Year: 2014

Interview with Erik P. Mosich for National Veterans Small Business Week

In honor of National Veterans Small Business Week, we had a chance to speak with veteran Erik P. Mosich, owner of Erik Mosich & Associates, Inc. He shared his military background and his experiences thus far as a new business owner.
Can you tell us about your business and what you do? 
Erik
Mosich & Associates, Inc. runs the QuickBooks for companies all
across the nation with it’s innovative and 100% secure virtual
bookkeeping services. EM&A can manage the books for companies on
a monthly basis and provide financial consulting for new business start-up as well as QuickBooks cleanup for existing companies. We
also can provide full payroll processing for our clients.
How did you get started doing this?  

I was
running the books for a group of five companies all owned by the same
family. I was basically running as a company but without the
designation.  After speaking with one of my friends (who happens to work at World Advisory) about how I was already
a company just without the designation, I decided to incorporate
and start the S-Corp.


What is your military background? 
I am a US Marine
with two letters of appreciation from a two-star Major General and a
third from a Colonel for exceptional performance of my duties. These duties
included managing our Regiment’s $5 million per fiscal year budget,
negotiating government contracts, and conducting fiscal reviews.


 

How has serving in the military helped you in business? 
Earning the title of US Marine has helped me in many aspects of
my personal and professional life.  The ability to stay calm in a
high stress environment has helped me excel where many others fail. 
The Marine Corps has given me a keen sense of attention to detail
and an unyielding drive to always accomplish whatever mission I am
currently undertaking.

What has been the most challenging for you as a business
owner so far? 

The most challenging thing about being
a business owner for me has been time management.  I could work 24
hours a day 7 days a week and still have more to do.  Delegating
work to employees is vital and also extremely difficult to do when
you are used to doing everything yourself.

 
What has been the most rewarding? 

The most
rewarding part about being a business owner is being able to
alleviate enormous amounts of stress from my clients.


Any advice for people thinking of starting a business? 
This
is a tough question, I wouldn’t suggest most people start their own
business. It takes a lot of dedication and personal discipline, both
of which are not common character traits. However, if you are one of
these people; network, network, network!!!
EM&A’s website is currently under construction, but if you are interested in speaking with Erik, you can reach him at Erik@EMAbooks.com. 

Interview with Larry Gibson of LETEK Photo Booths of Houston, TX

We recently sat down with Larry Gibson, the Founder of LETEK Photo Booths. Located in the Houston, TX area, Gibson’s photo booth rental and photography services are just a small portion of his LETEK empire. We were fortunate enough to speak with him and learn more about he is up to.

Small Business View: Can you tell us about your company and what you do?

Larry Gibson: LETEK Photo Booths was started last year to complement our photography business and provide additional services to our clients. We pride ourselves in providing a great photo booth experience using some of the latest technology available.

SBV: How did you get into this business?

LG: We got into the business by customer request. We had clients asking if we could provide a photo booth for their event. After enough requests, we decided to invest in the photo booth business.

SBV: What is the most enjoyable thing about this business?

LG: The most enjoyable part of the business is watching people of all ages having fun. Watching people that are older being kids again and waiting anxiously for the strip to come out of the printer and then racing back in for another. Then getting the call or e-mail days after the event and hearing they are still talking about the photo booth and how much fun it was.

SBV: What are some of your greatest challenges?

LG: Biggest challenge is trying to stay on top of all the competition on new offerings with the photo booth. We are fortunate that we designed our photo booths from the ground up and do have a technology company as a sister company so allows us to keep up and, most of the times, ahead of the competition.

SBV: If you could provide any advice to fellow business owners, what would it be?

LG: As with any business it takes time to build and get things going. Be patient, make sure you follow up with all customers, make them feel appreciated. We send them a thank you card after each photo booth, which I’m almost positive nobody else does. Listen to your customers wants and needs. Any business model should always be evolving. Never get stuck doing the same thing over and over again. You have to change with the times. Otherwise you will be left behind.
You can learn more about LETEK Photo Booths at www.LETEKPhotobooths.com.
You can also follow LETEK Photography on Facebook and Twitter.

How To Change A Facebook Page Username More Than Once

Are you trying to change your Facebook Page Username more than once?
It’s truly unfair how Facebook only allows you one Username change per page. It’s almost as if you’ve inked yourself a tattoo dedicated to an ex-lover that you’re stuck with forever. Between rebranding, changing of business plans, merging of companies, and many other scenarios, it’s certainly inconvenient.
However, we’ve recently discovered a simple and easy way of working around this. The good news is that it’s free, takes only a few minutes, and doesn’t rely on the invisible powers that be at Facebook.
Here are the steps involved:
1) Visit the Page that is Already Established.
This is the page that has your following and all of your content. It’s seemingly perfect, other than that lousy username that is burning a hole in your soul. We’ll refer to this as your Original Page.
2) Create a New Page and Make Identical to your Original Page
Be sure to title it as similarly as possible to the original page. For example: The original page is titled ABC Company so title this new one ABCCompany or something like that.
3) Request Facebook to Merge the Pages
Select to Keep the New Page.
Even if it only has you as the sole ‘Like’ this is your page’s new home.
Select the Original Page to be Merged with the new one.
*IMPORTANT NOTE: Merging the two Pages will only transfer Likes. You will lose all of the content such as posts, images and anything else. While these are great, the Likes are the valuable assets here.
4) Click Send
Facebook should send an approval (or denial) in an email. This can occur in as little as a minute after you’ve clicked Send.
5) Set Up the New Page
Now you should have a brand new page and you can alter it as you please. You should be able to change the Title as you like and as long as you have more than 25 Likes, you can change the Username FINALLY to what you prefer. It can take some time for this to be available though as it’s common for it to get stuck on the ‘Loading’ phase.
This should have you on your way to getting around one of the most frustrating aspects of doing business on social media. Facebook, you’re great and all, but sometimes you can be a real pain in the…
Feel free to leave comments below and let us know of your success (or lack thereof).