Terms and concepts expressed within this website...

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Agentic AI:  Agentic AI is a class of artificial intelligence that focuses on autonomous systems that can make decisions and perform tasks without human intervention.  The independent systems automatically respond to conditions, to produce process results.  The field is closely linked to agentic automation, also known as agent-based process management systems, when applied to process automation.  Applications include software development, customer support, cyber security and business intelligence. - Wikipedia

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Ai:  Ai is artificial intelligence, intellectual ability in machines and robots.  

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ANA:  Association of National Advertisers.  See DMA (Data & Marketing Association) below for more information.  

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Annuity:  A typical annuity provides a series of regular payments made at equal intervals over a fixed period of time.  An annuity which provides payments for the remainder of a persons  lifetime is a 'Life Annuity.'  When we refer to the UnFranchise® Business 'Shopping Annuity' we are describing a perpetual annuity, an annuity from which payments continue indefinitely, in perpetuity, providing a predictable stream of recurring payments in the form of supplemental income.

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Arbitrage: "The simplest form of arbitrage is purchasing an asset in the market where the price is lower and simultaneously selling the asset in the market where the asset's price is higher.  Arbitrage is a widely used trading strategy, and probably one of the oldest trading strategies to exist." - CFI: Corporate Finance Institute

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AWS:  Amazon Web Services.  Our CompanyAxis maWebCenter hosts 'public facing websites' on our 'Oasis' platform within the AWS infrastructure.

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B2B: On the Internet, B2B (business-to-business), also known as e-biz, is the exchange of products, services, or information between businesses. 

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B2B gateway software is integration middleware that is used to consolidate and centralize data and process integration and interoperability between a company’s internal applications and systems, and external entities such as business partners or 'software as a service' (SaaS).

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B2C: This abbreviation of 'business-to-consumer' usually refers to transactions via the internet between businesses and consumers.  D2C on the other hand typically refers to businesses that have eliminated middlemen and now sell 'direct-to-consumer' which can be either the public (individuals) or businesses.

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BDC:  1). Business Development Company:  "A business development company (BDC) is an organization that invests in small and medium size companies as well as distressed companies.  A BDC helps these firms grow in the initial stages of their development.  With distressed businesses, the BDC helps companies regain sound financial footing." - Investopedia.  2). The 'Business Development Center' referred to within this website as an UnFranchise® BDC is something very different.  It's a system that enables you to build not just a business, but an organized group of businesses that generate revenue for you while operating independently from you.  It does not involve the solicitation or raising of funds for investment purposes.  

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Business Incubator: ...a place, especially with support staff and equipment, made available at low rent to new small businesses.

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BPaaS: CompanyAxis defines 'Business Process as a Service' as the delivery of any type of vertical or horizontal business process that's delivered based on the cloud service model. Services are sourced from the cloud and constructed for multi-tenancy. Services are often automated, and where human process actors are required, there is no overtly dedicated labor pool per client. The pricing models are consumption-based or subscription-based commercial terms. As a cloud service, the BPaaS model is accessed via Internet-based technologies.

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BPM: Business Process Management is a disciplined approach to identify, design, execute, document, measure, monitor, and control both automated and non-automated business processes to achieve consistent, targeted results aligned with an organization's strategic goals. - Wikipedia 

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BPO: Business Process Outsourcing is the delegation of one or more IT-intensive business processes to an external provider that, in turn, owns, administrates and manages the selected processes based on defined and measurable performance metrics. BPO offerings are categorized in two major categories: horizontal offerings (those that can be leveraged across specific industries) and vertical-specific offerings (those that demand specific industry vertical process knowledge). A BPO is typically run as a cloud service.

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CAC: Customer Acquisition Cost is the cost associated in convincing a customer to buy a product/service. This cost is incurred by the organization to convince a potential customer. This is an important business metric. It plays a major role in calculating the value of the customer to the company and the resulting return on investment (ROI) of acquisition. The calculation of customer valuation helps a company decide how much of its resources can be profitably spent on a particular customer. In general terms, it helps to decide the worth of the customer to the company. - Wikipedia

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'Cash Cow' is business jargon for a business venture that generates a steady return of profits that far exceed the outlay of cash required to acquire or start it. Many businesses attempt to create or acquire such ventures, since they can be used to boost a company's overall income and to support less profitable endeavors. - Wikipedia

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CRM: Customer Relationship Management.  CRM as it applies to a sales and marketing unit or organization,  denotes strategies and software that enable a company to organize and optimize its customer relations.  It can also mean 'Crew Resource Management.'  We also use such a system to manage our relationships among team members.

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D2C:  Direct-To-Consumer typically means selling directly to the end-user.

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DBA: Doing business as, is a legal term relating to the name a business uses.

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DBM: "Database marketing is a form of direct marketing using databases of customers or potential customers to generate personalized communications in order to promote a product or service for marketing purposes. The method of communication can be any addressable medium, as in direct marketing." - Wikipedia

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DDBM (Data-Driven Business Model): For the purpose of this website, reference to a data-driven business model means how you view, develop and run your business using all of the data available to do exactly that. In addition, it's a digital system for discovering and meeting the needs of current customers, employees, and stakeholders as well as a means to identify and capitalize on new profitable opportunities.

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DDBMS (Distributed Database Management System): A Distributed DBMS enables end users or application programmers to view a collection of physically separate databases as one logical single-system image. The concept that is most fundamental to the DDBMS is location transparency, meaning the user should not be conscious of the actual location of data.

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DdM: Data-driven Marketing "...involves understanding data already present, data that can be acquired, and how to organize, analyze, and apply that data to better marketing efforts. The intended goal is generally to enhance and personalize the customer experience." - Wikipedia

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DFY: Done For You.  For Database and Web Design, Content and Marketing we provide both DIY information and DFY Digital Services.

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DMA (Data & Marketing Association) The DMA is dedicated to advancing and protecting responsible data-driven marketing. "Although headquartered in the United States, its members include companies from 48 other countries, including half of the Fortune 100 companies, as well as many nonprofit organizations. The DMA seeks to advance all forms of direct marketing." - Wikipedia 

The  DMA and the ANA (Association of National Advertisers) have agreed to combine to form the largest and most influential advertising and marketing association in the world.  Learn more about Data Marketing and Analytics, ANA Membership and how to protect consumer choices online.

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DRM (Direct Response Marketing): For the purpose of this website; "Direct marketing is a form of advertising where organizations communicate directly to customers through a variety of media...  Among practitioners, it is known as direct response marketing." - Wikipedia

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Drop-shipping:  A system and process whereby you buy and sell (retail) products that you don't carry in inventory.

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EBITDA:  Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) is a measure of a company's operating performance.  Essentially, it's a way to evaluate a company's perfrmance without having to factor in financing decisions, accounting decisions or tax environments. - Merriam Webster

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E-Commerce: Electronic commerce or internet commerce, refers to the buying and selling of goods or services using the internet, and the transfer of money and data to execute these transactions. E-Commerce is often used to refer to the sale of physical products online, but it can also describe any kind of commercial transaction that is facilitated through the internet. Whereas e-business refers to all aspects of operating an online business, e-commerce refers specifically to the transaction of goods and services.

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Ecwid:  E-commerce Platform for Small Business.  Provides a really simple way to add e-commerce to any existing website or social media account.  Point-of-sale functionality is also available.  Very affordable compared to other solutions like 'Shopify' and 'Woo Commerce' so we include it in our client's CompanyAxis WordPress and 'Oasis' websites.

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Entrepreneurial Network:  "In business, entrepreneurial networks are social organizations offering different types of resources to start or improve entrepreneurial projects.  Having adequate human resources is a key factor for entrepreneurial achievements. Combined with leadership, the entrepreneurial network is a social network not only necessary to properly run the business or project, but also to differentiate the business from similar projects." - Wikipedia

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Ephemeralization:  A term coined by R. Buckminster Fuller in 1938, is the ability of technological advancement to do "more and more with less and less until eventually you can do everything with nothing," that is, an accelerating increase in the efficiency of achieving the same or more output (products, services, information, etc.) while requiring less input (effort, time, resources, etc.). - Wikipedia

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ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning):  Enterprise resource planning is the integrated management of main business processes, often in real-time and mediated by software and technology. - Wikipedia

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Extranet: A collaborative, Internet-based network that facilitates inter-company relationships by linking an enterprise with its suppliers, customers or other external business partners. Extranets use Internet-derived applications and technology to provide secured extensions of internal business processes to external business partners.

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Factor (Financial): One who buys a company's invoices (receivables) at a discount and takes responsibility for collecting the payments due on them.  'Factoring' is a way for a business to get unlimited funding without a loan.

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FBA:  Amazon has one of the most advanced fulfillment networks in the world.  With fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), you store your products in Amazon's fulfillment centers, and they pick, pack, ship and provide customer service for those products.  FBA can help you scale your business and reach more customers.

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FCF:  In financial accounting, free cash flow (FCF) or free cash flow to firm (FCFF) is the amount by which a business's operating cash flow exceeds its working capital needs and expenditures on fixed assets. It is that portion of cash flow that can be extracted from a company and distributed to creditors and securities holders without causing issues in its operations.  As such, it is an indicator of a company's financial flexibility and is of interest to holders of the company's equity, debt, preferred stock and convertible securities, as well as potential lenders and investors.  - Wikipedia

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FileMaker Pro is a software platform used to create relational database applications for modern workflows.  It integrates with a number of third-party applications, allowing teams to exchange data and interact with other programs without problems. They can establish two-way connections with Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Microsoft SQL Server, and IBM DB2 data servers to make way for a more organized workflow.

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Franchise:  A franchise is a type of business that is owned and operated by an individual (franchisee) but that is branded and overseen by a much larger - usually national or multinational company (franchisor).  See 'Master Franchise' below.

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Franchising:  ...is a form of marketing and distribution in which the owner of a business system (the franchisor) grants to an individual or group of individuals (the franchisee) the right to run a business selling a product or providing a service using the franchisor's business system.

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Free Cash Flow:  See FCF above.

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Going concern: ...is an accounting term for a company that has the resources needed to continue operating indefinitely until it provides evidence to the contrary. - Investopedia

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Intranet: A network internal to an enterprise that uses the same methodology and techniques as the Internet. It is not necessarily connected to the Internet and is commonly secured from it using firewalls. Intranets often use an organization’s local-area networks (LANs) or wide-area networks (WANs). Services include websites, collaboration, workflow and messaging services, and application development.

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IoT (Internet of Things):  "Here's everything you need to know about the internet of things. The Internet of Things, or "IoT" for short, is about extending the power of the internet beyond computers and smartphones to a whole range of other things, processes and environments." - Calum McClelland 

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Key Performance Indicator (KPI): A high-level measure of system output, traffic or other usage, simplified for gathering and review on a weekly, monthly or quarterly basis. Typical examples are bandwidth availability, transactions per second and calls per user. KPIs are often combined with cost measures (e.g., cost per transaction or cost per user) to build key system operating metrics.

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Lynchpin (linchpin):  a person or thing vital to an enterprise or organization. 

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Magento eCommerce Platform:  It's an ideal platform for the bigger e-commerce stores - the enterprise with thousands of products, tons of traffic, many brands, and a very big number of sales.  Priced at $18,000 (at this writing) for the 'Magento Enterprise Edition' it's too expensive to setup and maintain for most small to medium size businesses.

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Master Franchise:  A master franchise is one managed by a master franchisee - an investor who pays the franchisor a large initial fee to secure the rights to develop the business under the brand name in a specified region.  The master franchisee is then responsible for recruiting franchisees in that area and providing training and additional ongoing support.

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Micro Business:  "A Micro business is a very small business, smallest of all businesses.  The majority of micro business companies are one-person enterprises.  Moreover, these companies operate out of owner's homes or a small executive suite office; and many of these companies have part-time help from a family member or friends."  - Micro Business Law and Legal Definition | USLegal, Inc.  Note: There are other sources that categorize any business with fewer than 20 employees as a Micro Business.

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Micro Enterprise: In the United States...  According to the Small Business Administration, a microenterprise or microbusiness is defined as a business with 1-9 employees.  They are the most common type of business.  As a subcategory of small businesses, with sales and assets valued at less than $250,000 per year, they generally have less than five employees, including the owner.  Additionally, such micro-enterprises generally need less than $35,000 in loan capital as a startup, and do not have access to the conventional commercial banking sector. The basis of microenterprise in the U.S. is entrepreneurship, recognizing that people have the right to apply their individual talents, creativity, and hard work to better their lives.

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MLM:  Multi-Level Marketing is often referred to as 'Network Marketing' but that is misleading because not all network marketing firms are multi-level in their structure.  Within the Network Marketing Industry, some companies choose to use a Multi-Level Compensation Plan.  MLM, Matrix and Binary are each simply - Compensation Plans.    "There are many reputable network marketing operations, but some have been denounced as pyramid schemes.  The latter may focus less on sales to consumers than on recruitment of salespeople who may be required to pay upfront for expensive starter kits." - Investopedia.com 

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MRR:  Monthly Recurring Revenue

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Network Marketing: The definition depends on your perspective.  For example; the owner of a startup with a new product or service may be trying to choose a method of distribution - trying to decide between selling D2C (Direct To Consumer) and Network Marketing.  On the other hand, someone looking for a 'work at home' solution would see the industry like this... "Network marketing is a business model that depends on person-to-person sales by independent representatives, often working from home." - Investopedia.com  

One thing that all network marketing firms have in common is that each individual distributor, although perhaps not required to do so - is expected to build their own personal sales organization by sponsoring others who join them in their network marketing business.  Companies market all types of goods and services, including jewelry, cookware, nutritionals, cosmetics, housewares, energy, insurance, and much more through 'Word of Mouth" Advertising called 'Network Marketing.'  Thus it's a retail channel used by top global brands, and smaller entrepreneurial companies to sell products and services to consumers through individual independent 'Network Marketing Entrepreneurs.'  

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Niche:  Within the context of this website it's a specialized segment of the market for a particular kind of product or service.  We use the word 'niche' herein to denote interests that appeal to a small, specialized section of the population.  

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An Operational System is a term used in data warehousing to refer to a system that's used to process the day-to-day transactions of an organization.  Such systems are designed to both process transactions efficiently while preserving the integrity of the transactional data.

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An 'Owner-Independent' Business is a business that runs without your physical presence.  A business that requires very little of your time.  A business that you work on - instead of in it. 

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Passive Income:  "The United States Internal Revenue Service categorizes income as active income, passive income, or portfolio income.  It defines passive income as only coming from two sources, or passive activities: 'rental activity' or 'trade and business activities' in which you do not materially participate during the year." - Wikipedia

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PEGA: most commonly refers to Pegasystems, a software company that provides a low-code platform for businesses to automate workflows and personalize customer experiences using AI.

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PLC (Programmable Logic Controller): A programmable logic controller or programmable controller is an industrial digital computer which has been ruggedized and adapted for the control of manufacturing processes, such as assembly lines, or robotic devices, or any activity that requires high reliability control and ease of programming and process fault diagnosis. - Wikipedea

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POS (point-of-sale) is the transaction that takes place between a merchant and a customer when a purchase is made.  A POS System is typically composed of on-premise hardware and software combined in a terminal connected to a database for processing the transaction.  Today, you can certainly have an integrated mobile POS System using WiFi with a Tablet, Smart Phone or other hand-held device.

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PPC:  Pay-per-click is an internet advertising model used to drive traffic to websites, in which an advertiser pays a publisher (typically a search engine, website owner, or a network of websites) when the ad is clicked. - Wikipedia

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Profit Center:  A branch or division of a company that directly adds or is expected to add to the entire organization's bottom line. - Investopedia.com 

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Residual Income for our purposes in corporate finance is a performance measure used by investors however it's also a term some use to simply describe income that requires no further effort to earn or maintain .  "Residual income is the money that continues to flow after an initial investment of time and resources has been completed. Examples of residual income include artist royalties, rental income, interest income, and dividend payments." - investopedia.com  

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ROAS:  Return On Ad Spend: "...'Return on Ad Spend,' a very popular financial metric in the world of digital marketing in particular, and a similar alternative metric to ROI, or 'Return on Investment.'  ROAS is commonly used in eCommerce businesses to evaluate the effectiveness of a marketing campaign." - CFI

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ROI:  Return On Investment or Return On Costs (ROC) is a ratio between net income (over a period) and investment (costs resulting from an investment of some resources at a point in time).  In business, the purpose of the return on investment (ROI) metric is to measure, per period, rates of return on money invested in an economic entity in order to decide whether or not to undertake an investment.  - Wikipedia

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RPA:  Robotic process automation is a form of business process automation.  RPA should not be confused with artificial intelligence as it is based on automation technology following a predefined workflow. ... RPA can allow data to be handled in and between multiple applications, for instance, receiving an email containing an invoice, extracting the data, and then typing that into a bookkeeping system. - Wikipedia  

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SaaS - The term "software as a service" (SaaS) is considered to be part of the nomenclature of cloud computing. - Wikipedia 

'Software as a Service' is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted.  It is sometimes referred to as "on-demand software", and was formerly referred to as "software plus services" by Microsoft. SaaS applications are also known as Web-based software, on-demand software and hosted software. - Wikipedia 

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S-Corp. - An S corporation (S corp) is a federal tax designation that allows a business to avoid double taxation by passing income, losses, and credits through to its shareholders for tax purposes. Shareholders report these items on their personal income tax returns, avoiding corporate-level tax. To form an S corp, a business must first be a state-recognized corporation or LLC, and then file Form 2553 with the IRS to elect S corp status, subject to certain requirements like having no more than 100 shareholders.

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SEO, SEM, SMM: Abbreviations for Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing, Social Media Marketing. 

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SMB:  For the purposes of its research, Gartner defines SMBs (Small and Midsize Businesses) by the number of employees and annual revenue they have. The attribute used most often is number of employees; small businesses are usually defined as organizations with fewer than 100 employees; midsize enterprises are those organizations with 100 to 999 employees.  The acronym SMB also means 'Server Message Block' which is a network communication transfer protocol, so sometimes the definitions of an acronym depends on the context.

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Sponsor (commercial):  Sponsoring something or someone is the act of supporting an event, activity, person, or organization financially or through the provision of products or services.  The individual or group that provides the support, similar to a benefactor, is known as sponsor. - Wikipedia 

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TERM:  The Acronym for Time, Energy (Effort), Resources, and Money (TERM) describes what an individual actually invests or will invest in any given venture.

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UnFranchise®  (a registered trade name of Market America, Inc.) is a hybrid between franchising, internet marketing, and traditional businesses.  We take the best of each to create a business concept called the UnFranchise and turn it into a system for people who want more income but don't want another job.  

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VBDC (Virtual Business Development Company): A business that assists in the creation, management and promotion of other Internet based business ventures.  See the CompanyAxis VBDC FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions): 

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A Virtual Private Network (VPN) is a system that delivers enterprise-focused communication services on a shared public network infrastructure and provides customized operating characteristics uniformly and universally across an enterprise. The term is used generically to refer to 'voice VPNs.' To avoid confusion, IP-based data services are referred to as 'data VPNs.' Service providers define a VPN as a WAN of permanent virtual circuits…

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WAN replacement: Wide-area network (WAN) replacement uses Internet-based virtual private networks (VPNs) or managed VPN services to connect branch offices.