Growth Tips for Businesses

How to Prepare Your Small Business to Weather a Storm

By Allstate | Jul 16, 2013

Does your small business have an emergency storm-preparedness plan? You may think you don’t have the time or resources to create one. But businesses of all sizes can—and really should—create a simple list of important “to-dos” in case a natural disaster or other emergency interrupts your normal course of operation.

5 Things to Look for in a Franchisor

By Franchise.com | Jul 16, 2013

Picking a franchise to invest in is a big decision, and one that often requires a lot of soul searching. Beyond the financial investment that these businesses require, there are many personal sacrifices and a certain level of risk that is involved in becoming your own boss.

Leadership: Reading the Signs

By BizCoachingOnDemand.com | Jul 16, 2013

Throughout history, in business and elsewhere, great leaders have arisen out of unfavorable circumstances. In major league baseball, Bud Selig pioneered efforts to put an end to the use of performance enhancing drugs that had infected the sport for so many years. As a leader, your first and foremost objective should be to do the right thing.

What are retirement plans for small business owners?

By Rebecca Kincaid | Jul 16, 2013

In terms of qualified retirement plans that incorporate an IRA, a SEP-IRA or SEP plan offers the greatest tax benefits to small business owners, but small business owners and their employees have a variety of retirement plan options. For example, there are several different types of IRAs: Traditional IRA, Roth IRA, Education IRA (EDIRA), now called Education Savings Accounts, SEP-IRA, SARSEP-IRA, and SIMPLE-IRA.

Why You Should Set Benchmarks

By Jerry Osteryoung | Jul 16, 2013

One of the things that each and every business needs is a systematic way of evaluating their performance. Without quantifiable benchmarks, a firm has no idea if they are swimming ahead of the pack or just treading water.

Challenges Facing Women Entrepreneurs

By Biz2Credit.com | Jul 16, 2013

Last month, the Gender GEDI Index—the branch of Dell’s Global Entrepreneurship and Development Index focused on opportunities for women—ranked the U.S. first out of 17 countries as a haven for female entrepreneurship. However, as even the U.S. scored only a 76 on a 100-point scale, it’s clear that there are still challenges facing women entrepreneurs in this country.

Is Your Leadership Limiting Your Organization’s Ability to Grow?

By Bill Hogg | Jul 16, 2013

Great leaders not only understand how to engage and inspire their teams to get the best results—they understand the need to create participatory and collaborative processes that develop the abilities of the next generation of leaders.

7 Must Have Transformational Leadership Qualities

By Bill Hogg | Jul 16, 2013

Developing your leadership capacity is moving beyond focusing on the day to day operations and expanding your decision making process to focus on long term strategies that are able to sustain business over time.

Setting up a Foundation?

By Matt Tarkenton | Jul 15, 2013

Scholarship programs. There are different approaches to establishing scholarship programs which range from an annual scholarship awarded by a business to a nonprofit foundation that may fund many scholarships. We do not know how much money your business plans to spend on scholarship awards or if you plan to operate a nonprofit organization to raise money for scholarships, but establishing a scholarship program with preferential tax treatment for donations involves the creation of a nonprofit charitable entity.

How Are You Evaluating Your Clients?

By YEC | Jul 15, 2013

While I’d like to think we make good decisions based entirely on gut instinct, there are often hidden red flags. One tool we have implemented with success in our company is a client scorecard that rates our clients and their fit for us, past and prospective.