Becoming an Entrepreneurial Expat

After working in Mexico City as a manufacturer’s representative for two years, Elizabeth Helsley thought about returning to her hometown of San Diego to start her own company. Then she ran the numbers and discovered that bootstrapping her business in Mexico would drastically reduce her overhead

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New 1099 Requirements for B2B Transactions

I’ve got a bone to pick with our congressmen and congresswomen! You know how legislators sneak unrelated provisions into major bills? Yeah, well, they did it again. Section 9006 of the massive Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act will mean yet another huge paperwork burden for small business.

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A Primer for Offering Retirement Benefits

Small businesses are not just in competition for customers. It’s a fight to attract and keep employees, too.Offering a retirement plan is one incentive that can make the difference. Yes, it will cost you, but it may be the best investment you can make in the future of your business.”Cost is even more of a problem with the scheduled increases in taxes and health care about to hit small business in 2011,” says Rick Kahler, a certified financial planner with Kahler Financial Group in Rapid City, S.D.

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The Art of Feel-Good Loyalty Incentives

This article has been excerpted from  The Power of Loyalty  by  Roger L. Brooks , available from  Entrepreneur Press .

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There’s Big Opportunity in Lower-Cost Ads

Rachel Sadon With advances in technology redefining the advertising market, small and medium-size businesses are benefiting from new opportunities to reach consumers–from reduced costs in traditional media to online, mobile, and social networking opportunities.The  Los Angeles Times  reported that mom-and-pop businesses are taking advantage of a depressed media market and increased access to technology to produce successful marketing campaigns. Once prohibitively expensive, spots on TV and billboards are seeing growth from small businesses that can now afford to produce and run advertisements. Content Continues Below In the case of a commercial for a local diner, Eat at Joe’s, a small agency shot high-definition video with a digital camera, edited the material at home, and charged the restaurant owner a mere $5,000.

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Are You Giving Your Web Customers What They Need?

How do your customers use the web? It’s a simple question, but a question many small-business owners forget to discuss when working on their website.

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10 Things Customers Want on a Website

By Monte EnbyskSo you want your website to make you look big. More power to you.But the business experts I talked to recently say small is cool with customers, too

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Your Company Is not a Democracy

Most problems that occur in small businesses trace back to one fatal characteristic: lack of adequate ownership and leadership.I’m a big proponent of the “just view me as god” school of management.

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5 Tips for Startup Success

You have the perfect home business idea. You can’t believe no one has thought of it before.

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Is Your Money Mindset Crippling Your Company?

The latest statistics from the Small Business Administration show that new businesses have a 50 percent chance of surviving five years or more. While this dispels some longstanding beliefs that 95 percent of businesses fail within five years, the odds of success are still a coin toss.Common factors contributing to business failures include insufficient capital, poor management and lack of planning, just to name a few. However, a stealth enemy can also doom business success.

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