10 Eye-Opening Facts Every Entrepreneur Should Know

In every corner of the world enterprising entrepreneurs are contemplating where to begin. Everyone wants to feel fully prepared and ready to open up shop and begin earning their living on their own terms. If you are considering changing your life and making a simple vision into an everyday reality you need to recognize the risks and not get lost in the rewards. The statistics out in the world are complex and lack any real legitimacy. Yet equally true are some statistics out in the wild that paint a grim picture for any new business.…

5 Reasons Why You Should Join Bloomberg Current

Bloomberg Current is one of the latest business social networking sites which I think deserve more buzz than it has right now. What is it and why you should join it? I am a long time user of Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s Business Exchange (BX.) It’s a news sharing site in which we can either post news pieces or blog posts and discover the latest updates on any business topics you want. I use BX for 2 reasons: Promoting my content and finding stories to blog about and/or share to my social network.…

The Government’s Failure to Engage Small Businesses

There has been much dissent about the federal government’s involvement in small business. Small business engagement has been a concern since the federal government failed to meet its contracting goals. There is a need to develop programs to help small businesses remain afloat. Small businesses should be aware of how this change will affect their business and what they need to do going forward. Here’s what small business owners may need to know. Dollars Allocated to Engage Small Businesses in Fiscal 2012 In the fiscal year of 2012, the Small Business Administration (SBA) states that only 22.25 percent of federal contracting dollars or $89.9 billion was allocated to help engage small businesses meet their contracting goals.…

Tips for Getting Started on Your Startup

Budding entrepreneurs beware: advice is everywhere and it’s easy to fall down a rabbit hole of research rather than getting anything accomplished. If you want to be successful you need to stay organized, prioritize and keep on moving forward. Keep these tips in mind as you perform the juggling act that is entrepreneurship. 1. Collect & Organize You don’t have to have to be a day away from signing your business lease before you begin to think like a business owner.…

Braille on Business Cards – Not Just for The Blind

Networking is important for all business people, including those who are blind. One way to make your business card get noticed and make a profound statement supporting diversity is to simply add braille. What Is Braille, and Why Should It Be on a Business Card? Braille is a form of written language for the blind that consists of raised dots that are “read” by being felt by the fingertips. Louis Braille, a Frenchman who became blind at the age of three, created the system when he was a teenager. …

Four Basic Steps of Cost Management in Business

The rising cost of keeping up with customer demand can be a challenge for startups or small businesses. Keeping up with supplier payments, payroll, and inventory requires a lot of attention to detail and time. Fortunately, a number of software solutions, leadership tactics, and business fundamentals will help your company manage costs. Here are 4 cost management strategies you can adopt which can give you total control of your business costs: 1. Transparent communications Customers and employees shouldn’t ever find themselves in the dark regarding products, services, and workflows.…

Three Simple Business Ideas for People Who Want to Work from the Computer

Running a business is something that was once out-of-the-question for the vast majority of us. In order to start a company and begin turning a profit, you would need to have a lot of specialist knowledge, not to mention a brilliant idea, a hefty amount of capital and a team of staff that were willing to put their faith in you. Today though that’s all changed, and it’s largely thanks to the ubiquity of the computer. Thanks to computers and the internet, we can now create things much more easily without having to invest money.…

5 Lessons K-pop and Korean Reality Shows can Teach Small Business Owners

As we might have already known, Korean entertainment has gone global. It’s a phenomenon much talk about in the media, and I would like to take this opportunity to highlight what small business owners – wherever they are – can learn from at least two of many niches in Korean entertainment industry: Reality Shows and K-pop. Okay, I wasn’t a fan of Korean entertainment, but my wife has got me to listen to K-pop and watch Korean drama. I never really like Korean drama, but I did watch some, anyway.…

Becoming an Entrepreneur: What has The Apprentice taught us?

In most developed countries, being a business owner or aspiring entrepreneur has become as hard as it has been for several years. The impact of the global downturn which started back in 2008 is still being felt today, as millions of people struggle to find long-term stable employment, while consumer demand in the US and Western Europe hasn’t reached pre-downturn levels yet. When you factor in rising costs of energy, communications and, for the manufacturing sector in particular, several raw materials, being a business owner doesn’t seem quite so glamorous now, does it?…

The Top 4 U.S. Cities for Starting a New Business

Planning is a crucial part of setting up a business. Apart from knowing the kind of business that you want to start, you have to plan where you will set it up. Location will determine the success of your business, so you need to know which cities are best in which to start a business. Here is a short list of U.S. cities where you can successfully start your own business. Dallas, Texas This is a metropolitan area with a population of about 6.5 million people.…