Archive for August 2009
photo credit: doug.siefken It is always difficult to have to let go of an employee. Even when the employee has not exactly been a “good fit” for the company, it is still not a task that anyone truly looks forward to doing. So how does a manager go about making this task not only easier [...]
Can You Run Your Biz from an iPhone? Yes No Sometimes View Results Photo by swruler9284.
Girl Gotch Brings To Girls Underwear What Boys Always Had, Comfort
The parents of young girls everywhere have probably heard of the wedgie complaint. The underwear doesn’t like to stay in place, wedgies occur, and for some unlucky parents it can be a common complaint with no end in sight. Rebecca Winterhalt’s daughter had that problem. Her daughter was still in the potty training stages when [...]
Entrepreneur: If you’ve ever watched cable television late at night or early in the morning, you’ve seen these “ads.” Favorites seem to be weight loss programs, exercise equipment, secret health cures and wealth-generating systems. However, I’ve seen everything from knife sets and car-cleaning cloths to tools. Here are five steps to help you avoid a [...]
Fortune Small Business: Bob MacLeod was a talent agent and Steve Byckiewicz a flight attendant in 1980 when they ditched city life for a farmhouse and a fresh start. Unlikely entrepreneurs, they were mostly interested in gardening and entertaining. But dwindling savings prompted them to launch a business inspired by their healthy lifestyle. Almost 30 [...]
Useful Presentation Tools For Marketing
photo credit: MGShelton When putting together a presentation it can be agitating trying to figure out the best tools to use and the best way to put it all together so it will not only keep everyones attention but will also look professional and run smoothly. Below are some extremely useful tools that are [...]
Bismarck Tribune: Dustin Staeffler, 28, will fold up the motorized scooter into a cube, lift its 63-pound frame into your trunk and drive your car home, with you in it, for $22 within seven miles of an establishment that serves alcohol. “A lot of people don’t believe me yet because it’s so new,”he said. “They [...]
Your Book as Your Business Card
photo credit: miss_rogue The following is a guest post by Melissa Sileo. What is 6″ by 9,” usually weighs roughly one pound, and is giving an increasing number of business leaders an advantage over the competition? A book. Thanks in large part to the explosion of Indie book publishing, the use of ‘the book as [...]
Building Your Community On Your Site
photo credit: woodleywonderworks Having an active community behind you can increase sales, build your brand, and serve as your very own volunteer promotional army to help get your word out. But how do you go about creating one? How do you jump start that feeling of community on your site so that you’re able to [...]
Frustrated Tweets New Headache For Airlines
Reuters: Indignant letters, e-mails and phone calls can still get results for unhappy airline travelers, but more are finding that if you really want to vent your frustrations, you can now be loud and fast and public. At least that’s the buzz on Twitter, where airlines are discovering that fuming passengers who have been stranded, [...]
photo credit: Matt Callow Bill Wyman: The problem of the daily press in the U.S. is exclusively this: the collapse of its business model. That model used to be, plainly put, making money—a lot of money, oceans of money—delivering advertising on newsprint into peoples’ homes. Subscribers didn’t pay for news. Advertisers did. Remember “shoppers,” the [...]
Simplify Your Day With Two Steps
photo credit: arquera More often than not our days are hectic, stressful, and complicated when they don’t need to be, and we are usually the cause of it. Here are two very simple steps I recently read about on Harvard Business in making your day simpler. Start with your own actions and behavior. Think about all of [...]
Business Goes On After Founder’s Death
SeacostOnline: When Al Case died unexpectedly this summer he was close to fulfilling his dream of opening a second location of his longtime business. Just several weeks after his sudden death, Case’s daughter Brittany and wife Joelle saw his dream to fruition. The two women went forward with plans to open a new location of [...]
Gmail Now Third Largest Webmail Service In US
AppScout: Gmail nabbed the number three spot in the Webmail wars last month, edging past AOL to become the third largest service behind Yahoo and Live Hotmail. The Google-run service racked up 37 million uniques, squeaking past AOL’s 36.4 million, according to comScores numbers. Gmail still has a little ways to go before it can [...]
Family Business Comes Full Circle
coshoctorntribune.com: Edie Ryan is back where she got her start. Edie Ryan’s Family Restaurant made the move this week from its 402 S. Second St. location to 585 S. Whitewoman St., a spot known for more than 50 years as Spitler’s Restaurant. “This is where I first started waitressing in Coshocton,” Ryan said. She opened [...]
Resources For El Paso Mompreneurs
I recently found an article that was posted a short while back by the El Paso Motherhood Examiner that offers a lot of valuable information for mompreneurs in the El Paso region. Below are some of the resources that Lisa Clark mentioned: Greater El Paso Chamber of Commerce: This organization offers opportunity for networking, staying [...]
Mom’s Invention Keeps Car Seats From Becoming Overheated
The moment you open your car door on a hot summer day, it comes as no surprise that the interior can be extremely hot. Especially if you’ve had the misfortune of touching the metal part of the seatbelt while trying to buckle yourself in. Deborah Lowe was putting her baby girl in the car when [...]
Challenges That Social Media Bring To Business
photo credit: country_boy_shane The use of social media is definitely on the rise. Social media has an impact on almost every aspect of business, and sadly many employees have been fired due to the miss use of it. The problem is that social media is so easy, effective, and located everywhere throughout your company. [...]
Create Sales From Customer Calls
photo credit: StephenMitchell Some business owners, as well as their employees, see customer calls as a hassle, a potential for disaster. However, Small Biz Technology had an interesting point of view on customer calls. It was stated that there is a way for you to turn these calls into more sales for your company. FonGenie provides [...]
Products That Turn Everyday Chores Into Green Moments
Fast Company: A new breed of eco-designers are reimagining the everyday detritus of our lives and crafting clever solutions that will divert tons of waste from landfills. Most people bury the greeting cards they receive in drawers, but you can bury Garden Greetings in the backyard and watch them sprout into flowers or herbs. Embedded [...]
photo credit: jonfeinstein Fact is, you can get all of the fundamentals right and still end up with a lousy headline. Sometimes, the only way to improve isn’t being told what to do… it’s being told what not to do. Below are quite a few “don’ts” when writing your headlines that I recently came across [...]
Top Trends That Could Be Turned Into A Business
photo credit: JerrytheSaint There are so many new trends taking off and sticking that it is a wonder why so many more businesses are not going up as a result of it. One of the best things to do with a popular trend is to turn it into a great business venture. Below are [...]
Free Water For Commuters With On-Bottle Ads
Springwise: Summertime is filled with opportunities for brands to show they care, whether by helping consumers find a place to change at the beach or by giving them a little cooling refreshment during a heat wave. Targeting the latter option is Soak Media, a UK firm that gives out free bottled water to London commuters [...]
Best Sites For Figuring Out Small Biz Social Media
photo credit: Robert S. Donovan There are probably a million websites on the web that tout solutions for marketing and promoting your business online. When you are getting started it can be very difficult to know who the true professionals are and it can take months to figure out where the high quality information is [...]
After ‘Sharks,’ Inventor Swims Harder
The Cary News: WiSpots CEO Kevin Flannery was mauled by sharks on TV, but he has since licked his wounds, ready to jump back in the water. Flannery recently got a chance to pitch his Cary company, which sells wireless devices for physicians’ waiting areas, to billionaire investors on ABC’s new show “Shark Tank.” The [...]
Twitter’s Growth Can’t Be Stopped
photo credit: hellfroze It’s no secret to anyone that Twitter continues to grow more and more with every day that goes by. Many wonder why Twitter is so huge, and why the growth of Twitter has not even so much as slowed down in the least. There are many good and valid reasons as [...]
Picking The Brain Of Bixi’s Inventor
The Gazette: Reclining in his Peel St. office in an ergonomic chair of his own design, wearing a sleek black golf shirt with matching rims and watchband – Michel Dallaire is Bixi personified. Smart, bold, elegant. And yet, says the Montreal industrial designer who dreamed up the Bixi system, he’s been wearing the same type [...]
photo credit: Cosmic Kitty Many marketers are not in favor of discounting, in fact many of them hate it and do not recommend it. If you still insist on discounting, they do have some ground rules for discounting properly that I have to agree with. Look below to see some basic rules for discounting recently [...]
Humor: How to Be a Computer Expert
Sweet 16 Party Favors Reflects Variety In Teen Interests
The Open Press: Young people nowadays are growing with more awareness and concern for the environment and global concerns. These interests are influencing the product offerings of online retailers like Favors-n-Gifts.com. “Teenage girls nowadays have a variety of interests, and their parents have a variety of budgets. Our line of Sweet 16 favors reflects that [...]
Designer Takes Vintage To A Whole New Level
examiner.com: Always inspired by clothing of the past, local designer Lynn Van Brocklin–born and raised in East County–has been altering and reconstructing vintage garments for herself for the past decade. After becoming a mom a few years ago, she turned her hobbies into a successful online business, and is now one of those lucky people [...]
Do The Homework On New Products
NewsDay: Small businesses are always looking for ways to innovate and bring new products to market that can help expand their reach and boost sales. But expansion of any kind in a down economy is risky, so if you’re looking to add new products, you need to make sure you’re not overextending or undercutting your [...]
Don’t Keep Your Business Idea Secret
photo credit: olarte.ollie Every week I get emails from readers with questions about their businesses. When I probe them for further information, many are hesitant to describe their business idea more fully unless I agree to sign a Non Disclosure Agreement. I almost always refuse and explain that when starting a new business you should [...]
BuzzFeed: Sometimes the Internet messes up. Here are some ads that don’t really fit with the article next to it. Photos by BuzzFeed.
FSB Magazine: Squeezed between Moe’s Coffee Shop and the Shop N Go minimart on hardscrabble Frankford Avenue, in the heart of working-class Northeast Philadelphia, lies the Philly Pretzel Factory. With its algae-green sign bolted to the building’s khaki stucco exterior, it looks more like a takeout joint than the headquarters of a $40 million empire. [...]
Surprising Inventions By Famous People
DivineCaroline: Some people just have a gift. They may already be talented musicians, actors, artists, or mathematicians, but some prolific thinkers have minds that work in overdrive in multiple different areas. Some very famous inventors originated items that we still use every day, and even those who didn’t fill sketchbooks full of ideas sometimes had [...]
Lose Your Mind, Release Your Creativity
Men With Pens: Not thinking and not caring. That doesn’t mean you don’t care about the work you’re doing. There’s a huge difference between not thinking and not caring. When you don’t care, you’re just slapping words into a sentence or throwing images up onto the page. Whatever works – you just don’t give a [...]
Weird Scholarships Nearly Anyone Can Apply For
ABC2News: It is said that “necessity is the mother of invention.” So, with two kids in college, our family is inspired to get creative in our search for ways to help pay for higher education. Along the way, we’ve discovered that a unique hobby, special skill or unusual interest could be the ticket to financing [...]
Tips To Becoming A Mompreneur Within 3 Days
Have you always wanted to be a mompreneur, but didn’t know where to start? Here are some tips from CurrentMom that might help. Day 1 On the first day, you figure out what you want to do and what you will charge. If you’re a professional with a specific skill — such as an accountant [...]
Mom/Daughter Team Make The Clothes That Strippers Remove
Oregonlive.com: Let’s say you’re a stripper. Or maybe you just like to wear lavish or fantastical clothes. Filmy things. Sparkly things. Heels high enough to redefine the meaning of high heels. The thing is, you have very particular needs. A certain slinkiness, obviously. But whimsicality doesn’t hurt, either. As it turns out, there are plenty [...]
Twitter Is A Twademark. Tweet: Not So Much
Mashable: There’s been a lot of talk over Twitter’s attempts to trademark the word “tweet” (Twitter has been a trademark of theirs for some time now), but blogger Sam Johnston did some digging and found out that it’s unlikely that Twitter will ever be able to trademark this particular word. Just like the verb “google”, [...]
Website Lets Customers Choose The Price They Want To Pay
Imagine walking into your local store, picking out a cart full of items, and going to the check out line just to tell the cashier what you will pay for each item. Feels like a dream, doesn’t it? Anyone who has bought from Shoppers Rule knows that it is a reality. Through an innovative system [...]
Repeal the ‘Health-Care Tax’ on the Self Employed
photo credit: Hey Paul Business Week: Missing from Washington’s health-reform discussion is a simple change that would make insurance more affordable for millions of the nation’s smallest business owners by letting them fully deduct the cost of their health insurance premiums. By a quirk in the tax code, self-employed workers who buy their own health [...]
About.com: Scientists claim ants can carry more than 50 times their body weight. Milton Levine knows ants can carry far more than that – like the success of his business, Uncle Milton Industries, for 50 years. In 2006, while my father celebrates his 93rd birthday, his famous product, Ant Farm, celebrates its 50th “ant-iversary” of [...]
Building on the Ideas of Others
The following is a guest post by Frances Bajet. photo credit: egenerica True or false: George Lucas, Bill Gates, and Larry Page are the epitome of innovation, whose creations (Star Wars, Microsoft, and Google, respectively) represent the ultimate in original thinking. False. If you got the answer correctly, you’re already one giant leap ahead of [...]
Reporter-News: On a warm Wednesday morning, David Dantzler pulls out a couple of pages of meticulously written charts that detail just how many eggs his 36 chickens have produced. For about nine months now, David, 13, has commanded the clucking crowd, selling their eggs as part of his own in-home business. Later, as he reaches [...]
Working With Your Virtual Assistant
photo credit: antjeverena In today’s world of technology, booming Internet applications, and businesses, many online business owners are going out and finding themselves a VA (Virtual Assistant). There are many different aspects to having a VA versus a regular assistant. Open Forum recently listed some thing’s to remember when working with your VA. You [...]
Got a Biz Idea? Tweet Richard Branson
Richard Branson is now accepting “micropitches” via Twitter for new startup ideas. Tweet your business idea to @PerfectBusines and use the hashtag #micropitch. (Unfortunately, that does mean you only have 111 characters left.) It’s all part of The Perfect Pitch 2009 Entrepreneur & Investor Conference Pitches will be evaluated on clarity, viability, consumer need, growth [...]
photo credit: luc legay Many business owners are looking for ways to grow their profits every year. They keep hoping there will be easier ways to see their profits go up on their charts, but sadly many of them don’t know of any easy ways to help their profits grow. Below are some tips on [...]
Does Starting A Business Make You Feel Crazy?
photo credit: Emery_Way When starting a new business, through all the transitions and setting up, many people sit down and begin to wonder if they are truly going crazy. This is a normal feeling when starting a business as stated on Open Forum. Starting a business makes everyone at some point think they are [...]
