xactly is a business incubator? A business incubator is an established professional environment that has been put together to help nurture and grow small business start-ups. They help entrepreneurs with the early stages of small businesses development. But not all business start-ups are suited to joining an incubator program. The question is would it be appropriate for yours?
To begin with business incubators are typically divided into categories. These categories focus on the type of business start-ups they are looking to attract. Most everyone has heard of Silicon Valley. Well their goal is to attract new technology start-ups. Other categories include manufacturing and service businesses as well as women and minority owned start-ups. There are also incubators that target niche business and mixed use businesses.
Many small business start-ups often lack serious funding when they are first started. Their ideas are not fully developed and planned out. And as with any business venture a lack of resources can be its downfall. A business incubator provides facilities with lower rents as well as providing access to basic business equipment like copy and fax machines. The sharing of office space and equipment can help reduce the initial costs of starting a business. And by sharing these ongoing expenses it can help keep your operating costs low.
To help overcome your own lack of education and experience a business incubator can provide you with consulting services, mentoring and an atmosphere inductive to learning new things. Everyone around you is an aspiring entrepreneur and business person. They bring their own varied experience and education to the program where your business is a member just as you do. And with many such people together in one place many things can be learned together. All business incubators have the same goal, to help laaunch and grow small businesses. Joining a business incubator often can help propel a business along the path to success which otherwise might not be possible.
Being in a business incubation program can also help to attract investment in your business. Because your business is now an ongoing concern it has the ability to show potential investors more than just an idea. You are able to show what your business looks like in action instead of just telling people about through business plans and projections.
Business incubation is meant to be truly flexible to help meet the needs of the entrepreneur. Some statistics state that small businesses that graduate from a business incubator have a success rate of 87% compared with most small businesses that average less than 50%. They may hold the key to your success in growing your own small business. Business Incubators are being used to accomplish many different objectives, especially those that small businesses excel at like creating jobs, developing new and innovative ideas, helping to diversify local economies, and creating a thriving small business sector within different cities.
Becoming a member of a business incubator is not ideal for everyone but for many aspiring entrepreneurs it does offer many possibilities while allowing you to take fewer risks. Not all business ventures succeed but an incubator can allow you to test the waters of your idea. You can see if it really is feasible and if it is you will the ability to move ahead with it. So if you have an idea for a small business and want to give it a try you should look into what business incubator programs exist with your community. It might just provide you with a chance your wouldn’t necessarily have.
What are small businesses?
Small businesses are businesses with less staff. The staff limit is different for different areas. These businesses are generally owned by individuals or are started in partnerships. Other criterions to decide small businesses are the turnover and profit. The less is the turnover or the profit, the smaller is the business. The smallest businesses are called as ‘micro businesses’ and those managed by families are called as ‘mom’s and pop’s business’. These smaller businesses generally have employees in number from 0 to 10. Many a times, the owners are the workers in these businesses.
Advantages in small business:
The basic advantage of starting a small business is that you need less capital and money to start the business. Also, one can start a small business on part time basis. The basics of a successful business are the regular modifications that one does to it. In small businesses these modifications can be easily done as one does not need to follow any trend or face any compulsions in small business unlike in big businesses. Also, a small business can give much more to its customers than a big one as they have the power to provide each and every customer the required personal attention and take into account all the suggestions and even implement some of them. Small businesses provide daily bread to many a people and thus are very important.
Marketing small businesses:
The most common methods of marketing small businesses are customer referrals, mouth publicity, radios, newspapers, internet, directories, boards, etc. Television ads can be a bit expensive for advertising small businesses. Internet marketing is considered the most cost effective and result oriented method of marketing small businesses. The ads can be placed on websites or even search engine web pages. The costs are decided on the size of the ad and thus can be easily moderated.
Small business ideas:
- Franchisee business: this is one of the extremely profitable ideas of a small business. The only things that you need to start this business are a place and some capital. The best part of this business is that the things that you sell are already quite famous in the market and thus you need to do very little expenses on the marketing.
- Event planner: if you know the knack of organizing things perfectly, then you can become an event planner. You need to plan out meetings, parties, weddings and other such get-together for your customers in the given budget. The best part of this job is that it is extremely interesting and your work does the marketing for you.
- Computer repair: if you have done any hardware or software course or have learned any computer language then you can start the work of computer repairing. You just need to sort out simple problems in computers. The best part of this job is that you get to learn a lot more than you have about computers. But, you should do only the work that you can manage and avoid doing any guess work.
Mike Draper, owner of SMASH of Des Moines, IA, testifies before the House Ways and Means Committee on how the cost of health care is affecting his small business, and his support for the choice of a public health insurance option.
Small businesses are usually sole proprietorships, partnerships or privately owned corporations. They employ a small number of employees and often do not have financial turnovers as large as those of large multinational companies. Small businesses are present in every industry. Ranging from interior designing to jewelry sales and even pet services, it is hard to avoid any of these businesses in our daily lives.
However, with so many small businesses selling products and services in society, we often forget that they can potentially be a very lucrative pool of customers as well. Any company that provides products or services to small businesses can benefit greatly from having a small business list.
Fortunately, the advancement of technology has enabled almost anyone to get access to a small business list with ease. There are online portals available for organizations and individuals to communicate with these small businesses, allowing them to get up-to-date information about company details and any other updates. One can also do a quick search online to look for such publicly available small company details. However, this is a potentially long and tedious process.
A good alternative is to look for small business mailing lists offered by list brokers and compliers on the web. The small business lists provided by brokers enable immediate access to a large pool of up-to-date information about other small businesses. The best part is that these lists are continuously being updated, so you won’t have to worry too much about getting outdated information. A quick rental of such a list would save one the time of having to personally search and update records.
Next, after having a small business list, individuals and other businesses can use it to their advantage. Entrepreneurs, start-up firms and home-based workers can use the list to conduct market analysis and research for example. This way, they easily identify market needs and are able to offer their products and services to these potential clients.
Another way a small business list can be used is to send out promotional material to highly targeted business prospects. For example, if you own an air-conditioning repair service, you could send out promotional brochures advertising your services to small businesses that could very well be your clients in the future. After all, which business office doesn’t own an air-conditioner or two?
The benefits of having access to a small business list is worth it’s weight in gold. But should one compile the list themselves, or rent one instead? If one wishes to manually compile the small business list himself, he will have to ensure that they are constantly being kept up-to-date.
This is because companies often make changes in their management, causing contact persons to change, or even a change in company address. The time and monetary costs required to maintain an accurate list of small business contact information is not small.
To avoid this, it would be best to rent a small business list and spend their time on making actual sales.
Having immediate access to a complied updated business list helps individuals and organizations to save time and money. When they require small businesses for their marketing needs or require help in their businesses, they can tap on this large resource base easily and efficiently.
When Sen. John McCain delivered the keynote address at the National Federation of Independent Business 2008 National Small Business Summit last month, he did much more than speak to several hundred interested small business owners. He pushed the concerns of a significant voting bloc to the forefront of the presidential campaigns. In fact, both Sens. McCain and Barack Obama have spent much time specifically addressing the No. 1 issue among small businesses — healthcare. And it’s about time.
Recognizing that healthcare costs have become unmanageable for many entrepreneurs, Sen. McCain said, if elected, his administration would introduce healthcare reform that would provide hardworking Americans more options and expand portability of coverage.
Sen. Obama, who was invited to speak at the Summit but did not attend, responded to Sen. McCain’s remarks by reiterating that small businesses need more options to access quality, affordable healthcare coverage. We also know both candidates recognize that implementing health information technology and addressing an inequitable tax structure should play a part in any comprehensive reform package.
Over the past few weeks, it’s been encouraging to see the candidates discuss the issues facing the small business, especially the rising cost of healthcare. But they — and all of our country’s leaders — must realize that entrepreneurs deserve more than just discussions. Because the truth is, these job creators, those on the front lines of the healthcare crisis, are the voters who will be electing the next president, and they are demanding the next administration and Congress implement real change that makes healthcare more affordable for working Americans.
According to a recent NFIB survey, 81 percent of small business owners and 52 percent of employees do not feel the presidential candidates are adequately addressing issues that are important to them, specifically healthcare. In fact, nearly three-quarters of those polled say fixing healthcare should be a top priority for the next president, and nearly 80 percent agree that “it is important to me to vote for a presidential candidate whose healthcare plan makes sense for small business.”
A similar survey showed that the small business community comprised 43 percent of U.S. registered voters and nearly 32 percent of the electorate on Super Tuesday. These numbers prove that small business is a powerful, motivated group in a position to demand substantial solutions to the healthcare crisis from their candidates.
Both candidates are focused on reforming our ailing healthcare system and have begun to recognize that small business must be considered in any proposed legislation. The National Small Business Summit may have ended, but small business’ commitment to achieving quality, affordable healthcare has not.
We’re at the beginning of long and productive discussions with both candidates to ensure the needs of small businesses remain at the forefront of the healthcare debate. Because we know that solutions to America’s healthcare crisis must start with small businesses, the backbone of the U.S. economy. When healthcare is fixed for small business, it will be fixed for America.
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Are you a business owner or do you have plans of venturing into business? If yes, then this article is for you. It doesn’t matter whether your business is old or new, or what type of business you’re into- if you’re in the business industry, you should take advantage of the benefits of business credit cards. Why is a business credit card a must for every business owner?
Track Your Business Expenses Efficiently
Primarily, business credit cards help a business manage its finances more efficiently. For instance, tracking business expenses can prove to be a challenge. Keeping inventory of the costs and making sure that not a single cent is missed involves a lot of work. However, this task is made much simpler with the help of business credit cards.
How Do Business Credit Cards Help You To Manage Your Business?
All purchases that are charged to your business credit cards are automatically included in your account history. Most business credit card companies provide an online account access option to its holders so you can check on the status of your business credit card account anytime. Monthly billing statements will also be sent regularly along with quarterly and yearly summaries of your account. Account summaries are indispensable tools when doing your accounting and bookkeeping tasks. These summaries are also wonderful references when filing your taxes. By checking into your account summary, you can easily identify the items or purchases that are qualified for tax exemptions.
Another great feature of business credit cards is the option to distribute extension credit cards to your employees. This way, you can give out credit cards to your selected employees which they can use for official business expenses. Because all expenses charged to these extension credit cards will also be listed in your account statement, you can be sure that you can keep track of your employees’ spending habits and that the cards will be used accordingly.
The use of business credit cards also enable a business establish a separate business credit history for the company. By using your business credit card, keeping within your given credit limit, and staying true to your payment obligations, you can build an excellent credit history for your company more easily. Of course, don’t forget that in order for your business credit to be recorded, you need to register with a business credit reporting agency like D&B and Experian.
Furthermore, business credit cards help you separate your business funds from your personal money. This is a crucial factor especially as your business begins to grow and as expenses start to multiply and mount up. A separate business account helps you see exactly how much your budget is and thus, will enable you to make business decisions more effectively.
Use Your Business Credit Card with Care
Caution must also be taken when using business credit cards. For instance, some business owners carelessly use their business credit cards even for their personal purchases. Doing so can easily put you into credit card debt and can cause problems to your business. Therefore, make sure that you’ll use your business credit card strictly for business expenses only. Don’t use it when you’re at the mall or buying your groceries or when dining out with your family. Remember, your business credit card should be a tool to help you with your business and must never be used for personal whims.
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Are you worried about how Obamas tax increase will effect your job?
Did you also know that millions of small business owners file as individuals?
So you’re routing him on about taxing incomes over 250,000 but did you ever stop and think how that will directly effect you?
all listening attentively about lenders on the radio, television, newspapers, and the Internet of promises to be “small business friendly”, “small business oriented”, wanting to be your “personal small business advisor” and a panoply of packages taking care of all your business needs. What small businesses really need is money, not personal hand caring services. So is there anyone out there really making small business loans? Yes. If you know where to look you can find one.
You can generally categorize banks into: 1) 10% that are actually making small business loans now and are serious about doing so, 2) 70% who will talk to you directly and indicate they are not making small business loans at this time because of the economy, and 3) 20% that slap you on the back, invite you in, and readily take your application. It is the latter group that gives us the most heartburn. It is not unusual after the initial review of your application papers for a bank represented to signal you have a good chance. Overjoyed, you begin to make plans, including executing contracts and receiving quotes for inventory, raw materials, or merchandise. Two months later, after the fourth loan committee review, you get a call that they have decided not to make the loan. The reason has little if anything to do with credit. It is typically something that was never been mentioned before and after reflection, it seems like an excuse not to make the loan in the first place.
Loan brokers such as myself are victims of the same misleading behavior. I cannot tell you how many banks have looked me in the eye and said: “Sure, we are making lots of loans. For unsecured loans of $75,000 to $150,000, we just need a credit score above 680, in business for over a year and a half, and decent financials. Real estate security is not required. We would love to entertain your applications.” Right.
What they really do is pour over the applications and pick 1 out of 100 that has the following fantasy credentials: a platinum credit score that Bill Gates would be proud of and which could support a small country, gushing positive cash flow, little competition, executed contracts stacked high on your desk, then a booming market niche. In other words, someone who doesn’t need the loan in the first place. You know the old adage: banks only give money to people who don’t need it.
It is simply psychology 101. Banks are filled up with loan officers and they have to show they are busy. If their boss walks into their office and sees nothing on their desk, they might be laid off. They have to show they are busy earning their salaries, which means receiving applications and going through the review process. It’s gotten so bad that the other day we had a client whose grandfather helped found the bank, whose father was best friends with the president, and who had received two successful loans before. Even he was turned down. Nor do they tell you the large SBA commercial loan department job layoffs of employees throughout the nation.
To prevent being too caught in this trap, look your banker in the eye and ask these questions:
1) “Tell me honestly. I don’t want to waste your time or mine. I know the credit crunch is quite depressing and there is really no secondary market. Are you actually entertaining small business loans at this time or should I wait.”
2) “How many small business loans have you personally made in the last 30 days?”
3) “What are the loan terms of the last three loans you made, including interest rate and monthly payments, for the amount of loan I am seeking?”
4) “How long will it take before I get a definitive answer?”
5) “Can you briefly describe to me the process I have to go through to get the final approval? Will you be the one making the final decision? What other people superior to you or committees will make that decision?”
But do not despair. There actually are real live prime lenders out there making small business loans. They just need to know where to look. In the next article I will discuss if such loans are available to startups.