If you are looking to reach finance and investment-minded consumers, you may want to join SmartMoney’s Small Business Challege. All you have to do is to submit your business plan. If adjudged the winner, you can win a prize package consisting of $200,000 worth of SmartMoney and SmartMoney.com advertising and a Sony VAIO computer. The [...]

Nach Maravilla wrote about the lessons learned by PowerHomeBiz.com on how to market a website. He gave 5 basic rules of internet marketing that every online entrepreneur new to this game needs to remember: 1. Understand that everything starts with content.2. Be persistent.3. Use different techniques.4. Track and measure your results.5. Learn, learn, and learn. [...]

My colleague George Rodriguez wrote an article giving tips on how to borrow startup capital from friends and relatives. His tips are: 1. Choose the right person2. Understand that this is high risk capital.3. Ask for money only when you are prepared and ready.4. Discuss how their investment will be structured.5. Put everything in writing. [...]

It’s holiday time once again! From Veteran’s Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah — it’s that time of the year to celebrate. Before you get carried away with the celebrations (and food!), you need to start thinking about your taxes. Tax time is not one of my favorite things. But like many things in life, it [...]

The National Retail Federation has released a survey conducted by BIGResearch “Holiday Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey” that shows consumer behavior and shopping trends for the 2006 holidays. The survey, which polled 7,623 consumers, looked at where people plan to shop and how they intend to use the Internet for this year’s holiday shopping. Holiday [...]

We don’t want to start a business by thinking about its failure. As Ayn Rand said in her book The Fountain Head, “you don’t start by giving up.” But are there factors that can improve your chance for success? SBA has a study entitled “Redefining Busines Success: Distinguishing Between Failure and Success” by Brian Headd [...]

An interesting question was posed today at Yahoo Answers. Given the failure rate of new businesses, can going through the franchise route improve your chances for success? I answered the question by exploring the advantages of franchises: 1 – Franchises are already established businesses. Franchises have already proven that the business concepts work and that [...]

Many are faced with the problem of wanting to start a business but have no money compounded by poor credit. I won’t say that you can’t start a business, because you can. You can start your business with no money — but it will not be easy. If you’re willing to work hard, and be [...]

The independent agency network ICOM recently completed a study on the fastest growing ways of reaching customers. While Internet is the king, they found that the “the forms that are growing the fastest aren’t the same in different parts of the world.” Blogs, e-mails and group sites were the fastest growing forms of marketing in [...]

One of the major fears of starting a business is the risk involved. What would happen if you invest your money in a business, while potentially profitable, offers no certainty of success? What if the business fails? Business is risk. There’s not one business that can provide a business owner with 100% success guarantee. If [...]