Perhaps it is because they take their career and business more seriously, proactively leverage their network and participate in their community is why over 54% of Webgrrls are either prospering or not feeling the effects of the current economy or have only had to make minor adjustments to their budgets, based on the June Webgrrls QuickPoll,

We are seeing sky-high fuel prices, rising food prices, the dollar buys less and less. The value of our homes has plummeted, gold and silver prices are up (although suppressed) and the Fed printing presses are humming, small business are closing and more people are losing their jobs…all indication that we are in trouble as a nation and even globally.

Perhaps it is that Webgrrls are not affected because they are able to leverage technology to find efficiencies or they do not have to commute and can work from home or as the latest post in the Webgrrls blog, Webgrrls Wisdom, Technology: It’s Where the Jobs Are.

31% of the Webgrrls respondents have had to make major adjustments to their budgets and 15 percent have either lost their job or closed their business. Below are some quick tips to surviving the recession and I also, wanted to offer the following links to articles that have more tips to small business owners and entrepreneurs.

Webgrrls Quick Tips to Surviving a Recession:

1. Watch your cash flow – cash is king during tough times
2. Cut the fat/reduce your overhead – meaning all non-critical expenses
3. Trim your staff – keep the high performers and replace those who are not performing well.
4. Call in your accounts receivables on a more timely basis – remember the “squeaky wheel and the grease”
5. Do not turn away business unless the opportunity will be unprofitable.
6. Work on the business not in the business – Use this time to learn new skills or to do some retooling or get the planning done that you have put off for some time.

Other links to articles with more survival tips:
1. How To Survive Oncoming Economic Turbulence
2. Surviving a Slowing Economy
3. Survival Tips

For those of you who are contemplating a career in Technology, here is some good news: “A new survey shows growth across the country, with higher-than-average pay….and the demand will only rise“.

Read the full article on BusinessWeek.com.  Also, make sure to see their slideshow of the Best Cities for Tech Jobs which showcases 30 cities boasting the most high-tech jobs per capita.

When interviewing for a job for the most part the job is yours to lose. The HR person’s job is to fill the opening, the company needs the staff, and you want the job…everyone in this equation is pulling for you to do well in the interview, including you, so it is literally yours to lose.

I work with a lot of people on improving their interview skills and techniques, organizing their thoughts, helping them to articulate their career history, guiding them as to the best way to answer the interview questions to highlight their experience, determining the best way to provide relevant anecdotes and even determining what the trigger words are for their responses.

I work with some very high-end executives and some mid-level management, sales and marketing professional and we prepare and practice and modify and practice and practice and practice…and it is through practice that you become prepared. I emphasize that everything has to be honest and based on supportable experience but, there are better ways of saying things and there are worse ways of saying things… you need to come across as pulled together, buttoned up and genuine and everything needs to be polished.

I came across the Careerbuilder.com article about the 8 worst things that you can say in a job interview and wanted to share them with you. The only exception that I have is number 7.

7…” Scripted answers, although accurate, don’t impress interviewers. Not only do they make you sound rehearsed and stiff, they also prevent you from engaging in a dialogue“.

My response is that you do need to script your answers.  You need to be so prepared and know your information so well that you don’t sound scripted or rehearsed and you can be conversational and actually more engaged in the dialogue. You need to be so prepared that you are confident, conversational and seemingly spontaneous with your responses.

Online video has exploded in the last year and more and more small businesses turn to video as a means to more effectively communicate with their customers.

There is a lot of information online about creating videos and it can certainly be overwhelming for a newbie to get started. Jim Kukral, video blogger and veteran Internet marketer, has prepared a one stop free guide that will tell you everything you need to do to make high-quality web videos.

So far Jim has covered the following topics:

• Choosing a Camera
• Buying Lights
• Sets & Lighting
• Natural Lighting Tips
• What To Wear?
• Shooting Outside & in the Shade
• Tripod
• Video Editing
• Sound

Go to http://www.onlinevideotoolkit.com/ to learn how to create great looking videos for your site.

A good company name can impact how easily people remember you. That instant identification and recognition with your company name comes easier as your company develops a branding presence both online and offline. But as a startup, you can help build the instant branding connection by coming up with a great name that people can say, remember, and spell.

At Webgrrls, we made a naming mistake. Back in 1995 when we were trying to come up with a name that reflected the fun personality behind the company, we came up with webgrrls.com (web women was too boring and webgirls sounded too young). Coming up with a fun name was not the mistake…it was not buying the webgirls.com domain that forced us to come up with creative means of building our brand. When we mention Webgrrls to vendors and clients we always say it with personality and emphasize the GRRL part of it and sometimes even point out that GRR stands for empowerment.

So how can one come up with a name that is meaningful and fun and also helps build brand awareness? Evan Paull of GigaOM suggests a two-part rule:

Look at many of the most successful brands and you’ll notice they’re often compound names, consistently made up of two components:

• a word that relates to the company product in a direct, literal sense, establishing a clear association between the brand and what the company does.
• a word not literally related to the product, but rather a metaphorical adjective to evoke a differentiating characteristic or “feeling” about the company’s product.

Our minds are built to make connections, mostly at a subconscious level. When a metaphor is detected, it triggers a process in our brains that associates the metaphor with the next object or reference. This naming system forces the mind to take the cognitive step of associating the metaphor to the product it represents, thus forming a positive association to the brand. And once your brain has woven the connection, it sticks, so there’s a great chance your company name won’t be forgotten.

Having a good company name will help you tremendously in your grass roots marketing efforts. If people can’t remember the name of your company or remember how to spell it, it going to be hard for them to recommend you to their friends and for their friends to find you once they hear about you.

Evan also points out that “of course there are startups that get so far out in front of their competitive fields, or whose products are so exemplary, that names which ought to have been tricky are nevertheless well received”.

For more resources on finding a perfect name for your company, check out Guy Kawasaki’s guidelines about naming a company or product and an archive of how some successful company names originated.