Tag Archives: small business

How Businesses Can Protect Themselves From Hackers

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Caroline Dennis

Caroline Dennis, President, Wired Nation

Given the numerous products and promises of the information technology (IT) security industry and the frequent news stories about data breaches, it’s not surprising that business owners don’t know where to start when it comes to protecting themselves from information-highway robbers. Some wonder why they should spend money on sophisticated security systems when hackers can get around them.

Even if a business doesn’t hire someone to watch over its systems, it can implement some basic IT security measures to significantly reduce its vulnerability.

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Video Studio to Connect Businesses to Resources

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Doug Lee

Doug Lee, Managing Director, WESST Enterprise Center

A digital media studio that opens soon at the 3-year-old WESST Enterprise Center business incubator in downtown Albuquerque will provide more resources to entrepreneurs and small businesses in New Mexico.

When the Comcast Digital Media Studio opens in July, WESST will have a studio to film workshops we can then stream live to all our offices in New Mexico.  This means our workshops will have a uniform message for our resident and non-resident clients, regardless of whether they’re based in Albuquerque or at our satellite offices in Rio Rancho, Santa Fe, Las Cruces, Roswell and Farmington.  Of the estimated 1250 business incubators in the U.S., fewer than six have video studios.

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Early Planning Can Help Owner Live Off Assets From Business Sale

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Priscilla Dakin

Priscilla Dakin, Dakin Business Group Business Brokerage

Many business owners dream of selling their business at a price that will pay them in retirement what they earned while working. The ones who achieve this goal start planning and preparing well before retirement by saving a portion of personal income from the business in retirement accounts and diverse investments and by managing the business so it’s offered for sale at the peak of its success.

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Starting a business requires passion, research and a plan

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Jennifer Craig

Jennifer Craig, Regional Manager, WESST Las Cruces

Lenders often find themselves counseling people who are tired of working for others and eager to put their talents and energies into a business of their own. While someone with an entrepreneurial spirit can launch a successful venture even in an unstable economy, he’s more likely to appear serious to a potential lender or investor if he possesses — besides passion and ambition — a business plan and a grasp of the market based on thorough, objective research. He’ll need money to get the endeavor going, and business acumen can minimize rookie errors.

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Quemado Rito Convenience Store Puts Rural Community Back on the Map

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F. Leroy Pacheco

F. Leroy Pacheco, President and CEO, The Loan Fund

Tommy Padilla works full time for the state Livestock Board and owns a 2,000-acre cattle ranch near Quemado, a rural community that’s home to 781 people. In 2008, he saw an opportunity to provide a needed service to motorists driving through the town.

Quemado is on U.S. Highway 60 in rural western New Mexico. For decades, the community supported five gas stations and four restaurants that served travelers heading to and from Arizona and California. But after east-west Interstates 10 and 40 were built in the 1960s, Quemado began a slow decline.

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Businesses Shift Focus to Veterans’ Needs

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Christy Valdez

Christy Valdez, President and CEO, ReForm Spine & Injury Care Center

As U.S. troops withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan, the military’s focus is moving from international hot spots to hospitals and veterans centers at home. Images of service men and women striving to function with the loss of limbs stir compassion, but no images adequately portray the pain of those struggling to reintegrate into families and communities or those suffering from the debilitating effects of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Nearly one of five recently returning veterans describes symptoms of PTSD. For Vietnam vets, the statistics are more alarming; 25 years after a 1988 study of Vietnam Continue reading →

Funds Connect Growers to Burgeoning Industry

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Monica Abeita

Monica Abeita, Regional Development Corp. for NNM Connect

Economic developers Robert Naranjo and Lucia Sanchez were pleased to see boutique wineries spring up along the high road to Taos. But when they discovered that grapes were being sourced from outside the immediate area, they jumped into action. With funding from Northern New Mexico Connect and the county of Rio Arriba, Naranjo and Sanchez helped organize local micro-growers – those with one quarter- to two-acre plots – into a grape growers association. Barely a year later, the group has received advice from multiple experts, pooled funds to order root stock in bulk and planted thousands of vines. In two years, when the vines reach maturity, the association plans to begin selling their combined harvest to local wineries.

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Names Matter to Business Identity

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Mike Mykris

Mike Mykris, Director, NMSBDC at Santa Fe Community College

A business’s legal name is usually that of its owner, though businesses often assume a made-up moniker that says more about what the business does than who runs it.

When the business is a sole proprietorship, its legal name is the owner’s full name, even if it does business under something else. A partnership’s legal name consists of the partners’ surnames or whatever name is assumed in the partnership agreement. Corporations and limited liability companies have a little more latitude to register a legal name with the state; their legal name doesn’t need to mention the individual owners’ names.

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Budgets Matter to Business

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Bobbi Hayes

R.A. Bobbi Hayes, CPA, CITP, CFE, CFF, CCIFP, Partner, Accounting & Consulting Group LLP

Business owners striving to make it through the tough economy need to know how cash flows in and out of their business. A good place to start is with a budget – a basic tool used to forecast when cash will be collected and when expenses must be paid.

Many owners of small and midsize businesses don’t take the time to create a budget, or they neglect to update the one they have. In this slow economic recovery, every dollar is precious and it’s more important than ever to know where money is going. Financial institutions also want to know; banks are beginning to require that borrowers include a budget with their loan requests.

Since a business budget is such a valuable tool, understanding how to create a good one is vital to obtaining successful results and improving a business’s chance of survival.

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Veterans Get Help in Business

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Lloyd Calderon, Director, New Mexico Veterans’ Business Resource Center, and Director, VBOC

When Freedom Construction of Edgewood was hired by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to upgrade the electrical system at Conchas Dam, the job was the first federal contract the company had been awarded. One of the reasons Freedom’s owners, Mark Beasley and Steven Tenorio, got the $1.1 million job is because they know what many veteran-owners of businesses do not: Federal laws set aside 3 percent of federal contracts for businesses owned by veterans who were disabled during the course of their military service.

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