A great logo design creates brand recognition and customer loyalty that if presented correctly, can last for decades. The first step to creating the perfect logo for your business is to determine what is most important to you. What colors do you want to use to depict your brand? What type of symbol? With so many options to choose from it is important to ask yourself these questions before you get started. It all has to work in unison: the symbol, the color choice, and the message. Without getting all of these elements correct the logo simply won’t work. By breaking your logo into two categories you can keep your design on track for success.
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Starting your small business from the comfort of your own home can be a great way to create a relaxed working environment for yourself.

A home-based business allows you to create your own hours and not have to commute each day to an uncomfortable office space. However, working from home is not for everyone.

Often people dive into home-based ventures head first simply because they want to work by their own rules, and don’t take the time to consider their personal work style. Some individuals thrive in situations where deadlines and boundaries are set for them and they don’t have to rely on self-motivation to get work done.

Here are a few things to consider when starting your business from home. Read the full entry

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Ever since Google’s Penguin algorithm update was pushed out last April, website owners have been running scared of link building. Links are still very much the bread and butter of SEO – but what Penguin 1.0 and 2.0 have shown us is that the quality is far more important than quantity when it comes to your link building profile.

But what constitutes a “quality” link? It’s not always so easy to tell, especially when you are under pressure to beef up your link profile and clean up past actions that might have landed you in hot water. Read the full entry

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If you’re a business person, you most probably use a technique or two to manage information about your partners, customers and prospects. In the initial stage, you may feel okay with compiling your clients’ business cards in a card holder or saving their phone numbers in your cell phone. Nevertheless, as your business starts expanding, you’ll realize the importance of a more systematic way to store and access client information.

CRM, or Customer Relationship Management, software is a useful management tool for all businesses, big or small. The reason behind this is that the success of any business enterprise depends on its consumers – or, more precisely, customer loyalty. Read the full entry

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When your business relies on sales, you need to stay connected even when you’re on the road. Missing a client’s call or an incoming lead because you’re away from the office can have a huge impact on your revenues.

According to Forbes, the value of your incoming leads drops dramatically the longer you wait to contact them – after only 5 hours, your chances of making contact with a lead drops by 3,000 times as compared to calling within five minutes. Read the full entry

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It’s a simple fact in the world of startups: Failure is all too common. Most startup fails in one way or another but it’s also the key to learning quickly and making a successful business.

The level of failure is the element that often differs and can mean the difference between a learning lesson and seeing it crumble to the ground.

Over the past 15 years there have been many significant failures in the startup world, especially those that were in the .com industry in the late ’90s and earlier 2000′s. While these companies fail in an epic fashion they offer startups and small business owners a valuable lesson. Read the full entry

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Starting you’re a new business takes significant planning. With 69% of small businesses failing within 2 years (Tweet this stat!), according to 2013 numbers as reported by Business Finance Store, its imperative you have a clear idea of the reality of starting and financing a business.

Not only do you need to come up with a product or service idea and create a business plan – you need to figure out how to acquire the financing you need to get your startup off the ground and keep it humming with minimal customers to start. Read the full entry

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Entrepreneur is defined as, “A person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on financial risk to do so.”

Being an entrepreneur requires you to take risks in your personal and professional life by creating your own path. However, there are a number of resources that you should keep in your backpack as you travel into the wide blue yonder of online entrepreneurship. Read the full entry

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Synergy can be a powerful force to grow your business. Think about the ‘hot’ neighborhoods in your city — the chances are, there’s an up-and-coming district somewhere that was little more than an ignored a few years ago.

This doesn’t happen because one hip eatery moving into town. When a few more restaurants, art galleries or yoga studios open in the neighborhood, suddenly everyone’s business is booming. Read the full entry

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Look out your window: if there’s a line of cranky employees outside waiting to punch a time clock before starting their shift it might be time to invest in attendance tracking software.

Using a time clock is the equivalent of asking your employees to yell “here” every morning as you dutifully check off their name in an attendance notebook similar to the one your second grade teacher used. Read the full entry

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