Professional Business Network

Optimism among women business owners is up, according to the Key4Women Confidence Index, which is conducted twice a year by the Center for Women’s Business Research.

According to the new survey, within the next six months, 47 percent of women business owners believed the economy would improve (up from 33 percent), 43 percent thought it would stay the same (down from 50 percent) and only 10 percent thought it would worsen (down from 17 percent).

Based on this positive outlook, 42 percent of women entrepreneurs said they plan on hiring within the next year, even though only 14 percent actually added employees in the first quarter of 2011.

Women business owners have dedicated more funds to three key business aspects in the past year: Fifty-seven percent increased funding for marketing and advertising, 55 percent created new product and services, and 37 percent invested in new technology.

Women business owners also cited their top business concerns, with 31 percent naming poor sales, 17 percent worried about competition from larger businesses and 10 percent citing taxes. Read Full Post…

A hotel and pub located in Evesham have been put up for sale after nine years in the hands of the current landlord.

The Railway Hotel, located on the high street, is being sold by Stuart Aitchison and is on the market for £35,000 for its leasehold.

Mr Aitchison told the Tewkesbury Admag that the hotel has been on and off the market several times over the past year. He is looking to sell the property due to the current economic climate: “Like all other pubs at the moment we cannot make any money from it.”

These difficult trading conditions are also the reason for the very low price of the pub and hotel and, as the landlord told the paper, the price is so low that even “the fixtures and fittings would cost more than that”.

In the meantime, the Battle of the Bands competition, which has been a popular event, will continue at the venue.

In addition to the pub, the sale includes 20 car parking spaces, four self-contained flats, six letting bedrooms and a three-bedroom owner’s flat. Its sale

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I just spent the last six days on the road for work. I do not like business travel. Anything that takes me away from my family is not my first choice. Having said that, I get to do work that I truly love and enjoy so it makes it easer to crank thru the weekend and into the work week from the road. This trip caused me to learn and think a lot about what is going on in business, entrepreneurship, technology and the economy of America.

I’m inspired.

I started the trip in a small town in Southern Utah called Cedar City. Cedar City is a beautiful place. Many of you know it due to the proximity (about an hour away) to world famous Zions National Park and other great natural beauties that this part of the state has to offer. T

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Today is no ordinary Monday — it’s 7/11, the unofficial birthday of the 7-Eleven convenience store chain and Free Slurpee Day.

The largest chain of convenience stores, with over 40,000 locations worldwide, 7-Eleven will be giving out 5 million free, 7.11-ounce servings of its famed Slurpees all day long. Droves of Slurpee devotees and newcomers are expected to flood stores, filling their cups with the flavor of their choice then happily skipping the checkout line on their way out.

So will giving out free Slurpees hurt 7-Eleven’s sales? The statistics say no. Last year, Slurpee sales increased 38 percent on Free Slurpee Day. Read Full Post…

Mergers and acquisition activity in pubs, bars and restaurants is likely to surge in 2012, according to new research from the business advisory consultancy, BDO.

Head of restaurants and bars at BDO, David Campbell, said that they expect to see many private equity companies looking to cash in on consumers continuing to eat out.

“Eating out has been relatively unaffected in the consumer downturn and we see casual dining continuing to grow,” Campbell told the Financial Times. “With banks looking to offload pub assets and a number of profitable restaurant chains approaching the point where we would expect an ownership change, the market is ripe for M&A activity.”

He said that many companies will be looking to invest in restaurant chains and outlets in 2012, as they anticipate an easing of consumer spending in 2013. Campbell predicted that major high street chains including Pizza Express and Yo! Sushi c

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Professional social networking site LinkedIn introduced a new feature on Wednesday created to boost participation in professional conversation within its one million Groups through polling. Polls within groups will be rolling out to all members over the next few days, the company said.

According to LinkedIn’s principal product manager Ian McCarthy, group moderators on LinkedIn have been looking for “easy, time sensitive ways to generate conversations within the group,” and features that have been available to them so far, such as article sharing or blogging, weren’t suitable for obtaining quick insights from group members.  To pro

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I read a lot of books. I don’t read fiction and I very, very rarely read something that isn’t about business. Having an e-book reader (in my case, it’s an iPad using the Kindle app) has made my appetite even more voracious. I am currently “reading” 14 different books simultaneously on my Kindle app. I put reading in quotes because it’s tough to say I’m really reading 14 books at the same time, but I am. I’d say that I read 40-50 pages of one book and then switch to another. Back and forth, back and forth. Eventually I complete each and every one. I finish some much faster than others.

Overall, I read 40+ business books each year.

With that concept in mind, I thought I’d list my favorite top 10 business books of all time. These are the one

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