Plan Your Business Archives

CEOs grow more optimistic, third quarter in a row

Ever heard of "The Conference Board"? It's a global, independent business membership and research association. Their mission is to provide organizations with the practical knowledge they need to improve their performance, among other things. They do...

byRich Sloan

October 9, 2009

Think Positive in Tough Times

Negativity surrounds us. But now, more than ever, it's important to stay positive. After all, it can be really easy to spread negative comments and get caught in a downward spiral of hopelessness. Don't let...

byMelanie Rembrandt

October 23, 2008

Ant or Grasshopper?

Do you plan for a crisis? Of course not. But you can plan yourself out of one! Let me weigh in here with another question: Who do you want to be? The person who goes...

byChristine Haskell

October 10, 2008

Turn Recession Woes into “Wows”

Economists and the media may debate whether we are in a true “recession” or not, but that doesn’t change the fact that sales are down and consumers are pulling back. I’m certainly not excited about...

byHeather Schuck

July 24, 2008

Throw Out The Long Term Plan – Do Something Now

From a post on 37 signals: A couple of Getting Realish ideas spotted in Best Life magazine: Greg Gianforte is the author of “Bootstrapping Your Business: Start and Grow a Successful Company With Almost No...

byChristine Haskell

July 22, 2008

Overcoming Failure to Launch

So you’ve got some ideas, a decent prototype, and a couple customers to boot…now what? Sadly, many would-be entrepreneurs fail at running a business before they even start. The complexity of a business plan, lack...

byHeather Schuck

July 3, 2008

Are you up to it?

A thirst for knowledge is essential for those who truly want to become successful entrepreneurs. As a small business owner, I know the fundamental challenge that every business owner faces: time. "I don't have time...

byCorey Kossack

May 23, 2007

Why can’t I get anything done?

I have so much to do today, but the gods of entrepreneurism are not on my side. My car unexpectedly developed a crunchy noise, so I spent most of the morning waiting in a dealership...

byChris Hansico

April 12, 2007

Predicting how successful a new technology will be

From Joan Isabella, StartupNation Radio consultant What if you could tell what technology was going to be adopted in the future. If you could find an equation to identify the market needs and strengths of...

byJoan Isabella

September 6, 2006

Former Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble has got it goin’ on

Uber blogger Robert Scoble announced last month that he was leaving the "comfy?" corporate world of Microsoft to join a startup - mentioned us in his blog Scobleizer. Now here's a great example of an...

byJoel Welsh

July 21, 2006

Does your business plan include an exit strategy?

I was reading an article on WashingtonPost.com about how social search startups have sprung up to fill in the gaps that the larger search engines like Google and Yahoo! have left open. It's an interesting...

byJoel Welsh

July 10, 2006

Marketing Materials Checklist for Small Business

Give each one of these items solid consideration for your initial array of marketing materials for your small business: Logo You’ll want to create a polished image from the beginning and some kind of unique...

byStartupNation

June 1, 2006

Small business owners are contestants in the real American Idol

I never watched American Idol. But I'm sure many of you have. I want to know if the show has anything to teach us about running our businesses and our lives. Without ever watching, here...

byJoan Isabella

May 30, 2006

Small Business exemplifies old business adage: Do one thing really well.

There are lots of sayings, theories and clichés about how to run a successful business. One I've heard many times is “Do one thing and do it well.” While heading out of my hotel to...

byJoan Isabella

May 18, 2006

Life Plan in action: a “do what you love” podcast business

I am a subscriber to 5 podcasts: • StartupNation Radio • Entrepreneurial Tips with the Sloan Brothers • Adam Curry's Daily Source Code • The President's Weekly Radio Address • Roots Rock Radio You're surely...

byJoel Welsh

April 12, 2006

Time management: one of the critical steps to starting a small business

I'm a busy guy. I happen to know that this is absolutely typical for entrepreneurs & owners of small business today. I mean, when I say busy I'm talking every single moment in my day...

byJoel Welsh

March 29, 2006

Cool Company of the day: The Evening Hatch

We all know how important it is to enjoy life... to live it to the fullest. In that spirit, we recently went on our first fly fishing adventure - something we'd heard people rave about...

byRich Sloan

March 23, 2006

A Reminder: Don’t Ignore Your Life Plan

I generally dislike forwarded messages, especially the ones that tell me to forward them immediately to ten people or else I'll probably go to Hell. If I dislike them, my husband despises them. So I...

byJoan Isabella

February 24, 2006

Reasons people don’t start a business

The people who seem to use our site the most – and listen to our show the most – are a mix of people who are either considering becoming an entrepreneur or who are already...

byRich Sloan

February 9, 2006

Finding the ”where” of success

In Rich Karlgaard's book, Life 2.0, he focuses on how people have transformed their lives by moving to a new city, town, tract of land. In reading the book, it reinforced our belief that it's...

byRich Sloan

December 2, 2005