StartupNation Blogs

I just cringe when I call a business and get some home recording message from a 1980’s answering machine. All home-based businesses need a professional answering service. Whether you are a solo entrepreneur looking for a professional “staff member” (i.e. virtual phone service) to field calls, or an at-home sales rep missing sales leads [...]

Chances are, you’ve seen a POS system in action. “POS” is an abbreviation for “point-of-sale-” the most basic POS systems calculate payment amounts and process customer payments, similar to a cash register. However, they aren’t just calculators. Most hospitality-based systems use POS systems in order to track inventory and labor costs, forecast business volumes [...]

Effective July 24th, 2008, the federal minimum wage increases to $7.25. A few small businesses may have needed that reminder- those that process their own employee paychecks will need to make adjustments not just to wages, but to tax withholding amounts, employee savings plans, and other accounts. Businesses that already outsource payroll services don’t need [...]

Businesses that accept credit cards are a distinct advantage when it comes to attracting customers. With over 3/4 of the American population using some form of plastic to pay for regular purchases, you can’t afford not to offer a credit card payment option.

Merchant Account Basics
In order to accept credit card payments, you’ll need to open [...]

Most people associate telemarketing with outbound sales call centers- a huge room full of employees with headsets on making calls for sales, lead generation, or collecting survey information or donations. But telemarketing also works the other way around. If you don’t have the staff, or language capabilities to support taking calls, inbound telemarketing is a [...]

Just learned about EveryBlock, is a new way to keep track of what’s happening on your block, in your neighborhood and all over. You can choose your city and get a citywide overview of news by category. I might never eat in my own neighborhood again given the amount of violations reported….
The site is one [...]

Recently, I was contacted by a PR firm (Attention) and asked if I would profile Blake Mycoskie on my blog(s). I’m ashamed to say how long it’s taken me to turn this piece around, however seeing the latest ATT commercial featuring Blake after a long day of meetings (at my day job) shamed me into finishing. My [...]

It’s no secret that running a business in this economy is a challenge. But with the right smarts, you can get through the storm.
To survive you’ll have to make the most of your time (which you likely have more of as a result of less customer activity) and take into account the impact of your [...]

The phone is not ringing and crickets are chirping.
That’s likely what will happen if you are sending out press releases to the masses and waiting for the sales to come in.
I bring this up because several entrepreneurs contacted me recently about their PR activities. They hired publicists. But instead of obtaining media exposure, they [...]

An overlooked cost savings for entrepreneurs is switching to VoIP, or an internet-based phone system for your business. According to a recent survey, over 86% of business owners rated VoIP satisfaction level as “very high.” Why? VoIP and internet-based phone systems offer features, services and equipment that some traditional phone systems can’t compete. In [...]