Focus

Ram Motilall, president of Newport-based Diversified Manufacturing Corp., knows something about searching for the right home.

Motilall has moved the manufacturer of personal care products, animal shampoos, cleaning products and automotive products four times before settling off Highway 61, about 10 miles southeast of downtown St. Paul. Prior to that the 80-employee business was headquartered in Eagan and before that Minneapolis. Before moving the business back to the east metro, Motilall considered locations in Edina, Chaska and western Wisconsin.

One small-business owner who took advantage of resources available in the east metro is Ge Lee, owner of Today?s Fashion at the corner of University and Western avenues in St. Paul. His store?s $450,000 expansion is expected to add more jobs in the Midway area.

Lee grew through the Small Business Expansion Program, launched in April, which marries public bodies with private capital to provide economic assistance.

The city of St. Paul backs the program beca?we don?t really have any choice,? says Randy Kelly, mayor of St. Paul, as cities lose millions of dollars in state aid. ?The only option is to expand our tax base and grow jobs in the city. We are pursuing that goal like a heat-seeking missile.?

Business owners are often tapped to speak in front of groups, whether employees or potential investors or industry peers. Joan Wood Moser, president and CEO of Spoken Impact in St. Louis Park, urges anyone who?s tapped as a presenter to make an impact ? otherwise don?t bother, she says.

Moser, a professional speaker, has added three employees since starting her company in 2001. Heed her advice before you head to the podium next time.

Businesses have few constants: Employees come and go. Profits rise and fall. Ownership changes hands.

Meetings, however, are here to stay. But unlike visits to the dentist, paying your taxes, and other inescapable things in life, meetings and other corporate-related events don?t have to be painful. And a business owner or manager doesn?t have to have the creativity of a Martha Stewart or the deep pockets of a Bill Gates to add an unusual twist that livens up the atmosphere and makes the event more memorable, say event planners and presentation experts.

David Seeley?s start in the moving business was as horrific as the stereotypical moving story?the very image that Seeley?s Local Motion today strives to defy.

It was 1992 and he was 26, newly laid off from his job in the shipping department at ADC Telecommunications, and reluctantly going to business school at the University of Minnesota. To top it off his band broke up ? ?becawe were really, really bad,? says Seeley.

He took the layoff in stride, and still worked hard in school, but the band?s demise made him owner of the truck used to haul its equipment. The vehicle was ?old and dilapidated ? a truck that no one else would want.?

show has between 300 and 400 exhibitors, and the average attendee visits only 21 of those booths.

How to ensure your small business is one of the chosen?

With more than 15 years of experience in the trade show industry, Thimmesch has witnessed the best and the worst when it comes to trade shows. He?s director of marketing for Eagan-based Skyline Exhibits, a marketing communications company specializing in the design, manufacture, distribution and service of display and exhibit products.

The owners of Deephaven-based What A Gift!, a corporate and special occasion gift basket company, received a phone call in February 2002 that would forever change their business.
Simple Gourmet, one of their biggest competitors, made them an offer that was as tempting as the chocolates, cookies and other gourmet assortments that fill their executive gift baskets.

Simple Gourmet owner Margaret Tortorella Cronin left a message saying she wanted to discuss an opportunity, says Betsy Discher, who launched What a Gift! with Tauron Ferguson in 1999. That opportunity was acquiring Simple Gourmet.

?After we picked our jaws up off the floor, we called her back,? Discher says. The partners had never done a buyout before, and it certainly wasn?t in their business plan. However, they say it was an opportunity just too good to pass up.

Remember the bad old hiring days of the 1990s? When positions went unfilled for months and small-business owners were always worried about star performers jumping ship to a place that could offer them a new car just for signing on?

Sure, those days are over. But creating a good, strong culture and keeping employees happy is still important.

Although it?s been proven that happy employees equal higher profits, it may seem too difficult to keep employees happy when your company is struggling through a recession. But many employees may be simply hanging on to their job until the economy improves, says Lissa Weimelt, co-president of Minnetonka-based The Hiring Experts Inc. Once things turn around, unhappy employees will jump ship quickly.

Recent world events have left Americans with the sentiment that while work is important, it shouldn?t overshadow personal and family time. But striking a work/life balance is difficult without the understanding of employers.

Employers of all sizes have become receptive to more flexible work arrangements as they?ve come to realize that contented employees increase worker retention and productivity. Small employers, especially, have the edge becathey can create a flexible culture from the start.

Anita Baker has had a hand in changing workplace attitudes, starting at her own firm. She was the first woman at LarsonAllen, the large Minneapolis-based accounting firm, to become a principal while also raising small children. ?Working through that opened my eyes to what employers could do better to accommodate employees? needs,? she says.

During her 18 years at LarsonAllen, she has proposed ways to complement personal with professional priorities. And in October 2002, she was named chair of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) Work/Life and Women?s Initiatives Executive Committee, which develops products and services to help accounting firms and professionals strike their own work/life balance.

When Granite City Food & Brewery searched for a location for its first microbrewery and restaurant, St. Cloud topped the list.

The city, about 65 miles northwest of Minneapolis-St. Paul, is a mid-tier market, CEO Steve Wagenheim and his colleagues figured, and often ignored as some of the better restaurant chains focused on bigger cities. ?We wanted to prove the strength of the concept in smaller towns and then work our way to major markets,? Wagenheim says.

?So they took a risk and decided that they would target St. Cloud,? says Av Gordon, an attorney at Briggs & Morgan in Minneapolis who does legal work for the publicly held firm. ?It?s been a wild success.?