5 Rules of Small Business Advertising
(MoneyWatch) Many small businesses can’t afford an ad agency, or prefer to do advertising and other creative work in-house. It makes agency people jump down my throat, but for many reasons (and after two decades of experience doing it both ways), I happen to think that “D.I.Y.” is right for most startups and many established […]
How to Hire the Best Small Business Employees
(MoneyWatch) The smaller the business, the more hiring the right people matters. When employee #100 turns out to be a disaster the impact on the business is relatively small and usually confined to a small group of employees. When employee #4 is a disaster, everything suffers. Attitude is everything. you can teach skills but it’s incredibly […]
Is Your Customer Service Sabotaging Sales?
(MoneyWatch) It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that when the cost to acquire customers (CAC) exceeds thelifetime value of the customer (LTV) the business model is doomed to fail. However, the simple arithmetic (LTV-CAC) can get pretty complicated if you throw in the wildcard of customer retention. Have you ever received one of those offers from a […]
How Not to Vex Your Best Customers
By: Harold Sirkin Some corporations seem to go out of their way to antagonize customers—even their best ones. To avoid raising prices, a number of consumer-products makers have chosen to reduce quantity: A half-gallon carton of ice cream a few years ago became a quart-and-a-half carton, facial tissues were reduced in size so they now […]
Ten Things Managers Should Never Do
By: Steve Tobak We’ve all had bosses do things we didn’t like, appreciate, or respect. And every manager has done things they later regret. The business world is, by necessity, one of real-time decisions and judgment calls that sometimes turn out to be bad choices, in retrospect. After all, nobody’s perfect. We all make […]
Conquer Your Challenges: 12 Great Ways to do Things Differently
By: Jeff Haden Whenever I’m discussing a challenge — oh, all right, whenever I’m whining about something — my wife only lasts about 30 seconds before she says, “Okay, I get it. What are you going to do differently?” Hearing the same thing time after time could be pretty irritating… except she’s right. The only way […]
Make the Transition from Employee to Entrepreneur!
Small Business Trends writes a lot about how to grow your business, but what about those of you who either want to start a business, or who have started one but are still working your “other” 9 to 5? Here’s why you should dive head first (assuming you’re ready financially) into starting your small business: You’ll […]
Once an Employee, Now an Entrepreneur
Joyce Rosenberg, October 13, 2011 NEW YORK — The recovery in the job market just hasn’t happened. So, many people who lost their jobs well after the recession ended in June 2009 have decided not to look for work. They’ve gone into business for themselves. Starting a company can be daunting. Some entrepreneurs have made […]
How to Prevent Rogue Employees
VIENNA, Va. (MainStreet) — Small-business owners have enough to worry about. The last thing they need to deal with is an employee gone rogue. Unfortunately, these things do happen, and not just to large companies such as UBS(UBS), where 31-year-old equities trader Kweku Adoboli made a series of trades in September that cost the investment […]
5 Business Tax Myths Debunked
Tax time can be taxing for everyone, but small business owners have it particularly hard. They don’t have an army of accountants and tax experts at their disposal, so they put on their “tax” hat when they have time, and most often are working blind. Small business owners shouldn’t think they can “pull a General Electric” and […]