sutton030

If you own a restaurant or are thinking of starting one, consider how much the prices you charge effect the ratings your food earns.  Here's a fact of life confirmed by new research: Taste perception can be manipulated by price alone. C ustomers paying more at a restaurant buffet perceive the food as tastier than the same food offered at a lower price, suggesting taste perception can be manipulated by price alone. Researchers in nutrition, economics and consumer behavior often assume that taste is a given -- a person naturally either likes or dislikes a food. But a new study suggests taste perception, as well as feelings of overeating and guilt, can be manipulated by price alone. Suggested reading click on image "We were fascinated to find that pricing has little impact on how much one eats, but a huge impact on how you interpret the experience," said Brian Wansink, Ph.D., a professor at the Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University who oversa...

I f you currently operate a store or website that sells wedding gifts, you’ve probably noticed a pattern in the gift selection your customers make. If you’re thinking of opening a retail store or site and considering offering gifts, there is a pattern in the purchases people make of which you should be aware. According to research published in 2013 in the International Journal of Electronic Marketing and Retailing, how you select stock price points effects your overall success.  If you think, "I'll offer both expensive and inexpensive gifts," you're on the right track, but you should consider how people purchasing off of gift registries behave.  It's a little more complex than just expensive and cheap. According to a statistical analysis of the gift "fulfillments" at 500 online wedding gift registries, “wedding guests are caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to buying an appropriate gift for the happy couple.” The rock is the desire of so...

W ho was Lucrezia Borgia?  Tradition has it that she may have poisoned her second husband, Giovanni Sforza.  Rumor of the day had it that Lucretia had incestuous relations with both her father, Rodrigo Borgia, later Pope Alexander VI, and her brother, Cesare Borgia.   What is know for certain is that Lucretia was the illegitimate daughter of Rodrigo, then a cardinal of the Catholic Church, and his mistress,  Vannozza dei Cattanei.  It is known that she was married three times, the first being annulled as never being consummated (despite her giving birth a few months after the annulment).  The second marriage ended in the death of her husband, Giovanni, and her third to  Alfonso d'Este, son of the powerful Duke of Ferrera.  This was also to be Alfonso's third marriage, which ended when Lucrezia dies ten days after she gave birth to a stillborn daughter.  She also had affairs (as did her husbands) with several political figures of the...

" Elite job prospects likely steer clear of potential employers they don't trust ." I t's a common practice for employers, from the very large to the very small, to screen the Facebook, MySpace and other social media sites of job prospects as part of the hiring process. Research from North Carolina State University is clear that this practice is likely to backfire by alienating the very prospects you most want to staff your business. In some cases, social media screening even increases the likelihood that you could find yourself in court, defending yourself. "The recruiting and selection process is your first indication of how you'll be treated by a prospective employer," says Will Stoughton, a Ph.D. student at NC State and lead author of a paper describing the research. "If elite job prospects feel their privacy has been compromised, it puts the hiring company at a competitive disadvantage." The results of two studies In the first study, 175 p...

W orking with prospective entrepreneurs that lack management training or experience has its joys, one of which is helping them develop a mindset that can lead them and their businesses to success. Mindset includes, to my way of thinking, learning to think like a business owner, keeping a rough P&L and Balance Sheet running in the mind, learning to think about their business as do their customers and prospective customers, learning to evaluate opportunity, how to capture it and use it to build their business without wasting time over analyzing the situation. Mindset involves attitude as well as skills, so in the workshops I lead, students spend time learning simple but useful attitude management practices based on the latest science. According to researchers PhD student John-Erik Mathisen and Associate Professor Jan Ketil Arnulf at BI Norwegian Business School, increased formal competence (business education) affects the mindset of people who are interested in becoming an entreprene...

Having worked in advertising and direct response for most of my career, I am very aware of how difficult it is to create an effective promotional piece.  It's about one half science and one half trial and error. So when a new science based technique is introduced that offers to increase response by a whopping 15%, professionals in the field sit up and take notice.  To put this in perspective, through dint of effort we were able to increase response by one or two percent, that was a major accomplishment.  Five percent and our clients thought we could walk on water.  Fifteen percent? Almost unheard of since the day N.W. Ayers invented the ad agency just after the Civil War. So what is this technique?  It's facial selection, not through trial and error, but through facial recognition software as used by law enforcement and security organizations. Here's the story: M erely changing the face of a model in an ad increases the number of potential purchasers by as much ...

The USA is the most entrepreneurial economy in the world, according to the 2014 Global Entrepreneurship and Development Index . The GEDI index combines data on entrepreneurial activities and aspirations with data describing how well the country supports entrepreneurial activity in the US and 119 other countries across the world. The USA came top, followed by Canada, Australia and Sweden in second, third and fourth place, respectively. #1 in Venture Capital The researchers found that the USA is a world leader when it comes to financing new businesses through venture capital. This type of financial capital is provided to early-stage, high-potential and riskier start-up companies. This enables many new businesses to develop. About the Study The study was carried out by researchers from Imperial College Business School in association with the London School of Economics and Political Science, University of Pécs and George Mason University. Professor Erkko Autio, of Imperial College Business...

Phrases that pay on Kickstarter A s part of a study of more than 45,000 projects on Kickstarter, Georgia Tech researchers reveal dozens of phrases that pay and a few dozen more that may signal the likely failure of a crowd-sourced effort. Researchers at Georgia Tech studying the burgeoning phenomenon of crowdfunding have learned that the language used in online fundraising hold surprisingly predictive power about the success of such campaigns. Suggested reading click on image As part of their study of more than 45,000 projects on Kickstarter, Assistant Professor Eric Gilbert and doctoral candidate Tanushree Mitra reveal dozens of phrases that pay and a few dozen more that may signal the likely failure of a crowd-sourced effort. "Our research revealed that the phrases used in successful Kickstarter campaigns exhibited general persuasion principles," said Gilbert, who runs the Comp. Social Lab at Georgia Tech. "For example, those campaigns that follow the concept of recipr...

I f you're considering starting a restaurant, food cart or café, or will be catering, or any combination of the above, you should know that buying local can be a winning strategy especially if the food has a unique selling point that appeals to customers.  Just sourcing local is not enough according to newly released research from Penn State. Local foods must have a unique selling point "Past experiences will have an impact on buying local foods," said Amit Sharma, associate professor of hospitality management, Penn State. "Restaurant managers who buy local foods currently are significantly more likely to keep purchasing locally." In a study of the cost and benefits of purchasing local foods in restaurants, managers and chefs indicated that certain actions of local food producers stand out as reasons why they continue to buy local foods. For instance, managers said that a local farmer's or producer's response time -- the time it took a business to respon...

A s a certified Baby-boomer(circa 1949) retiree (2012), I elected to "retire" young to pursue a career that I had long desired, combining my love of science and my avocation of working with prospective small business owners and entrepreneurs. My decision is far from uncommon as is the decision by many boomers to continue to work beyond retirement age either staying on a full-time job, working part-time or starting a business.  Other research shows that taking retirement and actually retiring tends to shorten a retiree's life, and that staying active and involved lengthens it, as well as keeping a retiree healthier and mentally sharper. As more baby boomers reach retirement age, employers such as state governments face the likelihood of higher workforce turnover. For example, in the state of Missouri, more than 25 percent of all active state employees will be eligible to retire by 2016. Such large numbers of retirees threaten the continuity, membership and institutional hi...

Source: madamenoire.com If you're a woman thinking of starting a business with a male partner, think twice about it.  Why? Research from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill documents that the man will take over, forcing you, the woman, into a secondary role.  This despite the research that woman-run businesses are more likely to succeed and/or be more profitable.  This applies whether it's a start-up or on the Board of the largest corporation. There are a number of reasons why women make better entrepreneurs and women-owned and managed are more successful.  According to research it seems to be because women are better at building teams, better at communication, better at considering outside factors such as civic responsibility.   Here's the research report: Women entrepreneurs have limited  chances to lead their new businesses Recommended Reading Click on image W omen who start new businesses with men have limited opportunities to move into lead...

Business plans are nonsense.   That is, FINANCIAL Business Plans are nonsense. What is a Financial Business Plan?  It’s the plan that a business owner or prospective business owner writes in the vain hope of obtaining financing from a bank, an investor, an angel or a Venture Capitalist.  This type of business plan is at best described as pie-in-the-sky fiction, based on base-case scenarios and wishful thinking.   Think I’m overstating this? Read my post:   The Myth of Venture Capital I Personally Recommend Click on image for info Personally, I wouldn’t waste my time or my money if for no other reason than no one reads them and if they do, they do not believe what’s in them.  To quote author, CPA and small business consultant, Ebong Eka, in his recent book, Start Me Up ,  “ Business plans are bullshit .”   I can’t argue his conclusion about financial or funding business plans.  They are at best exercises in mental masturbation and at wors...

The question is: should family businesses always keep it in the family?  From the Murdochs to the Hiltons, families have long sought to keep their businesses in the bloodline. But new research shows that's not necessarily the best method of management. The recent study, published in the journal Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, shows that if the family business is part of a traditional industry built on quality and reputation, a family member would make a good CEO. But  if it operates in an industry that values innovation, and the firm has to stay on the cutting edge, it's best to look elsewhere for leadership. The study's lead author, CIBC Distinguished Professor of Family Business Peter Jaskiewicz, says that in industries that prioritize pushing boundaries over preserving tradition, an aggressive attitude in the marketplace is necessary to lead. "Because family CEOs tend to focus more on family values, while non-family CEOs seek to innovate, that means a CEO from...