On Monday, June 20, 2011, just a few short weeks ago, my entire life, as I knew it, changed without warning. My award-winning house was struck by lightening, and caught fire. The firemen rushed me and my family out of the home in a matter of seconds. I had less than a minute or so to grab what was most important to us.

Can you imagine trying to make up your mind as to what to grab out of your house if someone gave you one minute?

So there I am, out on the street in my nightgown, watching 3 fire trucks put the fire out on our award-winning home. Although it was raining very hard, it still took them more than 6 hours to get the fire out. Needless to say, what the fire didn’t ruin, the water did.

My spouse and I then went through the house trying to find any important keepsakes, i.e, family pictures or papers that we didn’t have time to grab.

During the next several weeks, my husband and I watched contractors from the insurance company inventory everything they have removed from our home – right down to my toothbrush and my makeup.

They were even going through the ashes and drywall much to find items we told them were in every room. This is how the insurance company calculates the amount the owe you from your insurance policy – by itemizing each ten in your house. It’s a painful procedure.

There are many lessons I have learned throughout this process that you can apply to your life and business.

Lesson 1: Have Backups of Important Papers, Photos, and Documents

It is so important that you have backup copies of all the important papers, photos, and documents that are in your office and home. One way you can do this is to scan all those documents into a digital format, and then store them through an Internet file storage service where you can access them from any computer.

Another way you can do this is to make extra copies of your most important documents and have the extra copies stored at separate locations, such as your office, family member’s home, etc.

The key point is that if any one of your locations suffers from a total disaster, you want to make sure copies of those important documents are in another location too, so you could retrieve them easily.

Lesson 2: Have Proper Insurance

Review your insurance policies for your business and your home and make sure that you truly have enough coverage to make you whole. You may not realize how much every single item costs until you have to go replace it. When in doubt, it is better to have too much insurance versus not enough insurance.

You should also consider adding special riders to your policy, such as an “Additional Amount of Insurance” rider, or an “Inflation” rider. Those two riders are on my home policy and increase the amount of insurance that can reimburse me for my loss – beyond the stated coverage amounts.

You can ask your insurance agent to tell you about any special riders that are available. They may not tell you about them unless you ask – and even if you do ask, they still may forget to mention them to you. Thus, you should also consider having a third party insurance expert review your policy and advise you on whether you are adequately insured.

For your business, make sure you add your office and your home addresses as covered addresses. That will help cover you in the event that you take items from your office to your home, and vice versa.

Furthermore, you should consider adding a “loss of income” rider to your policy so that you can also be compensated for lost income while you are dealing with a disaster.

Lesson 3: Properly Document What You Own

Because you generally cannot collect on your insurance policy until you prove what you lost, it is critically important that you have documentation to prove what you own.

An easy way to document what you have in your office and/or home is to use a video camera and walk around and talk about everything you see. Open every single drawer and every single closet and show what is inside it. Make special comments about anything that was really expensive.

Then, take photographs of the items too. Photograph every single room, and every single drawer. Then, upload those documents and videos to the Internet, or store them in DVD’s at a location that is separate from the location that they are related to.

Thankfully for me, I have copies of a lot of my records on my laptop computer that I was able to save. But if my laptop had been destroyed in my home like the majority of my contents, I would have been in big trouble trying to prove some of the items that were destroyed.

Lesson 4: Evaluate Your Biggest Risks, And Address Them

The best time to identify your biggest risks is BEFORE you have a problem. In the case of business, there are 10 common mistakes that seem to account for 85% of the problems/lawsuits that businesses face.

You can learn more about these business mistakes and how to avoid them here.

If you take the time now to fix those issues before they come back to bite you, you will be far better off in the future, and will be better prepared to deal with a crisis or disaster if it ever arises.

Lesson 5: Have a Plan For Continued Income During The Disaster

When an unexpected crisis occurs in your life, it is important that you have a plan for supplementing your income during the disaster.

In the case of a crisis that will be covered by insurance, you can ask the insurance company for an advance off of your coverage, to help you get through the event. But there are also other ways that you can help prepare for lost income.

One way to help you prepare for lost income is to build one or more residual income streams that come in, even if you are not working. One example of a residual income stream is a continuity program where your customers are automatically billed every month for a certain amount, in return for a product or service that you provide them.

Another way to help you prepare for lost income is to have adequate savings. In today’s tough economic times, it’s not as easy to build up your savings. But you still should work each week towards growing your savings – even if you can only add $50 or $100 to it. The money can add up fast if you just work at it.

Lesson 6: When A Crisis Strikes, Stay Calm

If you are ever faced with a disaster or a crisis like I was, try your best to stay calm. Crying all the time or screaming will not make the problem go away.

You will need to be able to think clearly so that you can manage the process in a way that you can get every penny that you are entitled to, or so you can mitigate your loss (such as in the case of a lawsuit, or if you didn’t have proper insurance).

Sure, it is going to be emotional, and it’s OK to cry or show emotion. But don’t let this overwhelm you and become the norm.

Instead, you should stay focused on the next goal of recovering from the situation with the best outcome you have available to you. And in some cases, when there is adequate insurance involved, you can even recover from the situation in a better position than when you started.

To learn more about business growth and increasing your sales, download my free “Business Thrival Blueprint“. BusinessThrival.com is a site dedicated to helping business owners achieve a thriving business and life.

A majority of minority, women and veteran-owned business owners are not aware that there are billionaire companies out there looking to do business with them. These billionaire companies include the U.S. federal government and large corporations.

In reality, a majority of people don’t realize that government agencies and large corporations purchase every type of product and service on the planet. Yes, they even purchase toilet paper too! In addition, they also purchase office supplies, computer equipment, training seminars, pay-per-click advertising services, and more.

And these billionaire companies have gigantic budgets, and are REQUIRED to give a certain percentage of their projects to minority, women, and veteran-owned businesses. This also applies to Corporate America, i.e., the big box retailers. Whenever these companies are given federal dollars, they are also required to give a certain percentage of their projects to minority, women and veteran-owned businesses.

Unfortunately, the sad part is that a majority of minority, women and veteran-owned businesses don’t even know that these opportunities exist.

In today’s discussion, we’re going to take a deep look into the world of MBE, WBE, and VBE certifications. We’ll look at the numerous types of certifications and how to use those certifications to find and obtain your own billionaire clients who always pay on time.

What Does MBE Certification Mean?

MBE stands for “minority business enterprise.” MBE certification is one form of a business certification that can be accomplished by any business that is 51% owned, controlled, and operated by a minority or minorities. The term “minority” includes African American, Asian American, Hispanic American and Native American.

WBE Certification Is?

WBE is an abbreviation for “woman business enterprise”. WBE certification is a type of business certification that can be attained by any business that is 51% owned, controlled, and operated by one or more women.

VBE Certification Means What?

VBE is an abbreviation for “veteran business enterprise”. VBE certification is a type of business certification that can be attained by any business that is 51% owned, controlled, and operated by one or more veterans.

A MBE, WBE and/or VBE certification lets government agencies and Corporate America know that you have met the mandated ownership threshold. It provides them with knowledge that if they award business to you, that it will aid them in meeting their requirements for working with minority, women and veteran-owned businesses.

But there are numerous different types of certification, so it can be quite confusing on what certification you need.

So let’s take a closer look at some of the levels of certification and how to obtain them. We’ll also look at the ways to use each certification to grow your business with billionaire clients.

Four different levels of certifications exist:

Certifications On The Federal Level

Federal certifications are usually some of the most misunderstood certifications depending upon if you are a woman and/or veteran-owned business.

For a federal WBE certification, it is essentially a “self-certifying” process, which means that if you state you are 51% owned, controlled, and operated by a woman, they will accept your word for it. If you then later receive a contract, they may ask you to provide proof of this fact, so don’t say you are if you are not. The great news though is that you don’t have to wait on the WBE certification – you can get started doing business with the federal government immediately.

If you are a veteran business owner, then you should call the Center for Veteran Enterprises of the US Department of Veteran Affairs. This Center is the governing agency that designates whether your company is at least 51% owned, controlled and operated by one or more service-disabled veterans or veterans.

The federal government has mandatory goals for awarding not less than 5% of their contracts to woman-owned businesses and not less than 3% of their contracts to veteran-owned businesses. Therefore, if you are a WBE or VBE, you should look for special projects that are set-aside just for women and veteran-owned businesses. And this above and beyond all of the other projects that they have available for any type of business.

MBE/WBE Certifications At The State Level

State MBE and/or WBE Certifications can also be obtained in a majority of states through a state certifying office. You should obtain a state certification if you desire to increase your chances of getting business from one or more state government agencies.

To receive a state MBE and/or WBE certification, you will then need to contact the certifying office in the state in which you want to be certified. A majority of states have a MBE and/or WBE certification program, but some of them do not

We have pulled together an index of state certifying offices that you may want to look at as a starting point on our Business Thrival web site. Note though these links may change from time to time, so please don’t utilize this index as the final authority on what certifications may be available in your state.

What Is A Local MBE, WBE and/or VBE Certification?

If you want to increase your chances of getting business from a particular local agency, such as the city where your business is located, you should obtain a local certification from your local government certifying office.

In the past, for example, we have used our WBE certification to assist us in obtaining contracts with the City of Indianapolis.

What Is A National MBE or WBE Certification

Most of the time national MBE or WBE Certifications are required with the large corporations that you want to work with and obtain as a client. Many large corporations will accept either a National Certification or a State Certification, so before you rush out and get a National Certification, you would first want to know what the corporations that you want as clients would require. Large corporations usually have a section on their web site called “Supplier Diversity”, and this program will highlight what they look for and require.

A National Certification as a woman-owned business can be obtained from the Women’s Business Enterprise Council, an organization that processes WBE certifications on a national level. You must file an application though.

To receive a National Certification as a minority-owned business, you need to file an application with the National Minority Supplier Development Council. NMSDC is the agency that processes MBE certifications on a national level.

So that is it. If you are interested in working with government agencies or Corporate America, you should think about obtaining these business certifications.

To learn more about business growth and starting a business, download my free “Business Thrival Blueprint“. BusinessThrival.com is a site dedicated to helping business owners achieve a thriving business and life.

Before you decide what the best business ideas are for you, it’s as well to decide what you don’t want to do first of all. One thing you should definitely avoid is something complicated. The last thing you need is trying to set up something that requires a degree in business management just to sort out! My advice is to try and find some kind of online business. There are millions and millions of people on the internet at all hours of the day and night. If you opened the best hamburger joint in the world beside the business highway on the planet, you wouldn’t have a fraction of that potential footfall.

Buy on Amazon, sell on Ebay. You can become a big seller on Ebay without ever buying a single item up front. First of all make a list of items on Amazon that are discounted by over fifty per cent. I go for items of $100 and over, especially household and electrical items. I then make up a “selling price” for each item that includes a sizable profit for me. I then go to Ebay and search for exact matches. I can usually find a few items I can list with confidence at my higher price and I list then as “Buy Now” items. When someone buys from my Ebay listing and the money has been paid, I use my Paypal Visa to buy from Amazon, using the “send as a gift” option to have it mailed direct to my Ebay customer. That way the buyer never finds out the real price and I know the goods will be delivered.

Sell Yourself. Did you know that you are an expert? If you don’t think you are, you might well surprise yourself. Think what you do (at work or in your spare time) and what little secret or trick you could sell for a few dollars. If you play guitar in a rockabilly band, for example, you might be able to put together a video or series of videos showing tricks specific to the rockabilly guitar. Think about what you can do.

Making a product to sell needn’t be expensive or take a lot of time. It can be an eBook, a video or even a single page. I know a guy became a science teacher by putting himself through college on the proceeds of a series of five minute videos he knocked up explaining Einstein’s theory of relativity (with jokes), Darwin’s theory of evolution, and suchlike for $5 each. Look online and see what’s available and how you can do something similar for yourself.

Lots of people throughout the world want to start a new business or find a new job. Use your experience and knowledge to make products that will help them. If you don’t have any such experience spend a day or so online becoming an “expert”. You might be a former cop who could write an eBook telling people how to become a cop? Or a bounty hunter, or maybe you could build a site that tells people how to become a dentist in various countries around the world? Have a look on the internet to see what other people are selling and adapt it to your needs.

The law of karma states that whatever you do will come back to you, good or bad. Whether you believe in karma or not, believe this: it’s just as easy to be an honest trader as it is to be a scammer. Repeat business is the best type of business because it’s free, you don’t have to spend money finding a new customer. It’s important that you make products that really do what they say they will and that you mostly have happy buyers. If you don’t think that is important see what Paypal or Clickbank do if half your customers demand refunds or issue chargeback requests. Believe me, the best business ideas include a product that really does do what you claim it will.

Are you looking for the Best Online Business Ideas?