Archive for March 2004
BusinessPundit: “It reminded me that as an entrepreneur, I have to always be selling. Sell product, sell service, sell the job offer, sell the new strategy, sell myself – that’s a big part of it. I should have treated the potential employee the way I would treat a customer – upbeat and with confidence. I [...]
Positive Developments for Small Businesses
Small Business Survival Committee: 1. Pro-Growth Tax Cuts. The tax cut passed in May was a huge positive for entrepreneurship and small business. Lower personal income tax rates gave a boost to the bottom line of most businesses, as 91 percent pay personal rather than corporate income taxes. Also, the reduction in the capital gains [...]
Lessons Learned the Hardest Way, by Going Belly-Up
NY Times: “New small businesses start every day, and fail just as frequently. About 34 percent of businesses with 500 or fewer employees close within two years of opening, and 50 percent fold after four years, according to the Small Business Administration. The reasons vary, but the failures often carry valuable lessons for the owners [...]
Ananova: “A firm is using ‘real women’ in its beauty product promotion because it says stick-thin airbrushed models make women feel bad about themselves. A survey for Dove Firming moisturiser found two-thirds of UK women feel depressed about their figures and have low body confidence as a result of beauty advertising.” Honesty in marketing is [...]
SBA Small Business Startup Guide
The Small Business Administration publishes an online Small Business Startup Guide. Your tax dollars pay for it, so take advantage of it.
The Top Five 2003 Marketing Tips That Can’t Be Ignored
Home Based Business Opportunities: When marketing your practice, as well as designing your brochure, web site, business card, flier, advertisement, or other marketing effort, we recommend investing the time and effort needed to effectively address all these tips. Not one of them can be omitted. Tip #1. Market For Your Desired Prospects, Not Yourself Tip [...]
The Perfect NDA: Paul Engrish’s Non Disclosure Agreement builds trust rather than destroys it: “Confidentiality: Paul asks that you not show or tell anyone this idea without first calling him at 781-648-1500 to ask his OK. If you tell one person you trust, they will tell one person they trust, and so on. If this [...]
Vermont Creamery Diversifies Into Crematory via Thoughts in the Middle of Nowhere.
How to Make Money Cooking And Baking
Cooking And Baking Business: Operate a potato chip shop in a busy location Operate a French type hot dog stand Sell popcorn coated with 20 different flavors Offer a casserole delivery service Run a take-out food store with a new specialty Run a homemakers’ cooperative, selling assorted edibles Supply restaurants with your own specialty Operate [...]
Disadvantages of Working At Home
Starting and Managing a Business From Your Home: If you were hard at work in an office downtown, it is unlikely that three children would come storming in to ask for snacks or that you would end up using the ironing board for a bookshelf or have to think twice about hiring others because they [...]
CNN: “Chains like Dunkin’ Donuts, The UPS Store and Merry Maids are run almost exclusively by franchisees, who typically pay an initial franchise fee as well as ongoing royalties based on a percentage of their sales. In exchange for paying their dues, individual franchisees not only get instant brand recognition, they’re handed almost everything they [...]
Off-Line Marketing for On-Line Results
Home Based Business Opportunities: So you’re all “Googled” out, are you? You’ve been working feverishly placing e-zine ads, paying for placement and position with search engines, buying online classifieds, and trying to optimize search engine rankings for your website. All of that effort and money may be paying off for you, or it may be [...]
How To Get Free Publicity Whenever You Want!
Home Based Business Opportunities: What you are about to read is a step by step guide to getting FREE publicity. Simply, this is advertising that costs nothing, yet can bring in regular and substantial orders for your products and services. Regardless of the business you’re in, you always want publicity for your products and services. [...]
→ handpieceexpress.com San Francisco Chronicle: “Glenn Williams started a dental drill repair service in Novato that is doing so well that he is also making money selling the opportunity to set up similar businesses in other parts of the country. ” A typical dentist may own up to ten handpieces, all of which will require [...]
Businesses You Can Start With $1,000-$5,000: Abstracting Service Accountant Adoption Search Service Advertising Sales Representative Alterations/Seamstress Business Arbitration Service Art Broker/Corporate Art Consoltant Association Management Services Audio Recording for Trade Show and Seminars Auto Maintenance Background Music Leasing Boat Maintenance/Cleaning Service Book Binder Book Packager Bookkeeping Service Bridal Consoltant Broadcast Sales/Advertising Broker Bolletin Board Services [...]
Businesses You Can Start With Under $1,000: Airbrush Artist Animal Registration/IDServices Apartment Preparation Service Arts Festival Promoter Athletic Recruiter/Scout Auction House Auto Paint Touch-Up Professional Automotive Loan Broker Band Manager Bankruptcy Services Bar tending Services Barter Systems Blade-Sharpening Service Boardinghouse Operator Book Indexer Bounty Hunter Cake Decorator Calligrapher Candle Maker Caning Specialist Cartoonist Child Care [...]
→ yourgrape.com First opened in October 2000, The Grape combines two complementary revenue elements: a wine bar and retail store. Though you do not need to have prior experience in the wine or restaurant industry, but they do look for candidates that share their passion for good wines, good food, and good times, and who [...]
Two Steps to Improving Your Marketing Success
Home Based Business Opportunities: Since the human brain seems to be able to focus on only one thought at a time, it’s difficult to evaluate an advertising idea from the perspective of both a marketer and a customer. That’s why it’s necessary to use a two-step process when developing highly effective ads, sales letters, web [...]
How To Effectively Cold Call Leads
Home Based Business Opportunities: As network marketers we do a major part of our business by calling leads. For a person just starting out this can be rather intimidating and too often a person doesn’t know how to “open” up a call, gets a lot of rejection, and then decides this isn’t for me. Today [...]
Census Data Shows More Women Starting Home-Based Businesses
Miami Herald: “The number of privately held, women-owned businesses in the United States grew 14.3 percent from 1997 to 2002, according to Census Bureau statistics compiled by the National Women’s Business Council.” The number of women-owned businesses in Indiana is growing at nearly four times the rate of all business combined. Women also play a [...]
Business cards pack punch: Use them or miss opportunities
Seattle Times: “Use them or miss opportunities.” It’s a relatively little thing, but it is a mighty important little thing. At 2-by-3.5-inches and anywhere from $50 to $100 for a nice big box of this product, you get a lot of bang for your buck, especially if you’re trying to network. Business cards. You know [...]
Home Based Business Opportunities: One morning, you open your inbox and find several e-mails that will boost your business. There is an invitation to speak at a local group comprised of your best prospects. Several emails have arrived from people who’ve “heard of you” and inquire about your services. There is a message from a [...]
9 Ways to Recycle Your Content for Maximum Payback
Home Based Business Opportunities: Your expertise is valuable! Make sure you are leveraging it to its fullest extent. If you create content for one item, such as a newsletter, look for ways you can re-use that content in other places. Below are nine ideas to get you started. 1. Don’t offer past issues of your [...]
Amazon: “Nobody needs to tell you that in the new economy, managers using conventional strategies are losing out to smart, fast, entrepreneurial competitors who move on ideas others overlook and who confidently act while others dither. Are the managers of leading companies simply doomed to let this happen? Not at all, argue Rita Gunther McGrath [...]
The Big Picture: 5 Small Business Management Questions that Can Boost Your Business
Home Based Business Opportunities: As business managers, entrepreneurs, and Webmasters, we strive for unobtainable perfection. Why do I say unobtainable? Because when we focus on perfection in one area, we forego attention elsewhere. Limited money and time mean you must choose from the endless parade of advice and recommendations. This creates a dilemma. How do [...]
Work at Home Dad is right. How you perform is more important than where you work from. Welcome to 2004. I would like to introduce myself, my name is Ty Tribble and I am proud to be a work at home dad. If my 3 year old runs into my office and starts rambling about [...]
Top 10 Reasons To Love Small Business
10. Small businesses make up more than 99.7% of all employers. 9. Small businesses create more than 50 percent of the nonfarm private gross domestic product (GDP). 8. Small patenting firms produce 13 to 14 times more patents per employee than large patenting firms. 7. The 22.9 million small businesses in the United States are [...]
Today’s Definition of Marketing. Has it Changed?
Home Based Business Opportunities reprinting an article by Bobette Kyle: With the continued proliferation of the Internet, the meaning of the word “marketing” also proliferates. There seem to be as many definitions of marketing as there are marketers. Many see marketing as a series of tactics or gimmicks. Some push pyramid programs [multi-level marketing (MLM) [...]
The Total Business Plan: How to Write, Rewrite, and Revise
Amazon: “Whether you’re starting up or growing your small business, a business plan is one tool you don’t want to be without. While it gives you a clear sense of direction and a solid framework for guiding and evaluating your progress, it also carries a lot of weight with potential lenders and investors. Now this [...]
The Transplantability of Success
Jeff Maurone: “What’s to say those traits can’t be repositioned toward another career? Wouldn’t this have the potential to create the same level of success? This is what I’ve come to call The Transplantability of Success. If you’ve had such wild success following one career path, what’s to say you can’t realize the same success [...]
Take It Or Leave It: The Only Guide to Negotiating You Will Ever Need
Inc: “Like most every other source of negotiation advice, Getting to Yes begins by saying that however much you think negotiation is part of your life, you’re underestimating. ‘Everyone negotiates something every day,’ according to the introduction. ‘All of us negotiate many times a day,’ G. Richard Shell ups the ante in the opening to [...]
15 Irrefutable Marketing Proficiencies
Home Based Business Opportunities: Time and again I talk to people who try one or two promotional strategies, don’t get the desired results and give up. They are confused about what marketing is and convinced that it will never work for their business. Does this sound like you? You see, marketing is more than just [...]
Tips for Budding Entreprenuers
If you were about to graduate from college and had an interest in becoming an entrepreneur, what would you do? Ross Mayfield said to: Change your major. Start a business. Connect with the Net. Take responsibility beyond your years. Go abroad. Experiment at the margin. Have fun with failure. Take time for strategy. Pay yourself. [...]
Youth, Energy, and Fresh Ideas
Jeff Sinelli: “I’m self-diagnosed ADD, and it translates into my entrepreneurial style. I don’t tend to do things by the textbook, and when I first started in the restaurant business, it was all from the hip. You hear the statistics that nine out of 10 restaurants won’t be around after the first year. I think [...]
Trust is the key to small-business sales
vnunet: “Also bear in mind the importance of local business. Your proximity gives you an automatic advantage over the competition. If possible try to meet these managers outside the selling environment. This will let you build relationships in a less formal way and learn about their business.”
Small Businesses Maximize Profits
WCN: “More than 99 percent of U.S. employers are small businesses, and much of the health and well-being of our nation’s economy depends on the prosperity of entrepreneurs. In today’s business climate, the major concerns of small business owners are increasing sales and maximizing profitability. Not surprisingly, the two go hand-in-hand.” If you’re a small [...]
How to Prepare a Business Plan: Planning for Successful Start-Up and Expansion
Amazon: “There are thousands of business start-ups in the U.S. per year, and a business plan provides for the future of such companies. It sets out a company’s aims and how it proposes to achieve them. Without such a plan no venture capital house or bank will consider a loan for start-up or expansion. This [...]
