The StartUp Blog at PartnerUp

I’m not sure how long these have been in existence, but I just heard about them a couple weeks ago and thought they might be a good resource for small business owners and entrepreneurs.

Caribou Coffee offers private conference rooms for meetings and small gatherings. The only catch is that to reserve a room you have to purchase a $25 gift card, which if you ask me can just be used to provide coffee or other refreshments at your meeting.

Whether you’re a small business owner with a home office, an office that isn’t big enough to hold a conference room, or you just want to host clients or vendors in an alternate space, this could be a great option. I guess it beats paying to reserve a conference room at a hotel. Or worse yet, forgoing meetings altogether because you’re too embarrassed to bring potential clients into the confines of your crammed office space.

The rooms offer 6-18 seats, a dry-erase board and wireless access. Not a bad deal. (Plus Caribou Coffee is actually quite tasty.)

They’re located throughout the United States, but I wouldn’t exactly say their located on every street corner the way Starbucks is. So if you think it might be something you’re interested in, I suggest hitting up the website to see if there is one near you.

Have a great weekend!

I don’t know about you, but to me it seems like mom entrepreneurs have become a force to be reckoned with. I hear more and more about them everyday as their success in the small business world becomes more widely recognized.

A few days ago I came across something that I think all mom entrepreneurs could find useful. It was a post called “Mom Entrepreneur Success Strategies” on the Toilet Paper Entrepreneur Blog. What’s so great about this post is that there are more than 100 strategies provided by mom entrepreneurs themselves. Who better to get advice from than 100+ mothers who have already gone through the process of starting their own businesses?

Here are some of the tips that stuck with me:

35. Little Helpers.  I make it so that my children can be involved in the business. They put their input into different tasks (“I like that color mom”, or “why did you do it that way?”) and there are several tasks that I’ve created for them to help me out with the work flow as well. I’ve color coded my filing for instance so they little ones can learn colors, and feel involved in my work.

60. Voicemails to Emails.  I use RingCentral for my phone service - I can set up extensions to sound like a large business, choose to send a call straight to voicemail if the kids are fighting, and all my voicemails go straight to my computer so that I can listen to them over and over if the noise level in the house is a little too loud!

98. Plan, Do, Repeat.  Planning & automating tasks for the week has helped me successfully juggle 3 children & 3 businesses for 6 years. On Sunday, plan & ready everything you can-outfits, meals, bathing schedule, blog posts, email times, workouts, phone calls–for the entire week. Repeat every Sunday & begin to feel like Super Mompreneur

It’s easy for employers to look at lackluster productivity and attribute the problem solely to poor employees. While sometimes it’s valid to point the fingers at them, in many circumstances employee motivation and effectiveness relates directly to the manner in which employees are managed.

I’m not advocating that you coddle employees and give them gold stars each time they do something right, this isn’t Kindergarten. But there are things that you as a manager can do to impact the amount and quality of output of your employees.

1. Give employees freedom over their work. Let them have input on the tasks they perform and/or how they perform them. You could give them choices in assignments or creative license to complete tasks however they wish. This will boost their feelings of ownership in what they’re doing.
2. Challenge employees. Give them difficult tasks that push them further. You don’t want to make the tasks so difficult that you set them up for failure. Rather, by pushing them slightly further you’ll motivate them to perform their best and also encourage pride in their work.
3. Provide each employee with the right motivation. While cash may motivate employees to accept a job or stay in a job, it may not motivate them to put their best foot forward at that job each and every day. Instead, tailor motivation to the personality and lifestyle of each individual employee. Work to understand what’s really important to an employee and use that to create motivational tactics. What works for one, may not work for another.
4. Convey to employees their value. Explain how their pieces of work fit into the greater puzzle that is your business. Employees that are aware of what they bring to the table will feel like they are a part of the team and truly have an impact on the success of the company. 
5. Recognize and address employees’ concerns. Be cognoscente of employees’ concerns and the problems they may be facing. Once you have an understanding of how they feel, communicate that you are aware of the issues and are willing to work with them to create a better overall environment.

These tactics aren’t something that you do once and then you’re done. To ensure productivity over the long haul, you need to be constantly repeating the cycle and going further to nurture the work that your employees perform.

You may have an innovative, well-researched idea, great business sense, and a supportive group of family and friends behind you. You may even have some money saved up. If you’re like most people, however, you still can’t afford to just quit your job to pursue your dream of starting a business. That’s why many people choose to continue working while they start their businesses on the side.

While this can be an easier route from a financial perspective, many entrepreneurs struggle with the two distinct transition points—actually starting the business and then finally terminating employment. Here are some tips to help get you through.

Starting the Business:

• Realize that you won’t be able to grow your business as quickly as you would were you able to devote your full attention to it, and then make realistic plans and set realistic goals accordingly.
• Be very diligent with your calendar. Your regular work schedule is likely already fixed, giving you leeway in your free time. Nonetheless, try to set a fairly consistent schedule for your time spent working on your new business. This will ease the burden on your family and keep you on task.
• Maintain good work ethic by keeping your personal business completely separate from your work. While it’s tempting to work on the new venture throughout the day, it’s not fair to your employer.

Terminating Employment:

• Don’t get too excited by early success that you quit too soon and later find yourself in financial turmoil. Make sure your business can sustain itself as well as you and your family before you cut ties.
• Come up with a fairly reasonable number for how much revenue you’ll have to generate before you can quit your 9-to-5. Then be prepared to hold out until you get there.

Any size company, from a small one-man band to a Fortune 500 Goliath, can benefit from a little publicity. By working with the media you can raise awareness about your company, project a certain image or communicate a specific message. To achieve these public relations goals, you’ll need to participate in media interviews.

The key to knocking a media interview out of the park is preparation and confidence. With the proper preparation, you can feel confident in yourself and the message you’ll convey.

1. Research the journalist and his or her media outlet. Get to know the material that is normally covered and the target audience.
2. Ask the journalist what his or her angle is. You’ll NEED to know in order to start crafting your message.
3. Plan the direction you’d like the story to go. By defining your agenda, you’ll be able to start practicing key message points.
4. Anticipate questions and prepare answers accordingly. If you already know the angle, you can predict how the journalist will try to fit you into that story.
5. Compile research and statistics to support your points. Review these facts and figures so you’re comfortable discussing them.
6. Develop anecdotes to clarify your message. Simple stories will not only help the journalist to understand, but will also help readers to understand.
7. Confirm the specifics of the interview. If you don’t, you could wind up going to the wrong place, calling the wrong number or doing either at the wrong time, which reflects poorly on you and your company.

You may understand the rules about writing off regular business expenses or some of the major expenses you rack up in your first year as a business, but what about those costs that accrue during the startup phase? Luckily many of those pre-business expenses can be written off after you start your business.

Start keeping track of any expenses the minute you start spending any kind of money on your upcoming venture. Startup expenses can include all of the costs that come from investigating the formation or acquisition of a business or engaging in the for-profit activity in anticipation of that activity becoming a business. For your expenses to be eligible, however, they must be expenses that would also be considered deductible if they were incurred during the operation of an already existing business.

The Internet is a vast place, so when this is the market you’re trying to compete in, it can be tough to stand out from the crowd. No matter how unique you think your website may be, when it comes to the Internet, chances are there are many others out there just like you. If you want people to be able to weed through the clutter to find your online gem, however, you’re going to need to put some work in to it.

I stumbled across a blog post recently called, “Online Startups: How to Be Seen.” I encourage you to read it in full (it’s not that long) because it gives some great tips on making your online business more visible, but if you’re strapped for time like many entrepreneurs are, then here are two of the tips that I think are cheap, easy and can make a huge impact.

Social Networking. It seems like every new venture in the business world has an accompanying Facebook, MySpace and Twitter account. And for good reason. It’s a good and oftentimes free way to get your online startup noticed.

The Blogosphere. The blogging world is a powerful beast. Make sure your startup has a blog that is updated frequently. Also spread the news of your site throughout the blogosphere by emailing bloggers and commenting on blogs.

Both of these channels require patience and perseverance, so don’t become disheartened if your efforts do not result in overnight success. The key is to be persistent in both social networking and blogging. The more you put in to it, the more you’ll get out of it.

Sometimes you and your business partner are just going through a rough patch. Other times it’s just not meant to be. But seeing the writing on the wall before things get ugly is key to successfully dissolving an unsalvageable partnership.

There are many subtle signs that the partnership is heading south, but those can be difficult to spot and sometimes mistaken for just minor disagreements. On the other hand, there are three red flags that should prompt you to take a serious look at your partnership’s dynamics.

1. You’re carrying more than your fair share of the weight, and you have been for some time: A large gap in the workload between partners usually causes resentment from the partner getting the short end of the stick. If things don’t start to change, neither will your resentment.
2. Your vision for the future and overall direction of the company is distinct from that of your partner: You want to expand, opening up more stores and offering more products. Your partner wants to maintain a “small town” feel and just invest in the business you already have. You’re at a stalemate, and neither of you is willing to budge.
3. Your partner has lost all interest in the business: Your partner doesn’t seem to understand the magnitude of running the business and, on top of that, doesn’t care.

If you and your partner fit any of these, then you have to be willing to walk away, no matter how difficult it may be. But that doesn’t mean that you have to contact a business broker and put the company on the market right away. There may still be a viable business there worth saving.

Before you get too hasty and exit the business on the spot, it often pays to take one last, well-constructed stab at it (if you haven’t already). Set up a meeting with your partner to discuss why things aren’t working out, and then try to craft a remedy to solve those issues. Develop clear goals with clear deadlines. If things aren’t getting back on track in the given time, then it’s time to bail (and call a lawyer). No ifs, ands or buts about it.

You and your partner should have drawn up a formal business plan with an exit strategy, without legal documentation things can get heated. But if you didn’t draw one up, you still have options. It’s just going to be a stickier situation. There could be a buyout where either you or your partner buys the other’s share of the company. One of you could try to sell to a third party to create a new partnership. Or if none of these is right for either of you, then go ahead and put the entire business up for sale.

Entrepreneurs put everything they have into their businesses and are often reluctant to let go—so reluctant that they prolong a south-bound partnership and end up hurting the company in the end anyway. But if you recognize the early warning signs, try to remedy them and still come up short, dissolving the partnership is your logical next step.