One of the challenges of a business is developing your team of employees. Previous posts have discussed how to find and hire new employees (Hiring New Employees, Time to Hire, and Employees are Your Foundation are three examples). The difficult part though is getting everyone to work together and focused on the end goal. Business…
Many small-business owners fear that an increase in prices will drive customers away. This idea made the headlines in 2016 when New Jersey implemented a substantial gas tax increase making prices jump 10% or more overnight. Gas station owners were concerned that people will go somewhere else for cheaper prices or to other transportation alternatives….
While you form the cornerstone of your business, employees make up the foundation. As the owner, your name and personality are key to identifying and branding your business. Yet, you are not always there to interact with each and every customer. Plus you can’t be an expert at all of the skills required to build…
At some point, you will need the support and expertise of an attorney as you operate your small business. Often, though, owners delay adding that member to your business team. The thought is that you, the owner, will know when you need such help. But that line of thought has two major issues. First, you…
Want to have a successful small business? Then build your network. Comments like this are not uncommon. Good networking is one factor in building a successful, sustainable small-business. Both anecdotal information and research supports such claims. We have written about it previously in this blog when discussing “Networking for Business Success.” Most articles, like this…
Help? I am swamped. So get an ad in the paper and get some employees, right? Sorry, this isn’t the time. When you are overwhelmed is not the time you want to hire someone for several reasons. First and foremost, you will rush the process. Steps will be skipped such as reference checking. Second, you…
Read anything offering marketing tips and you will be encouraged to learn who your customers are. You want to understand the demographic make-up as well as their likes and dislikes and, of course, what they buy. Yet, so often that is the end of the effort. Getting the data can be done with registration information,…
Late last year, I did a blog post looking at how clustering of competitors may have positive results (https://staging.smallbizsurvival.com/2016/11/competition-and-clustering.html). Recently I was asked about this idea in terms of small rural town cafes. If any of you have lived in the Great Plains region of the country, you know the towns and the cafes I…
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