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On Thursday, November 10th at 2pm Eastern Time, learn how to be in control of your critical information and protect your business against the growing threats of identity theft and fraud.

This Webinar series, sponsored by Deluxe®, is a multi-part interactive Webinar series designed to address these topics and provide simple, actionable tools to protect and enhance the efficiency with which you run your business.

In our first class, Identity Theft & Data Breach Protection, you will learn:

• The New Reality: Information Does Not Equal Power
• How to Think Like a Spy and apply critical thinking to the power equation
• Manipulation Triggers thieves use against your employees and defense techniques
• Interrogation Tools to uncover fraud before it erodes your profits and net worth
• Fraud Hotspot Best Practices: Shredding, Check Fraud and Computer Security
• Trends in Data Theft: Smartphones, Tablets and Social Media
• Holiday Identity Theft Prevention Tips: Personally & Professionally
• Interactive Q&A

This webinar is hosted by John Sileo

John Sileo’s identity was stolen from his business and used to embezzle almost a half-million dollars from his clients. While the thief covered his crimes using Sileo’s identity, John and his business were held legally and financially responsible for the felonies committed. The breach destroyed John’s corporation and consumed two years of his life as he fought to stay out of jail.

John chose to fight back and speak out, becoming America’s leading professional speaker on identity theft and information control. John is the award-winning author of Privacy Means Profit (Wiley), and has recently appeared on 60 Minutes and Fox and Friends. His satisfied clients include the Department of Defense, Blue Cross, Homeland Security, the FDIC, Pfizer, the Federal Trade Commission and corporations, organizations and associations of all sizes.

Click here to sign up for this free webinar!

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One day I had a hole in my shirt and didn’t want to throw it out. I had been crocheting a lot in my spare time, so naturally, I decided to cover the hole with a crocheted chick. I liked the texture and look of it. I happened to be in a designer consignment store one day in Port Credit, Mississauga, ON, and was chatting with the owner, who expressed interest in my creation. I came back another day to show it to her and she allowed me to sell more clothes with crocheted designs on them on consignment in her store. Now I have clothes and accessories in 7 stores in the GTA, an online website, and can be found at craft shows such as the Distillery Art Market at the Distillery Historic District in Toronto, ON. I sell kids/babies, women’s, and men’s clothing.

Most of my original designs are inspired by nature and wildlife. My part-time work and study in environmental/biological sciences has inspired me to green my business, and so I have developed an eco-line for which I  use 100% organic cotton shirts for my crochet appliques. I currently use acrylic yarn for my designs, which is machine washable and dryer friendly. In an effort to conserve and be more eco-friendly, I have been experimenting by making my own yarn out of old clothing. I will be continuing to look for or develop more eco-friendly yarn.

Click here to visit Katnip

Tell us your story. Send an email to: andrew@bizlaunch.com

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Moneris invites you to Ready To Serve – Tips and Insights on how to make your restaurant a success

Thursday, May 26 8:30 – 11:00 AM (Breakfast served from 8:00AM)
TIFF Bell Lightbox – 350 King Street West.

Join Toronto’s premier Chef Corbin (Dinner Party Wars, Restaurant Makeover) for an informative session on topics related to running your restaurant business.

Learn about:

• Maintaining successful work & life balance
• New payment technologies for the restaurant industry
• Fraud trends and PCI compliance for restaurants
• OrderIt.ca – a success story
• New integrated solutions for restaurants

Registration is free & limited to the first 100 restaurateurs. Register today at moneris.com/readytoserve and be entered into a draw to win an Apple iPad®

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Wednesday May 18th, 2011

Here is a link to today’s webcast. It starts at 8.00am PST or 11.00am EST. Click the link to watch it live!

http://yellowpages.webcastinc.com/vancouver/

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It’s a debate that will never have a clear winner, but the question is a valid one:

Are entrepreneurs born or made?

Is it possible to create entrepreneurs through education and training, or do they have to be born with some innate essence, some drive that makes them do crazy things like launch businesses with no guarantee of success?

Certainly, there’s no easy answer, and likely the solution is to accept that both the idea of nature and nurture play into entrepreneurship. For me, as a pre-entrepreneur, I was very risk-averse. I couldn’t imagine throwing all my time and money into a business with such a high failure rate.

But then I found myself starting a business. No one was more surprised than me. As my business grew and I had both successes and failures, I learned how to be a better entrepreneur, and I wore the crown proudly.

Now I wonder if I wasn’t born with some sort of pre-ordained destiny to run one or more businesses in my lifetime. I certainly wasn’t the child who was negotiating deals at the lemonade stand, but as I’ve come into my own as an adult, I realize that being an entrepreneur plays a large role in who I am.

Training, of course, plays no small role in the success of entrepreneurs. We need to know everything about running a business, and resources like BizLaunch provide us with the tools we need to do our own marketing, managing, accounting and sales.

Entrepreneurs are a thirsty bunch when it comes to learning, I believe. That’s why there are so many magazines, newspapers, websites, blogs, conferences and webinars aimed at small business owners. We know that to stay ahead of the competition, we have to keep learning every day.

So what’s your take? As an entrepreneur, do you consider yourself born that way, made into one, or some combination of the two? Please share your thoughts with us in the comments!

Susan Payton is the President of Egg Marketing & Communications, an internet marketing firm specializing in marketing communications, copywriting and blog posts. She’s written two books: 101 Entrepreneur Tips and Internet Marketing Strategies for Entrepreneurs, and blogs for several sites, including The Marketing Eggspert Blog, as well as Mashable, Small Business Trends and Lead411. Follow her on Twitter @eggmarketing.

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Order Built to Sell: Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You this week and take advantage of the special offer.

Click here to find out more

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How Press Releases Work

An important component to any marketing and PR strategy is press release distribution. While the formatting and how you distribute a press release has changed since the days of typing one on a typewriter, then mailing physical copies to different publications (what a waste of stamps!), the goal is the same: to get the spotlight shone on your business.

The Basics
A press release is a public announcement of your company’s news. It’s distributed through online distribution resources, such as PRWeb. Through these channels, your release gets published on dozens of news and niche websites that pull their feed in from specific PRWeb channels. If you’re a toy manufacturer, you might choose to send your release through children’s, lifestyle and family channels so that it appears on relevant websites.

The more places your press release is published (along with your company website and keywords that focus on what you do), the better you will rank in search engine results. So if your press release uses keywords like “eco-friendly toys” and “green toys,” whenever someone searches for these keywords, your release, and thereby your company, will appear in those search results.

You can also send your release to journalists and reporters in the hopes that they will be interested in your story. Keep in mind, though, that they receive dozens of press releases every day, so being relevant and to-the-point is key in your email pitch.

The Benefits
Google and other search engines love new content linking to other websites. By providing a new release (which you should also link to on your News page on your company website) with links to your site, you’re effectively telling Google that your website is important (it must be! Look at all these sites that link to it!) and it moves you up the results list.

Also, more and more, consumers are finding press releases online, which introduces them to your brand, and lets them travel on to your website. Occasionally, journalists will also find your release online outside of you sending it to them, so it also provides an opportunity to reach the media that you wouldn’t otherwise have connected with.

Tips
? Aim to put out one press release a month.
? Only write releases about news; not promotions or ad-heavy copy.
? Pitch journalists mid-week when they’re less likely to delete your email.
? Include several relevant keywords in your release.
? Share your release on social media, in your email newsletter and on your site.
? Track who’s clicking from your press release through Google Analytics or whatever analytic program you use to measure web traffic.

Susan Payton is the President of Egg Marketing & Communications, an internet marketing firm specializing in marketing communications, copywriting and blog posts. She’s written two books: 101 Entrepreneur Tips and Internet Marketing Strategies for Entrepreneurs, and blogs for several sites, including The Marketing Eggspert Blog, as well as Mashable, Small Business Trends and Lead411. Follow her on Twitter @eggmarketing.

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