Tag Archives: January 2012

GBJ Staff

Catering to complainers?

Listening to a disgruntled customer can often times seem like hearing fingernails scratching a chalkboard. You flinch and cringe in anticipation of the fallout – they trash your product, service or how your company handles customer issues. And thanks to social media, it’s not long before these unhappy souls have trumpeted their dislike far and wide. But have you ever considered they just might be doing you a favor?

Customer complaints highlight areas of vulnerability. No, you don’t have to agree with their methods, isn’t it worth finding out if there is a genuine grievance driving their angst?

Silence, on the other hand, is more deadly because you may never know what caused your loyal customer to walk away. When you take stock of your customer activity and examine customer lists, what always jumps out are those clients you haven’t seen or heard from in a while. That’s a red flag that the relationship derailed somewhere along the track, but you didn’t realize it.

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GBJ Staff

Local franchise promotes healthy snacking

Everyone starts the New Year with a resolution to eat better or some variation on that theme. So the concept of eating healthy snacks from vending machines is somewhat alien. Vending machines aren’t typically associated with the words ‘healthy,’ ‘fresh’ or ‘nutritious,’ but Fresh Healthy Vending hopes to change your perception.

View the Gwinnett Magazine Special Report about this innovative concept and the new local franchise of this popular national company is starting a revolution by replacing candy bars with nutritious ‘on the go snacks’ like whole grain chips, fruit juices and snack mixes.

Nearly a dozen local schools and businesses have embraced this culture change. Cornerstone Christian Academy in Norcross installed a Fresh Healthy Vending machine in their lunchroom close to two months ago. Headmaster Colin Creel admits the new machine is now the talk of his school and so popular, the machine is restocked at least once a week.

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GBJ Staff

Transit alternatives study underway

The Gwinnett Board of Commissioners has set up a policy advisory committee to study transit alternatives for the Interstate 85 corridor. Citizens on the committee will work with staff and consultants to provide advice and feedback before the draft final study documents are presented for consideration by the Board of Commissioners.

“In combination with community forums and other public events, this committee is aimed at facilitating a successful planning process and improved transportation to benefit many generations to come,” said Kim Conroy, Gwinnett’s Acting Transportation Director. Last July, the Board contracted with Atkins North America, Inc., a national transit planning and engineering firm with offices in Atlanta, to lead the study.

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GBJ Staff

Catalyst for economic transformation

Calibratior II Stella Fritschi, WIKA Instrument Corporation

Gwinnett County ushered in 2012 as a Georgia Certified Work Ready Community. A master vision set in motion five years ago laid the groundwork for Georgia counties, like Gwinnett, to transform their economies. The first metro Atlanta ‘core’ county and the largest county in the state to achieve this designation, Gwinnett continues to attract new businesses by cultivating the talent necessary to staff existing jobs and to master future innovative technologies.

Georgia Work Ready began in 2006 when then Governor Sonny Perdue launched a statewide initiative to establish a purposeful link between industry and education to create a regional talent pool. The State’s commitment is three-pronged: provide a mechanism to understand skills of a company’s current workforce, develop training programs and establish reliable hiring criteria. To become certified, counties must meet education benchmarks and certify a percentage of the available and current workforce.

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GBJ Staff

What lies ahead for Gwinnett in 2012?

Raymer Sale, Jr., CLU, president of E2E Resources and incoming Gwinnett Chamber board chairman

Enough of the doldrums. With a symbolic fresh start, it appears that the business community is ready to embrace the challenges and opportunities the New Year offers.

The Gwinnett Business Journal posed several questions to Gwinnett business leaders to gauge their anticipated business outlook for 2012. Based on their feedback, they sense that it’s time for a break through, time to take charge at the individual level to turn this economy around.

Learn what is immediately on the horizon for their respective organizations. Consider the business or personal advice each shares. And most importantly, discover their outlook for the coming year.

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GBJ Staff

LCI grant will improve Buford Hwy.

The City of Suwanee is poised to begin implementing a $3.3 million Livable Centers Initiative (LCI) grant initiative to reconstruct a portion of Buford Hwy.

Rather than widening the roadway, as many communities are contemplating, Suwanee will reconstruct sections of the busy thoroughfare as a context-sensitive roadway to accommodate multiple modes of transportation and help improve connectivity to and within downtown.

Improvements are slated to be made within the historic and Town Center sections of Buford Hwy. Work will begin in February with a scoping study with construction anticipated to start in 2013.

Visit www.suwanee.com for details.

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GBJ Staff

State unemployment taxes rise in 2012

by Bill McDermott

Attention Georgia business owners: your state unemployment taxes increased at the start of 2012. Whether or not you have been notified of your ‘experience rating’ for 2012, budget now to pay more.

A $21 per employee per year increase in the state unemployment tax will be assessed in 2012 to help repay a loan that the state of Georgia made with the federal government to cover unemployment benefits payments. According to Sam Hall, director of communications for the Georgia Department of Labor, “The $21 per employee per year increase will continue until the loan is fully repaid.”

The state of Georgia borrowed $672 million from the federal government to pay benefits to tens of thousands of unemployed Georgians. Georgia is one of 30 states to borrow money from the federal government for this purpose. The State’s double-digit unemployment combined with insufficient tax contributions from employers has depleted the trust fund.

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GBJ Staff

Jackson EMC Foundation tops $6 million in grant awards

(l-r) Jackson EMC Gwinnett District Manager Randy Dellinger, North Gwinnett High student Chad Scott, Mill Creek High student Sierra Menzies and IDEALS Leadership School founder Jack Williams hold a $5,000 Jackson EMC Foundation grant check that will support the development of Gwinnett County high school athletes into positive role models and leaders.

Six agencies serving area residents have been awarded grants totaling $65,837 by the Jackson EMC Foundation, a charity funded by the electric cooperative’s members through their donations to the Operation Round Up program.

Since the Jackson EMC Foundation began in 2005, it has funded 589 grants to organizations and 217 grants to individuals, putting more than $6.1 million back into local communities. The Operation Round Up program allows participating electric cooperative’s members to have their monthly electric bills ‘rounded up’ to the next dollar amount. These funds are pooled and then available as part of a grant application process.

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GBJ Staff

Best months to make a purchase

Everything has a season and knowing the best time to buy could save you hundreds, if not thousands of dollars.

Tape this handy guide to your computer or stick to your fridge as a reminder that impulse buying has an antidote – timing.

Play it smart and reap the rewards!

 

January’s Best Buys

  • Bedding and linens
  • Big appliances (or Oct.)
  • Carpet and flooring
  • Fall suits, winter coats and outdoor gear
  • Motorcycle
  • New furniture (or Oct.)
  • Office furniture (or end of Apr.)
  • Perfume (or Mar.)
  • Prom dresses (or Feb.)
  • Video games (or Feb.)

February’s Best Buys

  • Boat
  • Camera
  • Home theater
  • Wedding (or Nov.)

March’s Best Buys

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GBJ Staff

How to start a blog

Starting a web-based journal, or ‘blog,’ isn’t overly complicated and is a low cost way to share your thoughts or express your opinions. With access to a computer or mobile device and a web site, these tips will help you get started on a digital adventure.

  1. Choose a blogging provider that offers templates and easy, low-tech publishing features, like LiveJournal, Blogger, Typepad or WordPress. Evaluate all platform features (free or fee-based) to suit your needs, including those with built-in networking mechanism to help build an audience.
  2. Decide to be private or go public when you set up your blog. Most blog sites offer the ability to password-protect your published posts.

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