General Business

By Cindy Bates, Microsoft

Even entrepreneurs with amazing ideas weren’t born knowing how to navigate all of the challenges of running a business. The small business owners I speak with regularly share the impact their role models and mentors have had as sources of business guidance and inspiration. Now there’s another place to turn for examples of entrepreneurial success: a new online exhibit created by the National Women’s History Museum (NWHM). This exhibit highlights the impressive journey of women entrepreneurs throughout the last century. It’s something all business owners – male and female alike – can relate to and learn from.

“From Ideas to Independence: A Century of Entrepreneurial Women” leads visitors from the earliest days of female entrepreneurship in the early 20th century through today. If you’ve encountered obstacles in your quest to start or grow a small business, this exhibit will fuel your fire to keep pursuing your goals. Not only does it detail motivational stories of women in business, but it explores the many obstacles they’ve faced – from social pressures to financial discrimination. (more…)

For entrepreneurs, business school presents a unique set of choices and opportunities that can drastically alter a founder’s chance of success — for better or worse.

I founded Troop ID while I was an MBA candidate at Harvard Business School in February of 2010. And while today we employ 17 people and sign up nearly 1,000 new members daily, our path to success would have been much swifter had I leveraged the resources at my fingertips while in business school.

Here are 5 of my top lessons — many of them learned the hard way — for other MBAs considering entrepreneurship:

1. Research vesting carefully.

If you have a co-founder, then you will inevitably face a choice about how to split ownership of the company. Initially, this will seem simple: 50/50. But what happens when your co-founder – comparing his ramen noodle diet to the average starting salary of your MBA graduating class — decides to take a high-paying corporate job several months later and wants to remain an equal owner? (more…)

Small businesses often struggle to survive. In fact, 50% of American small businesses close up shop within their first year.

So what are the secrets to staying in business and locking down success? This infographic from Intuit takes a look at small businesses — what industries they’re in, what cities they thrive in, and what they’re doing to stay in business.

When it comes to longevity, small business is often the tortoise in the race. And we all know how that particular story turned out. (more…)

Definition: Closing the business as quickly as possible after 1st initial contact.

Whether you’re a hunter sales rep, a farmer sales rep, inside sales or outside sales, having the ability to control and at times shorten the sales process is a powerful tool to have in your arsenal. Throughout my sales career, the most common obstacles and stalls that lengthen the sales process have been: “Send me a proposal…. Call me tomorrow/next week/next month…. I need to think about this more…. I really don’t have the time to do all of this right now…. I need to check on my other options…. I need to check with my partner”

There are 5 areas to focus on that will help your control and shorten your sales process. Those areas are:

(1) Your confidence and mindset
(2) Attempt to close business on the spot
(3) Setting clear next steps
(4) Creating urgency and,
(5) Asking the tough questions. (more…)