Two rural development resources worth exploring, both with business and entrepreneurship sections: Rural Community Building blogAmerican Farm Bureau Federation put together this blog “to enhance the quality of life in rural communities so that future generations will want to stay on the farm.” Sabrina Matteson, AFBF director of rural affairs is the lead author. Entrepreneurship…
Another great source for business intelligence: the Retail Owners Institute offers industry benchmark data on six key financial ratios. In a section called Store Benchmarks, they break down industry averages into 51 different retail lines. They give five years of data for these six financial ratios: Current Ratio Gross Margin Percentage Return on Assets Percentage…
New business owners always have questions about taxes. I visited this IRS-made site. It is remarkably “user friendly” and intuitive. The video is of an excellent quality and there are many features that make it very easy to use. You should, at least, go watch/listen to the Introduction. Then you can chose whichever area is…
Mike Knutson is someone you should meet. He believes small, rural communities need to “Reimagine” their futures. At “ReImagine Rural” (www.ReImagineRural.com) he and others attempt to inspire rural residents to look at the futures of their communities differently and to base their community development efforts on innovative, transformative ideas. I think I favorite or share…
“Business intelligence” means gathering the right information that can help you improve your business, or move up to a new level. If you have internet access today, you can gather a ton of amazing research, if you know the right sources to tap. So we’re starting a series on great sources for business intelligence for…
Just as soon as your small business includes more than just you, there will be people problems. To help you with those problems, our friend Phil Gerbyshak has put up a new resource, The Management Expert.Phil has pulled together a huge collection of over 500 of his management articles. His goal is to help new…
A quick update on small business resources online. First, the US Small Business Administration has updated their annual Small Business FAQ (PDF). It’s packed full of statistics on US small business. For example, here’s the latest on small business survival rates: Seven out of ten new employer firms last at least two years, and about…
(Mark Hayward is back with another guest post on marketing for small business, drawn from his own experience. You can follow him on Twitter @mark_hayward) If you are like me, when you purchased or opened your business, you really did not have a clue about how to market yourself online. Perhaps, you still don’t. Certainly,…
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