A Customer-Centric Culture is Everyone’s Job

September 5, 2014 by

business (7)Jim was making a large purchase of electronic equipment, add-ons and accessories.  He did his research on-line and was planning to buy it all on-line.  However, he wanted to see some of the components, so he went to a big box store.  The salesman was attentive, informative and offered discounts on various items.  Jim made a several thousand dollar purchase in the store due to the salesman’s help, knowledge and flexible pricing.

Jim was so impressed with the customer service that he asked to talk to a manager, to compliment the salesman.  After some time the manager showed up complaining that he was on a break and was unhappy with being interrupted.  As Jim tried to praise the salesman the manager was impatient and uninterested.

He even tried to take credit for the sale, arrogantly saying “I taught him everything he knows.  I should be the one you’re thanking”.  Jim walked away still happy with the salesman, but dissatisfied with the company “who should know better than to promote such an oblivious jerk to a management position”.

In a customer-centric culture it’s everybody’s responsibility to understand and uphold the company’s clearly communicated principles.  These succinct and focused set of values and norms guide how employees think and act, day in and day out.  It’s a culture where the customer’s perspective and experience is embedded into the company’s DNA.

Establishing and maintaining this culture is an on-going project which requires discipline and commitment at all levels.  All of the employees are responsible for monitoring, supporting and mentoring each other.  The best customer-centric cultures flow from top to bottom and bottom to top.

When the principles are at the center of every action, decision, conversation and strategy it becomes harder for a company to lose its way.   The company’s purpose becomes the companies “why and how”.  Why are we doing this?  How will it help the customer?  It helps a company stay focused on the reason why they’re doing what they’re doing – their purpose for being in business in the first place.

Then everything they do to design the customer’s experience will be aligned with this purpose.  Remember, customers buy from and return to the brands that they feel committed to, ones with which they feel aligned.  Many companies lose their purpose and then lose their focus, which weakens their customer’s commitment, leading to the business faltering and eventually failing.

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Obamacare and Tax Refunds for Small Businesses

September 4, 2014 by

business (8)According to certain reports by the SEIU.org Ohio ranks 35th.in the nation for health Status. It also states that as the Affordable Care Act is fully implemented, close to a million Ohio residents will gain access to affordable health care. Diabetes, asthma and obesity have plagued the nation in recent years and Ohio is not immune to those health risks. Being able to afford health care is for many individuals a problem of insurmountable proportions and President’s Obama Health Care Act gives them the hope of obtaining health coverage for them and their families this year.

For more news about Ohio, follow the links below.

After delays, Obamacare options for small businesses coming to Ohio soon

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Obama administration has selected Ohio and four other states for what it says is “early” access to an Affordable Care Act program offering health insurance to small businesses.

This will allow businesses with up to 50 employees to look for competitively priced health coverage for 2015 through the Small Business Health Options Program, or SHOP, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The federal SHOP program was supposed to be in place this year but was pushed back amid numerous problems in starting up the ACA’s main program, covering individuals. Some states with their own enrollment processes did not have these problems and were able to start SHOP anyway, but Ohio was one of many relying on the federal enrollment mechanisms.

Small business owners get hefty state tax refunds

The state is refunding millions of dollars to small business owners who overpaid their taxes in previous years and were not aware of the errors.

An Ohio law signed this year by Gov. John Kasich forces the Ohio Department of Taxation to refund overpaid taxes to companies. State officials said so far they have cut refund checks for $29 million.

Previously, if a business wasn’t aware it had overpaid and didn’t request a refund, the money would be held at the department of taxation, and once statutory deadlines passed, the money would roll into the state treasury, officials said.

“It was just wrong. The policy was anti-business. It was terrible, so we have changed it. Who knows how many millions and millions of dollars should have been in the hands of business people across this state for many years and it’s lost forever,” Ohio tax commissioner Joe Testa said.

Down-ticket Dem candidate talks small business in Athens

The Democratic nominee for Ohio Secretary of State, state Sen. Nina Turner, visited Athens Tuesday to meet with various area small-business owners to learn about ways to help if she is elected in November.

Turner, a Cleveland Democrat, said in an interview that she was in Athens to hear the experiences of small-business owners, and hear their ideas about the local business environment and how to improve the Secretary of State’s Business Services Division. She called the division a key component of her plans for the office.

“It was such a pleasure sitting down with these business owners and leaders in their community to discuss the situation on the ground in Athens and learn their stories of starting their businesses and making them successful,” said Turner.

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Women In Business

August 28, 2014 by

business (10)There are more than 9 million companies that are owned by women.  They employee close to 8 million people, and together they accomplished sales close to 1.5 trillion dollars as of this year. With those statistics one wonders why it is still hard for a business woman to get a loan from a bank or get the same benefits than their male counterparts get. To read more about this topic and to read more about Ohio’s economy outlook, follow the links below.

Ranking state economies: See where Ohio falls

Ohio’s economy is something of a mixed bag, at least according to Business Insider, which has ranked all 50 states.

The Buckeye State ranks No. 25.

Here’s what Business Insider has to say about Ohio:

“Ohio has a disproportionate number of manufacturing and health services jobs. However, Ohio’s scores on our measures were very much a mixed bag:

On the bright side, Ohio’s unemployment rate dropped sharply over the past year, from 7.4% in June 2013 to 5.5% in June 2014.

The housing market in Ohio, on the other hand, is not recovering as quickly as it is in many other states. Ohio saw a small 0.1% drop in housing prices between Q1 2013 and Q2 2014.

Similarly, Ohio faces demographic challenges, with the working age population shrinking by a marginal 0.1% between 2012 and 2013, one of only 13 states to show a decline in this population.

Women small business owners struggle to get loans

NEW YORK (AP) — Women are a growing force in the business world, but if they own a company, they may still struggle to get a loan from a bank.

Carrie Charlick and Marcia Cubitt have $4 million in sales but have been rejected for $500,000 credit lines since 2012. Their 11-year-old company, Essential Body Wear, sells women’s underwear at parties at customers’ homes. That’s a problem for bankers, Charlick says. Because the Detroit-based business doesn’t have a traditional structure and sells directly to the public rather than retailers, banks keep saying no.

“We don’t have receivables and we don’t own a building,” she says. “We don’t have collateral.”

Male loan officers have also made inappropriate comments about the fact the company sells lingerie. Charlick is convinced that they have a problem with women-owned businesses.

Women owners have long been at a disadvantage getting loans. Some states required husbands or other male relatives to co-sign business loans until the practice was outlawed by the Women’s Business Ownership Act of 1988. But women’s business loan approval rates are between 15 percent and 20 percent below men’s, according to the online lending marketplace Biz2Credit.com.

Several factors contribute to the problem. Banks historically have been gun-shy about small businesses, and that caution increased due to stricter government regulations after the 2008 credit crisis. Often, women-owned businesses are young, making them look risky to lenders.

Greg Abbott celebrates growth in women-owned businesses in Texas, overlooks meaningful details

In an email blast, Greg Abbott’s campaign said Texas businesses owned by women flourished with Barack Obama in the White House.

Abbott, the attorney general and Republican gubernatorial nominee, wasn’t saluting the Democratic president. In the July 10, 2014, email message, Kim Snyder, Abbott’s deputy campaign manager, called Texas the “land of opportunity – especially for women.” Texas does better than other states, Snyder wrote, adding: “Let’s compare: the growth rate of women-owned businesses in Texas has nearly doubled that of the nation since President Obama has taken office.”

A reader, bringing the email to our attention, wondered about the described growth rates.

To our inquiry, Abbott spokesman Avdiel Huerta said by email Abbott’s near-doubling reference was based on reports by American Express OPEN, which American Express describes as the leading payment-card issuer for small U.S. businesses.

According to the 2013 State of Women-Owned Businesses report, Huerta said, there were 8,617,200 woman-owned U.S. firms, including 737,300 in Texas, in 2013. In 2007, AMEX said there were 7,793,139 woman-owned firms nationally and 610,007 in Texas, Huerta said.

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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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Ohio’s Year End Surplus

August 14, 2014 by

business (3)With a surplus of $475 million the Ohio government is finishing the year better than expected.  And although the recommendation is to be cautious with this surplus, lawmakers are still unsure what they will do with it. It could mean tax cuts or debt payments for the state of Ohio or they can tap into the funds for additional spending for the next years.

To read more about this and other topics follow the links below.

Main Street Ohio Retailer Needs Congress to Pass E-Fairness Legislation

For nearly 40 years, I’ve held the reins at Baker and Baker Jewelers in downtown Marietta, Ohio. Spanning nearly a century, Baker and Baker has grown and evolved along with our community. Over the years, I’ve had to contend with a lot, but the current disparity between how our nation’s tax laws treat brick-and-mortar businesses like mine compared with our online competitors is perhaps one of the most insurmountable obstacles we’ve ever had to face. For the sake of Main Street businesses and communities nationwide, it’s time for Congress to do something to fix this problem once and for all.

Currently, most if not all of my online competitors are exempt from collecting and remitting state sales taxes. Meanwhile, brick-and-mortar businesses like mine must collect and remit these taxes every day on every purchase, putting me at an immediate 7.25 percent disadvantage here in Marietta. As any small-business owner will tell you, this is enough to make or break a business. I can generally match or beat a price — I have no issue competing against a nearby retailer or an online competitor — but I can’t tell a customer that I won’t bother charging them sales tax. The government would probably throw me in jail if I did that, yet my online competitors are invited to do that every day.  How is this a free market?

Ohio’s projected year-end surplus grows despite tax cuts 

Even as projected revenue is reduced because of new income-tax cuts, the state budget office now estimates the state will finish the fiscal year with nearly $632 million more than it will spend.

Once the mandatory carry-over is subtracted, the early estimate is the state will end June 2015 with a surplus of about $475 million. That’s money lawmakers could seek to tap into via tax cuts, debt payments or additional spending when they return in November, or next year.

The estimated surplus is unusually high — 2.1 percent of the general revenue fund compared with the 0.5 percent that budget officials often target. Tim Keen, the state budget director, said continued Medicaid underspending — there are roughly 200,000 fewer Ohioans on Medicaid than anticipated — is driving the surplus higher.

Ohio’s rainy-day fund is at its legal capacity — around $1.5 billion — so the question is what Gov. John Kasich and lawmakers will choose to do with the surplus money, should it actually materialize. Keen, as he often does, is urging caution.

“We’ve worked very hard to regain the fiscal stability of the state, and we ought to be very conservative and cautious with what commitments we make, particularly because much of this is from underspending,” he said.

Dayton given an ‘A’ from small businesses

The city of Dayton is rated the top business friendly metro city in Ohio, according to a survey of small business owners.

Small business owners gave Dayton an A- for its overall friendliness and tax code, according to the survey of 12,000 U.S. small businesses done by Thumbtack.com in partnership with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

“It’s a good environment for our firm, and we’ve had a lot of support from the community through the years,” Tom Thickel, president of architecture firm Levin Partners Associates, said about Dayton.

Nearly 80 percent of businesses in Dayton are considered small businesses, meaning they have fewer than 50 employees, according to Dayton Chamber of Commerce vice president Chris Kershner.

Downtown Dayton Partnership president Sandy Gudorf said small businesses help add to the job creation needed in Dayton.

“We’ve seen significant activity in small business growth in downtown. This is a great community for a small business,” Gudorf said.

Gina Jones, owner of Green Baby, an organic baby specialty store, said Dayton has opportunities she wouldn’t have gotten otherwise.

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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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Are you Ready for Retirement?

July 31, 2014 by

business (9)There are many compelling reasons why business owners should pay more attention to their retirement plans.  Often times the responsibility to fund a pension plan for them and for their employees fall on the shoulders of the business owner and more times than not it is relegated for a later date that never comes. Here are three compelling reasons why you should talk to an accountant and financial advisor to help you plan for your future.

  1. It is a financial responsibility you have to your employees and yourself to secure a future that will provide financial stability later on.
  2. Talk to an accountant or financial advisor for potential tax benefits for your business when setting up a retirement plan.
  3. Having a retirement plan can secure your top performers or attract new ones that can benefit your business.

Read more about this and other news by following the links below.

Preparing Small-Business Owners for Retirement

Advisers also can help clients figure out what to do with their time after they retire.

Small-business owners often are so busy working that they don’t take time to plan for their retirements.But that is clearly a mistake, financial advisers say.In turn, advisers are helping these entrepreneurs more accurately value their businesses as well as their personal expenses, and figure out how to spend their time once they…

Small business hiring cools off in July

Not quite the blistering pace reported in June.

Hiring by small businesses cooled off this past month, mirroring a similarly modest slowdown across the broader economy, according to a new report.

Small employers added 84,000 workers in July, down from a two-year high of 126,000 new positions added the month before, according to payroll processing firm ADP. Initially, the company had reported that small businesses (fewer than 50 employees) had added 117,000 jobs in June.

Overall, the economy added 218,000 positions in July. While that’s down from 281,000 last month, it’s otherwise the highest monthly total since November.

Workers are finally getting raises again

One more sign that life is improving for American workers: paychecks are finally growing faster.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that workers’ wages and salaries grew by a seasonally adjusted 0.6 percent during the second quarter, the fastest pace since the third quarter of 2008.

Wages and salaries only make up 70 percent of total compensation, including benefits. Total compensation costs as a whole also grew by a seasonally adjusted 0.7 percent during the second quarter.

Though it’s true that wage growth was much faster before the Great Recession, the news is still a sign that the labor market is tightening, as increased demand for labor helps boost paychecks.

 

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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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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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