Author: Pamela Swift

Learning from America’s Best Companies

Post author By Pamela Swift
Post date May 31, 2008

America’s Best Companies (http://www.americasbestcompanies.com) is dedicated to helping small businesses stay in business, grow their business, and make more money in their business. ABC is built on the strong belief that small businesses are the most important companies in America. After all, the American Dream has always begun with the idea of starting a small business.
To carry out this mission, ABC provide small business with the tools, opportunities, and resources to compete with the existing mega-marts and giant online retailers. They strive to educate the point-and-click generation of today to recognize the unique products and personal services that local business owners provide every day.
For example, ABC provides advice on how to advertise your business through ABC’s own Internet directory and several big-name local search sites like Yahoo, Yellowbook.com, and Yellowpages.com. Second, ABC publishes and hosts an easy-to-build website for your business where you can post in-store specials, coupons, photos, videos, and more. Third, the ABC website provides discounts on a variety of goods and services for all of your most common business needs.
A subscription to the America’s Best Companies magazine will provide you with the most current information and advice available to help you run your business as efficiently as possible. There is a whole lot of helpful information and resources that small business owners would be glad to capitalize on.
http://www.americasbestcompanies.com

Entrepreneurship Online Business

Online Business Mentoring

Post author By Pamela Swift
Post date May 22, 2008

Article contributed by Leah Nevada Page of MicroMentor.org, an organization that helps emerging entrepreneurs grow their businesses through mentoring and advising relationships with experienced peers and business professionals.
Sturdy McKee’s journey to small business success started with a pink slip. The hospital where he had been working as a physical therapist downsized and after a frustrating job search, Sturdy sat down with his wife and had a conversation about what it would take to open his own physical therapy practice.
Once started, Sturdy rapidly built a successful business, and was soon operating at the full capacity of his staff and building space. But when Sturdy began looking for a loan to help him open additional offices, banks were refusing to finance his planned expansion. Then Sturdy found MicroMentor. MicroMentor is a pioneering web-based community and social network that helps aspiring entrepreneurs build successful businesses by matching them with volunteer business mentors from around the country.
After signing up online at www.MicroMentor.org, where he described his business and mentoring goals, Sturdy was matched with a mentor, Jayshree Miller, who had worked as an accountant in the U.K. and was now looking for an opportunity for skills-based volunteering.
As Sturdy’s mentor, Jayshree worked with Sturdy through a series of phone calls and emails to help him make sense of his balance sheets, cash flow statements, and profit & loss statements. She also helped him identify areas in need of expansion. “She reinforced our opinions that we were a healthy company and that we were viable, even though we were unable to secure funding from a bank. [It] gave us the confidence to fund our own growth from our own profits.”
Now, just six years after opening its doors, Study’s physical therapy company has 5 branches and over 20 employees. And just two years after he first sought help on MicroMentor, Sturdy has returned to MicroMentor as a volunteer mentor. “Moving the business to profitability changed a lot of things in my business and my life and I hope to help other people to do that. I want to help people figure out how to plan and make their businesses viable.”

Recommendations

Free Webcast – 5 Tips to Staying on Top in an Economic Downturn

Post author By Pamela Swift
Post date May 18, 2008

Our friends over at SBTV.com alerted us to this not-to-be-missed, free event:

Free Webcast: 5 Tips to Staying on Top in an Economic Downturn! Tune in to SBTV.com on Wednesday, May 21st at 12:00 p.m. EST, as Susan Wilson Solovic hosts this very special episode of “Power Lunch with Susan” for time tested tips on starting and growing a business during the tough times. Susan features online micro lender Count Me In and guests Make Mine a Million Dollar Business winner, Francine Glick and Latin Media Dynamo, Nely Galan. Click here for all the details.