Art of business

Developing and managing a website on a shoe string budget isn’t as challenging as it sounds. You can create and maintain a professional looking web site to promote your business for less than $500 a year. After you’ve settled on what type of business you plan to start, here is a list of steps to walk you through the process of creating your own web site:

CHOOSE A NAME FOR YOUR BUSINESS
The first step is choosing a name for your business so that you can register a domain name. Many hosting providers include the domain name registration with the purchase of a hosting package. Consider picking a name that is self-explanatory in regard to the product or service you plan to offer. You may want to pick a name that starts with a letter in the beginning of the alphabet as many directory sites list businesses alphabetically and you’ll appear closer to the top of the listings by default.

SELECT A HOSTING PROVIDER
Hostmysite.com is among the best hosting providers. It allows offers you the option of paying quarterly instead of annually, which fits better in the often limited budgets of small business owners. Hostmysite also offers tech support 24/7 to help you with any IT problems you run in to in getting your site up and running on the web.

CREATE YOUR WEB SITE
Programs like Microsoft Publisher or Adobe Dreamweaver are fairly inexpensive and very user-friendly-even for those of you who find a foreign language easier to understand than HTML. You can build your whole site without using a word of HTML. Publisher is a bit easier to use but Dreamweaver allows you the option of building your sit with HTML if you wish. Having built web sites with both, I prefer Publisher, due to the end-result.

MAINTAINING YOUR SITE
Need to update something on your site or change pricing? One of the main pros of building your own web site is being able to maintain it yourself. This makes your website is easy to keep up-to-date and accurate. If you have someone else running your site, you have to put in requests to have them change things for you.

ACCEPTING PAYMENT
One of the most cost-effective ways to accept payment is via reputable services like PayPal which takes a convenience fee but doesn’t cost you money out-of-pocket. Hostmysite offers the option of integrating MIVA merchant to your website which is included in the cost of most hosting packages. MIVA allows you to accept payment via PayPal as well.

ALTERNATIVES
On a budget of less than $500? Options like Google Apps now offer free hosting with limited web pages which allow you to create a web site for free. The result is not nearly as professional looking, but it is definitely acceptable as a temporary solution for your business. A web site is a must for a business to remain competitive at this day in age!

We choose to be entrepreneurs for intensely personal reasons. Fundamentally, we become entrepreneurs because we find it impossible to accept another’s definition of success for our lives. We choose instead to define, then pursue our own success. This is what it means to me to be an entrepreneur: To become everything that I could be for myself and for those within my sphere of duty.

Abraham Maslow, an American PhD in psychology, identified this entrepreneurial motivation in his Hierarchy of Needs* model, as the highest quest a human could pursue. Maslow’s thesis argues that the satisfaction of human need is actually a progression through hierarchical levels (i.e. that one needs to satisfy level 1 before proceeding to the higher level 2 and so on)

After satisfying level (1) needs, that are biological and physiological in nature like air, food, drink and shelter, we humans then seek to satisfy level (2) needs that encompass safety issues like security, order, law and stability, before progressing to level (3) needs of belonging and love which we derive from family, work groups and relationships. Following the satisfaction of these needs, humans then look to satisfy the higher level need for self esteem (4) which encompasses mastery, independence, status and prestige. Whilst the majority of humans stop here, this level does not satisfy the entrepreneur. They want more. They are driven to satisfy Maslow’s level (5) need which he titled “The Need for Self Actualization”.

So, what it means to me to be an entrepreneur is to be able to realize my personal potential, to have a sense of self-fulfillment and to seek continual personal growth and the ultimate in peak experiences. i.e. Self-Actualization. It is not difficult to see that a self-actualizing life that lives to its full potential actually accomplishes it purpose in life or if you like its destiny. This is the real entrepreneurial promise and not just the money, which entrepreneurs see and use as a tool to satisfy these higher level needs.

The famous Virgin brand founder and global entrepreneur, Richard Branson, sums it up best when asked what it meant to him to be an entrepreneur: “It is the satisfaction of doing it for yourself and motivating others to work with you in bringing it about. It is about the fun, innovation, creativity with the rewards being far greater than purely financial.”

Now, the less experienced or perhaps less disciplined entrepreneur can achieve all of the above without regard to their duty. The duty I speak of is the entrepreneur’s responsibilities to their life partners, their children, their employees, their investors, their stakeholders and to their community. Being a practicing entrepreneur for over 25 years and having started 13 businesses, I have learned that to be a true entrepreneur is to incorporate the “win-win” philosophy for all those within your sphere of duty as well.

So, whilst being a entrepreneur means self-actualization for my life, I also believe it means fulfilling my duty. Just like the ancient Chinese philosophy of yin-yang, I believe that true entrepreneurship incorporates both self-actualization and duty as complementary opposites within a greater whole.

Reference: * Abraham Maslow’s article “A Theory of Human Motivation” appeared in Psychological Review in 1943 and further expanded upon in his book: “Toward a Psychology of Being.”

Filing bankruptcy can create many problems for you down the road. It is very important to look at all of your options before you file. There are ways to get the debts paid without completely ruining your credit with a bankruptcy mark. Understanding the consequences of bankruptcy may be enough to coax you into getting the debt paid instead.

Here are some of the consequences that you will suffer if you file:

Credit Report

Bankruptcy stays on your credit report for seven years. That is a long time to have such a bad mark on your credit history. This can keep you down as you attempt to move forward with your life after bankruptcy.

Loans

You will not be able to obtain a loan for anything, including a home, car or even credit cards when you have this on your credit report. This will keep you from purchasing the things that you want when you need it. It is worth thinking very hard before you make the decision to file bankruptcy for this reason alone.

Insurance

You car insurance will sky rocket if you file bankruptcy. Credit reports are used to determine your insurance rates. This may not sound fair, but the insurance companies look at a credit report to see how well you handle certain situations. If you are careless with your finances, you will probably be careless in other aspects of your life. It doesn’t matter if that is true or not. It only matters that it’s how the insurance company looks at it.

Losing It All

If you file bankruptcy, you can lose the things that you had a loan on. Such things could be your house, your car or any other objects that you have in your possession. When there is an outstanding loan on these things, filing bankruptcy is a quick way to get it repossessed. The only way out of this is to agree to pay those particular loans off. This may be possible but be sure that you can afford to do it. Once your bankruptcy has gone through you cannot file for another seven years.

It Costs Money

Bankruptcy is not free. You will have to pay lawyer and court fees. These can add up to a lot of money. It could actually be cheaper to pay off the loans than to file. Be sure that you compare the two to see which one is best for you. If the two dollar amounts are close to each other, it is better to simply pay off the loans so that your credit report will look better.

There may seem to be no other way out but to declare bankruptcy. Be sure that you look at all of your options first. It is probably the easiest way out of unmanageable debt, but it sticks with you for years to come. Only take this route if you have no other options left.