It all started at SOBCon08. I met, in person, some online friends and made some new ones. After that conference, I started contacting a few people, drawing them in for a very business minded group. I was looking for people that were approximately my peers, not way ahead or way behind in knowledge. Everyone had…
If you chose the standard mileage rate to deduct your vehicle expenses for your business use, NOW–right now–is the time to record your odometer reading. You will want to have total miles driven for the year and miles driven for business purposes. Business miles will, of course, come from your record of business usage of…
That’s the secret to surviving economic downturns. A fascinating article in today’s NY Times on how NY City survives so well in recessions includes this quote: The secret of New York’s post-1970 reinvention was that smart people, who knew each other and learned from each, innovated in ways that made billions in financial services. (Looking…
“I’m kind of the spinning plate lady,” Glenna Mae Hendricks said of her small business enterprises. You know Glenna Mae as Maesz, one of our contributors here. She was also one of the featured speakers at the recent entrepreneurship event in Alva. “I’ve been an entrepreneur since the early 70’s,” she said. “I’m kind of…
You’re in a small town; you’re running a business. Did you know your local cooperative extension has an entrepreneurship program to help you? Yes, the cooperative extension service. They’re probably in your county courthouse. In Oklahoma, the statewide entrepreneurship program includes more than the usual fact sheets. Glenn Muske specializes in home-based and micro-business. Then…
Deb Brown, a small town newspaper editor from Iowa, has interviewed me on a wide range of subjects! She has also shared the interview on her blog, Deb Works. We talked about making a living in a small town, Small Biz Survival, lessons I’ve learned from my businesses, social media for small town businesses, African…
Ready for some help with your business? You can research online all day, read every book, even talk with friends and family, but sometimes you just need another experienced business person to sit down with you, face to face, and work on improving your business. No matter where you are, odds are that you are…
Hiring the right people is vitally important when you have only a few or even one employee. Contributor Zane Safrit knows quite a bit about hiring, through direct personal experience. He’s sharing the best of his experience in a free ebook, The Collaborative Hiring Process. Zane goes through the whole process, from finding people to…
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