Businesses across all industries are targeting gay consumers.

There’s good reason to do so. A 2001 Advertising Age survey found that GLBT consumers spent $514 billion nationally. By 2006, a Witeck-Combs study estimated that figure to be $641 billion.

About 175 Fortune 500 brands advertise specifically to GLBT audiences, according to Money magazine, which published an article on the subject last year. The article also noted “Research indicates that GLBT people do not earn more, on average, than other Americans, but… they have more disposable income because fewer are raising children.”

According to the Greater San Diego Business Association, in San Diego, there are approximately 191,340 people who identify as GLBT, with buying power of $41,245 per individual per year, meaning that in San Diego, GLBT buying power equals more than $7 billion dollars per year.

This week, the Gay & Lesbian Times talks to four local small business owners who bank on the power of pink. Fast Facts

Business Name: Rescue Social Change Group

Year founded: 2001

Number of employees: 20

2006 revenues: $1.2 million

Number of clients: 31

Office locations: San Diego, Calif. and Alexandria, Va.

Business Strategy: Targets subcultures within the youth demographic; uses experiential marketing to affect social change

Web site: www.rescuescg.com

At 23, Jeff Jordan looks like he lives the healthy life he promotes in his public education campaigns. Trim and full of energy, Jordan is founder and president of Rescue Social Change Group (RSCG), a 6-year-old for-profit firm that provides research, marketing and “social change management.”

RSCG’s “motto is social change,” Jordan explains. “We hope to prove there’s a different model for social change – not through media, but through culture.”

Just what does Jordan want to change and how does he intend to do so?

Currently, the young marketing “genius,” as some have called him, is focused on improving public health – specifically youth health and the health of young GLBTs, and his experiential approach to marketing health as a way of life is creating a stir: Since Jordan launched RSCG in 2001, 31 public health organizations across country have hired him to apply his method of “social branding” to their youth communities.

Jordan’s written a book about social branding, describing his theories about marketing through cultural experience rather than via conventional media. As his book, The Social Branding Dogma, explains, social branding is a process of associating positive behaviors with desired identity.

Advertisers have been selling product by appealing to people’s desire to feel independent or to feel sexy or to fit in for years, Jordan writes, citing how Virginia Slims established its brand of cigarettes by associating women’s independence with smoking them.

RSCG essentially does the same thing, but associates healthy behaviors with the consumer’s desired identity. Kids go to parties to have fun, be “cool” and fit in – all of which they associate with smoking and drinking. But if you can get them to associate having fun, being cool and fitting in with non-smoking and non-drinking then you’ve satisfied the feeling they went to cigarettes for initially, he says.

How? That’s where RSCG’s 20 employee team of “hip-hop culture specialists, experiential brand engineers, and social network assistants,” comes in. RSCG staff study youth subcultures, such as hip-hop, rap, or GLBT, and infiltrate them to find the “biggest partyer” in town. Then they convince that person to host no-alcohol, no-drug, no-smoke parties. Even if the kid returns to drinking and smoking, other kids have come to associate having fun and being cool with being smoke and alcohol free, Jordan says. “They come to identify with the brand, because it threw the best party.”

The Southern Nevada Health Department (SNHD) hires RSCG regularly to host such shindigs and to produce public education campaigns, says Malcolm Ahlo, an SNHD program director.

“In a 2005 survey, we found that the smoking rate for gays [not including lesbians] in Las Vegas is 60 percent. In the [straight] population it’s 24 percent. Jeff [Jordan] said we have to … provide an environment where both gays and lesbians can have fun in a smoke-free environment. So we went to nightclubs and got them to host a smoke-free night, and we tried to make it the coolest event, because gay people assume that smoking is a part of them.”

RSCG also launched a print media campaign targeting GLBT youth. The campaign won a Davey Award for its “ironically sexual” content, which includes colorful images of young people fixing furniture or sucking popsicles, alongside captions reading: “Screw better,” and “Taste better.”

SNHD won’t release campaign results until next March, but Ahlo says similar campaigns RSCG has conducted for the Southern Nevada straight community since 2001 have lowered the smoking rate from 33 percent to 18 percent. He adds, however, that he doesn’t expect the GLBT campaign to have had as significant an effect, given that “smoking is so much a part of GLBT culture.”

GLBT youth is at “huge risk” Jordan says. “This is an opportunity for us to take a social approach and define what a social, active, healthy gay youth is today.”

But public health isn’t the only issue dear to Jordan’s heart. Eventually he foresees applying his social branding concepts to other issues, such as environmentalism and racism. “We’d be happy to work [in other areas]. But there’s not as much funding, because society has a price tag for health care,” he says.

The U.S. Small Business Administration recently named Jordan San Diego’s Young Entrepreneur of the Year, and in 2005 it elected him Young Entrepreneur of the Year for Rhode Island and New England. But despite being something of a wunderkind, Jordan’s success has not transpired overnight. The young man, who now sits behind a massive desk in his suite of offices above the Spreckels Theatre on Broadway Avenue., grew up as the son of first-generation Peruvian immigrants, whose early life in the United States was characterized by constant financial struggle. Yet he became known at a very young age as a “wheeler dealer” in his Miami neighborhood. By the time he was a sophomore in high school, he was vice president of the local chapter of Future Business Leaders of America, a position he followed by becoming president in his senior year, before pursuing a degree in marketing on a full scholarship.

Today, besides running his $1.2 million per year company, with two U.S. office locations and another soon to open, Jordan also has the energy to be an experiential psychology Ph.D. student at UCSD.

“And I sometimes host parties of my own,” Jeff says – non-smoking, non-drinking parties of course.

Business Name: SoulSync Consulting Services

Services: Intuitive profiling, clairvoyant medium, keynote speaker

Years in business: 2.5

No. of employees: 1

No. of clients: Stewart reads about 15 clients per week

Business strategy: Targets the GLBT community; works at “soul level” as a healer, rather than simply reporting “psychic data.”

Web site: http://soulsync.com/

A powerful aroma of incense wafts from the window of SoulSync Consulting Services, the business Connie Stewart, 53, launched two and a half years ago to offer intuitive profiling and clairvoyant services to the GLBT community in Hillcrest.

“I’d been doing readings for 13 years, but I wasn’t ready to open full-time until about two and a half years ago,” says Stewart, explaining that, although she’d long possessed psychic abilities, she had to go through an extensive training process before she felt ready to offer her services professionally.

Those services include helping businesses to hire the right employees and evaluate staff, helping law enforcement to create suspect and victim profiles, clairvoyant readings to help clients with relationship, career, financial, and health issues, dream interpretation and a host of other, more esoteric sounding, offerings such as “energetic space healings” and “chakra recalibration.”

Training to be qualified to offer these services was a long process, Stewart says, a process that began in her early 40s. At that time a wife, mother and corporate employee by day, Stewart’s little spare time was at night.

“I started to become interested in dream interpretation. And so for two years I would dream and every morning I would document what I’d dreamed…. I couldn’t wait to go to bed and dream, because it was like that’s who I was – more than who I was in the daytime. In the daytime, I was an employee, I was a wife, I was a mother. At night, I became who I really was – in symbols and through all sorts of excursions. The dream time showed me more about my true fears, where I really came from and what I needed to overcome, and even began to show me where I was going.”

But Stewart was afraid of what the dreams showed her. “I saw shaman, old medicine men, a lot of mystical people from times gone by … using bones and teeth to do a lot of foretelling for the people in the village. And then it hit me one day that I was being shown those people because I was one of them.”

Although Stewart says she’d always been able to foretell “inconsequential” events, such as a car tire getting a flat, she was afraid the dreams were telling her she would need to develop her psychic abilities – an idea she resisted because, living, at the time, in New Orleans, there was “a lot of superstition around psychics, [and] some people even called it ‘voodoo.’”

But it was Stewart herself who was increasingly spooked. “One day, things literally began to move around me,” she says, knocking over a box of Kleenex on her coffee table to demonstrate. “Three or four things [would happen] during the course of the day that would freak me out.”

Fearing she knew not what, Stewart spoke with a friend who told her the incidents were simply projections of Stewart’s own resistance to what she increasingly believed was her “calling”– to heal people through her psychic abilities.

It was a turning point. Stewart says she stopped fighting and “asked god what he wanted me to do.” The objects stopped moving, and Stewart went to study how to realize her psychic potential with a mentor in New Orleans.

“I started to build my abilities through a lot of research, reading, experimentation, training with professionals and remote healing specialists. I found a mentor … and every day from sun up to sun down we worked, we worked, we worked on discovering what I was doing. I had all the raw ability but I didn’t know what it meant, how it worked or how to willfully direct it.

“It was the most exciting thing that had ever happened in my life…short of having a baby,” Stewart recalls.

Today, Stewart counts celebrities, therapists, professors, parents, law enforcement professionals, ministers and students among her clientele.

“A busy week includes about 15 readings,” she says.

Stewart is a member of the Greater San Diego Business Association, and says most of the people who come to her for help are gay men. “Gays are the most open. And what I love about the gay community is that if you gain their trust, they’re wonderful about referring you. Living [in Hillcrest], working here is the most family-oriented feeling I’ve had in my entire life.” Fast Facts

Business Name: Bow Wow Beauty Shoppe

Services: Dog and cat grooming, pet photography, boarding

Years in business: 10 months

No. of employees: One independent contractor, two part-time bathers.

No. of clients: Bow Wow transforms about 75 “beasts” into “beauties”

each week

Business strategy: Targets the GLBT community; Combines numerous pet services and events at one location

Web site: www.bowwowbeautyshoppe.com

A chandelier swinging from the ceiling and an oversized cocktail glass filled with dog d’oeurves give some indication of just what goes down at Bow Wow Beauty Shoppe, a pet boutique on University Avenue.

“I once used to look at places like this and think they were silly. I’d think, ‘Those crazy dog people!’” laughs owner Leel Michelle, 32.

But then Michelle acquired Frida, an 8 pound Chihuahua.

Frida might be short on size but she’s long on influence.

Frida inspired Bow Wow, Michelle laughs, pointing out the boutique’s tiny totes, canine couture and doggie décor.

While Frida’s tastes might run to frou frou (Bow Wow has pink walls and offers blueberry facials, photo opps with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, pet-friendly happy hours and art shows, and shots of Fido transitioning from “beast to beauty”), Michelle has four feet planted firmly on the ground.

Bow Wow’s location was “a no-brainer,” she says. “Obviously, in the gay community there are a whole lot more animals because [their pets] are their children.”

“I’ve always had gay friends…. This neighborhood has people I can relate to, and you can just be yourself. … I felt that this business made sense in this neighborhood because it’s something that people in the gay community would very much appreciate.”

But before letting “the dogs out” on her desire to bring “art, animals and wine” together in one venue, Michelle did her research: “I’m one of the rare business owners in this industry that did my target market research, as opposed to being an animal lover first and opening a business,” she says, explaining how, after finding the business for sale on craigslist.com, she began negotiating with the owner. “Then I started doing my research in terms of how many animals there are per person, locally and nationally, and visiting pet shops throughout southern California. I saw that a lot of shops were backed up sometimes two, three weeks,” Michelle says, “and lots of them don’t take new clients. And that tells me that there is a definite need for this business. And so, then I went to grooming school, and did a lot more research and [continued] negotiation and construction.”

Construction? Michelle, completed much of Bow Wow’s interior herself, after funding the business largely from gutting a condominium, renovating it and flipping it.

Now, she’s overseeing the erection of stairs in the back of the building that will lead to six “hotel suites” at Bow Wow – some for dogs, but also some for cats.

Did Frida weigh in on this one? Michelle didn’t say. But she’s excited about the new development, which will offer themed accommodation. “We’ll have a Pink Panther theme, a Hollywood suite, maybe a Cadillac suite. It will open in two months, right before the holidays,” she grins.

“I think people really [want] - grooming specifically … and then we’re also going to be, very soon, … rolling out a loyalty program and a membership program. Every time [a customer] comes in, they’ll earn a certain number of Bow Wow bucks,” Michelle laughs.

(Better throw a bone in too.)

Business Name: Custom Cuisine

Services: A personal chef service that customizes meals to clients’ tastes and/or dietary needs

Years in business: 10

No. of employees: 3

No. of clients: 40

Business strategy: Targets seniors and GLBT market via the Greater San Diego Business Association; provides “everyday meals” for people with special needs diets

Web site: www.ccuisine.com

A decade ago, when Vonnie Coover-Stone’s mother, Ruth, who’d long been retired, decided she would also take a break from cooking, Coover-Stone found her a personal chef.

The arrangement allowed life to go on as usual for Coover-Stone’s family, which had always enjoyed Sunday dinners together.

As it happened, it also paved the way for Coover-Stone, then a nurse, to embark on a new career as a personal chef.

“I, personally, was at a professional crossroad. My son was still quite young, and I had taken a year off to go back to school to get my master’s [in business]. During that year he did not have to go to before- and after-care at school, so he was much less stressed and more relaxed. We decided that I should not go back into a highly demanding, time-intensive job, “Coover-Stone says, recalling how the idea to open her own personal chef service began to form.

“I had taken over doing the bigger dinner parties in our family and thought that combining my love of cooking and my health care background would give me a good foundation for a personal chef service,” Coover says, adding that she then took a course through what is now the American Personal Chefs Association.

Coover-Stone’s health care experience has, over time, become the key to creating a niche in a market where there are many different types of personal chefs. Although 40 percent of her clients are busy professionals, whom she reaches via the Greater San Diego Business Association, which enables her to reach the lucrative GLBT market, 60 percent of her clients are senior citizens with special needs diets. Specialties include meals for diabetics, people with heart problems and gluten-free diets for people with grain allergies. Coover-Stone customizes meals to clients’ tastes and dietary needs, and specializes in reduced or low sodium and reduced/low fat meals. But she doesn’t do dinner parties or cater. “ I cook everyday meals for people,” she says.

But while her target market is now clearly defined, growing the business took time. “When I first started 10 years ago, hardly anyone knew what a personal chef was. Today most people are at least familiar with the concept. Most people now realize this is not just for the rich and famous,” she says, noting that today she has “two drawers full” of clients. “I can count but the number changes. Some people order on a very regular basis, some whenever they run low (which can depend on how much they are home or away). I usually cook for four to seven customers in a week.”

Two years ago, Coover-Stone committed to sharing a commercial kitchen in Kearny Mesa. Now, she leaves her home office each morning, perhaps picks up some groceries at the health-food stores she frequents, and is at the kitchen by 9 a.m. to begin cooking and packaging meals.

Gingered broccoli, orange glazed acorn squash, poached salmon, santa fe chicken, chicken fennel and butternut soup – Coover-Stone’s menu offers more than 200 dishes – all low-fat, low-salt and unprocessed, served with portion control in mind.

Clients can select entrées and side dishes from Custom Cuisine’s extensive Web site, which is organized by food type. Coover-Stone packs them in insulated coolers and delivers them in containers suitable for freezer, fridge and microwave. She also provides “dual-ovenable” containers for items that must be baked, such as fish.

A kitchen assistant she hired last year helps her, while a once-weekly administrative assistant takes care of shopping lists, labels, food-handling information, keeping the customer data base current and book keeping, Coover-Stone says, explaining how she has grown the business.

Her son has grown too – now a third-year college student, Coover-Stone counts him as one of her most valuable investments.

And the family still eats Sunday dinner together each week – although Coover-Stone admits she doesn’t always do the cooking.

“I need a personal chef too,” she laughs.