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Three Important Technical Skills Veterans Can Bring to Your Business

September 7, 2012

The compelling reasons for hiring veterans cover the gamut, from the benefits veterans can bring to your company to the tax credits you might receive if you complete a little paperwork. Employees exuding qualities like leadership, adaptability and working well under stress can help any business achieve greater heights.

Yet considering veterans for those qualities alone is only tapping into a small portion of their potential. Many veterans can enlist in your workforce with technical skills that can be a boost to your business. But, in many instances, you have to dig to discover what technical skills lie under the surface. As you interview and evaluate veteran candidates, see if they possess any of these important skills.

1. Mechanical skills. What the military uses, the military repairs. If you’re an entrepreneur in a mechanical field—or own a business with many mechanical assets, like a warehouse or towing company— see what mechanical skills vet applicants can bring to your shop. Some skills may not be listed because they’re not within the scope of a veteran’s former assignment. (more…)

Jumpstarting Growth from The Legal Edge, SmartCEO Magazine

September 5, 2012
By Jack Garson

The JOBS Act promotes investments in small businesses

On April 5, 2012, the new Jumpstart Our Business Start-ups Act became law. The primary purpose of the JOBS Act is to reduce the legal burdens that small businesses face in raising capital.

With this new law, the pendulum has now swung once again toward deregulation, and rather quickly at that. In the wake of the Enron scandal and, later, the financial meltdown on Wall Street in 2008, Congress passed a variety of restrictions on the financial world. First the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and then the Dodd-Frank Act imposed new regulations, including burdensome disclosure requirements for publicly traded companies. These laws were layered on top of the securities acts passed in the 1930s, largely as a consequence of another couple of economic boo-boos: the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression. (more…)

What is a Freight Forwarder? Part 2

September 3, 2012

The Census Bureau serves as the leading source of quality data about the nation’s people and economy. We honor privacy, protect confidentiality, share our expertise globally, and conduct our work openly. We are guided on this mission by our strong and capable workforce, our readiness to innovate, and our abiding commitment to our customers.

Finance Your Venture’s Exporting with the Government’s Help

August 31, 2012

A record $184.4 billion in goods and services were exported by U.S. businesses in March 2012, according to U.S. Commerce Department figures.  If you’re ready to join this growing export community, chances are you will need financing resources to take your small business to the international level.  Consider the SmallBusiness Administration (SBA) and its partners for loan programs to assist you with the various financial needs involved in beginning your exporting endeavor.

Export Express Loan Program. Financing is available for export transactions including support for standby letters of credit and export development expenses such as product literature translation.  The financing can be a term loan or a revolving line of credit.

To find the simplest and quickest financing avenue offered by the SBA, check with your existing lender to see if they participate—if so, you can apply directly with them—or go to the list of participating lenders by state which can be found on the SBA’sExpress Loan site. (more…)

Crowdfunding: The American Dream Reloaded

August 29, 2012

Ever since the JOBs Act was signed into law there have been lots of stories about how bad it will be next year when it’s finally legal to do so. Some people are afraid it will be like the wild west. I think it’s time we all took a deep breath and look at this for what it was intended to do.

According to the SBA, each year more than 10 million people consider starting a business. Out of this group, only three million take the plunge and actually start a business. It’s one of the most exciting endeavors that any person can undertake and it empowers people to take control of their own destiny and not wait for corporate America or the government to give them a job. Will they succeed? Who knows. But their level of success or failure holds true no matter where they get their funding from.

Let’s not stamp out this new and exciting process of accessing capital for those that will be successful and create the jobs our country needs just because it comes with the same risk that every other investment does -of losing it all. Let’s start off crowdfunding next year by admitting that everything in life is a gamble, including Angel and VC investments, (which also fail to make a return more often than is assumed by the general public) and that at least with crowdfunding you have a direct say so in where your money is being invested. (more…)