Posted by Sara Lopez on December 29th, 2011 ~
0 Comments Im proud that my online video tutorials on business planning are now posted on the community.sba.gov site where they are available to all, and fee, and I do hope useful. Heres the list. You can take them one at a time about 5-10 minutes each in the original order, or pick and choose.
- Introduction and orientation
- Planning is modular
- Form follows function
- Planning is management
- Planning strategy
- Business plan flesh and bones
- Sales forecast
- Dress and grow your plan
- The formal business plan document
For better or worse, there are a lot of older tutorials with me talking, and me narrating slides, on YouTube and elsewhere. These were done more recently. They are based on my plan-as-you-go idea for the next generation of business plan, which is the first step in business planning. Planning is about results, lean, agile, flexible, and intended to manage change. Its the planning, not the plan, that matters. An
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Tags: Business Planning, Online Video, Site
Posted by Nathan Torres on December 15th, 2011 ~
0 Comments 
Our less than stellar economy isnt doing college students already stretched thin by huge tuition bills, expensive books, and beer any favors. However, if you have to spend why not get a rewards credit card?
Whether you’re looking for your first card, or are already working the plastic, picking the right rewards card maximizes returns for all your expenses. The list below outlines how to protect yourself from getting scammed when picking a rewards credit card.
1. Rewards Points or Cash Back: What’s Your Fancy?
Are you looking for points in the form of gift cards and merchandise or do you want money accredited back to your account? This decision is solely preferential but, depending on your spending habits, certain combinations maximize return. Below are some facts about the three major types of rewards plans:
- Cash Back: In general credit card companies offer 1-3% cash back on all purchase. Howeve
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Tags: College Students, Students
Posted by Brian Reed on December 12th, 2011 ~
0 Comments Vertical Response, known for its email marketing system that serves over 100,000 customers (many of them small businesses), just announced that it has acquired the Roost social media tool.
Roost, based in San Francisco, allows you to update your social media accounts (currently Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook) from one dashboard. Theres a built-in calendar to schedule and publish updates in advance.
While there are other tools out there that do similar functions, whats interesting about Roost is that you can schedule social media updates like marketing campaigns. In a campaign, you can schedule updates to go out over a specified period of time up to 40 updates over a period of 30 days. So, for instance, if you wanted to promote a special offer with a series of informational tweets and also discounts, you could set that up in Roost.
Roost also gives you some analytics about your social media impact. For instance you can measure engagement with your social media updates. You
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Tags: Roost, Social Media, Vertical Response
Posted by Sara Lopez on December 12th, 2011 ~
0 Comments It’s easy enough to forget during this festive time of year, but fiscal year end is little more than two weeks away for many small businesses.
Making your income tax instalment payment today brings the basic tax question back to the forebrain; are you paying more income tax than you should?
If you think the answer is “yes” or just aren’t sure, have a look at these six year end small business tax tips. There’s still time to implement some or all of these before the New Year.
Looking for more tax information?
These collections of articles on the site may have just what you’re looking for:
Tags: Small Business, Tax, Year End
Posted by Sara Lopez on December 10th, 2011 ~
0 Comments PORTLAND, Ore. – Today, business and civic leaders released the latest economic study of the Portland-metro area, examining how the region compares to the U.S. average, other metro areas and, most significantly, to its expected performance. The study is part of the Value of Jobs coalition’s efforts to raise awareness of the importance of private-sector jobs and income and wage levels and their connection to the region’s quality of life
Key takeaways:
- Portland-metro suffered significantly greater downturns during recessions when compared to the average for U.S. metros. – In the most recent recession, Portland-metro’s per capita employment dropped by 8 percent (or by 81,200 fewer people employed), more than the U.S. metro average and only 17,900 new workers have been added since early 2010.
- One area where Portland-metro performs exceptionally well is in the growth of its gross metropolitan product per capita, which is 20 percent more productive than the U.S. metro average. – When
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Tags: Portland
Posted by Brian Reed on December 9th, 2011 ~
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Infomercials are the bane of every hoarder’s existence, but are dangerous to everyone. They bombard us with images of crap we really don’t need, but somehow seem to convince plenty of us non-hoarders to pay for stuff that immediately goes into storage or out at the garage sale. What sorcery is this? How are otherwise sane and rational people roped into paying for products that, let’s be honest, we all know aren’t going to work? Here are 5 ways infomercials sell us on their literal garbage.
Infomercials, as much as we mock them, secretly inspire us. Their products may not always be what we’re looking for, but that can easily change after the host is done telling you how much cooking you’ll do just by purchasing The Magic Bullet or the Chef Basket, which are actually two products on the more useful side of the spectrum. That doesn’t stop th
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Tags: Crap, Useless Crap
Posted by Nathan Torres on December 8th, 2011 ~
0 Comments 
Are you tired of living a life of debt? Back several years ago I went though a life changing event right before Christmas. I too was living pay check to pay check at that time then something happened, my water softener went out. It was going to cost me a $1000 dollars to fix it.
I was able to cover the cost but it was going to leave me short on cash for Christmas. That year my wife and I struggled with are finances and thats when I decided I didnt want to live a life going from one pay check to the next but rather to living a debt free life once and for all.
From then on my goal was to persevere but their were challenges, the first being knowledge. At that time I knew nothing about how money worked or even the best way to pay off debt. In fact the extent of my knowledge was only good enough to get me by and that was it. For exa
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Tags: Life