In this issue
	Kutztown SBDC News Golf Passion - Genetti's Success Story Web Optimization or Waste of Time? - By Colin A. Bartlett Small Business Can Acquire Negotiating Skills by Alex Whan New Monthly Feature - Insights to Success by Don Martin

Golf Passion - Genetti's Success Story

Beverley and Mark Genetti are not new to entrepreneurship. For years they have experimented with business ventures such as selling country handmade crafts and furniture in conjunction with operating their own Christmas tree farm. Mark has recently left his long-standing job as a senior machine assembler at a local company, and Beverly has advanced her nursing in the operating room as a surgical assistant and is still presently employed by a private physician as well as a local hospital. They always knew that one day they would want a large operation, something fun and enjoyable that could act as a warm-season source of income, so that they could continue serving up Christmas trees with hot chocolate in the winter. Miniature-golf was perfect. The search was on for location. Scoping out numerous properties over a year's period of time to build their course from scratch, they negotiated on two prior Berks county properties before their current location was purchased. They acquired a Fleetwood location which already had a miniature golf course in place and without blinking an eye, decided to overhaul the entire course and building, working with Harris Miniature Golf Course, Inc. and numerous construction crews. They had expected to open in the beginning of the summer but faced many delays. Click here for the complete article about Genetti's and more pictures. »

Web Optimization or Waste of Time? - By Colin A. Bartlett

Search engine optimization (SEO for short) -- it's the ultimate key to your online success! Or is it? Every day I get queries from customer and prospects who ask how they can boost their site to the top of the Google rankings for "widgets". The long and short of it is this folks: you can't. Think of it from the perspective of Joe web surfer. When you search for widgets, whose site do you want at the top? The best, most popular, widget manufacturer? Or the one that has thousands of dollars to sink into search engine optimization? The former of course. And the fact is that no matter what you do to try and artificially boost yourself to the top of the rankings, it will certainly be reversed by the search engines' ever-changing ranking formulas a few months later. It's a loosing battle. Isn't there anything that can be done? Yes, there is! There are a number of best-practices that ensure that search engine spiders -- those automated computers that index the entire web --- are easily able to determine the content of your site and rank it appropriately. A search engine does not "see" a web page like a human does, it analyzes the textual content of the page. What a picture looks like, what an animation does, and many other elements of the page we take for granted cannot be seen by search engines. To compensate for this, a smart web developer will ensure that your sites file names, page titles, image descriptions, and text content match what might be used in search engines by web surfers. Click here for the complete story and info about Colin. »

Small Business Can Acquire Negotiating Skills by Alex Whan

The art of negotiation has somehow gotten a bad name. Perhaps it is the image of Nikita Khrushchev pounding his shoe on a table at the United Nations, or the endless teacher union negotiations that take place here in Pennsylvania every year. Small business negotiations should not and cannot follow these models. Business negotiations should follow one principle rule. That rule is win-win. Many small business owners frequently find themselves in negotiations and the confrontation illustrated above should be avoided at all costs. You and your client/customer should leave a negotiation feeling good about the result. Click here for the complete article and info about Alex. »

New Monthly Feature - Insights to Success by Don Martin

Insights to Success will be a monthly article sharing challenges/learning opportunities encountered by our clients every month relative to their day-to-day business activities. All Insights to Success articles will come from our clients' submittals. The format for the piece will consist of a brief introduction, the respective challenge, and the solution. Our initial Insight to Success comes from this month's quote and a new feature called "Consider This," found at the top of this newsletter. As a business owner we are often faced with the challenge of paying the bills at the end of the month. We need to work on the business, not just in the business. When we work on the business we often find ways of putting two and two together. The ingredients for success for your business may be right out in front of you and it simply requires you to put the ingredients together. The key is to work on the business not simply work in the business. WE ARE REQUESTING INSIGHTS TO SUCCESS ARTICLES OF 200 WORDS FROM OUR READERS. WE WILL SELECT ONE ARTICLE EACH MONTH AND SEND A GIFT TO THE AUTHOR. Please Email your Insight for Success articles to the Success Connection Editor Thomas Skiba at skib0124@kutztown.edu.