3 Essential Tools For Starting And Maintaining A Small Business
We believe that there are 3 factors that drive the success of small businesses.1) Acquiring start-up capital 2) Finding customers 3) Accounting for, budgeting and controlling sales and expensesThe following resources will help your small business achieve these success factors. Acquiring Start-Up CapitalAn adequate supply of capital is essential as many profitable businesses fail because they don’t have enough cash to pay their employees and suppliers. But what is an adequate supply of capital? The only way to tell is by doing a significant amount of research on your potential market and formally documenting this in ... |
 |
|
5 Home Biz Mistakes Every Entrepreneur Should Make!
by BB Lee (C)2005mailto:editor@smallbizbitsnews.comIn a previous article appropriate steps to start a home based business were discussed.This important article will review the 5 top mistakes ... |
|
|
9 Things You Must Do To Maximize Your Chances Of Obtaining A Small Business Loan
To get approval for your small business loan application, you must be able to meet the lending criteria set down. Some organisations are more risk averse than others, and will therefore have more stringent criteria.To vastly increase your chances of a successful funding application, you will need to prese... |
|
|
Achieving Financial Security In An Unreliable Economy
Copyright 2005 Shannon LaveniaFinancial Security is a false concept that developed in American society based on the idea that security comes from the perceived reliability of a regular or planned paycheck. Many people, believing in the commitment of their corporations to their well-being, have found themselves downsized, layed-off, outsourced, transferred, or, in some cases, even fired. The immediate reality becomes harshly apparent and sadly disappointing.The bottom line is that Corporate America will always be focused on the bottom line. ... |
|
|
Alternative Venture Finance: Federal Grants And Loans
While most companies seeking venture capital initially think about angel investors and venture capitalists, a large alternative source of financing is federal grants and loans. The two largest federal grant programs are run by the Small Business Administration (SBA), and b... |
|
|
Alternative Venture Finance: Shell Corporations
A shell corporation is a company that is incorporated but has no significant assets or operations. These corporations may be formed as an alternative venture financing mechanism.Shell company financing works in two ways. In many cases, the shell corporation is created from scratch. The purpose of these shells is to raise money and to get a number of shares outstanding into the public’s hands. In most cases, the shares are sold in units. That is, the shares are sold as one share of common stuck plus warrants at the current offering price.The “empty” shell is then merged with the operating company. The merged companies begin to report operating results and when the results are good, existing stockholders exercise their warr... |
|
|
An Exporter? Who, Me?
(NC)—If you're a small- to medium-sized business with a potential market for your product abroad, you may profit from making a move into exporting.Your first ... |
|
|
Analyzing Customers In Your Business Plan
The Customer Analysis section of the business plan assesses the customer segments that the company serves. In it, the company must 1) identify its target customers, 2) convey the needs of these customers, and 3) show how its products and services satisfy these needs.The first step of the Customer Analysis is to define exactly which customers the company is serving. This requires specificity. It is not adequate to say the company is... |
|
|
Angel Investors: 7 Online Business Plan Scams And 1 Real Deal
We've all seen the hype: "We'll put your plan in front of thousands of investors!" "We'll write you an award-winning online business plan!" "Only $3,000 for... |
|
|
Angel Investors: Who They Are & When Are They Appropriate
Angel investors are individuals who invest in emerging business ventures. Angels typically provide both capital and know-how to companies who are in either their start-up or expansion phases. To reflect the increased risk of investing in such firms, angels seek a higher rate of return versus traditional public stock investments.Angel investors fulfill the financing need that exists between capital provided by friends and family and capital provided by venture capitalists. Individual angel investors often write checks from $25,000 to $100,000. Recently, angel investing has become more organized, and angel groups often invest from $250,000 to $500,000 at a time to deserving ventures. Angel invest... |
|
|
Are Corporate Awards And Corporate Gifts Beneficial For Your Business?
With the increased challenges that all companies are faced with, many corporations have implemented various initiatives to continue to grow corporate earnings and shareholder value, some have discovered the strategic value of corporate awards and corporate gifts. From the boardroom to the frontlines to the client across the country, corporate awards and gifts offer many benefits to enhance performance. Not only are you showing your appreciation to the employee or customer, you setting a standard of thanks for the hard work and dedication. Corporate Awards Benefits: A company’s success depends on its employees and their abilities. With the incentive of a corporate award or corporate gift you attract and retain current employees to pursue for more in the workplace. Corporate awards are great for:• Direction• Talen... |
|
|
Bankruptcy 101
‘Bankruptcy’ the term that can raise the goose bumps of almost every individual who hears it and even a nervous breakdown to those who confront it. Bankruptcy stands for the situation when a person runs into huge debts and there is hardly any money left with him to repay those debts. The clouds of bankrupt situation can hover over anybody’s life be it a successful business man who has never ever fathomed it or any greenhorn entrepreneur who had thought of going a long way ahead. There are several reasons behind this insolvency-Indebtedness-people usually take big loans from the banks and private companies in order to run successfully their business or company. However, since the economy i... |
|
|
Becoming Wise - Wild & Free: Writing A Successful Business Plan - Part 3 - The Feasibility
I am amazed at how many resources there are and how much information is available today on writing a business plan. There is software, documents, templates, outlines and a lot of experts that can help you. Most experts and resources will tell you exactly how to write a business plan and maybe even provide a template that only needs minor changes to fit your needs. All the emphasis is put on "writing" a solid business plan. I agree that you need a good business plan but I don't believe that you need to spend hours, days or even months writing your story so that people can read all about what you are going to do. In the first place, most of the people that are going to ... |
|
|
Before The Business Plan
Purveyors of conventional wisdom would have you believe that the very first thing you ought to do when setting up a new business is to create a business plan.It doesn't matter whether you are selling odds and ends on eBay from your living room or something larger and more complex,Business plans are excellent and necessary. Far too few of us self-employed and freelance people use them.They force us to spell out our objectives. We have to assign numbers to our expectations and assign a time-line to our goals. They become our roadmap and keep us on track. |
|
|
Beware Of Bad Credit Payday Loans
Could bad credit payday loans be the answer consumers with lowbank accounts have been looking for? Is there any harm in usingthese services? Aren't they better than using credit cards orgoing hungry?Have you seen the commercials? Cute characters promise financialprosperity. Happy, professional individuals appear to regularlyvisit their corner pay day loan shop as proudly as cashing acheck at the bank. Customers at the grocery store all re... |
|
|
Bottleneck-oriented Business Management
Simple and effective Business Management In every enterprise there are, at every time, one or more bottlenecks, which have influence to the commercial situation. Bottleneck-oriented business management has the purpose to early track the bottlenecks and to remove them, to allow an optimum of commercial development. To know at any time, what a business lacks of and to be able to add the missing things, is today a determining competition advantage. Bottlenecks can be, e.g.: lo... |
|
|
Business Laws: What You Need To Know
There are a myriad of things you must think about when opening any type of business whether it is a small business or a large corporation and one of those is how business law may affect you. Failure to pay attention to business and corporate law can land you in a world of trouble-both legal and financial. The good news is that you do not necessari... |
|
|
Business Plan
A is a short brief that explains how a business owner, director or entrepreneur plans to orchestrate an enterprising effort that carries out the actions that are necessary in order for the effort to succeed. Basically, a business plan is the written description of a business’s business model. Those involved in the planning process and manageme... |
|
|
Business Planning For College Students And First-time Entrepreneurs
More and more students, both in undergraduate and graduate institutions, are deciding to launch their own ventures upon graduation rather than taking the traditional route of working for another firm. Likewise, more and more individuals are leaving their jobs to fulfill their entrepreneurial dreams.While these ventures may ultimately be very successful (e.g., G... |
|
|
Business Plans- What Consultants Don’t Tell You!
Copyright 2005 Empower Business SolutionsDo you have a Business Plan? Congratulations, but you are in a small minority. And if you have a plan, is it integral to your business, and instrumental to its growth? If the answer to this question is yes, then you need to read no further. However, most business owners who actually go to the trouble to write a business plan have left it languishing on their bottom sh... |
|
|
Business Plans
Way back in business school we had to churn out business plans every semester. As soon as the assignment would drop we would be scrambling for information. Start the number crunching game, do the analysis, do some mental planning and write business plans. Then we graduated and got jobs. But, we still have to write business plans. I came across a collection called Business Plans from 'Business-planning-4-you' (http://business.marc8.com/ebook-info.php/name/business_plans/toc_id/1-0-1-5)... |
|
|
Canadian Debt Consolidation
Life throws people a number of challenges often on a daily basis and unfortunately, some of those are financial challenges. The loss of a job, an illness and many other situations can make paying off loans difficult to do. Sometimes people simply overextend themselves with their financial commitments and find that they can’t always make even the minimum payment on all of thei... |
|
|
Checklist For Starting A Business
Use this comprehensive checklist to plan each step of your new business and transform your dream of entrepreneurship into reality. These steps may not necessarily be completed in the order listed; however, you can use them as a guideline for completing all of the necessary business startup tasks.- Determine what kind of business you want to start.- Learn about the industry for your business.- Analyze the market for your business.- Study your competition.- Educate yourself on running a business.- Join trade as... |
|
|
Consumer Advicewhat Is Identity Theft?
What is identity theft?(NC)—Identity theft occurs when someone uses your personal information without your knowledge or consent to commit a crime, such as fraud or theft.Once they steal the information and manipulate it, identity thieves can invade your personal and financial life. They can use stolen identities to conduct spending sprees, open new bank accounts, divert mail, apply for loans, credit cards, and social benefits, rent apartments and even commit more serious crimes which, once arrested, they pin on their new identity.ID thieves get your personal information by: • Stealing personal and private information from wallets, purses, mail, your home, vehicle, comput... |
|
|
Corporate Shells
A corporate shell could be liken to a house that had been occupied by a family, prior to the family moving out it was a home. But now it is just shell, a skeleton a plain house with nobody in it, but if a family was to purchase the house and move... |
|
|
Describing Intellectual Property In Your Business Plan
Most companies that are worthy of raising venture capital have proprietary Intellectual Property (IP). In fact, the quality of the IP and the management team are often the two most important aspects of a venture capitalist’s investment decision. The challenge that many ventures face, however, is that most investors will not sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), and NDAs are critical to maintaining the proprietary nature of the IP. This article details the appropriate strategy for addressing proprietary IP in your business plan in order to attract investor a... |
|
|
Developing A Business Plan = Developing A Succesful Business.
Whether you are starting up a new business or you already have an established company, the importance of a business plan may be over looked. Yes, they can take some time to draw up but just think of your business plan as a map of a country. Without the details and information on this map, trying to ... |
|
|
Developing Realistic Financial Assumptions In Your Business Plan
Many investors skip straight to the financial section of the business plan. It is critical that the assumptions and projections in this section be realistic. Plans that show penetration, operating margin and revenues per employee figures that are poorly reasoned, internally inc... |
|
|
Do You Love Food? - Then Maybe Opening A Restaurant Is Not Such A Crazy Idea
The restaurant industry in the United States employs an estimated 12.2 million people, making it the nation's largest employer outside of government agencies.The restaurant industry in the United States employs an estimated 12.2 million people, making it the nation's largest employer outside of government agencies. This industry provides work for more than 9 percent of those employed in the United States. Eating-and-drinking places are... |
|
|
Do You Need Bad Credit Help
? Are you one of thousands with nocredit and no collateral to help secure approval, or you justhave extrem... |
|
|
Documenting Partnerships In Your Business Plan
Forging partnerships to improve market penetration has become commonplace, particularly for “new economy” businesses. And, most companies proudly mention their many partnerships in their business plans.The fact is that, regardless of whom the partnership is with, partnerships by themselves are meaningless. What are meaningful are the terms of the partnership. For instance, while it sounds great to have a partnership with a Fortune 500 company, the details of the partnershi... |
|
|
Documenting The Exit Strategy In Your Business Plan
All investors greatly desire and are motivated by a clear picture of a company’s exit strategy, or the timing and method through which they can “cash in” on their investment. This picture best comes into focus when the key valuation and liquidity drivers of the company are clearly delineated. An excellent method to accomplish this is through descriptions of comparable firms that have had successful liquidity events, either through acquisition, merger, of initial public offerings (IPOs).It is helpful to show ot... |
|
|
