Government and private organizations provide the opportunity for minority women to pursue a higher education or operate a business with a grant. Finding out how to get one of those grants or get help with your business can be frustrating as there is not a lot of information easily available.

Your best bet is to find help locally in your community. You can go to the following sites on the web and they will point in the right direction of where to go for help in your area.

SBA.gov site - http://www.sba.gov/content/find-grants) This is the Small Business Administration’s main site. They have an option you can click on to find grants. They also have place where you can put in your zip code and they will list local help in your area.

The Office Of Women’s Business Ownership (http://www.sba.gov/about-offices-content/1/2895)
Part of the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Office, the Office of Women’s Business Ownership wants to foster the participation of women entrepreneurs in the economy, especially those who have been historically under-served or excluded. OWBO reaches out to women entrepreneurs through a number of programs that are coordinated through every SBA district office. OWBO’s programs provide business training and counseling, access to credit and capital, and marketing opportunities, including federal contracts.

2. SCORE – SCORE is a volunteer associations with counselors who are experienced in all aspects of small business management. http://www.score.org/

3. State Economic Development Agency – Type the term State Economic Development Agency with the name of your state into the search bar and see what comes up. Different states have different programs so it is worth investigating your options.

4. HBWA – HBWA is a community of hispanic entrepreneurs and professionals aiming to help hispanic women with getting started on opening a business. On this site you can get information about the U.S. Hispanic Market & Businesses, News about Latina Companies and Organizations, Events of Interest to Latina Entrepreneurs, and Links to Key Latina & Other Business Organizations. http://www.latinamarketplace.com/

5. National Hispanic Business Women Association-NHBWA
(714) 836-4042

The National Hispanic Business Women Association (NHBWA) is a 501c3 non-profit organization established in Orange County, California in 1997. They want to to encourage women to develop their business and professional endeavors by promoting business growth through education, mutual support, the sharing of information, business referrals and networking. http://nationalhbwa.com/main/

6. National Latino Business Women’s Association – They want to promote, develop and support the rapid growth of Latina business owners and professionals. The national organization supports the development of chapters throughout the U.S. and these chapters deliver programs and services enabling greater success for this critical, underrepresented market. http://nlbwa.org/aboutus

What Business Could A Woman Like You Begin?

Actually, it should not be that surprising to learn that more and more women want to start a business. The unemployment outlook seems a bit better, but the numbers are still grim. Some areas of the country have been hit a lot worse than others too.

Older women, in particular, are having trouble finding jobs, especially at the same level of employment they had before. While they may not be finding employers that are willing to hire older women, they are finding that their skills are very well suited to a number of great home business ideas for women!

Have You Seen Women Succeed Very Well In Business?

Women are attracted to the idea of running their own business for several reasons.

• Some want to have control over their work and financial life.
• Others just want the flexibility of being able to set their own schedule.

Does this sound like you? If it does sound like you, do not discount the possibility of providing your own next job for yourself.

What Businesses Should A Woman Like You Consider?

Your own choice of a good business idea will probably depend upon some things you have done in the past, and also your own personality and goals. A quiet and reserved person will probably seek different opportunities than an extrovert. A woman who needs flexible hours may purse a different line of business than a person who is willing to donate 60 hours a week to the new business.

Whatever your needs, goals, and past experiences have been, you can research suitable businesses for you. Not all businesses involve heavy selling either. You can find real needs that you can fill that do not require a lot of selling. You just need to let people know you are available!

Do not worry if you do not have lots of hours or lots of money either. Many great successes have started with part time hours and little money to fund their new enterprise. You just need a will, a good idea, and the desire to succeed.

Here is a very interesting post on communication in business that I found on a website called Kaufmann’s Capital Comments. The site gives well thought out advice on various aspects of business.

You see a friend on the street and ask him, “How are you?” So he starts to tell you: “Well, I have a toothache, my dishwasher is broken, my car has a flat, my girlfriend left me, I lost my job….” “Whoa!”, you say, “hold on! Too much information.”

Now I know, you were just being polite and using a socially acceptable greeting, but think about what happened. You asked someone for information. He started to give you the information you asked for, but when you got tired of listening to him, you cut him off, preventing him from telling you something that actually might have been important to you. What if his next words were going to be “… and I have some good news for you”?

Granted, sometimes people take too long to get to the point and we get impatient. Other times, too much information—TMI— is indeed a problem. On more than one occasion I have been told that when someone asks me what time it is, I tell them how to build a watch. (I’ve met worse, though. I had a client who, before he told you how to build the watch, would first tell you every part that goes into the watch, how each part was made, and why it was essential to have that part in the watch to make it work.)

As a general rule, we tend to be caught up in our lives, dealing with problems at work or home. We don’t have the time or interest to pay attention to matters of importance to others. It’s a good strategy for coping with the daily issues of life, but not for managing a business.

Especially today, when it is more common to send an email to a colleague than to get up and walk down two cubicles to ask a question, when we use phones to send text messages instead of actually calling someone to speak to them, it is too easy to fall into the trap of TMI. We are more efficient in our communication, but we are also less effective. Texts and emails prevent us from maintaining and honing the essential skills of listening and engaging in conversation.

We think that we can determine what we need to know to get our job done. If we get stuck, a quick message to someone for specific information is enough to get us moving again. We can stay in our office, our cubicle, or our home office and continue on to do our work. Without realizing it, we are oblivious to crucial information we might have gained by actually talking to someone, explaining what we are trying to do, soliciting an opinion, and actually listening to what the other person has to say.

Technology enables us to work in solitude; we do not have to physically interact with other people. So we don’t. However, though we can work in a vacuum, we don’t actually operate in a vacuum. What other people are doing does have an impact on what you are doing—and you probably don’t know it. Emails and text messages leave out the subtle changes in vocal tone that you hear in a phone conversation, or the barely noticeable changes in body language you see only if you are talking with someone face to face.

Electronic communication is an essential part of business today. Just remember that it is not the only means of communicating with business associates. So the next time you sit down to type that email, or you pull out your phone to send a text message, why not just get up and go talk to the person? Who knows? You might not get too much information, but just the amount you needed.

Job hunting is tough and sometimes it can really get you down. Often the bad feelings come from losing your perspective and seeing things in a negative way. Here are some specific suggestions for regaining your perspective and ways to alter the way you are looking at the situation so you can see things a bit more positively.

1. Get Perspective - Keep in mind that a job is just a job. What is important is your health, family, spirituality, friendships and recreation. A job search is an activity you are engaging in and not who you are.

2. Quit job searching and start searching for where you can add value – Use this attitude when you network. You will be surprised by the information you receive and the opportunities that exist.

3. Let the past go – If you have not found a job yet, learn from it and move on. Think about how to better prepare for the next interview or broaden your search methods.

4. Stay true to yourself – Think about what your interests are, and listen for internal cues – your gut instincts. They will tell if you are on the right track.

5. Be open to risk - Give up trying to predict where the next lead will come from or who will be the most helpful.

6. Take one day at a time while planning your search. Break big tasks into small bite size pieces.

7. Create a new way of looking at a job search. It is not a one time event, it is a life long process.

8. Reinvent your career by adding any missing ingredients. Start by planning how to acquire the skills you need to move forward.

9. Exercise – You don’t have to go to a gym or sign up for a class. Just take a walk for 20 minutes or rake leaves or ride your bike. Exercise increases endorphins and makes us feel better about ourselves.

10. Meditate or pray for at least 10 minutes a day. Clearing your mind of all the scary thoughts gives you a mental break and helps your brain function better. Just try to focus on your breathing and nothing else. Many people find praying and handing the situation over to a higher power helps them feel less burdened.

Still feeling stressed about having to look for a job during a recession? See our post on Recession Job Search Tips and feel better.

These tips can help you if you are looking for a job or trying to hang on to the one you have. They are quick and easy to understand and can help you gain perspective on your job situation.

1. Identify your top strengths - These are the six or so qualitites and skills for which you have become known for. For example, don’t say you are like-able or friendly, say instead you can mediate between groups and help bring about a solution that is satisfactory to all parties.

2. Rank strengths – Put these strengths in order of strongest to weakest by rating them on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is the top of your game and 5 is strong but still developing. You can give the same ranking to more than one skill.

3. Rank strengths crucial to the job – What are the five or six strengths most valued and play the largest role in the job you have or the job you are seeking. Take an objective look at your company and list the traits of capabilities most valuable to your position. Rank these required strengths in order of greatest importance to the company.

4. Compare the lists - Look at your strong points and compare them with the traits most necessary to your job or the job you are seeking. Which top-ranked strengths on your personal list intersect with ones on the company’s list of required traits? Pull out the most promising top two.

5. Fine-tune the top two strengths – Invest time in becoming a superstar in those – read books, do Web research, take classes. Do whatever is necessary to be a leader at your organization in these skills or if you are job hunting, you can show you are a self starter i.e. you are already building skills important to the job.

6. Leverage strengths – Keep an accomplishment log to track how improvements made a difference in your performance. We tend to forget so many things we accomplish and what the story was. Writing it down will help you have something to refer to when you are talking to a boss or a potential boss.

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Who would have thought the recession would drag on for so long. But here it is the holiday season and things are still a bit grim for us and the economy. So here is some advice from some successful women entrepreneurs:

1. Take on new projects- From coming up with new cost-cutting initiatives to volunteering to head up a project, one of the best things you can do to lift your spirits is to pitch in where help is needed. Taking action will give you a sense of control over your work life, while increasing your skill set will keep you motivated.

2. Don’t engage in pity parties – Coffee-break chatter about layoffs or pay cuts will only make you feel worse. Save your complaints for outside the office – with your non-office friends or spouse. Keep the conversation with office buddies neutral.

3. Create you own mini-goals – Come in early one day a week or set up a brainstorming session with your supervisor. Creating goals energizes you and gives you a sense of accomplishment, which will help you stay on track when work is slow.

4. Invest in yourself – attend a networking event or take a class. While these activities may not have an immediate payoff, expanding your business network and learning new skills will keep you inspired and might help you get hired when the economy gets better.

5. Find fun outside of work – Find one non-work-related activity that is exciting to you. Take a pottery class, a yoga class, volunteer somewhere – whatever sound fun. The important thing is that you get engrossed in this activity and forget about stress at work.

Many women want to work from home. Since women tend to be family caregivers, a home position can eliminate a long commute. That leaves a lot more hours in the day. But when we search for home office jobs, a lot of what we see are not real jobs with salaries or hourly pay, but home business opportunities or, even worse, lists of places you might be able to find a work at home job that want you to pay up front for access.

Work At Home Jobs with Pay and Benefits Exist!

While some people may benefit from home business opportunities, not everybody wants this. Home entrepreneurs are a special breed, and many people would rather just have the structure of an actual job with a set shift and pay rate. I love running a home business, but I know that my business is not the right choice for others.

How To Spot Real Home Jobs

Here are some expert tips to tell if a posted job is really a job, or is a business opportunity (or worse yet, a scam):

• The posting will have requirements. Certain skills, equipment, and/or years of experience will be required for the job. If the ad says that it does not require any equipment or skill, it is not likely to be an actual job posting. Some examples of requirements for a home customer service representative ( a common work at home job) might be one year of customer service experience, a good phone manner, and basic computer skills (like entering data or sending emails).
• The job will require an application or resume, and may ask for some references. A company that is willing to hire people to work at home will not want to take everybody, but will look for disciplined, self starters.
• Any sort of application fee should make you wary. You do not usually have to pay to apply for a job.
• A home office job may have an hourly pay scale, salary, and even benefits. But if the promise of earnings looks too good to be true, that should cause you some concern. Have you seen ads that promise $7,000 a month for posting links on Google? Those are not endorsed by the search engine, and are certainly not postings for jobs with wages.

So How Can You Find a Legitimate Work At Home Job?

Well, you can certainly spend some time searching online now that you have an idea what to look for, and also an idea what you should avoid! Visit the Home Worker Forum for our section on Real Work At Home Jobs. You can browse our posts, read comments, and add your own questions and answers!

Visit Us at the Home Worker Forum Today!

We strive to be an active community of home workers. Our members discuss various types of home office opportunities, including salaried telecommuters and home business owners. We also provide information for people who want to work from home, but do not know where the real jobs are. We’d like to invite you to join us.

Do you need extra cash? There are actually many different ways to get extra income but you will be most successful with the one suited to your personality. If you like being out in public and interacting with people, these part-time jobs offer flexible schedules and can pay from $8.00 to $12.00 an hour. Pay depends upon where you live and your prior work experience. Product demonstrator, delivery person, hotel desk clerk, bank teller are all legitimate ways to earn extra money.

If you need extra cash though and are unable to leave your home or you just don’t like interacting with the general public here is another option. Consider starting a modest internet business. It is not as hard as you might think.

It is very inexpensive to purchase a domain name (a name and internet address for your site) and there are many places where you can download a bare bones web site set-up for free. If you can send email, you can set up a web site using one of these simple set-up programs.

There are two ways you can make money with your website. One is to sign up for the Google Adsense program and make money when people click on the Google ads on your site and the other is to sell a product or acquire leads for a company that is looking to find people interested in signing up for what they are offering.

You are more likely to be successful if your site is about something you enjoy doing or is an extension of your current occupation. If you like gardening, cooking or wood carving consider that as focus for you site. If you are in a sales position such as insurance considering setting up a site to generate your own free leads.

The trick to making money with a web site is you have to get traffic or people visiting your site. There is a tremendous amount of information on the internet that will teach you how to attract people to your site. The problem is though the information is scattered and sometimes too technical to for the non-technical business person to comprehend. There is a great eBook you can read called LeadCallsYou that explains, in terms novice website owners can understand, how you get your site to attract visitors. The book is short and to the point and gives you many free resources that are specifically designed for novice users. To check out this book click on this link LeadCallsYou When you click on the link, the advertising page for the book might give you the impression it is just for people who need to generate leads, but I have read the book and can tell you that the information can be applied to any website.

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I was recently diagnosed with high blood pressure and my doctor told me I needed to lose 20 pounds. I tried just cutting back on calories but I was always so hungry. I actually ended up eating more than I normally would because I let myself get too hungry. A friend of mine told me about the Atkin’s Diet and I did have some success with that. I actually lost about 8 pounds in the first six weeks. Then I just stayed the same weight for several weeks. I was frustrated that the weight loss was so much slower. I have to say I was more satisfied eating a high protein/low carb diet but I didn’t feel like I could cut back much more on my portions to lose weight a bit faster.

I read about how fiber can help you feel more feel full. Fiber which is the part of plant-based foods that our bodies can’t digest, makes you feel full sooner and stays in your stomach longer than other substances we eat. Because fiber slows down your rate of digestion it makes you feel full longer. You don’t gain weight eating fiber because it passes through your digestive tract without providing nutrition or calories. The pass through part is also good because it helps your digestive tract function properly. Also fiber moves fat through our digestive system faster so that less of it is absorbed.

I did find a natural product that you can actually sprinkle on your food to decrease your appetite. The product is called “CHEAT.” “CHEAT” is made up something called Konnyaku. Konnyaku is a traditional Japanese jelly-like health food made from a kind of potato called “Konnyaku potato” and calcium hydroxide or oxide calcium extracted from eggshells. According to what I read, Japanese have been eating it over 1500 years. It was originally introduced to Japan as a medicine in the sixth century and has been eaten for almost 1500 years in Japan. Konnyaku is a totally natural food. Ninety seven percent of Konnyaku is water and three percent is Glucomannan, or dietary fiber. It is also rich in minerals and very low in calories.

Glucomannan is a dietary fiber and it is very hard for humans to digest. The Konnyaku just goes through your body and passes right through your intestines. That is why it has been called a no calorie food for a long time in Japan. Konnyaku does have calories, however, the calories would be so few in the normal quantities that they are negligible in number.

“CHEAT” does not have fat, it is rich in dietary fiber and is low in calories. Studies have shown that it normalizes the level of cholesterol, prevents high blood pressure and normalizes the level of sugar in the blood. Because of these scientific findings, it has been perceived as a excellent health food in Japan.

I have several friends who have successfully lost weight with the product. One day I was at lunch at a Mexcian restaurant with two of my friends (we are all trying to lose weight) and we all used the CHEAT sprinkles on our food. Our entire bowl of tortilla chips remained untouched throughout the meal. Well, okay maybe we each ate one or two. I thought that was amazing especially if you knew how much I like tortilla chips and salsa. After consuming the CHEAT, the chips just weren’t that tempting.

Now here is deal on the CHEAT – you can’t just order the stuff on it’s own the first time you order. The company that produces this wonderful product also promotes it as a business similar to Tupperware or Pampered Chef. To get in you have to order the starter kit which contains:

CHEAT – mentioned above
FLUSH – Organic gentle cleanse that helps your detox and enhances weight loss
LEAN – A snack or meal replacement Vanilla smoothie which works similarly to the CHEAT to reduce appetite and food cravings.
ACCELERATE – A thermogenic blend that increases the rate which you metabolize fat and increases energy.

Once you place the initial order then you can order products individually. You don’t have to market the product but I’ll bet you will be tempted to get your friends to try it. I ordered my kit after that lunch I had with my friends. I am in the process of trying the other products. I can say the CHEAT really does help reduce your appetite and it is portable. You just carry the bottle in your purse or pocket and sprinkle it on your food.

Here is the link to the site Cal Nutrasciences, Inc.

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I just read an excellent ebook about ways to make money online. This book is truly for the beginner or the person who has been trying to make money online but has not been as successful as they had hoped. I checked out the website because the name intrigued me -  Affiliate Underdog. I read the ebook and liked it so much, I decided to review it on my site.

>>>> Earn Money Online <<< Check Out Affiliate Underdog!

The book begins with the premise that you don’t have to be a big company to make an income off the internet. The author is a stay at home mom who is supporting her three children with her online income. The author explains that because web site design has become so user friendly, anyone can build their own website – “if you can muddle your way through a word processing document or send an email, you can build a website.” Not only that but the great thing is you don’t have to spend any money to set up your website. But ofcourse building the web site is only the first step.

Affiliate-underdog gives you easy to understand explanations of how search engines work and how you attract the search engine traffic to your site, again without spending any money. The book details a very simple method that the author used to build her online business.  All the technical terms are explained in plain english. She also gives you time estimates for each step. The book is filled with links to sites that will help you bring free website traffic to your site. The whole concept of affiliate marketing programs is explained in great detail and the book gives you the names of the affiliate programs the author actually uses and makes money from.

The book walks you through the whole process - developing an idea for a web site, building your own website, writing posts for your web site, how to find key words, how to develop links and how to  track your web site traffic. I thought the book was reasonably priced at $23.50. I think I probably spent that much on coffee at Starbucks last month. So make yourself a cup of coffee at home and spend some time with Affiliate Underdog. It’s a very quick read and not overly technical.

If you are looking to earn money online or eventually work at home full time, this is the book for you. It offers an easy way to get started without having to invest any money. The only thing you have to give is your time. Believe me, when you start making money it gets easier and easier to spend the time. Also get more help at the Affiliate Underdog Blog: Make Money On Your Computer!

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