Category: Business

Get the full story on the Texas Standard

A new report by the Harvard Business School ranked technical sales jobs the most difficult to hire for in America.

Why is it so hard to fill sales jobs? Either people don’t want to go into sales or companies are having a hard time finding the right people.

Ron Feur is the COO of Signpost in Austin. He says that even though an entry-level sales person makes between $40 and $60 thousand a year, it can be hard to find the right person for the job.

“The key difference in sales is the grit factor I think is, is incredibly important. There’s resiliency that you need as a salesperson if you think about it,” Feur says.

Salespeople hear no all the time and they have to blaze their own trail. Their paycheck is all commission, so if they want to earn more they have to sell more.

There’s some research to show that young people are particularly risk-averse. If that’s the case, then young people aren’t going into sales because they would rather have a steady income stream even if it’s less than what they could be making.

Mathew Riordan doesn’t think that’s fair. He organizes a meetup group of salespeople in Dallas called the Closers.

“That some people are risk adverse because they don’t know enough you’re always risk adverse if you don’t know enough so just to say that young people are risk adverse, I don’t think that’s fair,” Riordan says. “I don’t think anybody wants to do anything they don’t know.”

If it’s not the risk, it could be the negative stereotypes about salespeople that are affecting how many young people go into sales.

Sometimes people think of a pushy door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman or someone selling lemon cars to people who don’t know any better when they think about what a job in sales would be like.

So what can companies could do to convince more people to go into sales?

“If you want more sales people and you want them to be better, go into colleges and start educating them,” Riordan says. “Show them real sales people, I mean real professionals. Show them their paychecks I mean that will motivate somebody to learn more.”

Get the full story on the Texas Standard

The craft beer industry brings hundreds of millions of dollars into the Texan economy every year, and the number of people it employs is growing rapidly.

Charles Vallhonrat is the executive director of the Texas Craft Brewers Guild.

“Craft beer is really blowing up nationwide and Texas is you know right there with that pace of growth if not outpacing it, says Vallhonrat, “If you look at our smaller members last year they grew by 44 percent in production volume so its tremendous, tremendous growth.“

There are two reasons behind the rapid growth: supply and demand.

The History Of Brew

In 1993 the state legislature passed a law that let brewpubs start operate for the first time – but they couldn’t distribute.

“So you could have a local restaurant and you could have brewery there and you could bottle your beer or put it on keg and people will enjoy it but you couldn’t package it up until this past legislative session when suddenly the legislature relaxed that requirement,” says UT marketing professor Ben Benson. “For just the last less than two years microbreweries have been able to produce craft beers in brewpubs and then distribute them locally or across Texas.”

Beer Snobs Unite

So they’re easier to distribute. Beer snobs like Mark Jackson like them too.

“Yeah I pretty much avoid you know the large scale commercial beers if I can but if I’m going out on the town or if I’m going to the grocery store to pick up a six pack to enjoy a dinner yeah I never drink uh any of those sort of macro breweries,” says Jackson.

His friend Jeff Surles agrees. “A good rule of thumb when you go out to order a beer is anything that has a TV commercial your not going to order that,” he says.

These guys like their beer so much that they’re willing to shell out serious bucks for it.

“You know I’ll take into account the, having been somebody that’s spent the time, money, and energy brewing and I know how hard it can be and how expensive it can be,” says Jackson, “I support that and I’m willing to pay for that so price doesn’t really have too much of a factor.”

Ben Benson says that local love is what it takes for David to take on Goliath.

“We like local brands and the craft breweries are really taking advantage of this and they are seeing this as an opportunity to overcome the big hurdle that the national beer brands represent which is the economies scale that they enjoy,” says Benson.

David v. Goliath

But the big beer companies aren’t beating a retreat. They’re attacking craft breweries on two fronts.

“The large national brands will continue to make the sizeable investments they do in national advertising because that drives a core level of purchase that is sustainable for them,” says Benson, “But the national brands that are also practicing a strategy, if you can’t fight them join them.”

It’s not unusual for brand to start out as a craft brew and then expand until it’s acquired by a big-name beer company. They retain their local brand even though their production might be outsourced to a completely different state.

That’s why beer snob Mark Jackson says it’s important to really know what you’re drinking.

“We are here at a establishment that serves Texas Beers which I think is really neat and its really cool to support your local breweries,” says Jackson.

 Jackson adds these days there are so many Texas brews to try, he rarely drinks the same beer twice.

Get the full story on the Texas Standard

South by Southwest is a month away, and like every year, people are declaring it dead before it even starts.

What are the economic implications of big SxSW sponsors like Chevy, Subway and Doritos pulling out this year?

Brands bring in great swag and expensive artists.

Last year Doritos spent a lot of money to have Lady Gaga perform inside this giant vending machine just to have the city of Austin revoke their permit at the last minute.

And this year the Itunes festival will be missing.  Last year they brought 40 mainstays to the stage like Coldplay and Pitbull.

With some of the biggest headliners gone, some long-terms attendees are choosing to skip the conference.

This will be the first time in 10 years that George Corona misses SXSW. “I’m not going to South by Southwest because the lineup is just overall pretty weak, specifically I think there seems to be a lot of artists just kind of skipping,” says Corona.

The more people agree with Corona, the more the Texas economy is set to lose. The entire conference had more than 100,000 participants last year. It brought $315 million dollars to Texas.

The consequences could be particularly severe for people who depend on those two weeks in March for business.

Danielle Thomas owns an event production company called Big Green House. She says that there are plenty of signs that things are looking dire.

“I think everybody is feeling some sort of waning in business, but nobody is exactly sure what it is,” says Thomas. “Whether it’s producers, vendors, venues –  there are venues that are still available that are normally booked by now, which I think is harbinger.”

And if the revenue to Texas doesn’t match last year’s, a lot of people will be pointing the finger at the city of Austin. It cut event permits this year by 25 percent.

Denise Silverman owns Clink Events in Austin, “I definitely think if they’re limiting the number of permits that its obviously going to affect the amount of revenue that comes into the city.”

But if the festival plateaus or even shrinks this year, it might just be finding its right size.

Last year there was a lot of overcrowding and a tragic hit and run into a crowd. Some event planners are wondering if maybe smaller is better. If so, the conference could be cooler and more profitable than ever. Only time will tell.

Get the full story at the Texas Standard.

It seems like the dire economic predictions about the low cost of gas are starting to materialize:  Halliburton, Baker-Hughes, Schlumberger and BP have all announced that they’re slashing jobs in the Houston area.

When the price of gas started dropping below 2 dollars a gallon, all the economic analysts were saying it was bad news for the economy, and this week it really seemed that their predictions started to come true.

Halliburton, Baker-Hughes, Schlumberger and BP have all announced that they’re slashing jobs in the Houston area.

Baker-Hughes says it will lay off 7,000 workers. The other companies are keeping mum about exactly how many local jobs are going to get cut.

But pink slips are going out.

So where do all of these displaced energy workers go?

Tim Jeffcoat was laid off from Schulmberger in 2001 and now he’s the district director of the small business association in Houston.

He says people in the energy sector have skills that transfer easily to other industries,

“There are certain sectors that are really dynamic, healthcare, transportation,” but he says the knowledge acquired in the field can turn into to a consulting gig, “say an engineer that works for one of these firms that has a lot of experience in petroleum engineering might want to set up a consulting shop and do business with companies in other countries.”

But if you want to cut your ties form energy completely, you can follow Christi Johnson Lopez’s lead.  She worked for a natural gas company that was acquired by Kinder Morgan 18 months ago. When she got laid off she decided to start her own interior design company.

She says the transition is scary, but ultimately worth it. “At that very moment it is so scary, you can’t even think beyond oh the severance package, what are we going to do, how are we going to save, how are we going to do this, and all of a sudden you’re like maybe I can try this, what do I have to lose? Let me just take this little leap,” says Johnson Lopez.

She says she doesn’t make nearly as much as she used to, but she sets her own schedule and her stress migraines went away.

Based on what the experts say, laid of energy sector employees should look to fields like healthcare or transportation, or they can take the opportunity to cut their ties from the energy industry altogether – if they can afford it.

Get the full story at the Texas Standard.

While the Dallas and Irving city councils are busy assembling an earthquake task force, residents are trying to figure out how to best protect themselves and their assets from any future damage.

Irving, Texas has had a shaky start to 2015. There have been 23 earthquakes there since January first which have also been felt in nearby Dallas.

The cities of Dallas and Irving are trying to cope with the recent seismographic activity by assembling an earthquake task force. Meanwhile, SMU scientists have deployed close to 2 dozen seismographs around the Irving area to better understand the quakes.

“Do I Need Earthquake Insurance?”

While city hall and the academy take protective measures, North Texans are wondering if they need to protect their assets from any future assets.

Ashely Hunter is the president of HM Risk Group in Austin. She says she has been fielding calls from concerned North Texans all week, “I think it’s just everyone is looking for piece of mind, the question is ‘Should I get it? Is the likelihood that my house is about to fall into this imaginary crater in North Texas?'”

The biggest quake this month has registered 3.6 on the Richter scale. That’s enough to knock stuff off shelves and break a few windows. But the threshold for serious damage is generally around 5.0. That’s almost 100 times more powerful.

Measuring The Risks

Dallas Building Code administrator David Session says the likelihood of that happening in North Texas is pretty low.

“The Richter scale is more of a measure of the intensity of the event itself,” Session says, “The building code is actually dealing with the horizontal ground motion, which is where the major damage comes from as far as the building is concerned.”

Session says that in the Dallas area the horizontal motion is so minimal that the code doesn’t trigger any major requirements as it would in California.

But in California just less than 20 percent of homeowners carry earthquake insurance. Even though the state is hit by 2 to 3 major quakes every year.

In Oklahoma, a state where manmade earthquakes are more common, the state commissioner recommended that all property owners add earthquake insurance to their policies.

But topography and building codes differ in every state, which makes state-to-state comparisons difficult.

Ashley Hunter says insurance professionals in Texas are waiting for the result of the SMU study. If the earthquakes in North Texas are man-made and are predicted to become more intense, that might increase the demand for earthquake insurance.

Weighing The Costs

In Texas, getting insured against earthquakes would set you back between 5 and 6 thousand dollars a year – that’s 5 times the average premium for homeowners insurance.

Which is why Ashley Hunter says it’s just not worth it.

“As an insurance professional, if you want the insurance of course I would actually sell it to you just to give you piece of mind,” Hunter says, “but as a consumer, I would never purchase it from my own insurance agent.”

Hunter says property owners would do better to put that money away to use during any type of emergency: medical, natural or financial.

Get the full story at KUT.org

Many people dream of being their own boss, but starting a successful business isn’t easy. Eight out of ten businesses fail in the first 18 months. Even with a proven concept, it can be hard to find investors to back your product. An Austin boxed wine company is hoping to defy the odds with a one million dollar investment from Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban. 

ABC’s reality show Shark Tank puts small business owners and inventors in front of a panel of venture capitalists ready to invest in profitable companies. The show’s producers hosted a casting for UT alumni last March. After a long audition process they chose their best of the best.

Was it a high tech device? A life changing app? No. It was wine in a box.

After a bidding war and a tense negotiation, Dallas Maverick’s owner Mark Cuban offered BeatBox one million dollars for a 33 percent stake – valuing the Austin-based company at 3 million dollars.

Getting A Shark To Bite

Beatbox founders Justin Fenchel and Brad Schultz say it took a lot of hard work to get to that pivotal point.

“We were eating, sleeping, breathing, dreaming Shark Tank for about 3 months, watching every episode multiple times,” says Fenchel, “We were stalking the Sharks online, figuring out what they’ve invested in and why, articles that they’ve had in business journals and things that they’ve said so we can relate to them.”

Schultz says they even added some role play into the mix. “We had friends kind of sit around a table and pretend to be different Sharks and like act as their personalities so could deal with and interact with them.” 

Fenchel says the key to piquing Mark Cuban’s interest was telling him that Franzia, the best-known boxed wine company, has one billion dollars in sales every year. 

An Untapped Market

Jane Firstenfeld, an editor for Wines & Vines magazine, says there’s a lot of money to be made in boxed wine, “It’s not necessarily that the wines themselves are cheaper, it’s that the packing and the shipping is cheaper.”

But Franzia has dominated the boxed wine market for the last 14 years, BeatBox wants to take a bite out of those profits with an aggressive social media strategy.

Fenchel says he wants to make BeatBox the next Red Bull. “That’s really the model we want to take on,” says Fenchel, “which is they created a product, this energy drink in a can and then built an entire lifestyle around it whether it’s the formula 1 cars they have or people jumping out of airplanes at music festivals, they’ve created this high energy octane lifestyle brand.”

As far as social media goes, their strategy seems to be working. Franzia currently has 189 Twitter followers. After Shark Tank, BeatBox has over 4,000.

Get the full story at KUT.org

Whole Foods has come under fire for launching a pilot program to sell rabbit meat in some of its stores.

The Austin-based company says it’s spent four years developing humane rabbit farming practices in response to consumer demand.

But regardless, some animal rights activists are hopping mad.

A change.org petition asking Whole Foods to suspend its sale of bunny meat has garnered more than 13,000 signatures. A group calling itself the House Rabbit Society staged demonstrations at 44 Whole Foods Markets across the country. And PETA has announced it’s joining the movement.

Texas Standard host David Brown and producer Brenda Salinas talk about the controversy. Is rabbit meat part of the Paleo lifestyle? With its revolutionary-era roots, isn’t rabbit meat as American as apple pie? And aren’t bunnies, by definition, a sustainable resource?

Get the full story at Latino USA.

The world of high fashion is often criticized as being inaccessible to people of color. Legendary supermodels Naomi Campbell and Iman called out some of the biggest fashion designers for not including people of color in their campaigns.

A recent lawsuit has been filed against the high-end department store Barney’s for discrimination against shoppers of color, and Oprah Winfrey says a Swiss Boutique refused to let her see an expensive handbag. Some good news, though. The world’s most famous luxury shoe designer has taken a step in the right direction. Christian Louboutin’s newest design is a line of 5 “nude” shoes to match a range of skin tones. Maria Hinojosa talks to Xojane fashion blogger Veronica Marché-Miller about what this means for women of color.

Veronica Marché Miller is an illustrator and writer based in Philadelphia, PA. She runs a freelance illustration business serving women of color and organizations that serve them, and past clients include The Red Pump Project, Sports and the City and Contradiction Dance. Veronica also writes about fashion for xoJane.com, focusing on the fashion industry’s relationship with women of color.