Ohio’s Unemployment Rate and Other News

August 20, 2014 by

business (4)The national unemployment rate for July was 6.2%, a bit higher than the Ohio unemployment rate of 5.7%. Compared to the 7.5% unemployment rate in 2013, things seem to be going in the right direction for Ohio. And although the recession seems to have slowed lending for small businesses, small business owners are still optimistic that things are heading in the right direction.

To read more about small business news follow the links below.

Ohio jobless rate posts small hop to 5.7% in July

Ohio’s unemployment rate edged up to 5.7 percent in July, as the number of those out of work rose and the total with jobs dropped from the prior month.

The state reported Friday that non-farm employment sank 12,400 jobs from June to nearly 5.3 million last month, helping push up the jobless rate from 5.5 percent in June. About 323,000 Ohioans were out of work in July, the Department of Job and Family Services reported.

The state’s jobless rate in July 2013 was 7.5 percent.

But the state said 24,400 more individuals were working in July than a year earlier. Adding the most jobs over the 12 months was the goods producing sector, up 14,700, and professional and business services segment, up 17,000 positions.

Who’ll pick SC peaches? Immigration policy gridlock stymies farm labor

The heated tempers of the nation’s border states are driving the debate over immigration policy. States such as South Carolina, though, are reckoning with a different set of challenges: a skimpy agriculture labor market and cumbersome immigrant worker programs that go unfixed amid partisan gridlock on Capitol Hill.

Over 20,000 U.S. farms employ more than 435,000 immigrant workers legally every year, according to 2012 U.S. Department of Agriculture census data. Thousands – probably tens of thousands – more are employed illegally. In the fruit orchards of the Carolinas, farmers confront a blue-collar labor vacuum.

“Because we’re not a border state, it’s definitely harder to get people over this far from the border to work,” said Chalmers Carr, the owner of the East Coast’s largest peach grower, South Carolina’s Titan Farms. “2006, 2007, even 2008, we had a very robust economy and there were not enough farmworkers then. And there’s truly not enough farmworkers now, legal or illegal.”

Small-Business Lending Is Slow to Recover

Lending Remains Far Below Pre-Recession Levels; Things ‘Aren’t What They Used to Be’

Small-business lending by banks is rebounding but remains far below prerecession levels, forcing entrepreneurs in places like Carroll County, Ga., to seek other financing sources. WSJ’s Angus Loten joins MoneyBeat with the details. Photo: Carrollton Mainstreet.

CARROLLTON, Ga.—Brandi Shirey wants to borrow at least $20,000 to expand the birthday- and wedding-cake business she started four years ago after leaving her job as a bookkeeper.

Demand for the cakes, which sell for $150 to $500, overwhelms her home kitchen. She plans to use about $2,000 from her savings to move into a nearby storefront next month. But the 28-year-old Ms. Shirey believes her credit record and financial paperwork have to be bulletproof before she dares approach a bank for a loan. “It’s time to grow,” she says, but things “aren’t what they used to be.”

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Effective Meetings – Be Quick on Your Feet

August 13, 2014 by

business (10)There are many trends and fads in business.  Some of them take hold and become part of the status quo and others fade away.  One of the current fads, which may develop into a standard operating procedure, is the concept of stand up meetings.  The idea is developing legs (pun intended) and becoming more common.

While it may be seen as innovative in the sit down meeting business culture it’s not a new concept.  Julius Caesar didn’t allow his commanders, or anyone else, to sit during battle planning strategy sessions in the field.  During World War I some military leaders only had stand up meetings.

The current stand up meeting idea may be traced to a group of software developers.  In 2001 they published the Agile approach to software development.  This method divides projects into smaller and more manageable components.  In daily stand up meetings participants quickly update their peers using 3 criteria: what they’ve done since yesterday’s meeting; what they’re doing today; and what obstacles stand in the way of getting the work done.

One of the objectives of this approach was to drastically reduce or eliminate the long-winded, self serving, CYAing and dishonest reports which are presented in many meetings.  Another goal was to get people to participate, collaborate and be more creative – to stop shopping and playing Candy Crush on their devices.

The preliminary field reports, as well as a small group of research studies, show that stand up meetings meet these goals.  In 1998 Allen Bluedorn, a business professor at the University of Missouri, found that standing meetings were about a third shorter than sitting meetings, while the quality of the decision making was about the same.

A 2014 study by Markus Baer and Andrew Knight, Washington University St. Louis, found that people who stand up in a meeting are more creative, collaborative, pay better attention and less likely to be bored.  They open up and contribute to the discussion more than seated people.  Also, participants were less territorial with their own ideas, while being less critical and hostile towards others suggestions.
(Side bar – In addition to the idea of stand up meetings, managers might consider adopting an overall non sedentary workplace strategy.  Research is showing a correlation between sitting too much and poor emotional, physical and mental health.  The sale of standing up desks has increased dramatically as people become more aware of the benefits of standing vs. sitting during the work day.)

Standing up during meetings, and during the work day, makes good sense and is shown to be an effective business practice on a variety of levels.  Optimistically, it’s a fad that’s on its way to being a standard practice.  After all, the idea worked pretty well for Caesar while he was conquering most of Europe.

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The BWC Settlement Agreement

August 4, 2014 by

business (8)After a long battle and many years of unfair rates to small business owners, the BWC has to pay $420 million to small businesses all across Ohio.  The ruling came last Thursday and agreed with a ruling from 2013 that states that the BWC must refund millions of dollars to small businesses owners. Now that settlement has been reached many small businesses should be getting refunds ranging from a few pennies to millions of dollars according to some reports.

To read more follow the links below.

Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation reaches $420M settlement agreement over rigged premiums

The Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation has reached an agreement to pay $420 million to settle a years-long legal battle over allegations it overcharged business owners for workers’ compensation premiums.

The agency would create a fund to repay the more than 250,000 businesses that were overcharged between 2001 and 2008, according to the settlement disclosed Wednesday.

In a class-action lawsuit filed in 2007, thousands of mostly small-business owners accused the bureau of rigging the system to benefit participants of a special group-rating plan. They asked for $1.3 billion in damages then.

The Ohio 8th District Court of Appeals in a scathing decision in May called the system “a cabal of Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation bureaucrats and lobbyists for group sponsors who rigged workers’ compensation insurance premium rates so that for employers who participated in the BWC’s group rating plan … it was ‘heads you win,’ and for employers who did not participate in the group rating plan … it was ‘tails you lose.’ ”

Columbus Small Businesses Endorse Same Sex Marriage

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Over 250 small businesses in Columbus endorsed same sex marriage on Monday, many saying it would boost business.

“When legislators talk about jobs, jobs, jobs they need to think about this,” said Mark Dempsey, owner of Dempsey’s restaurant.  “When you go to get married there’s a celebration involved. There’s the wedding reception, the wedding itself, there’s flowers, there’s cakes, there’s wedding rings.”

Dempsey’s downtown restaurant is no stranger to politics.  On the walls you can find pictures of everyone from Warren G Harding… to Tip O’Neill and the Gipper… to honest Abe.

Dempsey was joined by other Columbus small business owners today to endorse marriage equality in Ohio.

Kasich approved increase in Ohio’s small business income deduction

Ohio Governor John Kasich recently signed a bill that, among other things, increases the small business income deduction from 50% to 75% of the first $250,000 in net business income.

In an effort to grow Ohio’s economy, last year the Ohio budget bill included significant tax law changes to deliver a $2.7 billion tax cut to individuals and businesses, over the course of three years. The changes included:

• A small business tax cut that enables owners/investors to deduct from taxable income 50% of the first $250,000 in net business income.

• A 10% personal income tax cut to be phased in over three years. In 2013, Ohio tax rates were reduced by 8.5%.

• New assistance for lower-income Ohioans in the form of an Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) equal to 5% of the amount claimed for the federal EITC.

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It Doesn’t Stop at Adolescence – Negative Peer Pressure in the Workplace

August 4, 2014 by

business (1)Peer pressure.  Everyone knows what peer pressure is, they’ve seen the afterschool specials, heard the lectures in 9th grade health class and had multiple adults in their life say, “If _____ jumped off a cliff would you do it too?”  When people talk about it they’re often talking about it in terms of children and teens. But, peer pressure is an issue which never goes away.  This is especially true in the workplace.

Millions of people have been known to say, “This job is just like being in high school again”.  Peer pressure is one of the reasons they say this, yet it’s not addressed with adults in the workplace nearly as well as it is with children and teens in school.  There’s an erroneous assumption that people grow out of their susceptibility to it as they age or mature.

Unfortunately, many people struggle with it throughout their lives, particularly in their employment.  Countless have identified it as their reason for quitting or getting fired from a job.  Almost 80% of people report having been negatively influenced by – or doing the influencing themselves – their co-workers into doing something they didn’t want to do.

There are 2 main categories which employees identify as having been negatively affected by peer pressure.  First, is drinking on the job and/or drinking too much at a company function, which resulted in personal and professional consequences.  The second category is being influenced to steal company resources: time, money, property or services.

Peer pressure, both negative and positive, is important for a company to be aware of and address.  It’s the way corporate culture is formed and maintained.  Employees develop shared ideas, assumptions and ways of behaving, which determine how they perceive and perform their jobs.  It’s how people think and act on a daily basis that most affects the bottom line.   As Nathaniel Banks said, “We have more to fear from the opinions of our friends than the bayonets of our enemies.”

 

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Marketing Tips and Tools you Must Know About

July 21, 2014 by

business (4)The Ohio Small Business Development Center offers great advice and solutions for those entrepreneurs wanting to start a business in the state of Ohio.  From the planning stage to filing legal forms and permits the center offer steps, forms, phone numbers and links to the web sites you may need to begin your journey.  For the marketing and other tools you may need to compete with the big guys, here we offer you articles that can offer you solutions to some of your business decisions for now and in the future.

6 Marketing Ideas Small Businesses Can Learn From Big Brands

Marketing veteran Rob Schuham spends a lot of time encouraging big brands to act like small companies. Be nimble, he advises, be creative, be agile. Take a risk, he tells them, and act like a startup.

And when major clients on his roster at Denver-based Match Action Marketing have listened to his counsel, they’ve backed some groundbreaking campaigns that are instructive not only for their Fortune 100 brethren, but to the little guys, as well.

“If you get a marketing program right, you can set a category on its head,” said Schuham, CEO of Match Action. “The big guys have scale, so they can be kind of a beta test for innovative marketing. Small companies can find useful data points and adapt some of those tactics for their own purposes.”

Three tools every small business can’t do without

Technology can make or break a small business, both at launch and when success has it scaling up. Here are three-must haves to ensure professionalism, maximize productivity, build market share and save money for businesses with 1-10 employees.

Telephony

The phone is still the most common way that your customers, partners and suppliers will communicate with you, so don’t cut corners. But don’t spend more than you have to, either.

For starters, get a dedicated business number. There are services that offer a free basic phone number, or, based on your business needs, you can get a low-cost monthly subscription virtual PBX service, like Cloud Phone, that allows you to get a toll-free or local number with more advanced business features, such as ability to add employee extensions.

Next, decide whether your employees really need deskphones or whether tablets and smartphones are a better fit for their work styles. If it’s the latter, eliminating deskphones can easily save a couple hundred bucks up front in hardware, plus $30 or more per month per employee in service fees. Those savings are a major reason why so many businesses are ditching deskphones in favor of VoIP softphones on tablets, smartphones and laptops.

Why Your Content Isn’t Going Viral (Infographic)

You wrote a kick-butt blog post.

You worked for days on that video.

You stretched all of your graphic design muscles to make an infographic.

And no one shared any of it.

Ouch. You have good content, but it just can’t seem to get any shares.

It doesn’t have to be that way anymore. Who Is Hosting This has  an infographic that explains why your content won’t go viral, and how you can make it do so next time. Here are a couple of the infographic’s tips:

1. Appeal to emotions.

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Should Ohio Raise the Minimun Wage Again?

July 15, 2014 by

business (3)The 2014 Ohio minimum wage beginning this past January went from $7.85 to $7.95 a bit more than the Federal national wage of $7.25, and now the small business community supports a higher minimum wage that some experts believe is good for the economy.  For more news about this and other topics follow the links below.

Why we still don’t know how many small businesses signed up through Obamacare

And why it’s probably not very many.  

In contrast to the widely publicized enrollment numbers on the health care law’s individual marketplace, there’s apparently no way to know how many business owners and employees have signed up through the law’s new small-business exchanges.

By all indications, though, it’s not very many.

One House Republican has twice asked federal health officials to provide data on how many owners and employees have enrolled in and paid for plans through the law’s new insurance marketplaces for small businesses. Since the launch last fall, the employer portals, known as SHOP exchanges, have suffered even more technical problems and delays than the exchange for individuals and families.

“The SHOPs opened, although without online enrollment and many promised features, on October 1, 2013,” Rep. Sam Graves (Mo.), chair of the House Small Business Committee, wrote in his latest letter to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees the exchanges. “Over seven months later, we still do not have any federal and some state SHOP enrollment data.”

A Higher Minimum Wage Is Good for Business

Small business owners realize the benefits of higher pay and a stronger consumer class.

Five years ago this month, the minimum wage reached the lofty sum of $7.25 per hour, the last step in a series of increases Congress set in motion in 2007. It hasn’t been raised since, and after taking inflation into account, the minimum has fallen to an adjusted level of only $6.54. That may change soon. Support for a higher minimum wage now comes from an unlikely source: the owners of America’s small businesses, and CEOs of some the nation’s largest and most respected brands. Meanwhile, recently published research shows that wage hikes at a modest level don’t kill growth and jobs. In fact, the states that have raised their minimums have enjoyed above-average economic growth.

Last week the American Sustainable Business Council and Business for a Fair Minimum Wage released a report of a scientific national poll of small business owners. The poll involved a live telephone survey of 555 small business owners, with between 2 and 99 employees each. Respondents spanned the political spectrum, all regions of the country and a broad cross-section of industries.

Net neutrality important to small businesses, customers

Let me offer the following small-business parable:
Lou owns a small business, a pizzeria, in a city with only one highway.
Everyone must use this one highway to get to work, go shopping, see a movie and connect with friends. It’s a critical infrastructure for the whole community.
Lou uses the highway for home delivery of his pizzas and to get supplies for his restaurant.
Until now, everyone in the city could use the highway equally. But the on-ramps to the highway are privately owned.
Even though the highway was built with government money, one day the on-ramp owners decided to create a fast lane. Now you have to pay them a lot to get anywhere if you want to get there quickly.

Lou’s competitors — huge national pizza chains — can afford to pay this toll. But Lou can’t, so he’s always stuck in the slow lane, which is more crowded than ever.

When a football fan orders one of Lou’s pizzas, it arrives in the fourth quarter instead of at halftime. Lou loses a lot of customers because the highway isn’t open to everyone equally.

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Social Intelligence – A Leadership Imperative

July 15, 2014 by

business (7) We all know someone who’s smart, whose intelligence is unquestionable.  Yet, he or she is socially awkward, has few friends and struggles being successful personally and professionally. They often say the wrong thing at the wrong time in social situations because they’re unable to read the crowd.  They usually aren’t achieving what they or others believe is their full potential.

In the past it was thought that a person’s professional and personal potential could be measured and predicted by their Intelligence Quotient (IQ).  But, this theory is limiting and doesn’t adequately identify the diverse human behaviors needed to achieve success.  Intelligence is multidimensional and comprised of different, overlapping and equally important subsets.

Social Intelligence (SI) is one of the subsets and is often referred to as “people skills”.  It used to be believed that people either had them or they didn’t.  Fortunately, while some of the “skills” are innate, SI can be studied, practiced and learned, which is positive news for anyone wanting to be an effective leader.

A successful leader must be able to connect with people, then effectively influence and motivate them to collaborate.  This is accomplished through understanding social and group situations and the dynamics which govern them.  SI is the ability to observe people’s interactive styles and use the knowledge to develop effective strategies, which help a leader achieve his or her objectives though others.

However, SI is not limited to reading other people well.  An influential leader has awareness of and insight into their own perceptions and reaction patterns. Through experience and on-going education they learn to accurately assess the impact of their behavior on others, using this knowledge to lead and inspire.

It’s assumed that people automatically learn to get along with others as they mature and gain experience.  Unfortunately, a quick look around the typical workplace shows this is not the case.  Most people don’t continue to learn and grow as they age – they never acquire the awareness and skills needed to succeed in professional or personal social situations.

Nevertheless, people who lack insight and competence, when interacting with others, can make significant improvements in their SI abilities at any time regardless of their age or circumstances.  And once the basic skills and knowledge are learned they’ll be able to experiment with additional behaviors and new interaction strategies.  Social Intelligence can increase throughout one’s life giving anyone an improved chance of reaching their full potential.

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BWC and Other News

July 8, 2014 by

business (1)News about Ohio and what is happening in the state are important to all of us.  News about the Ohio Bureau of Workers compensation refusal to pay small business across Ohio what it owes them is not only negligent but devastating to the morale of Ohio Businesses and the local economies.  Small business owners deal with a myriad of issues in a daily basis, making government issues not only hard for them to do but impossible to fulfill is an obstacle and encumbrance to the well being of our economy.

Pressure Mounts On Gov. Kasich To Force BWC To Pay Back Small Businesses

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Pressure on Gov. John Kasich to pay back hundreds of millions of dollars to more than 250,000 small businesses is mounting.
An NBC4 investigation into overcharges that sunk thousands of small business across Ohio is now going statewide.

An advertising campaign based on the NBC4 investigation is set to air on TV Friday, asking Kasich to get involved in the payback.

Ron Foreman is front and center in an ad campaign aimed directly at Kasich.

“I gathered my family together and told them, ‘Things are going to have to change because Daddy is going to have to file bankruptcy,'” Foreman said in the commercial.

Kasich plans small-business swing to 3 Ohio cities 

HAMILTON, OHIO: Ohio’s governor will focus on small businesses in a swing through three western Ohio cities.

Gov. John Kasich has Tuesday stops in Hamilton, the Dayton area and Tipp City. The Republican is seeking re-election this November. He will begin the day at Hamilton Caster, a business that makes casters, industrial wheels and other products and dates back more than a century in the Butler County seat.

A campaign announcement with the National Federation of Independent Business/Ohio is planned there. The small business association recently announced its endorsement of Republican Attorney General Mike DeWine’s re-election.

Ohio entrepreneurs should learn about new health coverage options: Grant Lahmann

Pundits and politicians from Ohio to Oregon have spent years bemoaning the new health care law and its impact on the economy, and on small businesses, in particular. But the law has been in full effect for six months now, and the real-life implications of it are anything but dismal.

A recent report shows the Affordable Care Act actually increased the gross domestic product for the first quarter of 2014, and here in the Buckeye State, almost 155,000 individuals, self-employed and small business owners and their workers have already found affordable insurance through the new insurance marketplace created by the health care law.

In case you’re not already familiar with it, Ohio’s marketplace has two branches — one for individuals, the other for small businesses. The individual marketplace is available to any self-employed individual or small business employee whose employer doesn’t offer insurance. Open-enrollment for the individual marketplace is closed, but enrollment for 2015 begins on November 15 this year.

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Small Business News you Cannot Afford to Miss

June 25, 2014 by

business (10)The Small Business Administration office of Advocacy defines a small business as an independent business that has fewer than 500 employees.  This comprises 99.7% of all U.S employer companies and provides almost 50% of the private sector employment in the U.S.  In 2010 there were 27.9 million small businesses, and government agencies and officials realize the importance of this sector for the U. S. economy when dealing with policies and tax breaks.

Read more about this topic by following the links below.

Why Congress can’t afford to ignore small businesses this fall (5 reasons)

Right up there with cheesy slogans and attack ads, praise for small businesses has become a staple of campaign season in Washington.

It’s likely to be the same again this fall, and with good reason. Congressional hopefuls, both incumbents and their challengers, can’t afford to overlook the nation’s smallest employers, not just because the rest of the country has a soft spot for them, and not just because it makes for sound economic policy.

Rather, small business owners themselves represent a key voting bloc — individually not with quite the sway of large corporations, of course, but influential just the same. Here’s why.

1. They vote

Only about three in four eligible Americans are registered to vote, according to most estimates, and barely more than half cast a ballot during the 2012 elections, according to research by the Bipartisan Policy Center.

DCA Commisioner Menin Promises ‘Big Announcements’ on Small Business Fines

City Department of Consumer Affairs Commissioner Julie Menin promised a group of small business owners a series of “big announcements” in the coming weeks around the agency’s inspection and fines process.

Speaking this morning at the annual meeting of the Columbus Avenue Business Improvement District, Ms. Menin pledged to follow through on Mayor Bill de Blasio‘s campaign declaration that he would lessen burdensome regulations on small business owners.

“As a former small business owner, and one who dealt a lot with the DCA, I really know what it’s like to have a DCA inspector come and not know what they’re looking for,” Ms. Menin told the audience of around 50 business owners from the Upper West Side area in the breakfast meeting at Isabella’s restaurant. “We’re already starting to make changes at DCA.”

Even Small Business Owners Can Use These Tax Breaks

Two recent news clips caught my attention. One involved a company trying to avoid the IRS. The other involved the IRS trying to avoid trouble. Taken together, I can see how a small business owner might cynically ask if a small business has a fighting chance as far as taxes.

The first news item was about the latest rage in large company tax planning: “tax inversions.” U.S. companies seek to sidestep U.S. corporate taxes by relocating offshore through foreign mergers. The most recent example is the proposed Medtronic/Covidien merger. Even though Covidien has headquarters in the U.S., officially it is located in Ireland where the top marginal tax bracket is 10% lower than in the U.S. Apparently Medtronic hopes to save taxes by merging with an Ireland-based company.

The second news item relates to an ongoing scandal where the IRS is accused of targeting certain not-for-profit organizations because of their political leanings. The IRS announced this month that it can’t find two years of emails from Lois Lerner (the former head of the troubled not-for-profit tax division) to the Departments of Justice or Treasury. An agency spokesman blames a computer crash.

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Complacency is Not a Successful Management Style

June 23, 2014 by

business (10)“I don’t want to rock the boat”  “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.” “This is the way we have always done it.”  “It’s not that bad, let’s just wait and see.”  In today’s tentative business climate who hasn’t heard these statements from their managers.  You’ve probably said some of them yourself.

Over the last several years the workplace has been in transition, managers have hunkered down to wait it out or for it to blow over.  Unfortunately, while waiting, many managers have turned reasonable caution into unproductive complacency.  They’ve become complacent about their current jobs and future careers, no longer innovating for their company or themselves.

Complacency is defined (Merriam-Webster) as: 1. self-satisfaction, especially with one’s merits, advantages, or situation, often without awareness of potential or actual dangers or deficiencies 2. A feeling of unaware or uninformed satisfaction with how things are and not wanting to try to make them better.  It’s an unsatisfying, self-sabotaging, unproductive and potentially destructive way to think and behave.  Here are 6 ways to tell if you’ve become complacent.

You’ve lost your excitement – Have you begun to lose passion for your work?  Or have you already lost it and are no longer excited about your job or career?  Your passion may have disappeared or just gone astray, but either way it’s important to find it again.  Passion fuels excellence, gives you something to strive toward and helps sustain high performance, which makes it worth getting up in morning.

You look for shortcuts – Are you as thorough or detailed as you once were?  Many complacent mangers count on their past successes and good reputations to cover for their current laziness.  They become a liability to themselves and the company.

You no longer invest in yourself – Are you focused on success in your current job and long term career?  Complacent people stop investing time, money and energy to meet their goals and objectives; they no longer strive to improve.  They don’t maintain relationships with in-house and outside colleagues, network or attend trainings.

You’ve stopped learning – Do you think you’ve learned everything you need to know?  Managers who are “know it alls” are particularly dangerous to an organization.  They’re disruptive, negative, poor team players and routinely disliked by their co-workers.

You’ve stopped thinking and disengaged – Have you stopped asking questions and challenging yourself or others?  Complacent supervisors go along to get along.  They specialize in doing only what they’re told to do and bring little value to the company or to their careers. They’re seldom collaborative and do little to move company objectives forward.

You don’t take risks – Are you looking for the next calculated risk that will move you and your company forward?  Risk is healthy and essential in work and in life.  Complacency makes people poor judges of constructive risk vs. destructive risk.

We all have supervised, worked with or for people who are complacent mangers and have been frustrated by this management style.  It’s unsuccessful at its best and destructive at its worst.  It’s highly probably that George Patton was talking about just such a person when he said, “We herd sheep, we drive cattle, we lead people.  Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.”

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