Few entrepreneurs would agree they need more government regulation in their lives. But in a recent Los Angeles Times /Bloomberg national poll of 1,453 adults regarding the nation’s economy, nearly half of respondents said there is currently too little regulation of business. Asked to choose which of six economic issues was most important for the presidential candidates to address, respondents mentioned...

While the current economy seems to find even affluent consumers reining in their spending a bit, the latest Ipsos Mendelsohn Affluent Survey shows that they’re far from closing their wallets entirely, according to a report in MediaPost’s Marketing Daily . The annual survey tracked spending in the top 20 percent of U.S. households — those with incomes of $100,000 or more — between March and July of...

How energy efficient is your business? If the answer is “not very,” the Small Business Administration wants to help. Going greener isn’t just a matter of helping the planet. In today’s tough economy, many of the things you do to save energy can also help you save green — in other words, save money. With the price of heating oil and other utilities not going down anytime soon, and winter fast on the...

There’s not a lot of good news out there for entrepreneurs, but you’ve still got to keep you business humming. One smart way to do this is consider expanding into markets you may have previously overlooked. (Yes, I said “expanding” — sitting in a corner waiting for this economic mess to pass isn’t going to do you or the economy much good.) October is National Disability Month, and Fortune Small Business...

I think we’d all agree that anyone who’s successfully selling real estate right now has to know something worth telling others. Anne Holland thought so and decided to study the marketing methods successful real estate agents are using now to see what small-business owners could learn from them. In this article from Marketing Sherpa , Holland reports on the agents she found: John Kejr of Dreamcatcher...

Nearly two-thirds of U.S. small-business owners say the ongoing credit crisis is hampering their business, according to a new survey from American Express. In the American Express OPEN Economic Pulse, a survey of 602 business owners conducted earlier in October, 63 percent said their business has been affected by tightened credit, compared to 50 percent in August. Of those 63 percent affected by tightened...

I like word puzzles — crosswords, Wheel of Fortune , Scrabble. And coming up with keywords for keyword advertising is pretty fun and fascinating, too. In the world of search engine marketing, keywords are words people type into the box on a search engine to find information about a product or service they want. I’m sure you’ve done this a million times yourself. With keyword advertising , you try to...

Like many of you, I get inspired hearing about other entrepreneurs and how they became successful. But there’s also a lot we can learn from the challenges our fellow business owners go through. Take a look at what Christopher Hazlett has been through. Hazlett faced every entrepreneur’s nightmare last year, as this New York Times article reports. When the stock market began wobbling last January, almost...