// Nora Chapman's story was typical of most business owners. At age 54, she was ready to leave her 25-employee advertising business. She was thinking of selling to one or two of her key employees and when we met her, her first question was: &...Continue Reading »

Continuing our discussion with author and entrepreneur John Warrillow, this week we dive into the first of the 8 steps he recommends toward creating a sellable company: creating a standard service offering. For those of you familiar with E-Myth, thi...Continue Reading »

The first step in any successful endeavor is defining what a win will look like once the project is complete. When an artist begins a painting, he typically has a vision in his mind of what the painting will look like when it is finished. Whe...Continue Reading »

If you ever want to sell your business, you need a plan. Depending on the size of your business, proper strategic exit planning can take anywhere from 1 to 7 years to do right. And, when you've maximized the value of your business and are ready to s...Continue Reading »

This week's podcast is about a topic that is top-of-mind for a lot of business owners right now: funding. What kind of business funding is available to small business, how you go about getting it, and what's different about securing funding now durin...Continue Reading »

By Nina L. Kaufman, Esq. On the list of "business responsibilities that we enjoy," letting an employee go ranks right down there with doing your taxes and appearing for a deposition. Employers have difficulty terminating employees for several reaso...Continue Reading »

E-Myth President, Wendy Vinson interviews Brian Schwartz, entrepreneur and author of the new book: 50 Interviews: Entrepreneurs. The book, a first in a series that taps the wisdom of lessons learned from those who have successfully gone before, feat...Continue Reading »

In our first official podcast, Robby Reynolds, a tax and business consultant and President of The Business Consulting Group in Shelby, North Carolina, joins Wendy Vinson to talk about how small businesses can legally reduce tax liability by taking ad...Continue Reading »

By Nina L. Kaufman, Esq. Congratulations! You've taken the plunge and hired your first employees. Hopefully, you've taken care to handle this properly by following the guidelines in last month's article, "How to Hire Employees Safely." Now that yo...Continue Reading »

Much of your business growth depends on finding the right people to staff your expanding organization, but in most companies much more time and money is devoted to choosing and purchasing equipment than to preparing for the hiring process. Something...Continue Reading »

When we announced our Marketing Intensive Seminar featuring Duct Tape Marketing founder and bestselling author, John Jantsch, we received some inquires about social networking as it pertains to small business. This is one of the topics Jantsch will...Continue Reading »

Several times a year, we offer public seminars for small business owners ready and willing to work strategically on their business in a supportive environment here in the Sonoma wine country. I have been involved with these events the last few years...Continue Reading »

We recently received a request from one of our readers to write about how to take the first steps toward becoming a franchise. I immediately thought of my friend Dino Dakuras, a restaurateur who has taken the E-Myth principle of the Franchise Prototy...Continue Reading »