When you’re the boss, getting motivated and quickly seeing how more customers can increase your profits isn’t hard. Think big, just make sure your expectations can be met. It’s a lot easier to feel good about a 2 percent increase if your initial goal isn’t to double your revenue.

Online shoppers will wait a maximum of four seconds for your page to load before clicking away, according to a 2006 JupiterResearch study. Shaving seconds off your page loading times can increase your sales and your bottom line. Here are some tips for cutting your Web page load times.

Looking for ways to increase your sales while the economy plods along the path to recovery? Why not expand your target market by opening your business to the world?

It's been a tough year for sales, and we're moving into the home stretch. Here are five tips to help you boost sales and reach your revenue goals as the 2009 shopping season gets underway.

A database is a great way to organize Web sites with a lot of regularly updated content. Databases power dynamic Web sites, meaning pages are created each time someone requests them. The pages are made by pulling information from the database into a Web page template upon request.

WordPress is one of the most commonly used blogging tools on the Web today. It’s a powerful , open source publishing platform with an administrative interface that doesn’t require a lot of experience to use—making it one of the more attractive blogging opt

Choosing the right Web hosting plan can be a daunting task with an enormous number of products and features available. Deciphering specifications and making sense of the jargon is only the first step. Finding a company you trust is equally important.

Your Web site linking strategy has two goals: 1. To drive traffic to your Web site and 2. To increase your rank with the major search engines. If you secure links on Web sites that are popular with your target audience, you could gain a new stream of t

Visitors will type your domain name into a browser or lick on it a search engine results page before you have a chance to wow them with your Web site. It's your first impression, so make it good. Your domain name should fit the style and tone of your Web s

You’ve built a Web site, and you’re getting a decent amount of traffic. Now it’s time to make some money! We’ve compiled seven ideas on how you can turn a profit from your Web site, or at least make it pay for itself.

7(c)(1) Onsite Consultation Program

When purchasing office equipment, you'll often have the option of purchasing a service contract on the new equipment. In fact, sellers will often go out of their way to try to get you to purchase a service contract. The main reason for this is that the profit margin on the service contract is often greater than the profit margin on the piece of equipment you're purchasing.

The typical credit card transaction begins when your customer hands you the credit card. What you do with the credit card depends upon the system you have in place. You will either manually imprint the card onto your paper draft, if you still use the older technology, or you'll swipe the card through an electronic terminal, if you use the newer technology.

A noncompete agreement is either a separate agreement or a clause in an employment contract that prohibits an employee from working in a related business in your area for a certain length of time. Noncompete agreements are used to prevent an employee from using your business's confidential information.

Whether you need a confidentiality policy will depend upon what type of information you feel you need to protect. Some specific items that can be protected by a confidentiality clause or agreement are customer lists, trade secrets, inventions, discoveries, data, formulas, business methods, processes, machines, manufacturers, and compositions.

The majority of small businesses probably don't need a policy addressing employees' access to and dissemination of confidential information or trade secrets. However, if your business has spent a lot of time and effort developing its customer lists, highly specialized operating procedures, or some revolutionary technology or product and you want to protect your secrets from possible competitors, you may consider some kind of policy to address the matter.

The heart of OSHA compliance is becoming aware of its published standards, which address specific hazards. The standards are divided into four major categories based on the type of work being performed:

The DoD Regional Councils for Small Business Education and Advocacy are a nationwide network of small business specialists organized to promote national small business programs to include minority and disadvantaged small business concerns and minority universities and institutions.

The "Fast Track" is a special program for the Department of Defense SBIR and STTP programs that offers a significantly higher chance of SBIR/STTR award, and continuous funding, to small companies that can attract outside investors. Small companies retain the intellectual property rights to technologies that they develop under these programs. Funding is awarded competitively, but the process is more streamlined and easier.

Although similar in structure to SBIR, the Small Business Technical Transfer Program (STTR) funds cooperative R projects involving a small business and a non-profit research institution (i.e., a university, federally funded R center, or non-profit research institution). Established by Congress in 1992, the purpose of STTR was to create an effective vehicle for moving ideas from the nation's research institutions to the market, where they can benefit both private sector and government customers. The government STTR program was funded for $130 million in Fiscal Year 2006.

As we have already mentioned, packaging requirements are a big deal when you do business with the government. They need to be carefully considered and analyzed, not only in pricing out a bid, but also in implementing a QA program. To aid your understanding, we think it would be helpful to define the terms "packaging" and "packing" the way the government defines them.

ISO international standards, developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) based in Geneva, Switzerland, are considered among the world's strictest and highest quality standards. The ISO, a non-governmental organization established in 1947, comprises a worldwide federation of national standards bodies from each of 100 countries. The organization aims to facilitate the international exchange of goods and services by establishing international standards and reconciling regulatory differences between countries.

ISO 9000 is a kind of "International Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval." It's actually part of a series of standards referred to by numbers--ISO 9001, 9002, 9003 refer to standards for quality management; ISO 14000s refer to standards for environmental management, and so forth. These and other international standards are administered via the International Organization for Standardization (commonly referred to as ISO*), founded in 1947 and based in Geneva, Switzerland. (Several previous efforts at international standardization were halted due to WWII, and ISO took up where those left off.)

Which factors do government buyers consider in looking at your bid and finally awarding the contract? Here are some of the most important:

How can you decide whether to respond to the RFP that you are considering? Here are some questions to help you make a decision: