Simple Partnership Start-Up Tips

When a business venture involves forming a partnership, following a few simple tips prior to start-up will help protect everyone involved. Whether your partnership is for a long-term commitment or a short-lived union, these following 5 strategies can ensure a happy and successful legal partnership.
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5 Steps for Calculating Your Startup Costs

You can’t create a realistic business plan without knowing how much it will cost to get your business up and running. If you don’t have an idea of your startup costs, you won’t know how long you’ll have to bootstrap, how much funding you’ll need, how quickly to scale. In other words, without calculating your startup costs, you don’t really know where you’re going—or how you’re going to get there. And your company could fail before you even hit the break-even point.
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How an Entrepreneur Can Be Open But Stay in Control

The emergence of social networking and the Internet has caused a new focus and value on “openness,” which leads to a new element of leadership, called “Open Leadership.” The mantra of open leadership is “Be Open, Be Transparent, and Be Authentic.” This is counter to the traditional business premise of “control,” so many companies are still pushing back.
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3 Ways to Support People in High Performance Environments

Consistently challenging your team and setting the bar high is only effective if you have the proper support in place. Failure to have a level of support that matches your expectations will not only make it difficult for individuals to meet their targets, it will also create an unnecessary source of stress internally.
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8 Ways to Inspire Employee Behavior That You Can Implement Today

Leaders create the vision, set company goals, and develop strategies—but it is front line employees who execute the plan. They are the ones who carry out the daily tasks and initiatives that help make a leader’s vision become a reality. They are the ones who interact daily with the customers who are the life blood of any successful organization.
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A 5-Step Beginner’s Guide to Video Marketing

Video marketing: You’ve heard the experts talk about it, the gurus blog about it, and your business peers rave about it, but how do you get started?  What is the first step to creating your own engaging video content, and how can you share your videos with the world?
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You Can Leave Your Hat On, Baby

Small business owners wear many hats. Owner. Salesperson. Bookkeeper. Cashier. Manager. Trainer. Janitor. Marketing. Computer repair. Web designer. Social media manager. Not to mention, of course, the specialty of the business, whether it’s tutoring kids in math, selling jewelry, running fitness classes, or buying and selling homes.
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The Importance of Lifestyle Businesses

Too often we make the mistake of seeing entrepreneurs like Donald Trump and Steve Jobs as the examples that all businesses should follow. However, the great majority of firms in this country are not truly entrepreneurial but more what I call “lifestyle businesses.” These lifestyle businesses add so much to our economy and the welfare of so many employees.
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How to Build a Powerful Sales Team

Your salespeople need to be the very best you can find, and great salespeople can be hard to find. On any given sales team, a small percentage of the force does a majority of the business, and your goal is to increase the percentage of your team that is making big contributions to your sales totals. Here are a few tips you can follow to build a powerful sales team.