http://smallbusiness411.org/wp The Place To Learn About Small Business Success Wed, 28 May 2008 22:26:38 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en In doing some research for an upcoming book on small business I came across an abstract of an interesting study about microbusinesses (teeny, or one person businesses), and the degree to which people owning or running them actually have specific goals, and the degree to which they are concerned with ... http://smallbusiness411.org/wp/2008/04/28/research-on-microbusinesses/ It's long been bandied about by a lot of very educated people that the Chinese ideogram for crisis is composed of two symbols -  one for danger and one for opportunity. Consultants, trainers, authors and supposed experts have been "championing" the "Chinese perspective" on danger and change based on this ... http://smallbusiness411.org/wp/2008/03/09/myth-busting-chinese-danger-crisis-opportunity/ Today Bacal & Associates unveiled its brand new low cost display designed specifically for small business in Canada. Designed to take the place of conventional presentation devices, this "whiteboard" or, as Bacal calls it the Canadian Snowboard, can be used in business presentations, has zero cost, and is completely flexible. It ... http://smallbusiness411.org/wp/2008/03/09/bacal-unveils-new-canadian-invention-for-small-business/ I just wanted to pass on this source for guides about ebusiness, and using the Internet as part of your e-business strategy. The site appears to be partly funded by the Province of Saskatchewan and presents 30+ guides on all aspects of ebusiness from building a website to dealing with ... http://smallbusiness411.org/wp/2008/03/04/excellent-free-guides-for-e-business/ It's understandable that a small business owner, faced with the need to make a living and put food on the table, may want to use a shotgun approach to selecting services and/or products on which to base the business. This is particularly prevalent in some service oriented professions, like business ... http://smallbusiness411.org/wp/2008/03/04/shotgunning-small-business-death/ No doubt you've heard someone -- even a highly educated someone, expound about the failure rates for small business. Some say that 90% of small businesses will fail in the first 5 years. Others use the 60% failure in the first three years. In fact, you can pretty much find any ... http://smallbusiness411.org/wp/2008/02/11/small-business-failure-rates-an-urban-legend/ Many small business miss out on the opportunities to use low cost promotional items (e.g. imprinted itemts) to promote and market their businesses, and build brand visibility and identity. Many of us know little about how to do this, or we don't even consider this as an option. If you would ... http://smallbusiness411.org/wp/2008/02/10/free-subscription-to-successful-promotions-magazine/ There are various critical decision points in the life of a small business, and each one can push a business to the next level, or cripple it, depending on the decision made. One of these decisions has to do with whether one decides to expand an existing business, or to maintain ... http://smallbusiness411.org/wp/2008/02/08/growing-or-reaching-equilibrium-in-small-business/ Small businesses tend to build websites without really following a set of sensible "thought-exercises" that will ensure sucess, which is one reason why most small business websites fail miserably. One neglected aspect is the Unique Value Proposition that your website will or does offer visitors. This should be established early on, ... http://smallbusiness411.org/wp/2008/02/07/unique-value-proposition-and-your-website/ We've built a number of websites for our small business, and it may be immodest but a number of our sites (not all) have been extremely successful in a number of ways. This site (smallbusiness411.org) is, of course, in the process of being built, so I decided to share with readers ... http://smallbusiness411.org/wp/2008/02/07/intro-building-a-small-business-website/