The FriendsInBusiness Blog

Tis the season for Tax Fraud Spam

Mel — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 03:26:35 +0000

This scam is the sort that’s going to really heap up trouble on top of misery. It starts out with an email titled “Government Offers Tax Reduction of 88%, See If You Qualify!” or “remove IRS penalties” or “Pay Only 1% Of Your Tax Bills!” and the sender is often a name like “Tax shield” [...]

Hootsuite — Ye Olde Sanity Saver

Mel — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 02:53:11 +0000

When you’re a microbusiness — a one person business — getting everything done and scheduling all your advertising runs will turn out to be the “straw that broke the camel’s back.” You’re nobody without a web presence, but by the time you’ve finished doing whatever you’re doing (in my case, drawing and sculpting and writing) [...]

Social media — have someone else do it for you?

Mel — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 23:09:19 +0000

With the advent of sites like Fiverr.com (where people post about jobs they’ll be willing to do for a paltry sum — often $5.00), many people have taken the plunge and hired others to do some simple stuff — like making Tweets and so forth. It sounds like a great idea for the overworked [...]

Karver Connection’s work at home scam

Mel — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 01:35:42 +0000

With bills mounting and jobs hard to find, many people are hunting for extra money online. Karver Connections (Alphonso Walker) is one who is advertising on Craigslist and other job sites. Recently a VERY unhappy customer contacted me with details on the “course” and the “job” — PDFs of the emails. I’m making this [...]

Data Entry/Home Base Processing Position Processes Your Wallet!

Mel — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 18:14:19 +0000

Karver Connections is hiring workers … doesn’t that sound nice? For people searching for a way to make money from their home, the whole setup certainly looks okay on first glance. Their listing is on the SimplyHired site, which might raise an eyebrow or two — BUT — Bloomberg Businessweek has their ad, and [...]

Robert Cialdini and the art of Influence

Mel — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 02:37:10 +0000

He’s not as well known to many of the “biz-op marketing internet guru” crowd, but Dr. Robert Cialdini is someone that people involved in small businesses (or micro businesses) should sit up and pay attention to. In recent years, there’s been a rash of “influence people by acting like a rude jerk” books, each with [...]

Un-ordinary Entreprenurs — some very STRANGE businesses

Mel — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 01:20:45 +0000

Inspiration comes from all sorts of sources, and some of them frankly leave me wondering “what the heck”? Here’s a roundup of some odd, interesting, and unusual businesses that showed up in the news recently: Divorce rings. Personally, I don’t need one — and at $3,200 for this one, it looks like a trophy [...]

I Need A Plan? For A Home Business?

Mel — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 16:55:03 +0000

In a word, yes. When most people start a small business or any sort of work from home, they generally leap right into things and after about three weeks start to wonder, “why isn’t this working?” If they’re running a “business in a box” or some sort of website or program that they’ve purchased [...]

Bad Financial Times And Entrepreneurship

Mel — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 17:56:48 +0000

According to the University of Maryland, small businesses are beginning feel that they are healthy enough to the point where they’re considering hiring more people. Some of the more chirpy spins on this article say that it could mean up to 3.8 million new jobs this year and reduce unemployment by over 2%. That would [...]

TED Talk — raise your kids to be entrepeneurs?

Mel — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 21:45:54 +0000

At the bottom of this page is a video that’s fairly popular — Cameron Herold’s TED talk on raising your kids to be entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship training has been suggested as a solution to a lot of our problems — underinvolved kids, economy floundering like a big fish in shallow water, huge problems, not enough solutions. [...]