Distributor News

Newton Manufacturing, Newton, Iowa, is pleased to announce that Pranav Mehta has joined the company as senior I.T. manager.

Boundless Network, Austin, Texas, announced a record second quarter, ending on June 30, 2011. The company added 20 distributor partners from April to June in 2011. 

There is no denying the marketing power of Facebook. With more than 500 million users, it has become a must-use marketing platform for businesses large and small. While Facebook's staggering membership stats alone are enough to entice small business owners, few actually know how to do so effectively. To help, BizBytes 101 has prepared a list of the 10 most common Facebook marketing mistakes small businesses make and how you can avoid them.

A California woman pleaded guilty to fraud Friday for selling $2.1 million of non-existent merchandise to Medtronic Inc.

Jennifer Rutherford, 40, of San Jose, Calif., pleaded guilty in federal court in Minneapolis to one count of wire fraud and faces a prison sentence of up to 20 years.

She was responsible for choosing vendors to supply T-shirts, key chains, baseball caps and other marketing merchandise that company representatives could distribute at trade shows, government attorneys said.

Rutherford said in her plea that from June 2004 to June 2009, she created three shell companies and then pretended to buy merchandise from the shell companies.

The U.S. labor market could stay sluggish for a while, with small-business executives reluctant to hire amid the murky economic outlook.

Almost two-thirds—64 percent—of small-business executives surveyed said they weren't expecting to add to their payrolls in the next year and another 12 percent planned to cut jobs, according to a U.S. Chamber of Commerce report to be released Monday. Just 19 percent said they would expand their work forces.

This comes after a Labor Department report Friday showed employers added few jobs in June, and unemployment rose to 9.2 percent.

Click through for some handy tips on improving your online marketing.

Managing a small business can be stressful, confusing, rewarding and overwhelming—sometimes all in the same day. And sometimes all in the same hour.

"Owning and running a small business is hard work," says Karen Mills, head of the Small Business Administration.

But the workload can get easier, and owners can find more business success, when they seek out support and advice.

Those who utilize long-term counselors or tap into peer networks tend to have better sales, Mills says. They also get firsthand stories of what has worked—and what not—in areas such as financing, hiring and buying new equipment.

So, Google+ has been out now for more than 48 hours. Google's new social platform is indeed a hot topic. Why? Because Google has at last decided to devote massive resources to a social media project. The result is a combination of what other social players are offering.

Proforma, Cleveland, a leader in the print and promotional products industries, brings its Convention & Family Reunion to the Hilton New Orleans Riverside in New Orleans July 24-27.

One of the most common goals for a B2B website is lead generation. Yet B2B marketers consistently identify lead quality as their #1 challenge. Here are four proven techniques to improve the quality of your search-generated leads.

First, track and evaluate raw inquiries and accepted leads.

• Raw inquiries include every contact record generated by your marketing program
• Accepted leads are a subset of these inquires and are typically those that contain legitimate and desirable contact information.

For example, before loading inquiries into a lead tracking system, many companies eliminate records with bogus email addresses, or inquiries associated with competitors, current customers, students or consultants.