Florida Trend | Florida's Business Authority

Monday's Afternoon Update

Incubators grow with demand

New organizations that nurture start-up businesses are in the works for South Florida, and they're reinventing the traditional "incubator" concept to meet the changing needs of today's entrepreneurs. More at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.


Sales and Marketing Advice for Florida business
Treat current customers like new customers to win more business

You’ve heard it time and time again; 80% of your company’s future revenue will come from just 20% of your existing customers. Every business needs new customers to grow big -- but it’s easier to go after new revenue from customers who already know your company. What’s a company to do? Read Ron Stein's full column.


Florida medical team heads to NYC to help post-Sandy

Business Profile

Voalté

Voalte
As chief executive of the company that turned the iPhone into a portable nursing station, Voalte Inc.'s Rob Campbell now faces the happy -- but hectic -- consequences of being in the right place at the right time.

The latest display of that good luck occurred last month, when Campbell raised $6 million in fresh funding, paving the way for fast growth. That was the easy part. Spending the money, he knows, will require finesse.

» Full story from the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and see Florida Trend's 2011 profile of Voalté.

Doctors, nurses, pharmacists, paramedics and mental health experts from Florida are heading to New York to work in areas affected by Hurricane Sandy. More than 40 medical professionals from Broward and Palm Beach counties were dispatched Monday as part of a federally coordinated disaster medical assistance team. They'll spend up to two weeks working in New York City shelters and hospitals. Read more at the AP.


Self-publishing industry booming

The publishing world is being upended, and reinvented, by people like Hugh Howey, Ily Goyanes and Kristy Montee. They are part of a movement using the power of e-books and the Internet to lead publishing into a new frontier, and through the biggest upheaval of the industry since Guttenberg’s press. More at the Miami Herald.


Small Business Advice
How to achieve great customer service

I am often asked how you achieve great customer service in a business. This is a fair question, because though customer satisfaction surveys and mystery shoppers provide very effective ways of measuring the success of the existing customer experience, they do not tell us how to create great customer service in the first place. More from Jerry Osteryoung.

Florida Fiction
Tom Wolfe at Miami Book Fair International: Even I can’t sum up Miami

 tom wolfe Here are the things you might not know about Tom Wolfe: He prefers the tango to salsa dancing. He fondly remembers the flamingos at Hialeah Park. He has sipped Cuban coffee at Versailles. And he’s not crazy about hip-hop but likes country music, if only for the song titles. And yes. He wore one of his famous white suits — with black and white checked socks, no less — when he kicked off the 29th Miami Book Fair International.

» Full story from the Miami Herald
» Watch Tom Wolfe discuss his new novel below: