n times of uncertainty many owners of corporations and LLCs may consider folding up their operations. CPAs and other advisors may suggest dissolving these entities to save on fees and to be done with it all.

But hold on: The “easy” route of dissolution can have significant negative consequences.

In California, for example, shareholders can be held personally liable for corporate obligations arising before or after a dissolution. The rule is found in California Corporations Code §2011. The same rule exists for LLC members pursuant to California Corporations Code §17355.

The deadline for suing corporate shareholders or LLC members in California is either; 1) the applicable statute of limitations period or, 2) four years after the entity’s dissolution, whichever is earlier. Since many statutes of limitations in a business context can be four to six years in length, you may have four years of worries until you are safe from litigation. And don’t think that because you have a Nevada or Wyoming entity qualified to do business in California you are in the clear. California courts are notorious for applying “their” law to out of state entities doing business in California.

So what is the solution?

Do not dissolve your entity. Keep it alive until the statute of limitations period has run.

Here is an example of why it makes sense to keep your entity alive.

Joe owns Merced Consulting, Inc., a Nevada corporation qualified to do business in California. With a downturn in the economy Joe’s consulting business has suffered. His CPA suggests dissolving the corporation and eliminating the expense of an extra tax return. The CPA says his other consulting client Mary has just dissolved her entity.

But what happens in a downturn? People start to file claims over old business disputes, whether real or imagined. In good times when the money is coming in, grievances may be overlooked. In tougher times people will sue. And with business contract statutes of limitations typically being six long years, plenty of Joe’s clients may be looking for a new pocket to dip into to help pay for their current troubles.

In fact, Joe had provided Tom with project development help on a condo complex. Joe’s projections were based on the real estate market as it existed in 2006. The picture is quite different today, and Tom is suffering for it. Tom hires an attorney to sue Joe, Mary and two other consultants for their “bad” advice.

What are the consequences?

Mary, who dissolved her entity and received a distribution of corporate assets, is now personally liable for Tom’s claim.

Joe, who listened to his attorney and did not dissolve, is still protected by his corporation. While the entity does not hold a lot of assets, if Tom gets a judgment against Joe’s corporation he only gets what is inside the entity. Not much. And Joe’s personal assets are protected from the claim.

Dissolving gives a plaintiff a hopeful shot at your personal assets. Keeping your entity alive until the statute of limitations periods have run discourages plaintiffs from even filing in the first place.

Be careful in heeding the siren call of reduced filing fees and fewer tax returns by dissolving. In our current environment asset protection is more important than ever, and can only be achieved by keeping and maintaining your protective entities in place.

Garrett Sutton, Esq. is a corporate attorney and is the author of “Own Your Own Corporation” and other titles in the Rich Dad Advisor series. His firm forms and maintains corporations, LLCs and other entities and may be reached at www.corporatedirect.com.

I know that many businesses feel that their main purpose is to make a profit and provide for their family and employees.

But I would say that your prime purpose is to give as much as you can to everyone you meet during the course of your business.

Many people wait until someone becomes a paying customer before they start adding value to that person’s life.  I think that’s short-sighted thinking and definitely not in line with the idea that we are all connected, and that prosperity and abundance flows amongst us.

To be successful within our businesses and our lives, we need to start giving.  Giving of our time, our expertise, our opinions, our strategies, our mistakes, our triumphs, our ideas, our money, our credibility and on and on.

I believe that at the heart of each of us, we have a deep desire to make a real difference with our businesses - that’s where the passion and fuel comes from that sustains us through shaky beginnings, down times and expensive mistakes.

Try to approach you business for the next few weeks in the frame-of-mind of giving.  Add value to anyone and everyone you run across in the course of your business day.  Not only will people feel good interacting with you and get an amazing experience, but you’ll have a great day practicing abundance with everyone.

Some ways you can add value are:

• gracefully acknowledge the comments people give you via your blog or online forums/discussion groups, and give them an extra tip
• when people register for a course or teleseminar, always give them a bonus report
• after people buy something, have an extra little goodie they can access on the shopping cart page
• surprise people with discounts on your products and services at unexpected times (everyone gives on their birthday and around Christmas)
• pop a great article into the mail to a client you know would get something out of it
• send a cool link or uplifting video to your list - just make sure it’s something that would be of value to them
• offer special deals and VIP pricing to your top clients
• have a contest for your prospects and offer 3 months in your membership program free for the winner
• pass along a great marketing opportunity you’ve come across to your peers and similar companies
• give a new person in business a break - support their launches with a bonus product, share a business or marketing idea, introduce them to your list

There’s many ways that you can give in your business - try to cultivate opportunities to give value to everyone you talk to…you’ll not only boost your good feelings, but boost your success.

Web designers frequently torment themselves trying to decide what colors to use for their creations. Color choice for a website can either spoil the content and drive users away from your site, or reinforce your brand and increase page views. A good rule of thumb for website colors is to keep them simple and follow the trends.

If you are looking for a web designer to freshen up your site, visit Resource Nation’s web design quote center.

According to COLOURLovers.com, in 2008, blues and greens were the most popular colors. Blue Iris, a radiant shade of blue, was favorited by more than a half million people.

The most popular green of 2008 was said to be Bamboo Green, which makes sense given the green economic revolution. These two colors also blend well together and are frequently used on sites like Broadband Reports, TechCrunch, and TripAdvisor.

In 2009, blue has continued and will continue to be a popular trend. LinkedIn, Facebook, and Indeed all use different shades of blue, most likely because it is extremely versatile. Blue helps words, logos and other content pop while providing feelings of ease and usability.

The Popularity of Blue

The first few months of any new year are often times referred to as “Award Season.” This is because every January, the new year kicks off with award show after award show and business award after business award. Some of the popular award shows include the People’s Choice Awards, the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild Awards, and the Academy Awards where celebrities send the trend in style and color. We saw celebrities wearing various stunning shades of blues, setting the stage for blue to continue to be a popular color in 2009.

Web designers take note of this blue trend so you can ensure your websites are inviting, appealing, and successful. Below is a brief sample of the web design color trends for 2009. Review each trend and let the colors inspire you for your next website design project.

Blue Trends

Anne Hathaway at the Golden Globes in a gorgeous dark-navy blue. Hathaway’s choice of color is similar to Papillon Bleu, which is the perfect hue to make your web content jump off your page.

Maggie Gyllenhaal at the Golden Globes in a fun, bright, leopard-print blue. Bright colors are a great way to attract attention. Additionally, having the right mix of colors can do wonders for your website designs. Black and blue go extremely well together, as Gyllenhaal demonstrated at the Golden Globes and as Acceptance demonstrates on their website.

Mary Louise Parker at the Golden Globes in a vibrant royal blue. Royal blue has always been a popular shade of blue. It’s effervescent, stunning, eye-catching, and pairs well with a variety of other colors. For example, markmeup effectively utilizes Royal Blue with several other shades of blue as well as for various design uses. While C&M Properties & Construction, Inc. doesn’t use Royal Blue on their site, they do successfully pair blue with gray hues for a wonderful blend of colors to make their page look organized and well put together.

Overall, because there is an assortment of beautiful blues and all shades pair well with other colors, blue is an excellent color. Blue will prove to be a popular choice for web designers in 2009.

Happy New Year to everyone. Even though it is going to be a pretty tough year for many people in our country and around the world, we can still all hope for the best. We are all in it together. That said, as a Nevada resident, I need to let you in on what is happening in our state. As you might imagine, people are not traveling to and spending in Las Vegas, which means the state of Nevada’s take on gaming taxes is way down. The state faces severe loss of revenue.

So what are some legislators proposing to do about it?

Believe it or not, they want us to put in a state tax on individual and corporate income. Nevada, a tax free state, has been a magnet for all sorts of business owners and out of state people wishing to incorporate for asset protection and no extra taxes. But some in the legislature (which convenes in February) want to end all of this with new state taxes.

We will certainly keep you informed of what will happen in Nevada’s 2009 legislative session. But for those of you who are worried even by the talk of new Nevada taxes, you may want to set up your corporations and LLCs in Wyoming. Wyoming has no state taxes and is sitting on a billion dollar state surplus. They are not likely to put in a tax anytime soon, if ever. For now, the safer choice is to set up in Wyoming and see what happens in Nevada.

We have an office in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and set up entities there all the time.

Again, I hope you have a prosperous and beneficial New Year.

Contests are genius and typically can create hysteria if done right. If you are looking for a way to get your business out there, this is it. Create a contest and give away money. Especially now.

Just type in ‘contest’ in Twitter and you’ll see thousands of people promoting some sort of contest. Contests are ideal for companies trying to brand, sell, or engage people. They give businesses a platform for developing a voice and spreading a message.  The key is to make the contest voteable so participants share with friends and friends of friends gaining even more traction to your site. With online marketing sites like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Digg, and StumbleUpon, contests can go viral in a matter of minutes.

Before you run off and create one though, make sure you do it right in order to generate the publicity and buzz your business is looking for. For one, the ‘prize’ needs to be significant enough for anyone to care. Don’t even think about creating a contest to give away a book or you’ll be known for the hellacious contest creator. No one wants a free book – they want money.

Here’s a short list of killer contest conductors. Follow their lead if you want to do it right.

• StartUp Nation. Between the Home-based 100 and the recently launched Leading Moms in Business in partnership with LadiesWhoLaunch, StartUp Nation doles out the correct amount of genius to make contests a success. The Home-based 100 contest drove thousands of participants and 249,000 votes were cast in support of contestants. Why? Because people tweeted, blogged, digged, widgeted, podcast’d, emailed, flickr’d. StartUp Nation finds a trend, targets the people following the trend and offers a big reward. Those Sloan brothers are whiz kids.

• Ideablob. Lets members post brilliant schemes for starting up a business and the community votes each month. Winners receive $10,000 grant and can turn the business in to reality.

• Zumanity. Recently announced a contest to create the next Zumanity game. The money here is small, but the real prize is significant for those people entering the contest: travel and accommodation plus VIP tickets to the show and backstage passes.

• A band called Making April created a contest with Brickfish where entrants had to design a T-shirt and in return the band would write a song for the winner.  Results? Additional 100,000 hits to page in two weeks, winner got a shirt, a personal call from the band and song written.

You see it everywhere, but probably didn’t know it had a name. Not only is it entertaining, usually humorous, witty and often times innovative, it is a great resource to maximize attention to a particular product, service or organization by offering shock value and edge. In fact, it can be one of the most effective marketing methods available. What is it? Guerrilla Marketing.

To get help with your guerrilla marketing campaign, visit Resource Nation’s online marketing business center.

Guerrilla marketing is all about getting the maximum attention of the public by using minimal resources. Usually unusual and unpredictable, guerrilla marketing techniques break traditional marketing rules, cross boundaries that shouldn’t be crossed, and even come close to breaking the law.

We must appreciate guerrilla marketing and the force it has to drive business and attract attention. If you have the right creative brains in place and understand the market you are trying to reach, guerrilla marketing can be very cost-effective, entertaining and drive eyeballs and sales to your business. Smart companies take their guerrilla marketing tactics to the streets…or bathrooms, or Rugby fields, or escalators.

A few of my favorite guerilla marketing campaigns:

1.  HBO

HBO advertised their hit show The Sopranos while playing on the crime theme of the show. This marketing campaign definitely broke traditional marketing rules and was effective in attracting a lot of attention. It is a great example of the shock value that often accompanies guerrilla marketing tactics.

2.  Cingular

With this giant, hard-to-miss, unconventional ad, Cingular effectively attracts onlookers from the ground, from the air, from offices across the way, from a distance, and more.

3.  American Airlines

American Airlines highlights its airport wifi network in this edgy ad. With many people utilizing the Internet at the airport gates, this ad effectively relates to the vast majority of airline passengers. As a bonus, the ad also unintentionally advertises Google.

4.  Spiderman

How about this irregular ad for one of the Spiderman movies. It definitely drew attention, but let’s hope patrons didn’t actually attempt to “use” the ad.

5.  Sonic

Sonic Drive-In fast food restaurants marketed with magnetic cups that adhered to patron’s cars. It would seem as though the driver forgot to remove his/her drink from the drink’s temporary resting place on the car. Meanwhile, Sonic’s logo was pasted all over highways, roads, and parking lots. The campaign was funny and effective.

6.  Virgin

This marketing method employed by Virgin Atlantic Airlines’ is a favorite of mine. They employ the perfect combination of funny, cute and originality to create buzz about their airline company.

7.  Other

Taking advantage of pre-existing everyday features is a cost-effective way to market. Here, various companies utilize escalators as the medium for their advertisements.

8.  And finally, what NOT TO DO.

In August 2002, two men went streaking at an International Rugby game with a mobile telephone company’s corporate logo painted on their backs. While the campaign was successful because it drew an immense amount of attention from consumers, it landed both the two men and the phone company in legal trouble. This boundary-crossing technique reminds us to beware of legal ramifications when partaking in guerrilla marketing.

There are tons of different marketing tactics that are available for you to use and you get inundated with many “new” opportunities every week.  How do you figure out if you should do a specific marketing activity or not?

Below are a few questions to ask yourself when confronted with a great, new, one-of-a-kind, stupendous, money-making, guaranteed marketing opportunity!

1)  Will this marketing strategy actually reach your target market?

It goes without saying that any marketing you do needs to be aimed at your target market.  That being said, we can still get wooed by a great talking sales rep!  You want the marketing vehicle to be as specific as possible in targeting your target.

That’s why you need to really think hard about advertising in more broad-based mediums like magazines and newspapers.  For example, you maybe don’t want to reach all financial planners but only those that specialize in legacy and inheritance issues.

Try to get into special supplements, inserts or sections that are particularly focused at your segment of the readership.  This is key with these broad-based media vehicles because they also are usually quite expensive.

2)  How frequently will your message be seen by prospects in your target group?

This is an important consideration when choosing any marketing activity because we’ve all heard it takes anywhere between 7 - 11 exposures to your message before people will react.

If you can only afford to run an ad in the newspaper, magazine or ezine once then it’s most likely not the best use of your money.  Of course, you need to weigh the perceived credibility of the marketing vehicle and how much “bang you’ll get for your buck”.  For example, one ad during Super Bowl may make sense if you’ve got the money - because of the number of people you’ll reach and the prestige of being one of the advertisers during the Super Bowl is priceless.

So maybe you’ve got a great one-time opportunity to advertise in a big-name person’s workshop binder or new book they’re putting out.  Just make sure that the value and exposure to your target group make the one-time price worth it.

Try to use marketing tactics that allow you to keep in contact with your prospects and clients frequently.  That’s why email marketing and having a newsletter are such cost-efficient and effective marketing strategies.

3)  Is this marketing tactic something you can do consistently?

One of the worst things people do with their marketing is to start something, do it for a little while and then abandon it when something else grabs their eye.  To reap the most benefits (read: profits and great relationships) you need to choose marketing tactics that you can do consistently and in that way build the relationship with your prospects and customers.

When evaluating a new strategy figure out if you’ve got the time, money and sometimes most importantly - the interest in doing it on a consistent basis.  For example, don’t start a weekly ezine unless you can dedicate an hour each week to writing it.  You don’t want to send a message to your prospective clients that you can’t be reliable and “stick” with something.

Next time you’re told about THE newest, best marketing activity that you MUST try, step back and take a few minutes to ask yourself these 3 questions.  It will make marketing easier and less stressful for you and also for your prospects!

Telemarketing is simply marketing accomplished over a telephone. Often times, organizations utilize telemarketers to perform this task on behalf of the organization and can greatly benefit one’s business.

These services generally fall into two categories: business-to-business and business-to-consumer. Within these two categories are a variety of sub-categories, or services, which telemarketing companies can provide to you, their client. Services can include lead generation, which is the gathering of pertinent information including the names, telephone numbers, email addresses, and physical addresses of targeted individuals as well as what time of day is best to contact that person; sales, which is the persuasion of the person to use your product or service; outbound, which is proactive marketing involving contacting both preexisting and potential consumers of your product or service; and, inbound, which is reactive reception of incoming inquiries.

When choosing a telemarketing company to outsource, it is important that you balance the need to save money with the importance of having a high-quality provider. To help you with your decision, this section features a review of the top 10 telemarketing companies, discussed in no particular order. To connect with other telemarketing companies, visit Resource Nation’s telemarketing business center.

• Tele Center, Inc. – Tele Center is a one-stop shop for obtaining telemarketing services. As opposed to providing the services themselves, they offer access to a network of hundreds of qualified telemarketing companies so you can be matched with the best possible telemarketers available in your industry.
• Talk 2 Rep, Inc. – Talk 2 Rep provides both inbound and outbound telemarketing services with superior quality and professionalism. They work with businesses and government agencies. They focus on call quality and customer satisfaction while acquiring you new customers and collecting and managing data efficiently and effectively.
• West Corporation – West Corporation is a full service telemarketing company and is one of the nation’s leading service providers. They offer customized and cost-effective telemarketing services. They provide communicating services, conferencing services, and receivable management services.
• Intelemark – Intelemark provides superior sales lead generation and business-to-business appointment setting as well as other quality telemarketing services. They are renowned for their B2B appointment setting with a proven track record of success with companies of varying sizes, industries, and marketing objectives.
• Intelesure Teleservices – Intelesure has a proven track record of success with prestigious clients and businesses, such as State Farm Insurance and the California Association of Realtors. They initially started as a call center solution, but have quickly grown to offer a wide variety of telemarketing services, including superior call center services, web services, and direct mail and print services.
• TMone – TMone is one of the leading business process outsourcing (BPO) telemarketing companies. They are experts in their industry and offer services primarily to brand-focused companies in the communications, financial services, software, and utility sectors.
• Tele Resources, Inc. – Tele Resources provides outbound telemarketing services. Services in which Tele Resource specializes include lead generation, appointment setting, market research, and telesales in various industries. Their dedication and success to their clients has proven that agents working in an outbound telemarketing environment can be more effective than agents working in blended telemarketing environments.
• AnswerNet or Telemarketing.com – AnswerNet services include both inbound and outbound telemarketing, both automated and live services, and both business-to-business and business-to-consumer telemarketing services. They work a wide array of marketing campaigns to ensure you are satisfied. They participate in sales, lead generation and lead qualification, appointment scheduling, surveys, seminar registrations, and quality market research.
• Contact America – Contact America focuses on meeting and exceeding client expectations and is committed to delivering high-quality telemarketing services. They are one of the best telemarketing companies in the industry. They offer both inbound and outbound services.
• Business Beanstalk – Business Beanstalk offers both inbound and outbound telemarketing services and appointment setting services. This company is recognized worldwide as offering top-quality services and providing a full range of services suited to your organizations needs allowing you to successfully grow your company.

It’s pretty hard to have a relationship with somebody if they don’t ever hear from you!

That’s why the cornerstone to creating an ongoing marketing relationship with your prospects and clients is to build a permission-based email list.

Only when people have given you their permission to market to them, and you have their name and email address, can you start to have any kind of business relationship with them.

In order to build a hot and steamy list….or at least a satisfied and happy list of prospective and current customers, you need to strategically use every point of contact with people.

Here are some suggestions on different ways you can get people to opt-in to your list:

• make sure you have an opt-in box/sign-up form on the top of every page of your website
• advertise your opt-in form when you ship products - include it in a postcard or a colored one-pager included in the shipping box/envelope
• include a “send to a friend” option with your ezine, special reports and so on
• have the link to your free-giveaway/ezine sign-up form in your resource box at the end of any articles you distribute to article submission sites and other people’s ezines
• give information on how people can sign up for an email subscription with all your print ads and direct mail
• have your opt-in message and box on your shopping cart pages when people purchase something
• have email signatures on all email being sent out by you and employees to have a one-line blurb about signing up for the company email newsletter or free report
• include information and link to your ezine/free report opt-in page in any press releases you send out
• add sign-up information to invoices, warranty and product registration cards
• have call center and sales staff ask people if they’d like to receive ezines and informational emails - whenever they’re talking to a prospect or customer over the phone
• promote your free-giveaway and provide sign up information at all your in-person meetings, workshops, trade shows and presentations
• promote your ezine or free special report in consumer and trade publications, other company’s publications, industry sites and directories
• add the opt-in box to any reports, white papers and registration forms you send out
• include information on how to opt-in to your ezine or free-giveaway on any surveys you send out to people

As you can see, there are many places of contact with your prospects and clients where you can tell them about your free-giveaway, special report or ezine subscription. Take advantage of these opportunities to add people to your email list - so that you can ensure a profitable and productive marketing relationship between you.

The internet marketing industry is still very young and evolving rapidly.  Small business owners don’t have the time to keep up with the latest trends and tactics, especially in regards to seo, ppc and social media.  The result is that professionals in the field hold the responsibility to educate, inform and lead their clients in a direction that provides the best opportunity for success.

The process of guiding the client in the right direction has a few required steps.

1. Do your due diligence in regards to the client, the industry and their competition.

2. Listen to the business owner and try to get a sense of what it’s like to be in their shoes.

3. Re-evaluate your understanding of what makes the business tick based off of your learnings.

4. Educate.

5. Strategize the best course of action.  Does the client need SEO, PPC, both, etc?  Will social media work?  What budget is required?

6. Implement campaigns.

7. Show the value of your hard work to the client (preferably with success metrics

8. Re-evaluate the direction of campaigns based off of measurements.

9. Re-educate.

10. Course correct and repeat steps 7 - 10.

Notice the theme of re-evaluting.  We all have a tendency to hold on to our preconceived notions, but forcing ourselves to take a step back often will improve perspective.  This holds true both as we understand our clients’ businesses better and as we practice what we preach by adapting to the ever changing world of internet marketing.

In the end, the client should know their business best.  But does their understanding correlate to the ever changing online world?  My advice is to simply be up front and clear.  Don’t be afraid to say “I disagree.  In my experience this technique would work best online” and explain why.  It takes a rare breed to push back on someone who writes your check, but that is one of the differences between constantly finding new business or making the relationships you have last.

Visit Resource Nation’s online marketing expert business directory to find experts to help with your project.