advice

As we’ve reported previously, the government is concentrating on securing loans for small business. Steve Kaplan—an entrepreneur and Wall Street Journal bestselling author—presents all of the steps necessary to get a small business loan in his upcoming book Sell Your Business For the Max.

With the credit crunch in full force, many small businesses are finding it harder and harder to land traditional bank loans. Even business lines of credit are being squeezed tighter—often yanked right out from under companies that have long established histories with financial institutions.

Fast-growth companies are especially vulnerable in the current credit environment. Those with 20 percent or higher annual growth rates can make banks nervous even during the best of times, since fast growth can knock their ratios out of whack and result in temporary periods of unprofitability.

As a business owner, one of your first decisions is the name of your company/product/service. It is, after all, your corporate identity. There is nothing worse than being forced to change your name once you have begun doing business because of a cease and desist letter or an application refusal from the US Patent and Trademark Office. The first plan of action: do not get attached to your trademark until it is yours officially.

Here are a few best practices in finding that name:

In this article, business expert Rick Segel shares advice for maximizing your customers.

Downward slanting sales. Check. A depleted customer base. Check. Constant stress, worry, and handwringing. Check, Check, Check! If these symptoms are all too familiar, then it’s likely your store is suffering from Recessionitis, a disease plaguing many good-intentioned retailers just like you. Thankfully, there is a cure. And international retail expert Rick Segel has the prescription: Start maximizing your customers at every opportunity throughout the recession and beyond.

How to go about marketing your small business in a slow economy? MaryEllen Tribby, publisher and CEO of Agora Financial’s Early to Rise and coauthor of Changing the Channel: 12 Easy Ways to Make Millions for Your Business, offers advice below.

Please tell us a bit about yourself. When did your passion for working with small businesses start? Jim Tracy, 43, married, two sons, President of America's Best Companies, educated with a degree in Chemistry from Loyola University.

The passion for working with small businesses started when I was nine or ten and my father started a small plumbing company. I watched him experience the highs and lows of building and maintaining a small business. I was destined in life to build my career around helping small businesses. It was easy for me to identify with their needs.