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This just in from BusinessWeek: “Nouriel Roubini, the NYU economist who accurately predicted the financial meltdown, writes an important commentary in The Globe and Mail about two disparate American economies: “There is a smaller one that is slowly recovering and a larger one that is still in a deep and persistent downturn,” he says.”

Roubini goes on to outline two separate Economies emerging within the United States — a smaller economy driven by large corporations that has slowly begun to emerge from recession, and the larger economy that is still in a deep and persistent downturn.

Echoing what I have been discussing in recent months with small business owners and in my Twitter postings @marketyoursite, small business owners Continue reading ‘Roubini – Small Business Behind the Lagging US Recovery’ »

All business have been impacted by the economy in the last 2 years. Businesses have gone bankrupt; have had to layoff employees, cut back on productivity and much more. Small businesses are the ones that have been most impacted by this economy. They are forced to run their own office with out administrative help, therefore, loosing time and not being able to focus on the core of their business, to make it grow.

As we listen to the news, the economy is not getting better; the Dept. of Labor has been reporting that there is a huge rise in unemployment in the last year alone. Here are 3 strategies a small business can implement, to help them Continue reading ‘Small Business Survival – 3 Strategies to Help Your Business in Today's Economy’ »

How many times have you walked down the aisle of the supermarket and saw something that made you say something like “Finally, a package that I can use in my car! I can’t believe it took them so long to figure that out.” I know I have. But the irony is, the underlying reason it often takes big companies so long to launch new products is the exact process that entrepreneurs mock, yet desperately need.

Don’t think for a second that these lumbering giants don’t understand the benefits of being first to market, innovative and creative. Many big companies have talented, entrepreneurial managers who dream of how they will launch the next great household item, in record time, galvanizing the organization behind them. (I know, I was once one of them). However, the reality in the world of the Fortune 500 (and beyond) is that they have a need to minimize risk. Continue reading ‘Small Business Planning – How to Reduce Risk Without Building Bureaucracy’ »

Well, if you are one of the 15 million Americans who are planning to start a business in 2010, I’d like to advise you that the time to start your business is right now in 2009. You should not wait until 2010 to start your business rather, you should start right now, and be ready to take on customers on January 1, 2010. The best time to start a business is right before the recession ends, and as the business expansion period starts.

Guess what, that’s already happened. We are already going into an expansion period and you should have already started your business. Even if we go into a double dip recession you’d be much better off to start your business now than to wait. If you wait until everything is perfect in 2010, you will have missed the boat, and be playing catch-up as the competition increases and the consumers come back. Did you know that 10% of all people in the US Continue reading ‘15 Million Americans in 2009 Are Planning to Start a Small Business in 2010’ »

How do you judge the success of a small business? There are many ways to define success, and yet I believe that many small independent business entrepreneurs have a misconception of what it is to be successful. Not long ago, I was sitting in a Starbucks coffee shop talking to a small business owner who was bragging to me about how great his company was doing and the size he had grown his business. He was telling me how many employees he had.

Nevertheless, the true success of a business would be to have very little outgoing expenses, in other words very few employees, and having incredible productivity from the few employees it had, along with an awesome computer system, great machinery, and absolute efficiency in all other Continue reading ‘More Employees in a Small Business Does Not Necessarily Equate to Profits’ »

Lately, the recent recession has been on everyone’s minds. Credit suffered, more people became bankrupt, and many people lost their jobs. Today, according to reports, the economy is starting to recover. However, many skeptics still think this is a short stint. Some seem to believe that things are only getting worse.According to statistics from the Federal Reserve, things are starting to look up. Read on to find out.

Continue reading ‘Top 5 Reason Why The Economy is Recovering’ »