Posted by Ben Jones on May 22, 2008
It is becoming ridiculously apparent to me that we (small business bloggers) are
the black sheep of the blogosphere. We have some of the most knowledgeable, respectable professionals of any blogging niche and yet you hear but chirps around some of the most informative blogs in our category. We boast gifted minds like Anita Campbell, John Jantsch, Jeff Cornwell(& myself
but yet we pale miserably (in terms of traffic) to less sought after niches. I mean, come on….we carry the keys to the thing that most everybody in today’s society is searching for. Our product is in high demand but we, the suppliers, are not delivering.
And It’s not because we’re not providing great content(so wipe that look off your face:)); It’s because we’re not promoting that content. We have no sense of community, low/no participation, low/no camaraderie, and the list goes on and on. There is no way that more people are interested in “digital photography” than are interested in entrepreneurship……… Something has to be done.
This was one of the reasons why I produced the
best entrepreneurship and small business blogs list. It was to help to inform everybody of other quality blogs in our niche and it appears to have helped a little. However, we must do more.
What Must We Do?
The first thing we must do is to support and participate with other small business bloggers. Use those $50,000 degrees (or more costly informal education) to provide value to our forums. Forums like Young Entrepreneur’s, or Young Go Getter’s , StartupNation, or Business Leader. Leave comments or Trackbacks on blogs. Promote, Stumble, Digg, and most importantly Fetch great content. Take back sites like Small Business Brief that were designed for great content from small business blogs(I guarantee that right now the front page of Small Business Brief includes nothing but posts about SEO, affiliate marketing, and the like). Make ‘em take it to Sphinn! Great content and great ideas should be rewarded…..we seem to be the only blogging “community” that doesn’t think so. But I guess this is what happens when a community has no leader because it consists of leaders.
Coming Down
All I’m saying is that soooo many people are searching for the knowledge needed to start a successful business. Even though I’m tired of listening to people talk about the economy, it is making the information we provide that much more sought after. What we have to do is make sure that the people searching for it actually find it and not some watered down version produced by a poser or a scammer. They need first hand knowledge from you; the people actually sitting at home or in their office everyday writing small educational memoirs about their experiences. This will be good for everyone. It’ll mean more traffic, more consulting jobs, more book deals, more opportunities, and just a lot more fun. So let’s get busy. Let’s do what we do best……Create, Network, and Market!
The Revolution has Begun!
Now back to your regularly scheduled content.
Posted by Ben Jones on May 19, 2008
There are thousands of small business and entrepreneurship blogs in the blogosphere. Unfortunately, many of them are not at all useful to the experienced or aspiring entrepreneur. We’ve all seen them. The great majority of which are e-commerce “pros” masquerading as entrepreneurship experts. This makes finding solid, useful information for the traditional small business owner very difficult. Therefore in my frustration, I have decided to create what I like to think of as “The A-List” of entrepreneurship and small business blogs.
The blogs listed in “The List” are solely there on the basis of their knowledge and content. I have given no regard to name recognition, popularity, or any of that stuff. In other words, there is no kissing up and no playing favorites. Now I recognize that there will be some omissions with a list this size but for the most part the “must-reads” are all there. Some of your favorites, or even your own blog, may have been left off the list. It’s probably because they haven’t posted in a forever, their blog isn’t really about entrepreneurship, or it’s just not good enough. So no whining! If you think we missed one just drop me a line in the comments section and we’ll check it out. I’ll update the list when we find some worth adding.
Other than that, enjoy the reading. I’m sure you’ll find some new blogs for the old reader.
(These are listed in no particular order)
Small Business Trends- Written by Anita Campbell.
Simple design, great content, daily posts.
Just for Small Business- Denise O’berry
One of several blogs on allbusiness.com
Small Business Survival- Becky McCray, Jeanne Cole, & Genna Mae
Says for small town small business resource but the information is universal.
Small Business Arena- Kirtok
Hasn’t posted in a while but good resource.
The Entrepreneurial Mind- Jeff Cornwall
Entrepreneurship Professor at Belmont provides very useful information.
Work Happy- Carson McComas
Links and resources to help entrepreneurs work smarter, not harder
Business Opportunities Weblog- Dane Carlson
Interviews, Success Stories, & Advice
Home Based Business Blog- Frank Ross
Business and Marketing Info. Also hosted on allbusiness.com.
Startup Spark- Shannon Cherry
More about running your business after startup but great information nonetheless.
How to Change the World- Guy Kawasaki
Very popular blog by one of the best in the blogosphere. Interviews, Advice, and everything in between.
Entrepreneur Success Blog- Jared Reitzin
2-3 posts per week. Also posts episodes from his pretty funny Internet show.
Entrepreneurs Journey- Yaro Starak
Very popular. Posts a lot about his experiences as an Internet entrepreneur but interesting and inspiring for all aspiring entrepreneurs.
Babe of Business- Crystal Williams
Pretty young blog, erratic posting schedule, but good content, and great design. Definitely one to watch.
Business Know-How- Tim Knox, Janet Attard
Lots of Adsense Ads in the middle of posts but content is worth looking past the visual distractions.
Young Go-Getter- Justin Nowak
Interviews & advice. Also hosts an entrepreneurship forum on this site. Be sure to check it out.
Duct Tape Marketing- John Jantsch
Design is a little busy but author seems to be very knowledgeable. Worth adding to your reader.
Be Excellent- Skip Reardon
Simple design but consistently good content.
Branding and Marketing- Chris Brown
Clean design, daily posts, passionate author
Young Entrepreneur- Matthew and AdamToen
Great blog, great forums
JD’s Blog- Jason Drohn
Incredibly attractive design, invaluable information
Marketing Hackz- Jason Drohn
All-inclusive marketing information. Another nice design by JD.
Small Biz Labs- Steve King, Carolyn Ochels, Anthony Townsend
Business Research, tactics, and trends
Genius Types - Brian lee
Business Opportunities & ideas to build passive income
The Savvy Entrepreneur- Christina Favreau
A little bit difficult to navigate because of some design issues but the entrepreneurship category has some interesting articles.
Small Business Mentor- Yvonne Russell
Clever topics, tons of information
Seth Godin’s Blog- Seth Godin
Insanely popular. Not strictly entrepreneurship but entertaining and informative.
Weakest Link Consulting- Erik Johnels
Young Blog but knowledgeable author. A good for the reader.
Instigator Blog- Ben Yoskovitz
Co-founder of “Standout Jobs” writes on everything from VC’s to BP’s
OkDork- Noah Kagan
Fun blog, very popular, lots of marketing info.
Feld Thoughts- Brad Feld
Just read it
Entrepreneurship and Positive Living- Timothy Winston
Lot’s of tips on how to remain productive when your you’re own boss
Entrepreneurship: A Different Mindset- Ryan Mapes
One of the founders of the Go Bog Network covers a lot of ground in his blog
Personal Branding- Dan Schawbel
A great marketing blog. Deals largely with personal branding
Branding Strategy Insider- Tom Asacher, Brad Van Auken, Derrick Daye
Wildy popular and for good reason. Definitely one for the reader
Marketing Caddy- Walt Goshert
Nice design, daily posts, great content
Marketing Deviant- David Kam
More psychology than strategy….but isn’t our psychology what sets entrepreneurs apart anyway?
Small Business Branding- Several notable Authors
Very useful content by experienced authors. One of the best
Chris Brogan- Unknown. lol
marketing, social media, personal branding
Business Pundit- Seems to be by several authors
Verve Coaching- Erek Ostrowski
Entrepreneurship, Leadership, & Small Business-ship
Ben Means Business- Ben Jones
Last but definitely not least. The grandaddy of entrepreneurship/small business blogs. A must-have for your reader
**Update**
Great blogs that were originally overlooked
Small Business CEO -Steve Rucinski
Seriously Business
Bootstrapme- Shawn Hessinger
Business Opportunities and Ideas- John Crickett
Small Business Answers- Appears to have Several authors
Black in Business- James D. Walton
Up and Running- Tim Berry
Escape from Cubicle Nation-Pamela Slim
Global Small Business Blog-Laurel Delaney
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Posted by Ben Jones on April 2, 2008
One of the most difficult things for most entrepreneurs to do is to stay motivated. There always seems to be an overwhelming amount of discernibly justifiable reasons to give up and to concede your ambitions for contentment. One minute your up at all hours of the night carefully constructing your business plans, or on a family outing and the whole time your thinking about what you will do when you get back to your laptop; One short month later you can’t think of one good reason why you should put any more of your time into that dead businss venture.
I’ve seen it time and time again……………………………………………………………………………….in myself. I had been working pretty hard on trying to obtain business for our Export Trading Company and things were actually going pretty well. Then we hit a few deadspots and it was incredibly hard to get myself to make pushes for the business again. The only thing that will usually get you going when you reach this point is a sudden influx of opportunities(which thankfully did happen in my case, but does not always).
Therefore, most people just close up shop when they reach this point in their business’ life. This is the main reason for the incredibly low success rates of new businesses. It’s the desire and the determination to persevere through rough times. It is incredibly easy for most people to give up their dreams because they usually have some previous “career” that they can fall back on. Well, believe me, I’ve had those thoughts too but if your like me there is something in you that just won’t allow you to totally surrender. You always feel that success is right around the corner.
I read a post on my favorite blog the other day that spoke to this very issue. If your struggling through a similar time in your business venture it may help to give you the insight and motivation that you need to keep going. HERE IT IS…..Enjoy!
Posted by Ben Jones on May 15, 2007
I read a pretty interesting post today over on
BloggingTips.com. It was actually a guest post from Mani Karthik of
Daily Dose of Internet. The title of the article was the
Top 5 Mistakes I Did When I started Blogging. Despite the obvious grammatical inaccuracies in the title, this was actually a good article. There was nothing particularly deep about the article but it was very re-assuring to someone like me who is new to blogging. The author kind of re-iterates many of the things that you already know but does touch on a couple of things that we tend to overlook. In my opinion the most useful point of this article was when the author wrote about selecting a blog template that i viewable in all readers and who’s HTML scripts are easy to navigate by search engine crawlers. The latter of those two points is a major one. I am pretty cautious about what codes I place in my HTML template because I don’t want to place any kind of code that may make my blog more difficult for search bots to crawl. Anyway, go and check out the article and let me know which parts you find useful.
Posted by Ben Jones on May 10, 2007
Advertising with Google Adwords can be one of the more rewarding methods of advertisement for any campaign. However, using Adwords takes some knowledge and can become very expensive if the correct techniques are not applied. So I’ve created this 5-tip manual as the completion to the few Adwords tips I have been giving out in the past. This manual should help the novice or more experienced Pay Per Click marketer take their Adwords campaigns to the next level.
My initial experience with Google Adwords was not a very good one. I made every mistake possible with my campaign. I simply found out which keywords were most popular and I tried to bid whatever dollar amount necessary to get me into the top spots in search results. Well, needless to say, that method costed me a lot of money and I never got enough clicks because my budget would not allow me to get a high number of clicks at the amount I was paying per click.
After a few weeks of attempting to make this method work, I decided to give up. I knew that I needed traffic to my site but realized that I didn’t have the budget to keep paying high prices for it. So I began to learn everything I could about Adwords and how people utilize it. I read books, blogs, anything I could to get information that would help me to create a successful ad campaign. I the constructed my new campaign using a few simple methods that proved to be priceless. So, lets get right to them.
Method 1: Evening the Playing Field
This first method is one that I have given before. I like to call it “Evening the Playing Field”. This technique is fairly simple and will save you tons of money. The purpose of this technique is to avoid the expensive price of the more popular, broader keywords. So the idea is to find a bunch of slightly less popular keywords that will cost you less per click.
One way that we can do this is to utilize the names of industry competitors as keywords and allow your ads to be seen when someone searches for that company. This method works very well because you are stealing customers from your competitors and you will be paying a lot less money per click because the companies name will not be as popular as a traditional keyword.
Example:
I own an bookstore in North Carolina and want to use Google Adwords to advertise my website. Instead of paying ($1.50 per click) for keywords like “bookstore, books, etc…” that get 400,000 searches per month, I would bid($0.25 per click) on keywords like “Barnes and Noble, Borders, etc…” that get 20,000 searches per month.
As a result, I place much higher in the search engine results page (SERP) because of less competition for the keyword and will ultimately save tons of money while seeing more traffic.
Method 2: Capitalize on Your CTR
To properly understand this method, you need to understand how Google decides where to place ads in search results. Google uses a ranking formula of Cost-Per-Click x Click Through Rate to determine where ads are placed. So, what this means is that even if you bid $1.25 per click, a low click through rate will cause your ad to get low placement in search results. However, the reverse, which is the basis of this method, is also true.
So how do we use this information to our advantage? Well, what I started doing is setting my maximum CPC higher in the beginning of my campaign so that I can place higher in search pages. Once my CTR has increased from the higher ad placement, I lower my maximum bid and still maintain decent ad placement in the SERP(search engine results page). One other thing that I do when using this method is I capitalize the Title of the ad for the first couple of days. Google prohibits capitalization so they will disable your ad after a couple of days until you change them to lowercase. By this time, the capitalization along with the high ad placement has earned you a high CTR. I don’t recommend using capitalization because it is against Google’s “terms and conditions”, but it is something that I did for a day or so just to boost my CTR.
Method 3: Misspelled Words
A lot of people misspell words when typing their search terms. So it is usually beneficial and a lot less costly to bid on common misspellings of search terms instead of the actual term itself. This method is pretty self explanatory so I will not go into to too much detail. However, I will say that some keywords are misspelled so often that they may be searched for jut as frequently as the correctly spelled term. Be sure to do your research and make sure that you take advantage of these blunders.
Method 4: Turn off Content Matching
I found this trick to be very helpful with my pay per click campaigns. Google’s content matching feature will display your ad for searches that Google deems are “relevant” to your site.The problem is that Google will have a much broader idea of what is relevant because they exist to make money. So your ads end up being displayed for searches that have nothing to do with your site. As a result, your CTR (Click Through Rate) and conversion rates will suffer. (High CTR’s are essential to getting better rankings in search results)Who wants to pay for clicks that they have no chance of converting?….No one! Your conversion and Click Through Rates should increase once you turn this feature off. Then your ad will only be shown when someone searches for your keywords.
So log into your Google Adwords account, put a check next to your campaigns and click the “Edit Settings” button. Once your inside the “Edit Campaigns” screen, you will scroll to the right and uncheck the box next to “Content Network”. Save your settings and watch your ad campaigns soar!
Method 5: Exclude Negative Keywords
Negative keywords are words that you identify that you don’t want your ad to be displayed for in Serp’s. For example, if you are selling basketballs, you don’t want your ad to be displayed when someone searches for “free basketballs”. So, you would add the word “free” to your negative keywords list. This is just another way to make sure that the only people who click your ads are people who are actually interested in what you have to offer. Therefore, you don’t waste money on clicks that you have no possibility to convert.
Bonus Tip: Use Exact or Phrase Matches
Google defaults your ads to “Broad Match”. This means that your ad will be displayed whenever someone searches for anything similar to your keyword. Therefore, you will have a higher probability that someone will click your ad that is not looking for your product. So I recommend that you use the “exact” or “phrase match” feature. To use the “exact match” feature you must place each of your keywords inside a [] symbols when selecting keywords. To use the “phrase match feature, you must place your keywords inside quotation marks.
That’s all the tips for now. I hope that you found something to help your ad campaigns. Don’t forget to subscribe to my feed, bookmark us, and leave your comments.
Posted by Ben Jones on May 9, 2007
I am busy writing a pretty meaty post that I’ll publish tomorrow so I don’t have much to publish today. However, I do have a nice piece of information for you guys. It’s an excellent opportunity to get a build more traffic for your website or blog.
The opportunity is a blogging contest hosted by Darren Rowse at Problogger. The winner gets a prize of $1001. All you have to do is write a post about “Top 5″ whatever. It can be about the “Top 5″ anything(ex:If your site is about radios, you can write a post about the “top 5 brands”).
Everybody who submits a post will get a link on his page so its worth it even if you don’t win. Visit Problogger to see contest details.
Posted by Ben Jones on May 8, 2007
Paula Mooney has created a list of the salaries of top bloggers. This article is very well put together and seems to be pretty factual. There were a few surprises in this list and there are several things that we can learn from it. The first thing that I noticed was the deviation between the top earner and the average salary of the list. It let me know that there are a few bloggers who are doing extremely well but the rest of the pack are all well below those bloggers.
The amount of money made by the average blogger on this list did not wow me at all. It actually let me know that there is still tremendous room for growth in this industry. It also reminded me that making money from blogging is very difficult and that money can’t be the only reason that I do it. This is no problem for me because I am starting to love the blogosphere. One of my many joys is exploring content from other blogs on my feedreader. Anyway, check out this article and remember to leave comments because she has the “no follow” feature turned off and you can gain some search engine juice.
Oh, and my Pistons are dominating Chicago! Game 2 Score: 108-87! Yes, you read it right! The second blow out in a row. I expect us to lose 1 in Chicago but the series is ours. We now own them!
Posted by Ben Jones on May 6, 2007
As most of you know, Google’s Page Rank has become extremely important for websites. It basically ranks you on how important/popular your blog is. Advertisers use it to determine whether how much an advertisement on your website is worth. So, I’ve found a pretty cool way to increase your page rank.
Most blogging platforms automatically have “no follow” tags in comments section as a default so that search bots do not use the links from commenters to increase page rank. This helps to discourage people from spamming your blog with comments. Well, there is a movement going on right now where select bloggers have removed the no follow tags from their comments section so that other bloggers get some PR juice when commenting on their blog.
Learn about how this can increase page rank at Paula Neal Mooney’s blog. Also join the “D-List” movement by following the directions below. Remember to visit all the sites listed and leave relevant comments in order to increase you PR!
***Begin to copy here***
1. Write a short paragraph at the beginning of your post and link back to the blog that put you on the list in the paragraph. This isn’t a suggestion. You need to break up the duplicate content. Someone took the time to add you so the least you can do is give them an extra link back.
2. Copy the list of originals below COMPLETELY and add it to your blog. If you would like a different keyword for your blog then change it when you do your post and it should pass to most blogs with that keyword.
3. Take the adds from the blog that added you and place them in the “Originals” list.
4. Add at least 1 new blog that you KNOW us using the DO FOLLOW plugin to the list in the “My Adds” section. (Add no more than 5!) Let the people you’ve added know, so that they can keep the list going!
5. Leave relevant comments on the blogs listed and get a link back to your site thanks to Do Follow!My Adds:
Paula Neal Money
Ugh!!’s Greymatter Honeypot
Original List:
Entrepreneur Guide
Fuzzy Future
Solo Technology
GeekySpeaky
Simple Kind Of Life
3DayMom
BuyMeBlog
The Hockey Dad
Midlife Musings
Utterly Geek
Whatever I Feel Like
My Dandelion Patch
Surviving NJ
BizMark Tech
Two Dog Zoo
TDZ Travel
Body, Mind & Solar
MidLifeMusings
HomeBizBlogger
Confessions of a Housewife
Andy Beard
Randa Clay Design
Posted by Ben Jones on May 3, 2007
Almost everybody should know about this by now but John Chow is offering anyone a free backlink in exchange for a review of his site. His blog that helps people to make money online. For those that are not aware, John Chow dot com is one of the most popular blogs out there. If you review of his blog, he’ll link to it in his next batch o backlinks. A link from a site of that caliber should definitely help to increase your page rank. Even though tons of people have already taken advantage of his offer, he is still running this deal. So if you feel that his site is relevant to yours, you may want to take advantage of his offer.
Posted by Ben Jones on May 1, 2007
Traditional business owners have more than enough obstacles to overcome in order to become successful. “History” is one of the major ones as 50% of new businesses fail within the first year and 95% fail within the first 5 years. Home business owners, for obvious reasons, have even more obstacles to overcome. Therefore, their success rate, though it cannot be properly tracked, is much lower. So what can you do as a home business owner to help your business beat the odds? Well, keep the commandments(the ones in the Bible and these):)
1) Be Professional
The reason why this is the first on the list is because this is always a problem with home businesses. People usually find it difficult to maintain the same level of professionalism at home as they do at a 9-5. But believe me, professionalism is key to your success as a home business owner. Do not let the fact that you are at home, instead of at a storefront, cause you to run a bush league operation(like most people tend to do). You have to place yourself on the level of your competitors. If you are professional and thorough, your customer won’t even know that you are working from home and won’t care either. That’s the way it should be. So be sure to maintain a high standard for the work that you do. It’ll pay major dividends in the long run.
2) Separate Business from Pleasure
You have to be able to separate your business hours from your personal time. Take it from me, getting the two of these mixed up is both very easy and very costly. How many times have you been at home and had lots of things planned for the day but ended up not getting much done? You go to bed wondering where all your time went. I can tell you exactly what you did all day. Ready:
9:00AM-rise and shine
9:15AM-check email(with intentions to start working)
11:00AM-Realize that you’ve been surfing the web for an hour & haven’t done anything
12:00PM-Lunch Time (make a sandwich and watch TV)
12:15Pm-Shower(hopefully)
1:00PM-Back on the computer, ready to do business
1:30PM-A little tired, wanna take a 30 minute snooze
2:45PM-Wake Up, back to work
3:30PM-Kids Come Home from School
3:30-9PM- Making Dinner, lunches for tomorrow, helping with homework, breaking Up fights, and telling yourself that you will process that last order as soon as your done.
10:00PM-Fall asleep at the computer(dreaming about all the things you’ll accomplish tomorrow)
You can imagine how long your business will remain open if your days continue in this pattern. So be sure to set aside time when you are doing nothing but work. Preferably at a time when you are home alone, free from distractions. Make sure that anything else you need done, gets done before or after your business hours. Nuff said…
3) Location, Location, Location
Your business needs it own space. If you do not have an office in your home, I suggest that you at least get a computer desk and arrange all of your business valuables around that. This is important because it helps to keep you focused on your tasks. You can be a lot more professional if you are not constantly reminded that you are at home. Believe it or not, ambiance is major. I learned this valuable lesson while in college. For some reason, I got a lot more studying done while in the library rather than lounging in my bed. It will also help the other people in the house learn to identify when you are at work and when you are at home. After a while, they will learn to give you your space while in your little office. Then you can go to your desk every once in a while just to get a break!
4) Demand Respect
Don’t sell yourself short. The minute you pay your incorporation or DBA fees, you are officially a legitimate business in your industry. You must demand the respect of your competitors as well as your customers. If you present yourself as an incompetent small company, you will be treated as such. You must speak with authority like someone who knows what they are doing and who is fully capable of conducting business. Don’t be afraid to put your name out there with the larger companies, I guarantee you that they too will come to respect you if your businesses quality attracts customers.
5) Spend Less, Make More
This is a pretty self-explanatory tip but I will expound on it anyway. A lot of new owners are so excited to have a business that they go to Wal-Mart and buy out the whole office section. That’s absolutely not necessary and not very wise. I wouldn’t max out that Staples card just yet(There’s no easy button:)). Be frugal with your spending in the beginning. I guarantee you that hard times are coming and you will want to sell that $300 chair and $4,000 laptop when they arrive. It’s OK to buy things that are necessary to complete or enhance your core competences, but that’s where it should stop.
6) Build Relationships
Very, very important! You must build relationships with your competitors and key industry leaders o that you stay in the know about things that effect your business. Some of these individuals may like you and start to help send business your way or provide helpful hints about how to advance in the industry. Trust me, people are usually more loyal to people than they are to companies. Secondly, and most importantly, you want to be sure to build a relationship with your customers. This is the only way to ensure that you get repeat business and it keeps you in tune with the needs of your customers. As a small, home based business, this is one advantage that you have over the juggernauts. You should be able to identify with the customer a lot better than the corporation that has 50,000 employees. The execs of those companies will never be able to address the needs of each customer and customers want to do business with people who care about them personally. They can’t address their concerns with the CEO of the large companies but they should be able to address them with the President/Founder of your company.
7) Separate Accounting
Be sure to keep your personal funds and your business funds separate. It is very tempting to get your companies money mixed up with yours(especially when they are kept in the same account). I suggest that you open a business account and make sure that business funds go into that account. Only draw checks from the business account because they are easy to check and you are much more conscious of spending when you don’t have cash in hand all the time(women especially):). Your company needs to maintain financial stability even when you are not. Therefore, business funds must be kept separately. Set yourself a salary that you can live with and stick to it until your company can afford to give you a raise. If you constantly dip into your profit, you have nothing to grow your business with and nothing to carry it through hard times. Thus you will never reach the stage when your business can afford to increase your pay. Struggle now, Rest Later!
Monkey See, Money Do
Yup you guessed it! Success is duplicatible, so make sure that you don’t let your competitors leave you behind. Everyone copies everyone, so if you see a technique or practice that could work for you, copy it. Add it to what you are doing because I guarantee you that they will duplicate your next big breakthrough. Of course, you always want to maintain your own identity as a company but if you want to compete you have to at least make sure that you can offer what’s current. For instance, “What was the first fast-food restaurant with a $1 menu?” NOBODY CARES! All people want to know is, “does your restaurant have one?” If you do, they may be more inclined to choose you over another company. If you don’t, its an easy decision. Don’t make it an easy decision. Many home businesses fail because they fail to keep up with what the rest of the industry is doing. Being small as a company can’t be an excuse for being left behind.
9) Business is Business
Oftentimes friends and family, who are all well-intentioned, will hinder your business from being successful. It is OK to allow your friends and family to benefit from your labor. However, “free stuff all around” every time they enter your premises is not a good way to get this done. Believe me, all those freebies add up pretty quickly. So keep an eye on the “benefits by association”. Friends and/or family are usually your first employees also. This is another area where they can hurt your business more than they help it. You will find that some people will come to work late, leave early, and do absolutely nothing in between. They have no fear of being fired because of their personal relationship with you. You have to make sure that your acquaintances know that business is business and that you will protect the well being of your business like any good owner should. Even if it means releasing them from their duties with your company.
10) Visit “Ben Means Business”- The Entrepreneur Guide
This probably should have been #1:). Visit http://www.ben-means-business.com/ as often as possible to keep up with what’s new in the world of entrepreneurship. Also, go there to find motivation, get answers, or just do some leisurely reading. Subscribe for free and make sure that you don’t miss a single article.
home business, small business, entrepreneurship, work from home, internet entrepreneurship, startup
