Learn what you need to know about business & money - for free

Continuing your education while running your business is essential for your success. The following are free online resources to assist you in furthering your knowledge and gaining information to assist your business growth:

• MIT Sloan School of Management – MIT Sloan is a world-class business school long renowned for thought leadership and the ability to successfully partner theory and practice.  This is a subsection of the larger MIT OpenCourseWare site.

• Investopedia Financial Investing Tutorials – A plethora of detailed lessons on money management and investing.

• U.S. Small Business Administration Training Network – The Small Business Administration has one of the best selections of business courses on the web. Topics include everything from starting a business and business management to government contracting and international trade. Most courses take only 30 minutes to complete.

• My Own Business, Inc. – Offers a free online business administration course that would be beneficial to new managers and to anyone who is interested in starting a business. This comprehensive course is split up into 16 sessions covering topics like business plans, accounting, marketing, insurance, e-commerce and international trade.

• UC Irvine OpenCourseWare (Business) – Rapidly with the addition of nearly 10 new courses every month. Many of our OCW offerings are directed at working adults seeking continuing education, with the option to enroll in instructor-led, for-credit courses, related to the OCW content.

• Kutztown University of Pennsylvania – The Kutztown University of Pennsylvania’s Small Business Development Center offers more than 80 free business courses online. Kutztown’s courses are individualized and self-paced. Many of the courses feature high-end graphics, interactive case studies and audio streams.

• Boston College Front Row (Business) – Boston College Front Row is a Web site that offers free access through streaming media to tapes of cultural and scholarly events at Boston College.

• Financial Management Training Center – The Financial Management Training Center provides several free downloadable business courses for people who need to learn the finer points of financial management. All courses offered can be taken online; courses include full exams as well as evaluation forms for people seeking Continuing Professional Education (CPE) credits.

• The Free Nonprofit Micro-eMBA – Free Management Library’s Free Nonprofit Micro-eMBA Program is an especially great resource for students wishing to learn more about nonprofit management, but most of the lessons also apply to general business management. Completion of this program will not result in an MBA degree, but enrollment is free and the material is well structured.

• Bookboon Free Business e-books – Hundreds of free business books online in PDF format.

• TheStreet University – If you’re just starting out as a stock and bond investor or need a refresher’s course, this is the place to learn what you need to know.

• OpenCourseWare Consortium – This site provides a portal to search through hundreds of free courses or to add new courses you know about to the database.

• iBerry – Check out this site for a huge directory of open courseware organized by school and subject matter that can point you in the right direction for any type of learning.

• Self Made Scholar Directory – Free online directory of web-based classes and courses.

Wishing you awesome and continuing success.

Solve the Entrepreneur Puzzle

Two reasons to write your business plan:


STUDIES SHOW: 85% of the people that do not take the time to plan their businesses or career will not reach their desired level of success or will fail altogether. Of those that do take the time to write their plan, 85% will succeed.
STUDIES SHOW: 40% of people with a strategic plan will double their income and profits within two years of writing their plan.
With a strategic plan, greater than 70% of these people will exceed their own expectations within the next 5 years regardless of economic conditions.
"A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be. " ~ Wayne Gretzky 

Why "Likes" Alone Are Not Enough

They’re only one piece of the puzzle.

Just because someone liked your business page doesn't mean they are reading your posts, or after the new Facebook algorithm update, they may not even be seeing your posts.

Page "likes" are only the beginning of the relationship. Social media and networking is about building relationships and not just advertising yourself.

When you posts are "shared", it is usually an indication that someone not only liked what you posted, but wanted to share it with their network of friends as well.

Your marketing goals should include posting interesting and relative content on your page and sharing other people's posts. When you share theirs, they become more interested to see what you are posting. If you share someone else's post, they might be motivated to come back and comment on your shared post, which then keeps your page name in front of their network, and their network's network, and so on, and so on....

Simply put:
1. Post great content that people want to tell their network about.
2. Share content that you find interesting and you want to tell your network of friends and fans about
3. Make comments with substance and invite continued interaction.
4. Comment from your business page, not your profile, if you want people to be drawn to your business page.
5. Repeat

Wishing you awesome and continuing success.

Sumner M. Davenport is a Solutions Consultant.
Best Selling Author and Keynote Speaker
Solutions, not just answers.
Solutions are not one-size-fits-all.
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Success with QR Codes

QR codes are being used in creative ways on business cards, company brochures, signs, apparel and at fundraising events to promote instant giving.

A Chili’s fundraising campaign for childhood cancer resulted in 291,000 QR code scans that appeared on coloring sheets and table tents created specifically for the effort.

“With the ever-growing presence of technology in our guests’ daily lives, Chili’s utilized this up-and-coming trend as a unique way to reach our supporters of St. Jude,” Ms. Flowers said. “With more than 290,000 QR codes scanned throughout the campaign, this medium proved to be an effective and tech-savvy way of encouraging guests to donate.”

Read more at: Mobil Commerce Daily

Read previous blog post: QR codes or Scan tags – Using them? and how are they working for you?

Why Website Content is So Important to SEO

Content, content, content....a word that seems like nagging to many of my clients.

The major search engines are focusing on creating the best possible user experience, which means sites that offer relevant (new, creative and unique)information stand to gain the most visibility.

This following image provides a graphic explanation of the importance of content. To see the enlarged size, click here.

How Online Retailers Make You Spend More

Eliminate the paper - app alternative to business cards

Ditch that pile of biz cards, and use Hashable to exchange contact information instead. Type in a person's email address or Twitter handle to exchange contact info. Hashable automatically tags these contacts with location and date so you can find them later – and Hashable will send you an email with a list of everyone you met at the end of each week to make follow-up easier.


Track your meetings, calls and other events. For your private use, or coordinate with your friends, coworkers, teammates.


And for those of you Hashing it up from Twitter – they've created a whole slate of event tags to make things even easier. Any time you Tweet with someone using any of the event tags – Hashable will pick it up. By using these tags from Twitter, you can sort your contacts in Hashable to find the people you met at each event.






This is not a paid advertisement no affiliate link. We receive no compensation for telling you about this app.

Security on Facebook, app to scan and protect your account

Recently a number of people found malicious and offensive posts on their profiles and pages. Unfortunately these posts were not from the persons indicated. Some form of hacking had taken place.

An excellent article was written in March on PCMag.com on two apps that can protect your Facebook account.

One app, Norton Safe Web for Facebook is bundled with the Norton products, but anybody can use it for free. It scans your Facebook page's links and reports any bad ones.

If you're concerned about dangerous links (and you should be), there is also another app recommended and more info in this article at PCMAG.com .

Happy and safe networking