Typically when people choose the type of business that they would like to start it is not a decision chosen lightly.  There are so many factors that will contribute to whether or not a business will not only make money but continue to thrive and bring in income for many, many years.  

With that said, it makes you wonder why people chose to get involved in business ventures that can kind of be risky.  Now, I am not talking about ideas that might not yield a return, because no matter what that is a possibility.  I am talking about business ideas that involve things that people might not support.  Like the businesses below:

• Tanning Salons
• Smoke Shops
• Candy Stores

You businesses like the ones listed above are speciality shops and places where business is determined on the amount of people in the area who will actually support them.  Let’s take a look at each one and see why it is such a risk.  The broad answer for all of them is that people are becoming more informed about health risks associated with these things, but let’s dive deeper.

Tanning salons used to be on every street corner it seemed like.  But when the health risks like skin cancer were talked about more and more, people started to take notice.  This means that people were more concerned with their health and stopped tanning.  So to see a new tanning salon open is something kind of shocking.  Of course, now there are spray tans and such, but can a tanning salon really thrive on that?

Smoke shops or cigarette stores still seem to be around.  Even though the health risks are evident and well known, there are still people out there who smoke.  What if people started to change their thinking though, and more people quit smoking?  Well, cigarette stores would be no more.

Specialty candy stores were really cute and fun at first.  Bulk candy and all those old favorites from when you were a child were great ways to bring back childhood memories, but let’s be honest here–how much candy can or should people eat each day?  Really it is so risky and the potential to fail in such a specialty is high.

Are you an entrepreneur with an idea for a potentially lucrative business to start up for 2012?  It’s not too late to make your idea a reality.  If you know the routine (and you do, if you’re an entrepreneur) go ahead and start drafting your business plan, run your projections, get your finances in order and take yourself to the bank.  Now is a great time to open a business line of credit if you need one.  The economy is trying to fight back at last, so strike while the iron is hot.  Business finance options can vary widely, so just know what you need well in advance, and be prepared to have some capital of your own to bring to the negotiating table.  No bank will back you up without some investment on your part.  It shows your confidence in your idea and backs up your expectations of being able to profit, and repay your business loans.

Entrepreneurial Spirit

Some brave entrepreneurs have not only kept their businesses in the black throughout the recessions, but have also managed to thrive by evolving and diversifying their offerings to meet the changing needs of the economy.  By keeping an ear to the ground and providing services that more closely meet the desires and needs of customers in their specific contexts, a company can at least keep its head above water through the tough times.  Starting a business when the economy is better can lead to a false sense of complacency.  When times do get tough in the future, many of these businesses collapse and disappear.  They were never ready to weather the storms of a volatile market or severe economic recession or depression.  But a company fueled now by the fire of an entrepreneurial spirit would be more likely to hold steady the next time the bottom falls out. A great example of a small business that is thriving, check out Hot Sauce Planet.

Start Up — What to Avoid

The world doesn’t need another tech startup right now.  It just doesn’t.  Facebook is about to make its first public IPO, after a valuation of $94 billion — a figure many conservative fiscal experts already warn is more than a little too high.  Are we headed for another dot-com bubble like the one in the early 2000s?

“Not if we invest carefully,” said Jim Kudrick. “For someone going into business this year, I would have to predict that most recent dot-com boom is nearing, if not arrived at, the end of its cycle.”

GoDaddy.com, the Internet’s largest and most successful domain name registrar and hosting company, has already felt the heat from customers who have named December 29th “Leave Godaddy Day” due to the company’s support of SOPA.  The main concern goes far beyond the obvious and seemingly good effort to curtail online piracy of all kinds of media, since it allows to government to censor what Americans are able to find on the Internet.  Many believe it would open to the door to the same situation the Chinese government has imposed on its people, allowing the Attorney General to prevent access to sites for arbitrary reasons.  Businesses like ISPs, search engines, and even private company networks could be held liable for what their users do or attempt to do through those networks.  Let’s take a look at just how bad SOPA really is for businesses:

Check out the infographic below to see which college degrees are under performing, based on the requirements for earning them and job prospects.

Take a look at the infographic below and see a great comparison of the top social networks.  Hopefully, you’ll come away with a better method for narrowing down your social networking gameplan.  Click to expand:

The good news is, once you learn how to schmooze, it sticks with you.  Schmoozing is about making small talk and being personable with others.  You don’t always have to be as interested as you seem, but staying engaged (and engaging) is so much a part of what makes business relationships really work that it’s worth going the extra mile to make your conversation natural, genuine, and memorable.   Sounds easy, right?  But it’s not.  Especially not for introverts.

No matter whether you’re an introvert or extrovert, the following general guidelines for schmoozing well will help you out.  You can thank us later.

When you go to a new place full of people you haven’t met before, ask someone you do know to show you around and help you out.  First of all, it will flatter the person you already know and will give him or her an important job of being the one to make introductions.

Be ready to ask people about themselves.  Most professionals enjoy talking about their work.  Ask them how they got to be where they are, why they chose that path, and how pleased they are with their current arrangement.

Be ready to answer the same kinds of questions about yourself.  Others will be curious when you are introduced, so start before you get there by planning how you might answer any of the same questions you might ask them.

Try to be truly at ease.  If you look angry or too keyed up, it will put people off .  Smile and enjoy yourself.  Chances are that most people are going to be approachable and outgoing themselves, so it will be worth it to go out on a limb and really put yourself out there if the result is a connection you need.

What these young people may not realize is that these products often come laden with cheap fillers that can be horribly toxic when inhaled into the lungs.  There are often contaminants in the products as well, such as insect eggs and larvae, and chemicals used as solvents that are known to be carcinogenic and can sometimes cause instant cardiac events or seizures.  There is nothing very fun or entertaining about that.  Just because a product is not specifically illegal, does not mean it is in any way safe.  Think about it.

Still, many businesses at this time are capitalizing on these potentially dangerous products and enjoying huge profits at the expense of curious youngsters’ health and well being. In a recent Web search for “spice,” at least one store online has the following message posted beside images of the product packaging:

“We’re sorry, but we have decided to stop selling spice products. Because we only carry legal products, we stopped offering it to protect our customers, until further notice.”

So obviously, they realize it is unsafe for human inhalation.  It is highly unusual for a business to admit that something they are selling could be harmful, and to remove it from the market. This is a good lesson in business ethics that many businesses could learn a thing or two from.

Lion features several significant upgrades and added features that will make it more convenient for business uses.

The first one is AirDrop.  This feature scans the network for local computers and lets users share files back and forth without any need for additional network setup.  Under the protection of TLS, it is tightly integrated with other features in the OS, such as Address Book.  If you send a file to someone, you’ll see him or her in icon form next to the file transfer status indicator.  AirDrop is the perfect way to fire off files between users without the hassle of using email, uploading them to a server and downloading via FTP, or using an instant messenger client to transfer files.  It’s incredibly intuitive and easy to use.

The other big feature we want to talk about is Auto Save.  Yes, Apple has finally given us Auto Save!  Pardon our enthusiasm, but this is a feature of Lion that we’ve been waiting for since before Mac OS started being named after cats.  If a program locked up on you, any work you’d completed since your most recent save would be lost in the old days;  now, Lion brings you the feature that Mac should have had all along, and the ability to save your work automatically in case of a program malfunction.

These are only two of a pretty huge swath of improvements coming our way when the Lion roars in July, but there are plenty of other feature add ons that make upgrading to Mac OS X Lion imperative for business owners.  And, at the price of just $29.99, it’s also a bargain.

Recently, some scientists from La Trobe University reported their discovery that people who self-identified as stressed-out caffeine junkies were more likely than people who said they were neither stressed nor heavy caffeine users to believe they heard bits of Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” in what was actually pure white noise played through headphones for a duration of about three minutes. They freaked out, and alerted their residential security alarm to seek help.

The criteria for stressed-out junkie-hood was that they consumed at least five caffeinated beverages — including coffee — each day.  Now, plenty of people hear little occasional riffs from White Christmas as a matter of course;  there is nothing shameful in it.  But when do caffeine induced hallucinations start cutting into corporate earnings and costing the company valuable productivity time and money?

“Almost never,” said Sherlinda Jones, a human resources specialist.  Then, she began to laugh.  ”Actually, never.  I can say that 100%.  It has never cost anything to this company.  I don’t know of a single person who has had this happen.”

Not convinced of the certitude of this, we went further into the corporate infrastructure for some real answers.  Nurse Brenda Coggins was happy to give us the insider’s view on this matter.

“People make light of the caffeine epidemic,” Coggins said. “But the fact is, we have a widespread problem on our hands.  Of the 56 people who work here at the corporate headquarters, I would say perhaps two thirds have a problem.  And about half of those cost this company money on a daily basis.”

The money, she went on explain, was spent on unreasonable numbers of coffee filters, ground coffee, and related paraphernalia.  And medical expenses from employees reporting to emergency rooms for treatment of auditory hallucinations unknowingly brought on by the over-consumption of caffeinated beverages.

This is not to say that the person who recommended him or her to you is not to be considered at all.  After all, they are your trusted friends and you have known them forever, even if this newcomer is someone previously unknown.  What we do say is that when you regard the recommendation of someone you can count on, also go to some additional trouble to investigate the person who needs your investment dollars as well.  Do not go strictly on a personal recommendation.  This saves you from making a mistake, but it also saves your friend from suffering a blow to his or her reputation in your mind when your opinion of their recommended person falls through.  If you have done your own research and still choose to invest, and your investee lets you down, then you can blame yourself for some of it.  But the instinct to blame your friend will be there unless you do your homework, so it always pays to do that.

Another good idea is to pay careful attention to the other people anyone may associate with, to get an idea of their levels of success as peers or colleagues.  This can be a challenge and does take time, but it is an efficient way to be sure all the bases are covered.  Remember, any investment of dollars involves an investment of attention.  In fact, the interest can be a lot better down the road when you have done this. You wouldn’t order Direct TV without doing some research…so don’t invest your money without doing the same.