Keep Your Customers Reading

8 tips for developing e-newsletters that have interesting and relevant content for readers

By Gail Goodman | July 17, 2008

URL: http://www.entrepreneur.com/marketing/onlinemarketing/emailmarketingcolumnistgailfgoodman/article195750.html

E-mail newsletters are one of the best ways to stay connected with your customers, clients and prospects. They allow you to showcase your expertise in a way that helps build awareness and confidence in your company. And great content will prompt your readers to take action--visit your website, make an inquiry, book an appointment, request a proposal or come in to shop.

Creating a successful newsletter program requires that you include interesting and relevant content in each issue. Sure, it's easy to write about your business--new clients, new products, recent awards--but a "me-newsletter" is not one that's going to get your readers to open, read and take action. Here are 8 content ideas that will help make your newsletters relevant and compelling:

1. Share your expertise. You are an expert in your field, and a newsletter gives you the chance to show it by giving your readers valuable nuggets of information that they can take action on. When you consider what topics to cover, think of the questions that you are frequently asked. What are the areas your clients and potential clients are most interested in? In what areas do they need and value your expert advice? Giving them a little bit of free advice every month will build their trust in you and make you the obvious choice when they're in need of what you offer.
   
2. Hold a Q&A session. In keeping with the idea of answering questions, feature a Q&A section in your newsletter. Invite your readers to submit their questions, and in each issue choose one or two to answer. I know of at least one successful newsletter that is based solely on this format.
   
3. Tell a story of success. Do you know any inspiring customer or client stories? They can be testimonials that are focused on how your business helped a company or person or simply a profile of a customer and his or her business. Either way, true-to-life stories make your newsletter multi-dimensional, making it more interesting and relatable, and serving to increase your credibility.
   
4. Conduct an interview. While you're the expert of your newsletter, it can also be good to bring in some other expert voices from time to time. Highlight other professionals who offer products or services that are complementary to yours, and cover topics that your readers care about. This type of content helps show that you're connected and understand the "big picture."
   
5. Feature fun facts. Inject a little fun into your newsletter. You might include some little-known, yet interesting facts that are relevant to your type of business or offer a riddle or trivia question that you invite readers to solve or answer. Include the answer and the winner in the next issue of your newsletter.
   
6. Take an in-depth look at a product or service. Take a deeper look at a product or service you offer. Show how it could be useful to the reader by outlining the benefits and give any other information that could convince them of its value. Remember to stand in their shoes. And ask yourself the question, "What would they want to know?"
   
7. Springboard off of current events (news items, holidays, etc.). Events that are common to all of your readers' lives provide a great starting place for your content. This could be a topic that the media is actively covering, like a downturn in the economy, or it could be a holiday, such as Thanksgiving. Look for creative ways to tie these events in with a topic in your field.
   
8. Ask your readers. Last, but not least: If you want help knowing what content to include, ask the people reading it. An online survey is the perfect way to get feedback in a format that is easy to process and act on. Give options of types of content (articles, success stories, etc.) and topics that you are planning to cover. See how respondents rate this information and use their feedback to shape future plans. Also, give them the opportunity to present their ideas. They may suggest a great topic that you hadn't considered.

How can you know if your content is connecting with your readers? Besides asking the question, take a close look at your newsletter statistics. How many people opened and, more importantly, what did they click on? A link that got 30 clicks vs. one that received 300 is very telling.

By creating a relevant and interesting newsletter, you'll find one of your most valued and successful marketing tools.

Gail F. Goodman is the "E-Mail Marketing" coach at Entrepreneur.com and is CEO of Constant Contact, a web-based e-mail marketing service for small businesses. She's also a recognized small-business expert and speaker.

Advertising in Digital Media

These 3 hot trends can give you a competitive edge on the web and beyond.

By Robert J. Shimonski | July 17, 2008

URL: http://www.entrepreneur.com/advertising/adsbytype/article195738.html

As entrepreneurs, we have to either adopt--or adapt to--new methods of advertising to reach potential clients and customers. With so many of them connected to the internet with their mobile phones and/or laptop computers, it's no wonder that digital media advertising (DMA) is the new hot button for any seasoned or newbie entrepreneur.

Now potential customers can be reached 24 hours a day on many different devices all connected at once, and any customer can find your services through your digital portfolio, ringtone or podcast, or an online video tutorial. Beyond the internet, these media find their way to any medium that will support them.

These are three top trends in DMA:

Media Rich Websites
Since digital media is so easy to capture, manipulate and work with, it's no wonder that many businesses are deploying online commercials, podcasts and videos for YouTube and MySpace. If your current website harkens to a traditional bulletin board, you may want to design something new.

By embracing Web 2.0, you will find yourself in an expanded internet full of online collaboration and communication 24 hours a day. To have no downloadable samples of your product or samples to stream is to miss out on potential sales.

For example, when Chris Basile of SubSonic Recording Academy in New York came up with a new way to stream educational audio and video education tutorials from his newly deployed media-rich website, traffic increased by 400 percent within 60 days. Due to this increase, Basile closed new deals and contracts that helped increase his sales by more than 75 percent within that same time period. By putting a simple online video in a newsletter and blasting it out to his subscribers and letting them know that a podcast library was no longer available, each page got hundreds of new hits each week.

This is what makes social networking sites so popular: They are set up to function with almost all digital media methods and types, and they provide news and networking for all ages. If your company's website doesn't provide digital media interactivity, you may lose popularity quickly. If you can't make your own video look professional, outsource to a production facility. With globalization, it's easy to find facilities worldwide to make your vision a reality without breaking the bank.

Create many types of files for a large amount of digital video players, as well as many compression rates to match user download mediums and speeds. Audio can be recorded once, edited a few times and used for many different outlets. Ringtones, commercials, podcasts and audio books are but a handful of options as well as for commercials on terrestrial and online radio shows.

Success Tip: Make sure you get a .mobi and set up a mobile version of your site and mobile versions of your media.

Digital Portfolios
Gone are the days of the outdated paper business card. Even if printed on the best stock, a business card pales in comparison to a DVD or CD-ROM with your information on it.

Imagine a customer at a tradeshow looking for a production facility to make a commercial for online and TV airing. What would make more of an impression: a traditional business card or a digital portfolio? If your DVD when inserted opened a website, examples to view, video, audio and contact information ready to drag and drop into your contacts, your chances are much better than someone who just hands out a business card.

When Joan Babcock of GlobalArt Ltd. wanted to stand out, she put all of her art examples and services on a DVD, added some great packaging and handed out the DVD with a business card at trade shows, sales meetings and any chance she could get to show off her talents. After Babcock created her digital media-based portfolio, the world opened up for her. In six months, her sales increased and she can now support herself full-time on her business efforts alone.

Babcock realized that by teaming up a standard business card with a transportable DVD, she could engage a potential client almost immediately as her information was readily available. Many times, people have access to their laptops, but not necessarily the internet. Having information that could be handed out and discussed immediately gave life to GlobalArt Ltd and helped make it the success it is today.

Success Tip: Just like with business cards, don't forget the outside packaging of the DVD case or sleeve. This branding will draw the potential client to want to view the contents within.

Digital Signage
Whether in your offices or on the road on the side of a truck, taking your message to the masses has becomes so much easier. Digital media can be combined into a program that creates a sign in your store, outside it or on the road. Depending on your line of business, you can always take advantage of advertising on the road or within your store or store window. With digital signage, you can send your message from your fleet of vehicles or your own car, or these signs can be placed inside your facility or in a store window. Digital signage is helpful for menus, news, running lists of services and so on. Depending on the quality (and cost) of the digital sign, you can incorporate all other forms of digital media into the sign's cast.

For example, when Alysa Marsh of Fresh Free Fruit Inc. wanted to sell fruit smoothies and yogurt health drinks, she found that long lines at her counter could be put to better use than just looking around at her stock. Marsh deployed a digital sign and had a production house create a multimedia presentation that would run all day in her store and give her customers stock information and news along with health tips. From another 'digital sign' placed at the exit, she was able to run her TV commercial so that users realized that it existed and identified with it more when they saw it at home. With very little cost upfront and with very little time and effort, Marsh found that with an investment of less than $1,000, she was able to increase her sales and recoup her initial investment within two months.

Success Tip: Digitally enhance any graphic with tools such as Photoshop, Gimp or Creative Suite. Kiosks can be set up in your company lounge area for both employee and customer help, and for advertising. You can use audio, video and still images together in the kiosk or digital sign.

Robert Shimonski is a digital media expert who has helped build and develop media packages for thousands of companies worldwide, including Microsoft, Elsevier, Wiley and Syngress. He helps startup companies break into Web 2.0 and currently resides in New York.

Bartering Expands in the Internet Age

By JAMES FLANIGAN

Thomas Daley had been helping friends swap sports tickets for golf course green fees and concert tickets as a sideline. But on the advice of a friend, he set up an online trading site, Joe Barter L.L.C., two years ago where college students could trade textbooks, small companies could trade equipment and accountants, and plumbers, business consultants and others could advertise their services.

“I was told our site should be for the average Joe, so Joe Barter, get it?” said Mr. Daley, 36.

The company is still struggling to make its mark, he acknowledged in an interview, though he said he hoped an upgrade for the Web site, scheduled for August, along with a stepped-up marketing effort would significantly expand the membership.

The site has 2,500 individual members, who pay nothing to join the network, and 400 business-to-business members who pay fees for consultations and referrals in connection with transactions. Last year, the company’s revenue totaled about $80,000.

Whatever its prospects for success, Joe Barter is tapping into one of the largest “little” industries of small companies in America, the barter or trade exchange business. It is a business for “the little guys,” said Robert Meyer, a onetime pitcher for the New York Yankees who since 1979 has published Barter News, a magazine and online site that reports on more than 500 trade exchanges in the United States.

Mr. Meyer said about 450,000 companies do business in bartering’s many networks of retailers, services and manufacturers.

The barter business has developed broadly since 1982, he said, when federal law regularized the tax reporting of barter transactions by requiring them to be denominated in dollars for the Internal Revenue Service. More recently, the Internet has spurred the growth of barter.

Still, Mr. Meyer said, “the largest barter companies are relatively small, about $14 million each in revenue per year.” And the commercial barter business pales beside the decade-old development of eBay. Last year, that company took in more revenue from commissions — $7.7 billion — than the whole barter industry handled in transactions.

And the classified ad site Craigslist reaches 450 cities in 50 countries and receives 30 million new advertisements a month.

But one of the biggest advantages of bartering, said Steven White, chief executive of the Itex Corporation of Bellevue, Wash., one of the biggest barter companies, is “that it conserves cash for a small business and it brings in customers.”

The company, a trade exchange that has 24,000 small-business members who pay registration fees and commissions on transactions, illustrates how the business works with a hypothetical example.

A dentist provides dental work for a lawyer or accountant who also belongs to the Itex network and thus earns value, denominated in special barter dollars, in her account. She may then use those barter dollars to pay a decorator to work on her offices.

“In a small business, you have to pay cash for your mortgage and insurance and other necessities,” Mr. White said. “But barter helps you conserve that scarce resource.”

Now 50, Mr. White has led Itex since 2003, but he said he has been in the barter business since 1982, when he founded Cascade Trade Association, a company he eventually sold in 2000.

With Itex, he said, he is intent on expanding the trading network by working through brokers and 90 Itex franchises and by acquiring other barter companies.

In the last four years, Itex has grown by about a third to $14.1 million in fees and commissions in 2007. Its exchange processed $270 million in business transactions in 2007. “Distribution is the key to the business, expanding the member network so we can offer more services,” Mr. White said.

The barter business is growing, but slowly. In 2007, the total value of commercial barter transactions reached $6.5 billion, up slightly from the previous year, said Krista Vardabash, investor relations director for International Monetary Systems Ltd. of New Berlin, Wis., also one of the biggest bartering businesses.

The company has been growing much faster than that, reaching $14.2 million in revenue last year on $110 million in transactions, up from $3.9 million in revenue five years ago. Acquisitions of other trading sites have propelled some of that growth.

Donald F. Mardak, 71, founded what is now International Monetary Systems in 1985 after building a chain of piano and organ retail stores in Milwaukee and other cities. In 1989, he raised $8 million in a public stock offering, and he has driven the company’s expansion by acquiring barter exchanges in 16 states. The company now has 18,000 business members.

“The idea for the barter business hit me when I traded one of my Baldwin pianos for a Mercury Cougar,” Mr. Mardak said in an interview. “The two were comparably priced, but I had paid wholesale for the piano and got retail value for it. So there is leverage in the barter business, and that is one of its attractions.”

Mr. Mardak said he, too, planned to continue expanding. “Some of our employees are brokers,” Mr. Mardak said. “We tell them to drum up business. Trading doesn’t happen unless you make it happen.”

He dismisses the idea that trading Web sites like eBay are competition for International Monetary Systems. EBay is “more of an exchange for liquidating, not trading,” Mr. Mardak said. As for smaller companies, like Joe Barter and other exchanges that have fewer business members, he said, “They’re only swap sites; they have no supplier network.”

Mr. Daley of Joe Barter says he thinks the spread of Internet commerce supports his business vision. He plans to avoid using special barter dollars in transactions, relying on Internet trading enhanced by new technology. “I want to keep it simple,” he said. His company is intended to earn its way through business referral fees and online advertising.

“The evolving technology works for us,” Mr. Daley said. “We can target more specific groups; I’m going to hire people to market across the country.”

The barter industry is also aware of evolution. “The Internet is a two-edged sword,” Ms. Vardabash of International Monetary Systems said. “It facilitates spreading the trading community, but it also brings in competitors of every stripe.”

This column about small-business trends in California and the West appears on the third Thursday of every month. E-mail: jamesflanigan@nytimes.com.

The Utilization of Women-Owned Small Businesses in Federal Contracting Study

(find study here)

In its procurement efforts, the federal government actively seeks to foster participation by small and disadvantaged businesses. In December 2000, Congress sought to increase procurement from women-owned small businesses (WOSBs) by enacting Section 8(m) of the Small Business Act, 15 U.S.C. Section 637(m), which defines WOSBs as businesses that qualify as “small” according to Small Business Administration (SBA) size standards, are majority-owned by women, and are certified as economically disadvantaged. However, WOSBs need not be economically disadvantaged to qualify for procurement preferences in contracts of up to $3 million ($5 million in manufacturing contracts) in industries where they are found to be “substantially underrepresented.”

This study was undertaken in response to a request by the SBA for the RAND Corporation to provide different measures of WOSB representation in federal contracting, by industry. The work was funded by the SBA and completed under the auspices of the RAND Labor and Population program and the Kauffman-RAND Institute for Entrepreneurship Public Policy.

RAND Labor and Population has built an international reputation for conducting objective, high-quality, empirical research to support and improve policies and organizations around the world. Its work focuses on labor markets, social welfare policy, demographic behavior, immigration, international development, and issues related to aging and retirement, with a common aim of understanding how policy and social and economic forces affect individual decisionmaking and the well-being of children, adults, and families.

Love Your Idea (Don’t Want to Finance It)

By BRENT BOWERS

AT age 62, Patrick Brooks believes he has identified the biggest winner yet of his entrepreneurial career: licensing rights to a Savile Row trademark, “Henry Milbourne & Son — established 1769.”

The magic of that brand name, he says, should give a major boost to his fledgling effort to sell luxury men’s apparel, made in Britain, over the Internet.

But while potential investors had only good things to say about his planned venture, few are willing to invest in it.

“Henry Milbourne has a great plan to combine the old-school industry of custom-tailored shirts with the modern Internet model,” said Michael Hammond, founder and chief executive of Copana Partners, a New York investment firm.

“Keep working this strategy; it has great potential,” said Marvin Wilcher, acquisition strategies consultant for Solar Capital in Benicia, Calif.

Still, neither Mr. Hammond nor Mr. Wilcher planned to provide money for Mr. Brooks’s venture, Henry Milbourne & Son Ltd. of Arcadia, Calif. (The Web site, http://henrymilbourne.com, is still in the works.)

Mr. Brooks said he had contacted about 500 angel investors and angel-investor groups and 40 venture capital firms and boutique investment bankers over the last year to raise the $2.5 million he thinks he needs. But only nine have put up any money, including his former wife. The total he has raised so far is $475,000.

To some extent, Mr. Brooks is snared in the Catch-22 paradox that bedevils many entrepreneurs who have come up with a promising product and marketing plan: investors are reluctant to open their wallets until they see a functioning business. But it is difficult to create a functioning business until the investors open their wallets.

In addition, he may be looking in the wrong places. Some of the investors he has contacted get involved only in deals worth at least $5 million.

“We have everything in place,” Mr. Brooks said. “We have the premises rented; the Web site under construction; the logo done; the marketing plan set up.” Even the boxes for the $365 custom shirts, $235 ready-to-wear shirts and $108 hand-made silk neckties, all British-made, have been designed, he said. (He plans to branch out from those core products to silk underwear, cashmere hosiery, toiletries, cufflinks and leather goods, and to fragrances made by the supplier to Truefitt & Hill, barbers to the British royal family.)

Moreover, he has invested $600,000 of his own money, including $300,000 for the Henry Milbourne & Son trademark rights, and has spent two years trying to put the company together, paying himself no salary.

Mr. Brooks, a native of St. Vincent in the West Indies, said his African heritage might also be an impediment. The issue is not racism, he said, but the fact that he does not have a network of well-heeled friends and acquaintances that he can tap.

Luke Visconti, co-founder of DiversityInc magazine, which covers diversity in the workplace, said aspiring black entrepreneurs are at a clear disadvantage. “There are almost no black-run venture firms and very few black angel investors,” Mr. Visconti said. “Successful black entrepreneurs are scarce, and they are getting hit on every day.”

As for family and friends, a traditional first stop for start-ups, Mr. Visconti said the average wealth of black households in the United States is one-tenth that of white households.

“The circle of wealth that black people can tap into is minuscule compared with what is available to well-connected white people,” he said.

Mr. Visconti added that the slowing economy might also be cutting into the funds available for a start-up.

Mr. Brooks conceded that investors were more cautious than they were a year ago, but he said he believed that there were still plenty of deep pockets in search of opportunities.

The real problem, potential investors he has contacted say, is that he needs to narrow his hunt for money.

Mr. Hammond of Copana Partners, for example, said the deal was too small for his firm. “Unfortunately, start-ups like Henry Milbourne often find themselves in no man’s land when looking for capital between $1 million and $5 million,” he said. “The capital requested is too small to attract big institutional investors.” On the other hand, it can be difficult to raise even $1 million from acquaintances or angel investors, he said.

Paul Azous, managing member of the A.Z.O. Group, a consulting firm in Seattle, said, “That much money for a start-up without a track record — I’ve never seen it happen.”

These investors did have some words of advice. Mr. Hammond urged Mr. Brooks to “better the odds by creating a proof of concept,” notably by developing a “full-blown professional-looking home page to communicate to investors his exact brand image, layout, style and Web site.” He also suggested that Mr. Brooks take a quick test of his products’ appeal by standing outside an office building and handing out fliers, then going inside and making pitches door to door. “Prove to investors that demand exists,” he said.

Mr. Azous encouraged Mr. Brooks to open a store, seek investors who specialize in retailing and, above all, be persistent. “It’s a marathon, not a sprint,” he said.

Mr. Brooks accepted some of the advice, like aiming at investors more carefully. But he rejected other parts, like going after tiny investments or peddling high-end apparel on the street.

He remains confident that he can meet his goal of raising $2.5 million by summer. Realizing he needs to jump-start the process, he has hired several professionals over the last month, including lawyers with connections to high-wealth individuals, to scout around for him. “Three or four good investors would take care of it,” he said.

In his favor, he has the entrepreneurial gene. As a child growing up in St. Vincent, he made money photographing villagers with his Kodak Brownie 127. In 1989, he started Bio-Dental Technologies with $16,000 in savings and built it into a $33 million distributor of dental products before selling it to Zila for $35 million in 1994, making a seven-figure profit for himself.

His other big money-making adventure was engineering reverse mergers, in which he created public companies, combined them with privately held firms that wanted to go public without dealing with a lot of regulatory problems, and cashed out. He completed eight such transactions, he said, grossing about $2 million.

He said he continued to make progress in his latest venture. Late last week, he said, two investors who previously were not interested in his company took a new look at it, and one wrote a check for $75,000, while the other seems close to making a commitment. He renewed talks with a third investor this week.

“We hope to be operational in about three months,” Mr. Brooks said. “This is a company whose time has come.”

The Goal Is to Do the Right Thing

By PAUL SULLIVAN

TERRACYCLE’S fertilizer is priced the same as its competitors’. It is on the same store shelves, from Home Depot to Wal-Mart. But comparisons stop there.

The company prides itself on making a product that its co-founder, Tom Szaky, calls “green to the extreme”: its base ingredient is made by feeding trash to worms and collecting their nutrient-rich wastes, a process that he perfected using dining-hall refuse as a student at Princeton University.

The product is packaged in used soda bottles, which instead of being recycled — requiring melting the plastic — are cleaned and relabeled. TerraCycle’s other products are likewise “upcycled” — a compost from an old wine barrel, a handbag from drink pouches and a bird feeder that is an upside-down two-liter soda bottle. This month, OfficeMax announced it would begin carrying TerraCycle’s eco-binders and drink-pouch pencil cases.

“We became the world’s first company to make everything out of trash,” Mr. Szaky said, although he is proudest of his competitive pricing, which will push sales from just under $4 million in 2007 to an estimated $8.5 million this year. “Every American wants to do the right thing for the environment, but few are willing to pay even a penny more for something that’s green.”

Mr. Szaky’s emphasis on being profitable and consumer-friendly, as well as green, is what Andrea C. Levine, director of the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, calls “Green II.” In the early 1990s, she worked in the New York State attorney general’s office policing bogus claims of ecofriendliness during Green I.

“There were people selling plastic forks saying they were environmentally friendly because you didn’t have to wash them,” she said. Nowadays, businesses are held to higher standards because consumers are more skeptical of claims and more aware of threats like climate change.

“Environmental claims are kind of like nutritional claims,” Ms. Levine said. “Consumers can’t evaluate them themselves.”

The building industry has established a ratings system as part of its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program, which awards points based on green criteria. The Organic Materials Review Institute issues rulings on whether a product can call itself organic. But there are few definite rules for what a company needs to do to call itself green.

Ms. Levine sees small businesses making legitimate efforts to provide information about their green efforts. “Consumers understand today that not washing plastic forks is not a serious environmental move,” she said. The absence of a standard criteria by which companies can compare claims, however, complicates the issue for businesses and their customers.

Companies like PlanetTran and Dropps are trying to give an ecosheen to such historically ungreen industries as airport livery service and detergent.

PlanetTran has a fleet of Toyota Prius hybrids in Boston and San Francisco that average 50 miles a gallon of gasoline — compared with under 20 for Town Cars — while Dropps puts its concentrated detergent in premeasured packages that dissolve in water.

Dropps takes pains to show how using its product helps the environment. Its detergent is biodegradable and phosphate-free. But the Philadelphia-based company tests credulity with a claim that the soap could eliminate the consumption of 6.2 million gallons of diesel fuel and save 502 million gallons of water if it were used in the 25 billion loads of laundry done in the United States annually with liquid detergent. Its spokeswoman acknowledges that based on its sales, Dropps accounts for only 2 million to 4 million loads a year.

PlanetTran takes a different tack, since taking public transportation would be greener than driving a hybrid car. Its founder, Seth Riney, views the service as an improvement over the public’s taking poorly maintained taxis, less expensive than using conventional limousine services and a tool for companies that want to reduce their carbon footprint. Its first large corporate account was Genzyme, a Boston biotechnology company with a green ethos.

“It’s one thing to have a green business,” Mr. Riney said. “It’s another thing to help other companies to be green.” Even TerraCycle is as ungreen as its competitors in one regard: it ships its products to stores in diesel-powered trucks. Mr. Szaky makes no apologies for this.

“The most sustainable concept is, ‘Don’t buy, use as few things as possible,’ ” he said. “But that’s never going to happen. We’re trying to change consumer behavior in the world’s biggest retailers.”

Farshad Sayan has been changing his company’s behavior so that his customers do not have to change theirs.

An Iranian immigrant, he has been in the dry-cleaning business around Boston since he was a college student in the 1970s. In the late ’90s, he decided to sell his chain of stores. With the deal set to close, he learned that the ground beneath one shop was contaminated with perchloroethylene, a common dry-cleaning solvent known as perc, which has been linked to increased risks of cancer.

Several hundred thousand dollars later, the soil was clean, but the deal had collapsed. After that, Mr. Sayan dedicated himself to becoming the greenest businessman he could possibly be.

Today, he operates Clevergreen Cleaners, a small chain of green dry cleaners.

The dry-cleaning machine sprays clothes with DF-2000, said by some to be a more ecofriendly solvent, instead of soaking them in perc. The process is better for delicate clothes, and the solvent can be reused.

His washing machines are designed to use a minimum amount of water, while the steam used in the pressing machines heats the dryers on its way up from the boiler. There are no incandescent lights.

Yet Mr. Sayan has not let striving to be green hurt his reputation as a conscientious cleaner. “We didn’t want to produce a mediocre product,” Mr. Sayan said. “We wanted to be green but the best.”

This highlights a quirk in Green II. It is about providing something to American consumers that is ready and affordable, but not changing their lifestyles too much.

“No one wants to drive 40 miles per hour all the time, so they buy a Prius so they can drive the way they were driving and save fuel,” said Jonathan Propper, founder of Dropps. “You’ve got to give people the tools. With Dropps, they won’t have to buy all that plastic.”

Those fighting for a radical solution are still marginalized. Greasecar can convert a diesel-powered car into a zero-carbon emissions vehicle for around $1,000 — and do the same for a commercial truck for about $10,000. But the company’s high-water mark for sales was just over $2 million in 2006, when consumers were shocked by rising gasoline prices. Now that people have become accustomed to paying more at the pump, Greasecar’s sales have slowed. One reason is the need for a commitment: Greasecar engines run on waste oil from restaurants, which owners must process themselves.

Raising Rates Without Losing Clients

By BRENT BOWERS

With the economy in the doldrums, the question that consultants, freelancers and other solo service providers have long puzzled over — How to raise prices without losing customers — just got harder to answer.

After all, a client who is also struggling is not likely to sympathize with someone else’s financial woes.

Ruth Deming, who quit her job as a psychotherapist to start the New Directions Support Group in Philadelphia for victims of depression and bipolar disorder, contacted me recently to voice her frustration about the low return on her labors. “We draw 60 people per meeting and charge $3 per person,” she said. “Any ideas on how this penniless do-gooder can make more money?”

At about the same time, I received another e-mail appeal from a reader, who did not give his name or respond to subsequent e-mail queries. But I found his question timely. “I’m at a critical point in my one-person consulting business, three years in, becoming ‘the guy’ that my clients turn to when they need to learn as much as they can about a competitor, a potential acquisition and the like,” he said. “My quandary: having offered below-market (but fair) rates for my first few years to build my client base, I’m now a bit uncertain as to how I can/should raise my hourly rates closer to industry norms without alienating my existing base, all of whom have given me very positive feedback about the quality of my service. Are there any delicate yet firm ways to navigate this stage of my business’ growth?”

And finally, Caryn Leschen, a San Francisco graphic designer, copywriter and illustrator, who charges $75 an hour, told me that she has developed strategies to deal with sticker shock, ranging from hand-holding to breaking up the cost of a project into small pieces.

Ms. Deming, who is 62 years old and describes herself as a cured manic depressive, has been juggling quite a few entrepreneurial balls. In addition to running her support group, which meets twice a month, she teaches bread-making classes, holds an occasional seminar (including one at a local hospital on the “joy of intimacy”), does counseling, writes freelance newspaper articles, drives women to doctors’ appointments and works as a poll inspector during elections. But all those undertakings do not add up to a lot of money. Even with the Social Security checks she now receives, she has trouble making ends meet.

To her question about how to make more money at New Directions, my amateur advice was to raise the fee to $5 from $3. Though a 67 percent increase, it would be from such a small base that few participants would be likely to object, I reasoned, and parting with a $5 bill would barely be more onerous that counting out three singles. Yet, her income might well go up by $240 a month.

Ms. Deming agreed to give it a try. But perhaps, I mused after learning that she had started the company in 1985, she needed to think a little bit harder about her finances.

I called Marc S. Jacobs, founder of the New Business Directions consulting firm in Blue Bell, Pa., who had recently done pro-bono work advising Ms. Deming on how to improve her business model. I asked him what steps he would recommend to solo entrepreneurs who want to raises their rates.

There is a simple formula to calculate a minimum hourly rate, he said, but it cannot be done in a vacuum. It is imperative, he said, for these entrepreneurs to write a business plan first that states clearly what they want to do, how they intend to do it, and foresees revenues, expenses and profits for the first several years.

Once they have done that, Mr. Jacobs said, they should add up weekly living costs and business outlays and divide by 20, which is the number of billable hours to shoot for. “Now you have what you need to charge per hour, and you can compare that to the marketplace rate,” he said.

Entrepreneurs who are just getting started will probably have to charge less than seasoned competitors, he said. So much the better if savings can subsidize their initial efforts and give them breathing room to expand the business.

What about my recommendation to Ms. Deming to raise her fee to $5? Mr. Jacobs was skeptical that it would solve the problem. “Moving it up by $2 would be helpful, but it’s not going to change her ability to make this happen as a business venture,” he said.

As for the consultant who wanted to know how to augment his rates without alienating existing customers, Mr. Jacobs’s counsel was to be gentle.

First, he said, increase them for new clients only, and use the exercise to explore how high you can push the rates.

Then, he said, the consultant should inform existing customers in person — not in writing — that he plans to raise rates by 5 to 10 percent. “Have a conversation as part of a regular visit,” he said. “Make it casual. Tell them why you’re doing it. Say something like ‘I hope we can work out an agreement.’ ”

Some customers will say there is no way they can afford to pay more, he said. In that case, the consultant have to decide whether to let them go.

Ms. Leschen, the San Francisco graphic designer and illustrator, has been gradually raising her hourly rate to $75 from $40 in 1996, when she started doing Web work.

It is never easy to ask for more money, she said, and she tries to be flexible, charging as little as $60 to nonprofits and up to $100 to some advertising agencies.

Ms. Leschen, 49, said she has had to fight her natural inclination to please customers with bargain prices. For a given job, she said, “I think in my head, ‘Say $500,’ when I know I should really say, ‘$1,000,’ and then I hear ‘$700’ coming out of my mouth.”

One of her tricks for forcing herself to give higher numbers, she said, is to stop thinking in dollars and “pretend it’s a different money system; pretend it’s lire,” a reference to the Italian currency that was trading at 2,150 to the dollar before it was replaced by the euro.

Another way she tries to soften the blow to customers with tight budgets is to break down an undertaking into “pieces,” she said. Rather than quoting a price of $5,000 for a project, for example, she will offer to do the first step, creating a company logo, for $1,200, and go from there.

As she designs the logo, she says, customers are invariably asking her for additional work, and she cheerfully complies with their requests. The result is that they rarely complain if her final bill is at the high end of her original estimate.

Finally, after working with someone with technology know-how this year to start a venture to create Web sites called the Site Kiosk, she has found that having a partner can give her the willpower to be a tough negotiator. If her collaborator runs a job estimate by her, “I’ll say no, not $500, it should be $800,” she said.

Ms. Deming, meanwhile, informed her support group last Thursday about her rate increases, and that day collected about $110 more than her recent average. “There wasn’t even a whimper of objection,” she said. “I should have done this sooner.”