Being honest helps hone your vision for the company.

While you may be tempted to hype sales figures or inflate projections to make yourself feel better, don’t. These little untruths will come back to bite you. Convincing yourself that things are great, or even OK, when they are really terrible creates serious trouble sooner or later. Successful business people admit they need help. They are willing to acknowledge mistakes and change direction, no matter how embarrassed or upset they may feel. They base their decisions on fact, not fiction, and take responsibility for their actions.
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Basing your business in a shopping mall has certain advantages over renting space in a strip mall or in a traditional retail district. A mall has built-in foot traffic, good parking, and a mallwide marketing budget. It’s best to work with an experienced real estate broker who represents many malls in your area. Shop carefully; renting space is costly, and you don’t want to be stuck in the wrong place. When you go out looking, consider the following: Read the rest of this entry »

A business plan is a written statement that describes and analyzes your business and gives detailed projections about its future. A business plan also covers the financial aspects of starting or expanding your business—how much money you need and how you’ll pay it back.

Writing a business plan is a lot of work. So why take the time to write one? The best answer is the wisdom gained by literally millions of business owners just like you. Almost without exception, each business owner with a plan is pleased she has one, and each owner without a plan wishes he had written one.
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When starting any enterprise or business, whether it is full-time or part-time, we all know the value of having plenty of capital (money). But I bet we both know or at least have heard of people who started with no capital who went on to make fortunes. How? You may ask.

Well, I believe there are actually some things that are more valuable than capital that can lead to your entrepreneurial success. Let me give you the list.

1. Time.
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