How skipping high school helped Student of Fortune founder Sean McCleese find success in the tutoring business

How skipping high school helped Student of Fortune founder Sean McCleese find success in the tutoring business

Plextor's PX-B120U external, USB-powered Blu-ray drive adds data backup and high-def video capabilities to even the most basic portable PC.

Sutus and other similar devices combine phone, file, e-mail and web servers into 1 magic box.

Heed these tips and you'll boost SEO and connect with more customers.

Heed these tips and you'll boost SEO and connect with more customers.

4 tips to help you 'tell it like it is' with your clients

A lot of theories have been circulated for why small businesses aren't hiring -- the bank lending crunch, emotional nervousness about the economy, high taxes, low sales. This week, noted Case Western Reserve University professor Scott Shane weighed in with his theory: It's all about the residential real-estate collapse. Shane gives several reasons why the real-estate bubble's pop has paralyzed entrepreneurs. Among them:
1) A disproportionate amount of the products and services small businesses sell are tied to home sales. Independent realtors, small contruction contractors, interior decorators, decor boutiques...they all take the hit when home sales slow.
2) Many entrepreneurs have historically used their own home as their business-funding piggybank. With many homes now devoid of equity, there's less cash cushion with which to take a risk and put on a new hire.
3) Banks' lending was choked off in part because of their mortgage-loan problems. So just when the home-equity piggybank ran dry, banks also balked at loans.
I've interviewed Shane before and found him a very knowledgeable source. His theory makes solid sense, and reveals how home sales ripple through the broader U.S. economy.
What do you think? Is real estate the man behind the curtain in the small-business hiring slump? Leave a comment and let us know if your own home-equity situation has impacted your hiring decisions.

Bros. According to the Urban Dictionary, they're young, white alpha males found most commonly in Southern California beach cities, they drive lifted trucks, wear tilted mesh hats and talk primarily about chicks and beer.  

So how could this ripped-up sector of society be beneficial to entrepreneurs? Well, it just so happens that frosted-tips aren't the only thing these dudes have to offer. They also have a fresh disposable income and a constant desire for the latest and greatest products available. Bros are trendsetters, and if you can, it might be wise to align your business with their needs. 

Major clothing retailer American Eagle has recognized the buying potential of partying 18 to 34 year-old guys and recently released the wildly-popular Bro baseball hat. Now, for just $19.50, you can get a bright red, vintage-inspired cap with the word "BRO" prominently embroidered on the front. (If a bro likes one thing, it's labeling himself as such).


Though you may not be interested in manufacturing "BRO" apparel, there are many creative ways to get your product or service in front of this powerful demographic. A great way to start could be to attend BroCon, a summit in New York City for entrepreneurs who want to learn best practices and proven strategies for marketing to young men. To take place September 25 at the New York Athletic Club, the second-annual conference will feature more than a dozen speakers including executives from Maxim, Playboy and AskMen.com.

The killer BroCon swag bag seems reason enough to attend. The limited-edition gym bag is filled with gifts from the NBA, Dave and Buster's, Velvet Cigars and BroBible.com. Attendees will also have access to a complimentary brunch at the world-famous Carnegie Deli and a top-shelf open bar.

To request an invitation to BroCon 2010, visit brocon.org/home/invitation. Group and student discounts are available.

The e-mail message was alarming and ominous:



Thinking the above message must be spam, the folks at The Inn at Mount Snow in West Dover, VT, immediately logged onto their Facebook account, where they were promptly confronted by the following message at the top of their Page:

Definitely not spam, and according a statement provided by Facebook to Entrepreneur magazine, it's intentional.

"With millions of Pages on Facebook, we rely on our automated systems to help us best categorize them as Business or Community Pages," said a Facebook spokesperson. "As you can imagine, when sweeping through Pages of this volume our automated systems are not perfect, and occasionally some Business Pages are miscategorized as Community Pages." (Note: See the e-mail message above for Facebook's own definition of a Community Page.)

To correct this, Facebook has created an appeals process that helps business owners recategorize their Pages if they believe Facebook's automated system has made a mistake.

If your Facebook Business Page has been improperly recategorized as a Community Page, follow these steps to appeal the decision:

1. Visit Facebook's "Request for Page Category Review" page:
   
   
2. Enter your Page name (use the exact name as it appears on your Business Page).
   
   
3. Enter your Page URL (ex. www.Facebook.com/TheInnAtMountSnow).
   
   
4. Indicate your role in administering the Page in question (employee of the company, one the Page's official Admins, owner of the business, etc.).
   
   
5. Describe the Category under which your Page resides. This part may be tricky because, let's face it, who remembers the exact category and sub-category they entered for their Business Page upon creating it? Choices include local business; brand, product, or organization; and Artist, band, or public figure.
   
   
6. Click the Submit button

How long it takes for someone from Facebook to review your appeal is unknown. Research for this story indicates some businesses have waited more than two months, during which the official category status of their Page did not change.

One thing's for certain. If you receive or see a recategorization message from Facebook, don't ignore it. And while no one knows for sure what makes Facebook's automated systems flag a Business Page as being miscategorized, taking the following steps just might avoid it happening in the first place or speed along the appeals process:

1. Secure a Vanity URL for Your Business Page: At the time they received Facebook's recategorization notice, The Inn At Mount Snow's Facebook Page URL was: http://www.facebook.com/pages/West-Dover-VT/The-Inn-At-Mount-Snow/130852016965?ref=ts. While there's no way of telling for sure, Facebook's automated system may have viewed "West-Dover-VT" as being more of a Community Page attribute than a business attribute. As I point out in The Complete Idiot's Guide to Facebook, Facebook allows Business Page owners to request a specific URL for pages. Rather than live with the Facebook-generated URL (as in the example provided above), you can tell customers to find you on Facebook at facebook.com/YourCompanyNameHere (which is what The Inn at Mount Snow has recently done). Learn more about Facebook URLs (called User Names) at www.facebook.com/username.

2. Update Your Business Page: Customers and others --and maybe Facebook's automated system for categorizing pages--have a reasonable expectation that your business's Facebook Page is going to be kept up-to-date, and the number-one way of doing that is to create and post a consistent stream of status updates. One update per day is ideal, but if you can't do that, one every other day should suffice. Moreover, keeping the dialogue related to your business may also prove to be beneficial to avoiding recategorization.

3. Continue adding fans: Facebook's automated system for recategorizing Business and Community Pages may rely on fan data or demographics to determine whether your page is related to a business or a cause. And if your fan base isn't growing, that might be one flag among many that your Business Page should be classified as a Community page. Whenever it's appropriate to do so, promote your Facebook Business Page, both on- and offline. In addition, post status updates and notes that are worthy of your fans commenting, liking and sharing your information with others both on and off Facebook. Here again, fan activity--especially a lack thereof--may be a flag to Facebook's recategorization system.

In the downturn, many companies have scrambled to change what they do. They're quickly added products or services, introduced multiple new versions, marketed to many new audiences.

So maybe it's time to ask -- are you in over your head? Unfocused? Are you simply doing too much?

Some businesses have taken the opposite tack in the downturn, stripping down their company to the bare essentials. They're staying laser-focused on what matters most to their customers, creating bare-bones products or services. Then, if demand dictates, they might add one feature or two.

This has the advantage of keeping marketing very simple as well. In this time of pinched marketing budgets, that can be a real plus.

On the technology side, the do-less idea dovetails with the trend toward lean startups. Shrinking technology-development costs have translated into tech startups either seeking smaller venture or angel funding rounds, or just bootstrapping all the way to profits. Many can get a basic version of their software ready for customers, and are just putting it out. Then, customer feedback may help them gradually add features or alter the audience or direction of the product. 

Companies have been sharing best practices in the lean-startup niche through Lean Startup Meetup Groups, of which there are now more than 50. >

When sales go down, some companies tend to go a little bit crazy. There's a frantic scramble to find something, anything, that might generate more sales. Business owners start 10 new initiatives at once, try to capture three different new target markets, or expand to five new cities in a quarter. 

All of which can add up to scattered energy and the inability to do even one thing really well. And that can turn off customers and make sales go down even more.

What's your recession survival strategy? Is your company doing more, or have you streamlined and focused in on doing less? Leave a comment and let us know.

6 tips for making sure your business reports deliver succinct, measurable insights

6 tips for making sure your business reports deliver succinct, measurable insights

High-fashion rental entrepreneurs are giving couture-hungry consumers a small--and affordable--taste of the good life.

High-fashion rental entrepreneurs are giving couture-hungry consumers a small--and affordable--taste of the good life.

10 ways to deal with mid-year burnout and revitalize your team

Where can you go when you need a loan and banks aren't lending? One answer is to private lenders who make you pay through the nose.

New reports are that so-called "hard money" lending is on the rise -- and small businesses' use of hard money threatens many of these business's very survival. Long a frequent lending source for real-estate speculators, hard money has been inching into more mainstream small-business life. In this arena, it's sometimes known as "merchant cash advances." 

In essence, a hard-money lender is just a person or finance organization that still has money to lend. And they make you pay through the nose for it -- 36 percent interest and more is not uncommon. Unlike consumer lending, business lending isn't subject to the same interest-rate caps and consumer-protection laws that keep lending rates from soaring to the sky for shoppers. The world of hard money is relatively unregulated, and scams abound.

A recent investigation by the Washington Business Journal of what happened to small-business borrowers who all used the same hard-money lender, RapidAdvance, was not encouraging. Many of the businesses had gone bust trying to pay the steep interest rates. Surviving businesses were often sued by RapidAdvance when their payments slowed. The lender charged that many were trying to cheat them. 

RapidAdvance got repaid by merchants in part through taking a percentage of credit-card charges customers made to the companies. If payments declined due to the downturn, RapidAdvance sued, accusing the businesses of secretly using an alternative credit-card terminal to get paid while circumventing RapidAdvance's automatic-deduction system for collecting its payments.

Ultimately, hard money works a lot like payday lenders do for consumers. Rates are high, and the basic idea is you will quickly repay the loan. If anything goes wrong, you end up paying so much in interest it's hard to ever get your head above water again. 

Most real-estate deals fueled by hard money work on the same theory -- a quick sale will generate cash and pay off the loan before interest piles up too high. If the property doesn't sell, or a small business's sales drop off, the business owner is in deep yogurt on a hard-money loan. The additional interest costs can eat up all profits and put the business six feet under.

In an iffy economy such as the one we're in now, hard money is a big-time gamble. It's too hard to predict whether you can pay off the loan.

For most small businesses, there should be better ways of accessing capital. You can sell your receivables -- also known as factoring. These days, you can even get a purchase-order loan, which pays off as soon as goods are delivered and your customers pays the bill.

If you think banks won't lend to you, you might want to give them another try. 

Just remember, hard money is a lending area that's like the Wild West. Be sure to carefully check out any company you're considering getting a hard-money loan from and talk to customers -- and your local Better Business Bureau -- before you sign anything. This month, the Federal Reserve reported banks have finally started relaxing their loan standards for small businesses, for the first time since late 2006.

Have you used a hard money lender to keep your business going? If so, what was your experience? Leave a comment and let us know.

Shortly after I launched my web design firm in 1995, I did something my accountant told me was pretty crazy. I sold my house in Hollywood, Fla., moved to New York City, cashed in my mutual funds and put every dollar I had into a brownstone in Brooklyn Heights that I couldn't afford on what I was making as a freelance writer.

Looking back, my contrarian bet was a pretty smart move. Not only did my Brooklyn brownstone double in value over the next eight years (I sold it in 2003), but it served as collateral for the credit line that I used to take my company public in 1999. My brownstone also served as a home office for my growing company as well as a great place to raise my two daughters. And thanks to the tax deduction that the government gives for mortgage interest, I was able to own my own home for less than it would have cost to rent a house and an office.

Of course, that was then and this is now.

With housing prices still falling in many parts of the country and home sales plunging now that the government's tax credits have expired, home ownership may not be such a great deal for entrepreneurs and small-business owners any more. If I had tried a similar strategy today with the income and assets I had back then, I might have found that A. I couldn't sell my house in Florida for anything close to what I paid for it B. I couldn't get a mortgage on my Brooklyn brownstone because I'd be considered too risky a borrower and C. I couldn't get a credit line for my company because I would have had no stocks, bonds or other liquid assets to pledge as collateral.

Traditionally, business ownership and home ownership have gone hand in hand. Because shares in a privately held business are generally illiquid and the business may not kick off a whole lot of cash after paying salaries and expenses, home equity has long served as the kind of rock-solid asset entrepreneurs have used to obtain loans and credit lines to grow their companies. With millions of homes now "under water," many business owners have little or no home equity to put up as collateral.

So, if you're running a business and don't currently own a home, does it make sense to buy one rather than continue renting? After all, there are still some pretty incredible deals on the market, and mortgage interest rates have hit new lows.

I think you should consider it, provided you can answer "yes" to the following questions:

1. Will you still have enough capital and cash flow to run your business once you've handed over the down payment and started paying your mortgage?
   
   
2. If you or your spouse has to relocate within the next five years, will you be able to rent out your house for enough to cover your mortgage payments?
   
   
3. Can you use the house as a home office and/or storage facility in addition to a place for you and your family to live?
   
   
4. Does the house have a spare bedroom, carriage house or "mother-in-law's apartment" that you can rent out for extra income in case you need it?
   
   
5. Is the house and lawn small enough that you and your family can take care of it without the help of a landscaper, handyman, etc. that you'll have to pay?
   

I think you see where I'm going with this. Long-term, I think that home ownership still makes sense for small-business owners for the same reasons it always has. Short-term, you need to treat a home purchase no differently from the way you'd treat an investment in your business--and that means focusing on cash flow, not kitchen cabinets.    

John Laramie and his cohorts at ADstruc are taking the multibillion-dollar industry of outdoor advertising where, inexplicably, it's never gone before: to the Web.

Facebook is not just for kids anymore, nor is LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube or the many other popular social media platforms and services. As today's Pew Research Center study entitled "Older Adults and Social Media" concludes, "Social networking use among those ages 50 and older nearly doubled over the past year." In fact, the fastest growing demographic of social networking users consists of Baby Boomers ages 50 to 64. Nearly half (47 percent) of internet users ages 50-64 and about one in four (26 percent) users age 65 and older now use social networking sites, according to the study.

If your business or marketing department has dismissed Facebook and other social networking venues or social media platforms as digital playgrounds for indolent teenagers and twenty-somethings, this Pew Research Center study should be the blaring wake-up call to get you thinking otherwise.

More and more older adults are spending increasing amounts of time on the internet and on social media sites in particular. As you might suspect, they are connecting with old friends, keeping in touch with family members, building personal and professional networks to help find jobs and advance careers, and managing their daily communications. And wherever your company's targeted demographic or secondary market is spending increasing amounts of time, you should be shifting increasing focus on your marketing efforts.

Even if you have a well-established social media presence, this recent study serves to increase awareness of the potential demographic you're reaching via social media. As a result, you may want to revisit your messaging, so it resonates beyond the younger set and has more of cross-generational appeal. In other words, language like "Hey, check this out" or "You guys are gonna love this" might not be your best play.

Assuming you have a business-aligned communication strategy that supports your consumer-related goals, you should already have a strategy for reaching your demographic. If that demographic includes consumers 50 years of age and older, make sure your strategy applies to your social media marketing and consumer-relations efforts as well.