Baby Boomers are great people – I know, because I am one.  Baby Boomers are also great employees.  If you are starting your first business, I would strongly urge you to hire a Baby Boomer to help manage your business.  Your first reaction may be “why would I hire someone that’s old?”  Baby Boomers (late 40s to early 60s) may be older, but in this case older is better.  Many Boomers are looking for work now, the victims of the massive dislocations in the auto industry and many other industries.  And you can take advantage of this opportunity to get …read more

The very small business – with fewer than 5 employees and initial capital of $35,000 or less – is the heart of business in the U.S. and the world and it is the future of free enterprise and entrepreneurship.  Often referred to as a microenterprise or microbusiness, the very small business is tremendously important to the prosperity and growth of any nation.  Here is why very small businesses matter:
All Businesses Start as MicroBusinesses. Hewlett-Packard started in a garage in Palo Alto, California in 1939.  Microsoft was basically a two-man start-up with Bill Gates and Paul Allen.  You get the picture.   …read more

In tough times, people pull back.  They pull in their spending and they think carefully before buying anything. Baby Boomers have been particularly hard hit by the collapse of the stock market and layoffs.  If your small business sells to Baby Boomers, you might be wondering if there is any hope.  Well, as a Boomer, I can give you some insight into why Baby Boomers are not buying and how to get them to buy now rather than later.
Baby Boomers are on a “recession diet” (coined by Miranda Marquit of Yielding Wealth) and they are spending less.  Boomers are starting …read more

Let’s step into the world of a business owner who is a baby boomers that uses social media technologies to market their business. According to Jeremiah Owyang, he shared in the graph below that social technology use is on the rise by baby boomers.  The age groups on this graph for baby boomers have been broken down into two groups: younger boomers (ages 43 to 52) and older boomers (53 to 63).
As you can see, according to the graph, older boomers almost doubled in each area from 2007 to 2008 as they started incorporating social technology into their daily business. …read more