Articles
7 Steps for Creating a Strong Company Culture at Your Business
When employees come in for their first day of training at Amazon, they are given laminated cards printed with 14 principles to help guide their work. This fact was recently detailed in a New York Times piece about Amazon’s “bruising workplace” ethos, bringing to the forefront a conversation about the value of company culture of…
What To Do Before Closing Your Seasonal Business for the Year
For small businesses that rely on a summer crowd for the majority of their annual profits, the end of the season can induce some anxiety. That’s it? small business owners might be thinking to themselves as they rehash the summer crowds or review their books. But even without patrons clamoring in from the boardwalk for…
Soccer and Business: How Your Small Business Can Play Profitably with Major League Soccer
It’s been twenty years since Major League Soccer came to the United States to play. But it wasn’t until recently that Americans joined up with the world’s fans in adoring the sport—and funneling their money into soccer-related expenditures. Can small business turn this fervor into profits? Why Small Business Should Love Soccer There are a…
Small Business Health Insurance Tax Guide: Subsidies vs. Credits vs. Deductions
Health insurance spend can be a sizable portion of many small businesses expenditures. Many businesses want to provide this employee benefit and view it as a means of attracting and keeping employees. At the same time, decreasing spend in this area and freeing up cash flow for other businesses expenses gives your small business more…
Looking for a Small Business Loan? Loan Purpose Matters
It’s true, there are more options available today than ever before for business owners looking for a small business loan, but there isn’t really a one-size-fits-all solution. Understanding the relationship between why you need the loan and where you should be looking will help you find the right loan. Should your first stop be the…
Budgeting and Forecasting – What’s the Difference?
When you plan for the future of your small business, you assign yourself two important tasks: budgeting your dollars and forecasting how your business will behave in the year ahead. Preparing a complicated annual budget seems challenging until you realize that forecasting is even more complicated, because you have to account for the unknown. Both…
5 Questions with The Juice Cellar’s Chris Roberts
Our blog series “5 Questions With…” takes a behind-the-scenes look into the daily lives of our small business customers. Read through this ‘delicious’ next entry below! Name: Chris Roberts Company: The Juice Cellar Location: Belfast/Bangor, Maine Products/Services: Raw juices, smoothies, and plant-based food Years in Business: 3 Years Facebook: TheJuiceCellar Instagram: @TheJuiceCellar 1. Tell us about a day in the life…
Back-to-School Shopping: Should Your Small Business Get Involved?
The back-to-school season is a big one: according to the National Retail Federation, it will reach around $68 billion this year. Even if you don’t sell pencils, it’s tempting to want to grab a piece of the pie. But is it worth your small business marketing dollars to try to win some of these back-to-school…
Protect Your Business Against Identity Theft
Identity theft is a hot topic and a big concern for many people these days. It seems like we regularly hear about personal data being stolen from one company or another. Have you ever considered the likelihood that your business might be vulnerable to the same type of identity theft? A business’ credit profile is…
Have Negative Yelp Reviews? Here’s How to Deal with Them.
Getting great online reviews can boost your business-owner confidence and, perhaps, bring new customers to your door. But what do you do when a negative Yelp review pops up? Start out by not worrying too much–this is fixable!–and then follow these guidelines to handle the unfavorable review. Don’t Panic One bad review (or even a…
Meet Young Wizards Academy, Our Vancouver $5K Prize Winner
To celebrate our recent Canadian expansion, we held contests in Toronto and Vancouver to give small businesses the opportunity to win $5,000 (CAD) by answering one simple question, Why Do You Love Being a Small Business Owner? We received hundreds of submissions from very worthy small businesses of all kinds, and it was hard to…
6 Outstanding Online Invoicing Tools for Your Business
Invoicing is an essential part of business operations. Whether you run a one-person shop, a brick-and-mortar operation, or a growing business with multiple locations, you need to be able to quickly and easily create, send, and track invoices. A good online invoicing tool can provide both accessibility and security, and make it easier to keep…
PayPal Is Free: How the Split from eBay Affects You
Did you know that digital payments company PayPal recently split from e-commerce giant eBay? The separation was announced last September, and this July, PayPal officially became an independent, publicly-traded company once again. Since more than 169 million users have active accounts on PayPal, according to the company, all small business owners should be aware of the…
The Business Books That Small Bookstore Owners Want You To Read This Summer
If you’re looking for some good business-building books to read this summer, who better to ask than bookstore owners? Successful independent bookstore owners are simultaneously devoted readers and the proprietors of small businesses. Here, they share the titles that helped propel their stores to the top of the heap. So put down the murder mystery…
Boost Your Personal Credit Score: Take These Four Steps
For most small business owners, a personal credit score is still an important metric lenders may consider to measure your creditworthiness when evaluating your application for a small business loan. While different lenders weight the score differently, the benefits of building and maintaining a good personal credit score will likely never go away. With that…