The thought may have hit you fairly recently, or you may have had this desire for years, but recently, you’ve been contemplating what life would be like if you were your own boss, calling your own shots and running your own business. But how do you know if you’re ready to make the leap or not? Below, we’ve listed out a few tell tale signs that you may be ready to step out on your own. If you identify with the majority of them, it may be time to start getting your business plan together.
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Entrepreneurs, especially those who own start-ups, are known for sacrificing sleep for work. Sometimes, a couple short sleeps – or even sleepless nights – are warranted in order to create a successful company. But for too many business owners, little to no sleep isn’t an exception – it’s the norm.

The more the importance of sleep is studied, the more we find it’s simply not worth skipping or cutting short. You may have more time to work if you forgo sleep, but studies also show that you’ll be a less inspiring leader, you’ll make more ill-informed decisions, and you’ll be more likely to contract a cold or other illness, which will ultimately take time away from your work. In fact, by getting the National Sleep Foundation recommended 7-9 hours a night, you’ll be happier and more creative. So how exactly does a busy entrepreneur with an endless to-do list get enough good, quality rest to fulfill his/her full potential? Read on to find out how you can prioritize fitting quality hours of sleep into your schedule.
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Over half of businesses located in the great states of America can be found in the home. For some – whether it’s attributed to having toddlers not in school or because social interaction is key to their personalities – a home office would be considered a nightmare. For others – roughly around 52% – working from home is part of the American dream. To that we say, to each his own. However, we do have an opinion on how it should be handled and if you’re getting ready to work from home full-time or just building a home office for the occasional overflow of jobs, make sure to keep this list handy.
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While recently chowing down on too many pounds of crawfish, a conversation sparked up with the guy who runs the local crawfish hut famous for their spicy mudbugs. Crawfish season generally begins in March – depending on how mild the previous winter was – and ends on July 4th weekend. So, curiosity sprang up on where crawfish hut/shack/truck owners go and what they do in the off-season. The answer? “I go back to my regular job and work the nine to five.” Rather than quenching the curiosity, it only sparked more questions. What profession allows a 4 to 5 month break? Is this the case for other seasonal businesses like ice cream trucks, sno cone shacks, ski lifts, etc.? How much revenue do they have to pull in to stay float in the off-season?

After digging in, we found how these men and women stay successful and there are only a few minor differences from the year-round businesses.
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We often find ourselves using family analogies when discussing our small businesses. In the case of discussing how to market to existing customers, we want to use you – the small business owner – as the parent figure. You’ve just had a new baby girl. You spent months preparing for this baby and you want to give her all your attention and care. But she’s not your first baby. You have another one who just turned 5. If you’re focusing all attention, expense, and effort on the new baby, what happens to the 5-year old? You see where this is going.

As a small business owner, you might have a tendency to focus all your attention on growing your client base. But in the meantime, your existing one starts to feel the neglect. There has to be a balance in the focus. So we’ve provided some tips on great ways to continue the marketing effort on attention on existing customers.
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