Independent / Small Business Owners

Quote of the Month:
A weak [person] has doubts before a decision, a strong [one] has them afterwards.
— Karl Kraus, Austrian writer (1874-1936)

John Sipple owns Ignite Coaching and Business Consulting. Before becoming a business coach he spent 20 years in corporate work. He serves on the ethics committee of the International Coach Federation (ICF), which is headquartered in Lexington, Ky.

One of the differences between a business coach and a therapist is that therapy typically goes back to the beginning and coaching starts where you are now.

Quote of the Month:
“Research is what I’m doing when I don’t know what I’m doing.”
—Wernher von Braun, German rocket physicist (1912-1977)

Adrienne Grizzell, MPA, CAE, has a background in marketing and since 1999 has been in association management. She owns Management, Inc. She is very familiar with nonprofit organizations and suggests two sites for you to use as research tools before you donate to any nonprofit group.

http://www.GuideStar.org
http://www.CharityNavigator.org

At these sites you’ll be able to see any given organization’s 990 forms, what they pay their staff and what their expenses are. “Anything less than 25% for administrative costs is a good thing,” said Adrienne.

Quote of the Month:
“If you don’t drive your business, you will be driven out of business.”
—B.C. Forbes, Scottish financial journalist (1880-1954)

Marcus Simpson is co-owner of TCG America, a company providing IT services and consulting for small and medium businesses. We all depend on the Internet daily, so companies with employees need to have an Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) and be ready to enforce it. The advice is good for households with children, also.

There are 113 million domains registered, with 100,000 new ones each day. “It’s hard to keep track of which sites are good and which ones are bad,” said Marcus.