I’ve gotten a few head-scratchers in response to this column. You know who you are, but don’t worry, your secret is safe with me. I have a confession to make. Writing an advice column, whether it be advice for love or money or business, is often hard to do with a straight face. Occasionally a question comes over the digital transom that just makes me go, “Huh?”

I have made just about every business blunder you can imagine. I am like the Evel Knievel of the small business world, if Evel Knievel wrote a weekly column on motorcycle safety. One of the more unpleasant things I’ve had to do is fire a good friend who was not doing the job I hired him to do. He needed a job, I needed an employee, so I thought I would give him a shot.

Last week we discussed the importance of performing an autopsy on a dead business. No, I haven’t been watching too many of those wonderfully graphic, TV forensic investigation shows. The reason I recommend you do a business autopsy is to uncover the exact reasons why the business died.

“This year I will start my own business!” I call it “The American Dream Resolution,” and like most New Year’s resolutions it is a proclamation of intent that is often made, but seldom carried out (at least in an effective manner).

Pricing is an important aspect of every business because price is used to create financial projections, establish a break even point, and calculate profit and loss. It’s also important to establish a good price point from the beginning because it is much easier to lower prices than to raise them.

It sounds like your wife wants to make a gift of the money, expecting nothing in return but the undying love of her last born son. You, on the other hand, don’t know if you should offer the money as a loan (should I loan him the money) or as an investment (worried that my investment will be lost). Until you can make that distinction, your money should remain in the bank.

I’m a lousy poker player, mainly because I can’t help grinning like the village idiot when blessed with a winning hand or frowning like a sad clown when dealt a dud. I also never make odds on the success of “amazing new products” because more often than not the only thing that’s amazing is the way the product is totally ignored by the buying public.

While it’s true that selling products on eBay can be a quick, low cost way to launch an online business, following the herd by selling the “hot product” of the moment, is not a great idea. To the contrary, chances are you will be stomped in the ground by the herd and left lying in the dust with your unsold inventory in hand.

The shear number of PayPal customers is one reason it has become a popular target of scam artists trying to steal personal information from individuals and businesses alike. Identify theft is on the rise. Thanks to the Internet stealing someone’s identity has never been easier. At any given moment, there are any number of Internet thieves using all manner of high tech wizardry to steal personal and business information from unsuspecting souls, and many times they can gain access to this information simply by asking the person to provide it through fraudulent means.

If visitor’s are not clicking past your fancy Flash intro page, you don’t have to be a genius to figure out that therein lies your problem. Remove the Flash intro page for a few weeks to see if your website’s click-through rate improves and the number of page views increase. “Click-through rate” refers to the number of visitors who click links on your homepage to go deeper into your site. “Page views” refers to the overall number of web pages that were viewed by visitors. If click-through and page view rates improve, you’ll know that the Flash intro was your problem.