“Getting good marketing help is one of the biggest challenges facing small businesses today,” according to Anita Campbell, CEO of Small Business Trends.  Anita acknowledges that, “marketing is more challenging today than ever” and “business success is all about finding the right outside service providers and using them wisely.”

A common theme with small business owners is that they can’t afford the expense of marketing help. I’ve learned that whenever someone says they “can’t afford” something it usually means they don’t see the value of it. Savvy owners and managers do see the value of good marketing help. The problem is: finding and qualifying it.

Referrals are certainly a logical way to do it. And, often times they work out fine. On the other hand, what’s right for one business may be wrong for yours. If you understand that a m

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Grand & Benedicts has sold and built fixtures for retailers for more than 60 years and will now offer to build stores for companies from the ground up.Grand & Benedicts announced it has added a construction division that will allow the Portland retail fixture company to help clients renovate or build new stores.

The company, which also sells retail fixtures and offers store closing services, has in the past built and renovated four of its buildings, including showrooms, warehouses and offices, said Camilla Chalmers of Grand & Benedicts. Currently, the company’s team is building a new 31,000-square-foot headquarters and showroom on Southwest Macadam Avenue that’s expected to open in April.

Grand & Benedicts was born in 1980 from the merging of two longtime local companies — a hardware store and a retail decor business — and has gone on to become a major global producer of fixtures and custom systems. Read all post…

A maker of customized lamination panels and other cabinet components will invest $2 million to open a manufacturing facility in Henry County, creating at least 30 jobs, Gov. Bob McDonnell’s office announced Monday.

The Laminate Technologies facility in Henry County will supply many of the area’s kitchen cabinet manufacturers and give the company access to other mid-Atlantic furniture markets, the governor’s office said.

“This project is a great example of established companies attracting potential suppliers and building on an industry,” McDonnell said in the news release.

Henry County and the state provided $185,000 in incentives, with an additional $89,500 available for job training, according to the performance agreement documents.

The Henry County area has struggled for decades because of the loss of traditional manufacturing jobs in textiles, furniture and apparel.

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Moodys said it was also extending the reviews of the long-term ratings and standalone credit assessments of Credit Suisse (CSGN.VX), Macquarie (MQG.AX), Nomura (8604.T) and UBS (UBSN.VX)(UBS.N).

The announcement came shortly after Moodys said it was taking ratings action on 114 financial institutions in 16 European countries to reflect the impact of the continents debt crisis and the deteriorating creditworthiness of governments in the region.

“Capital markets firms are confronting evolving challenges, such as more fragile funding conditions, wider credit spreads, increased regulatory burdens and more difficult operating conditions,” Moodys said in a statement.

“These difficulties, together with inherent vulnerabilities such as confidence-sensitivity, interconnectedness, and opacity of risk, have diminished the longer term profitability and growth prospects of these firms, the agency said.

The public agency overseeing San Bernardino International Airport will discuss paying Paul Hastings LLC up to $25,000 to provide legal services and whether to create one or more ad hoc subcommittees at its next regular meeting at 3 p.m. Wednesday, according to the agenda for the airport authority.

The FBI and other law enforcement agencies raided San Bernardino International Airport offices and the rented home of the airport’s developer last week.

The Inland Valley Development Agency, made up of elected leaders from San Bernardino County’s east valley — which leads the redevelopment of former Norton Air Force Base property including the airport — will also be meeting.

The IVDA is expected to vote on multiple construction contracts and whether to approve the budget for the San Bernardino Enterprise Zone.

Both agencies have reserved time for closed sessions to discuss personnel issues.

The meetings start at 3 p.m.

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FORT WORTH, Texas _ American Airlines is “blaming labor agAAin,” the carrier’s workers said as they marched in front of Terminal D at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport on Tuesday.

About 300 flight attendants, mechanics and ground crew workers protested American Airlines’ restructuring plan that would layoff 13,000 employees, terminate pensions and shut down its Alliance Fort Worth maintenance facility.

Protesters held signs that said American needed to pay its pensions and that corporate greed at the carrier needs to end, referring to executive bonuses that management received in previous years.

“I have 14 years of service and if (management) gets what they want, I won’t have a job,” said Aaron Morrison, a wheel and brake shop mechanic who drove from Tulsa, Okla., to attend the protest.

The demonstration also attracted a few pilots and a couple of other local unions who were showing their support for the Association of Professional Flight Attendants and the Transport Workers Union.

Mary Ellen Matter, a flight attendant at Dallas-based Southwest Airlines, marched with her sister, Ruth Hammack, who is a flight attendant at American.

“(Management) keeps pushing them and taking things away,” Matter said.

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