Ideas

Starting It: “Have you ever noticed that vacuum cleaner companies and cutlery companies (as well as many other industries) often hire kids right out of school to sell their products? Why? Well, they know that even if the individual isn’t any good at sales, they will sell at least a couple of vacuum cleaners – […]

Strategize: “Working Smart has a great post on how to create a template for your voicemail so that you can update your outgoing message every day. ” Though the voicemail template sounds more like that of a corporate drone, hopefully it’ll inspire you to create your own daily greeting. Here’s the template: Hi, you’ve reached

Dr. Jeffey Cornwall: “Certainly one can over analyze a business or a golf swing. But neither can completely take care of themselves. Even golfers with ‘natural swings’ have to focus on what they are doing. And even the best business opportunity requires careful implementation and management. They really both come down to one thing: execution”

Don Boudreaux writing on Cafe Hayek: Almost every one of the goods and services that are routine in modern, commercial society is the result of a long series of mostly small, individual, creative efforts to improve an existing situation — to build a better mousetrap, to find materials that make a more comfortable mattress, to

Ida May Fuller, the first recepient of a retirement check from the Social Security Administration, received a total of $22,888.92 in benefits from 1940 until her death in 1975. Not bad for someone who only paid $24.75 in social security taxes during the three years she worked under the program. How’s that not a ponzi

It’s policies like these that drive many of us into business for ourselves. via Jen at Circadian Shift.

Robbie Vorhaus writes that using a credit card to build your business may not be the best idea. Three years into building his business, Vorhaus Communications, Inc., he found himself $125,000 in debt, $65,000 of which was credit card debt. This is the story of how after he eventually paid off his debts, his opinion

David St Lawrence: “If a company has only one customer or only one product line, almost anyone with business experience would say that they are severely at risk, no matter how well they are doing. The same could be said for any individual, whether self-employed or not. When you put all of your eggs in

Business Week: How crazy is real estate getting in parts of the country? Ask Sierra and Corbin Stewart, who just bought a modest, 2,000-square-foot house in Pleasanton, Calif., for $730,000. Mortgage and tax payments will consume 55% of their income, forcing them to do without extras such as cable TV. Says Sierra, a 29-year-old marketer: