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  • Natural disasters are a catastrophe without busine...

    Owners of small businesses receive warnings about the strains of the environment that may impend the vitality of their business. In addition, they are asked to ensure that their companies are well protected against a variety of shots of Mother Nature. The storms can cause flooding and strong winds that…

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    Natural disasters are a catastrophe without business insurance

    Life insurance is a necessity for your small busin...

    It is a common observation that the people face so many difficulties when purchasing life insurance for small businesses. In fact, they are not sure that there are small companies will survive or not. In this regard, some people fear that if their companies earn profit for them if they…

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    Life insurance is a necessity for your small business company

    What you need to begin your home-based business be...

    Owning your own business at home may be the most rewarding experience of your life. And not just the financial sense, but also rewarding in the sense of doing the job you love and having control of your own life. You’re the boss and now you can get the full…

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    What you need to begin your home-based business beside some courage

    How small business owners should choose a suitable...

    What should small business owners look for in a local bank, and how should they go about choosing the best community bank for their business? Tired of outrageous costs, shrinking margins, credit and are denied access to other essential forms of corporate finance, many small business owners seeking to leave…

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    How small business owners should choose a suitable local bank
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    Latest From The Blog

    Sandy Carter of IBM: Identifying Online Industry Influencers

    When it comes to social media, the old adage, build it and they will come simply doesnt apply. Putting up a Facebook page and creating a Twitter or YouTube account just isnt enough. In order for businesses to use social media effectively, they must leverage it by building it into their business processes to truly give them the competitive advantage.  Sandy Carter, Vice President of Social Business Evangelism at IBM joins Brent Leary for an in-depth discussion on becoming a social business.

    Small Business Trends: Can touch on how you became Vice President of Social Business Evangelism at IBM?

    Sandy Carter: At IBM we like to help our clients in new markets.  As we do that, part of what we like to do for clients is to add value.  Teach them about the new market and show them the value and actually become the social business ourselves.

    So Brent, for the last four or five years in my businesses, I have used social to grow my businesses. Wh

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    The Acton Challenge: $10,000 Cash or a $50,000 Fellowship

    Now here’s a prize that’s really worth going for – a once-in-a-lifetime, one-on-one mentorship opportunity with a business leader who has already been where you are and has the knowledge and connections to help you succeed.

    And not just any business leader either – The business leaders who will act as mentors include the pioneer of horizontal drilling, which revolutionized oil and gas exploration, one of Fortune Magazine’s “50 Most Powerful Women,” as well as America’s second youngest self-made billionaire – only behind Mark Zuckerburg.

    The Acton Challenge, presented by the Acton School of Business (Where do you know that name from? Acton’s MBA program in Entrepreneurship is one of the top ranked MBA programs in Entrepreneurship in North America), is actually three separate competitions, one for each of three industries:

    How it Works

    There are three phases to the Acton Challenge: Qualification, The Arena and The Main Event.

    I wish I was in one of these fields so that I could enter!

    Read more…

    The World According to the Mainstream Media

    How the world looks through the skewed glasses of the mainstream media.

    Found via Facebook. Unknown source.

    Tags: Mainstream Media, Media

    When employers or government requests your Facebook information

    Facebook and other social networks have become a large part of many Americans daily lives, and businesses and organizations can gain a better understanding of a job applicant by looking at an applicants Facebook profile. But growing privacy concerns have led some social media users to restrict access to their personal information. To get around this, some employers have requested login credentials to view the applicant’s otherwise restricted social media presence. Wisnefski said this could be the tipping point for social media privacy laws.

    Lawmakers also appear poised to take action to protect social media privacy. Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Charles Schumer (D-NY) asked the Department of Justice and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to investigate this practice. Wisnefski wrote, “Eventually, we will continue to see strengthening of support from legislators in Washington that could push for strict privacy laws banning this practice and calling for penalties on agencies that violate social media privacy concerns.”

    Tags: Facebook

    How To Fix A Bad Credit Score In 5 Actionable Steps

    Recently, Ive been in the process buying a new house and as a result Ive been thinking about the role my credit score and report is playing in this process.  Think about it, if I have a bad credit score I could go from getting an interest rate of 4.5% or better, to a rate of  6% or higher.  On a $120,000 mortgage thats a payment difference of $600 to $720.

    This prompted me to check my credit score.  Now luckily in my score its in pretty decent shape at a 741, but this isnt the case for everyone so in this article Im going to walk you through the steps I take to fix a bad credit score.

    The first thing you need to do before you can fix your score is you need to know what it is.  To do this I suggest checking it in 2 different places.  The first place to go is AnnualCreditReport.com.   This site is sort of the official place to check your credit report.  Here you can get all 3 of your credit reports entirely for free.

    These reports are also fairly detailed, however in order to get the score for each report you are going to have to pay a fee.  Now if you

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    Tags: Bad Credit, Credit Score, Score

    Questioned by a Coach, an Owner Rethinks Her Manufacturing Issues

    In my last post, Susan Martin, a business coach, pressed Alexandra Mayzler to articulate her vision for her company, Thinking Caps Tutoring. Ms. Mayzler was clear that she wanted to see a revolution in education that elevated the importance of study skills. She was less clear, however, about what role her company might play in this revolution.

    Next, Ms. Martin turned to Susan Parker, who owns Bari Jay, which makes and sells bridesmaid and prom dresses. “My vision is much shorter than Alexandras,” Ms. Parker said. “I just want to have more control over my manufacturing.”

    “Let’s take it one step further,” Ms. Martin responded. “If you had more control, what would that allow you to do?”

    “To grow the way I want to grow,” Ms. Parker said. “Right now, I’m so dependent on how many dresses I can get made and where and how that I’m constantly worried.” Last year, she said, Bari Jay grew so quickly that she wondered if its success would lead to its demise. “If people can’t get the dresses they ordered, they’re not going to want to do business with you,” she said. Things worked out in the end and have

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    Tags: Coach, Coach Owner

    Low Fee IRA – Is It Really The Best Way To Save For Retirement

    Lately Ive been seeing a lot of commercials on TV talking about low fee IRA programs such as Vanguard.  This company offers low cost IRA fees versus most of the other brokers out there.  In fact some of these fees can be so low you almost have to wander how to they stay in business.  This prompted me to do some research and find out, are low fee IRA companies a good way to invest for your retirement?

    To start Im going to do a fee comparison between two similar funds.  One being a fund I actually invest in, the Transamerica Moderate Growth Fund and the second being a low cost mutual fund, the Vanguard Life Strategy Moderate Growth Fund.  Here is what I found when I compared the cost on these two funds.

    When you compare these two funds side by side you can obviously see which fund cost more in fees. Both funds earned an 8% return and started with an investment of $10,000.  The Transamerica fund charged a total of $6100 over a 20 year period.

    On the other hand the Vanguard fund only charged a total of $882 in total fees.  By going

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    Tags: Fee Ira, Ira, Low Fee, Low Fee Ira