Councilman Jameson is Trying to Reform and Clarify Home-Based Business Zoning Laws in Tennessee

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I was interviewed by WSMV News Channel 4′s Cynthia Williams today about Councilman Jameson’s plan to clarify home-based business zoning laws and help small businesses become more compliant with Nashville’s strict zoning requirements.

Councilman Jameson has been a strong proponent of business reform in Nashville. Most notably, his introduction of the anti-gay bias legislation, requiring all businesses who work with Nashville Metro to sign affidavits stating that they will not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Although the final vote is not yet in from Metro Council, if passed through the Council, Mayor Karl Dean has committed to signing off on the bill.

I don’t believe that many people think of any small, home-based businesses as being illegal, and as Jameson points out there are steps that Metro Nashville can take to lift some of the zoning restrictions for home-based businesses. Typically home-based businesses that have employees working at their location and have customers come to their location are illegal.

Although I don’t fall into a category that deems my home-based business unlawful or illegal, due to the nature of my business and services provided, there are many home-based businesses that do. I think that it’s a concept that most people aren’t aware of, so understanding legislations and zoning laws are not something business owners are very familiar with.

Here’s some information I’ve been able to dig up about home-based businesses and zoning. I believe that Jameson is correct in stating that there needs to be clearer definitions of legal zoning and illegal zoning for businesses. Hopefully this information will prove useful for someone:

  1. Zoning laws may be determined by your city or county, depending on where you live.
  2. If you have a home-based business with no employees or walk-up business, issues with zoning may never arise.
  3. If your home-based business disturbs your neighbors, you may be reported for zoning violations. It’s best to discuss anything that may be disruptive to your neighbors in advance and negotiate.
  4. If your business takes up more space in your home than your actual living area, often referred to as “space percentage”, you may be in violation of zoning laws.
  5. It’s important to check that the types of products you are selling or manufacturing are not restricted in a residential area. This commonly refers to businesses dealing with chemicals, etc. Although there are other restricted products as well.
  6. Posting a sign for your business on your lawn may be a breach of zoning laws. Before posting a sign, you should read about signage laws in your area.
  7. There are just some businesses which should never be operated from home. These include medical businesses, tattoo parlors, auto repair and salvage, animal boarding, wedding chapels, etc
  8. You should ensure that you have the proper licenses to operate your business and pay required fees and taxes.

Currently, a home-based business is not allowed to ever have any customers on premises. Jameson’s new bill would allow up to 2 customers on premises per hour. Although I rarely have customers on premises (in fact, I’ve only had one in the past couple of years and that was a social visit), many home-based businesses cannot survive without this type of legislation. For instance home-based hair stylists or music/dance teachers would have to pay for commercially zoned space just to teach, thus putting a lot of music instructors and beauty professionals out of business.

I believe that Jameson will continue to help make Nashville a better place for businesses and citizens. My only hope is that in “correcting” what he feels to be an issue, he doesn’t unintentionally hinder the progress of the home-based business and entrepreneur. It has happened more than once that what starts out as a good thing, gets ripped to shreds throughout the legal process and becomes much worse in the end. Look at our healthcare reform bill, for instance!

Without home-based businesses, many of the major inventions and technological advances of today would not be possible. Dell, eBay, Apple, Mattel are just a few of the major industry players who started as home-based (or dorm-based) businesses. In fact, the founders of Whole Foods Market were kicked out of their home for storing food in their garage upon startup in 1978.  Since most of these companies started out with very little money, it is almost a given that they wouldn’t be here today if they had not been able to operate from their residence in the beginning. In 2010, these companies’ revenue exceeded $142 billion. Imagine the positive impact that amount of business has on our economy.

If your neighbor’s home-based business is interrupting your quiet and peaceful enjoyment… talk to them first. Perhaps you can come up with some sort of arrangement. Remember that they too are just trying to make a living.

Great SEO Tools

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Successful business owners are constantly researching ways to reach more people through their website and online marketing campaigns. This process can take tons of time, which is why most companies outsource their online marketing and Search Engine Optimization. There are several great tools out there to help get you started optimizing your website for optimal placement on search engines.

Check out these favorites:

  • Open Site Explorer – Open Site Explorer is a great way to analyze your reciprocal links and link popularity. This tool also allows you to monitor your competitor’s sites and see why they are ranking higher than you, allowing you to optimize your reciprocal link campaign.
  • SEO Toolbar – SEOmoz’s toolbar allows you to view important SEO metrics about a website while browsing the web. It’s a quick and easy installation on your Firefox or Chrome browser.
  • Ranking Tracker – Track your website’s rankings in Google, Yahoo, and Bing automatically over time.
  • SEOmoz – SEOmoz provides the tools above and several other paid tools for optimizing your website. We highly recommend checking them out.
  • Wordtracker - It’s not free, but I’d be remiss in not mentioning Wordtracker. Analyze search patterns and search phrases that your customers are searching for. The best part is that you can also see which of those search phrases are being targeted by your competitors and which are not. Pick up valuable, untapped traffic using this amazing keyword research and SEO tool.
  • WebPosition – This invaluable SEO tool allows you track the success of your online marketing efforts. This online application offers you easy access from anywhere to view key, in-depth data about your online marketing campaigns. Easily track keyword performance, position changes, competition and trends. Even set up scheduled reporting.
  • Page Comparison Tool – Enter several domains to analyze your site against your competitors.
  • Google Webmasters Console – A great tool by Google to help webmasters (or website owners) submit, track and review their website on Google Search. Check robots.txt files, submit sitemaps (or dynamic sitemaps), see when your sitemap has been indexed and view search traffic. Use in combination with Google Analytics for more detailed website traffic analysis.
  • Google Analytics – View detailed site traffic information and analyze your marketing effectiveness with this professional enterprise solution from Google.

If you know of other great SEO tools, please feel free to add them in the comments.

Thanks for reading and good luck optimizing your website! If you have any questions, don’t be a stranger… Give us a call at 615-823-1234.

The Great Smoky Mountains

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I recently returned from visiting my family in Charlotte, NC. Although the drive there was long, it was a great visit and the drive was beautiful. So, I thought I’d share a few photos from the road, taken with my Hipstamatic iPhone App (Apple’s Mobile App of the Year).

(Net)Work It!

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As the economy continues to shift into a buyer’s market, not only in housing but also in all other types of business, it is becoming more and more important to increase your business networking and seek out new business opportunities utilizing all your available resources.

It may seem that business is not out there, as people are slowly shifting away from hiring unknown companies to hiring companies and individuals recommended to them by friends and colleagues. Your local coffee shop, restaurant, bar and even the dog park are opportunities to network. So always bring your business card, talk to people and get out there!

Having a website is a great way to attract buyers, communicate with your network, share ideas and build a following. Additionally, there are a number of social networks which can help you develop a strong professional network, but you can’t stop there. Keep these networks updated, keep adding people, requesting recommendations and you will see your business grow. Utilize RSS to feed in news and stories to keep your content fresh on your networks.

Here are a few of my favorite sites for building business relationships and finding new business:

Results don’t happen immediately, but they don’t happen at all if you don’t (Net)Work It!

Feel free to comment and add other networks and websites you have found useful in increasing awareness about your company or finding new clients!

Validate Email Address with PHP | Email Validation Script

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I found this helpful little email validation script a while back on linuxjournal.com and have been using this great validation script from Douglas Lovell for some time. Although email validation is never 100% fool-proof, this one is pretty great, so I thought I’d share.

To use this function simply check to see that an email is valid by checking that the function returns true on an email:

$email = 'someone@something.com';
if (validEmail($email)) {
     //The email is valid. Continue processing.
} else {
     //The email is not valid. Set errors or whatever you want to do.
}

/**
Validate an email address.
Provide email address (raw input)
Returns true if the email address has the email
address format and the domain exists.
*/
function validEmail($email)
{
   $isValid = true;
   $atIndex = strrpos($email, "@");
   if (is_bool($atIndex) && !$atIndex)
   {
      $isValid = false;
   }
   else
   {
      $domain = substr($email, $atIndex+1);
      $local = substr($email, 0, $atIndex);
      $localLen = strlen($local);
      $domainLen = strlen($domain);
      if ($localLen < 1 || $localLen > 64)
      {
         // local part length exceeded
         $isValid = false;
      }
      else if ($domainLen < 1 || $domainLen > 255)
      {
         // domain part length exceeded
         $isValid = false;
      }
      else if ($local[0] == '.' || $local[$localLen-1] == '.')
      {
         // local part starts or ends with '.'
         $isValid = false;
      }
      else if (preg_match('/\\.\\./', $local))
      {
         // local part has two consecutive dots
         $isValid = false;
      }
      else if (!preg_match('/^[A-Za-z0-9\\-\\.]+$/', $domain))
      {
         // character not valid in domain part
         $isValid = false;
      }
      else if (preg_match('/\\.\\./', $domain))
      {
         // domain part has two consecutive dots
         $isValid = false;
      }
      else if
(!preg_match('/^(\\\\.|[A-Za-z0-9!#%&`_=\\/$\'*+?^{}|~.-])+$/',
                 str_replace("\\\\","",$local)))
      {
         // character not valid in local part unless
         // local part is quoted
         if (!preg_match('/^"(\\\\"|[^"])+"$/',
             str_replace("\\\\","",$local)))
         {
            $isValid = false;
         }
      }
      if ($isValid && !(checkdnsrr($domain,"MX") ||
 ↪checkdnsrr($domain,"A")))
      {
         // domain not found in DNS
         $isValid = false;
      }
   }
   return $isValid;
}

How to Maintain Brand Identity When Your Business is Scattered Across the Internet

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The explosion of social networking sites has made it easy for business owners to place their company in the thick of things.  Sites like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter allow business owners to reach out to their clients in a more casual and relatable way.  While these mediums may allow for more personal communication, keep in mind that consumers face an onslaught from marketers and if your messages aren’t reinforcing your brand identity, you’re likely to be quickly forgotten.

There are quick and easy ways to create continuity for your business online, even if it spans across a variety of platforms.

  • Rely on your logo. Your logo is the face of your business, so make sure it’s out there for people to recognize.  While it may seem like a fun idea to mix things up an use different images for different profiles, it will simply create confusion.  Make it easy for your customers to recognize you.
  • Take advantage of the customization features.  Many of the platforms like MySpace, YouTube, Vimeo and Twitter offer you the ability to personalize your page – and this is another great way to reinforce your brand standards.  So while your customer may have found your business page on YouTube, they still can feel at “home” on a page that reinforces the themes, colors and images that represent your business.  Here are a couple of examples of pulling elements together for different platforms:
  • Personalize your message.  The great thing about the social networks is that you have a very specific audience.  If you’re using an industry-specific networking site, customize your message to that market.  If your audience is in specific area, use Twitter or Facebook to target your message to those customers.
    • East Side Cookies uses their Twitter page and ESC on Facebook page to let customers in Nashville know where they’ve made the latest delivery so they can easily find the freshest cookies in town.

These are just a few starter tips.  Also sure to check out the help sections of the site that you’re using to see what other features they’ve created for businesses to have a more dynamic presence, and if you’d like more assistance, always feel free to contact us at Brady Mills Graphics.

Small Business Marketing in a Recession

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View Brady’s online presentation about how to make the most of your marketing budget in the current recession. This video presentation includes tips for generating more quality leads utilizing online social websites. Watch the video here…

How Do You Get Shoppers to Open Their Wallets in Today's Economy?

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Consumers are spending less.  That’s hardly a novel headline in this economy, but just because spending is down, it doesn’t mean wallets are completely sealed shut.

Bazaarvoice commissioned a survey of 800 U.S. consumers to learn about what factors have the greatest impact on shoppers during the decision-making process.  Not surprisingly, 61% of respondents acknowledged that online resources can sway them as they’re making purchases.  Factors like “user ratings and reviews (77%), and recommendations based on other consumers’ purchasing or browsing behavior (66% and 65%, respectively)” played heavily into their final decisions.  This data reflects that word-of-mouth is alive and well online – even among people who may not even be on the same continent.

What does all of this mean for your site?

Make sure you’re allowing online shoppers to get involved!  Make it easy for them to leave reviews and ratings.  Incorporate systems that intuitively know when to suggest products or link to purchase histories of other shoppers.  Brett Hurt, founder of Bazaarvoice, explains it simply, “companies have a tremendous opportunity to provide online shoppers with authentic, user-generated content that is proven to build confidence, increase satisfaction, and drive sales.”

It’s an easy step that can have a far-reaching impact.  Work with your web designers to find ways to incorporate more user-friendly features and you may just find that you’re creating a loyal (and growing) consumer base.

New Website Portfolio Showcases Clients in Nashville and Beyond

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The last couple of years have been a great opportunity for the Brady Mills Graphics team to work with all types of clients. In order to better showcase our work with these great businesses, we’ve redesigned our portfolio. With the newly formatted portfolio, users can search by client as well as by industry or services provided by BMG.  Check out our clients – corporate and not-so-corporate – from Nashville as well as across the country.

The newly designed portfolio can be found at: http://www.bradymills.com/portfolio.php or you can sneak a  little peek below!

Brady Mills Graphics Portfolio

If You're Not Online, Small Businesses Are Missing Out on Local Customers

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MarketingCharts.com posted a great article about a survey done by Webvisible and Nielsen regarding how consumers look for local businesses online.  The survey uncovered some insightful information about how small business owners are missing out on customers who may be just around the corner – but can’t find the business because they’re not online.

With 82% of respondents citing search engines as one of their main resources of information, the unfortunate news is that  “39% report frequently not being able to locate a particular known business.”  That means these people who may be searching for your business are stumbling on information about other businesses – likely your competitors.

There are simple ways to make a business more prominent online.  Take advantage of the free search services like Yahoo! Local or Google Local Business Center to post free local business listings.  Also check out how your business is listed with YellowPages.com or SuperPages.com.  Yelp.com has some great resources for business owners to manage their reputations on Yelp and with CitySearch.com, business owners can create profiles that help bolster their presence on the site.

These are just a few free resources that every business owner should take note of.  If you’ve got questions about other ways to bolster your online presence, check out our online marketing services at Brady Mills Graphics and give us a call or drop us a line!