurs from About.com."

Anita has become a paragon of Internet expertise. She now operates the following websites: www.trendtracker.blogspot.com, www.smallbiztrends.com, www.smbtrendwire.com, www.small-biz-advisor.com, www.rfid-weblog.com, www.blogs.bnet.com/smallbusiness/

Congratulations, Anita, on your hard-won, well-deserved recognition.

Hurray for Perlmuter's good "scents"

I don't know how much of this is going on in other areas, but I recently got a postcard from local printers, ColorBarPerlmuter, that told me I could now come to them to print my marketing materials with SCENTS embedded! How cool is that, I ask you?

Say I want to tell my customer, look, you know your business is like your baby to you! [and then I embed my postcard with baby powder smell!]

Too much. I predict this is gonna be very, very big. (For a scholarly dissertation on the sense of smell, go here. For a fun quickie one, here.)

Oooh, I can't wait! Hope it doesn't cost too much. I'll report back what I discover.

New beginnings for Capitalist Cleveland radio

In search of a new radio home, Don Larson and Irv Katz did a bangup last show on WERE. Radio One in New York is taking over this station and almost all local programming is being canceled.

After 3 years of profiling some of the most interesting and exciting entrepreneurs in Northeast Ohio on 1300 radio, Capitalist Cleveland is looking for a new home. But we'll keep the blog going--I'll have to get Don to spill his wildly enthusiastic guts here occasionally... " )

Happy Highlights
Joanne Stores, headquartered in Hudson, up 11% last week, was the featured stock market pick in this final WERE episode. They're the Number One fabric retailer in the U.S. In 700+ stores 22,000 employees help customers mainly with fabric and crafts--to the tune of $1.8 billion sales in 2005 (net income $46 million). December sales alone were up 4.5%.

Dow Jones also went higher than it's been in four-and-a-half years (since the 9/11 disaster).

Local investors look at a Florida resort property--which prompted your hosts to remark that Cleveland weather is comparatively great--no tsunamis, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes and not even really terrible blizzards.

Thanks to CC sponsors Hal-Com (computer network managers), Eventus Supplier Portal (supply chain experts), Boundless Flight (business software experts), Market Avenue Wine Bar (no explanation needed!), and MP Star Financial (business financing programs). Visit Capitalist Cleveland sponsors' page.

Stay tuned for continuing good news about Northeast Ohio!

Way to bring bio entrepreneurs to NEO

Some of the biggest players in Northeast Ohio are betting part of their farms on international tech companies, primarily entrepreneurial bioscience from Israel. Last month the Bridge Investment Fund--the financial child of National City Bank, Key Bank, Forest City Enterprises and the Myers, Mt. Sinai and Maltz Family Foundations--closed with an an initial close at $5.5 million towards a $15 million venture capital fund..."

Rather than wonder why this money isn't being invested in local companies, it's important to remember that reaching critical mass is a big part of making a bioscience hub most efficient and helping its individual companies function most effectively (ask the folks at North Carolina's RTP Triangle about that). So this is a good thing for NEO bio-entrepreneurs--thank you to these forward-thinking organizations.

Hot news: NEO entrepreneurs

You've all heard of Andy Birol--he's been helping business owners move to the next level for quite a few years now. Well, he's come up with a new idea to let even those business owners who are concerned about the cost of his services take advantage of his experience and expertise in a small-group environment.

In a big party at House of Blues, you're invited to come and learn about Andy Birol’s Arena--a new way of making networking really valuable. Andy says when you join ABA, you can "access new tools, content, and most importantly, the role modeling behavior" you need to be successful. Share ideas and get lots of positive reinforcement with live roundtables and events, on-line forums, teleconferences, guest experts and in-depth courses. It's a way, Andy says, to make entrepreneurship more fun.

Think about going on January 20th, 2006 to The House of Blues. It sounds like a ball--too bad I won't be in town, or I'd be there with bells on. For more information, call Rob Felber at (330) 963-3664 or email him here.

Helping NEO kids learn entrepreneurship

If you don't get your company's health insurance through COSE (the small-business arm of the Greater Cleveland Growth Association), you probably aren't a member and don't get their monthly magazine--which means you may not have heard about this.

The Cleveland School District is opening a new school this summer called E Prep. It's a charter school (i.e., a tuition-free Ohio college prep community school) for 6th to 12th graders who think they want may want to live the entrepreneurial lifestyle. The school offers special preparatory training that will all but guarantee college entrance if the kids do the work and stay through 12th grade.

How do they know this will work? John Zitzner, founder of nonprofit E CITY, said from what he's seen in similar schools on the East Coast, there's no question that all kids can learn. His E CITY has been giving kids after-school lessons in entrepreneurship for the past few years. He was impressed with what an impact the programs were having on kids and realized that more could be done.

If you've got some time, energy, or cash you'd like to contribute to making E Prep a success, contract Tricia Markovic at 440.821.9203 or tmarkovic@theofficeworks.biz.

Brass horns here

This month's editorial in Inside Business talks about the NEO Success Formula. Successful companies in NEO, says editor Lute Harmon, Sr., are all practicing this formula--they're all expanding to other cities, states, and countries, and they've all learned to sell into new markets. And we should be proud and elated about that, he says, because they're keeping their headquarters here.

Ans so we are, here at Capitalist Cleveland. Don and his crew each week interview entrepreneurs who are achieving great things in this region. And these entreprneurs are a big part of what keeps the quality of life in Cleveland so high--passionate business people patronizing the museums, restaurants, parks, theaters, supporting the great health care service providers, the transportation and the music venues, and constantly recycling their revenues back into this region's economy (check out culture and events at entrepreneur David Stack's Plugged-In Cleveland).

So here's to the quality of life that we're all creating together. And, entrepreneurs, if your market includes big-time corporations, you've got some great prospects here (check out the Convention Bureau stat sheets here). Let's keep showin' 'em what we've got. And enrepreneurs with service businesses, let's keep giving all those HQ employees what they want and need.

Consider the brass horns sounded here.

Web marketing developers group to meet again

Interested in learning more about building your company's website? If you're a small business owner just starting out, don't underestimate the importance of having a fully functional website that says the right things and behaves itself when visitors try to buy your products or services. If you're doing your own website, there's good news today--the Cleveland Web Development SIG is back.

A joint effort on the part of folks from both the Greater Cleveland PC Users Group (GCPCUG) and the Cleveland Digital Publishers Users Group (CDPUG), the group is resuming monthly meetings on Saturday mornings at a private company site in Solon (nice facilities, ample free parking). When Bill Kiraly-Cohen ran the group, there were always donuts or bagels--bless his heart. " )

If you need a little advice on how to tweak your website or are just looking to exchange ideas with a group of designers and developers, the WebSIG is a great place to go. Their first meeting is Saturday, January 21st. Topic is "Atomz - FreeFind – PicoSearch - We will learn different options for adding a search function to your website. "

They'll be planning the agenda for the year. so bring your program requests and suggestions.
The February meeting is the 18th, so mark your calendar and

Happy New Year!
Photo compliments of HeartMath.org