Posted In: Business Development by admin

In past few years, the growth of businesses owned by minorities has been phenomenal with increase of 45% black owned businesses, 31% of Hispanic-owned business, 24% of Asian-owned business and 20% owned by women irrespective of race. These businesses have fostered economy of the nation by contributing 54.4% of employment. So it is crucial to promote medium to large business enterprises for the purpose of creating broad base for employment and taxes to bolster nation’s economy.

But the leading edge of this remarkable growth is statistical amplification of government programs for the businesses both new and existing. Various business oriented programs have been funded by the government in order to meet the different needs of minority owned businesses such as financing for a new or existing business, seeking legal and regulatory advice, business planning services etc.

One such federal agency is Minority Business Development Agency, which is a part of United States Department of Commerce and is especially designed for setting up and growth of businesses owned by minority community. The agency does not provide direct grants but the main aspect of it is the provision of free consultation services to business developers of minority communities and thus guidelines are provided for the access to capital, market, technical and management support, facilitate strategic alliances and education and training.

However grants do exist and federal and state government programs extend grants in the areas of defense, homeland security, technology and biotech but they are especially for research or development. These business development services are made available through a network of Minority Business Development Centers, which have been established in most of the major cities across the nation and Native American Business Development Centers, which have been opened in crucial states.

The minorities, which are eligible for receiving assistance of MBDA, are Blacks, American Indians, Asian Indians, Puerto-Ricans, Eskimos, Hasidic Jews, Spanish speaking Americans, Asian Pacific Americans and Aleuts. The other criterion to receive assistance is that they should be citizens of USA or lawfully admitted foreigners for permanent residency.

For any information on minority business, MBDA Chicago Regional Office can be contacted at 312353-0182 or you can email them at cro-info@mbda.gov. They will provide you the information of the Minority Business Development Center near your location whom you can contact for further assistance.

MBDA strategic interest and vision is of creating wealth and it is only possible with increasing strength of minority businesses. With this motive, MBDA has initiated a Strategic Growth Policy and within this paradigm, it looks into the concerns of sustainable business value for companies functioning in growth industries.

John Goldman is one of the foremost advisors in matters relating to Government Grants and Financial Aid. To learn more about government grants and how to apply for them visit the Government Grant USA website

Posted In: Business Development by admin

ght (c) 2009 Michael Crank

Once you have looked into a business opportunity on the Internet, you become fair game for an advertising tsunami. If you already have an online business and you advertise on an FFA network or use one of the “Blasters” that are out there, it is absolutely amazing the volume of crap that you get inundated with.

If you take a little time and scan over this stuff, everybody is pitching the royal road to wealth. Join their program, buy into their business opportunity, purchase their ebook and all will be revealed—just follow steps 1-2-3 and you, too, will become rich (like them?).

Unlike the traditional business model, the Internet is largely unregulated, so anybody can throw up a web page and sucker in the unsuspecting and unknowledgeable. There are places where you can report fraud once you’ve been taken in—you just have to take the time and endure the aggravation to pursue it, hopefully with satisfactory results.

The word “scam” is thrown around on the Web like a frisbee—and while there are a lot of scam artists operating on the Net, the unfortunate flip side to this is there is a segment of misinformed people who go around labeling things as a scam when, in fact, they are not. With glitzy advertising, slick tricks, and misinformation—no wonder people are so confused as to what and whom to believe as they search for a legitimate way to make money.

It is truly pathetic—opportunity promoters who hide behind what they are promoting and offer no support or false contact information, promises of instantaneous wealth, citing examples of unbelievable amounts of money earned practically overnight, oversimplification of the system being offered, withholding vital information necessary to market the opportunity, not delivering what was promised—I can go on and on. Perhaps the saddest misconception that is not only heavily promoted, but believed by way too many people, is that you can somehow join something and make an insane amount of money without any investment of time and money. It baffles me how difficult it is to get people to understand the fallacy of that line of thinking.

You will see the ads claiming that “we do 95% of the work and you keep the money”—and people will go for that in droves, but ask them to make a reasonable investment and put a little time and effort into something legitimate that really will produce for them—they want no part of it.

While Internet ethics is an issue, it is a bit of a two-way street because the purveyors of falsehoods have a very captive audience who eagerly buy into whatever they are selling and they just can’t get it that they’re not thinking straight. Of course, there are honest, intelligent people taken advantage of as well because the presentations are pretty convincing.

When we look at the national news, we see that the Internet isn’t the only place lacking in ethics. So, once again, we are reminded of a sad fact of humankind—there are always those who want something for nothing—whether they are selling or buying. Those of us who know better have our work cut out for us—and we have to do our part to make, not only the Internet, but the world as a whole, a better place to do business.

Michael W Crank is the owner of Marketing Concepts Plus. If you are searching fora legitimate home business opportunity or work at home job, then you need to visit our site at
http://www.marketingconceptsplus.net
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