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.
If a client (or you) can’t pay with traditional means, it doesn’t mean anyone needs to call small claims court. Instead, what about bartering? You may be imagining old-time scenarios of doctors accepting a bushel of farm goods in exchange for medical treatment, but bartering is alive and well in the modern age. The Basics Put simply, bartering is an equal trade: Two...
From Beanie Babies to the Atkins diet, fads can be a boon for business. Here, three small business owners share how they capitalized on a fad. Mary Lynn Schroeder Founder, In Blue Handmade—Asheville, North Carolina Mary Lynn Schroeder decided to bid farewell to the Chicago music industry and move to a small farm in southern Illinois in February 2008. She wanted to become...
The Small Business Owner: Frank Agin, president of AmSpirit Business Connections, a membership-based service that helps small businesses become more successful through professional networking, located in Columbus, Ohio The Book: Saving America: How Garage Entrepreneurs Grow Small Firms Into Large Fortunes by Roger Blackwell Why I Read It: I attended an American Marketing Association seminar where the author (Roger Blackwell) presented some...
Both proprietary fleet cards and bank-issued credit cards offer fleet managers the ability to track and set controls on their fuel spend. But the similarities stop there. Weigh the pros and cons of fleet cards versus credit cards, and note the many additional benefits fleet cards offer small business owners. Fleet Cards Fleet cards provide more in-depth transaction data, greater flexibility, and tighter...
The TV show Shark Tank, which a Forbes contributor called the American Idol for small business startups, has become increasingly popular since its debut in 2009. Featuring a series of entrepreneurs—many down on their luck—making the case to investors for financial underwriting, Shark Tank offers lessons for small business owners on the do’s and don’ts of seeking outside funding. Often,...
Are your ideas stale? Are your business pitches old hat, your solutions to problems a muddle, your ideas about technology so late 20th century? You might not know you’re in a rut; maybe you just have an uneasy feeling that you’re on a treadmill of same old, same old. It’s a problem that plagues all of us at times. Fortunately there...
Just one in four small businesses with fewer than 50 employees offers a 401(k) plan, according to a July 2013 survey by ShareBuilder 401k, a subsidiary of Capital One. While this number is up from 10 percent in 2008, small businesses still without 401(k)s could be limiting their potential. Consider these reasons small business owners should consider offering 401(k)s. Lower Barriers to...
It’s on your business card, your stationery and probably your business signage. It’s also likely on your trade show booth and certainly on your website, prominently displayed on the home page. “It,” of course, is your company logo, often the very first point of contact prospects and customers have with your business. As such, company logos have tremendous (if subtle) importance,...
Entrepreneurs face a never-ending series of decisions when launching a new business, and one of the biggest is determining the type of business structure. Two of the most popular are limited liability companies (LLCs) and subchapter S corporations (S-corps). An LLC provides the limited liability features of a corporation and the tax efficiencies and operational flexibility of a partnership. An S-corp is...
Holidays are always intriguing times to market your business. And in October, Halloween offers an opportunity to boost sales and reinforce the customer experience. “Halloween, over the years, has become a much more important holiday because it’s become a sort of party,” says Simon Haddad, director of shopper marketing for Galileo Global Branding Group, the branding and marketing agency within Daymon...
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