The Small Business Administration or SBA is celebrating its 50th Anniversary!

But there are some smart things that small business owners should consider doing now. Here’s my top 3 tips:

1.  Access Capital Now
2.  Engage Rather Than Employ
3.  Have a Lean Start-Up

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Small businesses need to consider their tech purchases just as carefully as enterprises do. A single doctor medical practice must comply with the same stringent patient-privacy regulations as the largest hospital. Run a two-person bakery or a small auto repair shop? In addition to tending to bread and brakes, you still need a solution for managing your finances and customer information, just like a major retail chain does. Moonlight as a club DJ? You need to know the best tech for storing your jams, and what service will help you quickly recover your data if your storage hardware gets hosed, just like a Fortune 500 company does.

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Smartphones have become vital for on-the-go entrepreneurs. Apps aimed at small business owners allow them to pay bills, update websites, market their companies, reach out to customers and keep in touch with employees from anywhere. Some owners say their smartphones makes it easier for them to build a side business while keeping a full-time job or step away from the company when needed.

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The successes and failures of others, can provide extremely valuable information to guide you on your path. So from my own experience and from the common stories I hear from being involved with over 4000 small business clients, I have compiled what I see as the five biggest mistakes people make when running a small businesses.

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Unlike the CEOs of major public companies, whose personal financial situation has little effect on their companies borrowing, if you are a small business owner, your personal credit is a major factor influencing your companys access to capital. The power of personal credit scores to predict small business loan repayment, the legal structure of many small businesses, and small business owners’ use of personal guarantees and personal borrowing to finance business operations, all link small business owners personal credit to their companies’ access to capital.

Many, if not most, lenders will look at your personal credit score if you are a small business owner seeking a loan for your company. A 2006 report written for the U.S. Small Business Administration found that 71 percent of banks used small business owner credit scores when underwriting small business loans.

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Like anything in life, being an entrepreneur has its ups and downs, it has good and bad points. I happen to think the good far outweighs the bad, but not a few people disagree or learn about the bad the hard way.

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Obtaining a small business loan is not as easy as you might think. Small business owners looking for capital to take their business to the next level can face issues with eligibility, and the process of both applying for and receiving a loan is lengthy and time-consuming.

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A recent report conducted by AT&T and the Small Business & Entrepreneurship  Council, a nonprofit group that promotes entrepreneurship and small business, small business owners have netted $67.5 billion a year from implementing smart phones and tablets in their day to day business activities.

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The House voted Thursday to make permanent a tax break allowing small businesses to write off up to $500,000 in new equipment purchases.

While the move adds to momentum for congressional efforts to extend a range of now-temporary tax breaks, it also sharpens a conflict between the House and Senate over whether to extend the breaks permanently or temporarily.

Thursdays vote was 272-144, with several dozen Democrats joining Republicans to support the measure.

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All else being equal, would-be entrepreneurs should consider moving to Idaho, Texas, Utah, or Virginia, and fleeing California, Illinois, and Rhode Island. The first four states received A+ grades for small-business friendliness in a study published this week by local services startup Thumbtack and the Kauffman Foundation. The last three states got Fs.

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What is a small business?

It is getting harder and harder to tell. Last week, the SBA adjusted its size standards that determine if a company is a small business. The definition varies by industry and is derived by annual revenue or by number of employees.

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Two recent news clips caught my attention. One involved a company trying to avoid the IRS. The other involved the IRS trying to avoid trouble. Taken together, I can see how a small business owner might cynically ask if a small business has a fighting chance as far as taxes.

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Under the new guidelines, for instance, a travel agency with annual revenues of $20.5 million qualifies as a small business, and so does a family clothing store that brings in $38.5 million a year. In some industries, a business is still considered small if it employs as many as 1,500 people. Companies classified as small businesses can compete for government contracts, and can access SBA loans, which are often cheaper than private alternatives.

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• Embrace Perspective: No matter how much you love your company, there will be days when balancing the books creates anxiety. Remind yourself what fueled you to launch your business.

• Find Balance: Sometimes it might seem impossible to relax, but devoting even 60 minutes weekly to non-business related activities will help you recharge.

• Become Resourceful: Find ways to save money, time and energy. Try multitasking, such as purchasing business supplies while waiting for a prescription to be filled or patronizing retailers with special early shopping hours for business owners. Consider streamlining home expenses by eliminating cable or cooking more at home.

• Make Changes: Stay motivated by experimenting with new methods and tools. Attending trainings or online webinars about your industry can help re-ignite your creativity and even lead to business growth.

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Need a reason to start your own business? Here are 20 of them.

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Many of us dream of starting a small business. Whether it s the romantic ideal of being your own boss, or the desire to build something from nothing, having a dream is different than actualizing it. Often, it is the fear of failure or the daunting amount of work that keeps us from being bold enough to launch that next brilliant startup.

START SMALL

An effective way to build confidence and remove the fear of failure is to break down the basics of starting a small business into smaller tasks. By completing these tasks one at a time, you may soon find you’re well on your way to laying a solid foundation for your bold, lean startup to thrive.

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Here are some tips to discuss with your tax pro to improve your tax situation and hopefully keep working capital in your bank account rather than in Uncle Sams pocket:

Start a retirement plan. If you are finally a few bucks ahead and don’t have a retirement fund, now is the time to start one. Here is the bonus: it is deductible!

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To succeed in todays world, one must adapt to todays developments, including the ever-expanding implementation of technology. One small way to do this is to modernize your business card; because the means by which businesses communicate have expanded, you may want to rethink what is included on your business cards. By doing this, you can unite your offline marketing with your online marketing efforts. Below are a number of tips for updating your card.

Is it Time to Update You Business Card

Have a killer business idea? A killer business plan can help you turn it into a successful business. Creating a well-crafted business plan is no easy task, however. You will need to not only flesh out your idea, but also have a deep understanding of the different aspects of running a business — before you even start one. Figuring out how to do this correctly is hard enough, but there are several tools available to make this arduous task a little bit easier for would-be entrepreneurs.

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Facebook. Pinterest. Google+. Instagram. Twitter. LinkedIn. YouTube. So many social networks, and so little time!

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Perhaps you have a Facebook page to keep up with your college friends, cousins and golf buddies. But do you need Facebook for your small business?

Well, here is a fact to help you decide: 20 percent of all time spent on mobile devices – smartphones and tablets – is spent on Facebook, according to market research firm comScore.

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Small-business owners often are so busy working that they do not take time to plan for their retirements.

But that is clearly a mistake, financial advisers say.

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The cloud can save you time and money, but it also has the potential to change the way you do business.

The percentage of U.S. small businesses using cloud computing is expected to more than double during the next six years, from 37 percent to nearly 80 percent, according to a study from consulting firm Emergent Research and financial software company Intuit.

While use of the cloud today is generally associated with the ability to reduce costs and improve efficiency, widespread adoption of this technology is projected to have a transformative effect on small businesses, but also on large companies and government organizations.

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We usually learn more from our work for smaller clients and that’s counterintuitive, is not it? When I was very young, I thought that knowledge and business experience flowed downhill from the lofty heights of executive boardrooms to home offices. I have since learned that just as often, the knowledge flow is uphill from the small to the huge. I should have known that, anyway.

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Small business owners can get pretty personal. At least, they are influenced by personal relationships more than anything else, according to a new report by the National Association of Women Business Owners ( and credit card company Ink from Chase.

In fact, at 89 percent, a vast majority of small business owners said that their personal relationships have an impact on the way they run their business, and 67 percent said their peers influence them. Fifty-three percent reported that other small business owners influence them as well.

So what influences small business owners the least? Surprisingly, mentorship — only 51 percent of business owners admitted to being influenced by mentors in their field.

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Here are five lessons we learned from this unique and experienced group of successful small business owners:

1. Start With a Clear Purpose

All the entrepreneurs articulated a clear and powerful purpose for starting their business — and none mentioned money as a major driver. Rather, they started their companies to do what they love, solve a problem, provide awesome service, live in a more desirable location, create jobs and give back to their community.

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Time to crank up sales. Thankfully, the economy is starting to heat up, and as such, it may be an ideal time to learn how to crank up your sales.

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1. Be prepared.
Are leaders ready if an unexpected crisis hits the organization? It’s up to managers to respond in the appropriate way. Not only are employees looking for the manager to lead them through a crisis should one arise but so are customers.

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Track Influencers

A key principle to inbound marketing is to leverage industry influencers to help promote your content. This can be done a number of ways, but ultimately requires a holistic approach to network and relationship development. One of the highly useful features of Google+ lies in its audience management capabilities. Specifically, the ability to bucket users into group segments, otherwise known as circles. This is valuable to businesses because it means they can track the activity of industry influencers, who can have an impact on their reach, Marc explained.

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Running your own business is no easy task, and your to-do-list is guaranteed to never end. This said, you should not use this as an excuse to take short cuts when it comes to having online visibility. Beginning with your website, its vital to position yourself online with a strong, professional destination that gives customers the impression you mean business and the motivation to want to engage more with your business. With this in mind, consider these five reasons why having a strong website is important.

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An Entrepreneur is an individual who starts and runs a business with limited resources and planning, taking account of all the risks and rewards of his or her business venture. The business idea is usually a new innovation, product or service, rather than an existing business model.

Such entrepreneurial ventures target high-returns, with high level of uncertainty. The entrepreneur is willing to put his or her financial security and career at stake to take risks on an idea, spending time as well as capital on an uncertain venture.

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For many Americans, starting a small business is an exciting experience, and potentially financially rewarding. However, when opening a new company, owners are understandably so focused on getting off the ground that they often overlook some basic considerations that can have a major impact on the company's value down the road. Below are the five most common mistakes that small business owners make, as seen by individuals who value or appraise businesses.


1) Short-term is short-sighted

Although it can be tempting to make decisions that will save money in the short term, it is important for business owners to consider the long-term growth of their companies. Rather than saving a few dollars today, owners need to think about how to sustain growth and drive value tomorrow.

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So much goes on in the world of small business, that it is impossible for one outlet to cover it all. That's why each week we look comb the Web in search of interesting small business tips, guidance, and trends that can help you increase productivity, cut costs, engage customers, and grow your small business empire.

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It is time to nominate your favorite small-business owner for the U.S. Small Business Administrations 2015 Small Business Awards Week, which is in May.

The SBA is looking for owners and companies that have made contributions in their local communities, and to our nations economy.

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Many small businesses will turn to local developers when it comes to building their first business website, while others will rely on agencies, or even step up and take on the challenge themselves. Today, we want to help those who're brave enough to be building their own website.

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There is nothing wrong with having high hopes for your small business. Fulfilling a dream usually is what brings us to starting a business, and we get to decide how far and wide that dream will go.

Dreaming big is not for every small business, but it is something that many small businesses aim to grow.

With your head in the clouds…

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One of the easiest, fastest and cheapest ways for businesses to reach consumers today is via the Internet.

Digital marketing, also known as Internet or online marketing, is quickly replacing print, television and radio advertisement as the marketing approach of choice for businesses of all sizes. Recent research revealed that 1 in 4 of every business-advertising dollar is dedicated to Internet marketing.

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While children are making their holiday wish-list, families are preparing to go out of town and big businesses are expecting long lines of shoppers, there is one group of people who will be working extra hard this holiday season: Small business owners.

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With the introduction of Apple Pay, many small-business owners are weighing whether they should take the necessary steps to accept the new form of payment.

So far, most of the merchants that have signed up to accept Apple Pay are large ones, like Macys, McDonalds, Subway and Whole Foods. To use Apple Pay, businesses must have an N.F.C. reader, which is also called a contactless reader and refers to near field communications. Right now, less than 10 percent of American retailers do, according to Mark Hung, an analyst with Gartner, an information technology research firm.

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Officially a month into my new business venture, I have fully immersed myself in my company. While each day is an incredible learning experience, I have certainly felt a vast range of emotions over the past few weeks (and I am sure there is more to come).

So, what is it like giving up a steady paycheck and benefits to start your own endeavor?

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A website is now a mandatory component of a business regardless of its size. But the road to every business’ online journey is rife with costly traps that have long-lasting effects. This can be very detrimental to small businesses with limited budget for a website build.

Here are common mistakes that small businesses often make when going online:

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A major trend this year among small employers is to drop group health insurance coverage to help their employees pay for individual health insurance policies. By switching their employees to the individual health insurance marketplace, the small employers are ensuring that their employees get to choose the coverage that is best for their families. In addition, by not offering a group health insurance policy, the employers are making sure their employees have access to premium tax credits to assist them with the cost of their premiums.

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Every small business should have a basic knowledge of search engine optimization. In fact, you should almost be exhausted by the term  SEO at this point, as you have been undoubtedly told time and time again just how important it is. But unlike many trending industry buzzwords, SEO is here to stay. Why? In our web-facing world, the (already) dominant search engines are becoming the cornerstone of the internet. Standard procedure for individuals looking for information is to search first.

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Here are four ways to start making your company a truly social organization:

1. Recruit the best and brightest -- the smart way.

For companies of all sizes, hiring top talent is a cornerstone of success, but for smaller companies, finding the right fit for your team is downright critical.

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When one component goes out on an older PC, there’s a good chance more failures are coming soon. Newer software and peripherals also may not work with older hardware. If you just want to boost performance or storage capacity, adding RAM or a new hard drive will do the trick. However, if something serious like the processor, or the motherboard itself dies, it makes more sense to look at a whole new computer rather than hobbling along with expensive repairs.

Eventually a time will come that you need to get rid of old smartphone, computers, or other technology your company no longer needs.

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Although major companies like Staples and Home Depot have dominated news headlines lately, they are not the only companies at risk for cyber crime and hacking. Small businesses are far more susceptible to hackers than their larger counterparts, according to information from the National Cyber Security Alliance

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Fewer small business owners perceive themselves as successful now than did at the start of the economic recovery, a Wells Fargo-Gallup survey of a representative sample of 601 small business owners reveals. In 2009, 43 percent of small business owners reported feeling extremely or very successful as a small-business owner. By 2014 that fraction had eroded to 37 percent.
The results are perplexing.

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Internships provide many benefits. They help you meet your immediate work needs and you get to test-drive potential future employees. They boost your brand and demonstrate that you give back to the community and its students.

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What worked in 2014 may not necessarily work in 2015.

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