f you’re a small business owner or entrepreneur, you probably know the feeling of having strategic problems and not knowing where to turn for advice. A solution worth considering is joining a group (or forming one) of like-minded people who can support you in your business by offering their perspectives, and for whom you can do the same. These types of groups are often called Mastermind groups.

Sandi Webster of Consultants 2 Go, belongs to the Women Presidents’ Organization (WPO), a non-profit membership organization for women presidents of multimillion-dollar companies, which functions as her mastermind group. “I joined because I was looking for women who were at a particular level of business where I could share ideas, and better yet, get new ideas for my management consulting business,” Webster said. The cost is $1650 a year and includes monthly chapter meetings. Read more…

Tags: mastermind group

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Microsoft co-founder and uber-billionaire Paul Allen owns a ton of assets, most of which can fit on the head of a pin (with room to spare). His assets are mostly patents on technologies acquired over the years.

Now he is suing Google, Apple, AOL, eBay, Facebook, Netflix, Office Depot, Office Max, Staples, Yahoo and YouTube for patent infringement. The suit relates to patents having to do with online navigation and viewing technology. Forgetting for a moment whether the suit has merit, I’m curious how business owners feel about Allen’s strategy and the larger issue of patent trollers who acquire rights to ideas so they can later sue and settle with companies that may have a similar concept. Read more…

Tags: patent infringement

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Most entrepreneurs have survived a cliffhanger moment (or two): a period during which something happened that nearly put you out of business. Maybe it was when you had just a week’s operating cash (or less) in the bank before it was curtains. Or you had to coax people to work for free until the VC financing came through. Or you had a personal crisis that derailed you almost to the point of giving up your business. Entrepreneurship is about overcoming obstacles in extraordinary ways. Here are stories of entrepreneurs who peered over the abyss…but didn’t fall in.

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Merrill Lynch has a great webcast called  Reinventing Retirement: Second Acts, recorded in June 2010. It profiles over-age-55 people who are starting businesses. Every Baby Boomer should watch it. I coach corporate executives who want to start businesses as encore careers. This webcast illustrates many of the key points I coach potential entrepreneurs to consider.

One very important point the webcast addresses is that some people start businesses because they have been downsized and can’t find a job. That’s a predicament that’s hard for anyone to deal with and even worse for older people.Merrill Lynch has a great webcast called  Reinventing Retirement: Second Acts, recorded in June 2010. It profiles over-age-55 people who are starting businesses. Every Baby Boomer should watch it. I coach corporate executives who want to start businesses as encore careers. This webcast illustrates many of the key points I coach potential entrepreneurs to consider.

One very important point the webcast addresses is that some people start businesses because they have been downsized and can’t find a job. That’s a predicament that’s hard for anyone to deal with and even worse for older people. Read more…

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My company sponsored a special event of a local industrial association recently and we made some good contacts. We had a booth at which we were promoting our products, and we saw about a hundred people. Of those hundred, exactly one called me afterward as a potential client. She’s a commercial insurance rep.

Her phone call was brief, confident and effective. She said she’d like to get together with me to review my insurance and see if she can save me money. No long-winded build-up to asking for an appointment, no 20 questions to get to the moment of truth, no big speech about herself. Just a simple request for my time, which resulted in an upcoming appointment. I am happy with my current insurance, but some of that has to do with inertia and habit. The fact is, I haven’t reviewed it for potential cost savings in five years. So she’s got at least a 50 percent chance of gaining a new client. Read more…

Tags: selling skills, small business

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I like a good haircut. Not just because I feel cooler in this ridiculously hot New York summer, but because I talk to my barber, Nick, about small business.

Nick’s about 35, lives in the same town as me, has a wife and two young children. In addition to cutting hair, he owns an Italian ice place in town that has been an institution for as long as anyone can remember. It’s a great business. The gross margin on ices is about 90 percent and he owns the roadside, freestanding building that’s open from May through September. I learned a few things from Nick. Read more...

Tags: Franchising, retail, small business

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Are you an entrepreneur who’s also an iPad early adopter, using or developing applications that help your business or the businesses of others? About.com wants you to share with the world your favorite iPad business app(s), why they’re important to you, and what you wish someone would develop for the iPad.

Tags: iPad apps, smal business technology

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Most businesses with under $1 million in revenue (which is most businesses) sell at a pitiful multiple of earnings when their owners decide it’s time. Typically they get two or three times their pre-tax profit, if they’re lucky. How can you get more juice out the company you’ve slaved over? John Warrillow, author of Built To Sell: How to Turn Your Business Into One You Can Sell, has five suggestions.

Recurring revenue: demonstrate that your customers come back to purchase regularly and you’ll drive up the value of your business because buyers will have confidence your sales will continue long into the future. Try to find an element of your business that has a consumable component e.g. toner cartridges not printers. Read more…

Tags: selling a business, small business, valuation

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