The Association for Entrepreneurship USA
Success by Association
The Association for Entrepreneurship USA serves independent and small business leaders across all 50 states through community involvement, peer mentoring and education. By joining forces for greater purchasing power, we offer todays entrepreneur the competitive edge needed to compete in todays digital world.
Discussion Forum
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Library
A collection of resources to help you achieve your entrepreneurial goals.
Joel Weldon
Get some inspiration from one of the country’s top motivational speakers.
Recent Articles
Nobody Set Up Your Desk
THE PRACTICE Give your own workspace the same check an employer would: chair, screen height, lighting and how often you get up. Fix the worst problem first. At many larger companies, someone thinks about how you sit. There's an adjustable chair, a monitor at the right...
Your Phone Is Your Office, So Give It Closing Hours
THE PRACTICE Set your phone so business apps and notifications go quiet at a fixed time each evening and come back at a fixed time each morning, automatically. When you had a job, the office had a front door. You walked out, and the work mostly stayed behind. Even the...
Your Work Keeps Going After You Hand It Over
THE IDEA Your part of the job ends when you deliver it. The difference it makes keeps going long after, mostly where you can't see it. One of the stranger parts of running a small business is how often your work disappears. You finish the project, send the files, get...
Your Worst Client Wrote Your Best Policy
THE IDEA Every bad client experience you've survived left behind a rule that now protects you. Those painful projects are a big part of why your business works today. Most business owners can name their worst client without thinking. The one who wanted unlimited...
Small Is a Choice, Not a Stage
THE IDEA A business that stays small isn't a business that failed to grow. If small is what you want, it's a finished design, not an early draft. Spend enough time around business advice and you'll pick up an assumption without noticing it: small is where you start,...
Why More Freelancers Are Building Small Agencies
For years, the core appeal of freelancing was simple, complete autonomy, flexibility, and control over your client roster. As the digital economy has matured, however, many high-performing freelancers have hit a ceiling. Because working as a solo operator inherently...
Motivating the Mind Through Learning
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” —Benjamin Franklin When I was growing up, I always wanted to be a teacher. I loved the organization, continuous learning, and helping others. To me, teachers are the epitome of lifetime learners....
Can a Stranger Explain What You Sell?
When sales slow down, owners tend to suspect the product. Maybe the service isn't good enough, the market moved, or the idea was wrong from the start. Sometimes that's true. But a surprising number of small businesses are selling something people would happily buy,...
Kleenex Was Leftover War Material Sold as Makeup Remover
During World War I, Kimberly-Clark made a material called Cellucotton, a creped wadding made from wood pulp that was far more absorbent than cotton and cheaper to produce. With cotton in short supply, the military bought it for surgical dressings, and the company...
Bubble Wrap Failed as Wallpaper, Then Failed Again
In 1957, an engineer named Al Fielding and a Swiss inventor named Marc Chavannes ran two layers of plastic shower curtain through a heat-sealing machine. The sheet that came out was full of trapped air bubbles. They thought they had invented a new kind of textured...
Give Your Business Worries an Appointment
THE PRACTICE Set aside fifteen minutes at the same time each day to think through business worries on paper, and when they show up at other times, write them down for that slot. Every business owner worries. Cash flow, a slow pipeline, a client who's gone quiet, a...
Give Your Clients a Number That Isn’t Yours
THE PRACTICE Use a separate phone number for your business, and decide when it's on, so your personal phone stops being a direct line to your work. Early on, most solo operators give clients their personal cell number. It's easy and it feels personal, and when you...