Entrepreneurs should keep several pieces of advice in mind. Spending is not synonymous with investing; watch for wasteful spending. While it is tempting to play it safe, entrepreneurship entails risk. After due diligence and research, taking chances on less-than-perfect customers or clients could pay off handsomely. Keep some, but not too much, cash on hand to cover short-term obligations. Accept the fact that people do not blindly follow economic laws as objects follow laws of physics. Lastly, know when to walk away from a bad investment.

1. Spend based on analysis, not fads

Arguably the most famous class of such unnecessary spending is paying for “secrets for success”-themed materials. Whatever advantage there would have been gained from truly secretive and profitable information dissipates when the competition knows as much about it as you. Publications such as Investopedia, The Motley Fool and MIT’s Open Courseware all have many articles, lecture notes, tests and recommended readings on entrepreneurship and investing.

2. Risky customers can be advantageous

Watch for potential customers who enlist the services of credit repair companies. Bad credit is not always indicative of a lack of fiscal responsibility. Divorce, medical and legal expenses can take a toll on responsible people that are simply struck by bad circumstances. Credit repair is a goal for which customers are likely to accept higher rates or charges. As such, this demographic will very likely translate into higher profit margins for the savvy entrepreneur.

3. Maintain short-term liquidity

Unexpected costs may spiral out of control if debt is required to finance those costs in the short term. Similarly, investment opportunities may not last long. Having some cash and liquid cash-equivalent assets is prudent for an entrepreneur.

4. Customers and clients are not strictly rational

Meditate on the following axiom of the business world: People prefer to do business with friends, even if, objectively speaking, they should seek out other, non-friendly business partners. A powerful social element is almost always involved in entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs with backgrounds in rigorous fields like science and technical specialties sometimes stumble here. An exclusively logical approach serves well when dealing with the physical world. For better or worse, the same can’t be said for the human world.

5. Cut your losses

Investments do not always go as planned. People sometimes have an urge to “wait out” a bad investment, hoping it will bounce back to profitability. Cutting losses may be the best an entrepreneur can do; “waiting it out” may only deepen the loss.

I am excited that my family and friends banded together to create “Team PreemieTwins.com” and we will all be walking in the March of Dimes March for Babies Walk tomorrow, Saturday, April 27th, 2013, in Omaha, Nebraska.

So, of course we needed team shirts!  And being the bargain shopper that I am, I googled and found the best deal at DiscountMugs.com and got all of our shirts made and shipped for around $4 each!  I could’ve gotten them for even less per shirt if I needed more.  Too bad they don’t have an affiliate program, although then they’d probably have to raise their prices a bit to cover the affiliate commissions.

Looks like nice weather for us walking tomorrow – Go Team Preemie Twins!

The Internet has changed the way in which many people shop. Before, you had to go out to multiple stores searching for whatever it is you are looking for. Now, you can find exactly what you were looking for in a matter of minutes if not seconds. While this has been very beneficial to the consumer, business owners are benefiting as well, especially small-business owners. With websites like Etsy taking off, anyone can start their own online store and market their products to reach consumers all over the world. All you need are products to sell, knowledge of how you should price each item (keeping in mind Etsy fees), and a solution for how you will mail out your products.

Get Crafty, Sell Supplies, Share Found Treasures

Etsy stores are generally split into three broad categories: handmade goods, supplies, and vintage items. Other than the stipulation that vintage items must be 20 years or older, anything goes as Etsy encourages creativity. According to the Etsy ‘Learn How to Sell’ guide, the community is comprised of more than 15 million buyers and businesses—this offers you a reach that would not be attainable should you have a small hole-in-the-wall business in your hometown.

Understanding Etsy Fees and Commissions

The one great thing about Etsy is there is no fee to be a member. That is one cost-saver right there. However, there are a few, small fees that are associated with running an Etsy shop and they are definitely something you want to take into account when pricing your item. For every item you display in your shop, you will need to pay $0.20 to list it for four months or until it is purchased, according to Etsy. Once the item has sold, Etsy will also take a 3.5 percent fee on the sale price of the item, so it is important to really sit down and do the math when it comes to setting up prices for your shop.

Shape Up and Ship Out

Once you start selling products, you will then need to ship them out to your customers. Hopefully you did some research into this portion when you were setting the shipping costs on your item; after all you are looking to make a profit here. One Etsy shop owner, The Shore Décor, suggests looking into different mailing solutions when you are first filling out your shipping policies of your store (this will be required when setting up the shop in the first place). Shipping an item can get expensive fast, so it is better to err on the side of caution and do the research before you even open up shop to ensure your shipping pricing is correct.

Get Selling

The Shore Décor shop owner also suggests taking a look at the policies and pricing of other Etsy shops to help you get a feel for what other people are doing within the community. Etsy is a truly unique opportunity for someone looking to share their creations and finds, get your shop started today.

Featured images: License: Creative Commons image source

Eric Regan is a writer who has a big interest in small business. He has written for blogs covering various topics

This tshirt from Shareasale (SAS) that I’m wearing today is currently one of my favorite free t-shirts I’ve gotten.  Shareasale is notorious for handing out tshirts packaged as stars at their booths in the Affiliate Summit exhibit halls. Now sure if they offered it to me or I stole it from their table as ASW13 in Vegas was a bit of blur.  I’m still waiting for Shareasale to make a yellow version (Philly, maybe?), although I’ve grown partial to this light turquoise color.  Of course the mask on it reminds me that I missed their masquerade party in Vegas, boo.

Anyway, in full disclosure, I am an affiliate of Shareasale, but they absolutely, positively did not influence this blog posting in any way.  And I sincerely hope some of the GAN merchants migrate over to SAS.

Have a good weekend!

This week has been depressing enough with the Boston marathon bombers and the fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas.  Add an industry shocker to the mix that Google Affiliate Network (GAN) is closing, and affiliate marketers are truly having a bum week.  Some affiliates are claiming this is the end of affiliate marketing.   Others, mainly Outsourced Program Managers (OPMs) and other networks, are looking at it as an opportunity.  I can see both angles. I’ve already decided long ago that Google loathes small affiliates, so am glad to be working on other projects where I see huge potential still on the horizon.

For more thoughts on the GAN closing, my colleagues have written some great articles and advice on the subject:

• 5 Reasons Google Shut Down Its Affiliate Network by Angel Djambazov
• Affiliate Migration: Three Immediate Action Items by Carolyn Kmet
• Thoughts on the Google Affiliate Network Shutdown by Scott Jangro
• Time for a Program Reboot?  by Joe Sousa
• Migrating Affiliate Programs from Google by Greg Hoffman
• What To Do Now that Google Affiliate Network is Closing  by Tricia Meyer
• 5-Step Cheat Sheet to Migrating Affiliate Program Changing Platforms by Geno Prussakov

What’s your take on the Google Affiliate Network Closing?

Original Image Credit: Google Images. Edited by yours truly.

Small business owners today have distinct challenges. One of the issues they face regularly is struggling to examine and embrace the bigger picture when it comes to the company vision. However, any company’s future success depends upon the ability to see the future. Below are some tasks that prosperous small business owners may complete to focus on how to move toward future success.

1. Enhance Goal-Setting

Goal setting is essential for success at anything and the most effective goal setting pushes boundaries. Otherwise, there may not be enough to strive for. Goals also allow businesses to clarify their focus, track progress and measure achievements. Finally, goals present the best opportunities to push past the comfort zone and take healthy risks. All of this is best accomplished by having a plan for short and long term growth.

2. Accelerate Customer Service

For every business, the focus should always be on customer service. Great service is the foundation of any company’s success. One of the reasons for this is that retaining clients is also significantly important for the continued success of any small business. Having regular customers sustains business income, but also provides invaluable word of mouth advertising and marketing.

3. Increase Productivity

Increasing productivity is the way toward business expansion. There are many routine tasks associated with running a company. The key is to know which ones can be delegated easily and which ones need to be monitored.

Learning how to delegate effectively is essential for any business owner’s success. Without it, succumbing to early burnout is a strong possibility. On every employment level, learning to delegate properly can easily be the difference between getting ahead or not.

Every company owner and staff needs to continue learning about their business, industry and market trends. Otherwise, lagging behind can put a firm dangerously out of the loop. The experts at www.exposedsystems.com say that, “Businesses today need to be connected to technology in order to stay close to target markets, attract new customers and keep existing ones”.

Businesses must stay current with technology for a variety of reasons. Since it plays such a critical role in each company, business owners and managers benefit from their understanding of how it impacts the firm directly, as well as using it as a management tool.

Allegations aside, we all know people love to watch videos.  So, how as an affiliate marketer, can you make money with these videos?  Here are some simple suggestions:

Have your own YouTube Channel.

Nowadays one doesn’t even need a webcam as many people use their smartphones to capture great video content.  Need content suggestions?  Do a product review and add a link to buy that particular product in the video itself as well as in the description area.  I suggest using a URL shortener for your affiliate link and keep your description short so the link appears without a visitor having to click “Show more”.  Be sure to add your keywords as tags as well as in the title of the video while still being creative and informational about what your video is about.

Think creating a quality video is too hard?  I’ve personally ordered dozens of videos from Fiverr.  You can get website reviews, comedies acts, anything really for only $5.  You can provide the script or just give the “actor” bullet points.  Then upload to YouTube using the same tactics from above.

One of the first  review videos I ever bought from Fiverr.

Embed Videos within your own content.

Adding videos to your existing website or blog is a great way to engage and interact with your visitors.   And inviting visitors to click through with a call-to-action within the video is even more intriguing.

ShareASale is currently the only network I know of that actually offers video creative. Many merchants offer videos to embed, and I have to admit I was quite surprised at how high some of their EPCs were! What I really like is that those videos also have a “Share” functionality within them to interact with Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Stumbleupon besides the ability to click anywhere and be taken instantly to the specific merchant page. ShareASale also offers a  Make-A-Video feature to add “Cue Points” to your own videos to display product information with affiliate links on the sidebar of the video during playback.

Let’s say you like the videos that a particular merchant (that isn’t in ShareASale) already offers?  You can search YouTube for your favorite merchant and find a video with a high amount of views. You can then embed any YouTube video on your website or blog and add affiliate links to those videos.  Two services that I’ve used to do such are LinkedTube, which is free and easy to use,  and ViewBix which offers a free version as well as a more powerful paid version with more features.

How do you monetize videos with affiliate links?

Writer’s block is a phrase that is feared by writers, the very sound of it can send a shiver down their spine. This occurs when a writer hits a brick wall and doesn’t know what to write about. This is especially common among bloggers because they have to consistently publish new content to their blog, or risk losing subscriptions or search engine rankings. Let’s look at four of the top methods used by bloggers to overcome this terrible phrase.

1. Quick Internet Search

When many bloggers don’t know what to write about, they will use their 4G Internet to turn to search engines. A blogger will enter in some broad information about their topic and will see what comes up. This will typically bring up a wide range of sub-topics about the subject, which could potentially inspire some new ideas.

2. Take A Break

Sometimes, the best thing for a blogger to do is take a break for a few days. When we become overworked in a particular area, our minds become groggy and it becomes hard to think. Take time to work on an outside project that has nothing to do with writing or blogging, possibly even from your 4G Internet, and then come back to your blog. Who knows, you might even become inspired by your outside project with a new topic. Although, during this time you really shouldn’t be trying to brainstorm either.

3. Talk To A Friend

We all have encouraging friends who work to push us and help us out with what we’re doing in our lives. Take some time to talk to that special person and see if they can help you come up with new ideas. It can often be helpful to get an outside perspective instead of always thinking inside of your own box. Maybe they could even write some guest content for your blog if they feel that they are up to the job. You can even ask this friend to critique some of your past work so that you can improve as a blogger. This friend can be online using your 4G Internet, or they can be somebody you can talk to in person.

4. Think About The Reader

It is vital for all bloggers to be able to possess this skill. You need to be able to think about your blog from you reader’s perspective. Why are they reading these articles? Why did they subscribe? Write content that is going to be interesting to them. Be informative, and try to keep a lightened attitude to make it more enjoyable to read. When you think like a reader, you can come up with new ideas for them.

The digital age is full of innovation, and technology is marketed as fool-proof. The setup of things like Internet routers and even your computer’s Internet connection are supposed to be automatic. The problem is that it’s exactly those types of things that can ruin your speedy Internet service connection to the point where it’s as slow as a snail or simply doesn’t work at all. Unlike technology, the fixes outlined below are fool-proof, so if your Internet connection is slow or broken, then take a look at some of the quick fixes below.

Fool-Proof Fix #1:

Check Your Browser. It’s common for programs to make browsers like Internet Explorer work with forced settings for things like the proxy server it uses. If you’re experiencing slow or broken Internet, do something simple: try switching to another browser.

Chromium, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Opera are all valid alternatives for free Internet browsers. If one works to fix your Internet connection, then it’s time to figure out

Fool-Proof Fix #2:

Get Rid of Extensions, Toolbars and Everything Optional. Add-ons to your browsers can communicate with servers to relay information back and forth. This causes your bandwidth to become less than it already is, because there’s a program constantly using some of it when you’re trying to browse the Internet.

The solution is simple: remove the extra stuff.

Fool-Proof Fix #3:

Change your Wireless Router’s Channel. To make a long story short, wireless routers operate on a select number of channels. When one channel becomes overburdened by use, it tends to be slow because both your computer and your router have to differentiate which of the signals are for them.

While the specifics are best looked up in your router’s manual, the easiest solution to this is to change the channel it broadcasts signals on.

Fool-Proof Fix #4:

Check the Equipment. Everything that works together to make your Internet work is a potential suspect for breaking down. The best solution to this is to check the wiring in your home for any physical damage, switch out your router and ensure there’s a good network connection in your home. If there is, then it may be your Internet service provider, like fios Philadelphia, so don’t hesitate to call them to get the help you need.

Fool-Proof Fix #5:

Cycle the Power. This solution is as simple as it gets. All you need to do is turn off your router and your computer after removing any Ethernet connections.

Fool-Proof Fix #6:

Check for Interference. Wireless signals, like all signals that travel through the air, are prone to interference. Walls, devices that use the same frequency as wireless routers like microwaves and even your neighbor’s wireless network can cause interference.

The best way to get around it is to reposition your router. Make sure to have as clear of a path between your router and your computer.

Although many of us will graduate college, it is only a matter of time before much of what we’ve learned has become obsolete. While paying for college classes to keep up is ideal, you can still accomplish much from the comfort of your own home for free. However, special care is needed when finding content with correct information. Here is how you can avoid looking foolish and increase your knowledge.

1. Research the Site – While many reputable websites will show on the first page of a search result, questionable sites can as well. Sometimes, forums will be the best location to find quality sites, or finding information regarding the site you are researching.

2. Apps Galore – There are many apps you can download that could be beneficial to furthering your knowledge. Becoming a RSS subscriber to a website that promotes your specialty could offer additional knowledge while you are on the go on your mobile device.

3. Practice Makes Perfect - Putting your education into practice outside of the workplace could keep it fresh in your mind. Researching other methods to accomplish your goals could give insight into what you could possibly be missing.

4. Bookmark It – If you find a website that offers excellent content for your specialty, don’t forget to add it to your bookmarks. A method of keeping those links cleaned up on your browser is to add a special folder specifically for your educational purposes.

5. Participate – Joining a forum community gives you the opportunity to share your knowledge to help someone else, or learn something new while communicating with someone who has further knowledge of the specialty. This will give you the chance to help someone find an answer while finding one yourself.

6. Google It – One of the greatest tools in furthering your education is Google. A library of information is at your fingertips in the form of search results.

7. Notes – A popular method of retaining information you find within the Internet is note taking. Writing as you learn is a proven method to assist in retention of information as you have to think about the material you are writing about.

The Internet is a vast sea of knowledge shared by millions. Whether you are looking to pay for certifiable education or are looking for a method on self-teaching, the information is there for the taking. Mobile devices only make furthering education easier by allowing you to study on your own time, anywhere.

Author Bio:  Nancy provides feedback on all elements of the site “www.enannysource.com” helping us to really make sure that we are making it as easy as possible for caregivers to sign up and find work.  In addition, she spends quite a bit of her time on freelance writing tasks.