Bizjama

On January 13, President Obama revealed his plan to collaborate a tangled web of agencies with duplicating services into one. If given the authority, his plan is to consolidate six departments and agencies, including the Small Business Administration (SBA) and the Department of Commerce. The president has also elevated the SBA administrator to a cabinet-level position.

It’s about time. After all, small businesses are the back bone of America’s economy.

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A year ago, Tammy Larson decided she needed to infuse some life into her flagging massage therapy practice, so she turned to the Internet.

It was mid-2011 and, while Larson had managed to stay above water during the recession, things were slow. A friend and fellow business owner suggested she try Groupon, a national site that allows business owners to market low-priced deals on goods and services to a wide audience.

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Do you compromise on a business deal because of fear? Jim Camp joins Jim Blasingame to discuss why fear is a prime motivator for compromise and why having a system of negotiating will help you get more and better business.

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Last month’s column focused on basic file and folder organizational tips. This time, we’re going to tackle another organizational area that challenges many small business owners and employees: email management. People who struggle with this issue tend to have years worth of mail cluttering their inboxes. As a result, locating a specific message when needed becomes an arduous and frustrating task.

We’ll review five simple, yet effective email management tips. All of these suggestions are pretty straightforward, but adapting these guidelines will almost certainly make your life easier and more productive.

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I look at a LOT of websites every day and there are bad habits that I see over and over again that en masse can drive me up a wall. If you want to improve the professional look of your site, up your conversion rates, and not make your customers want to bash their heads against the wall, PLEASE take these 5 things off your website!

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Sean McKay, VP of Business Development at American IRA-a National Provider of Self Directed IRAs, invites all to a free Webinar ‘ABCs of Self-Direction’ on February 9th. This is a basic webinar designed for those that would like to learn about Self-Directed IRAs.

Sean McKay says, “This is our ‘basics’ presentation for those looking to learn about the flexibility available to them within Self-directed IRAs. We provide these webinars free of charge as part of our mission to educate the public that their retirement account can invest in a variety of assets such as real estate, private lending, limited liability companies, precious metals and much more!”

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Small business ideas for women at home are driven by two realities.

The first reality is the constraint of obligations at home. Whether by the choice or duty to care for others (e.g. children), most women staying at home do not have very flexible work availability when it comes to time and location.

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Innovation is a popular buzz-word these days: Tough economic times tend to beg for new ideas, new products and processes to launch economies forward into a new growth phase.

In his recent State of Union Address, President Obama stressed his vision for a renewed commitment to investments in research and development. Public and private groups alike are using this “I” word when speaking of job creation and rising standards of living. Innovation is even being associated with things like immigration policy, tax policy and monetary policy. The Consumer Electronics Association, a Washington-based trade group representing more than 2,000 companies in the United States, went so far as to create an innovation manifesto called “The Innovation Movement” to foster these ideas and goals as the power behind a U.S. economic resurgence.

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I wrote late last year about a handful of indispensible business-oriented cloud-powered Web apps that I didn’t think most readers would have known about yet. In only a couple of short months, I’ve found dozens and dozens…and dozens more. Most of them are free, too, which is just an amazing testimony to the good work that coders all over the world are doing. Some of these apps are so amazing that I wish I had been charged for them. (Don’t worry, developers: I’ve donated in most cases when possible.)

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Tourism groups and small businesses both struggle with a common question: once we get online, how do we get local people to follow, like or friend us?

Here are 3 quick ideas on how to get connected with the local…

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