There are a lot of agencies, departments and organisations around the world that are there to help small businesses – from planning and setting up your business, managing and growing it, through to closing or selling your business. But sometimes it’s hard to know where to look when you don’t really know what you’re looking for, right?
So to help you out, I’ve compiled a list – well, 6 lists in fact, of some of these organisations for you:
If you know of any others that should be included here, please email the details to me.
I’ve just returned from London where I was fortunate enough to be invited to Andrew Reynolds’ Entrepreneurs Bootcamp.
This two-day event was held in the magnificent O2 Arena in front of 6,000 people. The atmosphere was incredibly uplifting with so many people gathered in one place to learn how they can turn their life around. Up on stage were top speakers from around the world, including some of Australia’s finest presenters, educators and motivators, Brett McFall, Tom Hua and Pat Mesiti.
With such a massive stage, the big screens around the venue were a must!
Another Australian, Internet Marketer and Webinar King, Steven Essa, was there to share the experience too:
(If the video stops and starts or is jumpy, just press ‘pause’ and give it half a minute to download, then press ‘play’ again)
Andrew Reynolds asked for a small donation in exchange for so much valuable information, then presented this donation of £700,000+ to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. I’m sure this generous gift will make a huge difference to the lives of many critically ill children – congratulations Andrew and everyone who participated in the event, and especially all attendees who donated to this worthy cause.
It seems that membership sites are all the rage at the moment … and rightly so. Whether they’re free or charge some sort of fee, if set up and managed well they can be an excellent way to provide online teaching or bring a group of like-minded individuals together.
If running a well-maintained membership site is something you do, or would like to do, here’s an interview that I’m sure you’ll find helpful.
This interview is with professional high-profile blogger, Chris Garrett, where he discusses the membership site advice he wishes he knew before he began building his membership sites, along with pricing strategies, software and how to use “The Bikini Concept” (you’ll have to listen to the interview to find out what this is!)
You can download or play this interview for tips on how to create a successful membership site for absolutely no cost.
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Disclosure: Compensated Affiliate
The X-10 Effect: How To Boost Your Income x10 With One Simple Secret
Regular readers of this blog or my newsletter will no doubt remember me mentioning the X-10 Effect seminar which was held in Sydney, Australia, recently. This seminar was so successful and widely requested by people around the country … so it’s now going national (Australia).
If you’re a business owner who would like to know how to multiply your 
results x10 then you should get yourself along to this one-day workshop being run by Steven Essa.
I have a lot of respect and admiration for Steven and know that the stuff he’s teaching can make a huge difference to business owners. This workshop shows how the simple use of webinars can multiply your income by 10. Steven shares plenty of content and tips for making sure you get the best results for your guests as well as your business.
Visit X-10 Effect for full details and to register.
Tickets are only $47 for two people (well, $47 each but you get to bring a friend for nothing) and ALL TICKET PROCEEDS are going to the Heart Foundation in support of the 50K in 50 Days Challenge.
I’ll be at the Gold Coast event, so if you go to that one make sure you say hello to me.
Earlier this year I began using the Thesis theme for WordPress. Until then I’d been using free WP themes and they were good.
However I couldn’t find a theme that had the exact layout I was after and so ended up installing a fairly generic one… and then pulling it to pieces and customising it. To do this I had to learn CSS coding and spent hours upon hours upon hours getting it ‘okay’. In the end, there were still a few bits and pieces that just wouldn’t come together like I’d hoped.
Then I saw the light… I discovered Thesis.
The Thesis theme is not free but it’s quite affordable. The thing I love the most is just how quick and easy it is to customise, without having to know anything about CSS.
You simply choose – in most cases via a simple drop-down menu – whether you want a 1, 2 or 3 column site, what order you want those columns in, what font you want for the headline and main content text and so on. I also like that it has SEO friendly fields built in automatically so there’s no need to install and SEO plug-in.
Granted it still has its limitations, but in all honesty this is by far the best theme I’ve found and I absolutely love it. I’m sure I could overcome those limitations by editing the CSS stylesheet if I really wanted to, but personally, I don’t feel it’s necessary.
The Thesis theme is produced by DIY Themes – you can visit DIY Themes to watch a quick video demonstrating just how simple it is to customise your site.
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Disclosure: Compensated Affiliate
Tom and Janna at Inspired Health Strategies have been working hard preparing for the 50 day challenge, where they aim to raise $50,000 in 50 days for the Heart Foundation’s 50th birthday. The campaign will run from 1 June 2009 until 19 July 2009.
I believe the donation area is being managed directly by the Heart Foundation and will be set up before 1 June. Tom and Janna are putting their heart and soul into this project and I encourage anyone who’s able to get behind them.
And someone who’s behind this cause 100% is Steven Essa who you may recall reading about here last week. Steven is running the X-10 Effect Workshop in Sydney on 30th May 2009. To contribute to the 50k in 50 Days Challenge, Steven has kindly offered to donate ALL PROCEEDS from this workshop to the Challenge! Plus, he’s giving away a holiday as an incentive to book – all attendees will go into a draw to win two-night’s accommodation for two people at the Pacific Blue Resort, Nelson Bay.
Have a look at this to find out more about Steven’s generous offer for X-10 Effect attendees or visit the 50k In 50 Days Challenge site to find out more about how you can help.
