Do you have the right stuff to make it work? Ask yourself these five questions before making that leap from steady paycheck to entrepreneurial uncertainty:

1. Are you a self-starter?
You must have the self-discipline to plan, set goals, not procrastinate and stay focused.

2. What are your expectations?
Do you think you'll work less and have less stress and more money? Think again.

Small business/large business management and success is largely dependent upon customer acquisition, customer relationship enhancements, and customer retention, otherwise known as Customer Relationship Management, or CRM.

CRM is a combination of enterprise strategies, business processes and information technologies that are used to learn about customers' needs and behaviors in order to develop stronger relationships with them.

Contracting bands warn that the market is about to trend: the bands first converge into a narrow neck, followed by a sharp price movement. The first breakout is often a false move, preceding a strong trend in the opposite direction.

A move that starts at one band normally carries through to the other, in a ranging market.

A move outside the band indicates that the trend is strong and likely to continue - unless price quickly reverses.

What to look for in an online Forex Brokerage Firm:

1. Low Spreads
In Forex Trading the 'spread' is the difference between the buy and sell price of any given currency pair. The lower the spread saves the trader money. Most firms offer 4-5 pip spreads in the Major Currency pairs. The best firms offer clients 3-5 pips.

2. Low minimum account openings
For those that are new to trading, and for those that don't have thousands of dollars in risk capital to trade, being able to open a mini trading account with only $200 is a great feature for new traders.

Forex traders know the importance of economic news releases and how that effects the exchange rate. A positive or negative news announcement in the US morning session can send the EUR/USD rate up or down extremely fast! One way to capture these large moves is to use ENTRY STOP ORDERS.

Entry stop orders are an excellent way to get into a trade long or short AUTOMATICALLY.

Most amateur investors will bail out of an investment program after three straight losses.

How you handle losing trades psychologically is a cornerstone to your ability to prosper in the makets. Losing properly (by losing small and continuing to make
your trades) makes winning possible.

You have to learn to accept your losses, because if you're not willing to take the chance that a trade could lose a pre-defined amount (by using a stop), you will be afraid to trade or will be scared out of a good position as soon as you get a small profit.

Money management is the most important and overlooked subject in trading!

In my opinion, the best money management system for Forex/Futures traders is outlined in great detail in Ryan Jones' book The Trading Game: Playing by the Numbers to Make Millions. In this book, he teaches 'Fixed Ratio' money
management. This method, he argues, will help any trading system as long as it is profitable over time.