Your new business was growing just fine, thank you, when out of the blue sales seemed to slow, then rapidly grind to a halt. It seems that now, whenever you speak with a client, the conversation turns, a bit too rapidly, to the economy, followed by how much so-and-so lost in stocks, or the decline of the housing market. Rarely, if ever, do you hear someone talk about having just made a great business deal, or having just racked up some great sales.

It's depressing -- that's what it is. You watch the news, read the papers -- or at least the ones that have managed to stay afloat -- perhaps discussed what to do next with your spouse and/or business partner. No one seems to have any good ideas. If only you had a mentor or coach, someone who you could talk with and who could look at your situation, give advice, perhaps even help you formulate some new business ideas.

These folks exist... they're called business consultants... but until recently their services were usually priced out of reach for the small business owner. But not anymore -- today, small business coaching is a growth business. The baby-boom generation has had its share of real business leaders, many of them small business owners now on the verge of retirement or else simply looking to change careers mid-stream in order to help others achieve the success they managed to find for themselves.

A small business coach can be a small, one-man operation itself, but not always. Nowadays franchised strategic consulting offices are making their mark in the profession. What better way can there be for someone to get started helping others succeed in business without having to reinvent the wheel themselves? After all, time is money, and a franchise can help get a new small business coaching service get up and running with a minimum of effort.

If you find yourself humbled by the economic tsunami that has pounded business of late, consider a small investment in both time and money and contact a business coaching service before it's too late. Perhaps, with unvarnished eyes, your new mentor will be able to coach you out of this slump and back to business success.

It's late and your team is waiting for the final draft of the new product presentation that you're making tomorrow in St. Louis. But there's a problem -- you need new numbers so that you can generate a Pro Forma statement for the project. Unfortunately, those numbers must come from your partner in Seattle and your marketing guy in Dallas. To make matters more complicated, each of them will need to factor in the other's numbers in order to make their own projections so that you can put together the final document. And you're in Syracuse!

You long for the old days when you actually worked in the same office as your team members and could just call everyone into the conference room to hammer out the new numbers. But wait, you still can --

Online project management has gotten a lot easier over the past few years. Services have been introduced that effectively create, online, an office in what's become known as the cloud which, in this case is a metaphor for services that host their applications and your data remotely. Everything you need, right down to contact information, is virtually at your fingertips just by logging into the service with a standard web browser. Subscribing to one of these online project services can quickly give new meaning to the term 'team collaboration.'

Back to your problem. A quick email sent off to John in Seattle and Rashid in Dallas notifies them of your requirements. Both of them quickly log into the project space that has been reserved for them, download each other's spreadsheet files, take note of the updated calculations, and use those numbers to update their own work. After each updates his own file to reflect the new assumptions, you swoop in, spreadsheet at the ready. You download each of their files, update your Pro Forma statement, and modify your presentation file before heading off to bed, now secure in the knowledge that tomorrow is going to be a very good day after all.

Tick - Tock.... Tick - Tock.... Tax - Time... Tax - Time...

You're one of the fortunate; diligent in your efforts to maintain accurate accounting records. You have the money to pay an accountant and are one of the first clients each year to knock on his door with records in hand, ready to be scrutinized, discected, and parsed onto waiting tax forms. You're fortunate... and you are a rarity.

Face it folks. Most of us just aren't as punctual when it comes to the accounting aspects of our business, are we? We believe that the only good tax deadline is someone else's tax deadline.

Friend, it doesn't have to be this way. Tax filing doesn't have to be the stuff of nightmares. Long ago some of us figured out that buying computers and hiring people to use them was a sure fire way of saving time; time we could spend on other, more pleasurable pursuits... like golf. Now here's the kicker. You know the software that goes into those computers we bought? Not the one titled "Two Hundred Solitaire Games You Never Knew Existed." I'm talking about real software -- business software. Well, believe it or not, there's something called -- get ready for this -- TAX PREPARATION SOFTWARE!!

Stop dancing. There'll be plenty of time for that later.

Here's the best part. Even you must have heard the term 'e-file' used in conversation, maybe at a bar during last week's big game. But did you know that the 'e' stands for EASY? And do you know who gets to spend more time playing golf if you spend just a little bit of time e-filing taxes? You -- that's who. Now DANCE, my friend. Dance like you've never danced before!

Courts do not look kindly upon the defendant who pleads ignorance of the law. How many otherwise law abiding, upstanding business owners have found themselves in tax court simply because they were unaware of a particular tax filing requirement and, as a result, failed to pay their taxes? Even otherwise successful businesses can flounder when it comes to tax accounting; many times as a result of their inattention to the details of successful business management.

There is never a valid reason for ignoring the accounting aspect of one's business. While many business owners have been stymied when faced with the debits and credits of the accounting ledger, today there are a host of accounting software solutions that excel in helping one visualize the current financial state of any business entity. And we're not just talking about easy payroll accounting software either. It's now easy to track the value of inventory as it moves through the system, stay abreast of tax requirements, be notified of upcoming filing dates, and monitor both current and projected cash flow.

For those who prefer not to wade through instruction manuals when trying to install and configure software on their own computer systems, there are companies that host the accounting software online, making it a simple matter of logging into an account and entering figures into a web browser. And for those who do not mind getting their hands dirty, there is an even greater number of professional accounting software packages; one or more of which might help keep you from one day standing before the judge, looking sheepish as you utter the words, "I didn't know."