The bad economy has everyone pegged in the employment circle. Companies have a vast pool of talent to choose from and replace others with. As a startup business owner you have a variety of people to round out your circle of success, right?

Why not? Who said the boss had to be a tight ass. Although the current economy has made it an employer’s market, if you are a true entrepreneur or leader you define your own gig. The best way of keeping everyone happy is to bring some humor and laughter into the work place. I don’t mean making it April fools everyday but think about surrounding your employees with humorous things and opportunities to laugh the stress away.

As in life, your lying, deceiving, cheating, shady business schemes will eventually catch up to you if not sooner then later. Running a startup business based on deceit and misinformation is like making a deal with the devil, you'll soon see it wasn't worth it to begin with.

This topic has been a hard lesson learned for me over the years. As a business owner and a founder of a non-profit letting go of projects or tasks has been difficult. My business partner had to drill it in my head at a certain point that I needed to delegate some of what I was doing because I was doing too much. I don't know whether you would call that being a control freak or not trusting others with your business but I definately fealt like I had to do it or it would not get done at all or it would not get done properly. Now that I think about it it sounds like both, control and trust.

It is no surprise that the United States ranked #9 in Forbes' 2010 best international markets. With the extension of bad economy fears and the trickle down affects of broken government (parties not working together on all sides to prove political prowess) many wanting to start a business would think twice about investing in American capital.

If I were a different person and flexed my inner b*@#h would I be more successful than I am today? Many women who have climbed corporate ladders have had to fight the good fight to get where they are but have been deemed the b*@#h in the office because of their hardcore strategy. But when you start your own company and have to fight for recognition in your niche do you have to take on this label?

Every day whether we see it on the news or television we are saturated with pop media. It’s in music, art and literature. Popular culture makes the world go around and gives the average person some excitement. Creating popular culture, however, is not as easy as it seams. There is a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes that can be acquainted with working your own business empire.

I don’t do this as often as I should but as an environmental education specialist I should be plugging my own agenda by encouraging you to green your office space. My company, The Early Development of Global Education requires that schools scrap the scrap and implement an earth friendly environment that requires less paper, if not, any paper at all. So why not do this for your own business? It will save you time, money, space and help you to organize in a decade where iPads are replacing laptops and books. And there is no doubt in my mind that there is sleeker technology waiting on deck to replace the iPad.

It is easier said than done when you receive advice from already established entrepreneurs about how easy it is to start a business and take the initial risk. I am pretty sure some people read my articles and say “Yeah, I wish. How can I start my own business when I have no type of support?”

In short, S.W.O.T. (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats). This is an analysis and planning tool used successfully by comp anies (profit and non-profit) for many years, to evaluate productivity. Originally created by the Stanford Research Institute in the 1960’s and initially used by DuPont, the S.W.O.T. analysis has helped many companies to manage their internal and external branding and environments.