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Small Business Information
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The ABCs of Fundraising There are many little details that go into making sure your fundraising event is a successful event. The key is to have all your fundraising details laid out in front of you before you even start. Below are some tips to help you get started on the right foot for your fundraiser: Be Prepared When Business Investors Look Beyond Your Business Plan You have spent considerable time pulling your business plan together, contacting potential business investors, making management presentations and pitching your business plan to prospective business investors. Now you finally have a serious investor who wants to conduct "due diligence" before investing real cash into your business. Are You Making the Most of Your Intern? KEEPING INTEREST HIGH: Supervision is key to the success of the program. Interns like direction, but don't like to feel they are being constantly checked on. Even this small amount of direction, however, can take a great deal of time. It is important to be willing to set aside this time to give the intern direction. One method that seems to work calls for a briefing at the beginning of each day and a "where-do-we-stand?" briefing at its end. Throughout the day, the manager is on hand to answer any questions that might come up -- remember this is a learning experience! There should also be additional time set aside throughout the duration of the internship during which the manager receives feedback from the intern on his or her satisfaction with the assignment and suggestions for future directions. Equally important, interns should receive feedback on their progress. They need to know if they are performing to the manager's expectations. Additionally, many interns have chosen to keep diaries and time logs documenting their involvement. These can be reviewed at the conclusion of that person's internship. Who Does Over Disclosure Really Hurt In Franchising? Costs of over regulation and over disclosure end up hurting the very consumer that the regulatory bodies are trying to protect. Over disclosure and over regulation is in itself the worst evil of civilization, as it stifles free enterprise, innovation and free markets. In franchising the disclosure documents have in fact grown to over 200 plus pages in length on average. You should be happy you are not a tree in the forest right now. How to Create an Information Plan What is in an information plan? Accounting and Billing Procedures for Small Business No matter how small your small business is, it is essential to have some sort of accounting and billing police and methodology. This will prevent you from making mistakes and upsetting vendors or even bouncing checks. Most sole proprietor and single employee companies do not have a plan of attack for accounting and billing procedures until there is a crisis. There is no sense in allowing a crisis to take hold, especially when a few procedures are set in place to prevent it. Remember Noah built the Ark before the rain. What is your Motto? Company mottos can easily be printed on a business card. Designing a Franchise Training Program If you intend to franchise your company you will need to design a bullet proof training company for your new franchisees. This is above and beyond the training program you will design for them to administer to their new employees. Remember when training new franchisees it is similar to training new managers for any Corporation's outlets. The difference of course being that the Franchisee in a Franchised Company has a lot more at stake and will be twice as motivated as an average manager of a corporate Store. Employee Relations Manual Sample Outline Most smart entrepreneurs and all large corporations have Employee Relations Manuals. Nearly all businesses with over five or more employees have some sort of employee manuals but not all have Employee Relations Manuals for their managers. It is important in today's litigious lawyer trap to have a good policy in place to protect you from a bad decision or improper handling of an employee situation by a manager. All too often a minor incident can lead to a problematic situation and end up in court, union arbitration or a hefty fine from a government regulatory agency which often tend to side with the employee, regardless of fact. Five Quick Ways to Speed Up Cash Flow At one point or another, almost every business runs short of cash. Whether due to normal fluctuations in demand or an unexpected decline in sales, cash shortfalls are the bane of every company, and are responsible for sleepless nights for many business owners. Advertising - For Small Businesses (Part 1) Is it right for you? Lubbock TX Good Market for a Service Business We very much like what we see in Lubbock, TX as a good place for a service business. The city is a very well designed and laid out town with growth in the 4-5% per year range, growth in the Northwest quadrant of the city is steady and good. We are bullish on Lubbock and see how a service company could advance forces into the area to seize market share. There is excellent labor there due to the colleges and a strong growing middle class with younger families. Retail sector is good as well along the Northwest outer ring. Do You Microbifer in Your Cleaning Business? Microfiber cleaning towels have been around for about ten years now. When I first heard about them they were being sold through distributors in an MLM business. Since my business was professional house cleaning, I couldn't see how they could benefit me due to the high cost. Your Ideal Client ? A Key Concept for Solo and Small Business Marketing "I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody."--Bill Cosby Self-Employment: Managing Your Money: Tips for Living with a Fluctuating Cash Flow (Part One) The way you manage your money is one of the first things you'll change when you move from employment to self-employment. Franchise Rule to be Revised; Why? The FTC, Federal Trade Commission, is considering modifying the franchise rule. So far it has be a ten-year process; just imagine working that slow in your business? In 1995, 1997 and 1999 when the comments were first considered and taken in, which spans a ten-year period. When you combine those comments with this current rule making period they may have broken the record for the longest rule making session since voting on the slavery issue; one heck of a long rule making period by any means. Using Technology to Manage Customer Loyalty Don't let your customer satisfaction research initiative collect dust on a shelf. Integrate technology with research to optimize the use of customer information. But Weve Always Done It This Way Sacred cows take a long time to die. We get comfortable in the way we do things and lose sight of how they could be improved. Here's an interesting story. Pressure Washer Concrete Cleaning Equipment Cleaning concrete is tough and there is an easy way and a hard way. There is one thing you need to understand when you are pressure washer cleaning concrete; the concrete cannot always be made to look brand new again after it has been stained. You can always get stains lighter or bleached but completely removing it is very difficult, sometimes you get lucky, but if you are looking for perfection, chances are you will be underwhelmed. So when talking to customers let them know up front and explain this to them otherwise they will be asking for a job that just can't be done unless the entire concrete slab is ripped up and re-poured. Lawyers Everywhere Telling Regulators What Laws to Make The Federal Trade Commission decided to sit down and revamp the franchise rule of the 1970's. They started to do it in 1995 and postponed it then had some comments collected in 1997 and then in 1999. One thing, which is very interesting is most all the comments came from attorneys who specialize in either suing franchisors or suing franchisees. A little conflict of interest isn't it. Worse off; the government looks at their comments closely when determining new rules of law. Lawyers are out to make money suing business people, not helping free-enterprise, few of them have ever worked an honest day in their lives.
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