How do you decide to expand your business? How can you tell if the fit is right, and if this expansion really makes sense? I talked with a potential entrepreneur yesterday. He is having trouble settling his business idea down to just one thing. With so many market opportunities available, he found his new business…
This is a critical topic for rural small businesses: avoiding mistakes when selling to friends, family, or people you know. Cristian Dorobantescu is a young entrepreneur in Romania, learning and sharing some lessons that apply to all small businesses. Right now, he’s dealing with this very topic. His list of mistakes includes: You don’t make…
60 Second Ideas Blog has a terrific idea to share: Capitalize on being local, where ever you are. We’ve talked about the “my hood” craze before with Hook’em Profits and more recently with “Turn Your Neighborhood into a Fashion Statement.” Is there really “no place like home?” As we saw with Brooklyn’s Neighborhoodies, identifying with…
At a blog called The Scratching Post, a mistake lead to a blogosphere backlash, and the lessons learned ultimately lead to a terrific post, A Customer Satisfaction Study in the Blogosphere. The author digs up this failure quote: In his book, A Touch of Wonder, Arthur Gordon has a superb essay entitled “The Far Side…
Several years ago, I listened as nine mid-level BPW leaders stood up and reported on their recent meetings. I gleaned at least nine great ideas, and one inspired this article. These ideas are as fresh as ever. Read through them, and think about your next meeting. District One Director Marie Thomas organized a group participation…
“It is not the critic who counts. Not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs…
Sometimes, change or progress can catch your business in the crossfire. If your business is providing web-based email solutions, what do you think about a major article that says email is bad as a tool for collaboration, and needs to be replaced? The blog Small Town, Big Ideas comes from a company that produces webmail,…
“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the grey twilight that knows not victory or defeat.”— Theodore Roosevelt small biz rural entrepreneurship success failure
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