Your success in becoming self-employed and setting up your own business will depend on both your personal qualities and your business skills. Evaluate yourself and get feedback from colleagues, friends and family, to obtain an honest appraisal of your qualities.

(Ed. note: With just one more week to go until EN founder Emma Jones's new book hits the shelves, we're sharing excerpts from Go Global: How to take your business to the world, kicking off with the first of five steps to global success.)

Today's your last chance to win £100 in our competition with PayPal. All you have to do is tell us how to spend the money. It's dead easy!

Have you ever found yourself asking Who am I? Where am I? Why am I where I am? or What am I doing here? Modern day spiritual messenger, Neale Donald Walsh claims that these are the four fundamental life questions we most commonly ask and yet paradoxically many people go their whole lives never asking, much less answering them.

(Ed. note: Lionel Wright, managing director of Tower Trophies, shares his tips on how to use direct mail to the best advantage of your business.)

(Ed. note: As promised...) I wrote recently about 5 reasons to hate working from home and a lot of people seemed to identify with them all. But the best thing about home working is that you're the one in charge, and so you can plan your life to minimise the pitfalls and make the most of the possibilities. Here are my suggested antidotes:

Twitter seems to have spawned a whole new language, somewhere between text speak and auto-shortening, which can leave us all a bit perplexed at times! Here's a glossary of some of the key terms to help you make head or tail of it all.

To build a long-term brand you need repeat purchase from loyal brand fans. They are the ones who enthuse about you, don't consider alternatives when buying, and recommend you warmly to all their mates. Word of mouth is trusted far more by consumers than expensive advertising, and it costs you nothing. How can you generate that warmth?

For years, working for someone else, I'd been able to take time off and not worry about a work. Now, running my own business, going away is a different story. I think going away is imperative, if you can. It's so important to rest. By the time I went away, I was shattered, and by the time I came back I was raring to go and ready for the next 6 months! This will benefit my business, if I'm healthy and energetic. So I thought I'd share my experiences to see if this can benefit your business too.

At some point, even working from home, you will need to collaborate with a group of people in different locations. This might be to develop a new product, work on ways to promote what you do or organise a public event. Thankfully there are a range of free services to help you do this effectively online.