Business Blogs: Trends, tips, and real-life anecdotes from industry experts.

You may be painfully aware that the school year is over. If you work out of your home, the noise level is a dead giveaway. No matter the age of your children, your work and their needs are most likely colliding. I’ve talked to entrepreneurs who are trying to tough it out [...]

Whenever you need to add a new person to your team, make the decision easy on yourself: just hire the ones who smile.
Smiling is awesome. The act of smiling makes a measurable positive impact in the physiology of a person. Smilers are obviously more upbeat and smiling is darned contagious. The StartupNation team just returned [...]

I’m no marketing genius, but I know that certain products and services require repeat exposure to prospects before they will convert to customers. I’ve heard that the magic number is 6 or 7 points of exposure. Think of how much business you could be losing if you are not following up with interested [...]

Sometimes reality smacks you pretty hard in the face. As I prepared for vacation, I got smacked but good. There was a tragic car accident and my nephew was killed instantly. In a daze, I rearranged my travel plans and headed home to be with my family. After four days, I [...]

We recently recieved a call for help (via our "Contact Us" button) from a fellow entrepreneur named Jim. Here’s what he wrote:
message: Jeff/Rich:
So, do I just let it fold?
I started my passion play 18 months ago that I’ve been thinking about for
3-4 years. Wireless Tech Radio is a one hour per week live streamed [...]

My fiance Suzanne and I went to a movie last week and wanted to purchase the tickets before grabbing a quick dinner prior to the show. It was a boutique theater that plays "artsy" films which we love (the film we saw is Mad Hot Ballroom, a documentary on the New York City public school [...]

Does the mere idea of taking vacation freak you out? I am a one-woman show in my business. With the exception of some computer and clerical stuff, I do everything myself. So, when I go away for a week, there is no one here to take messages, no one to deal [...]

We’ve been throwing lots of challenges at you lately–like… what would you do if you had an opportunity to sell a product but knew it wasn’t really what the customer wanted? Or what would you do if someone dangled startup money in front of you, but it came with some serious strings attached?
Well, this week, [...]

Love the instincts and wisdom you entrepreneurs demonstrated in the “Show Me the Money!” blog challenge!
There are two really important principles to remember when seeking funding for your business.
1. Make sure you have an ‘alignment of interests.’ This is when you and the provider of the money have similar goals for the investment. For example, [...]

I was just part of a mass email from my buddy Tom, who is an awesome guy and also has an unreal golf swing. Here’s the first paragraph:
—
An unholy event has occured about which some of you have already heard rumors. I wanted to clear things up right away before anything gets out of [...]