20 Must-Read Blogs for Online Entrepreneurs

One of the most important parts of being an online entrepreneur is maintaining an intellectual edge. Those who work and start businesses on the web are always learning, always watching other businesses, and always looking for new sources of information.

The goal of this list is to provide that — 20 useful, thought-provoking, and potentially lucrative sources of news and ideas. Each of these blogs are run by leading individuals and companies, and together they can help form a cornerstone of learning in your daily schedule.

Not all of these blogs are about entrepreneurship, or even business, but all of them are well-written and definitely worth looking at.

http://freelancefolder.com/20-must-read-blogs-for-online-entrepreneurs/

7 Ways to Be Credit-Stupid with your FICO Score

Remember the good old days, way back in 2006, when the streets were paved with credit-gold as far as the eye could see and credit cards rained from the sky? Even the credit-destitute were treated like kings by the credit card companies and courted with lavish offers of unlimited credit.
Here in the future, the world has changed. Banks claim they want to lend money, but really they'd prefer to buy other banks with government money.

Credit issuers aren't sure they want to lend money to people who need to borrow it, a situation somewhat analogous to the Groucho Marx axiom, "I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member."

And woe betide those who ask for loans with glaring blemishes on their credit reports. An unpaid collection is apt to be regarded like a cockroach in the consommé.

These days, wrecking your ability to get credit is about as easy as blowing over a house of credit cards.

http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/107154/7-Ways-to-Be-a-Dolt-About-Credit

How to Change Visitors to your Website Into Customers.

Your search engine marketing efforts are no doubt doing a great job of getting visitors to your site, but turning these visitors into paying customers is a whole other story.

You need to ensure your website is in tip-top shape to make it as easy as possible for visitors to purchase your products or services.

I recently stumbled upon a new blog “Conversation Marketing” which has a great article called “32 Tips to Make Online Customers Love You”.

I have pulled out some tips to share with you. Don’t worry; I haven’t included all 32 tips here. If you would like to check out all the tips, see the full link below.

1. Make sure your site loads in 3-4 seconds or less on a standard broadband connection. Your customers will thank you!
2. Use large type. Some of us aren’t as young as we used to be.
3. Make stuff easy to find. Clear product links, sensible categories and a good search engine on your site will all help.
4. Be secure. Your customers won’t thank you for security, but they’ll sure curse you if you let someone make off with their credit card info.
5. Forget about cool. Just because you love the idea of a Flash-based slide show using the best page-turning techniques 2002 had to offer doesn’t mean your customers will.
6. Offer ways to stay connected. Let folks sign up for an e-mail newsletter or subscribe to a latest news feed. Let them find you on Twitter. You’d be surprised how many folks appreciate that sort of thing.
7. Write scannable content. Use bullets and the like to break up the page. Have no more than 14 words on a line. Don’t make folks read 10-line paragraphs, because they won’t.
8. Have a friendly 404 page. Help customers find what they need, even if they did get your page URL wrong. Use a friendly 404 page, not the hideous default page that your server delivers.

For the full article, link http://www.conversationmarketing.com/2009/05/32-tips-ecommerce-love.htm

Key Steps to Getting Clients (Of Any Kind)

To be successful at getting clients you need to implement the follow steps:

1. Time Management. Schedule your day and week to include your business development.
2. The “Who”. Who you are and what is important to you? Who you enjoy working with?
3. The “What”. What is your business? What has life prepared you for (education, experience, etc)? What do you want your business to become?
4. Your Niche. What is your Niche and how are you different from your competitors?
5. Research the words and phrases clients use to find YOU.
6. Use your Research to PULL clients to you.
7. Create your Website in a way that gets your visitors to take the ACTION you want.
8. Write Compelling Copywriting that motivates potential clients.
9. The “How”. Identifying the best marketing strategies and tactics for your business.
10. Package your Revenue Streams in ways that get your clients to buy.
11. Implement Marketing Metrics so you know what is working.

Marketing should be measurable. You should have easy ways to track what is getting you clients and what is not. You should know what each marketing tactic costs, and how much income it brings in.

Marketing should be simple. You should have easy to follow steps that you can repeat over and over again. If you have to recreate the wheel each time it becomes too hard.

Marketing should to be fun. Yes, you heard me right. Fun! Once your marketing efforts are systematic and successful (i.e. getting clients and bringing in more income), marketing your site will be fun and exciting.

Jennifer Davey is a Small Business Coach and Marketing Strategist. Jennifer coaches small businesses, self employed professionals, and solopreneurs in strategies for getting clients and making more income. Jennifer can help you implement a successful and easy to repeat marketing program that will attract clients. Contact Jennifer and set up a time discuss your struggles with getting clients and making more income. http://jjscoaching.com/contact OR grab your copy of Jennifer's FREE report " What You Need to Know To Be Successful at Getting Clients", visit http://jjscoaching.com/free-marketing-tips/

Win an IT Business Startup Package - Deadline is July 31st.

Win an IT Business Package from Cobweb worth over £1400. It's a great package for start up businesses or businesses with up to 10 users. It's easy and free to enter - simply register your details and click submit.

The Prize The IT Business Package consists of Hosted Exchange email, online Web Hosting and CobwebHR consultancy support. The competition package is up to 10 users and for a 12 month period. After the 12 months there is no requirement to continue using our service, unless you choose to do so.

How to enter! Simply enter here http://www.cobweb.com/IT_business_package.aspx The closing date for this competition is 31st July 2009. All correct entries will be put into a draw and the lucky winner will be selected randomly and announced after this close date. Prize draw terms and conditions - http://www.cobweb.com/pdf/Terms%20and%20conditions%20for%20competition.pdf

Office Depot to Recognize 500 of the "Best and Smartest Small Businesses in the Country"

Office Depot launched its "Small Business Self-Bailout Plan" today. As part of the program, the office supplies and services provider created the Survival of the Smartest website for business owners who need support during "The Great Recession."Some reasons to check it out:

- Articles and columns from Steve Strauss, a renowned small-business expert and author.
- Weekly videos featuring products and services designed for small business.
- A free resource center with news and information.
- Smart tips and strategies for everything from greening your office to computer networking.

Last week, Strauss spoke with Entrepreneur.com about the new site, which he thinks will be helpful to entrepreneurs who need to do a lot on their own, including, it seems, a self-bailout. "Survival of the Smartest is very interactive, very web 2.0," he said. "It's not just another dry, read-an-article kind of website. It's designed and intended for small-business owners, so I think they're going to find it very useful."

There's $1 million worth of prize money involved, too.The Office Depot Adopt a Small Business contest will recognize 500 of the "best and smartest small businesses in the country" and award the winners a total of $1 million. To enter, send in a two-minute video of what you are doing to be smart in this economy.

Entries are accepted through July 31. And even if you aren't selected, the winning videos will be posted online, so you pick up some additional strategies that may work for you. Now that's some stimulus.

Credit Card Reform Provides No Relief for Small Business Cardholders

Credit-card reform doesn't apply to small business cards, which more companies are relying on as loans have dried up

Joseph Rosmann thought he was a model small business credit card customer. A 65-year-old general contractor in Bellevue, Wash., Rosmann typically charges between $2,000 and $4,000 in expenses each month on his Chase card. He carries a balance of between $7,000 and $8,000 as he waits for clients to pay, and he makes well over the minimum payment each month. His six-year-old high-end renovation business continues to grow despite the soft housing market, and he expects to bring home $70,000 in net income this year on revenues above $150,000.
So Rosmann was surprised—and angry—when he got a notice in the mail from Chase (JPM) May 27 saying his interest rate would increase from 12.24% to 15.24% on his existing balance and all future purchases, starting with his next billing cycle. The notice said that the change is "in response to market conditions and to maintain profitability on your account." Rosmann must close his account, the only credit card his business has, by June 22 if he wants to opt out of the rate increase.

The sweeping credit-card reform law President Obama signed May 22 is intended to protect most cardholders from practices like changing terms on short notice and retroactive rate hikes. But when the law takes effect in February, business cardholders like Rosmann won't get the same relief. That's because the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility & Disclosure Act doesn't apply to small business cards, which companies increasingly rely on in lieu of traditional financing. About 11% of all Visa (V) and MasterCard (MA) purchases are now made with small business credit cards, up from 3% a decade ago, according to David Robertson, publisher of the credit-card industry newsletter The Nilson Report—and that doesn't count volume by American Express (AXP), one of the largest players in the small business segment.

"A Good Step Forward"
Attempts in both houses of Congress to explicitly include businesses with fewer than 50 employees failed, but the law did order the Federal Reserve to examine the use of credit cards by small businesses and recommend protections to Congress within the next year. Todd McCracken, president of the National Small Business Assn., which has long advocated stricter rules for credit card lenders, calls the law "a good step forward" but hopes regulators will extend the rules to commercial cards.

Still, many small business owners use personal cards for business purposes. They'll see an end to retroactive rate hikes and double-cycle billing (calculating interest and fees based on the balance going back two months, even if earlier charges have already been paid off). Credit-card companies will have to send bills at least 21 days before they're due, give 45 days' notice before rate increases (rather than the current 15), and 30 days' notice before closing an account. In addition, card companies won't be able to raise rates in the first year after a cardholder opens the account.

While the new protections will help borrowers in the long run, some business owners fear that credit-card companies' response to the new law will make things even worse.
"Almost all small business and consumer card accounts will be adjusted near-term to permit issuers to charge higher fees," The Nilson Report's Robertson says in an e-mail.

No Rhyme or Reason
Chase spokesman Paul Hartwick wouldn't comment directly on whether Chase's rate hike is in response to the new credit-card law. "We constantly evaluate the risks and costs of funding credit-card loans. We are also evaluating changes required due to pending regulations," Hartwick says in an e-mailed statement. "When necessary, we make changes to pricing, terms or credit lines based on borrower risk, market conditions, and the costs to us of making loans… We recognize some customers may be affected by these changes for the first time and, as always, we are working hard to provide consumers impacted by these changes with alternatives."

Rosmann, who was a senior partner at accounting firm Coopers & Lybrand (now PricewaterhouseCoopers) before starting his home construction firm, is steamed. "This is an effort to quickly bump up profitability in a line of business where they may be having some challenges. [They're] not taking a hard look at the risk associated with the clients," he says. "Everybody just becomes a number." Some issuers, facing bigger losses on small business credit cards than they expected, are clamping down on borrowers indiscriminately. Advanta (ADVNA), a Spring House (Pa.) credit-card company that deals exclusively with small business cards, announced on May 11 that it would close all of its more than 1 million small business accounts after reporting a $76 million loss in the first quarter. Many account holders didn't hear until days before their cards were to be shut down on May 30.

Karen Lehr, a human-resources consultant in Gainesville, Va., got an e-mail May 26 notifying her that her Advanta card would be closed four days later. At first she thought the message was a hoax. A satisfied Advanta customer for six years, Lehr said she used the card for convenience and always paid the balance each month. Now, she's scrambling to switch services like her cell phone that are billed automatically over to her personal card. "I was appalled by having only four days' notice that my company's credit line is being pulled, through no fault of my own," Lehr says.

Small Biz is Vulnerable
In theory, the credit-card reform law would protect borrowers like Lehr and Rosmann by giving them more notice before account changes and barring retroactive rate hikes. But unless lawmakers expand the rules to cover small business cards, small business cardholders remain vulnerable to practices that card companies won't be able to use on consumers. Rosmann says the banks will just drive away good customers: "They are alienating people like myself, and it just makes no bloody sense," he says.