Bee all you can bee is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

The government’s SBA program introduced the America’s Recovery Capital, or ARC, loan designed to give small businesses suffering financial hardship temporary relief.

ARC loans are a deferred payment loan of up to $35,000 that can be used for principal and interest payments on existing, qualifying debt or loans. They are 100 percent guaranteed and there are no interest charges to the borrower. SBA will pay the current prime rate (3.25 percent) plus 2 percent to the lender on behalf of the borrower.

Under the ARC loan, the borrower has 18 months to make the first payment and pays back only the principal over five years.

SBA even has tailored a loan to help the beleaguered auto industry. Starting July 1, loans for between $500,000 and $2 million will be offered to finance inventory for eligible auto dealers. The program also is available to RV and boat dealers.

redding.com

Do your homework before applying for federal business loan is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

“I call it Rip Club, because you just rip it,” McLeod said. “In times of economic hardship, people don’t want to buy new clothes. It’s cheaper to repair what they have.”

McLeod and others in the sewing business are finding that altering and restoring old clothes is a profitable business in the recession that began in November.

Ruby Hageman, a tailor at The Alteration Shop in Fort Collins, has seen that in the recession, more people want their clothes to last longer.

“Clothes are really expensive, so if you can make a pair of pants last another year or two, you don’t have to buy new ones,” Hageman said.

Linda Clason, a Loveland resident who does alterations and custom sewing, has seen an increase in business every time there is an economic downturn.

“People can’t afford to buy new clothes, so they are going to fix up what they have in the closet,” said Clason, also a Sewing Professionals member. “They’re repairing or having repaired things they have in the closet that still fit.”

In most cases, fixing clothes is less expensive than buying new, said Linda Wrenn, owner of Sew Country in Berthoud, where she does alterations and custom sewing.

“The general consensus of our group is that it’s doing much better than normal times. People are getting their clothes fixed and altered instead of buying new ones,” Wrenn said.

reporterherald.com

Sewing businesses finding niche in midst of recession is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Coolhaus sells handmade ice cream sandwiches from a pink and chrome converted postal jeep. Featuring local and organic ingredients whenever possible, Coolhaus sandwiches are 2-by-2-inch confections, about 1 inch deep, assembled to order using two cookies and a scoop of ice cream. Five architecture-inspired, “prefab” flavours are currently available from Coolhaus’s two-woman team (for example: the Frank Behry, made from sugar cookies and strawberry ice cream; the Mies Vanilla Rohe features chocolate chip cookies and vanilla ice cream), but customization is also possible, they say. The sandwiches are also available with an edible, rice-paper wrapping that can feature a brand, name or logo in edible ink. Pricing is about USD 3 per sandwich, or USD 3.50 with the edible wrapper, according to LAist.

In addition to broadcasting information about its whereabouts via Twitter (@coolhaus), Coolhaus actually partners with Kogi in Venice on Saturdays, LAist reported; coming soon from its truck are edible spoons and popsicles shaped like famous buildings.

springwise.com

Twitter-powered truck sells ice-cream sandwiches is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Borrowers, however, may find it difficult to find a bank that is providing the “America’s Recovery Capital” interest-free loans.

Some big lenders including Bank of America Corp., KeyCorp’s Key Bank unit and Toronto-Dominion Bank, or TD Bank Financial Group, are still on the fence about participating, citing concerns about heavy paperwork and strict rules on applicant eligibility.

wsj.com

SBA Offers Aid to Cash-Strapped is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

It is adapt-or-die time for many of the 10,730 small businesses that are lower-tier suppliers to the auto industry, and close to 400,000 jobs may be on the line. But while the situation is daunting, it’s also a time of unprecedented opportunity for entrepreneurs willing to shake up their firms and think creatively, experts say.

• Downsizing to manage costs
• Focusing on capabilities
• Cooperative boosts purchasing power

With U.S. auto production down about a third over the past year, the spotlight has shined brightly on the extensive layoffs at large automakers, including the bankrupt General Motors and Chrysler, and on their so-called Tier One suppliers, many of which are publicly owned subsidiaries of corporations that rival the big automakers in size.

But far less attention has been paid to the struggling, family-owned machine shops, parts suppliers, and tool-and-die firms that are at risk of closure if they worked primarily for GM and Chrysler, both of which are shutting down some of their production lines this summer.

businessweek.com

Survival Advice for Auto Parts Suppliers is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

25 Ways to Get Noticed is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

In 1932, Schweitzer’s father opened Gramercy Typewriter in Manhattan, selling and repairing typewriters. “At one time, there were millions of typewriters in the city,” says Schweitzer, who began working for the family business in 1959 and took it over when his father retired in 1975. “You would go in an office and there were a hundred desks and each one had a typewriter,” he says.

Over the years, Gramercy earned a reputation for quick repairs and excellent customer service. The elder Schweitzer gave out wooden rulers that bore the company’s name and logo as advertising. The shop’s client base spanned from the tip of Wall Street up to the top of Harlem.

Although he hopes to pass the business on to his son, Justin, Schweitzer has been around long enough to know another shift or two is ahead. “I’m thinking, what is the next thing after printers?” he says. “Maybe they will be voice-activated? Or maybe people will get so disgusted with the breakdowns and failures they’ll go back to IBM typewriters. I’m waiting to see what happens next. We’re hanging in there.”

businessweek.com

The Last Typewriter Repairman is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

The latest version of the Senate bill, which is expected to be quite similar to the one defeated in the House of Representatives save for stronger homeowner protections, could contain language, as did the doomed bill, that would waive provisions of federal acquisition law pertaining to small businesses. “It’s just a typical Bush Administration move where they’ll put something in a bill that doesn’t need to be there just to give themselves more power,” says league president and founder Lloyd Chapman.

Chapman says such a loophole would allow the Secretary of the Treasury to ignore federal rules that direct billions of dollars in government contracts to women-, minority- and veteran-owned small businesses. “This allows the Bush Administration complete leeway to abolish federal contract laws that affect small businesses,” he says.

entrepreneur.com

Rescue Package Hostile to Small Business? is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Whether a child is groomed to take over the family business or mistakenly pushed into it, problems often arise when family and authority mix.

“Being in an emotional relationship and a business relationship puts a different, more difficult kind of strain on relationships,” said Getzler, who inherited his consulting firm from his father.

Difficult-to-solve personality issues are almost inevitable in family companies, and without an exceptionally strong patriarch or matriarch leading the family business, problems can mushroom.

Despite whether a favored daughter was groomed for the business or a son was mistakenly pushed into a position of authority, a parent might not have the ability to select an appropriate heir.

“Once the patriarch or matriarch retires or dies, many businesses become a free-for-all – despite carefully laid plans,” Getzler said.

To that end, Getzler offers some tips to help business owners make rational decisions about their successors. These strategies can also help owners make other tough calls when family relationships are at stake.

1. Set up an advisory board.
2. Employ a family business counselor.
3. Manage egos and salary demands.
4. Stop the feeding frenzy.

“Everyone gets along generally when there is a lot of money to go around. The fights start when someone feels they are working hard and not making enough,” Getzler said.

In the end, he insisted, “there’s nothing magical,” to navigating through difficult family business issues. “It’s about getting people to focus on the end result.”

Help for handing over a family business is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Adam’s truck reminds adults of their childhood – but with a twist. Ice Cream trucks have pretty much disappeared from the suburban landscape. What Adam has done is taken a good idea that’s expired – and reinvented the concept for a different time.

How does this relate to your business? You’re probably looking at something within your environment that you take for granted. That blends into the background. That has long been forgotten, or no longer useful. Examine your business – your marketplace, and your environment, and ask, what could we reinvent? What could we do differently than anyone else in our business?

Being different allows you to capture the interest of potential customers, retain the love of your evangelists, and stand out in your marketplace. And sometimes it’s as simple as reinventing the ordinary things right in front of you.

Smart Biz Blog

How a Funky Ice Cream Truck Can Change Your Business is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Almost nine out of 10 small business owners surveyed said the current health care system is in need of change, with six of 10 saying a complete overhaul is in order.

The survey found 55 percent of small business owners do not offer any health insurance to their employees, citing high cost as the No. 1 reason. Of these business owners, 55 percent said they would be more likely to offer such benefits if the federal government provided some financial incentives for this coverage.

A third of small business owners said they were cutting back on noncapital investments so they could provide health care for their employees.

Results were based on telephone interviews with 603 small business owners nationwide conducted July 12-23 for the Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index. The margin of sampling error is plus-4 percentage points.

Small business owners were asked what effect adequate health insurance has on a company’s employees. Eighty-four percent said that adequate coverage attracts the best qualified employees, and 81 percent agreed that it improves employee loyalty. Eighty-three percent believed it reduced an employee’s likelihood to leave a company.

Portland Business Journal

Health Care Big Worry For Small Biz is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

The new postal rates contain hidden surprises — and therein lies the opportunity for business owners. While the cost of mailing a first-class letter weighing one ounce will increase by two cents, to 41 cents total, rates for other categories actually will be reduced, according to the U.S. Postal Service.

Letters weighing up to two ounces will drop to 58 cents — five cents less than the 63 cents they currently cost. Businesses that reduce the frequency of their mailers by combining them stand to gain. A small business mailing 5,000 such letters would save $250 more than what it would have saved before the rate drop.

Businesses often send letters in unwieldy shapes and sizes in an effort to get noticed in a pile of junk mail. However, it is more expensive for the USPS to process these pieces of mail. A two-ounce large envelope will now cost 97 cents to send, which is a 53 percent increase from the earlier 63 cents. A possible solution for businesses? Reconfigure the mailing to a standard envelope size and pay just 58 cents to post it.

inc.com

Postal-Rate Increase Could Actually Save Money is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

1. Determine if you can work side by side.
2. Discuss your goals.
3. Write a business plan and solicit feedback.
4. Define each person’s role.
5. Keep the lines of communication open.
6. Be circumspect when talking with clients.
7. Form a united front.
8. Set firm boundaries and honor them.
9. Hope for the best, but plan for the worst.
10. Don’t deal with family matters during business hours.

AllBusiness.com

How Couples Run A Home Business Without Running Each Other Down is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

When asked how much confidence they have in leaders of a range of public and private institutions, 54% expressed a “great deal” of confidence in leaders of small business, a new Harris Interactive poll found. That put the small business sector atop the list of institutions in which respondents expressed the most confidence. The military came second with 46%, and major educational and medical institutions came next, with each sector notching 37%. The telephone poll of 1,013 Americans was conducted Feb. 6-12.

Though military leadership had the second-largest percentage of respondents expressing a great deal of confidence, that figure has slipped substantially from 2002’s high of 71%. Likewise, the percentage of those expressing a great deal of confidence in White House leaders has slipped from its post-Sept. 11 high of 50% in 2002, to 22% in 2007.

Confidence in the leaders from other public sectors has been slipping as well. The percentage with a great deal of confidence in the Supreme Court dropped from 33% in 2006 to 27% this year. Over the same time period, the support for leadership of organized religion shed three percentage points, going from 30% to 27%.

Outside of small business, the captains of corporate America and Wall Street also saw growing shares of respondents with a great deal of confidence. The percentage of those with a great deal of confidence in Wall Street leadership edged up from 15% to 17% between 2006 and 2007. And “major companies” gained three points, going from 13% to 16% during the same period.

startupjournal.com

Small-Business Leaders Top New Confidence Poll is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Mr. Poussard, who is a member of the Senior Executive Service, was selected as the director of the Air Force Office of Small Business Programs. He will be responsible for the leadership, management and oversight of the Small and Minority Business Program, the Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and Minority Institution Programs for the Department of the Air Force.

Mr. Poussard began his Federal government career with the U.S. Navy as a student trainee in 1982, and has held a variety of increasingly senior positions in the acquisition community. He has been a staff analyst supporting major systems such as the C-17 cargo airlift aircraft, as well as the Deputy Director of Contracting and the Small Business Director at the 11th Wing, Bolling AFB, D.C. He also served as the Director of Contracts and contracting officer establishing the first joint Air Force, National Reconnaissance Office and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency space-based radar program. Mr. Poussard has also served as senior business adviser to Air Force Program Executive Officers and field acquisition commanders for space and command and control programs, providing contracting and business analyses for the development of acquisition strategies and source selections. Additionally, he was the Deputy Director of the Defense Acquisition Regulations System Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, Washington, D.C.

Mr. Poussard holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Northeastern University, a Master’s degree in national security studies from Georgetown University, and a Masters degree in National Resources Management from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces. He is also a graduate of several executive leadership courses.

Blackanthem Military News

Air Force Announces New Small Biz Programs Director is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

While Skype charges ‘call providers’ more than Ether does—30% commission versus 15%—Skype’s obvious benefit is its existing global user base. Skype has over 171 million registered users, is available in 28 languages and is used in almost every country around the world. Which means a very large reach for minipreneurs who’d like to sell their services, whether they’re offering Spanish lessons, tax advice or something saucier. (Note that Skype’s guidelines state that call providers cannot offer any content or service that is adult, sexual, pornographic or paedophiliac.)

Other alternatives include BitWine and Wengo.

springwise.com

Sell What You Say is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Read the article at Business2.0

How to avoid Internet stock scams is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

You might also ponder a reward that’s a little off the beaten path. “The only limit is your creativity,” says Lorenzo. One real estate firm he knows has a gym as a tenant and gives its own employees free memberships. (In return the gym owner gets a little break on the rent.) Whenever possible, Lorenzo says, entrepreneurs should “try working a deal that’s connected to your regular business. If you sell appliances, give your employees appliances at cost. Car dealerships routinely let them drive demo cars.”

Okay, so medical supplies may not lend themselves so readily to that kind of incentive – how many Foley catheters or artificial heart valves do most of us need? – but Lorenzo insists that you can find appealing alternatives if you try. “The hottest thing today is letting employees work from home. People who have been successful in traditional sales jobs, especially, love being free to set their own schedules and not have anybody looking over their shoulder,” he says. “And it’s a win for you too, because you don’t need to have office space for them.”

FSB 2.0

How to keep top employees is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Starting a business is a complicated, risky, all-consuming effort. Indeed, just two-thirds of new small businesses survive at least two years, and only 44 percent survive at least four years, according to a study by the U.S. Small Business Association.

Taking the six steps below will help put you on the road to success.

1. Determine if you’re an entrepreneur or just a wannabe
2. Pinpoint an opportunity
3. Make sure there’s a market for your idea
4. Write a business plan
5. Determine your business structure
6. Look for funding

Fortune Small Business

6 steps to creating a super startup is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Here are some examples of things for a “to don’t” list:

• Don’t schedule meetings with everyone who asks
• Don’t check e-mail every 10 minutes
• Don’t spend hours thinking about small things like the best font type
• Don’t get lost surfing the internet
• Don’t keep doing things manually that you can automate

Once you have your list ready, keep it in a place where you can see it. As you begin each day, think about what you want to accomplish and remind yourself of what you will NOT be doing. As you take action throughout the day, be aware of your activities and check to see if something you are doing is on your “to don’t” list – if it is, stop doing it immediately! You can always add new things to your list as you become more aware of how you spend your time.

After awhile, you will automatically notice a “to don’t” and you will choose not to do it before you get lost in the activity and wonder where the last hour(s) went.

You can also use your “to don’t” list as a way to set stronger boundaries for yourself, and your business. Saying no to certain things makes the things you do choose to say ‘yes’ to, that much more clear and powerful.

businessknowhow.com

What’s on Your “To Don’t” List? is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Today Finch and his wife, Joanie, own and run Cliff Finch’s Topiary Zoo in Friant, Calif., just north of Fresno. Finch does the welding and, over the years, has created sculptures ranging from the seven-foot chess pieces seen here to increasingly popular tabletop arrangements. In the past few months Finch designed and produced race- car- and jazz-themed centerpieces for private parties.

Rather than increase production by adding staff, the Finches have kept their business small – they’re the only employees, apart from a smattering of part-time support staff – limiting their revenues to about $75,000 a year. But for Finch, who retired in search of a less dangerous occupation, the topiary business has its perks: “It’s enjoyable,” he says, “and people like the sculptures. It has worked out.”

CNN Money

A welder starts a well-hedged topiary business is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Here are some things to consider in the next few months:

1. Make a plan – At minimum your plan should summarize total revenue, collections by client and expenses from the past year to support projections for 2007. Update it quarterly.

   While you’re at it, consider major expenses you expect and time and budget those purchases to your advantage.

2. Keep better records – Probably the biggest single thing small-business people can do is keep good records. Poor record-keeping increases your taxes.

   It’s less likely that things get overlooked if they’re organized.

   Try this: Buy 12 envelopes and label them by the month. Put records of all deductible expenses each month inside the appropriate envelope; on the back, write a list of contents as you go and total each month’s expenses. (Or you can reach the same result with a paper accordion file.) At the end of the year, you’ll have a pretty good, organized set of records.



3. What’s your corporate structure? – Consider whether to change your business’s corporate structure. There may be tax benefits, for example, to switching from a C-Corporation to an S-Corporation. For most small businesses, the changes must be made by March 15 to affect this year’s taxes.
4. Set up retirement plans – If you don’t have a retirement plan in place, or want to make a change, do it now. Some plans take several months to establish, and an earlier start allows more savings – especially with automatic payroll deductions.

   A recent study reporting that just half of workers have socked away more than $42,000 for retirement by the time they reach age 40.

5. Do you work at home? – If you qualify – and there are plenty of restrictions – setting aside home office space may enable you to depreciate a portion of your home and also to deduct normal operational costs, such as mortgage or rent, property taxes, utilities and maintenance or repair costs. The sooner you set up your office, the longer you can claim those deductions.
6. Put your teens to work – Instead of paying them an allowance, pay older children to work for your business; their compensation will be a deduction for the business, and their tax rates likely are lower than yours.

   Sole proprietors don’t pay Social Security or Federal Unemployment Taxes on wages paid to their own children under age 18, but those wages must be reasonable for the child’s work.

7. Schedule a tax review – If you have a tax adviser, open your business calendar now and write yourself a reminder in about October to schedule a meeting next fall. A brief conference late in the year will result in a fee but may save taxes and time, accountants said.

thecolumbian.com

2007 Tax Tips is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

He savored the speed. Engines blasting. Colors blurring. Cars rocketing past with a force he could feel in the bones of his teeth.

Tarran Pitschka, gripping steel railings for support, stood on the racetrack. Even as floating debris settled on his shoulders, the residue of seared tires from the cars burning past, he was thinking, “Cool! What can I do with this feeling?”

The answer was to create a line of cranked-up T-shirts and caps called Wicked Quick.

“It’s not satanic. It’s tough,” Pitschka said.

Harley-Davidson and other specialty shops picked up the line. Pitschka felt confident the appeal reached wider, so he took Wicked Quick to a trade show, hoping to capture the attention of menswear buyers. A stylist who claimed she was working on a movie set bought a few pieces for the actors. Pitschka was skeptical. But last week he received a DVD trailer for the July release of “1408″ based on a Stephen King novel about a haunted hotel room, and there is actor John Cusack wearing an early Wicked Quick T-shirt.

Nordstrom began testing the brand this month, with 1,200 pieces in 13 stores. Pitschka hopes to expand the Wicked Quick brand to include other designs, such as his Teflon-coated stretch nylon jacket and a leather duffel bag embossed with the distinctive graphics. Wicked Quick is available in the U.S., Canada and Germany, and Pitschka hopes soon to land accounts in South America and Australia to give the still small brand global reach.

For now, the company still consists of one person.

More on this, click here.

A Portlander’s line of graphic T-shirts and caps catches the thrill and rush of racing sports is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

The 20-year-old sophomore from Overland Park collaborated with fellow DePauw student Zach Koch to start BookSnag.com in January 2006. With a $500 investment in computer equipment, the two created a Web site to help students at the small liberal arts school in Greencastle, Ind., save money buying and selling used textbooks.

BookSnag’s idea is simple: Provide a local alternative to the campus bookstore for exchanging textbooks. Students can use BookSnag for free. Sellers name a price for old textbooks and list the offer. Buyers can search by title for the books they need and either purchase at the asking price or make a counteroffer.

If a book is not available, the site directs users to Amazon.com as an alternative. Tinker and his partner earn revenue from Amazon on referrals.

The DePauw duo are among a growing number of young entrepreneurs running a business. According to the Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy, 188,000 self-employed people were under the age of 21 in 2005, compared with about 142,000 in 2000.

DePauw University News

College Entrepreneurs Start Web Service is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

The bill was more than $60,000, due in 30 days, and I had no idea how I’d cover it. There was no way the contract was going to pay off by then, but there was also no way I could turn that contract down.

Read the story of Mascara Plus.

A cosmetics company’s creative cash flow is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

That’s the case with the online resource offered by Hewlett Packard Small Business.

Granted, they hope you’ll eventually buy something when the need arises, but the information and services can be a boon to business owners—and all of it’s free.

Hewlett-Packard Small Business has a wealth of free tools, tutorials and templates on its site geared toward small business customers.

One of the main attractions of the site is the Business Templates area (not surprising for a printer company), which offers about 700 pre-built designs for Microsoft Office, CorelDRAW, QuarkXPress and more. Most interesting to small business owners is the collection of agency-quality graphic design templates from StockLayouts, where you’ll find great-looking brochures, letterhead, flyers and so on.

But templates are just part of the story. Beneath the Learn & Use banner is a link to free online classes in HP’s learning center. These have the feel of genuine online college or post-graduate courses — complete with lesson breakdowns and even recommended prerequisites — and are taught by well-qualified instructors. You need to register and enroll for a given course, but all are free of charge.

HP offers a few dozen courses in all, broken down into specific areas such as Software & Technology, Business Skills and In-house Marketing. Recent additions include an introduction to using Adobe Photoshop CS2 and understanding Microsoft Vista Business Edition.

You’ll want to bookmark the page and check back often, as HP conveniently flags which lessons are new or updated and shows which new courses are coming soon.

Small Business Computing

Free Online Resource Helps Small Bizs is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Blog-ad firm Blogads reported that the average consumer on mommy blogs is a 29-year-old female with an average income of $70,000 a year, who spends four hours a week tapping into these blogs–basically, she’s a marketer’s dream consumer.

The media is taking notice of the products moms are chatting about. In fact, one blog, Cool Mom Picks, says at least four rather obscure companies they’ve written about have gotten spreads in Real Simple.

Entrepreneur Daily

Blogging Moms Spread the Word is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Hirst says he is self-taught when it comes to the internet and attributes his success with Valueflora to noticing a gap in the market. By putting customers in touch with the farms that grew the flowers, he could cut out the middle man.

Customers choose their flowers from the website, their order is sent directly to the flower farms, where they are packaged and sent. There are no call centres – everything is done online, and Valueflora has just six members of staff.

Amazingly, Hirst claims his global enterprise cost under £10 to start. “It was done on a shoestring,” says Hirst. “I paid £8 for the domain name and it was pretty much just me for the first 18 months, cold calling people and getting in touch with the farmers.”

Hirst is planning to branch out into providing flowers for events, and remains keen to extend the Value brand further. With a current annual growth rate of 700% and a 2006 turnover of £1.2m

Startups.co.uk

Million Dollar Business Started On Shoestring is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

According to an expert in Web site design, small businesses’ Web sites are failing to leverage the Internet. As a result, many of them won’t be around for very long.

KitJustin Kitch, CEO of Menlo Park, Calif.-based Homestead Technologies Inc., offered these 10 clues that will let small businesses know whether their Web sites — and, by extension, their businesses — are dead.

1. You think the Internet is a coming revolution.
2. You don’t have a Web site
3. You don’t know how to change your Web site
4. If fewer than half of your customers can find you online, you’re dead.
5. You think your business is local.
6. You think your Web site is just for new customers.
7. You think your Web site is just for customers.
8. Your Web site is your Internet strategy.
9. You think being small is a disadvantage.
10. You’ll fail if you do what I say.

A web site is more about existing customers than new customers.
techtarget.com

Ten clues that your Web site is dead is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

And while some entrepreneurs fear that going tech will be expensive, companies like Web.com, a provider of do-it-yourself Web sites and Web services, allow business owners to build their own Web site for $10 to $60 a month. The price includes a domain name, e-mail, Web statistics and technical support.

Which means that if your business is not online already, then it should be.

To that end, Jeff Stibel, CEO of Web.com, offers these 10 tips for small-business owners.

1. Stand out from the competition
2. Establish credibility
3. Provide in-depth information
4. Make shopping easy
5. Enhance customer relations
6. Increase customer spending
7. Expand nationally or worldwide
8. Gather customer data
9. Brand extension
10. Drive traffic either to an online or offline location.

Article sponsored by DMP Design & Print

10 Web Tips For Entrepreneurs is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Mark Hall, a former executive with RealNetworks, fell in love with online video two years ago, thanks to an ultrafast broadband connection in his London home. When he returned to San Francisco last year, he decided to address the growing need in online video: a way to find just the good stuff and skip the junk.

His self-funded startup, VodPod, was born in San Francisco in June and so far shows a lot of promise. VodPod allows consumers to build their own “pods,” which is Hall’s rather fancy term for online video channels. The idea is that you grab the videos you like from any of the other 100-odd video-sharing sites already online – say, every bird-watching vid you can get your hands on – and build a channel called the Birding Pod. Anyone can watch it, and anyone can add videos to the channel.

This is one of the hot opportunities in new new media: hyperaggregation. If aggregation is what we’ve seen so far on YouTube and Flickr, hyperaggregation is aggregating the aggregators. The way of the Web is to go meta – a website is born and covers politics, then another, and another, and that leads inexorably to … a blog that covers all the websites that tackle politics.

CNN Money

Taking YouTube to the next level is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

“I hardly ever saw my kids,” he said. “So I thought, ‘What can I do to get a bit more flexibility and time for my family?’”

The answer was cleaning.

Thomas started All-Clean Services three years ago. Initially, he focused on residential and commercial janitorial services, but he discovered that market was pretty saturated around here.

Then Thomas discovered his own niche: cleaning newly constructed homes and businesses just before their occupants move in.

Construction cleaning, particularly of high-end homes, turns out to be a labor-intensive job that also requires specialized knowledge, said Chuck Davis, owner of Chuck Davis Construction Inc. Davis hired Thomas to work on several of the homes he’s built over the past year.

“You can’t just come into these homes with a bottle of Mr. Clean,” Davis said. “You have to know how to clean newly-grouted tile, marble and stone. You have to know how to get rid of Sheetrock mud.”

“I traded in my khakis for dirty jeans,” Thomas said. “I’m still really busy, but I have more freedom.”

citizen-times.com

Cleaning New Homes is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Compared to the market as a whole, firms that dominated their market:

1. Are 60% more likely to have annual sales goals
2. Are twice as likely to use business development specialists
3. Are 30% more likely to proactively seek referrals
4. Secure one-third more clients through strategic partners
5. Are three times more likely to have formal agreements with referral partners

Investment Advisor magazine

What Do Successful Small Businesses Do That You May Not? is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

The new higher-end version of its application offerings for businesses costs $50 per user annually and includes more email storage and support for companies’ technology staff, as well as guarantees that the email service will be available virtually all of the time. Google says it expects to add other services to the bundles, possibly including its Blogger tool for creating Web logs, by year end.

The Google Apps offering is what is known in technology circles as “hosted” software or “software as a service.” Instead of running software on their own computers, companies rely on tech providers such as Google to run the software. Users then access the applications over the Internet through their Web browsers. Companies are spared most of the headaches of installing and managing software themselves and generally pay based on just how many employees use the product.

Trade-offs with such services can include less-sophisticated functions, issues with the security of data stored outside a corporation, and the inability to easily work on documents when there is no Internet connection, such as on a plane.

startupjournal.com

Google Introducing Office 2.0 for Small Businesses is a post from: Top Business Opportunities