The recession is so ten minutes ago. It\u2019s time to ride the uptick. Across the board, spending is up, hiring is up, and the Consumer Price Index is on the rise. For the first time since May, the CBIZ Small Business Employment Index is in positive territory, reporting a hiring increase for the month of August among companies with 300 or fewer staffers. In the game of Double Dutch jump rope that is entrepreneurship, now is the time to leap. While hiring is up, the talent pool remains deep. Lots of qualified people have been sitting on the sidelines the last few years. That\u2019s good for when you have to hire people.<\/p>\n
But wait, there\u2019s more! Your startup costs are nowhere near what they would\u2019ve been in years gone by. The physical stuff that used to be mandatory for running a business " office space, filing cabinets, boxes of paper, brochures, and how about those paper clips "aren\u2019t needed in many situations today. Sales of office supplies, and specifically paper sales, are on a downward trend. According to The American Forest & Paper Association, at the end of 2012, total writing-printing paper shipments decreased four percent year-over-year from 2011. You might not even need phones! It\u2019s a BYOD world and you could be living the mobile dream, with a team of employees that communicate efficiently from anywhere at a lower cost.<\/p>\n
If that very short receipt from Staples isn\u2019t enough of a come on, consider other developments on the tech front. There\u2019s the whole cloud thing. The cloud is, basically, the Internet, but it\u2019s more about the concept that you can store stuff " files, applications, etc. " out there<\/em>. Which means you don\u2019t need to store it in your office, which means you don\u2019t have to buy a bunch of expensive servers to run your business. When you need more storage space on the cloud, you can get it in less time than it takes to update your Facebook status.<\/p>\n Open source software means you\u2019re no longer paying for licenses and you don\u2019t have to shell out for software that will be outdated in 12 months, reducing both start-up costs and ongoing expenses. UK banking giant Barclays reports that it has saved billions, reducing IT spending by 90 percent using open source and cloud computing.<\/p>\n And speaking of Facebook, social media is an excellent business resource. Why? Because it\u2019s free. Creating a company Facebook page, promoting through your social networks, offering deals on Twitter, and building a following on Tumblr, Instagram and Pinterest are all ways of getting publicity through word of mouth. This is opportunity.<\/p>\n All of these factors combine to make this a great time to start a business. Costs are lower, opportunity is greater, and your dream is waiting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"