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Sweet marketing music

Tanner Montague came to town from Seattle having never owned his own music venue before. He’s a musician himself, so he has a pretty good sense of good music, but he also wandered into a crowded music scene filled with concert venues large and small.But the owner of Green Room thinks he found a void in the market. It’s lacking, he says, in places serving between 200 and 500 people, a sweet spot he thinks could be a draw for both some national acts not quite big enough yet for arena gigs and local acts looking for a launching pad.“I felt that size would do well in the city to offer more options,” he says. “My goal was to A, bring another option for national acts but then, B, have a great spot for local bands to start.”Right or wrong, something seems to be working, he says. He’s got a full calendar of concerts booked out several months. How did he, as a newcomer to the market in an industry filled with competition, get the attention of the local concertgoer?

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by Beth Ewen
April 2008

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Dear Informer

DEAR INFORMER

Becoming ‘razor sharp’
takes more than
attitude alone

DEAR INFORMER: What are steps I can take to prevent fraud at my small business?

DEAR SAFEGUARDING: Combating fraud can seem overwhelming, especially to small-business owners who don’t have millions of dollars or thousands of hours to spend.

Craig Siiro, a partner at Virchow Krause & Co. who specializes in fraud examinations, suggests you break the problem into smaller pieces, considering the work environment first.

“An effective fraud prevention strategy begins with creating a work environment that defines and reinforces anti-fraud behavior,” he writes in a piece about the topic. This includes how the company treats its customers, employees and suppliers.

“No matter how many internal control systems or anti-fraud procedures are used, there needs to be the proper tone at the top that demands to always do the right thing no matter what the cost to the company,” Siiro believes.

A clearly written fraud policy is a must, he says. This policy should describe the corporate commitment to the fair treatment of all employees, customers and suppliers.

And you can’t just write down a policy, you have to follow it. “Any variances from company policy need to be handled according to the written fraud policy. Any variances, no matter the size, will limit the effectiveness of the company policy allowing the rationalization of future fraud activity,” Siiro insists.

 It’d important to have a history of prosecuting fraudulent activity, and not just for your own company?s sake.

“Too often, employees caught committing fraud against the company are terminated without the negative, embarrassing consequences of being prosecuted for their crime. Faced with only termination, the employee often commits the act again at their next employer.”

 Internal control systems are important, what Siiro calls ‘the front lines in the fight against fraud.’

“An adequate system of internal controls reduces the number of opportunities available to those individuals with pressure and rationalization,” he says.

He also recommends the use of procedures specifically designed to detect fraud, and he says those are different from internal controls.

These procedures should be performed randomly throughout the year by testing a variety of areas of potential fraud, including such things as ghost employees, fictitious vendors, kiting and inventory shrinkage.

They don’t necessarily have to be elaborate, Siiro says. But you have to think like a bad guy.

“Put yourself in a fraudster?s shoes. Look at your company and say, “If somebody was going to steal money from me, how would they do it?” Figure out some of the schemes.?

He gives a common example: “Let’s say it’s a small company, with a lack of segregation of duties. Say you have a controller and a software package. One scheme would be, they’d set up a fake vendor, and a lot of times they’ll set up the vendor with their home address.

“So you could go through and export the employee file with their addresses, and then take the vendor file with those addresses, and see if any are the same,” Siiro says. It sounds simple, but that’s the point: Average fraudsters aren’t necessarily geniuses, and they tend to follow common paths.

“The biggest and most important thing, they really should understand their financial statements,” he says about business owners.

“For example, many times a business owner won’t look at a balance sheet. They’ll look at their income statement and see they’re making money. But I was investigating a fraud, and I asked the business owner, how much inventory do you have at this location? He said $200,000, yet the balance sheet said over $2 million,” so the C