Becoming an entrepreneur and opening your first business is thrilling and rewarding, but it's not without its risks. After all, so many that are inspired by the American dream and the glowing success of startups, fail and close their doors for good. Today's post will discuss the five most common small business pitfalls as well as how you can avoid them and come that much closer to lasting success.

As a food entrepreneur (even an aspiring one) you already know that you belong to a creative group that's always looking for new flavors to love, restaurants ready with a fresh take on favorites, and the best sources to provide only the best ingredients. Foodies are resourceful and innovative, and food entrepreneurs have a can-do attitude and a devotion to sharing delectable experiences, great and small, that are practically contagious. Unfortunately, being good with food and having the bold desire to bring your food to the marketplace isn't enough to translate into a successful business.

Fortunately, PCC Small Business Development Center offers a 14-week intensive program to help you do just that—Getting Your Recipe to Market. In today's post, we'll explore an important part of how to grow your food business, which you'll learn about as a part of the course's market readiness training: horizontal and vertical growth strategies. Both are valuable methods for growing a business through the development of brands, products, production and distribution channels, and business partnerships, but we generally recommend one over the other when first starting your business.

As a business owner, you’re constantly monitoring different metrics and figures to see how your operations are performing, and what you can improve upon.

But did you know there is one number that virtually every business should know if they want to be successful? No matter what kind of products or services you provide, cost of goods sold (“COGS” for short) is the one number that you need to pay attention to. Your COGS basically tells you how much you are spending to produce each unit of whatever it is you sell.

Starting out and developing a small business is no easy task, especially when it comes to developing your presence online. More than likely you’ve already designed a website and started to generate some traffic, perhaps even some sales.

But as your journey continues, you’ll want to be updating and upgrading your digital storefront on a regular basis. And that’s why we’re here, to provide some tips and tricks that business owners like you can apply to your website that will not only make your brand look and feel more attractive, but will also increase online sales. Ready to get started?

Are you just starting to develop your small business idea or plan? Maybe you’re already up and running, but looking for ways to improve and expand? Marketing and branding are key elements to developing your business, and choosing the right name is usually the first part of that process.

We’ve written this post to show you how to choose a business name that connects and resonates with your target market. Below we’ll go through some tips for choosing a name for your new business, along with a few examples to help you brainstorm. Arming you with these 10 resources and tips for choosing the best name for your business will get you started along the path to successful brand recognition in your community.

It might be counterintuitive, but price is often not a significant factor to your very best customers. Creating value around your brand and providing great customer service actually tend to be more influential on whether or not people remain customers or decide to go elsewhere.

Creating a positive customer experience can yield more positive results for your business than simply adjusting prices, because the customers you value most will be the ones to stick around for the long term. One study found that 87% of customers felt that brands need to put more effort into their customer experience, showing that it’s an area that businesses can improve upon before they start slashing prices.

Yarnia is Portland’s only DIY yarn store. It’s tucked away underneath some plaza stairs on SE Division and 41st in Portland. When you walk inside you’re surrounded by brilliant colors of coned yarn stacked to the ceiling. There is a cozy nook with comfy chairs just yearning to be sat in to knit something. And there is a modern, antique looking machine that fills the room with a humming sound as it makes custom yarn.

Walking into Bombshells Salon, you are immediately swept away by the class and elegance of the little converted house turned boutique salon in downtown Beaverton. April Orme and DaLynne McIntyre are good friends and hair stylists who had dreamed of opening up their own salon for years. In fact, they had their business name registered for two years before they decided to jump in. Finally, on March 1, 2010 they opened up their checking account, found a place on Craigslist, and six weeks later opened for business. They called in every favor from family, friends, and clients, and worked around the clock to make it happen – all without any outside money.

While running a business, you've likely come to understand the importance of having a functioning, informative, and easily found website. Of course, just having a website isn't enough — you need to be using it to reach your sales goals and to bring in more customers.

As with most things in business, integration is key. Despite the fact that 95% of retailers agree that digital and physical consumer experiences must be interconnected for one seamless experience across multiple channels, many stores still act like online and in-store activities are separate. Consumers already expect this intuitive level of convergence. Some aspects of this convergence may sit outside your reach for now (i.e., a new POS system that offers real time understanding of in-store and online purchases and stock inventory), but in this article, we're going to focus on in-store and online.