USANA Health Sciences Announces Plans to Expand Operations Into France and Belgium

SALT LAKE CITY, Aug. 25, 2011 USANA Health Sciences, Inc. today announced its plans to expand into France and Belgium in the first quarter of 2012.  With the addition of these two markets, USANA will have operations in 18 markets worldwide. 

Polyphenols reduce absorption of toxic by-products of a fatty meal

Polyphenols are antioxidants found in many plants and foods including grapes, green tea, chocolate, and red wine. They are known to play a role in the prevention of cardiovascular disease, but their specific actions are not entirely understood. New research illustrates the beneficial protective effects of dietary polyphenols taken with a meal.

Lost Sleep Can't Be Made Up, Study Suggests

LiveScience.com Rachael Rettner

If you think staying in bed on the weekends will make up for a weeks' worth of sleep deprivation, think again. A new study finds that going long periods without sleep can lead to a sort of "sleep debt" that cannot simply be undone with a little extra snoozing from time to time.

3 Tips To Improve Your Efficiency In Direct Selling

Tired organizing your direct selling business? Here's what you should do
by Ronald Lester (OfficialWire) AUSTIN, TX

The direct selling industry is a massive engine of economic growth in the US. According to data available by the Direct Selling Association, over fifty percent of American adults report having obtained services or goods from a direct sales representative. Additionally, one in five American adults says they have been or presently are working as a direct seller.

US obesity rate high, but not rising

By LINDSEY TANNER, AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner, Ap Medical Writer

CHICAGO – Raise a glass of diet soda: The nation's obesity rate appears to have stalled. But the latest numbers still show that more than two-thirds of adults and almost a third of kids are overweight, with no sign of improvement.

Direct Selling Flourishes in China

By DAVID BARBOZA
Published: http://www.nytimes.com

HANGZHOU, China — Roughly 28,000 young women crowded into the Dragon Sports Arena here for a three-day gathering in September hosted by Mary Kay Cosmetics.

College Conspiracy

Robert Kiyosaki and Network Marketing

TIME Magazine Interviews: Robert Kiyosaki

What you should know about direct selling

* Set income goals. Someone wishing to earn only spending money will have a different strategy to direct sales than someone planning to work more hours.

Direct seller ranks swollen by older workers

Direct Selling Association reports 29% rise in number of sellers aged 50 and above who 'enjoy the social side' of the work

by Rebecca Smithers,
consumer affairs correspondent (guardian.co.uk)

The UK's army of Avon ladies and other direct sellers has been swelled by record numbers of people aged 50 and above, latest figures reveal.

Exercise May Stave Off Mental Decline

(HealthDay News) -- Exercise appears to help prevent and improve mild cognitive impairment, two new studies show.

Researchers found that people who did moderate physical activity in midlife or later had a reduced risk of mild cognitive impairment and that six months of high-intensity aerobic exercise improved cognitive function in people with mild cognitive impairment.

THE USANA DIFFERENCE

Athlete Guarantee Program

Trust is a major issue for athletes competing for a place in the Olympics and other high profile athletic competitions. Taking nutritional supplements to help maintain health shouldn't place an athlete at risk for testing positive for a banned substance. Broadly publicized allegations of contaminants in supplements lead many top athletes to wonder if taking supplements will jeopardize their future ability to qualify for competition. In fact, national Olympic committees have written to their athletes warning them of the potential danger of contaminants, encouraging them not to consume any nutritional supplements.

Direct Selling – A Way To Overcome A Sluggish Economy

Direct Selling Has Been a Benefit For People In The Recession
by Judy Standifer (secaucusnewjersey.org)

Direct selling has become a way that some people have survived financially in a faltering economy. For some people, direct selling has allowed them to keep their homes and continue earning income. As the nation’s unemployment has risen to 9.1 percent, some unemployed people and some seniors who have lost retirement income have turned to direct sales as a way to provide for themselves and their families. Mary & Sterling Ottesen from Utah shared, "With the world economy as it is today, having a home-based business is absolutely essential. Where health issues are a concern and job security is scare, being able to build a business and provide stability is a rare gift. With USANA, it is possible to become the CEO of your own lives."

The five Ps for business success

by Tricia Phillips, Daily Mirror

Looking to start your own business? Direct selling could be a way to achieve this goal with flexible hours and low initial investment. Paul South worth, Director General of the Direct Selling Association, says: “Many retail companies refer to the three Ps of their success – Product, Price and Promotion. “Although recognizing the importance of having quality products, correctly priced to offer value for money and then promoted professionally, I believe the real success of
direct selling lies in five different Ps and these would be my key success tips for anyone wishing to start their own business.”

Today's Top Eight Health Concerns

The World Health Organization warns that cancer, heart disease, and other chronic conditions, which already kill more than 24 million people a year, will impose increasing burdens of suffering and disability on hundreds of million of others.

Health Enemy #8: Obesity

Obesity has reached global epidemic proportions, with more than 1 billion adults overweight and at least 300 million of them clinically obese.

(World Health Organization)

USANA Health Sciences Is Now an FDA-Registered Facility

USANA Meets Compliance To New Drug Standards

July 11, 2011 USANA Health Sciences, Inc. today announced it has obtained the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's "Drug Establishment Registration," allowing the company to manufacture over-the-counter (OTC) drugs and holding it to a standard well above what is required of a dietary supplement manufacturer. While nutritional companies in the United States are not expected to follow pharmaceutical Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs), USANA believed it was an important, logical step to acquire government registration proving their long-standing commitment to producing the highest quality products.

USANA Health Sciences Wins 15 Awards in Two Months

- Company is honored for its outstanding products, executive leadership and sales and marketing tools -

USANA a nutritional supplement company, announced today that it has received 15 awards in the past two months from four different award recognition companies. Stevie, Communicator, Telly, and Best of State have honored USANA with Gold, Silver and Bronze awards for outstanding work created in 2010. This is USANA's seventh win from the Best of State awards for its dietary supplements, among other repeat wins.

"It's a privilege and an honor for USANA to be recognized by such an array of credible companies," said Vice President of Marketing and Public Relations, Dan Macuga. "We've worked hard over the past 19 years to make USANA the best company it can be and these awards are evidence of our hard work and enthusiasm."

Why Are You Always Broke?

You have a well-paying job, but month after month you find that you just don't have enough money to make the car payments, fill up the gas tank or pay the rent. Makes you wonder where all your money disappeared to, doesn't it?

disappearing act

Keeping track of your expenses is a good way to know where your money goes. Let's look at an average day's expenses for a young professional bachelor:

Expense No.1:
You shower (with hot water), brush your teeth, wash your face, apply deodorant, and spray a dash of cologne: total cost = $2.45.

Expense No. 2:
Take a taxi to work (traffic jam for ten miles):
total cost = $12.50, or
Drive to work ($.60 per mile for ten miles):
total cost = $6.00 (doesn't include parking), or
Use public transportation:
total cost = $3.00

Somehow, the Unemployed Became Invisible

By CATHERINE RAMPELL
Published: July 9, 2011

GRIM number of the week: 14,087,000.

Fourteen million, in round numbers — that is how many Americans are now officially out of work.

Word came Friday from the Labor Department that, despite all the optimistic talk of an economic recovery, unemployment is going up, not down. The jobless rate rose to 9.2 percent in June.

What gives? And where, if anywhere, is the outrage?

The United States is in the grips of its gravest jobs crisis since Franklin D. Roosevelt was in the White House. Lose your job, and it will take roughly nine months to find a new one. That is off the charts. Many Americans have simply given up.

But unless you’re one of those unhappy 14 million, you might not even notice the problem. The budget deficit, not jobs, has been dominating the conversation in Washington. Unlike the hard-pressed in, say, Greece or Spain, the jobless in America seem, well, subdued. The old fire has gone out.

In some ways, this boils down to math, both economic and political. Yes, 9.2 percent of the American work force is unemployed — but 90.8 percent of it is working. To elected officials, the unemployed are a relatively small constituency. And with apologies to Karl Marx, the workers of the world, particularly the unemployed, are also no longer uniting.

Nor are they voting — or at least not as much as people with jobs. In 2010, some 46 percent of working Americans who were eligible to vote did so, compared with 35 percent of the unemployed, according to Michael McDonald, a political scientist at George Mason University. There was a similar turnout gap in the 2008 election.

No wonder policy makers don’t fear unemployed Americans. The jobless are, politically speaking, more or less invisible.

It wasn’t always so. During the Great Depression, riots erupted on the bread lines. Even in the 1980s and 1990s, angry workers descended on Washington by the busload.

“There used to be a sense that unemployment was rich soil for radicalization and revolt,” says Nelson Lichtenstein, a professor of labor history at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “That was a motif in American history for a long time, but we don’t seem to have that anymore.”

But why? It’s partly because of the greater dispersion of the unemployed, and partly because of the weakening of the institutions that previously mobilized them.

Unemployment doesn’t necessarily beget apathy, Mr. McDonald says. Rather, demographic groups that are more likely to be unemployed also happen to be the same groups that are less likely to vote to begin with, such as the poor and the low-skilled.

Even so, numerous studies have shown that unemployment leads to feelings of shame and a loss of self-worth. And that is not particularly conducive to political organizing. As Heather Boushey, an economist at the liberal Center for American Progress, puts it, rather bluntly: “Nobody wants to join the Lame Club.”

That’s not to say that disillusionment about the economy will just fade away. But unless something changes, the unemployed seem unlikely to gain real political potency soon.

“There’s an illusion that grass-roots activity just begins spontaneously, that people get mad and suddenly say, ‘I’m not going to take it anymore!’ ” says Michael Kazin, a historian at Georgetown University. “But that’s not how it happens.”

Intellectuals used to play a big role in organizing labor. In the 1930s, Communists and socialists were a major force. Later, labor unions stepped in.

But today’s unions are not set up to serve the unemployed; they generally organize around workplaces, after all.

Just ask Rick McHugh, who worked in Michigan as an employment lawyer for the United Automobile Workers from the 1980s through the 1990s. He represented workers who were appealing denials of unemployment insurance benefits. The union footed the bill for people he represented who were not, and had never been, U.A.W. members.

Today, however, many unions are fighting for their own survival. They no longer provide such support for nonmembers. “They just don’t have the staff and the resources to support these programs and the recipients like they used to,” says Mr. McHugh, now a staff attorney at the National Employment Law Project.

Workers have also become suburbanized. Back in the 1960s or even the 1980s, the unemployed organized around welfare or unemployment offices. It was a fertile environment: people were anxious and tired and waiting for hours in line.

“We stood outside of these offices, with their huge lines, and passed out leaflets that said things like: ‘If you’re upset about what’s happening to you, come to this meeting at this church basement in two weeks. We’ll get together and do something about this,’ ” recalls Barney Oursler, a longtime community organizer and co-founder of the Mon Valley Unemployed Committee in the early 1980s. “The response just made your heart get big. ‘Oh, my God,’ they’d say, ‘I thought I was alone.’ ”

The Mon Valley Unemployed Committee, which is based in Pittsburgh, helped organize workers in 26 cities across five states, simply by hanging around outside t unemployment offices and harnessing the frustration.

Today, though, many unemployment offices have closed. Jobless benefits are often handled by phone or online rather than in person. An unemployment call center near Mr. Oursler, for instance, now sits behind two sets of locked doors and frosted windows.

In other countries, workers have mobilized online. Unions here, too, have reached out on the Web. They include groups like Working America (the community affiliate of the A.F.L.-C.I.O.) and UCubed (created by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers).

But many Web sites geared toward the unemployed aren’t about mobilizing workers. Many instead provide guidance about things like posting résumés online, or simply offer the comfort of an online community.

It’s not clear why this is the case, when social networks have been so essential to organizing economic protests in places like Britain and Greece, not to mention political movements in the Middle East.

“You have to remember that technology is not independent of social structures, motivations and politics,” Mr. Kazin says. “People can feel like they have their own community online, which is useful emotionally, but they also have to have the desire and demand to do something about their situation first before they start using that online presence to organize anything in person.”

To the extent that frustrations are being channeled at all, they are being channeled largely through the Tea Party. But the Tea Party is mostly against devoting government resources to helping the unemployed.

Tea Party activists, for example, are more likely to believe that providing benefits to poor people encourages them to stay poor, and to believe that economic stimulus has made the economy worse.

Why populist anger over the poor economy is leaning right, rather than left, this time around is a bit of a mystery. Perhaps it is because Democrats, traditional friends of labor, control the White House and the Senate.

Mr. Lichtenstein, the historian, notes that it took awhile for the poor to mobilize in the Great Depression. Many initially saw President Roosevelt as an ally and only later became disillusioned. As Langston Hughes wrote in a 1934 poem, “The Ballad of Roosevelt”:

The pot was empty,

The cupboard was bare.

I said, Papa,

What’s the matter here?

I’m waitin’ on Roosevelt, son,

Roosevelt, Roosevelt,

Waitin’ on Roosevelt, son.

For the moment, jobless Americans are waiting on President Obama. If unemployment stays as high as many expect, and millions exhaust their benefits, they may just find their voice in 2012.

Take Control Of Your Future

USANA Earns ConsumerLab.com Certification for The Essentials

USANA Health Sciences Consistently Demonstrates the Quality of its Products through Third-Party Testing

SALT LAKE CITY, June 21, 2011 USANA Health Sciences, Inc. announced today that its popular multivitamin, The Essentials®, has been independently tested and approved by ConsumerLab.com, LLC, a company that tests health products for strength, purity and disintegration to determine whether the product is what it claims to be. ConsumerLab.com is among several independent testing companies that have given USANA the stamp of approval on its rigorously tested products.

"We are proud to say that this and several other USANA products have consistently passed ConsumerLab.com's tests with flying colors," says Dan Macuga, USANA VP of Marketing and Public Relations. "When you work as hard as we do to source the purest possible ingredients and maintain strict quality control and production standards, it's important to obtain third-party certification to help demonstrate your commitment to making effective, reliable products."

ConsumerLab.com verified that both supplements in The Essentials®, a dual-bottle regimen composed of Chelated Mineral® and Mega Antioxidant®, met its testing criteria for ingredient quality and quantity, met US Pharmacopeia standards for disintegration, adhered to FDA labeling requirements and did not exceed California Prop 65 levels for lead contamination, a hot-button issue within the supplements industry.

"We've found that by separating the minerals from the vitamins, we can actually increase the amount of nutrients that are absorbed by our bodies," says Dr. John Cuomo, USANA Executive Director of Product Development. "Separation of the vitamins and minerals allows for greater stability of the tablets, allowing USANA to deliver more potent combinations that will maintain label claim longer than many other products."

Known for keeping health and nutritional companies honest about their product claims, ConsumerLab.com has tested over 3,000 products since 1999. Many products that ConsumerLab.com selects for testing fail. In fact, a recent study showed 1 in 3 vitamins tested by ConsumerLab.com was improperly labeled – typically because the product did not contain the amount of nutrients claimed in the label.

USANA is NSF-certified as following FDA Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP), as well as certified by government agencies around the world. USANA's NSF "Certified for Sport" products are used by both professional and Olympic athletes, and the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) recently conducted their own testing of USANA products, which are now the only health supplements approved for WTA player use.

"Since we manufacture over 90% of our products in-house, we take third-party verification very seriously, as it's a direct reflection of our extensive research and manufacturing processes," says Jim Brown, USANA VP of International Operations, "USANA was recently the #1 Rated Overall Merchant Based on Customer Satisfaction in ConsumerLab.com's 2011 survey of its readers. That we are getting praise from both independent testing companies and our customers really means a lot to us."

Diabetes prevalence worldwide has more than doubled since 1980, study finds

By Thomas H. Maugh II, Los Angeles Times

The occurrence of Type 2 diabetes worldwide has more than increase two-fold since 1980, ascending from an approximated 153 million three decades before to about 347 million in 2008, investigators described Saturday. About 3 million killings every year are exactly ascribed to the infection, which is initiated by the body's incompetence to competently use insulin secreted by the pancreas. About one in every 10 men round the world and one in every 11 women bears from the disorder, the investigators composed in the periodical Lancet. The investigators resolved that about 70% of the boost was due to aging of the community and the residual 30% was due to the increasing incidence of fatness, which is a foremost risk component for diabetes.

A group directed by epidemiologists Majid Ezzati of the School of Public Health at Imperial College London and Dr. Goodarz Danaei of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston assembled fasting body-fluid sugars from 2.7 million persons worldwide for their analysis. Fasting body-fluid sugars are assessed after a individual has not consumed for 12 to 14 hours and are a good assess of that person's proficiency to metabolize sugars. A grade underneath 5.6 millimoles per liter is advised usual, a grade overhead 7 millimoles is diagnostic of diabetes, and a grade between 5.6 and 7 millimoles is advised pre-diabetic. Over the 30 years of the study, the mean grade for men increased from 5.3 millimoles per liter 5.5, while the lever for women increased from 5.2 millimoles per liter to 5.4.

Extrapolating from their community, the investigators resolved that between 314 million and 382 million persons had diabetes in 2008, with the most probable number being 347 million. A preceding study utilising less unquestionable procedures had approximated that the world had 285 million diabetics in 2010.

"Diabetes is one of the large-scale determinants of morbidity and death worldwide," Ezzati said in a statement. "Our study has shown that diabetes is evolving more widespread nearly universal in the world. This is in compare to body-fluid force and cholesterol, which have both dropped in numerous regions. Diabetes is much harder to avert and heal than these other conditions."

The group discovered broad variations round the world. The utmost development was in the Pacific Island nations. In the Marshall Islands, for demonstration, one in three women and one in four men have diabetes. Glucose grades and diabetes were furthermore especially high in south Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, Central Asia, North Africa and the Middle East. Among high-income nations, the increase in diabetes was somewhat little in Western Europe and largest in North America. Diabetes rates were largest in the United States, Greenland, Malta, New Zealand and Spain, and smallest in the Netherlands, Austria and France.

Of the 347 million persons with diabetes, 138 million reside in China and India and another 36 million in the U.S. and Russia. The district with the smallest glucose grades was sub-Saharan Africa.

The study was financed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Health Organization.

7 Ways to Make Extra Money in 2011

by Kimberly Palmer(usnews.com) Monday, January 10, 2011

Job security might be out, but freelance, contract, and temporary work is in, which makes it easier than ever to moonlight as a graphic designer while you spend your days as a public relations rep. Slimmer staffs mean companies often need the extra help, and new websites offer free tools that match potential employers with workers. And earning extra money beyond your steady paycheck, if you're lucky enough to have one, can provide a big boost to your financial security.

Here are seven ways to make extra money off the new economy in 2011:

Launch a Brand
When Kimberly Seals-Allers, former senior editor at Essence magazine, was expecting her first child, she discovered that black women face higher risks during childbirth and pregnancy. "I realized we were a special group, and I wanted to write a book about everything in black women's lives. Not just pregnancy, but money, men, and myths in our community. [I wanted] to create a new way forward."

Her first book, "The Mocha Manual to a Fabulous Pregnancy," turned into a series as well as an online magazine, maternity line, and consultancy. Seals-Allers also licensed use of the Mocha Manual name to create an instructional DVD sold at Walmart and supermarkets.

Start a Blog
The anonymous blogger behind Lazy Man and Money defies his site's name. He works about 14 hours a day on weekdays and then puts in nine hours on Saturday and Sunday. But his hard work is paying off -- his blog earns him enough to support his lifestyle; back in 2008, he estimated his annual earnings at around $30,000. But it's tough for part-time bloggers with full-time jobs to keep up with all the demands of a lucrative blog. "There's simply a lot more [to do] than what the average reader sees," he says.

Even if the blog itself doesn't generate a six-figure salary, it can lead to other money-making opportunities, such as consulting or speaking gigs. Silicon Valley Blogger at The Digerati Life has carved out a successful niche as the expert on personal finance and technology in Silicon Valley. While she says she didn't earn much during the first six months of her blog's life, she received her first $100 check from Google AdSense shortly after that point, when she was getting around 600 unique visitors a day. She now earns money from her blog-related consulting, as well.

Sell Your Skills
Whether your expertise lies in social networking, editing, or web development, several new websites can help you find potential clients willing to pay you for your work. Elance.com, Odesk.com, and Guru.com make it easy to advertise your skills and find work, which you can do from the comfort of your home at all hours of the night. To get started, explore the websites to see what might be a good fit. You can also stick with a more traditional approach and use Craigslist.org, which allows users to post advertising for their services, ranging from household labor to music lessons.

Sell a Wacky Service
For those interested in a more unusual approach, the innovative website fiverr.com allows users to sell (and buy) services for $5. Current offerings include sketching a stylized portrait, writing a name on a grain of rice, and digitally restoring a photograph. It's one of the trendiest ways to make a quick buck for the internet-savvy; dozens of videos, websites, and blogs offer advice on how best to earn money off the site. The best advice? Since you're only going to make $5 a pop, sell a service that you can do easily and quickly.

Talk and Teach
Colleges, organizations, and companies are constantly on the lookout for new experts that can inspire an audience. If you've built up an expertise on a subject, perhaps through your blog, then consider branching out with some speaking gigs. Offer to talk for free at first to build up your reputation, and then a speakers' bureau can help connect you to paying gigs (for a cut of your fee).

Design T-Shirts
Companies such as CafePress.com allow people to design and sell their T-shirts for a cut of the profits. According to the company's website, some users earn over $100,000 a year. But it's not always easy: Jen Goode, who earns enough through CafePress to pay her mortgage each month, found success after a year and a half of long, sometimes 16-hour days. Her time is spent creating designs and then uploading them. She has uploaded about 2,500 designs, many of which are cartoon oriented, including the popular penguin series. For her, she says, the secret has been to make many different images that are steady sellers, as opposed to creating one or two megahits. Now, she says she doesn't need to put as much time into her shop because she has such a large inventory of designs.

Sell Other People's Products
Make-up companies such as Avon and Mary Kay are always looking for new sales representatives, as are other companies such as kitchen products seller Pampered Chef. "If you don't have to make a big investment to get into it, it's probably not a bad idea," says Marcia Brixey, author of "The Money Therapist." But she warns people to stay away from businesses that require sellers to make significant up-front purchases that they might not be able to unload.

The bottom line: The new economy offers plenty of creative ways to earn extra money; to find the best fit for you, consider your skills, lifestyle, and ambitions.

Top 10 Reasons Small Businesses Fail

by JAY GOLTZ, On Wednesday January 5, 2011 NY Times

One of the least understood aspects of entrepreneurship is why small businesses fail, and there's a simple reason for the confusion: Most of the evidence comes from the entrepreneurs themselves.

I have had a close-up view of numerous business failures -- including a few start-ups of my own. And from my observation, the reasons for failure cited by the owners are frequently off-point, which kind of makes sense when you think about it. If the owners really knew what they were doing wrong, they might have been able to fix the problem. Often, it's simply a matter of denial or of not knowing what you don't know.

In many cases, the customers -- or, I should say, ex-customers -- have a better understanding than the owners of what wasn't working. The usual suspects that the owners tend to blame are the bank, the government, or the idiot partner. Rarely does the owner's finger point at the owner. Of course, there are cases where something out of the owner's control has gone terribly wrong, but I have found those instances to be in the minority. What follows -- based on my own experiences and observations -- are my top 10 reasons small businesses fail. The list is not pretty, it is not simple, and it does not contain any of those usual suspects (although they might come in at Nos. 11, 12 and 13).

1. The math just doesn't work. There is not enough demand for the product or service at a price that will produce a profit for the company. This, for example, would include a start-up trying to compete against Best Buy and its economies of scale.

2. Owners who cannot get out of their own way. They may be stubborn, risk adverse, conflict adverse -- meaning they need to be liked by everyone (even employees and vendors who can't do their jobs). They may be perfectionist, greedy, self-righteous, paranoid, indignant, or insecure. You get the idea. Sometimes, you can even tell these owners the problem, and they will recognize that you are right -- but continue to make the same mistakes over and over.

3. Out-of-control growth. This one might be the saddest of all reasons for failure -- a successful business that is ruined by over-expansion. This would include moving into markets that are not as profitable, experiencing growing pains that damage the business, or borrowing too much money in an attempt to keep growth at a particular rate. Sometimes less is more.

4. Poor accounting. You cannot be in control of a business if you don't know what is going on. With bad numbers, or no numbers, a company is flying blind, and it happens all of the time. Why? For one thing, it is a common -- and disastrous -- misconception that an outside accounting firm hired primarily to do the taxes will keep watch over the business. In reality, that is the job of the chief financial officer, one of the many hats an entrepreneur has to wear until a real one is hired.

5. Lack of a cash cushion. If we have learned anything from this recession (I know it's "over" but my customers don't seem to have gotten the memo), it's that business is cyclical and that bad things can and will happen over time -- the loss of an important customer or critical employee, the arrival of a new competitor, the filing of a lawsuit. These things can all stress the finances of a company. If that company is already out of cash (and borrowing potential), it may not be able to recover.

6. Operational mediocrity. I have never met a business owner who described his or her operation as mediocre. But we can't all be above average. Repeat and referral business is critical for most businesses, as is some degree of marketing (depending on the business).

7. Operational inefficiencies. Paying too much for rent, labor, and materials. Now more than ever, the lean companies are at an advantage. Not having the tenacity or stomach to negotiate terms that are reflective of today's economy may leave a company uncompetitive.

8. Dysfunctional management. Lack of focus, vision, planning, standards and everything else that goes into good management. Throw fighting partners or unhappy relatives into the mix, and you have a disaster.

9. The lack of a succession plan. We're talking nepotism, power struggles, significant players being replaced by people who are in over their heads -- all reasons many family businesses do not make it to the next generation.

10. A declining market. Book stores, music stores, printing businesses and many others are dealing with changes in technology, consumer demand, and competition from huge companies with more buying power and advertising dollars.

In life, you may have forgiving friends and relatives, but entrepreneurship is rarely forgiving. Eventually, everything shows up in the soup. If people don't like the soup, employees stop working for you, and customers stop doing business with you. And that is why businesses fail.