Part of being a successful entrepreneur is saying “no.” Small businesses are constantly hit with offers from potential suppliers, hopeful partners, and even potential customers. Then there are the constant requests for free help, volunteer work, donations, and even jobs. You can’t possibly do it all. Let’s face it. Being in business means saying “no”…
A reader arrived at Small Biz Survival with this search query:“I want to start a home business, but I’m on Social Security. Can I still be self employed?” This sounds like a good addition to the Small Biz 100 and tax question for Maesz! Here’s the answer:—–Yes… but If she is not “full retirement age,”…
As your business starts to take off, you’ll hit a time when you have more work than you can do, but not so much that you are ready (or can afford) to hire an employee. How can you handle the crunch? Here are ten ways to delegate some of the work, without hiring any employees….
Many newly independent small business people make the mistake of giving away too much of their services for free. Many seasoned professionals run into the same issue, like Drew McLellan giving away the milk. I was at lunch with a peer and friend the other day, telling her a story about how a mutual acquaintance…
The best channel to communicate with customers is … the one the customer chooses. OK, you can stop reading right there, if you’ll take that sentence to heart. But for this installment of the Small Biz 100, I’m going to tell you a true story, as well as how to do this right. My husband…
For this installment of the Small Biz 100, Liz Strauss shares some insights on hiring an assistant, virtual or local. Where can a small business person find an assistant locally? Liz suggests looking in the local university, college, or even high school and technical education. You can also work with temp agencies, or any of…
For small town small business people, virtual assistants could be one of the best kept secret tools. A good VA can take some of the administrative load off of your shoulders, and make your business more successful. As a bonus, VA’s can work from anywhere, so I see them as an emerging class of small…
Our Friend Susan Reynolds has a terrific story of a marketing success you can learn from. It’s so good, I’m including it in our Small Biz 100, so you can develop your compelling offer that gets you more of the right customers. A Fish StoryFirst the fish story. Susan taught children’s art lessons, starting with…
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