| Marijuana Wine? Posted: 30 May 2012 11:31 AM PDT |
| Pet Lovers Can Make Money Too Posted: 30 May 2012 11:14 AM PDT 
Just like any parent, when you get pet parents together they are going to chat about what they love most, their pets! The topic might be the best shampoo or the best place to shop for their products, but if you get together a few Shure Pets consultants, the topic is likely to be about business. Shure Pets gives pet lovers the opportunity to use a quality product and make a profit from it at the same time. Through their direct sales opportunity many individuals, like Sonya Lovine, have been able to work the hours that are most convenient for them and give their pets a party only they could enjoy. Angela Shupe interviewed Sonya about the biz a few years ago. 
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| Starting a Biz in Mini Storage Posted: 30 May 2012 11:10 AM PDT 
Do you need cheap office space? Does your business not really need a main-street storefront? In this inspiring article in Honolulu Magazine, you’ll read about a number of small business entrepreneurs who run their businesses out of storage units. Examples of businesses run out of storage units in the article include: a personal trainer, a wedding dress retailer, a divorce attorney, a LOST tour operator, an upholstery repair shop and a collectible toy store. Continue reading. Photo by lonely radio. 
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| Today in Entrepreneurial History: May 30 Posted: 30 May 2012 11:06 AM PDT 
On this day in 1631, La Gazette, first French newspaper was published. Before the advent of the printed Gazette, reports on current events usually circulated as hand-written papers La Gazette quickly became the center of France for the dissemination of news, and thus an excellent means for controlling the flow of information in a highly centralized state. Cardinal Richelieu and Louis XIII were frequent contributors. La Gazette had for objective to inform its readers on events from the noble court and abroad. It was mostly focused on political and diplomatic affairs. In 1762, its name became Gazette de France, with the sub title Organe officiel du Government royal (Official organ of the royal Government). In 1787, Charles-Joseph Panckouke already proprietary of the Mercure de France and the Moniteur universel — that he had just founded — rented the magazine. La Gazette remained silent about the birth of the revolution, and didn’t even mention the storming of the Bastille on the 14th of July in 1789, limiting itself to government acts. For the satisfaction of his customers, Charles-Joseph Panckouke published a supplement, Le Gazettin (little Gazette), that gave its readers summaries of debates at the National Constituent Assembly. In 1791, the ministry of foreign affairs, who owned La Gazette, took it back. Nicolas Fallet was named director and it became a tribune for the Girondists. He was succeeded by Sébastien Roch Nicolas Chamfort. La Gazette became a daily magazine in 1792, 1 May. Following the execution of Louis XVI in 1793, 21 January, it was renamed Gazette nationale de France (National Gazette of France) . The tone of its articles remained both very prudent and impartial. 
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| What You Can Learn From Google Posted: 30 May 2012 06:30 AM PDT 
Google is well-known for the way they treat their employees. While the average business cannot afford to feed their employees three meals a day, among other benefits, USA Today does have some ideas your small business can learn from them. Launch and iterate. Even the smartest of the hyper-educated Google leaders cannot predict which products and features will attract a sizable user base. Instead, they urge teams to launch quickly and iterate — in other words, stick with, and perfect, what’s working — based on what they learn from their users. Rather than spending time perfecting a product that might not work, get it out there, and let the feedback guide future development. Fail fast. If you try a lot of stuff by launching early and iterating, you’ll fail at most attempts. This is the secret to innovation. Failure is not a bad thing, but slow failure in the market is. Launch, iterate and declare the failures as quickly as you can. Most importantly, learn from those failures to help guide future efforts. Ask forgiveness, not permission. This mantra was important to mobilize every Google employee in the company to do the things they felt were right without worrying about what approvals they needed to do it. The idea is to remove barriers and to empower employees to act quickly. Reward employees for taking initiative, and treat their missteps as any other failure — something to learn from, but not to dwell on. What is most important is they become stewards of your company to make the best decisions without seeking 100 approvals to do so.
Photo by Robert Scoble 
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| Books: Sleeping Your Way To The Top In Business Posted: 30 May 2012 06:06 AM PDT  PRWeb:
Ben Angel, leading personal branding specialist, wants small business to sleep their way to the top. For nearly a decade now, he has been on the quest for reasons why small business and their owners fail. His book, 'Sleeping Your Way to The Top in Business' has been downloaded over 10,000 times from his site in the last month alone. Its newly found success has been attributed to struggling business owners seeking refreshing marketing ideas with a twist. In a recent interview, we asked him about the common mistakes that can lead any enterprise to its untimely demise. "Now," says Angel, "small business owners must increase their marketing efforts ten-fold just to achieve the same results they previously enjoyed prior to unstable economic conditions. Businesses that tell a cautionary tale of a regurgitated business are putting themselves at risk of fading into the background." Mr Angel advises small business must quit duplicating the strategies of their competitors to survive. "The more crowded and accessible the global marketplace becomes, the more challenging it can be to uphold the unique selling points (USP's) responsible for your initial success. Once the USP of any business has been cloned enough times, it becomes the norm. And once something is normal it fails to stand out, resulting in boundaries being pushed further and further just in order to create any significant impact."
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| Fighting Fraud In Your Business Posted: 30 May 2012 05:51 AM PDT 
Worried about fraud within your company? The Washington Post has a few tips to help prevent it from happening to you. Confirm who's handling fraud control. "Do a quick and dirty assessment of fraud control," Edwards said. "One of the questions I always ask [clients] is, 'What are your responsibilities for fraud and misconduct management?' If nobody has responsibility across a senior level, they have to establish some kind of roles and responsibilities." It can be a working group, but someone needs to quickly identify areas that may need action. Screen and monitor those who touch or track money. Background checks are a must for accounting workers, and division of labor is also a good idea, especially for things like who gets the mail and who deposits checks. "It's good to have a few different people working on those things so that no single person has access or control over the entire system," Wolfgang said. And make sure accounting workers take vacations. "If someone's involved in fraud, they'll be reluctant to take time off because if somebody else gets in their job for a few weeks, they'll see that something's going on," she said. Conduct basic fraud-awareness training. It can be as simple as getting employees together and explaining that fraud can occur in any organization and describing what they need to know and how they can speak up if they see something unusual. "It's Awareness 101, and it lets employees know that you're watching," Edwards says. "It serves as a detection element in and of itself."
Photo by Images Money 
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