Are you a woman and have thought about perhaps starting your own business? In the working world today women have risen and have almost begun to outnumber the amount of men in the corporate world. Not only have women started to take a strong presence but they have continue to measure up and out perform men in business. With all the readily available resources today, women can take their entrepreneurial spirits and turn it into another Woman owned business success story.

Start to get those wheels turning sister…

Not sure where to start? First ask yourself what your business goals are and start to create a business plan. Having a well thought-out strategy plan at first may not seem very important, but when you are 2-3 years down the line and don’t have any of these you will begin to face challenges not having these from the beginning. Not only is putting your plan in writing a smart idea, but it makes you have a higher percentage to actually stick to those goals and plans.

Hey Girl, There’s an App for that…

Of course we are in the world of technology, but still a lot of people don’t utilize all the tools that are out there for them. Once you finish your goals and plans for your future, you  need ot start to think about fiscal planning, operations management, marketing, and just the nitty-gritty daily business tasks you will need to do in order to be successful. Automation is the name of the game, so make sure you do everything possible to automate your business. You can easily automate emails to customers/clients, your expenses, project tasking, inventory management, and more. If you cannot find a good application for what you are looking for find a good application developer to create it for you! It may be a little pricey up front, but in the end I guarantee it will save you time and energy.

Ladies you have to know how to get what you want…

Knowing where to get your information is just as important as the foundations of starting a business, if not more important. It is essential to be able to know what you need and to know where to look for it. With the rise of women owned businesses, many small business and entrepreneurial organizations have begun to develop over the past 5 years. Make sure to consult these groups for help or just to network. Networking is the new centuries biggest tool in being successful. The saying “You are who you know” will forever be used, especially in today’s down economy. If you know the right people and if you are a driven professional, you will always do well. Here are few good resources for you:

1. SBA (Small Business Association) Office of Women’s Business Ownership
2. Ladies Who Launch
3. NAWBO – National Association of Women Business Owners

That’s a brief little speech about being a successul woman business owner. We love to hear from people and hear what they have to say. What other resources or advice do you have?

The original artcle written by Black Rhino Solutions, Inc is here: http://www.evancarmichael.com/Technology/6707/How-to-Get-your-Woman-Owned-Business-into-Gear.html

What is a web application? A web application, also known as the ‘webapp’, is an application that can be easily accessible through a web browser over the internet. A web application is coded languages such as PHP, ColdFusion, and Asp.net combined with in a markup language like HTML.  What are the many benefits of a webapp? For one thing, web applications are cross platform compatible. Unlike certain software, which may only work on a Windows machine of a Mac machine, web applications have the ability to work across many different kinds of software such as internet explorer, Firefox, Safari as well as many different kinds of operating systems such as Windows, Linux, or Mac OS. Web applications are also extremely cost efficient. They have much lower maintenance and support costs than software as well.

Another benefit of the webapp is that you will never have to install an application on your computer to take up hard drive space. A webapp will always occupy a virtual cloud of space on the internet. Web Apps also allow you to constantly have the most up-to-date software. No more upgrade fees!

Web Applications are also available anywhere and anytime! This is huge – similar to the way you can access your email from any browser, any computer, etc., you can also access any web applications from anywhere.

With webapps you can also stress less about viruses.  Webapps require no  installation, which  means no viruses (unless you were to just get a Mac then you would never have that problem). The biggest benefit of all (in my opinion) is that mobile has arrived- allowing us to take our web apps anywhere our cell phones go.
Black Rhino Solution Inc’s Favorite Applications:
1.        Facebook (social networking site)
2.        Google Wave (an email and collaboration tool)
3.       Mint (a site to keep track of all your finances)
4.       Kuler (a color application to find colors that match and work good together)
5.       Google Maps (a map application)
6.       You Tube (Video application)
7.       Go To meeting (a virtual meeting application)
8.       WordPress (blogging application)

Five years ago the world never could have imagined the places that Google’s search bar would take people.  In recent years, Google has set the bar so high for search engine technolgies that it doesn’t look like anyone will be exceeding their accomplishments in internet search anytime soon. The thing about Google is that it might have started with a simple search engine, however, today it has expanded into all various that help web designers with their websites.  The following are just a few of the exciting new capabilities Google has brought to the web.

1. Google has Web Master Tools that allow you to look at all your websites and see the top search queries for your site and who is linking to your site.  For instance we have 103 links to our Black Rhino index page – you can actually click and see who is linking to that particular page.  You can also see the most common key words Google sees.  Our top 5 is design, black, rhino, marketing, and logo. You can see where your website is linking to and how many people are subscribed to your website. You can also see  your site map and all the errors that exist within it. Furthermore, you can see crawler access, how often google has been crawling your site, how many pages per day, kilobytes downloaded per day, and time spent downloading a page.
2. Google also has Blogger which is a blogging system that people use. Most people are very familiar with Blogger so I’ll keep it short and sweet.  Basically, Blogger is a good addition to Google for web designers because blogging is a HUGE help with Search Engine Optimization.  By adding blogs to your website you not only make your website have more pages to be crawled by Google, but you also have more content for Google to connect users to. The more information you have on a topic and the more people you have going to your website the more important Google will think you are.
3. Feedburner is another important feature that Google has added.  Feedburner is a program that allows you to keep track of your subscribers. You can see who is subscribed to your blog, how they are subscribed, and which articles they are reading. It also has added tools to optimize, publicize, and monetize your site. In optimize you can make subscribing easier by applying clean visual format for your subscribers. You can also do SmartCast which makes podcasting much easier in feeds that normally cannot support it. It adds the elements that are required for a richer, more detailed listing in iTunes Directory. You also have SmartFeed which allows you to reach the widest possible audience while publishing a single feed on your blog. Publicize allows you to change your headliners, republish your blog on other sites, setup email subscriptions, and more. Monetize allows you to activate Google adsense for feeds and choose options that control how the ads are displayed in your feed.
4. Google Adsense is a program that allows you to sell advertising space for people’s ad’s on your website. These aren’t just any advertisements either, these are ads that Google chooses for you, but are completely relevant to your site’s content. It’s a free service by Google and you can earn money everytime someone clicks on one of your ads.
5. Google Analytics is an application that shows you how your customers found your site, how they explored your site, and how you can enhance your visitors experience. This will allow you to improve your overall site.
6. Then you have the Website Optimizer, which is Google’s free website testing and optimization tool. This tool allows you to increase the value of your exisiting websites and traffic by testing changes in your website content of your pages.
7. Then of course you have Google maps which I use on a majority of my sites. It allows you to put a map on your personal website of a location you want. It’s a nifty tool I must say!

Of course, there is much more … but I’ll leave that for you to Google.