Entrepreneurs Prepare For Election Day

Editors Note: Memos is a new weekly feature written by columnist Kelly Spors that will round up news and tidbits about small businesses and entrepreneurs. Ms. Spors also answers reader questions in her weekly Small Talk Q&A.

Gearing up to vote

With Election Day almost here, many business owners may be scrambling to catch up on the candidates' policy stances and other election buzz before heading to the polls on Tuesday. Here are a few ways to keep tabs on the races. The National Federation of Independent Businesses' Election Monitor provides a race-by-race breakdown including the voting "scorecards" of incumbents up for re-election on issues the lobby group considers key, such as repealing estate taxes, getting small business health-care plans, and blocking minimum-wage increases. But you can also monitor the races on your own. Search engines and RSS feeds can useful in monitoring news and press releases for a specific subject or area. Many local chambers of commerce also host candidate debates and track small-business issues in local races, so you might want to check out their Web sites, too. OpenSecrets.org's 2006 election guide shows where candidates' money is coming from.

Microsoft offers free software

Giving away its software for free -- at least temporarily -- is an old industry strategy for getting consumers hooked on their products. Now Microsoft hopes it'll work with very small and start-up businesses. The company just released its Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2007, an upgraded version of 2006 Microsoft Office Small Business Accounting with more bells and whistles. Like the 2006 software, 2007 is geared toward businesses with 25 or fewer employees, but there's one big difference: This time you don't have to pay for it. The company surely hopes giving its software away will help it become more competitive with chief rival Intuit QuickBooks. The 2007 Office Accounting offers more sales management and invoicing tools for eBay sellers, integration with Microsoft Outlook and more ways to give employees access to financial reports. A full review of the new software can be found on CNet.com.

Franchise fees vary widely

Any franchisee knows the fees they're expected to pay the franchisor can make or break their success. A survey of 1,342 franchise systems found that the average total fees for ongoing royalties and advertising was 8.4% of gross sales, according to a recent research report by the International Franchise Association's Educational Foundation in collaboration with franchise-research firm FRANData. But the averages vary widely by industry with personnel-service and business-service franchises paying the highest average total fees -- 13.3% and 14%, respectively. Meanwhile, fast-food (6.8%), travel (6.3%) and restaurants (6.3%) franchisees pay the lowest average fees. However, the fee structures aren't all the same. Some franchises use fixed fees or a range of percentages, while others charge no ongoing fees.

Small business TV ad firm gets lift

Spot Runner, a Los Angeles company that helps small businesses produce commercials and then buys air time for them on local broadcast stations and cable channels, just announced it's receiving a $40 million equity investment from some major media companies including CBS Corp., Interpublic Group of Companies and WPP Group. Spot Runner said it plans to use the money partly to expand into new forays including online video, video on demand and Internet protocol television. The firm launched in January with a $10 million initial investment from venture capitalists.

Utah draws women entrepreneurs

Utah may have a new state slogan on its hands: "A great state for women entrepreneurs." A poll of 697 small- and mid-sized business executives found that women entrepreneurs are more attracted than men to cities with low crime rates, low taxes, high household incomes, affordable real estate prices, booming populations and pedestrian friendliness, according to Web site www.AllBusiness.com. So the Web site hired Sperling's Best Places, a data analysis firm, to compile a list of the U.S. metropolitan areas that best match those attributes. Cities on the top-five list? Raleigh, N.C., Provo, Utah, St. George, Utah, Ogden Utah and Logan, Utah. Among the nation's largest metropolitan areas with more than 500,000 residents, the choice cities for women include Washington D.C., Salt Lake City, Irvine, Calif. and Denver.

Have a question about starting a business? Email Ms. Spors at smalltalk@wsj.com and read her Q&A column each week on StartupJournal.

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