Funding and Building your Business

"Study Maslow," advised Hawkins, 45, a reference to Abraham Maslow, the New York-born phycologist who described a hierarchy of needs to help explain human behavior.

“If you’re trying to take a business from idea to reality, you’ve got to have a sizzling Elevator Pitch and have to be able to deliver it to your ‘dream financier’ in a minute or less,”

It is said that Mark Twain once apologized for the long length of a letter to a friend. As the story goes, if he had had more time to improve the clarity of his writing, the letter would have been shorter!

The Small Business Administration offers several loan programs that can range from a few hundred dollars to millions for small business expansion.

Rather than spreading their resources too thin, companies must focus on three to five key challenges — must-win battles (MWBs) that are crucial to achieving their business goals.

In building your marketing campaign, you need to define the image that you are seeking. Are you trying to establish your business as a high-end boutique or a cost-saving alternative?

"Money is the enemy of most entrepreneurs and marketers," says Seth Godin, an author of several marketing books. "Great product development and marketing almost always come from organizations that don’t have enough money. Having less money keeps you from trying to buy your way out of trouble."

Blogging is going corporate.

More often than not, when a direct salesperson loses a deal, they quickly move onto the next deal, licking their wounds and fretting over the time they wasted on the lost sale. When they do this, they pass up on a huge opportunity for future sales to that “lost” customer.

Here are some of his thoughts on what he sees as the big mistakes in business plans: