As a preliminary to formulating a pricing guide for online marketers or small business owners in the offline world, you need to focus on the strategy you want to employ. This is a very important first step as it will put you in the ball park when it comes to what you can realistically expect. Here are some factors to consider:

What is your aim with the launch of this particular product or service? Is it to undercut your competitors? In that case, your price needs to be under market value initially to secure a customer stream. You have the choice of either losing money on the first X number of sales or coming close to operating or production costs to secure a small profit. Once your sales campaign is up and running the price can of course be reviewed and increased.

Have you devoted Read the rest of this entry »

Trying to recover from the damage the recession inflicted on your wealth? Consider these 10 steps back to financial health.

1. Hedge Against Higher Taxes. When it comes to reducing your taxes, the standard advice is to defer income into future years and accelerate expenses. But this logic only applies when tax rates are stable or falling. Even if Congress does nothing to impose new taxes, the Bush administration tax cuts will expire at the end of this year, pushing the income tax bracket and the top rate on dividends to 39.6 percent, up from 35 percent and 15 percent respectively. The top capital gains rate will Read the rest of this entry »

Women in Small Business know how to stretch a nickel. It’s like second nature. Finding sales, coupons and freebies are essential to keeping her overhead low and profits high! Here are a few sites that offer free business forms for the aspiring business woman:

1. Free Business Forms from www.freebusinessforms.com: These attorney reviewed printable forms are specially formatted so you can fill them out by hand when printed. some of the free business and free legal forms you can download free of charge.:

* Employment contracts
* Employee handbooks
* Business contracts
* Business letters
* Business reports
* Promissory notes
* Lease forms
* Bill of sale forms
* Financial statements
* Confidentiality agreements
* Power of attorney forms
* Living will form
* Security agreements
* Debt collection letters
* Will forms
* Security agreements

2. FormNet FormNet® is a tool designed to save you the time and expense of creating business documents from scratch. You can download and customize each form according to your needs, and immediately put them to work in your business–all for free. They include:
Accounting
This category covers a variety of financial functions–from financial statements and bookkeeping to expense reports and accounts receivable.

Collection/Credit
These forms are designed to help you gather the information you need to extend credit to a customer and to help you notify your clients or customers of their debt to you.

Franchises
Make the right franchise choice with these easy-to-use forms that help you evaluate franchise options.

Human Resources
Hire, manage and motivate your employees more effectively with this collection of useful forms.

Insurance
Protect your business with forms that help you manage your insurance and risk management needs.

Inventory
Use these downloadable forms to track your inventory and accept or reject goods as they come in.

Leasing
If you lease or manage property, these forms will help you get your paperwork in order.

Legal
This wide variety of legal forms on everything from contracts to business structure and corporate governance will aid you in your day-to-day business.

Marketing
Get a handle on your marketing efforts, including customer surveys, target market research and market cost analysis, with this collection of forms.

Office Management
These easy-to-use forms will help you with the day-to-day duties of running a busy office.

Purchasing
Formalize your purchasing process–and make sure you’re not wasting any money–with this smart set of forms.

Sales
From price quotes to commission summaries, these forms will help you perform any of your sales functions.

Shipping
From shipping to delivery, you can get your shipping process in tip-top shape with these forms.

Starting a Business
These forms will help you gather all the data you need to get your new business off to a good start.

3. Office Depot: Free Downloadable Business Forms. These documents are free to download and customize for your own professional use. They include:
* Asset Protection
* Business Finance
* Compensation and Benefits
* Employee Management
* Firing and Termination
* Government Contracting Forms
* IRS Tax Forms
* Marketing
* Recruiting and Hiring
* Starting Your Business
* State Tax Forms
* Worker Safety
* Vehicles and Equipment

4. SmartBiz.com – Download a large selection of free business forms to help you get the most out of your business. Categories include Business Finance, Employee Management, Compensation & Benefits, Marketing, Recruiting & Hiring, Worker Safety, Vehicles & Equipment.

Figuring out a budget is something that too many people have difficulty with and there is definitely no doubt about that. Unfortunately people, including myself, are just not educated enough about finding debt relief by having the ability to properly manage a well balanced budget. Following a strict budget each month or week, however you would want to do it, is no doubt the best way for everyone to improve their debt condition.

This is something that you should all really have already started thinking about because knowing how to manage your money properly and being consistent with it, will drastically pay off down the road. You will finally be able to enjoy your life completely, without all of the worries that come along for anyone who is just totally overloaded with debt over debt over debt.

Your budget will make it possible for you to recognize that you can survive every single month, not just survive though, much better than that, you could potentially have a little bit of extra money each and every month! How fabulous would that be people? You know you want it, you know you are exhausted thinking about your debt, so get up off that couch and stop pitying yourself, try fixing your debt problems instead of forgetting about them!

Read the rest of this entry »

One of the newest buzz words to come out of the environmental crisis is the term “green-collar job”. What exactly is a green-collar job and will there be a need for green-collar workers in the future? Apparently so, as a study by the RAND Corporation and the Universtiy of Tennessee “found that if 25% of all American energy were produced from renewable sources by 2025 we would generate at least 5 million new green-collar jobs”.

Those numbers sound great, but what is a “green-collar? The United States is finally coming to realize that our dependence on fossil fuels is not only detrimental to the environment, it has negative economic ramifications as well. The need for new products and services that will help us develop a more energy efficient society is creating a host of new jobs and the redesigning of jobs that are already in existence. In order to bolster our economy, good jobs that are in green industries need to be created. Read the rest of this entry »

Recently someone asked me some questions that I think are on the mind of everyone who is thinking about buying tax liens. People want to know how much money they need to get started in tax lien investing and if this is something that they can use as their main source of income. In this article I will give my experience of what it takes to get started as opposed to how much money you need to invest in order to turn buying tax liens into your main income source.

First let me make it clear that tax lien investing is only one of my income sources. I use it as Read the rest of this entry »

There are two main reasons objections come up in selling and there are sales tactics you need to successfully deal with them. One reason is a knee-jerk reaction on the part of the customer to realizing the close is imminent. They bring up an objection to slow down the process. These objections are the ones you can get past easily by just acknowledging them and carrying on with the close. Let’s assume you are starting to write an order and the customer says, “Hold it, that’s a lot of money for a computer system.” Some salespeople stop here and leave. Did the customer say he wasn’t buying? All he said was it was a lot of money and he is probably right. Try using a sales tactic like, “I understand” or “Yes it is” and keep writing the order. About 40% of the time, the objection won’t come up again because it was just a delaying reaction to the close. But, in 60% of the cases, you still have work to do. That’s when the following sales tactics can help. Read the rest of this entry »

Foreign Exchange Market, or Forex as it is commonly called, is an international exchange market to buy and sell different currencies from around the world. An investor has the ability to buy and sell these currencies in order to create gains from small movements in the value of one currency over another. The Foreign Exchange Market or Forex is open from Monday at 0:00 GMT until Friday at 10:00 GMT. For this reason Forex traders are not limited to the general time constraints of the New York Stock Exchange or NASDAQ.

This versatility attracts many investors to become Forex traders. The liquidity of the Foreign Exchange Market is also very attractive for the Forex investor as trades range from 1 to 1.5 trillion dollars on a daily basis. These massive amounts of trades make it extremely difficult for any one trader to affect the market. Read the rest of this entry »

Many women are so confused by the words – “Business Plan”. What is it? Who do I show it to? Do I really need it? What is it really going to do for me?

A business plan is a written blueprint for your business. It describes a summary of what your business is about and it s goals. It also outlines how your business will function. The term business plan was first developed by bankers who wanted a detailed report of how a business would result in profits before they would make a decision on lending money. Today, no business banker will even entertain a business loan application without a business plan.

In a nutshell, the answer is yes, you really do need a business plan if you really want to build a solid foundation under your home-based business.

I guess the reason so many women procrastinate in doing a business plan is because they think they have to come up with some imaginary figures and statistics about their business which is of course very scary for anyone. This type of plan is known as an Executive Business Plan. This plan is shown to banks, SBA and other lenders who you may apply to for a substantial loan. Usually, this type of business plan must show a 3-5 year projection of how much money your business would make if they should lend you a specific sum of money. Although you will need this type of business plan should you wish to expand your business, the most important thing for you to know now is where you will be in the next 3,6,9 and 12 months.

One of the best form of business plans to start out with is Read the rest of this entry »

Avoiding the top 7 business financing mistakes is a key component in business survival.

If you start committing these business financing mistakes too often, you will greatly reduce any chance you have for longer term business success.

The key is to understand the causes and significance of each so that you’re in a position to make better decisions.

>>>>>> Business Financing Mistakes (1) – No Monthly Bookkeeping.

Regardless of the size of your business, inaccurate record keeping creates all sorts of issues relating to cash flow, planning, and business decision making.

While everything has a cost, bookkeeping services are dirt cheap compared to most other costs a business will incur.
Read the rest of this entry »