Workers shifting to 4-day week to save gasoline - Yahoo! News

Flexible work weeks, huh? I could see this being a bonus for the manager who respects their workers and offers this kind of perk to the job, and, clearly, also a plus for the employees who'd like to save a couple bucks on gas. What about the old days when companies provided incentives for employees that carpool, isn't anybody doing that anymore?

Workers shifting to 4-day week to save gasoline - Yahoo! News

Outsourcing Your Franchise Sales - Entrepreneur.com

My take-away from this article is that I need, as some of the core components of my franchise, either myself or a professional to handle:
1. legal documents / ongoing legal compliance
2. payroll
3. accounting
4. marketing
5. sales
I know I probably have 2, 4, and 5 handled. Hopefully I'll get some family help with 3, which just leaves a lawyer to handle that side of things. Also important: not getting ahead of myself, as I still need to hear from Sylvan folks if we're continuing or not...

Outsourcing Your Franchise Sales - Entrepreneur.com

Things are Actually Moving Right Along

I have a little story and some good news.

Just know to start, that it may not seem like it, but I've been sitting on pins and needles for the last couple weeks. For example, last week, when I received a letter from the bank in the mail, I felt a little like a teenager receiving a letter from a college accepting or declining my enrollment submission. Thinking back to that time, I remember clearly getting some standard envelope-sized letters from some schools, while other universities sent large package. A large package was good. That usually meant acceptance, details about the school, next steps for matriculation, etc. A small letter meant "thanks, but no thanks", or, denial, in other words. The bank's letter that came last week was a standard, small, envelope. So, it's no mystery where my mind was headed. I have to say I was surprised at the contents.

I have received a tentative prequalification letter from the bank for the SBA loan! Is prequalification a word?

There are a number of elements that have to be cleared before the loan will be financed, and the first of those would be additional documents from Sylvan. In the meantime, I forwarded a copy of this prequal letter to Sylvan, and tomorrow I'm expecting an update from those folks.

The Top 50 Blogs Posts on Franchising In 2008

Something tells me I'm going to find some great resources here.

The Top 50 Blogs Posts on Franchising In 2008

Six Steps to Starting Your Own Business - Kiplinger.com

This article at Kiplinger is very good, and I think I'm on steps 3 and 4 of this list. After some online research with SBA and FranNet, I think my next stop is the library to pick up a few books on entrepreneurship, franchising, and financing.

Soon, I'd like to have a list of questions ready to ask a SCORE consultant, but at the moment I don't even know what questions to ask. I could always go with the, "What should I be asking you now?" default, but I don't want it to look like I haven't done my homework. Any ideas on what kinds of questions I should be asking the folks at SCORE about potentially acquiring my first franchise?

Of course the next big thing is the business plan. This article at least lists some software and websites that are useful for creating my own business plan. I just wonder if this is going to need to happen sooner rather than later.

Six Steps to Starting Your Own Business - Kiplinger.com

Watch Live Online TV Channels - Free internet Television

Things that are free are always a nice way to save some money. Why not take advantage of the free internet sites that are hooked up to local and cable tv channels? Pretty simple name for this one, Online TV Channels.

Watch Live Online TV Channels - Free internet Television

Cross 'em if you got 'em

Sitting in a corner of my apartment, on top of my old broken swivel office chair, was my Lexmark 1100 all-in-one printer/scanner/copier. The plan was to toss the thing due to its incredibly inferior print quality, short life span for ink cartridges, and general condition. Well, last Monday, May 12, 2008, all the little pieces of information from dad arrived in the mail, so I needed to get a massive scan job going. I dusted off the old Lexmark, scanned about 60-70 different documents into portable document format, and compiled two massive emails to go out. One to the management group at Sylvan, in hopes of their approval for my "letter of intent" to proceed with a Sylvan Learning acquisition. The other to the banker at Focus Business Bank to potentially get pre-approved for an SBA loan. The Sylvan package was considerably smaller, and seemed to go through no problem, but the ten meg SBA loan app was immediately bounced back -- too big. I found a service to upload the pdf file to, shot Brad the link/invite to download the information, and at this moment I am sitting on pins and needles waiting to hear back from either Brad at Focus or Rachel or Sylvan to see if there is a next step for me. My fingers and toes are as crossed as they'll ever be.

Baby Steps, no Cutting Corners

On Cinco de Mayo this year, I had the day off. Uncle George introduced me to some of his business connections from Focus Business Bank. Brad Lebsack thoroughly answered all my questions and those of my uncle as well. I've got the application in progress right now, as I'm still waiting for a few more pieces to come in the mail to complete it. By the middle of next week the SBA application will be out to the bank. Also, the company from which I want to purchase a franchise wants a Request for Consideration completed, so they should have that next week too. Then I wait for bankers and executives to mull over my requests and applications with bated breath.