Owning a small business often means wearing every possible hat available, from marketer to sales clerk and inventory manager to HR professional. Learn from the experiences of the small business owners who are NFIB members as well as the best experts for each industry. Below you will find small business tips for everything from taxes and regulation to promotion and networking.
Steam ran out of the once-hot apparel company Abercrombie & Fitch. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Abercrombie reigned supreme in the teen and young-adult clothing industry. Its ubiquitous stores—smelling of cologne and echoing with dance music—were bustling in malls across the country. Today, the preppy clothing company has reported declining sales for five of the last seven years and...
RM ZalatimoManaging partner, HudsonPoint CapitalEdison, New JerseyAdvice: There are no small business decisions. “He always encouraged me to work for myself,” says RM Zalatimo of his father, Marwan, an entrepreneur from Jordan who started in the textile business and then became a real estate developer. “I understood at a very young age that being independent would maximize my potential and allow...
How can your small business mesh charity and profitability? Enter: TOMS’ One for One. In 2006, TOMS Shoes founder Blake Mycoskie started his Los Angeles-based company with the One for One business model: for every pair of TOMS sold, the company donates a pair of shoes to someone in need. Since then, TOMS Shoes has given more than 35 million pairs of...
You can stay small and still benefit from cozying up to the big dogs. When Gerry Phillips got a call from massive auto parts manufacturer TI Automotive, he pulled out all the stops. As co-owner and vice president of Michigan-based Prism Plastics, he had never played supplier to a company of TI Automotive’s scale. “We had to work like crazy to get...
It’s tough to get people’s attention—and that’s certainly the case in the L.A. art world. Sometimes there are more than 100 opening receptions in a single night at galleries spread across the sprawling city. Small business owner Daniel Rolnik opened his gallery, the Daniel Rolnik Gallery, on the opposite side of town as many of the bigger galleries in Los Angeles....
You’re busy. We get it. But strategic planning shouldn’t always take a back seat to day-to-day operations, warns Linda Pophal, owner and CEO of Strategic Communications in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. In particular, a SWOT analysis—in which business owners and their employees discuss the organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats—is a valuable tool to help businesses succeed, she says. “I think that the...
A practice called factoring—selling one’s accounts receivable to a third-party financial company—allows cash-strapped startups to address a temporary shortfall. It’s an old practice gaining new steam among some small businesses. This solution is not without risk, however, and could backfire if the potential downsides aren’t examined as well. “Factoring does provide money quickly and makes funding available to a business owner...
Charity is in. It’s also profitable. In recent years, a growing trend has emerged involving startup business owners incorporating philanthropic pledges into their mission and vision statements. Case in point: Audrey Kinsman, a CPA and founder of Switch Witches. The mother of two used her background in finance to launch a product and give back to the community—all while ensuring a good...
Learning from your own mistakes is key for small business owners. But learning from the mistakes of others is even better. Public-radio producer Alex Blumberg launched a podcast company in 2014 after years as a producer of This American Life and Planet Money. He chronicled experiences that led up to the birth of his company, Gimlet Media, in a 14-episode podcast, which...
Business owners have a lot more to care about than staying current with all the marketing jargon out there. Besides, marketing terms change all the time and no one seems to agree on their definitions anyway. This cheat sheet is here to break down commonly used terms. ...
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