chequeGold is on people's minds a lot right now. No, not THAT kind of gold – Olympic gold. And the regular kind of gold too – because for small businesses the bottom line is critical.Besides the usual financial news of public company quarterly profits and the slow and steady implosion of various European economies, there is still time for some concrete advice. On Yahoo! Small Business Advisor we highlighted stories about small businesses finding new ways to get cash and funding, seven strategies to make the most of your budget as a startup, how to tell that it's 'time to kiss your boss goodbye and become an entrepreneur,' and (unfortunately) how small business owners aren't finding themselves able to take vacations this Summer.
If you haven't taken the plunge yet, hopefully some of these articles give you the impetus to start your own business — and if you do, we have tools to help. Besides our domain name, web hosting and ecommerce products, we also have just added an innovative marketing dashboard that you can try for free even if you don't use our other products.
We continue the gold=money theme combined with our usual mix of practical small business advice with the following articles from around the web this week.
The myth of post-dated cheques (in other words, why they are a bad idea)
What to do first with a great business idea (this is a really excellent article)
8 essentials of email marketing
3 tips to get your products into holiday gift guides (yes – this is the right time to think about that)
Have a great week, watch the bottom line and let us know in the comments if any of this was especially useful or if you have any advice you'd like to share.
