China's Middle Class Means Business

China's growing middle class, especially in its southern province of Guangdong, is spurring the growth of small businesses there.



The businesses are being started mainly by entrepreneurs from Hong Kong, and some from Macao. There is less competition than in Hong Kong or Macao. Less startup capital is needed.



The rise of China's middle class is creating more purchasing power and greater demand for goods and services. Most of these startups are retail outlets, feeding the consumer demand. A China Daily report quotes a University of Hong Kong professor commenting on the middle class's rise:

...living standards in the delta region were now comparable to Hong Kong's in the 1980s. "At that time, so many of us in Hong Kong would like to travel, to buy vehicles and so on. Isn't this being repeated in the delta region?" Yeh said.

China's growing middle class consumers are going to be a powerful force driving the world economy going forward. This is just the beginning.

SCORE Gets Hip

Think SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives) and what comes to mind? Come on. I know what you are thinking: "a bunch of gray-haired, retired, white men, out of touch with today's small businesses."



But that doesn't necessarily describe the SCORE of today -- and certainly not the SCORE of the future.



Ken Yancey, the executive director of SCORE, is out to make SCORE better reflect the entrepreneurs it serves. An interview in Diversity Inc Magazine notes that Yancey:

...is leading a push to bring more people of color and women into the organization's volunteer ranks. The reason? He wants the volunteers to reflect the demographics of those budding business owners SCORE assists.



"Right now, we are an older white male organization. We want to change the face of SCORE," says Yancey of the 40-year old Washington, D.C.-based volunteer group.

Today women and people of color make up about 20% of SCORE's counselors. The goal is 25%. SCORE believes that if its counselor base better reflects the entrepreneurs it advises, it will be much more effective.



The change started at the top. SCORE's board once was comprised of white men with an average age of 70 -- yes you read that right. Now the 16-member board includes 5 white women, one Asian-American woman, one Latino and two African-American men. The board's average age is now 50.



Sorry there's no link, as the piece appears only in the June/July 2004 print edition of Diversity Inc.





For our non-American readers, SCORE is a volunteer organization of counselors for small businesses and startups. Over 6 million Americans have received small business counseling from SCORE volunteers. SCORE is an excellent role model for leveraging the brainpower of the private sector to encourage entrepreneurship.

Check Out Carnival of the Capitalists

Carnival of the Capitalists is a traveling cyber event that showcases business articles from a variety of excellent blogs. It's a great way for you, the reader, to discover new blogs.



This week's Carnival is at the Business Evolutionist blog. Next week Carnival will be over at PoliBlog.



If you publish a blog and would like to participate, visit the Carnival home page.

You Must be Crazy!

OK, OK, so that's not exactly the title of Barry Moltz's book.



The actual title is You Need to Be A Little Crazy: The Truth about Starting and Growing Your Business.



The book describes the crazy ups and downs and emotional trials of running a business.

Barry is a very funny and smart entrepreneur and writer. As his bio says, "Barry J. Moltz has been running small businesses with a great deal of success and failure for 15 years." He's even been dubbed the Bill Cosby of entrepreneurship, because of his humor. Of course, I like the description on his business card best of all: "passion, courage and a streak of craziness."



So, with that introduction, we are very fortunate to have Barry provide his trend insights today here at Small Business Trends.



We asked Barry to give us some pithy takes on key trends he sees among entrepreneurs and small businesses in the new millennium. Here are the trends Barry Moltz identified:

• Our 1990's hangover is almost over
  
  
  
  We are finally back to realizing it is better to get customers than money if you are an entrepreneur serious about building a business. We realize we won't get money for our business by writing our ideas on the back of a napkin. We need to dig into our bank accounts and invest our own money first to get real paying customers that are not our relatives. Thick business plans and excellent products don't always mean a financially successful business. Think marketing. Think sales and distribution. Just because you build it, does not mean people will come! If you solve a real problem, people will pay you for it. But beware, consumer paradigm shifts take forever.





• We are downsizing our dreams
  
  
  
  More of us are lowering the personal financial expectations of our businesses. We realize that we do not need to build and run publicly traded companies. Few of us should be Michael Dell or Bill Gates and that is fine with them. We know there is nothing wrong with choosing a lifestyle business that generates several million dollars in sales. We have stopped trying to keep up with the Joneses or whoever it is we are meeting on the chat boards these days. We just want to build something we are proud of. The key question we face is "Can we merge our personal and business goals into one fulfilling life?"

Strike a chord with you?

=============

Thanks to Barry Moltz for sharing his trend insights today. He can be found at www.barrymoltz.com. We've also added his blog, Barry's Blog, to our blogroll on the left.



Finally, I want to take a moment to mention the seminar Barry is putting on in the fall, Growing Your Business Like Crazy. Last week I was on a large, international conference call with some outstanding bloggers, and the topic of Barry's Crazy Seminar came up. Now, what better recommendation could you ask for than that of the blogging community?

PowerBlog Review: Business Opportunities Weblog

Editor's note: This is the twenty-fourth in our popular weekly series of PowerBlog Reviews of other weblogs...





One of the most interesting trends in the blogging world today is the explosive growth in business blogs. What's even more interesting is the specialization and niche focus many of the business blogs have adopted.



The Business Opportunities Weblog is a great example of niche specialization. And it is a very creative use of the blog format, as well.



The Business Opportunities Weblog is a "moderated list of legitimate business opportunities for entrepreneurs." This site is no shill for fly-by-night web operators. Rather, the site says it will "only list quality businesses opportunities and will not knowingly promote junk bizops, and will actively take a stand against them."



The Business Opportunities weblog is published by Dane Carlson, from Central California, USA.



The format of the site is simple: business opportunities are highlighted in chronological blog entries. In addition to business opportunities, there are occasional news links and other topics of interest to small business owners and entrepreneurs.



This is a very large site. It has over 2200 articles, going back to 2001.



One of the things I like best about this blog is the way it is regularly updated with good, useful, interesting content that is not covered anywhere else in other business blogs. For instance, one recent post noted the perfect businesses for stay-at-home Moms, acknowledging in the process the large number of stay-at-home Moms there are. Another post reviews a franchise opportunity called 1-800-DRYCARPET.



All the business opportunities that Dane covers are presented as straightforward and factually as possible. No hype. No sales pitches. Just information.



A while back I asked Dane if he receives compensation for reviewing individual business opportunities, and he says he does not. Given the fact that we are all bombarded with marketing at most of the Internet sites we visit, Dane's low-key informational approach is refreshing.



The Power: The Power of the Business Opportunities weblog is in its use of the blog format to highlight small business opportunities -- and in its straightforward, factual coverage of specific opportunities.