Happy Valentine's Day

This Valentine's Day, the average person will spend $116.21 on cards, flowers, lingerie or dinner, for a total of more than $15.7 billion on gifts nationwide.

If each person spent that $116.21 at a locally owned independent business (rather than a national chain), $79 would stay in their community thanks to local payrolls and taxes. More than $10.67 billion would be reinvested in local communities throughout the country. If each person bought their gifts only at national chains instead, that reinvestment number drops to $6.7 billion.

Those figures come from Independent We Stand, a movement dedicated to promoting the importance of buying from local businesses.

There are lots of perks available if you join the movement, so check it out!

Female Empowerment

It's Woman, Hear Me Roar week at Bloomberg Businessweek this week, thanks to yours truly.

I have two female-empowerment tomes posted just today, rather coincidentally in terms of timing, but both worth checking out (IMHO).

One is on a new book that highlights how minority women entrepreneurs are doing business differently than the "norm" but still succeeding.

The other, which also appears in this week's print edition, is on the perplexing and little-noticed problem of how few women entrepreneurs enter business contests.

Contests, schmontests, you may say. But hold on a minute! Those contests do wonders for business owners in terms of training, increased confidence, expert feedback and exposure to investors and potential partners. And that's not even mentioning perks like money, awards and publicity.

And yet, the contests are thoroughly dominated by men, though there are moves afoot to increase women's participation. An interesting conundrum and one that allowed me to conduct a bunch of fascinating interviews.

Like Janelle Shubert, who's quoted in the piece, sometimes you just want to "put your head down and weep."

Visualization Can Help

In the spirit of sharing useful resources with small business owners, I submit Payoff, a free, interactive website that applies game dynamics to finances.

It puts together infographics that I suspect could be helpful in making business decisions. One of the toughest early decisions for startup companies is what form of legal structure to choose. This graphic allows you to compare ownership structures based on their longevity and personal liability.

(You should be able to click on and enlarge this)

Improv Tricks

What does improvisational acting have in common with small business ownership?

Not much, I would say off the top of my head. But the answer turns out to be "quite a lot," if you equate improv with networking.

Financially inKleined reader Rose King recently let me know about a fascinating article that lists 25 improv tips that entrepreneurs can use to make and keep strong business relationships.

Give it a look; you might learn something before you go to that next Chamber Mixer.

Minority Business Opportunity Day

Southern California's largest, nonprofit advocacy organization for minority-owned businesses, the Minority Business Development Council, is holding an important event on Feb. 24 in Industry Hills.

The 35th annual Minority Business Opportunity Day offers small and minority businesses "access to corporate representatives, seminars and workshops featuring procurement professionals from major corporations and organizations, networking opportunities at the business opportunity exhibit fair, and more."

The event, held at the Pacific Palms Conference Resort, will include a panel discussion on how to do business with major automakers featuring procurement executives from Nissan North America, Hyundai Motor America, American Honda Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Sales, USA.

Information and registration is available online.

Fast Pitch

If you have never attended a fast pitch competition, you should. An audience of entrepreneurs, investors, professors and students gather to watch selected entrepreneurs get up and give brief, concise and (ideally) exciting descriptions of their business ideas and why they should attract investment.

The really good pitch fests provide consulting and training for the entrepreneurs ahead of time, so they are ready to blow the room away with their commitment and creativity. The energy at these events is always crackling.

The best pitch fests I have attended are sponsored by our local Tech Coast Angels. Their sixth Annual Fast Pitch is coming up later this month:

The Tech Coast Angels 6th Annual LA Fast Pitch Competition is February 24th at UCLA Anderson School of Business. CEOs of 8-10 startups, selected from more than 100 applicants, will have 90 seconds to pitch their companies to a panel of judges. The winner will be invited to present their company and business plan at a Tech Coast Angels deal-screening session.

The 6th annual event will include presentations from CEOs and venture capitalists on funding and starting a company, and the Fast Pitch competition. A light dinner and refreshments will be served after the program at a networking event that will be attended by investors, entrepreneurs and other industry experts.

Check the website if you're interested in pitching or attending. Applications are due this weekend.

When Life Gives You Lemons

I've always given away the bounteous fruit from my over-achieving lemon tree.

But what do you do when life hands you an over-achieving lemon tree and a fruit-fly quarantine?

You make lemonade. And lemon juice. And lemon bars. And lemon curd.

Oh my goodness, lemon curd*. Try it mixed with a little Cool-Whip over angel food cake with some berries on top.

Yum!

*Thanks, Dorothy!