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

During my recent appearance on ABC News Now, I was lucky enough to be asked to provide some advice to fellow entrepreneurs who are growing businesses built around their passions.
Click here or on the image below to view that advice.

Let me know if you have a cool story you’d like to share with ABC News Now or [...]

Tory Johnson, frequent reporter on ABC’s Good Morning America show and anchor of the ABC NewsNow series focusing on careers asked for a little StartupNation love recently. One of her faithful fans, Natalie, of ChicSweets, asked for ideas about how to move her business forward on a variety of levels, especially in the transition from part-time [...]

Referencing my prior post on Creative Capitalism, here is another business with a 1 for 1 model.
A new project by California eco-urban design firm LJ Urban aims to make giving more concrete—quite literally—by matching its sales of homes domestically with funds to build homes in the impoverished African nation of Burkina Faso.

Urban has designed a [...]

To follow up on a previous post requesting feedback on topics and offering to highlight members of the community, I learned of Outspoken Media, Inc.—an internet marketing startup that was founded in January by three women who wanted more for their clients. Partner Rae Hoffman just finished 20th in the recent Startup Mom competition, an [...]

Our ally, Victoria Colligan of LadiesWhoLaunch has been a huge supporter and advocate for our Leading Moms in Business competition. She and her team created considerable awareness among the LadiesWhoLaunch community about the competition and many of her members ended up being named winners.
Victoria, ever committed to the success of moms, provided us with this great [...]

When you consider your business model (which includes your marketing efforts), you generally concentrate on these core components:

Why will people pay you? (money, votes, donations)
What does it cost you to sell your item…margins?
What protects you from competition, price-feature battles?
How will you turn an agnostic audience into loyal customers?

Early on when transactions had no costs, doing [...]

The love affair started about ten years ago. I was flipping through the channels on late night television and stumbled across one of Felix Trinidad’s early fights. He was an amazing athlete full of unwavering determination, brute physicality, and an innate ability for overcoming obstacles. It was no secret that he would often get knocked [...]

I received a press release today that deserves a few minutes of your scanning. It’s the monthly consumer confidence report issued by The Conference Board.
It shows that consumer confidence actually trended up this month for the first time this year. Is this a sign that we’re going to start hustling and bustling again? Well, little by little, [...]

Let’s face it. The first step is always the hardest. Whether you’re trying to quit smoking, start graduate school, or learn how to play guitar. It’s that first step that leaves us feeling awkward, inadequate, and questioning our conviction. Taking that first step toward entrepreneurship is no different. We question our business skills, product performance, [...]

My team visited Scottsdale, Arizona last week as exhibitor and sponsor of the Women Entrepreneurs’ Boot Camp.  We had a chance to sit down with organizer, Susan Ratliff, and discussed key marketing tips and business tactics for beating the recession in 2009 and I thought I’d share some of her insights.
Susan happens to be an [...]