Small Business Consulting | Page 2

Business Accounting

Can You Enforce a Non-Compete?

On the flight back from Tokyo last week, I struck up a conversation with an Asian-American entrepreneur whose company supplies fresh fish to some of the top Japanese restaurants in New York City. Founded by his father back in the 1970s, the business has thrived by selling top-quality tuna, salmon and other imported and domestic […]
By Rosalind Resnick
Business Accounting

Should Your Kids Start A Lemonade Stand This Summer?

With summer jobs in short supply, it’s tempting for entrepreneurial parents like us to encourage our kids to do what we’ve done — start a business and make some money. After all, doesn’t the saga of every successful entrepreneur begin with a smiling youngster at the side of the road with a pitcher of lemonade […]
By Rosalind Resnick
Business Accounting

Making Customers Come to You

Last night, my web developer and I were batting around some marketing ideas for a new site that we’re creating and he told me the problem he’s having in building his business. Even though he’s a talented guy who can troubleshoot technical problems and whip up cool software in a flash, my developer lives project […]
By Rosalind Resnick
Business Accounting

Should MBAs Start Their Own Businesses?

There’s an ongoing debate about whether going to business school prepares you to start a business. After all, business schools teach things like corporate case studies, financial modeling and regression analysis while building a company takes guts, passion, luck and endless pleas to your friends and relatives for money. But one question that rarely gets […]
By Rosalind Resnick
Business Accounting

Helping Your Business Keep Score

One of the problems with running a small business is that it’s hard to know if you’re winning or losing in the daily struggle to take your business to the next level. Unlike the CEO of a publicly traded company, there’s no stock exchange to tell you if your company is worth more today than […]
By Rosalind Resnick
Business Accounting

What to Do When the Fish Aren’t Biting

If the market isn’t buying what you’re selling, maybe it’s time to take your lemons and turn them into lemonade. Last week, I sat down with my colleague Joe Fulvio of Third Coast Partners, a management consultant who has spent more than 25 years helping clients enter new markets and capitalize on new business opportunities, […]
By Rosalind Resnick
Business Accounting

What to Do When Mom and Dad Say ‘No’

When raising capital for a startup business, the friends-and-family route generally offers the path of least resistance. Turns out a recession changes everything. Recently, I sat down with two clients who needed help with their business plans. Though their industries were poles apart (fashion and financial services), they shared a common problem. The friends-and-family well […]
By Rosalind Resnick
Business Accounting

Alley Trumps Valley in VC Funding

In the perennial horse race between Silicon Alley and Silicon Valley, New York-area companies have pulled ahead by a nose. While Northern California’s tech community still receives the lion’s share of venture funding, Big Apple startups raised $566 million in the first quarter, up 18.9 percent from the fourth quarter of 2009 and 32 percent […]
By Rosalind Resnick
Business Accounting

The Rules of Venture Capital 2010

The mating dance that entrepreneurs do with prospective investors–venture-capital firms, angels or even just friends and family members–has obvious parallels to the dating scene. On the one hand, you don’t want to seem so eager for a term sheet that the investor thinks you’re desperate and tries to low-ball you. On the other, you don’t […]
By Rosalind Resnick
Business Accounting

Revisiting the E-Myth

The problem with most small-business owners, Michael Gerber famously wrote in his book, The E-Myth, is that they’re technicians, not managers. In other words, they can bake a great cake but couldn’t run a bakery if their lives depended on it. Turns out that cake-baking (or plumbing, hair styling or bookkeeping) is a good skill […]
By Rosalind Resnick
Business Accounting

Prenuptial Planning for Business Partners

As a consultant who works with startups and small businesses, I often meet with partners who are launching a business together. Whether they’re married couples, high school buddies or friends from a previous job, they’re usually in the honeymoon phase of their relationship, all lovey-dovey and optimistic about the future. But, occasionally, I’ll meet with […]
By Rosalind Resnick
Business Accounting

A Tale of Two Surveys

Are small business owners starting to feel more bullish about the economy? If you’re a trend-watcher like me, it’s hard to know for sure. According to The National Federation of Independent Businesses’ Small Business Optimism Index‘s latest survey, small-business owners are still reluctant to spend or hire, their confidence shaken by slumping sales, price declines […]
By Rosalind Resnick