Posts Tagged: "Business"

There are many ways to enhance your small business, making it look bigger, at relatively inexpensive costs. Everyone has to start somewhere, but think about things from the customer’s perspective. Think about a time when you were searching for businesses that you wanted to work with for personal use. Did you choose the smallest entity you could find, one that did not have a website or even have a business card to give you? Probably not! Chances are you decided to look a little further to find someone you felt was more “experienced” in their field. If that’s something you’ve done, then chances are your small business may loose customers for the same reason. Starting a new business can be a very expensive venture. Following are some fairly inexpensive suggestions that you can execute in order to make your small business look more like an established corporate entity.

About ten months ago I wrote, The Importance of Having a Web Presence where I discussed why you should have a website, where you can buy your domain name and how to find webhosting services. No matter what type of business you have, whether it be a brick and mortar retail location, a consulting business, a law firm or any other type of business, large or small, you need to have a company website if you are to have any real chance of keeping up with the competition. But what makes a successful website? How can you get consumers past the home page? What do you feature on your website? How do you set it up? Whether you are starting from scratch or simply trying to improve the website that you already have, there are key components that every website should possess, eleven of which I will share with you today.

The demographics on users of social media can be surprising – a large percentage are over 35, and have six-figure incomes. These users have a lot of buying power and are often making the purchasing decisions for their households. Once they know this, clients can grasp the importance of both using social media proactively. But what is the risk? In the trade secret arena you could lose everything through inappropriate use by you or your employees, and the same is true in the trademark context as well.

If you are going to go down the path of blogging for profit or for notoriety you need to have a well developed sense of what your market is interested in when you set out to write. Copying others isn’t likely a winning strategy, but identifying what you like, what you can provide and what you want to do are all essential. Then you need to think about the reader. You know the mantra — know your audience. It is certainly helpful to write what interests you because, in my view, that which you are interested in and passionate about makes for great reading, but it is also important to give readers what they want otherwise you won’t build an audience, or you will lose the audience you do have.

In a recent article, Mobile Business Tools – Social Media Apps for Apple iPad, iPhone & iPod, I discussed the topic of Social Media/Networking applications that are available for download on the iPhone, iPad and iPod that can help you stay connected to your Social Media. There are thousands of other Mobile Business Tools available to you an can be found in multiple different application categories. Following is a guide to several of the more popular Mobile Business Apps that one can use when on the go to essentially take the office with you. Heed my warning, however, once you start using this tools you will never know when to “go home!”

As I learn more about my new mobile business tools, I am amazed at how much I can do with them to enhance my business. According to Apple there are over 50,000 apps available for download on the iPhone alone. In fact, we often play a game in our family that I like to call, “Is there an app for that?” We have found some seriously odd applications. But with all of the apps that are available, how can you determine which apps are most suitable for you and your business? Following is a guide to some of my favorite and some of the more popular non-industry specific iPhone, iPad and iPod applications that you can use to keep up with your Social Media no matter where you go.

Whether the “open source means free” community ever chooses to acknowledge it, the truth is that a patent is a business tool; an asset. If you are serious about being in business in the software space you absolutely must have patents. Yet, there are those in the “open source means free” community, which simply a naive anti-patent sector, would have those throughout the open source community incorrectly think patents are evil. They complain that patents shouldn’t be protected by patents and copyrights are enough. They claim it is too hard to figure out if you are infringing. What they are really saying is that they choose not to operate their business affairs in a business appropriate fashion and in order for them to succeed while ignoring best practices and being responsible like every other business and industry they need patents on software to cease. This chicken little approach proves only that they are not business savvy, and that they aren’t paying attention to developments in the industry.

What do you think of when you hear the term “expert?”  What makes one an expert in your mind? How does one become truly recognized as an expert in their field?  It is not easy to be considered an Expert, otherwise we’d all be experts.  However with time, practice and persistence, one can grow into a truly recognized expert within…

If you ever thought of starting a patent software company, I have some good news for you. Unlike the general software markets for, say, antivirus or mp3 software, the legal software market is just not very saturated. A lot of the existing software for patent lawyers is outdated, ridiculously expensive, and frankly, not that good. There is definitely room for…

If you have gone to Google today, you have probably noticed that Google’s newest Doodle is a Pacman board. Doodles are known as the decorative changes that are made to the Google logo to celebrate holidays, anniversaries, and the lives of famous artists and scientists. May 22 marks the 30th anniversary of the game we all loved and played as kids, and to commemorate Pacman’s anniversary Google has created this one-of-a-kind Pacman Google Doodle. This doodle is unlike any other Google doodle that has come before it because the Google Pacman logo is actually Google’s very first interactive doodle in the form of a Pacman game you can actually play.

On Tuesday, April 13, 2010, I will be giving a presentation to the Toledo Intellectual Property Law Association. My presentation will focus on the law, ethics and business of blogging as it specifically pertains to attorneys. This present article focuses on getting started from a conceptual or philosophical standpoint, and future articles in the blogging business series will address legal issues associated with blogging, as well as the mechanics of blogging. So, without further ado, here are the 7 critical questions for a blogging business plan.

Currently there are 364 chapters of SCORE operating in over 800 locations across the United States as well as in US Territories. The organization, which is headquartered in Herndon, Virginia and Washington DC, supports small businesses with both training and business counseling. Whether you are just starting out, or have been established for quite some time, SCORE can set you up with a personal business coach who can guide you along every step of your business.

The federal government knows that small businesses are critical to the economic strength and recovery of our country, especially as the economy stands today. For this very reason, programs have been put into place to assist entrepreneurs in starting their own businesses.

If you ask me, the 7 deadly sins are not very deadly at all. Like pretty much everything in life, excess is bad and moderation is just fine. The 7 deadly sins in moderation and channeled properly are what leads successful people in the innovation space to be successful.

The likely success of any e-Business (and that includes the business of blogging) is evaluated by the amount of traffic a website will generate. Generally speaking, there are two important components of traffic: (1) the number of visitors that can be expected to be attracted to a site; and (2) the number of users that can be expected to return to the site over time.