Successful Businessman

Lisa Blanton, owner of Sassy Creations, makes candles. Not just typical candle, though. Her candles are 100% Palm Wax. She makes them personally, in small batches, and hand pour each one. The name of her candle line is *Palm*Scents*.

Information from her grant application is available here. Read below for more, and if you have questions for our semi-finalists don’t hesitate to ask them in the comments section.

Also, don’t forget to cast your vote! YOUR vote will determine which entrepreneurs most deserve to be amongst the finalists.

How did you come up with the idea for your business?

I have made hairbows for my own daughters, now 6 & 8, since they were babies. I just suddenly realized, “Hey, I could sell this stuff!”

As for *Palm*Scents*, my candle line, I just LOVE candles, and starting experimenting with different waxes.

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“You can’t change what you can’t measure,” my friend and colleague Rochelle Lisner of Dynamic Business Growth often says. That becomes particularly thorny in the nebulous world of networking and marketing. Sure, it’s “easy” to make the comparison when you’re comparing dollars for dollars–for example, “I spent $1,000 on a journal for an event, and I was contacted by two clients who each paid me $5,000.”

But when you’re comparing time to dollars, how do you know that the time you’re spending is really worth it? In a word, “quantify.”

That’s where I found Dan Janal’s About.com article, “Return on Marketing Investment for Articles,” intriguing. Article marketing is often touted as a way of highlighting your expertise, getting your name known and increasing your outreach. (I should know–I’ve written many myself.)

But with articles, there isn’t always a direct correlation between submitting an article and immediately having a customer buy your product or service in response. Janal’s article includes two formulas you c

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Last year, I went in for my annual checkup, and did not like what the numbers were telling me. Cholesterol was up. Blood pressure was up. And–horror of horrors–my weight was up (again). I was close to turning my medicine cabinet into a functioning pharmacy, with a full color palette of pills, capsules and tablets. If I didn’t make changes soon, my health could seriously be at risk–which would mean ever-increasing medical costs.

You only have to hit me in the head with a brick a dozen or so times before I actually get the lesson. So this past year, I turned the corner: drastically reducing my consumption of fried foods and cheese (oh, how I miss French fries!), exercising regularly and vigorously, and dropping 15 pounds (and counting). This year, my numbers were great. I averted a crisis and put healthier habits in place.

So why not do the same for your business?

Year after year, it’s tempting to avoid the (juris) doctor. After all, who likes being told that your business partnership is on a legally shaky foundation, your client contracts have holes like Swiss cheese, and your website terms are so thin, they’re like going out in winter without a coat? (No one–I g

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Over the past two years, the small business environment has changed dramatically. This year’s New York Times Small Business Summit in NYC on Sept. 23 will explore the next steps of social media marketing and how best to navigate a new economic and legislative landscape.

The event is sponsored by OPEN/American Express, and the 2010 speaker lineup includes keynote addresses by Jerry Greenfield, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc. and Robin Chase, founding CEO of Zipcar and GoLoco.

I’ll be a panelist for the “Grow Your Business: The Nuts and Bolts of Running a Business” session, running twice—in the morning and the afternoon.

For more information and to register, visit http://nytsmallbusinessummit.com/index.php

Will you be attending the Summit? Let me know, and I’ll look forward to seeing you there.

Q. :  I want to register a Charity in the USA. I’m a citizen of Nepal and currently residing in Nepal. To promote the charity and its presence in US I want to register it in USA. How can I go about this?

A.:  When you register a charity in the United States, you actually have to choose a specific state where you intend to register (there is no country-wide law concerning the initial registration of charities).  The choice of “which state is best for registration” may depend on (1) where you think more of your donors will be based, (2) where your charity’s board is likely to live, or (3) other factors, depending on the purpose of the charity. Generally, anyone wanting to form a not-for-profit corporation in the U.S. will need to follow these steps:

1. Choose a state and determine the registration requirements (which you can often learn on the websites of the Secretary of State of the state you’ve chosen)
2. Determine who will serve as your initial Board of Directors (some states require a minimum of 3 people U.S. residents in

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I have friends from college where our only communication right now is an annual Christmas missive, detailing all the high points of the year about to end. I’m always delighted to hear their news and to live vicariously through the stories they share. But these are not the people I turn to in a crisis. These are not the people whose lives are intimately intertwined with mine. If our lives can be seen as concentric circles, these friends are not in the innermost circles.

Think of all the relationships you’ve ever had–with romantic partners, children, parents, friends and colleagues. Which ones were most important to you? And of those, how many relationships truly flourished if you communicated only once a year?

When it comes to business, you want to keep your employees close. Perhaps not “inner sanctum” close, but certainly more than “Christmas card” close.

That’s why communication with your employees needs to be an ongoing process. As I mention in my article, “R-E-S-P-E-C-T: The Key to Employee Loyalty,” you’ll want to give them regular feedback so that they know where they are on track, and where they need improvement. F. John Reh also note

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