annoyanceMistakes teach some great lessons. But they are often painful, so it's better to learn from others' mistakes, whenever possible.

Rene Shimada Siegel was nice enough to share some of her hard-earned lessons with me. She started her business, High Tech Connect, 15 years ago after leaving the corporate world so that she could have more flexibility in raising three young children. Her firm matches companies with talented marketing and PR pros and is based in Pleasanton, California.

Her four lessons:

"Trust your instincts. Slimy prospects make even worse customers. Every time I went against my gut and opted for the money, I regretted my decision. Big time.

"Being successful doesn't mean you have to be big. There are some things much more important then giant revenue. Profits. Sanity. Fun. Sleep. Focus on what you do best, and then OWN it.

"Best business decision ever: joining a small business CEO group (called Vistage). Every entrepreneur needs a mentor or peer group to provide honest

Mom and Pop are taking off the gloves. Today the New York Times reports on a growing trend among independent online businesses to tap into the anti-corporate zeitgeist that fueled the Occupy movement. Independents have long competed using tactics such as personalizing service and dodging direct price comparisons. Now there's a new approach: small business is good business.

The Times quotes one online small business owner: "you end up relying on what hopefully becomes an emotional or personal connection with the retailer online."

What's your experience? Does your business compete directly with the online goliaths? If so, share your success strategies in the comments.

politicsResults of a recent Yahoo! Small Business survey about political issues in the upcoming election revealed a lot of anxiety about Washington right now.

While you can find more details in my article "Small Businesses: 'Washington Is Worse than Wall Street,'" I didn't get to quote very many of the desires that respondents articulated in the survey.

Here is a larger sample of the comments, made in response to the question: "What one issue affecting your business specifically would you like to see policy makers address, and why?"

"Taxes! It is hard to know what the taxes will be at the end of each year, and the system is set up so that we don't want to earn over a certain amount or there is a 40% increase in what we pay. There should be a flat tax amount."

"I'd like to be able to provide my employees with better health coverage and retirement packages, and not have to lay off so many because my income flow has been severely reduced lately."

"I would just like for our government to work hard

Good news for those of you happy to see 2011 disappear: Business owners' optimism and hiring plans are looking up as 2012 gets underway, according to a monthly indicator of the U.S. small-business economy.

Half of small-business owners said they plan to hire in 2012, and 56% said they intend to raise wages for some or all employees, the SurePayroll Small Business Scorecard reported today.

"We saw caution in 2011, but the leading indicators suggest 2012 looks positive," said SurePayroll CEO and President Michael Alter. "The sun is on the horizon. Optimism is higher, 50 percent plan to hire and wages look to go up."

The monthly scorecard also noted that optimism among small-business owners rose to 63%, up 10 percentage points in the last two months.

Could 2012 be a year of opportunity for you? Our recent article "7 tips for becoming your own boss in 2012" offers good advice from experts on how to start and/or grow a business this year.

The Occupy movement's protest against Wall Street, big-business excess, and rising economic inequality has not really caught on among small businesses, despite some shared interests. In fact, Occupy Wall Street is dividing small business owners rather than uniting them.

poll resultAn informal poll on Yahoo! Small Business Advisor (left) suggests that a small majority of our readers do not support Occupy Wall Street and the related protests in other cities. The poll results are not statistically sound, so it's probably just safe to conclude that sentiment is split among small-business owners (or people who intend to start a small business).

A survey from email marketing company VerticalResponse reported very similar results. The company, which says most of its customers are small businesses, found that 49 percent support the loosely defined Occupy movement and 47 percent oppose it.

The Occupy Wall Street protest that started on Sept. 17 has become active in over 400 cities, but the message is not

moneyDespite the economic tremors coming out of Europe and the stock market whiplash of November, a few reports this week may ease some of the tension small-business owners, in particular, are feeling in this economy.

The hiring outlook trends upward

The overall jobless rate dipped to 8.6%, and total nonfarm employment rose by 120,000 jobs last month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Modest job gains in temporary help continued during the month, which suggests more employers are testing the waters for adding workers.

Small businesses created 110,000 jobs in November, according the ADP National Employment Report released on Wednesday. Or, if you think that's too good to be true, the payroll processing company Intuit reported that small businesses in the U.S. created 55,000 jobs in November.

Small  business lending surges; optimism stays flat

A monthly index that measures small-business borrowing rose 20% in October. The index, released this week by Thomson Reuters/PayNet,

shopping bagsCyber Monday and related retail events around the Thanksgiving holiday weekend have so far produced decent gains that should make retailers very thankful.

Here's a quick roundup of the numbers:

* On Cyber Monday (the Monday after Thanksgiving), online sales rose 33% over last year, according to IBM Benchmark. The final tally was $1.25 billion spent online, a 22% increase from last year, according to comScore.

* Overall Black Friday sales rose 6.6% over last year, according to retail data and consulting firm ShopperTrak, but online sales grew 24.3%, according to IBM's data unit Coremetrics.

* Online sales completed on Thanksgiving Day rose 39.3%, showing that the holiday itself is a huge retail opportunity, much to the chagrin of traditionalists and store employees who prefer to keep the day unsullied by commerce.

Some small businesses see major sales boost

Nick Palmisciano, CEO of online apparel company Ranger Up, said that his company's sales were up 153% during his company's "best

This week the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear several cases that challenge the Obama administration's health-care law, and one of the cases comes from a powerful advocacy group representing small businesses.

That National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) filed suit over the individual mandate in the health-care law, known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The constitutional question of the law focuses on the commerce clause and the ability to compel consumers to buy a product they don't want. The NFIB believes the mandate puts a costly burden on self-employed and small-business workers that is also hurting their ability to create more jobs.

"The health-care law has not lived up to its promises of reducing costs, allowing citizens to keep their coverage or improving a cumbersome system that has long been a burden to small-business owners and employees, alike," said Dan Danner, NFIB president and CEO. "The small-business community can now have hope; their