The personal relationships that exist between the business owner and their closest confidants are more important than warring against the competition. In fact, a recent study by the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) and Ink, a Chase credit card company, reveals that the decision making and business operations of a small business owner are far more likely to be influenced by these confidants than anyone else.

Sales people live or die based on one thing, and on thing alone: closing enough deals to keep the lights on. That’s it. If you’ve got a sales oriented job, then you need to do that, above all else, or find a new line of work. it really is that simple.

If you’ve heard the phrase, “Do what you love!” once, you’ve heard it a thousand timed. It’s a cliché, but the funny thing about cliches is that they got to be cliches because they also happen to be true. The reality is that when you do something that you love, it stops being work, and starts being a joy, and when you love what you’re doing, you’re not only willing to work harder and longer hours to make the vision that you’re so passionate about a reality, but you’re also more apt to apply both sides of your brain to the equation.

One of the problems with searching the Internet for the “best” lists is that what is a great fit for one company is just average for another. One way to find your way through the maze of lists is to create or join a business network for your industry and let the voices of reason and experience guide you.

Until quite recently, phishing attacks were the primary means of infecting a target computer with malware. If a hacker could convince a person to click on a link in an email, the deed was done. Unfortunately for the hackers, users have been getting increasingly more savvy about safeguarding their emails and not clicking on links from untrusted sources.

The competition between Vine and Instagram isn’t really about Vine and Instagram. To better understand what the competition is truly about, and what’s driving it at the root, you need to first understand what those two companies actually are, and who they are proxies for.

The biggest name in internet based video is Youtube. Yes, there are an assortment of other sites, but if you have a limited budget and limited time, you want to put your resources to work in the place where they’ll deliver the biggest punch, and that’s Youtube.

You may not be familiar with the name Travis Kalanick. He’s the CEO of Uber, one of the major players in the “Ridesourcing” craze. The idea is that if you need a lift somewhere, you download Uber and place an order. One (and possibly several) of Uber’s legions of drivers will send out a response, indicating their availability and rate.

Should you be gearing up to take advantage of T-Commerce? If Twitter has anything to say about it, the answer to that question is a resounding “Yes”. In an attempt to gain profitability, Twitter is rolling out a number of new products and services which will allow businesses to sell products from within the context of a Tweet.

If you are a small or medium business, and especially if you are a recent start up, the subject of being paid is one which should be on your mind all the time.

A sale is not a sale until the money is in the bank; until that time, it’s just a nice possibility.