By Amy Lahti, Consultant and Trainer, WESST

Entrepreneurs and owners of small businesses are accustomed to doing everything it takes to move their business forward. But there comes a time when even the most efficient entrepreneur must call in help. For most startups and small businesses, hiring workers is the only path to growth.

Many early-stage entrepreneurs outsource work or find contract employees among friends and family. Even if a first employee is a friend of the owner, the business is subject to the laws governing employee-employer relationships as soon as the first paycheck is written. If the business thrives, the first employee will be one of many workers hired in the life of the business. Continue reading →

By Finance New Mexico

If you’ve ever had to pitch a business or product idea to an investor or potential partner, you know the presentation can make or break the deal.

Because the stakes can be high, serious entrepreneurs quickly learn what to avoid when giving a presentation, whether it’s a 30-minute speech before a peer group or six-minute proposal to Demo Day investors. Continue reading →

By Patricia West-Barker for Finance New Mexico

Unless you are an entrepreneur laboring alone in your garage, your company’s success may depend largely on the quality of the team you’ve assembled to conduct your business—whether that team is made up of two, 20 or 200 people.

To find out what makes high-performing teams tick, MIT’s Human Dynamics Laboratory monitored the communications of large numbers of people as they went about their work. The study, published in the Harvard Business Review in April 2012, found that “communication plays a critical role in building successful teams.” Face-to-face interactions (versus email, phone and text) were extremely important, as were the frequency of non-work related conversations. Continue reading →

By Finance New Mexico

Accounting is the lingua franca, or common tongue, that allows business owners in multilingual New Mexico to communicate no matter what language they speak at home.

A basic understanding of accounting principles allows entrepreneurs to take batches of numbers and translate them into easily comprehensible statements of performance and profitability. It helps them keep track of money as it enters and exits their coffers and make reasoned decisions based on what the numbers say. Continue reading →