Business Tools We Trust

If any of you reading this has an issue or question about using Pre-Paid legal, let me assure you that is is well worth the cost - both for business and personal use. I only wish I had discovered it previously. For more information, please contact the associated listed below.

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It’s not just a Challenge anymore, it’s a Problem!

Daily, small business owners are faced with many challenges including marketing and expanding their product line, growing and supporting their customer base, hiring competent employees, maintaining adequate cash flow … and the list goes on. Now, we can add another challenge to the list, which has turned into ONE BIG PROBLEM: an ever expanding liability crisis.

We all know that we live in a highly litigious society. People are quick to sue. At times this is justified, but too often it is not. Regardless, the party being sued has to respond to the charges and defend itself. That defense can be very costly in terms of time and dollars. Due to this high cost of defense, businesses may chose to settle a case rather than to proof their innocence.

Whatever a company decides, the fact remains that law suits (justified or not) can and do force businesses to raise their prices, scale down their operations, and or close their doors altogether when they have to pay to defend themselves.

What is the solution, you ask? Simple, get insured for your legal needs, just as you do for your medical needs.

But wait what about all the day to day small business challenges you talked about earlier? Well, there is no insurance for that (that I know of). However, there is a paid plan that offers you both: help with your day-to-day business challenges and legal help and assistance when you need it. The plan is the Small Business Plan, offered through PrePaidLegal.

In essence, the Small Business Plan is your legal, marketing, accounting, finance, human resources and technology department all in one. You can sign up for most plans for about $2.50 a day, roughly the cost of a cup of Java. A number a small business plans are available depending on the size of the business and the state you do business in.

For further information contact Johanna Hofmann.

OlderWiserWomen has been working on a book that is a collection of stories from women which shares their thoughts and visions. Because of that, I often get asked about self publishing. Here are some thoughts.

The best place to get information on how to structure, format, publish, etc, is from Dan Poynter - owner of ParaPub, where you can find all sorts of free information and tools. I especially find his books are invaluable - especially the two listed below:

• “The Self Publishing Manual“
• “Writing Nonfiction: Turning Thoughts into Books“

I discussed this at length with a friend who just came out with her book. She is sorry she did not follow more of the advice laid out in the book, especially when it comes to getting a editor. One cannot possibly see what they have written. I totally agree with that one…we are just too close to it and our minds see what we want to say, not what we’ve written.

Let me know if you have questions or suggestions about this…we are always learning!

Barbara

Google is such a busy little company.

See what’a up about blogging “Google Style”.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/02/here-comes-measure-map.html

Here is a great book on SEO strategies and tactics by Brad Callen. I find it’s easy to read and follow the principles listed here. And this is from someone who was not even sure what SEO meant. And you know what…it’s free.

You can download it here. Please come back and leave you comments about the book. Did it help? Did you learn anything?

Barbara

Many people are a bit confused about using wordpress for blogging. I know I was. While I found www.blogger.com to be a great way to start blogging (and now www.wordpress.com), I wanted more features and flexibility.

So I stumbled about and learned most of it on my own. However, I recently came across some video tutorials (free!) that were excellent! Take a look and see if they start you on your road to blogging with wordpress.

http://www.thejunglemarketer.com/wordpress-tutorial/

Thanks Guido!

You may be aware that we have an OlderWiserWomen’s Network on Ryze. It’s not necessarily a business forum though the topic does come up. In essence, it’s a forum about living live as an OlderWiserWomen.

The topic of learning to blog came up and I’ve offered to do a BASIC class on blogging to get women started.

We’ll focus on using free, hosted blogging tools such as www.blogger.com and www.wordpress.com.

If you’d like to be notified of when that is taking place, you can subscribe to this feed, subscribe to email notification (see the page that says Get Notified), or sign up for our regular OlderWiserWomen ezine for the announcement.

Barbara C. Phillips, NP