Are you new to business planning for your business? Do you understand how important business planning is to the management of your business? Then let me share a few things with you that can help you with business planning for newbies.
If you are new to business planning, then the following tips will help you get off to a great start:

Start off with a small list of things that you want to include in your business plan so that you don’t get overwhelmed.
When determining your starter list, make sure that you include specific steps that involve your business finances, support staff and business …read more

Is your cell phone holding you captive is something that business owners need to ask themselves as a way to affectively manage their time. Although cell phones are an easy way to keep in contact with your clients and business associates when you are on the go; the question you have to ask yourself, “Is my cell phone holding me captive?”.
Below are ways to tell if your cell phone is holding you captive:

Do you grab your cell phone when you wake up first thing in the morning?
Before going to bed, do you have to check your cell phone for message?
Have …read more

Recently, the baseball world saw history made by Orlando Hudson when he hit a cycle on April 13th, 2009. For those who don’t know, a cycle is when when a baseball player hits a single, a double, a triple and a home run all in the same game. This is not a normal feat to do but a dream come true and a history making event.
As a business owner, what dreams do you have that you want to come true? Where do you want to take your business for the rest of 2009? If you made goals for 2009 at the …read more

A helpful website for business owners is SCORE because they provide information and people resources to business owners to help them grow their business. The purpose of this article is to help you understand the areas of the SCORE website. Below are some key areas that you should check out.

How-To 60 second guides: these are 60-second guides to completing a tasks. The information details things that you can do in 60-seconds in the areas of

Business Planning
Business Management
Finance
Human Resources
Marketing & PR
Sales & Customer Service
Technology

Reading Room: provides articles that can be helpful to business owners as you develop your business. The topics that …read more

By Guest Blogger Adam Bullied
This is the second segment in a three-part series about Basic Strategy. Read Part I.
Determine Your Objectives
Before diving head first in to constructing a strategy for any given area of your business, you must first strongly consider what it is you are attempting to achieve. Ideally, this end result can be measured in some way to determine if the strategy was ultimately successful, and to keep it on track throughout its execution.
If you can’t clearly articulate the objective(s) you are trying to reach, chances are you will not be able to arrive at a clear path …read more

Is your business Twitter powered? If not, do you have plans to add it into your business planning strategy? With the big commotion about using Twitter as a business tool happening, many are still debating its viability. One side says that it is a viable tool that can help you grow your business while the other side says that it is a waste of time and that you can’t really take it serious.
Over a 10 day span, I interview over 50 people via Twitter who volunteered for this new type of interview called TwitInterview. This is a term that I …read more

Do you have a fear of being told “NO” when you present your business to someone? Have you been trying to get to the “YES” when applying for a job? Then I have some encouragements for you that can help you “Get past the NO to the YES!”

Listening for the “need” opportunity that you can fill. What this means is that you need to listen for what is needed and then position yourself to fill that need with your experience.
Identify yourself as the solution to their problem. Once you figure out the need then explain how you can be the …read more

Have you ever felt like someone looking for Waldo/Wally when it comes to your business plan? Has your business plan been missing or you just couldn’t figure out how to organize your business just like it is when someone is trying to figure out “Where’s Waldo/Wally“?
Just to explain for those who don’t know about “Where’s Waldo/Wally”, it is a book that has pages of different images which contain tiny people doing various things. The whole object is to find Waldo/Wally amoung all of the tiny people in the image. The image to the right is a sample of what a …read more

Springtime teases, and I am chomping at the bit to get out there and start planting. It’s a little too early though—even here in the South we could get another frost. So to bide my time I am turning my focus indoors and planting another type of garden.

Maybe I’m in a spring-fever-induced haze, but the more I think about it the more I think starting or maintaining a business is a bit like planning a garden. I’m planning both of mine right now, so I thought I’d share with you how the steps involved in planning a garden are helping …read more

a guest post by Joy Gendusa
(www.bizchicksrule.com) — It’s no secret that the economy has taken a hit, so let’s not belabor that point. I’ve been saying that it is time to quit buying into the doom and gloom and get on the ball with promotion. The reason is simple. Those that continue to promote during slow economic times are the ones that will win out in the end.
Even though my advice rings true for all those in business, no matter the gender, personally feel that this message needs to be said to women specifically. When I started PostcardMania I wish …read more