This is bizarre at best but its true. In Latvia there lives a man named Viktor Mirosiichenko who heads a company called Kontora Loan Company. Who is this man and what is so unusual about him? He will make a loan to you if you sign an "agreement" and pledge "your immortal soul" as collateral.

Back in 1927, Owen Cheatham founded a wholesaler of hardwood lumber. The company, which became known as Georgia Pacific, eventually turned into a powerhouse. With 45,000 employees and more than 300 locations across the globe, Georgia Pacific is now a leading manufacturer of pulp, paper, packaging, and even chemicals.

And, the visionary behind the tremendous growth is Robert B. Pamplin. However, this past week Pamplin died. He was 97 years old and he suffered from Alzheimer's disease.

Yodle helps companies drum up new business by managing online advertising campaigns, such as through Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO), and other ad networks.

And Yodle has continued to grow despite the recession. In fact, the company has attracted venture capital from top firms like Bessemer Venture Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and JAFCO Ventures.

How does Yodle do it? One reason is referrals. Actually, about a third of Yodle's revenues come from referrals. In all, the company pays $200 for each new customer.

With the chances of finding a job fairly slim, people are certainly thinking about starting -- or even buying -- a business. But, which industry to go into?

It's a tough decision. Yet, there are still opportunities. To get some insight on this, I had a chance to talk to Toon van Beeck, who is the senior analyst with IBISWorld. Let's take a look:

Even during economic expansions, the failure rate for small businesses is high. Of course, things are even worse now, in light of the falling GDP and rising unemployment.

However, if a business needs to close down, the risks may be much larger than the overall investment. For example, in times of economic distress, there's likely to be a higher likelihood for lawsuits that can expose a small business owner to personal liability.

Back in 1999, former Intuit employees -- René Lacerte and Martin Gates -- saw an opportunity in building an affordable, web-based payroll system for small business. So, they started a company called PayCycle.

It was certainly prescient. In fact, this week PayCycle sold to Intuit (NASDAQ: INTU) for $170 million.

Besides having a strong on-demand offering, PayCycle also has a large customer base, which comes to roughly 85,000 small businesses. No doubt, this will be a lucrative cross-sell opportunity for Intuit. At the same time, PayCycle will help deal with the intense competitive environment, which includes players like ADP (NYSE: N) and Paychex (NASDAQ: PAYX).

Selling a business can be thrilling and frightening. For most business owners, this is a one-time event. And, it will likely be critical in terms of retirement.

Unfortunately, it's not uncommon to make some big blunders, which usually cannot be undone.

So, what are some things to consider? Let's take a look.

Around for decades, SCORE is an organization that -- for free -- provides mentors for small business owners. Hey, even top entrepreneurs Bill Gates and Michael Dell got help from mentors. It's crucial.

Well, this week SCORE launched a social network to help with the process. In fact, they formed an alliance with PartnerUp, which has already built its own small business networking platform.

This week the U.S. Postal Service hiked the rates on postage, covering a majority of the mail services like first-class mail, first-class international, postcards, and special services. So, the price for a one-ounce first-class stamp has gone from $0.42 to $0.44.

And, I'm sure we'll continue to see more increases.

Unfortunately, this is yet more bad news for small businesses, which are trying to deal with the recession.

It seems that every month I get a new phone book. Yet, I haven't opened one in the past few years. Of course, if I need to find a local business, I'll go to Google (NASDAQ: GOOG).

I'm definitely not alone. Just look at the carnage in the yellow pages business.

If you're a business owner, it's become necessary to get on board local online marketing. Not only will you find good customers, but you'll be able to measure results (how many clicks you are getting), target segments (you can focus on various demographics), and help build your brand.

As the name implies, Local.com (NASDAQ: LOCM) is a provider of local online advertising services -- primarily for small business. And based on its Q1 results, the company continues to get traction. Revenues came to $11.1 million, up 16% over the past year. There was a net loss of $2.9 million or 20 cents, but the company was able to post positive cash flow.

In the quarter, search traffic reached 60 million monthly unique visitors (from both network sites and Local.com). This represented an 18% increase over Q4 and 32% spike over the past year. True, revenue per thousand visitors was down 11% to $246, but this is to be expected in the slow economic environment.

Actually, Local.com is using its cash to pick up customer bases. For example, last month the company acquired 14,200 local business customers for $3.1 million. There was also a purchase of 11,800 web hosting customers in February (for $1.2 million).

Over the years, Web.com (NASDAQ: WWWW) has built a strong offering of online marketing services for small and medium size businesses (SMBs). Of course, in light of the recession, business has been particularly tough. Yet, Web.com continues to manage things – and is finding ways to capitalize on the opportunities.

In Q1, the company posted revenues of $27.8 million, which compares to $30.9 million in the same period a year ago. Net income was $900,000 or 3 cents per share. Also, cash flows from operations came to $5.7 million.

In all, Web.com has a customer base of 265,000. More importantly, there has been strong improvement in the churn rate, which was 3.9% in Q1 (an all-time low).

With the credit squeeze and recession, the business environment has been volatile for business owners. As a result, it's been extremely difficult to manage inventory. Obviously, this is a dangerous thing -- given the costs of inventory (such as storage, financing, insurance, and so on).

The good news is that there are ways to deal with the volatility. So let's take a look.