If your small business is seeking a loan, grant, angel investor, or venture capital, here’s a list of funding resources.

Grants.gov – Apply for federal grants.

SBA Loan Programs – Small Business Administration loan programs. Note that the SBA is not a direct lender, but helps entrepreneurs get financing with traditional banks.

Small Business Research Grants – List of federal entities offering research grants, provided by the SBA.

Woman Owned – Provides loans and grants for women-owned small businesses.

Idea Café – Provides a variety of sponsored grants for small business.

Kickstarter – Crowd-sourced funding option for creative projects.

Rocket Hub – Similar to Kickstarter, offers funding for creative projects.

Indie GoGo – Funding for creative projects.

InvestedIn – Crowd-sourced funding for just about anything.

Prosper – Private lending community.

Express Merchant Financing – Cash loans for small businesses from American Express.

SBIR/STTR – Small business innovation research grants, government funded.

Go Big Network – Online directory for posting funding needs and connecting with investors.

VFinance – Network for finding venture capital and angel investors.

Gaebler – Directory of angel investors by state.

I can say that without a doubt that my publishing business (Authority Publishing) has landed clients we wouldn’t have otherwise had if we didn’t accept credit cards. Our competitors accept credit cards and therefore we need to do that in order to compete; we need to make this option available to clients who would go elsewhere if they had to pay cash. And yes, the merchant card processor takes a percentage (around 3% or less), but that’s simply a cost of doing business.

Think about it this way: would you rather land a new client at a slightly lower fee or not have the client at all?

Here are some options for credit card processing:

Square Up – This popular service turns your iPhone into a credit card swiper. Great for businesses that are portable or host sales at live events.

Paypal – In addition to providing the ability to create shopping cart buttons for your website, Paypal offers a service called Virtual Terminal where you can process credit cards manually online. They also have an invoicing tool so that you can send a digital invoice via email to clients and they can easily pay online.

Chase Paymentech – Chase bank offers a competitive online payment solution that includes a web-based application for processing payments.

Signs That it’s Time to Hire Help

• You’re managing tasks you dread (such as bookkeeping or administrative work).
• There are never enough hours in a day.
• Your time could be better spent on revenue-generating tasks.
• If you took a few days off, your business would fall apart or cease to exist.
• You haven’t taken a vacation in a year or more.
• You’re too busy to accept all new clients and sometimes have to turn them away.
• You have a waiting list for new clients.
• Customer service is suffering because you’re not able to meet all expectations.
• You know that your business could grow if you had more help with operations.
• You are leaving money on the table because you simply can’t keep up with demand.

Types of Tasks to Outsource

• Bookkeeping/Accounting/Payroll
• Administrative
• Graphic design
• Website design
• Marketing support
• Sales
• Research

Hiring Options

Intern – Look to your local schools to find interns with a variety of skill sets. Interns work for free or minimum wage and often earn credit toward degree programs. Though there will be some paperwork involved, interns can lighten your work load and become an important part of your team.

Contractor – Hiring an independent contractor allows you to expand your team without dealing with payroll and other legal issues that come with employees. Contractors typically work on individual projects or a set number of hours per week/month. You can use contractors for accounting, administrative work (virtual assistants), graphic design, and just about any business-related tasks. Be careful when hiring contractors as you cannot set their hours or otherwise treat them like employees. You will also need to issue a 1099 at the end of the year.

Employee – When you hire an employee, you set their hours and put them on payroll, which involves withholding taxes and dealing with the other legalities of hiring staff. You will need to purchase worker’s compensation insurance and offer your employees other benefits such as health insurance, sick days, paid vacation, etc. For more hiring guidelines, visit the United States Department of Labor: http://dol.gov.

Budgeting for Staff

If you think you can’t afford to hire help, start by looking at how much you currently earn. If you charge $50 per hour for your services and could hire someone for $10 to $20 to handle tasks that weigh you down, you could come out ahead in the long run. Once you hand off tasks that you don’t like or don’t do well, you give yourself more time to focus on what you do best. More importantly, you have more time to focus on revenue-generating tasks, which can lead to greater business growth in the long run.

Also consider starting with an intern or contractor. As those roles expand within your business, it may eventually make good financial sense to shift to hiring an employee. The key is to strike the right balance between workload, costs, and return on investment. A good accountant can also help you reach these important decisions.

Resources for Hiring Contractors

These directories include a wide variety of contractors including writers, graphic design, web development, virtual assistance, and more.

http://elance.com

http://guru.com

http://odesk.com

http://project4hire.com

http://freelancer.com

http://ifreelance.com

Computer Programming

http://rentacoder.com

http://scriptlance.com

http://getacoder.com

http://joomlancers.com

Graphic Design (Crowd-sourced)

Graphic designers participate in contest-style bidding for projects by submitting samples based on the price you set for the project.

http://99designs.com

http://crowdspring.com

http://designcrowd.com

http://logocontest.com

Virtual Assistants

http://ivaa.org

http://assistu.com

http://authorsassistants.com

Resources for Hiring Employees

http://craigslist.org (note that you can also find contractors here)

http://monster.com

http://simplyhired.com

If you’re a selling to businesses (B2), it will likely be a matter of targeting a specific industry or people within a specific industry. If you’re selling to consumers (B2C), different factors may be involved such as who can afford your services, how old they are, where they live, or what they do for work or fun.

Choosing the right path for your business is something that takes some careful thought and exploration. Take time to answer the following questions. Consider engaging your staff in this process since they might see things from a different perspective.

1. Are there any specific industries or demographics that we currently serve on a regular basis? If so, what are the future opportunities like there?

2. Do we have a primary service that has special appeal to a certain industry or demographic?

3. Are there specific industries or demographics that sound intriguing? If so, what additional research is required to determine if this track makes sense?

4. What does the competitive landscape look like for the niche we want to focus on? Is the market saturated or is the field wide open?

5. What are our opportunities to make an impact in the chosen niche? What can we do differently from everyone else?

Making the Decision to Shift Your Focus

As you make the transition to focus on a specific niche, know that you don’t have to turn away other business completely. If you’re worried that narrowing your focus could create a cash crunch, then gradually make the change. Begin to focus your marketing efforts on reaching your newly-defined audience while you continue to accept other work. Eventually your marketing should catch up and you will discover how much easier it is to generate business when your target audience is clearly defined and your services align with their needs.

In fact, you might even get to a point where you are too busy with your niche work to even accept other jobs. If this happens, it’s time to expand your business and hire some additional help! Growing pains like this can be a good problem to have, but don’t let high demand have an adverse affect on your ability to deliver great service or accept new clients. Do your best to stay one step ahead of the growth.

Eventually you may want to develop strategic relationships with companies that provide the services you no longer offer. For example, if you’re a consultant who specializes in working with technology companies and you receive an opportunity to work with a retail business, align with someone else who works with retailers and whom you can confidently recommend. Ideally you form an alliance so that you can refer business to each other.

Though marketing does involve testing to figure out what works for your business, there is an important first step that is often missed. You need to know who you are marketing to—and that audience should be narrowly defined. Once you do this, it can change everything about the results you get from your efforts.

Everything about marketing comes down to the audience—your target audience. And the audience is different for every business. Once you identify your audience, every marketing decision you make becomes easier because you gather data that helps you find them and you begin building your service offerings and your marketing campaigns around your focus. More importantly, the more narrow your focus, the better chance you have of standing out.

For example, general contractors are often skilled at doing many tasks. It can be tempting to remain a generalist in order to try to get what you perceive to be the most work possible. When a potential client calls and asks for a bathroom remodel, room addition, flooring installation, or garage make-over, the answer is always, “Yes, sure, we can do that!”

There are several potential downsides to saying yes to everything. First of all, you can’t possibly be an expert in all areas (unless you employ a large team of specialists in each area). Second, your portfolio of work can appear unfocused. If you said yes to everything and then showed photos of your wide variety of jobs to potential clients, they might think, “Gee, he does a lot, but I only see one example of a bathroom remodel. I wish I could see more examples. I wonder if he really has the right experience to do this job.”

On the flip side, if you met with a potential client who wanted her kitchen remodeled and you whipped out a portfolio of photos showing the many dazzling kitchens you created—a bright light would shine around you. You would be the obvious authority in your field—a field that is quite crowded with generalists.

Now you may be thinking that what I’m suggesting sounds crazy because you would be giving up other opportunities and walking away from (gulp!) revenue from other types of jobs. But walking away from that other work frees you up to focus on your target audience: people who want kitchen remodels. And odds will be in your favor that once you narrow your focus and choose a powerful niche, your business will begin to prosper beyond your wildest imagination.

Benefits of Choosing a Niche

• Stand out against the competition, which are usually generalists
• Increase appeal with your niche audience because they will feel confident they are working with an authority who understands their needs
• Referral partners will be easier to find because you can work with those who also work within your niche
• You can become the go-to choice for clients who need what you have to offer
• You may be able to raise your rates due to your specialty area of focus

In Part Two of this series, we will discuss how to identify your niche and make the transition to serving that audience.

For retailers on a budget, these five systems are great choices. They’re simple enough to be a retailer’s first system, but has the functionality to meet a majority of retailer’s needs. Plus, the software systems can all be deployed for less than $2000.

Comcash POS – Comcash POS includes POS, inventory management, CRM, and eCommerce functionality. This software can integrate with touchscreen systems, making it a great fit for grocery, convenience, and liquor stores. The software can either be installed on servers in the store or hosted by Comcash and accessed via the Internet. It also integrates with Quickbooks to help retailers as they transition their inventories.

GoldTech Retail Manager – Retail Manager includes POS, inventory management, CRM, merchandise planning, and warehouse management functionality. Retailers can input their inventory by size and color using the SKU-database, making it a great choice for apparel retailers. The system can be installed on-premise or accessed via the Internet, and can be paid for either in installments or up-front.

Microsoft Dynamics RMS – Dynamics RMS from Microsoft includes POS, inventory management, CRM, merchandise planning, and eCommerce functionality. The software can be used by many retailers, including book stores, electronics stores, gun shops, and industrial supply depots. This is a great system for both small and medium-sized retailers because it offers an individual store version and a main office version for larger retailers. The system must be installed on-location.

POS Prophet Systems – POS Prophet Systems includes POS, inventory management, CRM, retail accounting, and eCommerce functionality. Its affordable and works well with small start ups and medium-sized businesses, from a wide variety of specialties such as hardware stores, gift shops, and food service establishments. The system can be integrated with QuickBooks or Peachtree, must be installed on-location on Windows servers and operating systems, and can be paid for either with monthly installments or up-front.

Retail STAR – CAM Commerce’s Retail STAR includes POS, inventory management, CRM. merchandise planning, retail accounting, warehouse management, and eCommerce functionality. Sales and inventory processing is easy to do with the touchscreen and single-key inputs, making it a good choice for pawn shops, furniture stores, and auto parts dealers. CAM Commerce offers data conversion and business consulting, as well as up-front pricing and subscription program options. The system must be installed on-site using Windows servers and operating systems.

For more information on these five retail software applications, check out Software Advice’s guide:http://www.softwareadvice.com/articles/retail/point-of-sale-systems-for-small-business-5-affordable-solutions-1052411/

One argument against actively managed mutual funds centers on the cost. Actively managed funds are more expensive than index funds, such as an S&P 500 index fund. The argument is that actively managed mutual funds cannot earn a return high enough to offset the extra fees.  Actively managed mutual funds charge an average of 1.7%, and, as a group, cannot earn 1.7% higher returns than an index fund.  Therefore, as a group, actively managed mutual funds under perform passive, or index, funds.  As a result, it is thought
that mutual fund investors are better off buying these passive funds since the returns are improved by paying less in fees.

I do believe that given only two choices between an actively managed mutual fund and passive index fund, that the passive index fund would be the correct choice in almost all circumstances.  However, several problems exist  with the comparison between passive and actively managed funds that investors should be aware of.

First, the  active versus passive debate does not address the risk of a prolonged period of below average returns.  From 1999-2010, net of inflation returns for equity funds was 1.07% and the return for Index funds was .87%. Both active and passive funds delivered annual return of approximately 1%, both failed at producing gains during a prolonged period of low return.

Second, many advisors advocate no load or passive index funds, then charge fees to manage these portfolios.  This practice entirely negates the advantage of no load funds, which is low cost. The only way to justify these kinds of fees is improved performance, but few if any advisors can show a performance history for these kinds of portfolios.

Third is that no low cost funds were in the top twenty performing mutual funds over the past twelve years.  Low cost is always good, but is certainly no guarantee of success.

In order to be better retirement plan managers, we need to find a black and white difference in these arguments and theories and one that will change our outcome in the event of a long period of poor performance.

Finding a Better Solution

Here it is: If the performance of actively managed funds, managers, investment strategies, or advisors closely tracks the stock market each year, then the investors have not gained anything with regards to the biggest risk they face.  If your big risk is still the same, then you might as well pay lower fees and use funds like those from Vanguard.  If you are going to lose money whenever the stock market loses money, then active investment strategies may not be worth the extra cost.   After all, investment returns that track the stock market can be purchased for pennies using no load index funds. There is no need to pay advisory fees to duplicate market performance.

However, active investment funds, managers and strategies that can limit losses and produce returns that do not track the stock market have the potential to change your outcome during a prolonged period of below average returns.  Think about an investment strategy, fund or manger that was profitable in 2008 compared to losing 38% to 40% during that one year. These kinds of active investment strategies, funds or managers offer something significantly different than passive index funds.

Only actively managed investment strategies have the potential to completely change an investor’s future in the event of a prolonged period of lower than expected returns, but only if they pursue investment strategies that can produce returns independent of the stock market.  This is how you should evaluate the question of which is better, active or passive.  The winner should be the one that keeps you on track, avoids the big risk and keeps your retirement plan growing even during prolonged periods of below average
performance.

Author Bio:
Lee Hull is the principal of Hull Capital Management, based in Texas.  He is also and the author of the upcoming book, Less Risk, More Return.

For example, if you have a goal of earning $100,000 this year, this chart shows that you need to earn $8,333 per month. If you’re a service provider who charges by the hour and you bill an average of four hours per day, you need to earn $96 per hour to earn $100k. Or, if you’re able to bill a full 8-hours per day, you need to earn $48 per hour to meet your goal.

Keep in mind that the reality for most independent service providers is that you usually can’t sell more than four billable hours per day because you still need time for marketing, business operations, etc. However, if you want to increase the number of billable hours that you sell, you can accomplish that by expanding your business and hiring additional help. Of course having multiple income streams and product sales can also help.

Regardless of where you are in your business, this handy chart can help you understand how much it takes to reach your income goals. Use it to raise the bar for your business! And once you figure out how much you need to make each month to reach your new goal, spend some time forming a plan to make it happen. A little focus can go a long way!

Download the Earnings Calculator Here

This website (BusinessInfoGuide.com) is a prime example. When I launched the site in 2004, I was aiming at entrepreneurs. Period. That’s a big target to aim for. What I’ve discovered over the years is that my ideal audience for this site is service-based business owners–a much narrower focus.

Picking a niche allows you to align your goals and services and marketing efforts with the needs and wants of your audience. I can’t possibly serve the needs of every entrepreneur everywhere, but my content here certainly speaks to those who run service-based businesses.

I was wiser when I launched my publishing company in 2008 (Authority Publishing). There are a lot of custom publishing companies out there and I wanted mine to be different. So I decided to specialize in publishing non-fiction books, which is pretty rare in this industry. All of the big commercial publishers will produce any book in exchange for a check. We don’t publish fiction, thrillers, mysteries, romance novels, or poetry–and because of that we turn away a lot of potential revenue. As a result, we have built a reputation for producing quality non-fiction books, which gives our author-clients added value because their books are in good company. It also helps potential clients choose us because everything we do caters to their specific needs. Picking this niche has proven to be a smart choice and I’ve never regretted it for a moment.

I think that many business owners fear the idea of turning away business, especially in a challenged economy. The instinct is to say “Yes” to everything to keep the checks coming in. But when you choose a specific path to walk down, everything you do with your business is more focused. You know who you’re marking to and how to appeal to them. And the people who you are marketing to are easier to bring into the fold because they recognize themselves in your offerings.

Consider the idea of narrowing your focus. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the results.

Years ago when I owned my first business—a bookstore—I spent hours researching other bookstores around the globe. I searched the internet for websites to find out what they were offering and noted what I liked and didn’t like. I found it particular interesting to examine stores with multiple locations because they had to be doing something right. What those stores seemed to have in common was a tremendous amount of inventory, which was a reminder for me to make sure that we also maintained a large stock of books.

I’m not suggesting that you should copy your competitors or steal ideas, but instead learn from what they are doing. During the planning phase prior to opening my business, I took my research efforts to the next level by contacting bookstore owners via e-mail. The key to success here was to let them know that I wasn’t a competitor and to graciously ask for some advice with specific questions that I had. Nine times out of ten, I received messages back, many with wonderful ideas and solutions.

When it comes to running a business, whether you own a retail location, a consulting practice, a wholesale operation, or a clown factory, there’s a good chance that someone has walked your path before you. Why not look to those who have done it well and learn from them? You just might find the inspiration you need to push your business to the next level.