Self-Motivation: Give Up or Keep Going

It was 1995 and I was struggling to get my business off the ground. I was excited, spinning my wheels, yet getting nowhere fast. Money was coming in, but more of it was going out than was coming in. My self-motivation was put on the line. Before very long, I found myself questioning whether or not to close my business and give up on my lifelong dreams. The Decision that Defines You When you arrive at a point like this, there are two choices you can make. First, you can choose to throw in the towel and walk away. Many

Read more

How to Get to Know Your Customers

If you know your customer, you’ll know what they want from you and from the products they buy. You need to know who you’re talking to in your marketing materials so that you know how to connect with them, not just talk at them. You’ll have greater success the better you know your customers. So, how do you get to know your customers? Follow these guidelines and ideas to hop in your customers’ shoes and figure out what exactly they want: Ask them what they want. Yep, it can be that simple! Just ask – when they are in your

Read more

How True Leaders Execute Plans Without Fail & Celebrate Their Victories

Execution is everything. Plan all you want, dream all you can, then turn that key or you’ve accomplished nothing. Execution is what separates those with lofty ideas from those who end up winning the game. It’s about taking strategies and making sure they are implemented with power. Creating a culture of execution is a leadership issue. It combines creating a “no-excuses, get-it-done” culture with the systems, processes, and accountabilities that ensure things are done consistently and well. But it’s also more than a leadership issue. Plan, Execute, Measure, Celebrate People at every level in an organization can get bogged down

Read more

5 Simple Secrets to Increase Online Sales

Your online business depends on your expert sales and closure technique. Simply put, the better you are at selling your product, the more money you will make! In fact, a good salesman is almost impervious to failure in the world of business. Here are 5 time tested, proven techniques and sales triggers to increase your online sales. But before we get into them, let me give you the MASTER KEY to your customer’s purse… Here it is: The no. 1 reason that people don’t go ahead and pay for a product or service is because they are afraid to make

Read more

Small Business Tips from a Successful Entrepreneur

Ruth Ellen Miller, Co-Founder and President of NoUVIR Lighting http://www.nouvir.com based in Delaware, is a successful entrepreneur who saw her business grow out of her living room to become a million dollar enterprise. Nouvir Lighting is a manufacturer of fiber optic lighting, producing pure-white fiber-optic light capable of minimizing photochemical damage. Nouvir’s lighting systems are used in museums including historic documents and memorabilia such as Thomas Jefferson’s handwritten draft of the Declaration of Independence to Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, from the Bill of Rights to The Louisiana Purchase, the Magna Carta and hundreds of other priceless documents. Through Ruth Ellen’s

Read more

Checklist for Disaster Preparedness and Recovery

No business owner wants to think about facing disaster, but each should be prepared for one. With the right planning, catastrophes from fires to floods can be reduced to substantial challenges on the long road of ownership. Follow these tips to be prepared. Prepare an Evacuation Box Purchase a lockable “evacuation box” to hold important documents such as prior year tax returns and insurance policies. The box should also contain a list of numbers and contact information for bank accounts, loans, credit cards, investment accounts and other key information. Some documents can be saved as PDF copies and stored on

Read more

Top 9 Reasons Why You Should Advertise

Sure, you want your company to grow, but the economy sucks and money is tight. What you’ve been doing seems to be working ok, and you’re just not convinced that putting extra money towards advertising is the best way you could spend it. The Small Business Administration recommends investing at least 3-5% of your annual revenue back into your advertising, and more if you have a large amount of competition or aggressive competition. Here are the top 9 reasons why you should advertise: Awareness = Existence Little to no advertising means you are generating little to no awareness about who

Read more

How to Engage Employees With Technology Based Change

When you think about the millions of dollars organizations spend each year on IT programs of work, wouldn’t it be prudent knowing that employees actually understand and most importantly embrace the reason behind the changes? There is one way of ensuring that employees and their managers have got the message and truly understand the reasons for the new system implementation. And that is the means that you communicate this technology based change. Let’s start with reviewing how most organizations manage technology based change. If your organization’s approach to this type of change is new skills training and employee communication strategies

Read more

What is OPM or Other People’s Money?

Book Excerpt from Rich Dad’s Advisors: OPM: How to Attract Other People’s Money for Your Investments–The Ultimate Leverageby Michael A. Lechter Getting Out of the Rat Race and Navigating the CASHFLOW Quadrant Using OPM How do you get out of the rat race? The Rich Dad answer is to put your money to work for you instead of you working for money. You do that by investing in or creating income-producing assets. When the monthly income from those assets—passive income—exceeds your monthly expenses, you’re financially free. You have made it out of the rat race. Now, you have choices. You

Read more

How to Start a Business Without Big Startup Loans

,

Starting a small business or home business without startup loans is not only possible – but extremely smart. I mean, why would anyone want to incur major debt from a mountain of BIG bank loans if they didn’t need to — or rack up high interest credit card debt as a means of cash flow management. There is a better way – and it’s called Bootstrapping. Let’s take a look at three proven methods of bootstrap start up: Tip #1: Start a Small Business from Home When searching for the most profitable business opportunity without the need for start up

Read more

No AssHole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t

Part 1 of excerpt from the book “No AssHole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t”   We all have the potential to act like assholes under the wrong conditions, when we are placed under pressure or, especially, when our workplace encourages everyone-especially the “best” and “most powerful” people-to act that way. Although it is best to use the term sparingly, some people do deserve to be certified as assholes because they are consistently nasty across places and times. “Chainsaw” Al Dunlap is a well-known candidate. The former Sunbeam CEO who wrote the book Mean Business, Dunlap

Read more

9 Killer Mistakes to Avoid When Starting a Business

When starting a business, you are bound to make mistakes. The key is to make sure that the mistakes you commit are not fatal to your business. From the book So, You Want to Start a Business?: 8 Steps to Take Before Making the Leapby Ed Hess and Charles Goetz, here are nine killer mistakes to avoid when starting a business: 1. Choosing a bad business opportunity. The hardest lesson for eager entrepreneurs to learn is that having a “great idea” for a business doesn’t equate to a good business opportunity. Learning the distinction will greatly improve your chances of

Read more