Category Archives: Articles

Coworking Space Helps Vet Build Gourmet Popcorn Business

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A decade ago, Roberto Mendez was broke, his real estate business wiped out by a devastating recession and his wife sidelined by a debilitating stroke. Today he runs a thriving family business built on his favorite snack food: popcorn.

“Ten years ago, life was hell,” said the owner of Albuquerque-based Cornivore. “We were trying to survive, so we would make a couple of hundred bucks here and there” selling homemade gourmet concoctions created in a kettle corn popper to friends and acquaintances.

Cornivore was a bootstrapped business, started with Mendez’s limited resources, as no one would lend to him at the time. First, he found a niche market—people willing to pay several dollars for a bag of fresh popcorn coated with natural flavors. Then he expanded his clientele beyond friends and family, experimenting with wholesaling and concession sales before landing a ready-made sales force in the fundraising market. Continue reading →

New Mexico Communities Featured in Economic Development Course

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By Paul Hamrick, Executive Director, CELab

The economic development field is rapidly changing and increasing in complexity. The New Mexico Basic Economic Development Course is designed to help community leaders understand legacy economic development approaches and become current with new program initiatives and best practices.

Held on the campus of Western New Mexico University in Silver City every July, the course is one of several offered by the New Mexico-based International Academy for Economic Development that prepares participants for professional certification by the International Economic Development Council.

The five-day course covers the core components of economic development, including business retention and expansion, recruitment, workforce development, real estate, finance, marketing, and ethics. Continue reading →

Build a Business with Relationships

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No one likes to feel hustled while shopping, whether it’s in a retail store or trade show booth.

To attract customers without brazen hawking or downright pushiness, businesses need to refine the art of the soft sell. That begins by making the store or trade show booth an intentional destination for people who are truly interested in what the business sells.

Create relationships

While any business would like to sell at least one product to every person who walks in the door, that’s the type of unrealistic goal that can turn sales reps into apex predators.

A long-term perspective toward potential customers focuses on developing a relationship that lasts longer than one transaction. It lays a foundation through attraction rather than persuasion. Continue reading →

Manufacturing Make-Over Reaps Rewards for Albuquerque Business

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C. Aaron Velasquez knew it was time to modernize the equipment and processes his family’s metal-plating business had used for four decades, but he wasn’t sure where to start.

An industry contact introduced him to New Mexico Manufacturing Extension Partnership (NM MEP), a nonprofit that trains manufacturers in lean principles, value-stream mapping and other methodologies that help businesses increase profitability and competitiveness.

Theta Plate, a second-generation, family-owned Albuquerque-based business, specializes in electroplating of precious metals for industrial and commercial uses, such as friction reduction and conductivity enhancement in electrical and computer components and applications that improve the radiance of costume jewelry. Continue reading →

NM FAST Program Propels Anti-Counterfeit Entrepreneur

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Roy Montibon worked with the New Mexico FAST program. Article by Jason Gibbs.

Heritage. Honesty. Respect for tradition.

These are keys to Roy Montibon’s work as CEO of Montibon Provenance International Inc. His mission to ensure the authenticity of Native American art has drawn support from New Mexico State University’s Arrowhead Center, the Small Business Administration, and the respect of collectors and artists alike.

In 2017, Montibon tapped into resources offered by the New Mexico Federal and State Technology Partnership (NM FAST) program to develop a system to prevent counterfeit merchandise from polluting the Native American art market. Shoddy knock-off merchandise not only devalues the market, but it devalues the work that honest artists produce and harms the overall market, he said.

“The financial impact is three-fold,” said Montibon. “Collectors are ripped off. Native artists are deprived of revenue from sales of work that is falsely attributed to them. And, because the fake work is of poor quality compared to authentic work, the perceived value of the artist’s work is diminished in the marketplace, which also has a detrimental effect on future generations who may be considering a career in the arts.” Continue reading →

Value Proposition is First Step Toward Market Success

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To stand out in a market saturated with consumer products and get the attention of consumers deluged with advertising appeals, an entrepreneur needs to offer a product or service with obvious benefits and unquestionable superiority over the competition.

That isn’t as easy as it sounds. The history of U.S. commerce is littered with countless products whose inventors misjudged the market’s appetite or need.

Getting a product or service to market begins with a value proposition: a sober evaluation of who the product is for, what need it will fulfill, what dissatisfies consumers about the products currently being used to fulfill that need and how the new product is a marked improvement. Continue reading →

New Perspective Can Jump-Start a Business

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Business leaders are a hardy breed, loath to admit trouble and express anything but optimism and confidence. This tough façade is handy when applying for loans, seeking investment capital and competing in the rough and tumble marketplace.

But it’s hard to maintain when customers are drifting away, employees are quitting, cash flow is falling short and a new product is taking too long to reach market. It’s hard to stay externally cool when internal fears wear down nerves and mental stability.

As tempting as it might be to turn inward and work even harder at such times, experts suggest a healthier approach is for the business owner to create some distance between her personal and professional lives. Continue reading →

Distributors Expand Market for New Mexico Companies

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Owners of The Bitter End found that distributors could increase revenue. Article by Sandy Nelson.

Bill York started making his own bitters nine years ago while bartending at a Santa Fe cigar bar, where he learned the alchemy of sophisticated cocktails. His small company, The Bitter End, now manufactures its distinctive handcrafted bitters at a Santa Fe facility and reaches consumers through distributors in New York, California, Chicago and Europe.

“This wasn’t the beginning of the craft cocktail movement,” York said, “but there weren’t that many bitters makers on the market, and when I got the idea for spicy, concentrated bitters, it seemed like a good idea to give it a go.”

York developed his initial five recipes while learning how to navigate the bureaucracy of marketing a food product. New Mexico requires alcoholic beverages to be marketed through a distributor, but mixers — classified as alcohol flavorings — are treated as food products.

“I set up a website to accept sales and started sending out samples to prominent bartenders and influencers,” he said. “We visited a lot of bars and gave out a lot of samples; we tweeted like crazy. We went to Tales of the Cocktail [the world’s largest cocktail trade show, which happens every July in New Orleans] and set up a booth to meet people and sell bottles.” Continue reading →

Market Data Available to Small Businesses

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Article by Sandy Nelson.

A business plan is incomplete without a financial section that forecasts how the owner expects the company to grow and how much revenue he believes the company will generate based on his reading of the market for its products or services.

But unless that projection is grounded in reality, it won’t make the desired impression on a lender or investor — or even on a landlord who wants some assurance the business will last as long as the commercial lease.

Lenders, venture capitalists and other investors who finance startups deal in concrete numbers, because they’re betting real money on a concept or enterprise that’s typically untested. If they’re presented with an educated guess about the market that exists for a given product or service, they expect it to be a well-educated one. Continue reading →

Cash Flow: WESST Workshop Teaches Business Essentials

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Julianna Silva is Managing Director of the WESST Enterprise Center. Article by Sandy Nelson.

Keeping track of the money flowing in and out of a business is challenging even in the best of times — when cash is flooding in and the outflow is a comparative trickle. But any business that wants to stay in business needs to master cash flow management.

To help small-business owners get a handle on this essential skill, WESST in Albuquerque is conducting a workshop, “Learn the Language of Your Business Finances,” that includes demonstrations of how businesses can manage their finances, including cash flow, by having participants work with a spreadsheet for a fictitious venture.

The exercise gives tangible examples of the costs that businesses can expect to pay —advertising, supplies, raw materials, loan payments, payroll, rent, insurance premiums, and so on — and the revenue they can anticipate for a given period. The hypothetical example shows trouble looming as bills come due and the revenue falls short of what’s needed to meet obligations. Continue reading →