You may have considered offering gift certificates through your website. Or maybe you already do. In the past few years, gift cards and certificates have been the subject of federal and state legislation to protect consumers from overly restrictive and abusive gift card practices. We want you to know the federal legal requirements for issuing...Continue Reading

Being in business can be…well…busy. Between the whole content-creation, administrative-doing-tasks, paying-your-taxes, marketing-for-sales, executing-awesome-customer-service, and everything-else-oh-my-goodness-that-I-need-to-do-today, you can get swept away. So busy that you forget to take time for education. One of the best ways to receive education is by seeking out good, quality, and to-the-point resources such as books or audiobooks. By setting aside...Continue Reading

Social Media is a must have in business. That is why we’re gonna take a quick departure from legal mumbo jumbo to highlight this important aspect to business. Prerna Malik, the brains behind Social Media Biz Direct (now Content Bistro), graciously gave us a few minutes of her time to talk a bit about creating...Continue Reading

Ahh, taxes. Ben Franklin famously said nothing in life is certain except death and taxes. And fear not, digital goods purveyor, the taxman is a-coming.  The uncertainty, though, is what for? Taxes on digital goods are set by each state, just like any other sales tax. Traditionally, businesses are not required to charge sales tax...Continue Reading

“I have to make this work for my family.” “Having a blog is fun; I love the benefits and interaction with community.” “I want to blog from home to be with my kids and make money too!” “Blogging is a means to an end for my <insert type> of business” No matter what you reason...Continue Reading

Setting up your blogging business the right way (See: Checklist here) can be quite overwhelming.  Many times you have no idea who to turn to for specific questions and ask “Should I hire a CPA or a Lawyer for my Blogging Business?” So glad you asked! Today we’re going to go over the specific situations and...Continue Reading

This article is an excerpt of The Laundry List by Rachel Brenke.   This chapter would seriously be the easiest one to explain if I could just say, “OUTSOURCE!” But alas, not all of us can afford to outsource, or may not even want to for certain aspects of the business. There are even some...Continue Reading

As business owners we can never tire of continually learning more outside of our experience.  As bloggers we can find ourselves just testing, testing and testing some more.  We can forget that there are techniques and ideas to be borrowed from other industries and small business owners who have gone before us, whether you’re blogging...Continue Reading

Setting up business is so super important! We need to make sure you’re on the right path!   Biz 101 Checklist Here is a superficial business checklist to get you on the path to getting your business set up properly! Choose a name – Make sure you’re not violating any Federal or State trademarks, as well as...Continue Reading

This past year I had the honor of being asked to speak on CreativeLIVE (an AWESOME online source for free information) to give a two-day recorded course of balancing family and business as a supplement to my book The Laundry List: A Mom’s Guide to Successfully Balancing Business and Home.   Here is a snippet...Continue Reading