No business can succeed without a marketing strategy, but a lot of money is often spent on the wrong kind of advertising and marketing tactics. In order to create an effective marketing plan, you need to identify your target customers. Unless you can define who your ideal customers are, you’ll find it difficult to design […]
According to the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy, small businesses make up 99.7 percent of U.S. employer firms, 64 percent of net new private-sector jobs, 49.2 percent of private-sector employment and 42.9 percent of private-sector payroll. In anticipation of National Small Business Week, the National Federation of Independent Businesses is answering the question: […]
Lots of people come to me for advice on starting a small business. Typically, they’re looking for guidance on the technical aspects of what it takes to get their business off the ground: What type of legal entity do I choose? How should I go about writing a business plan? But while these business fundamentals are important for a […]
With many women still struggling to find a role in male-dominated boardrooms, a growing number are branching out and setting up their own companies. In the US alone, women-owned enterprises are starting up at a rate of around 550 a day, and this trend is being mirrored across the globe, with figures from the Enterprise […]
Over the past couple of decades, I’ve talked with hundreds of thousands of small business owners and entrepreneurs. I can’t begin to tell you the number of times I’ve heard an entrepreneur share a story about a failed business venture that ends with, “I was ahead of my time.” Because entrepreneurs are visionaries, they sometimes […]