Firing a problematic client: It’s often both a fantastical and frightful notion for the small-business owner. But it may also be a pretty smart move, especially in today’s economy. “There’s an emotional tendency to believe that all your clients are worth something,” says Matt Sarkees, assistant professor of marketing at Penn State Great Valley School [...]
So you probably know you can lease a car, but did you know you can lease a Web site? But then, why would you want to? For answers to these questions and more, I spoke with YummyNames General Manager Bill Sweetman about tips for small firms in finding the best domain name, Web site strategies [...]
You already know that the most effective advertising for your business is one person telling another. That kind of natural word-of-mouth referral carries more weight than all the advertising you can buy. Testimonials are how you capture and share that enthusiasm.
When a customer, employee, vendor or anyone else starts telling you how great your business, [...]
Talk about overload: Suddenly everybody’s spewing small-business survival tips for the greater depression. It makes me long for those good old days of, say, last year, when every other E-mail promised me the Zen of something or other, like the Zen of online backup. Or, better yet, the way back time when all software was [...]
While we’re on the subject of ridiculous regulations on entrepreneurs, I should mention that the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council has just released its Small Business Survival Index 2008, an attempt to rank the 50 states based on the quality of the policy environment for entrepreneurs. What that means, given the SBEC’s pro-free-market leanings, is [...]
The Small Business Administration today urged banks to offer more flexibility to small firms interested in a special long-term loan program as entrepreneurs and established small business owners find it difficult to succeed as sources of credit like home equity loans diminish. As traditional bank lending tightens in the nation’s current economic turmoil, many small [...]
For a decade, entrepreneur Jared Heyman steered clear of commercial lenders in favor of self-financing his Atlanta-based online market research firm, Infosurv Inc.; however, his company’s rapid growth intensified his need for outside funds. Ready for expansion, Heyman recently set out to obtain financing at a time when many companies are feeling the pain of [...]
The top five most pressing issues facing small business owners and entrepreneurs this year are strengthening the economy, taxes and regulation, health insurance, a quality workforce and global competition, according to a government economist. Chad Moutray, the chief economist at the Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy, also suggests in his new 19-page paper (pdf) [...]
Barack Obama today proposed a plan of tax cuts and loans for small businesses hurt by the current credit crisis, a temporary program he said is needed to help Main Street and complement what has already been done for Wall Street. In The Trail, a daily diary of campaign 2008 on washingtonpost.com, Robert Barnes writes [...]
As access to loans becomes scarce, some middle-aged entrepreneurs are betting their retirement funds on small-business ventures.
About 16 percent of small-business owners have taken premature withdrawals or borrowed from their retirement accounts, according to a recent online survey of 512 small-business owners by Harris Interactive and ING Direct. “Raiding your retirement should always be a [...]
