Business: Why Small Businesses Fail

Why Small Businesses Fail

Written by Stuart A. Billings

Success in business is never automatic. It isn't strictly based on luck - although a little never hurts. It depends primarily on repparttar

owner's foresight and organization. Even then, of course, there are no guarantees.

In his book Small Business Management, Michael Ames gives repparttar 136070 following reasons for small business failure:

1:Lack of experience 2:Insufficient capital (money) 3:Poor location 4:Poor inventory management 5:Over-investment in fixed assets 6:Poor credit arrangements 7:Personal use of business funds 8:Unexpected growth 9:Competition 10:Low sales

More Reasons Why Small Businesses Fail

These reasons aren't meant to scare you, but to prepare you for repparttar 136071 rocky path ahead. Underestimating repparttar 136072 difficulty of starting a business is one of repparttar 136073 biggest obstacles entrepreneurs face. However, success can be yours if you are patient, willing to work hard, and take all repparttar 136074 necessary steps.

The Ratings are Coming!

Written by Bob Nicholson

Small businesses have always known repparttar

importance of word of mouth. Many successful businesses have been built on word of mouth referrals, and many have been killed by bad word of mouth.

But now repparttar 136069 landscape is changing, making word of mouth more important than ever - only now, that word of mouth is being communicated on repparttar 136070 Internet.

People - your customers - are turning to repparttar 136071 Internet as their primary source of information on products and services. Instead of opening repparttar 136072 yellow pages of their phone book, they turn to Yahoo or Google. And in addition to websites and listings for local businesses, they are finding ratings and reviews!

Sites like Amazon.com and ePinions pioneered product rating systems. In some categories, these ratings have become essential to a product's success: more than 60% of consumer electronics purchasers report that they consult online ratings before making a purchase decision!

Ratings have also become common is a few other business categories, such as restaurants and hotels.

But repparttar 136073 online ratings explosion is just starting; Internet entrepreneurs are demonstrating that virtually anything can be rated online.

RateMyProfessors.com, launched in 1999, allows college students to rate - well, professors. The site has accumulated over 3 million ratings, and has spun off another site, RateMyTeachers.com, aimed at high school and elementary students.

ApartmentRatings.com has repparttar 136074 most comprehensive database of apartment ratings, with almost 250,000 reviews. RateMDs.com was formed to allow patients to rate their doctors. A new site, ClubRatingz.com, allows patrons to rate nightclubs and bars (perhaps while recovering from hangovers?)

Rating sites are even risking repparttar 136075 wrath of repparttar 136076 legal profession: LawyerRatingz.com provides attorney ratings and reviews.

All of these sites feature a fair share of rants and raves. Many of repparttar 136077 comments are semi-coherent ramblings, often typed with Caps Lock down. But surprisingly, over time and with enough ratings, a fairly accurate picture emerges. Some reviewers provide well-thought reviews and useful information. And repparttar 136078 sites are being visited and read!

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