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    Belleville is a picturesque city with tree lined neighborhoods surrounding a charming traditional downtown, and hosting tranquil parks and beautiful lake views.  Comprised of two square miles, Belleville is located in the center of Van Buren Township, just minutes from the I-94 Belleville exit and across Belleville Bridge over the largest inland lake in Wayne County.

    Van Buren Township is a thriving community of an estimated 27,950 residents enhanced by its homes, schools, churches, shopping centers, and industrial parks. Conveniently located by two airports and two major expressways, the Township currently has several new residential and industrial developments under construction. Belleville Lake, now surrounded by hundreds of lakeside homes, continues to be a prime recreational site. 

    Sumpter Township is a quaint rural community of 9,549 residents in the southwest corner of Wayne, midway between the urban areas of Ann Arbor and Detroit.  It encompasses an area of approximately 37.5 square miles.


    The community consists of diverse ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds and the resident take pride in their surroundings of woodlands, wetlands, prairies and agriculture lands.  Roadside stands with fresh farm produce, horseback riding trails at Crosswind Marsh Preserve, a Wayne County Park and abundant wildlife, are all amenities of the “country life” that residents enjoy.

    Latest Blog Entries


    BACC2Work

    By By Jack Zhou 16 Oct, 2021
    Around 50% of all consumers in the US hoping to buy something online will end up on Amazon.com. This explains why the Amazon Marketplace has more than 6.3 million sellers. Out of these sellers, 1.5 million are active. According to the Jungle Scout’s 2021 State of the Amazon Seller, 21% of Amazon sellers plan to “launch their own e-commerce store.” If you’re already an Amazon seller, you can join this 21%, diversify your business, and make more money. But how do you do that? This is the question we want to answer in this article. Before we present the steps you can follow to launch your e-commerce store, let’s start by looking at some of the benefits of launching your own online store. Why Is It Important for Existing Amazon Resellers to Have Their Own Stores? If you are already successfully selling on Amazon Marketplace, you have certainly gained valuable e-commerce experience serving a large consumer base. Consequently, starting your own e-commerce store seems like a natural progression as you scale your business. Gonzalo Gil wrote a comprehensive article published by the e-commerce software provider, Shift4Shop.com, providing reasons Amazon sellers should open their own online stores. A summary of these reasons is presented below: Building your brand: When customers buy from you on the Amazon Marketplace, they believe they are buying from Amazon and are less likely to become loyal to you as a seller or your brand. Having your own e-commerce store could help you build a brand and loyal customer base. Maintain a database of customers: Your customers on Amazon Marketplace are Amazon customers; hence you can’t build a relationship with them or use data collected from them for improving your offer. From your own site, you access your customers and engage with them. Sell what you want: Amazon has restrictions on what you can sell, particularly services that compete with Amazon’s. With your own e-commerce store, you can sell whatever you want, as long as it is legal to do so in the area where you operate. Operate your business the way you want: When you sell on Amazon, you have to agree to the company’s terms and conditions. Having your own e-commerce store allows you to decide what works and what doesn’t work for your own business. Amazon May Be Using Your Data to Launch New Products Another reason you may want to launch your own e-commerce store is that you want peace of mind that Amazon is not using your data to launch products that compete with yours. Does Amazon really collect data from sellers to determine products that are selling well and then launch its own products of the same kind? According to Dana Mattioli, writing for the Wall Street Journal, the answer is yes. Mattioli writes, “Amazon.com Inc. employees have used data about independent sellers on the company’s platform to develop competing products, a practice at odds with the company’s stated policies.” This is an accusation that Amazon disputes. CNBC.com quotes a statement from the company: “While we don’t believe these claims are accurate, we take these allegations very seriously and have launched an internal investigation.” Now that you know the benefits of having your own e-commerce store, let’s look at the steps you can follow to create one. 1. Do Your Homework Starting a business involves making critical choices about several elements. However, to make the right choices, you will need to have sufficient information. That information can only be obtained by researching your business idea. Amazon lists questions that should form part of your research: What problems or pain do you wish to solve in your own life? What flaws or complaints do you have about the products you are currently using? Visit online forums. What prevailing trends can you capitalize on? You can use software that identifies the main terms customers are searching for and then use the relevant keywords when creating content. What do your friends and family members say about products they use? Which products would help improve the services you like and use the most? Using these questions, you can create a business plan that should include matters related to compliance and taxes in the area where you operate. 2. Identify the Potential Customer For your e-commerce store to succeed, you will need to attract customers and get them to buy. However, it will not be possible to attract a customer you have not clearly defined. When you have as much information about your target customer as possible, you will know what they can afford. You will also determine the methods to attract such customers because you know where to find them. When it comes to determining the price point, the online digital marketing resource for digital marketers, QuickSprout.com, advises that you should “Avoid any product category with too low of a price.” QuickSprout.com also suggests that when you select a product whose price and profit margin is too low, you will need to sell hundreds of thousands of products every year to be sustainable. As you may expect, this is not an easy task to accomplish. 3. Choose a Business Name and Register a Domain With all your research done and the customer identified, it’s time to decide on the name that will appeal to that customer. Identify a business name that speaks to your potential customer base. Based on that name, you will also register a domain. Selecting a business and domain name is something that you need to put substantial energy into. This is a view acknowledged by Mailchimp, the American email marketing company. Mailchimp says, “Your domain name is more than just the internet address where people can find your store—it’s the online identity of your business.” 4. Choose Your E-Commerce Type You will also need to determine which type of e-commerce business you want to establish. BigCommerce.com identifies four business models you can consider: Business to consumer (B2C): Involves selling products to the end-user. While this business requires less investment to attract a sale, recurring orders and profit margins are lower. Business to business (B2B): In this model, a business sells its products and services to another business. While decision-making in the B2B model takes longer, purchases tend to be recurring and involve higher prices and profit margins. Consumer to business (C2B): This makes it possible for individuals to supply services and goods to businesses. This is a model that’s primarily ideal for services like web design, marketing, or writing. Consumer to consumer: Allows consumers to sell to each other. However, this model faces challenges regarding scams and product quality. 5. Identify a Platform for Your E-Commerce Store When you select a hosting provider for your e-commerce store, you have two choices. You can create a website that will host your e-commerce store on your own domain. The other option is to find existing e-commerce sites, like Shopify, Amazon, and Big Commerce and use them to anchor your store. 6. Source Products for Your E-Commerce Store Now we get to the more challenging stuff. With millions of companies supplying goods across the world, getting the right quality can be a considerable challenge. Your life will be easier if you find the best sourcing agent in your niche. Amazon suggests that “Good products will help your new online business thrive.” Adding, “The key is not only choosing the right product but the right source for your products.” When you add products to your online store, the most crucial element is ensuring that the customer can navigate the site easily. If customers need to click many times to get a product, they will be frustrated and leave. 7. Determine How You Will Process Payments If not handled with care, payment processing could be your weakest link. When customers are asked to enter confidential information like card numbers, they will need assurance that your site is trustworthy and their information will not end up in the wrong hands. When it comes to processing payments, the good news is that several third-party providers can manage the process securely for you. Specific companies you can work with include PayPal, Stripe, Square, and Amazon Pay. 8. Handle Order Fulfillment Once the customer has trusted your e-commerce store enough to place an order, they don’t expect problems with order fulfillment. Reliable order fulfillment helps you build credibility, get good reviews, and garner respect from your customers. This will amplify your growth potential. In terms of fulfillment, you can choose either dropshipping or third-party logistics (3PLs). When you choose dropshipping, you manage the sales process, and the supplier delivers the product to your customer. It’s important that you partner with the best dropshipping agents available to ensure the smooth flow of your products from a warehouse to your customer’s doorstep. On the other hand, when you work with 3PL fulfillment services, they are the ones that make sure the products are delivered into the customer’s hand in a smooth manner. These services receive the products, package them, and store them before transmitting them to the customer. In this case, you need to find the best fulfillment services to manage the entire supply chain in the best way possible. 9. Manage Marketing, Social Media, and Reviews Your product may be great, but it will not sell if those who need it don’t know about you. This is the reason you need to focus on marketing your products using different methods. One of the least expensive methods of marketing your products is through social media. Amazon suggests that “Given the vast majority of consumers that frequent social media websites every day, adding one or two social media channels to your promotions and outreach can help drive brand and product awareness.” Every customer that decides to write a review is an asset to your e-commerce store. Those who write great reviews show you what is working, while those who write bad ones are helping you improve. If you don’t appreciate the importance of reviews, you probably haven’t seen the statistic by BigCommerce.com: “Customers are likely to spend 31% more on a business with ‘excellent’ reviews.” 10. Evaluate and Act We may have listed these steps in a simple way, from one to ten, but in reality, the process is not always linear. It is vital to evaluate what is and what is not working at every step of the process. This will help you take the necessary actions that will allow your e-commerce business to scale up. For additional links & resources, go to the original article on sourcingbro.com
    By By Anthony Kaylin, courtesy of SBAM Approved Partner ASE 17 Jul, 2021
    The benefits of remote work, when logistically feasible, are immense. Employees have more flexibility with their day, and employers have found that employees tend to work longer. It has forced employers to rethink the future workplace. But there are drawbacks. Employees are human and humans are generally social creatures. Due to limited social interaction, a number of studies are concluding that this new work environment is dumbing us down. “Zoom fatigue” is widely prevalent as people grow tired of the lack of human interaction. New research from Carnegie Mellon also suggests that using Zoom for team interactions may not be particularly effective and might actually be making our teams less intelligent. When working in a team, it generally allows for the best effort in collective intelligence, which is the ability of a group to solve a wide range of problems. With the use of virtual teams, it lessens the collective intelligence, according to the study. Although technology can replicate face-to-face meetings, it does not allow for non-visual communication, which may be more important for participants in a meeting when linked with audio cues. Thereby collective intelligence is negatively impacted by the failure to see or recognize these cues that would be apparent in a live meeting. “We found that video conferencing can actually reduce collective intelligence,” the Carnegie Mellon researchers say. “This is because it leads to more unequal contribution to conversation and disrupts vocal synchrony. Our study underscores the importance of audio cues, which appear to be compromised by video access.” Other research from MIT has demonstrated that the ability to empathize and interact with others is key to successful teamwork, but is difficult to measure online as participants may not have access to in-person cues. Eye contact is important whether in live or video meetings. If having a video meeting, it is important that all participants have their camera on. Research from Tampere University in Finland highlights the importance of eye contact for collaboration. The study found that eye contact during video calls triggers the same kind of psycho-physiological responses as eye contact face-to-face. The findings emerged after the researchers examined the physical reactions to eye contact in a range of situations, including face-to-face and via a live video call. However, since a team meeting is generally more than two people, eye contact may be generic as opposed to specific to the conversation at hand. Research from Florida Atlantic University reveals that a participant’s gaze is often altered during video conferencing, precisely because they believe the other person can see them and they always have to be “on.” Studies have shown that people are highly sensitive to the gaze direction of other people. Therefore, eye contact could be minimalized, and those social clues are somewhat dismissed given the circumstances. If everyone isn’t using their camera, that puts people at a disadvantage. They may assume that the team member off camera is not participating, maybe doing other things, and not taking the discussions seriously. As a result, this could lead to more conflict among team members, increased resistance to ideas, and reduced collective intelligence. Therefore, it is important to have set rules in place for all video or remote meetings, and unless there is a good reason otherwise, all team members must follow and participate in the same way. Electronic device fatigue is real, as is electronic device addiction (do you keep your cellphone on at the dinner table?). When rethinking the workplace, employers must also rethink the workforce and their interaction among each other.
    By Lessons from Jeff Bezos 25 Apr, 2021
    Jeff Bezos' letters to Amazon.com shareholders are a master class in thinking about business, investing, and life. Bezos' letters are a fascinating window into key moments in Amazon's history, such as the IPO, the dot-com crash, and the launch of Prime and Amazon Web Services (AWS), as seen through the eyes of the company's visionary leader. It's instructive to see how Bezos' consistent focus on a few core principles has fueled Amazon's incredible success. In his final letter as CEO (Bezos will transition to a role as executive chairman later this year), Bezos seemed motivated to defend Amazon's reputation and perhaps his personal legacy. He addressed several of the most common criticisms of the company by stressing the importance of creating value for all stakeholders and establishing the lofty goal of being "Earth's Best Employer and Earth's Safest Place to Work." And Bezos closed with a beautiful plea to embrace your uniqueness despite the difficulty. The world wants you to be typical — in a thousand ways, it pulls at you. Don't let it happen. You have to pay a price for your distinctiveness, and it's worth it. We encourage you to read Bezos' letter for yourself and perhaps browse through letters from previous years to soak up some of the timeless principles that have made Amazon so successful (good news: they're pretty short!). To whet your appetite, here are three of our top takeaways from Bezos' previous letters: 1. Focus on the Long Term and Measure What Matters From day one, Amazon has focused on the metrics that Bezos believed would lead to long-term success: customer satisfaction, brand strength, and revenue growth. Bezos knew that scale was essential to leveraging the power of Amazon's business model. By offering the widest selection of products at the lowest prices, Amazon would attract more customers to its site. The revenue from these customers would enable Amazon to lower prices further and invest to improve the customer experience, which would attract even more customers, and so on... Wall Street analysts used to ridicule these investments because they depressed Amazon's earnings. For years, the conventional wisdom was that Amazon would never make money. But Bezos believed this approach was the best way to maximize long-term shareholder value, and he kept Amazon focused on the metrics that mattered instead of playing Wall Street's game. We will continue to make investment decisions in light of long-term market leadership considerations rather than short-term profitability considerations or short-term Wall Street reactions. When forced to choose between optimizing the appearance of our GAAP accounting and maximizing the present value of future cash flows, we'll take the cash flows. 2. Make Big Bets on Bold Ideas...and Don't Fear Failure Swinging for the fences has been key to Amazon's success. Sure, there have been a few strikeouts along the way (remember the Fire Phone?), but those losses pale in comparison to home-run successes like Marketplace, Prime, and AWS. This is reminiscent of David Gardner's investing strategy, in which outperformance comes primarily from a few multibaggers (including Amazon!). David likes to point out that the most a stock can decline is 100%, but a long-term winner can increase 10 times or more. Given a ten percent chance of a 100 times payoff, you should take that bet every time. But you're still going to be wrong nine times out of ten. Most large organizations embrace the idea of invention, but are not willing to suffer the string of failed experiments necessary to get there. Outsized returns often come from betting against conventional wisdom, and conventional wisdom is usually right. ... Big winners pay for so many experiments. 3. It's Always Day 1 Amazon's success stems from its "Day 1" mentality. Although it is among the most powerful companies in the world, Amazon still strives to maintain the culture of an agile and scrappy start-up. That means making quick decisions with incomplete information, correcting course as necessary, learning, and adapting. The core principle behind Amazon's "Day 1" approach is a customer-obsessed culture. Amazon is perpetually driven to improve its services, lower its prices, and increase customer value. While the company could easily rest on its laurels, this "Day 1" mentality drives innovation and ensures that Amazon stays steps ahead of its competitors. Day 2 is stasis. Followed by irrelevance. Followed by excruciating, painful decline. Followed by death. And that is why it is always Day 1. Staying in Day 1 requires you to experiment patiently, accept failures, plant seeds, protect saplings, and double down when you see customer delight. A customer-obsessed culture best creates the conditions where all of that can happen.
    By By Michael Burns, courtesy of SBAM Approved Partner ASE 27 Feb, 2021
    One (or two) questions that have been brought to ASE by employers when requesting a review of their employee handbook over the last year has been, do we need a COVID-19 policy? And/or what other policies do I need to have in place given the pandemic? Before I go any further, I want to firmly state, employers should be communicating the heck out of new policies and practices resulting from workplace changes driven by the pandemic. In particular, employers should be “screaming” their new COVID-19 safety and health policies and rules to employees working on-site. They should also be repeatedly stating how employees should comply with communications directives and what is expected from them if working from home. Communicate, communicate, communicate. Then communicate some more. To move quickly, these policies can be put out in memos, postings, or emails. To respond specifically about what policies should be added to an employee handbook, my recommendation has been a bit more reserved. One suggestion is to add a policy on Communicable Diseases. A second suggestion, if you foresee continuing remote work after the pandemic, is to also add a Remote Work/Telecommuting policy. Why only those two modest policy suggestions? Because most employers do not update their employee handbooks as often as they should. Therefore, a Communicable Disease policy can be drafted broad enough to address everything from the common cold up to what we are dealing with today – Coronavirus/COVID-19. A specific policy for just COVID-19, as you can easily imagine, will be shortly outdated and its safety and health specific information related to just that disease are changing quicker than most handbooks normally get updated. Use other means to communicate the ever-changing safety and health details. Outside of the handbook, what should be communicated about today’s pandemic? ASE provides a host of policy communications relevant to the current pandemic in our Contagious Diseases and Pandemic Toolkit, available on the ASE Member Dashboard. We are also a Protect Michigan Commission business partner. As we enter the inoculation stages of this pandemic, Michigan has developed and has available for download a number of employee communications pieces that can be used to communicate important and accurate information about vaccination. Those communication pieces need to be communicated quickly. Employers are invited to go to the Communications Toolkit at the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MHDDS) site at Michigan.gov/COVIDVaccine. The toolkit has multilingual graphics, videos, posters, and handouts that employers can use to get the word out to workers and their families about the COVID-19 vaccine and when and how to receive the inoculation. The other policy resulting from this pandemic that will probably stand the test of time (or at least until the next handbook update 2- 4 years down the road) is a Telecommuting or Remote Work policy. Most employers already had adopted a remote work program. What has changed is that it was once seen as a progressive, work-life balancing program, today it is now a virtual (pun intended) necessity for most employers. The conventional wisdom is that significant segments of employer jobs can be performed (to at least some extent) from home and beyond. One other policy area that employers will have to embrace in the new remote workplace is cyber security. Workers push and pull information (data) from a what is believed to be a reasonably secure worksite out into every nook and cranny employees take their connected and possibly unsecured electronic device to. Ponemon Institute reports the average cost of a data breach is $3.86 million. At this point, most employer handbooks should have some fashion of Electronic Communications policy included in it. This is another employment handbook policy that employers will probably need to shore up going forward. Most small employers’ handbooks have some policies addressing computer or internet security. Larger more mature businesses have extensive policies on the use of company computer and other equipment. Employers should review their current Electronic Communications policies and practices to determine if they are secure enough. The normal employee is not going to assume or even know if the electronic devices they use everyday are secure enough to use for sensitive data. Employers working with their IT department or vendor should develop an effective policy for its workplace that will embrace the security risk they face when employees work remotely. Don’t get caught! Epidemic orders and MiOSHA require all businesses that are permitted to require their employees to leave the home or residences for work must have a COVID-19 Response and Preparedness Plan.
    By Gloria Martinez 23 Feb, 2021
    As a rule, small business owners should regularly assess what they do and how they can do it better. Indeed, there are tons of opportunities for small businesses to grow and flourish, even with an ever-changing world and economy. By implementing the following simple changes into how you run your business, courtesy of the Belleville Area Chamber of Commerce, you may just be looking at your best year yet. Bank smarter. Most small business owners open their business bank accounts early on — as they should. But considering what your business is now instead of what it was then, it’s a good time to re-evaluate your needs when it comes to banking. Ideally, small business bank accounts should provide high-yield interest, free instant deposits, little to no transfer fees, and tons of other features that make banking for your business the easiest part of your day, including integrating with your payroll software. Smoother banking gives you more time to focus on your business, so it’s worth giving yours some thought. Protect yourself. With insecure markets and economies that seem to keep changing these days, there’s really no such thing as ‘total’ security in business. Take the time to see how you can protect your personal assets from those of your business. Consider forming an LLC to limit your liability, reduce paperwork, and provide tax breaks. The additional peace of mind will go a long way. Overhaul your records. There are tons of records that need to be kept for small businesses to really thrive. From tax documents to invoices to payroll, you need to be able to find these documents when needed without having to upend your office. So take some time to create an organization system that will serve you in the future and make tax time a breeze. As a tip: Put in time at the end of every week to tidy up your files and see how much easier it is to maintain your paperwork year after year. Create a web presence. These days, being available online is a must for most modern businesses. There are countless platforms that will help you build your own website , get started in ecommerce , and even start email campaigns to reach out to your loyal customers. By connecting online, you can keep your business thriving and even cast a wider net, no matter your budget. Assess your goals. Having specific goals will help you steer your business in the direction you want and make choices that align with your vision for the future. Go back to the drawing board on a regular basis and come up with goals for this quarter, this year, and maybe even further into the future. From growing your customer base to selling more products or services, the choices you make should reflect how you want your business to grow. And by re-evaluating your goals regularly, you can find new opportunities and break out of habits that no longer serve you. Make connections. There are so many local resources for small businesses, so there’s no benefit to going at it alone. Instead, see what organizations in your area support and connect other local businesses, such as the Belleville Area Chamber of Commerce. Chambers are dedicated to providing resources, networking opportunities, and supporting local businesses. When leveraged right, your membership can do plenty in helping your venture succeed. No matter what your business goals are, these six simple yet effective measures will only serve your business in positive ways. The Belleville Area Chamber of Commerce is also ready to help your small business grow and flourish in the local economy. Join the chamber today.
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