Archive for the ‘Starting a business’ Category

Blaming the Recession

Monday, October 6th, 2008

When I was in high school, I worked in my parents' janitorial services company. It was a straightforward industry where virtually anyone with a mop and bucket could start a business- and did they ever! As the job market grew tighter, more and more “fill-in-the-blank’s cleaning services” kept ...

Small Business Owners Take Note: Google Knol is Open

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008

Late last year Google announced the Knol Project. Finally, last week they opened it up to the public. It is a user-based article submission site quite similar to Wikipedia. According to the original press release: "A knol on a particular topic is meant to be the first thing someone ...

Non-Profits are Businesses Too!

Friday, July 25th, 2008

I spend a lot of time convincing people they need to create a business that actually makes a profit rather than just making salaries the ultimate goal. Today, I want to take a break from business profitability to talk about non-profit organizations. Small non-profits are much like small businesses of ...

7 Things We Can Learn From Skybus

Monday, June 9th, 2008

Skybus Airlines had a short life. They came on the scene quickly and were flying all over the country in no time. Infinitely more abrupt, however, was their decent into closure. On April 5, they simply stopped flying altogether. Employees were told they no longer had ...

What Are You Selling?

Monday, January 28th, 2008

Sounds simple enough, right? The next section of the business plan is your Product Description. Your task is to write persuasively and concisely to convince your reader that your product or service is worth buying. This is not the marketing plan; you will get to the marketing ...

The Next Five Steps

Monday, January 7th, 2008

If you successfully filed your articles of organization or incorporation, you are ready to move to the next steps before you can hang out your shingle. The following steps should get you headed in the right direction1. 1. Get your Federal Employer Identification ...

So You Have an Idea

Monday, December 10th, 2007

At some point in life, most people have what they think is a good product or business idea. The idea could be a new invention, an improvement on something, a new way to do something, or even great new restaurant. What happens to all those great ideas? ...

Get Ready for Growth!

Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007

Most business owners have dreams of growing their businesses big. If you are one of those business owners that wants to take your business to the next level, have you ever thought about whether or not your business can grow? More specifically, if sales increased 100% a year for the ...