Investors are out there willing to provide you with enough money to keep your business up and running. You have to have a clear concept of the purpose of your business and where it’s headed in the future. Any lack of clarity in your presentation will result in investors backing out of giving you money. The key is to let the investor know how they’re going to get their money back. The desired outcome is for them to make money, not break even. If you find a way to make it obvious that your business has serious revenue potential, you won’t have a hard time getting investors. Some businesses hire individuals for the sole purpose of making presentations to investors. Odds are you’re not going to have enough money to hire such an individual, so you have to practice to make sure you can do an adequate job yourself.

Each state has its own set of guidelines for how to properly establish a business. You need to research these rules before you start working. The last thing you would want to do is operate outside of the law. One of the main things you have to do is acquire a business license. This process will require a small fee and the completion of a large amount of paperwork. Sometimes thisis all you have to do to get your business free and clear in the eyes of the state, but you can never be too sure. Research the laws regardless of what you think you know.

More and more businesses are picking up rewards credit cards. They’re making purchases at a rapid pace, so getting something out of the money they spend is a worthwhile pursuit. Normal people would have a hard time benefiting from rewards cards because the amount of money they spend is limited. Businesses have a larger amount of transactions and spend a lot more money. Naturally, they’re going to incur more rewards than the average person. Rewards credit cards are saving businesses that use them millions of dollars on an annual basis. Any business who isn’t using rewards credit cards right away should start using them right away. If you don’t know which card fits your business look at www.plasticrewards.com and you can compare different credit cards.

Best of luck starting your new endeavor.

To win the laptop, simply be the first one to find the right landing page on Dell.com and then Tweet or blog the location. All others who Tweet, blog, or publicly share the correct location on Google+ will be entered into a sweepstakes to win one of ten coupons worth $499 from Dell.

You can also enter the sweepstakes for the gift certificates by sharing the news about the Treasure Hunt itself on your Twitter account, public Google+ profile, or blog.

The first clue for the laptop can be found right now on Dell’s laptop page. There will be seven clues in all.

Happy treasure hunting!

Why the GoMo Meter is great: I wanted to submit this great tool that I learned that is free to all users who are interested in mobile optimizing their website. You can type in your current website URL and test how it would look on a phone- the tool also gives great feedback on what you can do to make the experience better. It also connects you with vendors who can help!

This was a Small and Medium Business resource submitted by Alana Hall. 

Picture this: a business world in which all parties always meet their obligations—customers always pay on time, your product always functions exactly as it should, people remember every verbal agreement word-for-word, and no one ever has a difference of opinion when it comes to the status of a job. If this sounds like pure fantasy, it is—in the real business world, customers don’t always pay on time, your product may break down occasionally, people forget about verbal agreements, and people do have differences of opinion. With this swirl of confusion around you, how can you possibly expect your small business to get off the ground? How can you protect yourself from unforeseen issues that threaten to undermine the success of your start-up? In this case, your knight in shining armor is documentation, and lots of it.

The documents you keep as a business owner are your legal safety net. They constitute demonstrable proof that events actually happened, that services were actually performed, and that all parties willingly entered into the exchange. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak—and despite your best efforts, you won’t be able to remember clearly every factual detail of every interaction you’ve ever had with a customer. Not that it would have a legal bearing, anyway; the laws of the land require documents, and if a disagreement ever arises between you and one of your clients, you won’t have much of a leg to stand on if you don’t have any proof.

Some of the most important items that you as a small business owner should be documenting along the way are leases, rental agreements, storage agreements, purchase orders and invoices, contracts for services, return policies, and store policies. As you’re creating these documents (or paying someone else to do it for you), you can’t draft each policy with the expectation that everything in your business will always go smoothly. You’ve got to think about every contingency—every random or unforeseen circumstance that could potentially land you in legal trouble. Think about equipment failures, natural disasters, human errors, and other factors outside of your control that could have an adverse effect on the customer’s experience. Make sure that all your bases are covered, and then put it in writing. By requiring your customers to agree to the terms you’ve set forth, you’re protecting yourself in the event that something should go wrong down the road. If a customer isn’t willing to agree to the terms, they’re perfectly welcome to walk away—which is just fine. It’s better to lose out on one sale now rather than get into a messy legal dispute later, especially if the dispute arose because you didn’t think everything through.

So while getting into the habit of keeping good records can be a bit of a hassle up front, you’ll be ever-so-grateful you did in the event that something goes wrong—and it will.

What started as a fun show, turned into some free business advice. The Sharks will analyze the offer, and then accept, counter with another offer, or decline to make an offer–and in the process they offer some good general advice to the business owners. Every small business owner could learn a few things from a group of highly successful business men and women.  Whether you watch for the entertainment or to pick out some great business tips it’s been a fun and helpful show to watch. It’s a great Friday evening show for those that like to stay in.

And for now, you can check out a few business tips from the Sharks here.

There are so many holidays throughout the year that it is easy to pick a few dispersed about equal distances apart and create holiday traditions.  Some obvious holidays are Halloween, Christmas, Easter, the 4^th of July.  Other holidays that could be used are Valentine’s day, St. Patrick’s Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, and Thanksgiving.  You could even pick more holidays or other events like birthdays to celebrate, and simply institute a small tradition for some of the in-between ones and bigger traditions for other holidays. Remember that there is a nice balance between increasing productivity and wasting time when dealing with office parties, so you need to have parties often enough to keep spirits high and employees engaged, but not too often where you are losing valuable work time and employees are less productive.

Christmas is the most obvious and most often celebrated holiday at work.  You can do many things including decorating with Christmas lights – white lights can be especially calming for employees.  Some other ideas are holding a Christmas party in which you can have karaoke, an appearance by Santa Clause, a white elephant gift exchange, and some nice snacks.  If you have a bigger budget in your company you could have dinner and door prizes for your employees.

Halloween is another fun holiday that many companies overlook.  It is good for the adults to get out of their element and dress up for fun events.  Some adult Halloween costume ideas include movie themed characters (such a Davy Jones from the Pirates movies), cartoon characters (such as Homer Simpson), presidents, etc.  Halloween parties can really get the employees laughing and enjoying each others company.

The 4^th of July is a great time to have a party outside of the office.  Hold a pool party, a barbeque, etc.  Get your employees outside, eating, and participating in some fun activities.  Frisbee, obstacle courses, etc. are great ideas for getting your employees enjoying their time together.  You can also easily invite family members to events like this.

Some fun holidays are Valentines Day and St Patrick’s Day.  You can decorate silly little brown paper bags and deliver valentines to each other.  You and offer cookies or cupcakes to your employees at a little lunch break type appreciation party.  St. Patrick’s Day would be a fun holiday in which to get everyone wearing green.  Offer 4 leaf clover buttons/pins so that no one gets pinched.  Offer a pot of gold in the break room (popcorn, chocolate wrapped in gold foil, etc.).

Get creative and get your employees excited about the holidays and feeling appreciated.  When you employees feel appreciated and have their spirits lifted they are going to perform better and have a higher quality of work.  They try harder to get to work on time and show you that they can be responsible.  A happy work environment is a great one.

Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison was quoted as saying that genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. Inventors put in countless hours developing their inventions, but often the hardest work is getting the invention to market. So how can inventors and small businesses get help?

The Big Ideas Worldwide Invention Contest

During the month of February xClosure is running a national search campaign to find 5 products to market nationally. Winning the contest involves 3 steps:

1. Fill out the application here before March 1st
2. 10 finalists will present in person or via the web to a panel of live judges on March 21st
3. 5 winners will be selected to have their product marketed

This is an opportunity to tap into the talent of an experienced marketing team. All product descriptions, details and files submitted are protected under a mutual NDA/non-compete/non-circumvent agreement to protect your idea and product.

So take 10 minutes to fill out the application at http://www.xclosure.com/application-page and good luck!