Business Momentum is Slowly Building in Cannabis-Related Businesses

©iStock/LewisTsePuiLung

The U.S. House of Representatives last month passed the bipartisan SAFE Banking bill, aimed at allowing complete banking access to cannabis companies. Its fate is uncertain in the Republican-controlled Senate.

Although the SAFE Banking bill faces an uncertain Senate fate, financial institutions have found other ways to navigate complicated regulations. To open accounts for cannabis companies, banks need to file a federal Suspicious Activity Report and continue to monitor accounts spotted by it. Abiding by these due-diligence clauses not only cost more to banks but also increases the risk of federal penalties, such as being cut off from the FDIC.

The cannabis might be underbanked (not in Vienna Austria) but the truth of the matter is that more than 700 institutions [banks] now serve marijuana-related businesses across the country.

Today in Global Small Business: How a UK Agency Grew From Small to Global

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What's affecting me, my clients, my colleagues and other global small business owners:

• Small business lending by SBA in Cleveland, Ohio falls 9%.
• First Aid Beauty, owned by Proctor and Gamble, kicks off international expansion. 
• Quote of the week: “Think you can, think you can't; either way you'll be right." – Henry Ford
• Chick-fil-A has some issues with international expansion caused by their anti-LGBTQ stance.
• Patrick Reid, CEO of Imagination talks candidly about how the agency grew from a small office in London to 10 countries around the world (video).
• Customer experience is disrupting and changing the supply-chain world from the inside out.

Making Life and Nature Harmonize

"Is not this a true autumn day?  Just the still melancholy that I love – that makes life and nature harmonize." – George Eliot

Photos courtesy:  @2019 Laurel J. Delaney.  All rights reserved.

What Are Small Business Owners Doing to Minimize the Impact of the China-US Trade War?

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According to CNBC's Small Business Playbook, here are the facts:

• The China tariffs have increased the cost of doing business for more than one third, or 37%, of small businesses across the U.S.
• In a recent survey by new survey by BizBuySell, 43% of small business owners said a 25% increase on tariffs in the U.S.–China trade war will increase their business costs.
• Of those, 64% said they would deal with the higher costs by raising prices and 65% of those surveyed said they would consider switching to suppliers outside of China.

How can you avoid being a victim in the escalating trade war? Read on.

On a Global Scale, Simone Biles Is Crushing It; Best Gymnast in the World (Video)

Small Businesses Are the Backbone of our Global Economy

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Whether you want to listen to the podcast or read the transcript, the interview conducted by Brian Kenny, host of the official podcast Cold Call produced by Harvard Business School and brought to you by the HBR Presents network, with Harvard Business School professor Len Schlesinger is worth exploring further.  Why?  Here's a snippet from the interview:

The reality is there’s this standard political logic that says that small business is the backbone of our economy and it’s the one thing in this world where all politicians don’t agree about what day it is. They all agree about this. We know that 68% of the American public actually dreams about owning a small business and we know that 93% of the American population thinks it’s important to support small business, but they don’t. And so the interesting question for us is given the failure rates of small business and the difficulty in getting small businesses to scale, the question is, whose responsibility is it to support that activity and where are there pockets of excitement going on? 

Discover which company hit it out of the park as a corporate initiative representing the best performance of any of the constituencies trying to address that (the small business growth] issue.

The $500 million bet on small businesses -- who made it?

GlobalCare Clinical Trials: A Conversation with Gail Adinamis

©2019 GlobalCare Clinical Trials.  Used with Permission.   All rights reserved.

In 2010, Gail Adinamis, founder and CEO of GlobalCare Clinical Trials brought Phase I-IV clinical trials to patients, instead of the other way around. Today, the company’s in-home and alternate-site nursing services employs approximately 100 people, contracts with more than 75 country coordinators in 60 countries and conducts approximately 2,000 home visits per month.

Gail says:

“I’ve always been one to break tradition and look for more efficient ways to do things,” Adinamis says. “It made much more sense to conduct a clinical trial visit—a blood draw or a drug administration, for example—in the patient’s home and at a time that’s convenient rather than having sick patients go to a physician’s office or a hospital or clinic.”

In the interview below, Women Entrepreneurs Grow Global's™ Director of Development Bob Marovich sits down with Gail to find out how she went from a zero base to exporting her services to more than 60 countries.

By Exporting, the Female-Owned GlobalCare Clinical Trials Saves Lives Worldwide

Today in Global Small Business: 5 Takeaways on Building a Global Business

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What's affecting me, my clients, my colleagues and other global small business owners:

• From sports analogies to going global, here are takeaways on building a business. 
• Widely discussed but often overlooked topics on international expansion.
• Quote of the week: “It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive, but those who can best manage change." – Leon C. Megginson
• Wendy's is using breakfast to launch internationally.
• Insights on how the e-commerce market in the US is changing and what is coming in the year ahead (interview).
• The floodgates opened on Facebook Inc.’s Libra Association as no fewer than five more companies exited the group overseeing the social network’s proposed cryptocurrency: Mastercard Inc., Visa Inc., eBay Inc., Stripe Inc. and Mercado Pago.

Roots: A Little Bit of Canada in Chicago

Roots is a publicly held Canadian brand based in Toronto that is a premium outdoor lifestyle brand, recognized globally for their quality products from leather goods to leisure wear. The company was founded in 1973 by Michael Budman and Don Green.

Are the products only made in Canada?

To be specific, they are are manufactured in China, Mexico, India, Ukraine, Italy, Peru and of course, Canada!

The photos above show the entranceway to the Roots Michigan Avenue location in Chicago.

Photos courtesy:  @2019 Laurel J. Delaney.  All rights reserved.

Hawaii State Trade Expansion Program Helps Small Businesses Export and Enter New Overseas Markets

©iStock/Michael Kulmar

The Hawaii State Trade Expansion Program (HiSTEP), recently announced, for the seventh year, more than $500,000 in federal grant funding from the US Small Business Administration to support global small businesses in exporting and entering new overseas markets.

“Local small businesses must be able to reach overseas markets and share their products if we are going to compete and thrive in today’s economy,” said [U.S.] Senator Hirono [of Hawaii]. “Hawaii made products are iconic and this funding will support continued efforts to diversify our local economy, create new jobs, and draw new visitors to our state.”

Details can be found here.

Global Design Awards Announced by Etsy

©iStock/chaluk

Etsy recently announced the winners of its inaugural Global Design Awards.  Interactive Magnetic Dino Wallpaper, the winning creation from London-based designer Sian Zeng, is a creative approach to children’s imaginations and the bedroom walls that house them.

Small-business owners representing the United States, Greece, and Israel all took top prizes in their respective categories; these winning designs include a custom midcentury doghouse, upcycled sandals, and papercut wedding art—brand-perfect entries for the e-commerce site, which is known for its unique and handmade products.

Further details can be found here concerning the winners and how the judges chose all of the design entries on the basis of quality, creativity, utility, and branding.

Small Businesses in the United States Are Driving Ad Spend Growth Globally

©iStock/Mykyta Dolmatov

Small businesses in the United States are driving ad spend growth globally.  How or why is that?  A lot has to do with self-serve and cost-efficient ad buying tools from the duopoly between Facebook and Google.

While small businesses haven’t yet begun advertising heavily on social media outside of the United States, Zenith [from Jonathan Barnard, head of forecasting at Zenith] expects the same dynamic to take off in other markets soon.

Learn more about how small business drives global ad spend growth and why the duopoly between Facebook and Google reaps the rewards.