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Archive

24 Nov As an entrepreneur, how do you use your time and resources to meet your objectives? Have you established any specific systems? Are there specific tools you use?

Your best options as an entrepreneur is to focus on your own strengths first, you’ll discover your use of time, after you’ve identified your strengths. Then identify one by one people in business you can separately learn from who are experts in the specific areas...

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24 Nov I’ve been an at home inventor for many years and I have a lot of good ideas that I would like to sell, but I don’t want to put my ideas in a business plan so they can be stolen. How do I protect my inventions and still get people to invest in them?

There are several ways to do this. The easiest way is to get a patent on the invention in question, but this is a lengthy and expensive process, often taking months and thousands of dollars. You can fill out a Provisional Patent Application (PPA) which...

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24 Nov I own a small paper company. We deal primarily with other small businesses, but we haven’t been able to gain any new clients lately. I know we have a good product. Why can’t we make more sales?

Keep in mind that in a business like yours, you're not just selling a product; you're selling the prospects on the benefits of doing business with you. Frame your pitch in terms of what's good about working with your company rather than just what's good...

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24 Nov Question from a family-owned bakery – a few months ago another bakery opened up only a few blocks away from ours and it seems that our regulars are no longer coming to us as often as they used to. The competitor has similar goods and beverages and prices are very close to ours. We are not used to competition, what should we do to keep our customers?

If your regular customers are going to the other bakery, there's something that they offer that you don't. It could be that they're simply closer to a large portion of your customer base (walking distance?), but odds are that they are doing something different from...

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24 Nov Our leather supplier increased his price, part of which we need to pass on the customers. Switching suppliers might require a trial and error period if no prior relationship is established. Are there other options besides switching to a new supplier and the potential future quality of my products?

When you're talking about working with suppliers, you're talking about a relationship with another business owner. That relationship has to be about more than money. I can see that you're concerned about quality, but have you considered service? Delivery? How fast you're taken care of...

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24 Nov We are open 6 days a week, today being Wednesday; we might get 2 people in all day. This trend has been happening since January of this year, every Wednesday the same. My question is do you think it would hurt my business to go ahead and just close on Wednesdays?

You need to consider whether it's worth the time to stay open. Do you have a large electricity output? Are there costs associated with operation that need to be offset by actual customers on a daily basis? Is there a reason for the slow day...

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