Blog Posts by Owen Linderholm

We are rapidly heading toward Thanksgiving and the busiest time of the year for retailers. In particular, this is the time to take advantage of Small Business Saturday. It's also time to take stock of finances in preparation for the end of the year. Taking a completely different tack, we also looked at export issues for small businesses. Despite the seriousness of these topics, there's always time for a lighter point of view and with the release of the new Bond film, what better time to review maverick leadership styles? And our most popular article this week was about some commonalities between people who have been remarkably successful.

If you haven't taken the plunge yet, hopefully some of these articles give you the impetus to start your own business — and if you do, we have tools to help. Besides our domain name, web hosting and ecommerce products, we also have just added an innovative marketing dashboard that you can try for free even if you don't use our other products.

Some

Read More »from Small Business Saturday, Help from IBM, Intuit: Small Business Reading

It is just about time for small business owners to tear themselves away from the final end of year sales push (and holiday madness) to take a couple of hours to get their financial ducks in a row for year end financials and taxes. In addition for online businesses there are a few new wrinkles that just popped up - in particular the IRS is cracking down on 1099's in general and the 1099-K for online income reporting in particular. The word is that the IRS is sending 20,000 letters out this week about 1099-Ks. If you get one, don't panic immediately - it may just be a general inquiry about what you are doing with them - but take the time to understand and respond. If you don't get a letter, not to worry but do remember that 1099-K income has to be included as income - no matter how small it is.

Here are some current article on year end financials and tax.

Is your part time business legal?

Non-filers beware - who's that knocking at your door?

IRS to enforce 1099 compliance

Counting down

Read More »from Heads Up: Taxes and Year End

SBS_Launch_Infographic_-_FINALsmallSmall Business Saturday is a great opportunity for small businesses to get some additional business in the peak holiday shopping period. It is basically a special day that American Express picked to provide a focal point for encouraging consumers to go and shop at local small businesses. But despite the clear marketing tie-in it is more than that - it's an opportunity for people to really back their own community in a difficult economic time and to also give something back to the community they live in. It's easy to dismiss this kind of thing as 'touch-feely' marketing designed to make people feel good but not really of any value. But it is much more than that. It has been shown that spending a dollar at a locally-owned small business keeps that dollar locally and recirculates it whereas spending the same dollar at a 'big box' or multinational takes most of the value of that dollar out of the local community. In addition it is acknowledged that small businesses are the heartblood of

Read More »from Small Business Saturday: Let’s make it more important than Black Friday

The election is over - but as we discussed many times prior to election day, it doesn't really settle anything for small businesses. Neither candidate offered anything really concrete in terms of proposals and about all we were left with were a host of uncertainties around healthcare and taxation. In reality neither of these will make the slightest bit of difference for the average 2-person or less small business but that doesn't mean the issues aren't important. It would have been great to hear something addressing the burden of regulation (especially at the state level) or solutions for easier access to credit. We don't have any silver bullets for you here at Yahoo! Small Business Advisor but we do have a little glimmer of hope in this week's best reading. First off - don't forget the invaluable SBA - it's always a wise first stop for any small business and is one part of government that is firmly on your side. First up - access to credit. We ran a short piece on how your personal Read More »from Post election – healthcare and credit: Small Business Reading

by Michael Germanovsky

When people think of starting a business, one of the first things they might consider is writing a business plan. Identifying a source of funding is a large part of it. A successful business takes cash flow to sustain it and investment to grow it. We all know investors are hard to come by. So there are two basic ways to fund the start-up costs for a small business. One way is a traditional business loan and the other is a line of credit.

If you have an entrepreneurial spirit, then be kind to your credit and it will be there for you when you need it. Your credit does not have to be perfect to get a loan or credit extension to start a business, but the better your credit history the better your chances to obtain start-up financing.

About half of small businesses fail within the first five years, according to the Small Business Administration (SBA). Even with low start-up costs and low overhead there are still going to be those times when credit is needed in the

Read More »from The Role Your Personal Credit Score Plays in Start-Up Financing

Last week in Small Business Reading we managed to be just a tiny bit prescient when we highlighted the often-overlooked topic of emergency planning. As everyone knows, that has come back with a vengeance with the arrival of Sandy on the Eastern Seaboard. For those small businesses in the affected area, the SBA is making disaster loans available. It's also worth noting that some of the small businesses in the disaster area managed to keep thins going using old-fashioned word-of-mouth and its modern replacement - social media. Part of the reason they were able to do that are the large number of tools available for small businesses based on smartphones and tablets - which will at least keep running for a few more hours when the power goes out and which are easier to recharge. This article has a few simple tips on ways to keep gadgets running when the power goes out. For those truly unfortunate enough to have their business dreams dashed, perhaps the best way to recover is to face your

Read More »from Sandy, disaster preparedness, free money: Small Business Reading

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Managers come in all forms. Some are fantastic, some dreadful. But who hasn't experienced a nightmare boss? Perhaps even one deserving of a special costume for Halloween. It might not scare the neighborhood kids, but it'll certainly scare their parents! Here for a bit of Halloween fun are XX bosses from your nightmares.

First of all, let's be clear. What exactly IS a boss?

Next - let's move straight on to the boss from Hell - the one for whom nothing is EVER good enough.

This link will take you to an example of a seemingly innocuous boss, but one that is deadly in practice - the disorganized manager.

Discipline is an issue that undermines the best of managers. This link shows you the unready, the silent, the terse and the sarcastic managers in full flight.

And one thing that is sure to bring out the monster in every manager is the performance review.

But perhaps the biggest nightmare of all is the clueless boss...

For more information about good and bad management practices

Read More »from Nightmare managers: These bosses make it Halloween 365 days of the year in the office.

As the long run in to November's election comes to a close the media is finally starting to notice that there has been a disconnect between what the candidates say about small business, what they seem prepared to do, what small businesses actually want and even what a small business really is. The last point is a good place to start. We wrote about the SBA's decision to change its criteria for what a small business is about a month ago. It came up again this week since the date for implementing the new size limits was October 24th. It takes a lot of digging but the bottom line is that for most small businesses the upper limit to be considered small is 500 except for a number of manufacturing industries and a few other exceptions where it goes up to 750, or 1,000 or even 1,500 in some rare cases (aircraft manufacturing for example). The upper end of these standards represents a big disconnect from most small business owners since 80% of all small businesses are 2 people or fewer. But Read More »from Incorporation models, taxation, bookkeeping, credit: Small Business Reading.