October 2022 - Page 8 of 12

Small Home Business Opportunity – Ideas For Everyone

Looking for ideas for a small home business opportunity? Many people have a difficult time thinking of a business they can start from their home. When you learn how to come up with an idea, it’s much easier! Even if you can’t really think of one, there are plenty of ways you can have your own business at home.

First of all, eliminate the obvious. If you have hobbies or interests that would work as a money making opportunity, use it! Catering, photography, home daycare, cleaning – these would all be good ideas for a small home business opportunity, if those topics are of interest to you.

Do you have a special hobby like making crafts or playing video games? You can open a craft store and sell your creations, or even put them online where they will be seen by millions. If playing video games is your passion, you can actually get paid to play new games by the gaming companies.

Are you thinking yet? Think of everything you know how to do or have past experience with. Bookkeeping, secretarial work, medical billing, data entry – these are good ways to start your own home business if you like typing and clerical type work.

Now, if you absolutely can’t come up with any ideas for a small home business opportunity, there are plenty of options you can still use. Online, there are endless options for making money, many of them free. Affiliate marketing, freelance writing, blogging, online auctions, and surveys are just a few of the ways you can make money.

These are just a few small home business opportunity ideas to help get you thinking about a real option for you. Most people choose affiliate marketing or online surveys when first trying to make money online. If you are a good writer, freelancing allows you to make an exceptional income online.

I hope this has helped you think of different ways you might try to make money at home. Whatever you do, don’t give up! Anyone who truly has the desire can have a business of their own, and millions do it every day. For more ideas for a small home business opportunity, visit the links below!

Tips and Strategies for a Small Business Entrepreneur to Beat the Competition

Many new Small Businesses fail during the early years and one of the reasons attributed for the failure is their inability to beat the competition.

To be successful in your business and to be acknowledged as a successful small business entrepreneur, you have to adopt certain strategies that will enable you to outsmart your competitors and beat them.

1. Go Shopping Yourself:

If you are a manufacturer of certain products, you should go shopping yourself at least once a fortnight. By doing this you will be able to see how and where these products are being displayed, the price at which your competitors are selling their products and the type of packaging used. In fact purchasing of your competitors products on regular basis, testing them and comparing them with your products will be a very useful and productive exercise.

2. Become a member of a Professional Association:

As an entrepreneur it is very important that you become a member of a professional association related to your business or industry. Never, ever think that you can operate in a vacuum and succeed. By regularly attending their meetings, you will get the opportunity of meeting like minded people and your competitors too. Opportunities for gathering vital information and secrets abound in such meetings. Be watchful, grab them and implement them in your small business.

3. Gather Information about Your Competition:

You must have a plan whereby either you or one of your employees should order your competitors’ broachers, catalogues and price lists. This will give you very vital and useful information as to how these products are priced, advertised and promoted. Keeping this constant tab on your competitors will enable you to discover the reasons why some are more successful than you. This ongoing study will help you make very calculated changes in your price structure, marketing and advertising strategies.

4. Attend Trade Shows and Seminars:

Trade shows are places where you as a small business entrepreneur can make useful contacts with other entrepreneurs in your own field of activity and other allied fields as well. Viewing new developments, technologies and marketing methods will inspire and motivate you to develop your own business in those lines.

Attending seminars can be very useful, educative and a place to make useful contacts. These trade shows and seminars can open up new windows of opportunities for you.

5. Read Trade Magazines and Newsletters:

Subscribe to your industry or business trade magazine or newsletter. You will come across many things that you are not aware of, in manufacturing, advertising and marketing. These tips and tricks will help you fine tune some of your present strategies.

6. Address Meetings and Focus Groups:

Never miss an opportunity to address meetings related to your industry or business. It will also be wise to organize Focus Groups where you can obtain the views of the members regarding your products. The feedback thus obtained will help you make changes in your products and the marketability of your products.

7. Distribute Free Gifts, Vouchers and Coupons:

The whole world loves free gifts. Even millionaires love anything given free. You should take full advantage of this and promote your small business by offering free gifts. Whenever there are community gatherings, focus group meetings and other functions, try and distribute free gifts, discounted coupons and vouchers. You should ensure that you have your website URL, address and phone numbers embedded in all your items.

8. Have a Professional looking Website.

A well designed professional looking website is absolutely essential. By providing all the information about your business, products and services, it will add credibility to your small business.

Conclusion:

To succeed as a Small Business Entrepreneur is your ultimate goal and failure is not an option. Keep a watchful eye on your competition and implement these tips and strategies. It will not be long before your competitors disappear from the radar screen.

Small Business Venture Capital Strategies

When launching a new small business, often the entrepreneur will consider venture capital as a source of funding. Here are 3 tips to ensure that venture capital funding can be secured when sending out your business plan:

Send your business plan to the right people

Venture capitalists tend to specialize in certain kinds of businesses. Some will specialize by industry, only investing in new energy companies, for instance, while others look for a certain size of company to invest in. It is worth doing the research to determine who the venture capital backers are for your industry, before you start sending out your business plan. Venture capitalists who are not specific to your industry can provide recommendations to make your plan more appealing to other venture capitalists. However, it would naturally be a mistake to send your plan to potential investors who will not even consider it.

Make sure your business has the potential to be profitable enough

Most venture capitalists look for a return of about 5-10 times their initial investment. For example, an investment in a company of $2 million should yield a return of $14-20 million after about five years. To satisfy these requirements, it is generally necessary to have a business which has the potential for a high rate of return on the amount invested. If the rate of return can reasonably be expected to be lower, such as for a clothing retailer, then it is probably better to look for an alternate source of funding, such as an investment or commercial bank.

Remember to include an exit strategy for your investor

Venture capitalists generally do not want to be involved with a new venture for an indefinite period of time. Most will plan to leave the new venture after about five years, so you should offer a clear explanation of how this may be achieved. There can be a variety of reasons for this; some venture capital managers require that the holdings periodically be sold off to acquire other offerings. Nonetheless, by demonstrating that you understand the limited time frame for many venture capitalists, you automatically make your plan more appealing than those which do not.

In summary, by sending your business plan to the right people, by recognizing what rate of return is necessary for venture capitalist involvement, and by including an exit strategy, you can improve your odds of securing venture capital funding for a new and growing business.

How Did Women Make Money In 1887?

Mrs. M.L. Rayne’s 1887 book, What Can A Woman Do? provides a fascinating look at how Victorian women could make money in the 1880s. It’s rich with information and vignettes that show what was possible for working women some 120 years ago. The opportunities for enterprising women were greater than most of us imagine.

The book is subtitled “Her Position in the Business and Literary World”. A sizable section is dedicated to women poets but it is the business opportunities for women that are most intriguing. Rayne looks at careers for women as well as a variety of ways women could make money on their own.

A chapter is devoted to women in the legal profession. The author notes that there were some ninety women practicing law in the United States in the 1880s, most of whom had graduated from the University of Michigan, the first U.S. university to admit women to its law school. In an early version of networking the author suggests that readers contact one of the female attorneys she mentions and ask them for advice on pursuing a legal career.

There is also a chapter about women in medicine. The author writes that Europe was far ahead of the United States in opening its medical schools to women. In the US, a medical school for women was opened in Boston in 1848. In the 1880s close to half of Boston University’s medical school students were female and Rayne lists four other US medical schools that admitted women.

Other occupations that are discussed in the book include stenography and typing; wood engraving; nursing; telegraphy; and government work. There is much discussion of wages and earning potential in the book. In the chapter on telegraphy, a profession for which there were actually specific educational programs, Rayne writes about the income disparities between men and women operators. Women were paid on average $500 per year while men earned an average annual salary of $840.

Rayne’s feminist bent extends beyond wage disparities. She writes of how a woman’s work is never done. A man goes home to rest and read while a woman returns home to work and weariness. Clearly Rayne was a woman ahead of her time. Chapters are devoted to women as inventors and women of enterprise. She writes of women who received patents for their inventions and women who started their own businesses.

A number of the ways to make money discussed in the book are still popular today. Raising chickens, even in the city and suburbs, is becoming more popular. The book includes a chapter on raising poultry that will be of interest to backyard poultry enthusiasts. There’s also a chapter on making money with bee keeping, another increasingly popular hobby nowadays. Other perennial favorite money making opportunities discussed in the book include dressmaking, housekeeping, cooking (today we call ourselves caterers), and taking in boarders (nowadays we call it getting a roommate).

For those who thought that women first entered the workforce in the 1970s or no earlier than the days of Rosie the Riveter, Rayne provides an eye opening account of women’s first forays into the working world. Whether it’s a century old perspective on making money with your own enterprise or an eye-opening look at the early days of feminism, What Can A Woman Do sheds much light on the early days of women in the work force.

Women & Business Partnership – The Good, the Bad and the Synergy

Team sports prepare boys for the corporate model of business. Girls, however, typically play closely with one or two friends. What great preparation for entrepreneurial partnership! So it is fitting, as women continue to start businesses in record numbers, that many are finding partnership is a comfortable format. In fact, business partnership works for women coming from a wide range of backgrounds and experiences including those tired of hitting the corporate glass ceiling, stay-at-home Moms, and women who want to turn their passions and their social connections into business ideas.

Partnership brings a wide variety of benefits including a sense of connection and someone to cover when you go on vacation. On the other hand, many partnerships end in crisis and conflict. To avoid partnership failure, your partnership needs to possess the following seven components of positive partnership.

Shared Values. Partners need a sense of shared standards regarding what is desirable, undesirable, good, and bad. These values will guide partners’ actions, judgments, and choices. Values, which often carry considerable emotion, may range from valuing family, prosperity, ambition, a work ethic, or a political persuasion. In addition to helping partners make congruent decisions, shared values serve to keep partners united.

Different (Complementary) Skills and Traits. Successful partners will possess different (complementary) skills and traits. The broader the partners’ range of skills, the clearer the division of their labor (and power) can be. It may be easy to distinguish the marketing person from the technical person in a business but other necessary variables are often not as easy to see. Michael Gerber’s classic book “The E-Myth” explains that a business owner needs to play three roles, Entrepreneur – the creative visionary; Manager, the administrator who brings planning, order and predictability; and Technician – the craftsperson. Partnerships have a distinct advantage in that two or more invested people are available to perform the three necessary roles.

Sense of Equity. Equity occurs when the rewards of a relationship are proportional to what each side perceives as his or her contribution. Strangers and casual acquaintances maintain equity by keeping track of the benefits they exchange. However, in long-term and more committed relationships it is not healthy to keep track. Instead, a sense of equity should be established. A perception of inequity (I am giving more then I get) takes a tremendous toll on a partnership.

Growing Together. From the moment we are born until the day we die, we are in the process of growing and changing. Partners and their partnerships are continuously undergoing this process of change. However, we are often not aware of the changes we’re experiencing. And, sometimes change is viewed as a threat to the status quo. Successful partners embrace change and growth, knowing that this attitude benefits both their individual and shared professional identities.

Proactive Conflict Management Strategies. Competing and avoiding are not effective conflict management strategies for partnership. Instead, successful partners will use proactive and strategic approaches to conflict management such as accommodation, compromise and collaboration to resolve their differences.

Shared Vision. Partners need a shared vision or plan for the future. Vision is what determines and expresses where an organization wants to go and how it intends to get there. A shared vision allows partners to focus on their goals and the methods they will use to achieve those goals. When partners hold different visions they become discouraged, overwhelmed, and disconnected. In order to create and effectively benefit from a shared vision, four tasks are necessary: creating the initial vision, translating that vision into the necessary physical actions, articulating and selling the vision to others, and holding true to the essence of the vision when reality changes the plans.

An Exit Strategy. It has been said that a graceful exit is proof of a successful venture. Without an exit strategy in place partners can be faced with making crucial decisions at a time when they were least levelheaded. An exit strategy is a shared sense of when and how an alliance will end and one should be included as the end-point in a business plan. However, while planning for the end may be a critical aspect of owning a business, it is also one of the most neglected. Exits are easy to avoid when the issue is not pressing and raising the issue might sour the deal or suggest a lack of trust. Four questions should be addressed when considering an exit plan: what events might trigger an end to the partnership; how will the business be valued at the end; which options for future ownership are acceptable; and what post-alliance ties and restrictions, such as non-compete clauses, need to be included.

When you enter into a partnership that is strong in these seven components you have the potential to create synergy and reap some amazing benefits. True synergy comes about when two (or more) people work together to create results that would have been unobtainable independently. In a synergistic partnership 2+2>4 and the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

10 Good Reasons Why Small Enterprises (Small Businesses) Fail

You’ll agree with me that there are so many small businesses which have contributed a lot to the growth of economy. They have created employment opportunities for many families although some remain to be small throughout their operational life.

It is obvious that those who are starting new ventures have objectives to achieve. And to mention each business has got its own objectives to achieve such as maximization of profits and sales, minimize costs, maintain a certain level of production and labor force etc.

Failing of a business opportunity is what an entrepreneur won’t want to happen. Inasmuch as we agree with the fact that there are firms which have succeeded, we should also accept the fact that a good number of them have failed even before two years lapse after they commence business.

If aspiring entrepreneurs addressed the reasons why small businesses fail, then they will not fall to be victims of the same causes of failure. This is because they’ll be in a position to identify these causes and fix them before it’s too late.

Now you may be asking yourself as to why some businesses remain to be small throughout their operational life despite some of them making profits or are capable of growing.

4 Reasons Why Small Business Remain to be Small

1.) The owners of these businesses prefer not to expand their businesses. Some sole proprietors do not want to be bothered with the challenges of managing a big business. They don’t want to employ people to assist them in running their businesses but instead they prefer to be assisted by their family members.

2.) The nature of the product/service the business is involved in doesn’t allow expansion. There are people offering products/services which make it difficult for their business to grow.

3.) Lack of capital for expansion. There are small businesses which are viable and have the potential of growing but they lack enough capital. Such businesses have the challenge of securing funds from financial institutions. Lack of capital plays a negative role in hindering the growth of small businesses.

4.) Very low demand. If the business has a very low demand for its product or service, then at the end of the fiscal financial year/trading period the business won’t realize profits, and if it does, it’s very low, therefore the chances of it expanding are very minimal. Just to mention, realization of inadequate profits as a result of very low demand hinders the growth of small businesses.

However, there must be a starting point and as such, every business starts as a small entity and it gradually grows to a medium entity and eventually it becomes a big business entity which is either a private limited company or a public limited company. Note that a partnership business can also grow to become a big business.

Reasons Why Small Businesses Fail

1.) Wrong Reasons For Commencing Business: People who start a business for wrong reasons haven’t succeeded. Just because another person is making high profits in a certain line of business doesn’t mean that you will also make the same amounts of profits as him/her if you start the same business.

2.) Poor Business Management: When there is poor management of the business it becomes difficult for such a business to succeed in its operations. Finance, marketing, purchasing and selling, planning, hiring and managing employees is what most new business owners fail to execute effectively thus making their small businesses to fail.

3.) Lack of Commitment: Starting a business requires someone who is committed in ensuring that it succeeds. Neglecting the business will cause the business to fail. Many small businesses have failed because the owners didn’t take their time in monitoring performance and in marketing them. Some business owners leave their businesses to be managed on their behalf by incompetent people who lack book keeping knowledge and the knowledge of managing a business.

4.) Lack of Finances: Small businesses have failed because of lack of adequate finances. Some of the owners underestimated the amount of capital required and as a result of this underestimation some ended up running out of operating capital thus ending the operation of their businesses.

There are those who have no reserves which has led them not to be able to take care of loses and disasters when they occur thus making them to quit business.

5.) Over-Expansion of the Business: This has led to failure of many small businesses. This happens when there is borrowing of too much money beyond what the business requires so as to expand the business. Moving to markets that are not profitable is also over expansion of the small businesses.

An ideal expansion is the one that is driven by customers due to their high demand for the products and services which leads to high sales thus the business experiences good cash flow.

6.) Location: The place where the business is located is critical in determining its success. Small businesses have failed because of them being located in areas that are not ideal for business. They should be located in areas that are accessible, populated with people and has demand for their products and services.

7.) Personal Use of Business Money: This is the biggest challenge facing many small business owners. They withdraw money meant to operate their businesses to meet their personal wants and needs. If they continue to withdraw money from their businesses without returning it, their businesses will eventually run out of finances therefore forcing them to end the operations of their businesses.

8.) Lack of Delegation: Small enterprises have failed due to owners not delegating some of the duties to their employees. They think that if they delegate them, then their employees will not perform these duties as they would personally perform them. When such owners fall sick or are away from their businesses, then the operations of some tasks will be paralyzed till they resume to work.

9.) Not Diversifying: Small enterprises which have only one product/service to offer are prone to fail easily compared to those that have a variety of products/services.

10.) Procrastination and Poor Time Management: Postponements of tasks which the small business owners feel to be unpleasant to perform has made the small businesses to fail. An example of such tasks include following debtors to pay their debts (debt collection).

Time management remains to be a challenge for many people who own small businesses. If important tasks like delivering products to customers, purchasing stock etc are not handled in the appropriate time, then the business will lose its customers.

The above are not all the reasons why small businesses fail, there are more reasons.

Small Business Advertising Ideas: The Top 1% Of All Small Business Advertising Ideas Bring You Cash

Guess what, if you are searching passionately for proven small business advertising ideas, you could not be in a better place.

The mighty Google that you know and love has very much come out and revealed that local search will eventually be the biggest revenue stream for them.

That is a massive statement. And it means that if you are not putting into place even a small business SEO campaign that features your top keywords based on location, you are handing money to your local competitors. Pity.

Knowing that momentum is coming, it is your job to jump on board. And one of the best and fastest ways to do that is to start am article marketing process that features your top, localized keywords.

A whopping 70% of all clicks on any given Google page are being gotten by the top four spots on that page. Everything after the bottom of Google page one is useless, but can you imagine that 70% of all the organic clicks are going only to those top 4 spots?

Now, if you also knew that a man by the name of Bill Gates saw local search coming and predicted the demise of the Yellow Pages industry, how would that factor in?

Gates knew. Google knows. Local small business search is where it is at and where it will stay. So you need to find the best way in.

So how best to approach this? One of the top, most affordable small business SEO methods out there is article marketing. But this is article marketing done perfectly, creating tens of thousands of in-pointing links from quality sites that feature your localized keywords.

With all of those links out there, all using your local keywords, your web page will not so slowly assume one of those top 4 spots for that keyword. It is a simple yet amazing SEO game that’s played by the best small business SEO services companies.

Honestly, of all the small business advertising ideas out there, this is one that you can bank on.

It is not easy to find an article marketing services company that will start with your best keywords and publish them in mass and then publish them and then point to those articles. But that is what you must demand.

The real factor here is that all of those articles mean not a thing to you if they do not get found.

Small Business Management and Entrepreneurship

Owning a successful business is no longer reserved for a lucky few. It is because there are some rules followed by those successful business people in making the business people to climb the richness ladder with assurance and comfort ability although any business is about risking and that the higher the risk the higher the reward or profit.

When you want to startup a business you first must have an idea, example of business ideas are like opening up a hairdresser, opens a salon, a shop and much. Generally, people do make huge mistake. Just because they are thinking about the job and not the business. Only because you are a good chef does not mean you know how to run a restaurant. More important, it does not mean a restaurant would be successful in your market. So you have to clearly assess and evaluate your business idea before implementing it.

Business wise you have to make sure that what you are going to produce Is it a product or service they have fallen in love with. Again, just because you love something does not mean a profitable business will come of it. This is especially true for first-time entrepreneurs. Learning how to run a business is hard enough; you don’t need to make it any harder by doing something you love rather than something customers love paying you a good profit for or producing what you want instead of what they want.

There are some guidelines on how you are sure that your intriguing idea is also something from which you can truly make a profit? There are three essential considerations one has to bear in mind.

Make sure the product or service has a repeat buy. This is by far the most important aspect of long-term business success. You have to have a product or service that people will keep buying. It is better and more profitable, in my opinion, to have a pool cleaning company than a pool building company. Put another way, a business owner should focus on getting a customer once, but making a profit from that person for a very long time.
Be certain you have a high profit margin.

There are very few companies that can compete long term on a “we are cheaper” marketing platform. In any new business, you need to watch your cash flow–and if you are trying to work with low profit margins and make gains in volume, you will need to have a high level of working capital to keep you running through the lean profits early on. Having a higher margin is extremely important when you are growing a business so you can self-finance your growth.

Build a strong support team because a good idea is not enough. The idea counts most, yet a quality idea must still have a great team of people behind it to give it wings. Time after time, when people bring me a business investment proposal or an idea they want to take to market, I ask them who is on their team and they respond with something crazy like, “Oh, we have not hired anyone yet.” Get a board of advisers. Get a team of professional accountants, coaches, lawyers and bankers. A great team will greatly improve the chances for success of any business.

Now if I were going into business today, to be sure of the market what would I choose? I would start with one premise and some hot industries. Here the premise is, you do not make money panning for gold, and you make money selling pans. Get in the way of a buying frenzy, and you will be a success. Therefore the fastest way to make a restaurant profitable is not by having a great chef and great decor or big buildings it is by attracting a starving crowd with money so that they can eat the food in exchange for their money.

In other words look for an idea you can take national or, even better, global at some stage. Although it might be fun and a challenge to establish yourself locally right now, but eventually you’ll want to build something much bigger for the future and also expand you business.

Entrepreneurship Defined – Entrepreneur Vs Small Business

The concept of entrepreneurship takes a wide range of definition and its meaning has progressed over the century. To many, it is linked to starting one’s personal business. However, nearly all economists believe that it is more than starting a business.

The word entrepreneur comes from the French word entreprendre, meaning ‘to embark on.’ In a business perspective, it means to start a business. Entrepreneur can also refer to a person who systematizes and administers a business and usually takes the risk for the sake of profit or turnover. He can also be defined as a person with high propensity who pioneers change or anyone who wants to work for himself.

Entrepreneurship vs. Small Business

The terms ‘entrepreneur’ and ‘small business’ are quite alike and can often be used interchangeably. With much commonality, however, there are significant differences between the entrepreneurial venture and the small business.

Entrepreneurial venture is quite different from small business in the following ways:

Innovation – This is the very instrument of entrepreneurship. It providesresources with a new power to create wealth. Entrepreneurship frequently engages extensive innovation further than what a small business might exhibit.
Risk – Risk must be usually high in an entrepreneurial venture. If not, with the enticement of sure profits, many entrepreneurs would be trailing the idea and the opportunity would no longer exist.
Amount of wealth creation – A booming entrepreneurial venture generates substantial wealth, normally in excess of several million dollars of profit rather than simply generating an income stream that replaces fixed employment.
Speed of wealth creation – A successful small business can make quite a lot of profit over a lifetime. But for an entrepreneur, wealth creation often is fast and speedy, for example, within 5 years. Also, the types of business they are engaged in is what basically differentiates entrepreneur activities. Innovation is the key. Every entrepreneur should rely greatly on this. Innovation can be emphasized on the following:

new organization
new products
new markets
new production methods

When such innovation produces new demand, wealth is created. From this standpoint, one can simply describe the function of the entrepreneur as one of merging a variety of factors in an inventive manner to generate value to the customer. It hopes that this value will surpass the cost of the input factors, therefore spawning greater returns on investment.

So the main differences between entrepreneurship and small business is that the entrepreneur takes a risk and hits the ground running with the intent of immediate, and hopefully massive payoffs, whereas the small business generally starts smaller, with less risk and the income and success builds over time under very controlled planning.

Special Gift Ideas for Men

Most people love to receive a gift for a variety of purposes. This can include birthdays, anniversaries, or other important events. Both men and women enjoy receiving gifts. But here are gift ideas for men along with some further suggestions for consideration.

There are a wide variety of gift ideas to consider for men. The type of gift you send them can be dependent on how well you know that person and what his interests include.

However there are some general guidelines you may want to consider in order to find something the man will really appreciate.

First of all many men enjoy sports related items. For example if the person enjoys golf, then consider getting him something related to this hobby. Depending upon your available budget you want to consider a golf club or something else related to the sport like balls or other accessories.

If you aren’t sure specifically what type of sports related item to purchase then a gift certificate from a sports related retailer might be a good choice. Many men would very much appreciate the effort and expense in doing so.

Personalised sports related gifts can also be a great choice. However be certain that you know what interests the man has first. For example if he has a favorite sports team then something related to this could be a great gift idea. However don’t get him something from a team he greatly dislikes or the positive aspects of sending him a gift would be diminished.

Another type of gift to consider might be something related to cars. If the person you want to send out a gift to owns and really enjoys a particular type of car, then a nice gift might be an accessory related to this. It could be as simple as a keyring with the logo of the car he drives. Or perhaps something more involved or expensive such as body trim, etc.

It shows the person how much you care about him and how you have the taken the time and effort to find something important to him. Many men also enjoy working with their hands so perhaps something related to home improvement might be appropriate.

And other great gift ideas include personalized items such as desk accessories. You can get him a nice pen holder or paperweight engraved with his name or message. This is something he can use every day. In the process he can be reminded of your gift and further reinforce the positive nature of your gesture.