By: Carol Tice | July 8, 2010 10:30 AM

Do you have what it takes to make it as a small business owner? This has always been a nervous-making question. But now, a recent study has boiled down the key attributes of successful business owners. Take a look, and see if this sounds like you.

The study, from the Guardian Life Small Business Research Institute, is The Guardian Life Index: What Matters Most to America’s Small Business Owners. The survey of more than 1,000 entrepreneurs with between two and 99 workers first identified 60 critical factors for business success. These were then boiled down to six important skills that were common to successful business owners. These owners are:

• Collaborative. Delegating effectively and building good relationships with employees, vendors, and other partners is key. The study found successful owners had a win-win attitude and were dedicated to “creating opportunities for others.”
• Self-fulfilled. Great entrepreneurs love being in control of their destiny, deciding how hard to work and when, and deriving personal fulfillment and gratification from operating their businesses.
• Future-focused. Good business owners aren’t just slogging through the day, focused on keeping the doors open another 24 hours. They’re the woman or man with a plan.
• Curious. Constant learning is a hallmark of winning business leaders. They’re always looking for opportunities to improve how they manage their business.
• Tech-savvy. The study found winners “intensively value their company’s Web site and are significantly more likely to rely a great deal on technology to help make our business more effective and more efficient.”

The moment you start to think of the critical success factors you are looking atthe factors and actions that you need to tackle for obtaining success for your online business The critical success factors will assist you recognize what you need to focus on and what actions you need to do so that you greatly increase your probability of entrepreneur success.

With an online marketing business your critical success factors will be primarily looking at your strategy of marketing, yet, in order to find real success, you need to make certain that you have the tools in place and a suitable system set up. Your first port of call is getting your marketing system and your product line.

As you begin your online business you need to be thinking what your existing critical success factors really are. This is something that needs to be reviewed on a consistent basis as when you begin to develop your online business you will discover that your real success factors change. In relation to online marketing you may be needing to check your keywords that you work on, the results from your keywords and the results from your other types of marketing.

It is generally easier to gain a better insight of your critical success factors as your knowledge of online marketing and your business develops. In reality learning comes from actual practice rather than watching what someone does. And as your skill improves with your marketing efforts so will your ability to see what your critical success factors are. It is a great way to keep yourself on track and moving forwards.

By Monica Mehta

If you’re looking to sell your company, it’s time to get creative. While the small business mergers and acquisitions market is finally inching forward and deals are getting done, they better reflect seller motivation than attractive valuations. Bank involvement in acquisition financing deals also remains low. As long as buyers are forced to pony up bigger equity checks, sellers frustrated by anemic valuations are unlikely to see pricing snap back. Offers remain far from desirable.

Still, if you’re looking longingly at an exit, fear not. Unconventional deal structuring can maximize a company’s long-term value and do wonders to bridge the gap between a buyer’s limitations and a seller’s expectations. If there’s just no way to get there via a traditional sale, there are alternative exit strategies that may yield better results.

1. Strike a deal with a third-party buyer.

Sellers who can look past a low valuation and embrace strategies that offer added, deferred payments can bump up a deal’s overall payout over time. “Business owners that are flexible with terms and open to seller financing can still create a feeding frenzy among buyers,” says Domenic Rinaldi, president and managing partner of Sunbelt Chicago, a leading business broker. He’s seeing more creative deals than he did a few years ago and notes that sellers willing to assume greater risk regarding terms are netting premiums.

The UK economy grew by a faster-than-expected 1.1% in the second quarter of the year, according to official data.

The figure – a preliminary estimate from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) – was almost double the 0.6% growth rate expected by economists.

It was the fastest quarterly expansion since 2006, and marked a sharp pick-up in pace from the 0.3% growth of the first three months of the year.

Much of the growth came from the key services sector.

Within the services sector, which accounts for about three-quarters of the UK economy, business and finance posted its strongest rise in almost three years, rising by 1.3% over the quarter.

There was a big contribution from the construction industry, which grew at its fastest pace since 1963, in part because bad weather at the start of the year meant builders were catching up on work that should have taken place then.

The only sector to register a fall was transport and communications – down 0.7% on the quarter following the impact of Iceland’s volcanic ash cloud in April.

The ONS said the last time the UK had growth of more 1.1% in any quarter was in 1999.

‘Strong rise’

The Chancellor, George Osborne, said the figures proved his plan to cut the public sector was right.

He said: “In the Budget, I set out a plan to restore confidence in our economy by dealing with the deficit, starting this year, and to rebalance growth from the public to private sector.

WE may have a female prime minister, but there still appears to be real reluctance to let daughters inherit the family business.

An RMIT University survey has found only seven per cent of business owners involve their daughters in the enterprise.

Sons are five times more likely to be involved in the family business and to succeed the chief executive than their sisters.

The survey, which was carried out in conjunction with accounting firm MGI, took in 5000 Australian companies.

Australia’s two million family businesses are worth $1.5 trillion and employ almost half the nation’s workforce.

The survey found that women own only 11 per cent of family business operations.

It also found that fathers had shelved early retirement plans because of the global financial crisis, which had frustrated their sons who were keen to take over the top role.

MGI executive chair Sue Prestney says the 2010 survey shows little has changed in regard to female succession since a previous survey seven years ago.

“While these statistics in themselves paint a picture of the current low level of female participation in ownership and management of family businesses, more surprising is the fact that this position has changed little over the last seven years,” Ms Prestney said.

“The survey reveals a less confident family business sector post-GFC … with family business owners more reliant on the continuity of their business to fund their retirement and more concerned over the future of their business.”

There are a lot of ways to make money online as a home based business. Online marketing from home can be a very successful adventure. Then there are online home based businesses that are simply just not giving you the right tools needed to succeed! I encourage anyone out there to do there research when they choose an online home based business. There are a lot of companies that promise you the world and do not deliver! In anything you do in online, you cannot expect to be successful, if you do not treat it like a real business. If you work only an hour here and there, you will get part-time results period! The key is to set a mind frame that when you are going to work hard by setting up a schedule to attend by. If you only want to work for 10-12 hours a week at, that’s fine then stick to and do not let any outside distractions get in your way. So many individuals have the idea that it sells itself, well it does not! I believe the main reason individuals fail is because they did not do there research and compare it to other online home based businesses.

How to get rich the smart way? Read what some creative people did:

1. Million Dollar Homepage

1000000 pixels, charge a dollar per pixel – that’s perhaps the dumbest idea for online business anyone could have possible come up with. Still, Alex Tew, a 21-year-old who came up with the idea, is now a millionaire. 

What is the idea? (from FAQ on the site)

The idea is simple: to try and make $1m (US) by selling 1,000,000 pixels for $1 each. Hence, ‘The Million Dollar Homepage”. The main motivation for doing this is to pay for my degree studies, because I don’t like the idea of graduating with a huge student debt. I know people who are paying off student loans 15-20 years after they graduated. Not a nice thought!
So, everyone is welcome to buy my pixels, which are available in 100-pixel ‘blocks’ (each measuring 10×10 pixels). You will see the homepage is divided into 10,000 of these 100-pixel blocks (hence there are 1,000,000 pixels in total). The reason for selling them in 100-pixel blocks is because anything smaller would be too small to display anything meaningful.
You can buy as many pixels as you like, as long as there are some available (see the live stats in the top right corner of the page). When you buy some pixels, you can then display an image/ad/logo of your choice in the space you have purchased. You can also have the image click through to your own website. However, no obscene or offensive images are allowed.
The pixels you buy will be displayed on the homepage permanently. The homepage will not change. Using some of the money I make from the site, I guarantee to keep it online for at least 5 years, but hopefully much longer. I want it to become a kind of internet time capsule. So, in the long run, I believe the pixels will offer good value. You will have a piece of internet history!

If you are looking for new home based business ideas, choosing a home based internet marketing activity could be your best opportunity. Literally thousands are making this choice for themselves and their financial future each day.

Having made this decision, most small home based marketers opt to at least start out on their ventures by themselves, without the expense or obligation of involving a professional marketing firm. That is where the beauty of online internet marketing comes in. It is possible to start out yourself and give it a try, without spending a ton of money. However, there are a few issues you must carefully consider.

First and foremost, always read as much of the fine print as possible. Sometimes free, is not what it seems. Having said that, use free web page sites when possible. Personally, I think it is a great idea to create and manage several free web page sites for some fun hobby/social type activity as a first start. Doing this gives you invaluable experience at what it takes to maintain and utilize an internet marketing web space for your future, financially lucrative new home based business idea activities.

You will quickly gain experience with customizing and personalizing web pages, marketing yourself, your ideas, and using the websites for free flow exchange of information. All perfect knowledge for use later with blog sites as well.

When it comes to selling products and services, the best home business is one that fits your interests and abilities.
By Lesley Spencer Pyle   |   April 07, 2010

Home-based businesses are proving to be a great solution for many women today, either as a part-time supplement to their family’s income or as a full-time alternative to the 9-5 lifestyle. Could you be the next successful business owner? Consider the following service-oriented and product-oriented businesses.

If you opt for a service business, you can perform the service at home (word processing, tutoring, bookkeeping or child care) or at another location (interior design, home organizing or consulting).

Services that Sell
Computer Services
If you are technically proficient, a computer-related business might be right for you. Programmers, systems engineers, networking experts, repair and upgrade specialists, and web designers are always in demand. You could become a subcontractor for smaller companies and work as a consultant for them. Whether you provide software support or website design, the hourly wage for these services is among the best in freelancing.

Virtual assistant
Virtual assistants, or VAs, perform a variety of duties, ranging from answering phones to updating websites. Some read and respond to e-mails, type up transcripts, write articles and do light bookkeeping. According to The 2-Second Commute: Join the Exploding Ranks of Freelance Virtual Assistants, by Christine Durst, VAs are a $130 billion industry annually.

6 tips for starting a business with little industry experience or business know-how

By Amy Reinink   |   January 04, 2010

Experts say entrepreneurs in both scenarios can find success by heeding the tips below.

1. Commit yourself to a market solution, not a pet idea.
   Derek Pedersen says the impetus to create Goal Tracker, which sells record-keeping software for special-education needs, came when his business partner’s mom, a speech pathologist, asked her son to create software that would help do her job. Pedersen says focusing on a specific problem, not a pet solution, helped the company find success.

   Mark Loschiavo, executive director of Drexel University’s Baiada Center for Entrepreneurship, says this can be a stumbling block for entrepreneurs with strong domain experience but no business experience.

   “Domain experts often fall so much in love with a product they’ve created, they become blind to criticism or correction, and they’re not flexible in terms of modifying their product in order to meet the needs of the marketplace,” Loschiavo says. “They need a passionate belief that there’s a problem out there that needs to be solved, and need to be flexible about the solution to it.”

2. Choose your industry wisely.
   Loschiavo says entrepreneurs should consider entry barriers beyond just startup costs.

   For example, those with little business experience may want to steer clear of industries with regulatory hurdles, requirements to hire a sales force or other staff, or a need to navigate vendor relationships.

   He says Web 2.0 companies may be well-suited for those with scant business experience: viral marketing using social networks like Twitter eliminates the need for direct-marketing prowess, and the online format eliminates the need for a large staff or a brick-and-mortar location.