Here’s an interesting item in a recent Herman Trend Alert, written by Joyce Gioia, a strategic business futurist, Certified Management Consultant, author and professional speaker: “Previous Herman Trend Alerts have stated that most job creation occurred in small- and medium-size businesses. While we have witnessed recent widespread job losses, historically small business’ net job creation will make it a key player in our economic recovery. Not surprisingly, many people who have not been able to find employment have chosen to go into business for themselves.

According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), nonfarm, private sector employment peaked at 115.8 million in December 2007 then fell to 109.5 million by May 2009. At this time, job losses from mass layoffs added up to 3.6 million, up 66% over the preceding 18 months.

While tightly editing a submitted piece for the January-February issue that looks at low-cost marketing strategies, taken from the recently-published “Changing the Channel: 12 Easy Ways to Make Millions for Your Business,” the following sentence from co-author MaryEllen Tribby ended up on the cutting room floor:

“Strong customer relationships are built on integrity: Never promise anything you can’t deliver. But when you see an opportunity to over-deliver, do it every time.”

It’s a short couple of sentences but a powerful concept that goes a long way toward creating

As I mentioned in the first poweretblog post following GIE+EXPO, ethanol was a hot topic at the event. We’ve got more coverage of ethanol issues that came up during GIE+EXPO in the December issue of PET, with comments from OPEI officials and a quick take on an ethanol technical session given by Stihl technical training coordinator Eddie Anderson during the show. Dan Ariens and Fred Whyte also mentioned ethanol issues during their Q-n-A session at The Dealer Experience.

Alert PET reader John Greco in Old Forge, Pa. spotted the almost-forgotten McCulloch BP-1 chain saw in the photo on p. 48 of the PET November PowerGuide issue and sent a note thanking us for running it. Greco, who sold McCulloch for Eastern States Distributors and as a factory rep back in the day, noted that the saw had a second “balancing piston” below the main piston that greatly reduced vibration.

The photo came from the big box of old Chain Saw Age (forerunner to PET) archives, which includes some classic material.

I noticed it just this morning driving to work. Gas at the local station had dropped six cents a gallon overnight to $1.99, led by the “Venezuelans” that supply several Citgo franchises around town. I need to send a photo to PET sales rep Bill Albrant, who lives in Orange County, Calif. Last month at GIE+EXPO in Louisville, he was taking repeated cell phone photos of gas pricing signs near the motel where we stayed for the show on Fern Valley Road south of town. Albrant had to take several photos since the price dropped from the mid $2.50 range down to I think $2.41 when he took his last photo while we were there, saying the folks he knew in southern California—where gas was still over $3/gal.—would never believe it.

While Stihl got a cool mention in the Wall Street Journal a couple of weeks ago for its dealer relationships, Yamaha recently found itself front and center in an in-depth WSJ article about pending utility vehicle regulation. There’s nothing like being used as a major media example—the “poster child” for a given issue—to set off alarms in corporate offices and boardrooms.

The chosen product in this case is the Yamaha Rhino, a popular utility vehicle that sold 42,000 units in 2007. Seems accidents involving the Rhino have added up to 30 deaths and more than 200 state and federal lawsuits, according to the article. Voluntary federal safety regulations for ATVs are going mandatory next year, but UTVs, with their steering wheels and more automotive designs, have largely escaped safety regulations.

The politician promising a zero-turn in every yard and a trimmer in every garage and tool closet—that’s the one I voted for….

Actually, I drove past my polling place at a municipal library here in Montgomery this morning and flipped out at the long line stretching out the door, through the parking lot and around the building and just drove on by—and this was five minutes before the polls opened! At work, looking at some of the news coverage online, where people were waiting hours and hours just to vote, I was tempted to take the election off. (I live in an older neighborhood and voting precinct near the core of town that’s been solidly Republican ever since LBJ shattered the Southern Democratic Coalition in the 1960s, so it’s tempting at times not to exercise the right to vote.) Yet then I think of soldiers and statesmen, civil rights activists and volunteers of all political stripes who’ve given their time, careers and lives to ensure this constitutional right extends to all citizens—not to mention the little old ladies and others who are waiting hours in all sorts of weather—and I got off my duff, took an early lunch and breezed into the library before 11 a.m. After the pre-work early voters and before the lunch crowd, the only line at the polling place was at the ballot insert machine, and I was third from the front.

I got my “I Voted” sticker, felt like a better American and thought briefly of heading to Starbucks for a free cup of coffee, but instead went home, whipped up a homemade burrito and was back at work soon after noon.

Like they say, if you don’t use your right to vote, you have no right to complain.

In an article about how dealer-oriented manufacturers are working through the economic downturn, Stihl Inc. was one of two companies highlighted in a recent on-line edition of the Wall Street Journal. This was one of the items noted in a recent edition of the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute’s daily “SmartBrief” on-line newsletter:

Only days after the October issue hit the streets, I got a call from “the inimitable” C.B. Fulbright of Jefferson City, Mo., who was profiled in the magazine so many years ago that “Chain Saw Age” was still on the cover. In the October issue, I had mentioned some memories of the first Expo I had attended, way back in 1991, and how C.B. would scour the show floor with a briefcase containing defective or poorly-performing parts that he was happy to share with other dealers, distributors and especially manufacturers. In our profile from the early ’90s, we detailed C.B.’s free saw chain sharpening cards, of which he had sold thousands. Here’s his latest venture: He’s been buying mowers at price from a mass merchant for $139, putting them in his showroom for $239, and offering free $40 mower checkups. When a mower comes in that doesn’t run or costs too much to fix, he offers customers a chance to apply the $40 towards the purchase of one of the new mowers. “I bet I’ve sold almost a thousand of them,” he says.

A natural-born promoter and marketer, C.B. says dealers can’t just “sit around and wait for the money to come in—you’ve got to have a gimmick.”

While on the topic of generators, I got a call the other day from a guy down in West Palm Beach, Fla., who wanted to “pick my brain” about the industry. . .