I have created a Facebook Fan Page here:

Realize Your Business – Finding Your True Fans

Promote Your Page Too

I have really focused in on the idea of using a small set of effective internet marketing techniques to help people who want to spend their time on their passion and not on their business, and yet to make a good living.

Join the conversation!

On the first Thursday of December (for the past five years), Alex hosts “The BIG Call” which I have decided to co-sponsor this year, so I hope your participate

This year, the first Thursday of December falls on the 3rd, so clear your calendar for that evening. If you do register for “The BIG Call” make sure you use this VIP Discount Code: AM3964. (That VIP Code shaves-off $79 from the $99 tuition everybody will pay without it).

WHY Participate? Because you’ll get private access to over 2 1/2 hours of densely-rich content that will significantly do two things for you:

1) More Money: You’ll dramatically increase the possibility of transforming your annual income into a monthly income within 3 years

2) More Time: You’ll dramatically increase the possibility of maintaining your current income (if happy with it) and triple your time-off

WHAT Is “The BIG Call”? It is a LIVE and unique Teleseminar training on how to grow (or start) a business by adding the power Teleseminars to your marketing mix. You will get a 21-page Action Guide that you’ll fill-in during the call as you listen and follow along with Alex guiding you along the way.

HOW Do I Participate? Just grab your mouse and click here. If you’re reading this in time to become one of the first 200 who register, you’ll even get an important bonus gift for taking immediate action. click here and take a look!

WHAT IF I Do Participate? You’ll get access to the same Teleseminar training that many thought leaders such as Jack Canfield, Ivan Misner, Les Brown, Harv Eker, Dan Sullivan, Bob Proctor and Brian Tracy now utilize in their business.

Alex has an unprecedented 365-day money back guarantee, if you have a sliver of doubt that this Teleseminar Training will exceed your expectations.

So you really have no excuse not to grab your mouse right now, click here and get registered. And because you’ve read this far, I know you’re more than just curious about how “The BIG Call” may change your personal and professional life.

I want to be clear that these links are my affiliate links and I will get a commission if you register. I also want you to know that I am a student of Alex’s as well. I have taken Teleseminar Secrets in the past, and am repeating the course starting December 7. “The BIG Call” is a great way to get a lot of information about running Teleseminars from a real Master of Teleseminars. So click here to get into “The BIG Call”. And be sure to enter your VIP Discount Code: AM3964 so you only pay $20 for the course (instead of $99 like the folks without the code). See you there!

Geri

As a small business owner, you will often find a need to communicate information to employees, contractors, partners, prospects, and customers. You may find a need to teach something, such as a tutorial for customers, or policy updates for employees.  Or you may want to broadcast an interview with an expert in your field. When the people you want to reach are geographically distributed, you can give presentations by teleseminar, webinar, or a combination of the two.

First, I need to define some terms so you know what I am talking about.

• Teleconference – a meeting of a group of people using the telephone, where items of business are discussed among the participants. Anyone can talk to anyone else in the meeting. The meeting should be facilitated.
• Teleseminar – an audio presentation by a leader to a group of people using the telephone. This may include the ability for participants to ask questions. It is not a discussion among participants, but a dialogue between the participants and the leader.
• Telewebcast – an audio presentation by a leader to a group of people using telephone and webcast software in a web browser.
• Webinar – webcast software plus the ability to show visuals.

This article addresses Teleseminars and Telewebcasts. I will just call them teleseminars in this article.

Like any other meeting, the teleseminar has a topic or agenda, a list of participants, a date, and time of meeting. Unlike other meetings, you do not have to schedule a meeting room, since each person will attend from his or her own workspace. Be sure that the meeting you are scheduling is a presentation, not a discussion. The two kinds of meetings are managed differently.

First, find out what software is available for you to use. Is there a bridge line or conference call service that you can use for the meeting? Do you have webcast software such as Instant Presenter, or Instant Teleseminar? If you will be demonstrating software, you will need full webinar software such as WebEx, Go To Meeting, or Live Meeting to be able to share your desktop with participants.

The better services offer a control panel to the leader which lets you see who is online, mute and unmute individual people, and has a way for participants to indicate when they have a question.

Second, you will schedule the meeting using the appropriate service, then send out an email to participants telling them what the meeting is about, what day and time it is, and exactly how to participate. Giving complete instructions makes it more likely that everyone will successfully join the meeting. I like to send out a reminder the day before the meeting, and another reminder a couple of hours before the meeting. These reminder messages can be copies of the original meeting notice.

Some of the participants may want to schedule a conference room and attend by speakerphone. I do not recommend this approach. It is very hard for the people in the conference room to hear, and almost impossible for anyone else to understand people in the conference room. If you are holding the meeting by telewebcast, it is even more difficult for a group of people to participate by looking at one computer. Encourage each participant to attend the meeting from his or her own workspace.

Finally, the time has arrived for the teleseminar. As a leader, you should call in at least 5 minutes before the scheduled start time. If the meeting will be recorded, you can start the recorder at this time. Greet participants as they arrive to the call.

In general, you will want to mute all participants while you are presenting. Allow some time for questions. You can schedule all the questions for the end of the call, or stop presenting periodically and unmute the lines for questions.  Some of the telewebcast services have a web interface where a person can submit questions. Then the leader sees the questions on a control panel. This is a very nice feature, because it allows the participants to ask questions when they occur, and allows you to schedule in the answers as part of your presentation.

If you find it too difficult to present and monitor participants at the same time, then you might have a co-leader for the meeting. You just focus on making the presentation, the co-leader watches for questions, and makes sure you are allowing time to answer them.

Another great option is to ask for questions before the meeting. You can use those questions to prepare your material for presentation.

At the end of the meeting, be sure to thank everyone for attending. If you are recording the call, let the participants know where the recording can be found. Review any action items. It is polite to unmute the lines for everyone to say goodbye. Then stop the recording and end the call.

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Jason and I are spending the holidays with my family, and enjoying the warmth and love of the family circle, and the loving thoughts we have received in email and text message today.

I hope your celebrations with family and friends are cheerful and loving.

Happy Holidays!

Geri

I had a great meeting with my business coach last week – we talked about motivation. About how to keep motivated to work on growing the business. About how to find the energy to do the work. About rhythms of work and rest.

This is a very big issue for small business owners. I look at people like Mark Joyner and Tellman Knudsen and they seem to be always working, never stopping. When I can not do the same, when I need some time to rest, I feel discouraged.

That is wrong on a couple of points. First is that Mark and Tellman do have rest time in their lives. They are not constantly working. They have a need to rest and rejuvenate the same as the rest of us. Second is that I can only do my personal best, so comparing myself to someone else is just a waste of time.

Having said that, what can I do to get the energy and motivation to work on my business?

One part of the equation is physical. We all know what to do here, but may not always do it. What are those things?

• Exercise – having good cardiovascular health and good muscle tone will provide you more energy to do your daily tasks than if you are out-of-shape. Also, this can help you lose weight. If you are heavy, it takes more energy just to move yourself around, and that energy is not available for other tasks.
• Sleep – 7 – 9 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period is what your body needs for health. It does not have to be all at once. Some people do well sleeping a few hours, then working, then sleeping a few more hours. If you never sleep well, see a sleep doctor to find out if you have a medical issue such as sleep apnea or periodic limb movement disorder or a deviated septum that is preventing you from getting a good night’s sleep. Make sure your sleeping area is dark enough, cool enough, and quiet enough for you to sleep.
• Diet – determine the foods that are good for you, that give you energy. Or conversely, determine the foods that are bad for you, that take away your energy.I have found that I do better if I do not eat sugar (any kind), artificial sweeteners, or caffeine. For me, these foods give me energy temporarily, but the effect quickly wears off and I feel worse than before I had them. Having given up all (artificial sweeteners 6 months ago, sugar a year ago, caffeine a month ago), I am feeling far better physically. Most of my aches and pains have gone away, and I have stopped getting headaches in the afternoon. I have more energy because I am not fighting the pain.
• Seasonal – do you have low energy in the winter months? Many people do, but the causes are many. I tried light therapy, but SAD was not the problem, and it left me feeling irritated all the time. I tried St. John’s wort, but I was not depressed, so it had no effect. I tried changing diet, eating lighter foods. That was good for my weight, but did not help the energy problem. I tried L-Glutamine (an amino acid supplement). That worked for me. After a couple of days taking the minimum dose, I had a lot more energy. So now I use it every winter. You have to experiment to find out what works for you.

Another part of the motivation equation is mental. You have to get to know yourself to determine your mental motivators. Some things to think about are:

• The reason for what you do – why are you doing what you are doing? A dear friend of mine was once diagnosed with a very serious blood cancer and had a 50% chance of surviving it. But she really wanted to see her nieces and nephews grow up, and that motivated her to fight the cancer and beat it. If you are trying to make a success of your business, what is the reason you want to be successful? Is the business itself something important to you, something your are passionate about? Is the business a means to an end, such as a better lifestyle for yourself or your children? What is that reason for your business that will keep you working on it for many years, and through triumph and discouragement?
• Skill – do you have the skills to do what needs to be done, or do you find yourself overwhelmed by the tasks because they are beyond what you have the skill to do? Or are you bored because the work is too easy? A huge motivator is when you have something to do that is just a little difficult for you. This lets you use your skills to the fullest, and gives you a chance to stretch a bit, to learn a bit more. If you are overwhelmed, you can either work with someone else who has the skills you lack, or you can learn and increase your own skill. If you are bored, what can you change to make the work more challenging? Or should you give the boring work to someone else and give yourself time to do what interests you?
• Introversion and Extroversion – Some people get energy when working alone. They are introverts. Other people get energy when working with others. They are extroverts. If your work environment is opposite of your needs (an introvert having to work with others, an extrovert having to work alone), then you are cutting yourself off from your source of energy.

Finally, consider that life has a rhythm. We all need time to work and time to refresh mentally and physically. We need time with people we love, and we need time alone. If you have recently spent a lot of time being very creative, intense, focussed, and just completed whatever you were focussed on, you may now find yourself with no energy at all! You may find yourself just sitting and staring at the wall. That is a natural rhythm, a period where your brain needs to rest for a while. Be conscious of your own natural rhythms and work with them.

• Some people work at 60% all the time, a steady constant effort. Other people work 100% for a very focussed period, then maybe 10% for another period. Their pattern is bursts of energy followed by nothing. Both people get their work done, but in different ways.
• Are you a morning person or a night person? Some people have more energy first thing in the morning, other people have more energy late at night.
• When is your best time to do mental work? Physical work? A lot of people love to work out at the gym as soon as they get up. Not me. My best workout time is around 10:30 in the morning or 2 in the afternoon. My body likes physical work at those times. I am at my mental best first thing in the morning, especially if it is mental work alone. I do not want to interact with other people early in the day. I do better working with other people in the afternoon. What is your personal rhythm? How can you use that to be most effective at your work, rest, and play?

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Now it is your turn.

Think about your needs for physical energy, mental motivation, and the rhythms of your life.

What have your learned about yourself? What can you change to use your personal energy, motivation, and rhythms to the best effect?

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If you are a US citizen and registered to vote, I encourage you to do so.

You might think, my one vote does not matter. But of course it does!! Polls are predicting that 65% of registered voters will vote today. It is sad that only two-thirds of the registered voters will vote. Especially when you consider how many people are not even registered to vote! I’m guessing that less than half the people who could vote are making the decisions for the whole country.

So go and vote! Make your voice heard. Be part of the decision.

Geri

Hi everyone -

I have not been on this blog much lately. The good news is: I got a large consulting contract for my company. The bad news is: I am one of the consultants. Do not get me wrong – I love consulting! But doing the work means I do not have time to build the business. It is a common problem for small businesses owners – you can do the work to make money for your business, or you can run the business. So far in my career, I have alternated between the two.

I have found that when I am working as a consultant, I spend 40 hours or so a week on work for my client. Then I spend time in the evenings and weekends doing administrative work for my business. This does not leave much, if any time, to work on the things that will increase my business.

One way to help with this is to hire people to do some of the work. This year I hired a CPA to help with taxes and business planning. This is a great investment for me. I also hired an accounting company to do the bookkeeping. So far, this has not been as useful. I have to spend so much time preparing information for the accountant, that I could have done the work myself. I am trying this service for a year – there is some amount of time you have to allow to get the relationship with the other company working smoothly. After 5 months, I am seeing some decrease in the amount of work I have to do.

My company is very virtual, which is more of a challenge. The tax and accounting laws are all designed for physical businesses. There is a lot of paperwork that is required. And it is physical paperwork. So when I have work out-of-town, the paperwork tends to get behind. One thing I have learned is that I need someone locally just to handle the paperwork.

As I try working with these other companies, I am learning what I really want someone else to do. I am learning what I can effectively outsource, and what I really have to do myself. I have found that lot of what needs to be done is just opening letters and deciding if the letter has to be disposed of, filed, replied to, or given to the accountant. This is the same if the letter is physical, email, or even a telephone message. It may have been better for me to hire a good administrative assistant who could also do simple bookkeeping, rather than hiring an accounting company.

In all cases, I am trying to not hire an employee to do the work. Rather, I am contracting with other companies to provide these services. The reason is the tax laws for employers. I once had one employee of my company. She was great. But the additional paperwork, reporting, taxes, and insurance was so burdensome that after she took another job, I never hired another employee.

Each company is different, and you may have different needs from mine. I hope this article gives you some ideas of the process I am going through to get other people to do my work, so that you try the same kind of things for your company.

Remember, the point of getting other people to do your work, is so that you have the time to grow your company, the time to do the things you need to do to effectively run your business.

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Now it is your turn.

What are the things you do that take up a lot of your time, that someone could do equally well for you?

Have you thought about outsourcing that work? Would you hire a company to provide the services, or would you hire an employee?

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I’ve talked before in this blog about how you might use a free blog – such as on MySpace, Zaadz, or Facebook – to promote your business. But you have to be careful how you go about doing that, or you will find your account terminated.

I was just reviewing the terms of service for MySpace (all the membership sites have similar terms) and found these uses of a social networking site are explicitly prohibited. You cannot use your account at a social networking site to (I have summarized a bit):

• solicit passwords or personal identifying information for commercial purposes from other Users
• perform commercial activities and/or sales such as contests, sweepstakes, barter, advertising, or pyramid schemes
• advertise to, or solicit, any Member to buy or sell any products or services. (note you can be charged $50 per email for sending this kind of message to other members)
• interfere with, disrupt, or create an undue burden on the Services or the networks or services connected to the Services
• display an unauthorized commercial advertisement on your profile, or accept payment or anything of value from a third person in exchange for your performing any commercial activity through the unauthorized or impermissible use of the Services on behalf of that person, such as placing commercial content on your profile, posting blogs or bulletins with a commercial purpose, selecting a profile with a commercial purpose as one of your “Top 8″ friends, or sending private messages with a commercial purpose

What does that mean for you?

1. You cannot set up a form on your account asking for name and email for any reason.You cannot offer any kind of product, whether or gift or free, through your account.
2. Don’t get too popular, or you might create an undue burden on the systems!! Nice problem to have. If you are that popular, get your own domain somewhere – you can afford it!
3. You cannot post anything that looks like advertising.
4. You cannot send email to your “friends” or other members that looks like advertising.
5. You cannot post advertising for another company (such as promoting a company of which you are an affiliate)

So what can you do?

I think you are still fine with posting informational articles. The articles should have good content and should not appear to be advertising in disguise. Then I like to put a footer at the end of my article, such as this one I use at the end of all my articles:

You are invited to re-publish articles from this blog, in your
publication or website, as long as the article is intact and
you include the following Byline paragraph (with live links)
after each article you use…

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* Article used with permission from Wyyzzk, Inc.’s Realize Your
Business website at http://www.realizeyourbusiness.com This website
of reports and tips contains information to help you succeed as the
Owner/Manager of a small business.

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Notice that I am not directly selling a product or service. Am I a commercial concern? Yes. Do I sell things? Yes. But I am careful to not “sell” using the membership site. Rather, I share information that may be of interest to other people and if they want a further relationship with me or my company, then they go to my website to do that.

I think the concern of the membership sites is that their servers get overwhelmed with traffic, and that traffic is spending money somewhere else (not on the membership site).

So be considerate of the needs of the membership site – they need to make money to keep their servers running. You can help do this by providing great content that brings visitors to the membership site (who may click on the ads and spend money). But then take care of yourself, by making it possible for those same visitors to find your commercial website where you can turn them into customers. Think of using the membership site as a way for people to find you and get to know you. Use the membership site to develop relationships, then these people will more readily become customers at your own commercial site.

This is a win-win-win situation – the membership site gets visitors and makes money, you get customers and make money, and the customers get your great product which helps them solve some need or problem.

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Now it is your turn.

Do you have a membership at one or more social networking sites? Are you familiar with the terms of agreement for those sites?

How are you effectively using your account to develop relationships with potential customers, without violating the terms of agreements of the sites?

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An important thing in your business is to understand your customers. Previously in this blog I discussed using a game to get information about your customers and their needs. Another technique that can be helpful is to write a Persona about your typical customer.

You write a Persona when you want to understand your customers better. This Persona is a story you will tell about a typical (but not real) customer. The Persona is a composite story about your typical customers, made very lifelike.

One of the markets I work in is people who are Business Analysts. I started off by imaging a relatively young person in this market who has some work experience, who is really comfortable with the computer and internet, and who readily goes online to find information at any time a question arises. Now I imagine some real people and write their stories.

© Christophe Baudot . Image from BigStockPhoto.com

Karen Carmichael is 27 years old. She graduated from a U.S. college with a B.A. in Sociology and a minor in Information Systems. She has worked as a Business Analyst for a large bank in Chicago, Illinois for the 5 years since graduation on a wide variety of software projects. Karen is single and loves sports. She is a member of her company’s softball team in the summer, and an avid football and basketball fan in the fall and winter.

Karen feels that she received a fine education in college, but working on real projects for a major corporation is quite different from her school projects. She has many peers at her bank that she can talk with, but often situations arise that are not easy to resolve.

Karen is quite comfortable with a computer and searching for information on the internet. She really likes to be able to open up a search engine and find the answer to any question right away. The problem with search engines is that she often gets a lot of unrelated information in response to her queries. Karen has a number of sites bookmarked on her computer for her favorite sports teams. She wants to create a similar set of bookmarks for sites that have information for Business Analysts. When she has a question, she can just open a web browser and select a couple of those sites to find the information she needs.

© Mateusz Zagorski. Image from BigStockPhoto.com

Raj Reddy is 32 years old. He graduated from a prestigious Engineering College in India with a B.S. in Computer Science, and worked as a programmer in India for 3 years. He then came to the US and completed an MBA with the goal of managing software projects. He has been working as a Project Manager for a major health insurance organization in San Francisco, California for the last 5 years, taking on roles of increasing responsibility. Raj is married and his wife is in India. He wants to return to India to join his wife and family, and to bring what he has learned about software development to some of the smaller companies in his home state.

Raj plans to be a consultant and carry a computer with a wireless card everywhere he works. He wants to be able to quickly find information on the internet to help him in his job. This will include information about Business Analysis, because he often finds that the roles of Project Manager and Business Analyst overlap, so he needs to know how to do both jobs.

When he is not as busy with work, Raj likes to continually learn new things. It is hard for him to sign up for classes, because he may not be available for every class meeting. So having the classes online in a self-study format is a great solution. He wants to be able to study the material whenever he has time, and does not want to have a deadline for when he has to complete the class. Raj is a friendly guy, and fears he will miss the daily interactions with people at work. He is looking for an online community that he can access any time he is online to chat with other Business Analysts.

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Now it is your turn.

What information do you have about your customers? Try writing one or more personas about your customers so that the people and their needs are more real to you.

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Sometimes when running a business you may come up with a need for a relatively small amount of money for a relatively short time period. You may not qualify for a regular bank loan, so what do you do?

Traditionally, many of us small business owners have turned to family and friends for these kinds of loans.

This can lead to problems. For example, there may be bad feelings if the terms of the loan and repayment are not clearly spelled out. Or you may not have family or friends who can afford to (or want to) loan you money.

There are some good solutions available, that are growing in popularity. This article reviews the solutions available from three very different companies: Virgin Money, Prosper, and Zopa.

I have not used any of these services yet myself, but they all look interesting to me for different reasons. And I see that they have all been favorably written up in the media, and have been in existence for quite a number of years. If any of these interest you, definitely do your research on the companies and what they offer before making a commitment.

First is Virgin Money (formerly CircleLending) owned by Sir Richard Branson (Virgin Records, Virgin Atlantic airlines, etc.). The purpose of this company is to document and manage loans for you. The basic service they offer is to do all the paperwork to formalize a loan between two parties who have agreed to the transaction. So for example, let us imagine that your father agrees to loan you $10,000 for your business. Then you and he would contact Virgin Money to write up all the loan documents, showing the loan amount, interest rate, and payment schedule. For an additional fee, they will also manage the loan, by transferring the payments from you to your father, and sending year end reports showing how much interest and principle you paid.

This is a good service if you already know someone who is willing to loan you money (or someone you want to loan money to) and you just need help formalizing the agreement. You might want to make the agreement more formal to avoid any misunderstandings about payment terms, or because you want the formal document to put with your business papers in case of an audit.

The home page for Virgin Money is http://www.virginmoneyus.com/
Virgin Money is available in several countries around the world, including the US and UK.

Another company that helps people borrow money from other people is Zopa. This works very differently than Virgin Money. Zopa is a membership community. Through this community, you become a member of a credit union. If you want to borrow money, you get a loan from the credit union. You can also post your loan on the Zopa site. Then other Zopa members can help you get a lower interest rate for your loan (which may mean you will qualify for more money). Back to how this works in a minute.

If you are a person who has money to lend, you also join Zopa as a member and become a member of an associated credit union. You invest the money you want to loan into a Certificate of Deposit (CD). You look through the posted loans on the Zopa site and indicate which loan you want your money to fund. Then you say what interest rate you want on your CD. If you choose a below market interest rate, then the person whose loan you are funding gets a lower interest rate on their loan.

In this Zopa model, the person investing in the CD will make the rate of return they choose, around 5% or less at the time this article is written. In return, the CD is insured up to $100,000 by the federal government of the US, and the rate of return is guaranteed.

You can get more information at the Zopa home site https://us.zopa.com/index.aspx
Zopa is only available to US residents. To apply for a loan, you have to be 18 or older with a FICO credit score of at least 640.

The last company I looked at is Prosper. Again, it’s model is very different than the other two. This is a real person-to-person model. Borrowers and Lenders both sign up to be members of Prosper. A member who wants a loan makes a post on the Prosper site saying how much they want to borrow, the maximum interest rate they will pay, and what the money will be used for. Prosper runs a credit check and based on the results, assigns a credit rating to the borrower – AA, A, B, C, D, or HR (High Risk). AA is the best rating, which means the person is almost certain to pay back the loan, based on their credit history.

Let’s say you want to loan money to one or more of the people listed. You select the loans you are willing to fund based on how much risk you want to take, or how much their story touches your heart. For each loan, you say how much money you will loan (it does not have to be the full amount), and the minimum interest rate you want to receive. Many people can “bid” on the same loan. Prosper picks the bids with the lowest interest rates that make up enough money for the loan.

Prosper handles all the payment processing, collection of bad debt, and the website, by charging a small percentage of the amount of the loan as a fee. If you are a lender, you will typically earn a better return on your investment by loaning money through Prosper than through Zopa, but you also take a higher risk of potentially losing the money. If you are a borrower with a low credit score, you may find people willing to invest in you here, if you cannot find a loan other places.

You can get more information about Prosper at their home site http://www.prosper.com/
Prosper is available to US residents only.

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Now it is your turn.

If any of these companies interest you as either a borrower or a lender, I encourage you to go to the sites and investigate further.

It is also wise to check with the Better Business Bureau to find out more about the companies.

If you are not in the US, then see what opportunities exist in your country. You may be able to find something similar, depending on the banking laws in that country.

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You are invited to re-publish articles from this blog, in your publication or website, as long as the article is intact and you include the following Byline paragraph (with live links) after each article you use…

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* Article used with permission from Wyyzzk, Inc.’s Realize Your Business website at http://www.realizeyourbusiness.com This website of reports and tips contains information to help you succeed as the Owner/Manager of a small business.

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