Don’t Let Passive-Aggressive Employees Harm Your Business

August 8, 2016 by

64735957Passive-aggressive is a word you hear people use a lot.  But, many of them use it to describe someone’s actions when it doesn’t actually apply.  They don’t seem to understand what it really means; it’s just a buzz word.

Small business owners are some of the people who don’t understand it.  Overall, they rarely recognize the behavior and don’t see how it’s negatively affecting their company.  That’s a problem, because odds are they’ve had in the past, currently have or will in the future have passive-aggressive employees.

The smart owner will learn what passive-aggressive behavior is, be able to recognize it and know how to manage it.  If it’s not managed it can and will: undermine authority, damage morale, lower productivity and quality, harm customer/vendor relationships, create a hostile work environment and increase staff turnover. 

It has turned functional operations into nonfunctional ones, without the owner knowing how it happened.  The behavior is hard to identify if you don’t know what you’re looking for.  It’s a sneaky, deliberate, sabotaging, underground way for an employee to express anger at his boss, managers, co-workers and the company, without getting caught doing it.

He wants to avoid direct, face-to face communication (passive), while still being able to act on his anger (aggressive).  He thinks his anger is justified, but won’t state his concerns or dissatisfaction directly.  Passive-aggressive people believe others “must pay” for their unhappiness, and they “get back” at them in indirect ways. 

Some of these ways include:

  • Always having excuses (“good reasons”) for not doing tasks they’ve agreed to do, have been assigned to do or are their regular job duties.
  • Regularly missing clear deadlines, with excuses for why they couldn’t meet them.
  • Withholding information, sometimes critical, from others while feigning ignorance — “All they needed to do was ask me for it.”
  • “Stirring things up,” then standing in the background to watch the fireworks.
  • Going over someone’s head or behind their back to make them appear incompetent.
  • Using innuendo and rumor to sabotage others and their work. 
  • Not taking responsibility for their actions/words, while repeatedly blaming others.
  • Giving others vague, incomplete instructions and blaming them when the job goes wrong.
  • Claiming information has been sent when it hasn’t — “The text, email, fax, phone message must have gotten lost.”
  • Appearing busy (texting, emailing, walking around) without doing any identifiable work.
  • Taking credit for others’ work.

Doing some of these things doesn’t make a person passive-aggressive, it makes them human.  Instead, look for someone who has a pattern of consistently deflecting fault by having an excuse — which includes blaming someone or something else — for doing poor or incomplete work.  He believes he’s a victim, but it’s really the business that’s a victim of his behavior.

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Small Business News For The Entrepreneur

August 3, 2016 by

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It seems that after so many months of uncertainty about the US economy, reports are becoming more encouraging for the US. A  Deutsche Bank strategist writes that in the last past two weeks the US market has surprisingly jumped into positive territory for the first time in almost two years.

With more jobs in manufacturing and services, the result should be a positive economic growth for the small business owner as well.

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

How These Entrepreneurs Are Living the Startup Life 24/7

If you occasionally get nostalgic for college – missing its around-the-clock access to homework help and social outlets — or if you’re tired of the lonely business owner’s life, you may be captivated by the idea of living with a group of entrepreneurs. But could you take the constant stream of ideas, the high energy, the 24/7 lifestyle? To some, such as Chandler Bolt, this living situation is nothing short of a profitable dream come true.

Bolt, the founder of Self-Publishing School, has lived in San Diego for the last year with four other super smart and motivated online entrepreneurs. The goal in creating the living arrangement was to create an intentional community of likeminded business people intent on improving every level of their lives – from physical to financial.

“I thought, ‘Why not put five people in a house?’” Bolt, said. “I thrive best when there’s work going on around me – knowing there’s stuff always happening.”

12 tips for creating a must-read business blog

Business owners, bloggers and online marketers discuss what small businesses can do to drive traffic to their blogs, increase their page views and keep readers coming back for more.

Too often business owners start blogging in the hope that it will drive traffic to their business, only to quickly fall into the trap of posting stale or sales-heavy content that gets no or few views. Then they become frustrated and either blog less frequently or abandon their blog, wondering why they bothered.

1. Think about and write for your target audience. “Think about the audience you are trying to attract to your blog and share content that is relevant, interesting and valuable to that specific demographic,” says Arsineh Ghazarian, cofounder & CEO, Zveil.

July Small Business Job Growth Is Positive, Paychex CEO Mucci Tells CNBC

Paychex (PAYX) CEO Martin Mucci discussed the country’s July small business job growth, which slowed from last month, on CNBC today.

NEW YORK (TheStreet) — Paychex  (PAYX) CEO Martin Mucci explained the outsourcing solutions company’s somewhat weak July survey results on small business job growth, which were released Tuesday morning, with CNBC‘s Brian Sullivan on “Squawk Box.”

Small business job growth was down by 0.12% to 100.68 in July after increasing 0.21% to 100.81 in June, according to the Paychex IHS Small Business Jobs Index.
“It was just a small drop in July after a pretty good increase in June, so we’ve been a bit choppy this year on the overall index but year to date we’re up 0.3% so I think it’s still positive. It’s cautious but it’s still positive,” Mucci said.
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Taxes, Insurance And The Small Business Owner

July 28, 2016 by

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For any business that wants to attract talented employees, marketers agree they need to consider the perks associated with attracting and keeping employees that every business wants.  Health insurance and retirement accounts are the basic benefits that many of these businesses offer. Others include gyms on site and free lunches to their employees without blinking.  But many of these giants offer benefits that many small business owners cannot afford.  And although many employees are lured to the extra benefits they can get, others are happy to work for the small business owner, and be an intricate part of making the small business succeed.

For more about this and other topics, follow the links below.

Should Your Small Business Offer Health Insurance?

For a small business, helping employees sign up for Obamacare often is the best idea for them.

Health insurance is expensive—and getting more so all the time. Does it make more sense for a small company to provide coverage (with employees paying some of the premiums) or let them get a policy on their own through the Affordable Care Act?

Not long ago, it could be difficult and often very expensive for individuals to buy their ownhealth insurance, while the tax code gives an advantage to group insurance provided through the workplace. To keep employees happy and maintain a stable workforce, companies that could afford to offered group insurance.

Now Obamacare, as the law is known, has changed the calculus. Individuals these days can buy insurance with regulated benefits and premiums, and most are eligible for big subsidies. And while companies with the equivalent of at least 50 full-time employees must offer health insurance to those full-time workers or pay penalties, the ACA has no such requirement for smaller businesses.

The upshot is that in many cases, particularly when employees are relatively low-paid, both the company and its employees might be better off if workers buy their own insurance.

Small businesses looking forward to sales tax holiday

A “lackluster” summer for sales have small businesses looking forward to the upcoming sales tax holiday across the state, said Rosemary Elebash, Alabama director of the National Federation of Independent Businesses.

The holiday from sales tax on a host of items including clothing, computers, footwear and much, much more could provide a much-needed lift to many small stores and businesses, said Elebash.

“It’s been a lackluster summer for a lot of small businesses,” Elebash said. “The sales-tax holiday should help people get fired up and in the mood to spend,” added Elebash in a prepared statement from NFIB touting the holiday and its importance to small businesses.

The sales tax holiday begins Friday, Aug. 5 and runs through Sunday, Aug. 7.

The sales tax holiday comes after the latest FIB Small Business Optimism Index, released July 12, shows that small-business confidence improved by only a fraction of one percent in June.

 

Small Business Owners Put Everything They Have Into Their Businesses– Nearly Nine in 10 Say It’s All Worth It

SAN FRANCISCO, July 26, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — More than eight in 10 small business owners (82%) say they put everything they have into their business, according to the second annual Bank of the West Small Business Growth Survey, released today—and an overwhelming majority (86%) say that all they’ve sacrificed for their business has been worth it.

The survey, conducted online by Harris Poll among a national sample of 505 small business owners and an additional 207 California small business owners, delves into the journey of the small business owner, identifying the unique challenges they face and benefits of the job that drive them to persevere through hardships. The survey also spotlights California, and sheds light on unique advantages and challenges felt by women small business owners.

Additionally, this year’s index number (55) and results from the survey show that small businesses have experienced growth and are optimistic in the future of their businesses amid an uncertain economic and political climate. Further, 70 percent of companies surveyed were in growth mode – up from 64 percent last year. The index tracks four key indicators over the previous 12 months: profitability, revenue, investments, and reductions. On the scale of 0-100, a composite score of higher than 50 indicates growth and less than 50 signals decline.

 

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Productivity In The Workplace

July 15, 2016 by

64735957For a small business owner with few employees, matching the right job to the right person may seem easy.  After all, if you hired the right people, you know their qualifications, and their strengths.  It is important to note that delegating business tasks to employees, have to be carefully monitored to ensure that it is done properly in the beginning.  Matching the right job to the right person is one of the most basic decisions a business owner makes, but some times the task seems impossible.  Know your employees, their strengths and their qualifications, and you will have a strong team in your business.

7 Digital Tools to Help You Get More Done Every Day

Think about the last time you completed a huge project, organized your space, or completed a bunch of necessary tasks. When it comes to work, whittling down a to-dolist may be one of the most gratifying things a person can do. To help, here are several tools to skyrocket any office worker’s productivity.

Typeform

If you need any kind of form on your website, this communication tool can help. It’s a software platform that lets visitors register or pay for things, complete job applications, provide ideas for a suggestion box, fill out incident reports, contact your company, or do anything else that necessitates a form. Focusing on a conversational user experience, Typeform is designed to increase response rates from users by making questions more engaging. The platform has 170,000 active users, about 1 million registered users, and launched in beta in 2013.

Price: Plans range from free to $70 a month at Typeform.

Management Starts Here: 5 Ways to Increase Office Productivity

In the business world, lots of decisions come down to the bottom line, and that line is almost always financial. We’re accustomed to looking at whether or not we can afford to make certain decisions.

Productivity is always key; especially in the United States, we’re accustomed to viewing the most productive workers as the best workers.

It’s all well and good to make something great, but if someone else can make 10 things that are good at the same time it takes someone else to make one thing that’s great, well, a lot of companies will choose good over great every time.

Seth Godin calls this mode of thinking the race to the bottom, the urge to compromise instead of insisting on the highest possible quality. We think you don’t have to give up productivity in order to have greatness.

Here are five things you can do to increase productivity and its value while still offering amazing results.

The 8 Digital Productivity Tools Everyone Should Adopt

I’m a super adopter. I love trying out hundreds of new applications, social networks and devices every year. But not everybody wants to live the thousand-app lifestyle. For most people, the goal is to adopt the smallest number of tools necessary to work efficiently. That’s why my friends and colleagues often ask me which technologies I regard as must-haves: the tools and tactics that will make a big impact on their productivity without spending a lot of time or money getting up and running.

While I often find myself recommending specific technologies to people with particular challenges, there are some tools I suggest again and again, because they are useful to just about everybody. In many cases, they are tools that not only benefit individual users, but entire teams, by reducing inbox clutter and communications overhead. But in other cases, they are applications I suggest because I find it viscerally painful to see someone using Microsoft Office for something that could be better accomplished with a purpose-built note-taking or collaboration tool.

 

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Are You Really Delegating?

July 7, 2016 by

64510516A lot of successful small business owners think they’re good at delegating work to others.  However, their employees, sub-contractors, partners, customers and family would disagree with this thinking.  In actuality, most owners aren’t good at delegating responsibility and tasks to others.

The average owner’s way of delegating is some combination of: writing a memo or email, yelling, begging, assuming employees “will figure it out,” threatening, bribing and making promises he won’t keep.  And it’s true — these techniques do work in the short term, but they eventually fail in the long term. 

There’s a better way of assigning responsibility to others, and it’s a method which can be learned.  However, the steps must be practiced to become skilled at them.  But, once they’re mastered they can be used in work, home and social situations. 

The first step is to define the task.  This includes identifying what materials, time, money and people are needed.  The owner sets realistic, measurable targets and decides when progress reports will be due.  The desired goal of the project should be defined.  Employees aren’t mind readers — they should clearly know what’s needed, when it ought to happen and what the expected outcome is.   

Assigning the task to the right employee is the second step.  Now that the task has been defined, matching the right person to the job is important to it being successfully completed.  The right person should have the training, knowledge and ability to do it correctly.   Anything else is a set up for the employee and the owner.

The final step is discussing the task with the assigned employee.  Let the person know why they’ve been chosen for the project; focusing on their value to the company and qualifications.  Go over the job’s requirements, budgets, timelines and goals with them.  Make sure they completely understand what the task requires and what’s expected of them. 

Most owners haven’t learned these steps and struggle with believing they need to do them.  Some say, “I should just be able to tell someone to do something and they should do it.  I shouldn’t have to do anything else.”  While others say, “If I want something done right I have to do it myself.”  Neither way of thinking is productive, especially for long term success.

No matter how intelligent or energetic an owner is his reluctance to learn how to successfully delegate will eventually take its toll.  There’s a tipping point where a too controlling or a too detached management style deters expansion.  Also, over time, these styles affect the bottom line; profitable companies lose ground.  It’s too bad, because once learned it isn’t hard to do.

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Taxes, Economy, and Productivity In the Workplace

July 1, 2016 by

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For many people considering starting their own business, the statistics are not very encouraging.  According to an article in Forbes magazine, 7 out of 10 small businesses survive at least 2 years in the United States, and although some people believe those are grim statistics and do not reflect the real reasons why many business close their doors after two years, the truth is many do close their doors and that’s what counts.  Choosing the best state and the best people to help you start your business seem to be key if you want to succeed.

The Growing Gig Economy’s Impact On Small Business

There’s a trendy term making its way through the business world: the gig economy. As a small business owner, you’ve likely heard it being thrown around at networking events or read about it in industry publications. But what does it mean, and how does it affect your business? In this article, we’ll discuss exactly what the term “gig economy” refers to and how it’s shaping today’s small businesses.

Defining the Gig Economy

There was a time when the word “gig” conjured images of a garage band booking a concert at your local bar and grill. Now, however, the word refers to any project an independent professional completes in exchange for pay.

It can be concluded, then, that the term “gig economy” references the increasing trend in today’s business world toward hiring independent contractors (think interims, consultants, freelancers) as an integral part of companies’ task forces.

State Ranks 10th Worst For Small Business Taxes

Connecticut ranked 10th worst in the country for small business taxes, according to a report issued Wednesday. It is the fourth straight year for that ranking.

The Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council (SBEC) ranked Connecticut 41st of the 50 U.S. states in its annual Small Business Tax Index. The last time the state wasn’t ranked in the bottom 10 was 2012 when it was 40th. The report is issued just ahead of the new fiscal year, which begins July 1. Connecticut did not pass any new taxes in its budget set to take effect Friday.

SBEC uses 25 measures to create a ratings system for the index. The measures include the state’s personal income tax rate, taxes applied to LLCs and other types of companies, gas and internet taxes, among other factors.

Connecticut’s index rating was 65.467, which put it between Nebraska with a 57.933 and Maine at 65.492. South Dakota ranked first at 12.114 and California was last with a rating of 84.547. In addition to Maine, Vermont was another New England state that rated below Connecticut.

7 Small-Business Owners Share Their Best Productivity Tips (Infographic)

Efficiency is a buzzword often bandied about in the office, but what does it actually mean and why is it so important?

Merriam-Webster defines it as “the ability to do something or produce something without wasting materials, time, or energy.” In other words, efficiency — rooted in the Latin verb efficere, which means “to accomplish” — is essentially making haste without waste. In the results now-focused world of business, it’s accomplishing things quickly without frittering away company time or money, both of which many entrepreneurs cannot afford to lose.

To help you mind your business — and, by extension, your bottom line — in good time, the folks at Make It Cheaper, a service that helps small and medium-sized businesses negotiate cheaper rates on insurance, broadband and electricity, have rounded up seven key efficiency lessons from a host of entrepreneurs. From delegating tasks to avoiding distractions, check them out in the short and, yes, efficient infographic below.

 

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Small Business Tips And Information

June 15, 2016 by

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The United States unemployment rate to date is 4.7%, and that’s a rate many considered full employment.  And although the unemployment rate is very low, many people wonder if it is because many people have stopped looking for jobs because they are frustrated with the jobs available to them.  The economy though seems to be growing, but at a smaller rate than the previous two years.  Up to date, the U.S  economy has grown only an 0.8%, when historically has grown 3% in a year.  More than 750 thousand jobs have been added this year, and people are wondering if the economy is not stalling.  For more about small business news, follow the link below.

Every Small Business Owner Should Know The 80/20 Rule

Alternately referred to as the Pareto principle or the law of the vital few, the 80/20 principle is one of the most important concepts in modern entrepreneurship. The term dates back to the 1940s, when the principle was named after pioneering Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto. In brief, the principle states that 80 percent of the effects are derived from 20 percent of the causes. Here are three different ways the 80/20 rule applies to modern-day business practices.

Training Your Staff

Regardless of industry, the success of any for-profit organization depends on the training and talent of its sales staff. To ensure that your sales staff is in the best possible position to succeed, they must receive training that allows them to overcome the objections of potential customers. As noted in this Entrepreneur interview, the best way to meet that objective is to teach your team the 20 percent of the knowledge they’ll need to answer 80 percent of consumer inquiries. Using the 80/20 rule, your training program will be compact enough to get new staffers up to speed as quickly as possible.

Pursuing Leads

The most commonly cited example of the 80/20 rule in business is that 80 percent of your company’s profits will come from 20 percent of your customer base. In order to maximize your company’s profitability, you should pour over your sales data to find what your most lucrative customers have in common. Whether its geography, age or marital status, you will find a commonality among your biggest purchasers, and once you do, you can adjust your marketing strategy to target that specific demographic.

Gene Marks: Here’s how one small business is controlling its healthcare costs.

The numbers are starting to come in and it’s not looking good. Healthcare premiums for both individuals and businesses of all sizes are going up again in 2017.

By a lot.

This is the time of year when insurance companies in each state request approval from regulators to set premiums for the following years. And big increases are being requested. How big? Humana is asking to raise rates by as much as 65 percent in Georgia and 38 percent in Pennsylvania. Providence Health wants to increase rates by almost 30 percent in Oregon. Insurers in Indiana, New Mexico and Maine have all requested rate increases north of 20 percent. Let’s not go into the reasons why all this is happening – there are many. What’s more important is facing up to the fact that healthcare is going to cost my small business a lot more next year. And, like every other business owner in the country, I’m struggling with what to do. How can I keep this huge cost under control?

Get Started: Money, Regulation Are Small Business Challenges

MONEY, REGULATIONS CHALLENGE BUSINESSES, SURVEY FINDS

Small businesses are still struggling to get the money they need and to comply with government regulations, according to a survey by Babson College.

Company owners who took part in the survey said they’ve been able to get only about 40 percent of the money they requested from all sources, including loans and investor funding. The nearly 1,900 survey participants sought a median amount of $100,000, but received only $40,500. The survey also found that banks are companies’ primary source of funding.

Finding money has long been difficult for small businesses, particularly young ones. However, getting loans has been even tougher since the recession because banks are extremely cautious about lending in general.

Businesses that seek funding are most likely to use it to supplement their cash flow or to buy real estate or equipment. Only about 8 percent of the owners said they wanted money so they could hire more staffers — a finding that’s in line with other surveys that have shown owners are conservative about expanding their payrolls.

 

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The Decline of Workplace Productivity

June 1, 2016 by

business (1)Productivity is the quality, state, or fact of being able to generate, create, enhance, or bring forth goods and services- (dictionary.com).  And unfortunately, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics productivity in the workplace is declining and has been for many years, with no clear solution.   You can finger point and blame a group, a department, or even specific individuals, but the truth is productivity in the workplace is declining and management has very few solutions to the problem.

For more about this and other topics, follow the links below.

Workplace productivity declines: Blame millennials (employers agree)

A report by the Dallas Fed was released this morning, showing a significant decline in factory activity during the month of May. With this decline came serious concerns about an increase in labor costs coupled with a lack of productivity from workers.

Akin Oyedele of the Business Insider reported that “most other regional manufacturing indexes, including those from New York, Richmond and Chicago showed that the sector’s rebound is taking longer than anticipated.”

It is alarming to find that Dallas is not the only city to be facing manufacturing decline. “Like Dallas, there was also renewed slowdown in Chicago after a few months of recovery,” said Oyedele.People expressed concerns towards the Department of Labor’s recent changes in salary, with an overtime increase of $47,476 from $23,660 spiking business costs. The overtime salary complaint was heightened by frustrations that workers were not using their time productively, with specific complaints directed towards the younger employees.

Chika Uwazie: How to Increase Workplace Productivity

Wow, it’s another week and instead of seeing happy motivated employees eager to get back to work after the weekend; you see a zombie like crowd just shuffling their way through the doors and into their cubicles. They come to work emotionless, far from motivated and definitely not eager to get back to work. Some even go as far as wearing a T-Shirt that says “I Hate Mondays” (We get it!)

Now, many Nigerian employers do not see that these are the signs of an unmotivated workforce. In case you didn’t know, an unmotivated workforce is an unproductive workforce and an unproductive workforce is the number one killer of business success (we do not want that do we?).

Is Coffee Really Toxic to Workplace Productivity?

Coffee is the staple requirement for any good programmer, and it’s a great way to build your network. But the real cost of those coffees is higher than the price at the till.

In the Observer, writer Isaac Morehouse made a provocative proposition: the habit of grabbing coffee with colleagues or partners “just to chat” is killing our productivity.

“Let’s grab coffee and chat.”

According to Isaac Morehouse, those five words can be damning. Morehouse’s opinion is that when you become known for doing interesting things, like starting a business or writing intriguing articles, lots of people want to have coffee with you. Most of the time, he says, it’s a bad idea.

Morehouse continues:

“Face to face meetings can be valuable. There’s an energy that you don’t get any other way. But the cost is very high, and it’s rare to gain that energy with a stranger. Unless you know from interactions over email, social media, or phone that you and this person have mutual interests and will both be spurred to beneficial action by a coffee meeting, avoid it.”

 

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Small Business Social Media, Cybersecurity, And Social Networking

May 20, 2016 by

54642287Many people around the globe are willing to give a lot of private information about themselves if it means they will get something of value in return.  Researchers found that among these, millennial are the most willing demographic to give information about themselves.  And although the information is of value to these companies, millennials do not seem too concerned whether this information will be use ethically or not.

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

What Small Businesses Need to Know About the Future of Cybersecurity and Hackers

Q: What should small businesses know about for the future of cybersecurity?

A: The truest way to frame the future of cybersecurity is to expect constant change. With estimates ranging from 20 to 50 billion connected devices coming online between now and 2020, the attack surface is expanding at an exponential rate. This fact along with hyper-connectivity brought on by new technologies like 5G will amplify the appetite of bad actors as they try new techniques to attack and disrupt your business. Our industry will continue to take on these new challenges through continuous innovation and recasting how security solutions are built and deployed.

To help thwart the efforts of cybercriminals who target businesses like yours, make it a point to stay informed of what’s going on in cybersecurity and how it may impact your business. Part of staying informed would include how contemporary security solutions are addressing these cybersecurity challenges. I would suggest taking an hour or two each week to understand the cybersecurity trends that are impacting your specific industry (health, finance, manufacturing, retail, etc.) and along the lines of the size of our business.

Why Social Networking Matters For Small Business Owners

Getting the word out about your company is one of the biggest challenges for small business owners today. No matter how great your product is, it can be hard to get noticed when your marketing budget is a fraction of the size of your bigger competitors.

Fortunately, there are a few things you can do to even the score. With websites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Periscope, and more being developed each day, it has never been easier to get more bang for your buck and to use social networking to your advantage.

People Give Money to People

It’s an old fundraising adage that people give money to people. This is not to say that a great idea doesn’t help, but at the end of the day the thing that’s going to attract customers to your brand and keep them coming back is a personal connection.

Social networking helps you make a personal connection by allowing you to give your followers access to a behind-the-scenes look at your business. The swanky Providence-based restaurant North’s Twitter feed is a great example of this kind of approach—almost every post has an image of a new menu, fresh ingredients, or a delicious-looking new dish. Including images is a key strategy for increasing intimacy and creating more effective and shareable social media content.

3 signs your small business should forego social media, and what to do instead

Wait — you thought every business needs a social media presence? Columnist Jordan Kasteler explains why being on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube may not be the right answer for a small business.

If you’re a small business owner, the title of this article may not sit well with you. After all, there’s no shortage of online articles and blog posts insisting that it’s necessary for businesses of all sizes to maintain a social media presence.

Admittedly, having a professionally crafted social media presence does benefit many large companies worldwide. Social media, when done right, can give a brand or a public figure an effective “voice” and let their personality shine. (Even Bernie Sanders can attest to social media’s branding abilities.)

Effective social media practices also can make a company more visible, as well as build trust with its consumers.

However, all this being said, a huge problem exists for small businesses that spend time and effort on social media: The return on investment is often lacking.

Countless small businesses don’t have the ability to do social media right. Is yours one of them? Here are three signs that you need to be getting out of the social media arena:

 

 

 

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Small Business Lending – Are The Terms In Your Favor?

May 4, 2016 by

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Many small business owners try to keep cash in hand to cover payroll and any other contingencies they may have month in and month out.  If some small businesses have problems meeting payroll that month, they have to come with a solution right away.  Small business loans are a solution for them, but sometimes the terms of the loan are not worth the trouble. Small businesses are the most susceptible to scams, or poor loan rates that eventually are more harmful than not.  Before you signed on a loan that you really need, be careful what you are signing for, understand the terms, and borrow only what you need and not more.  Shop around first, and if a bank is not offering the best terms for you, there are many others that will want to work with you, and your business.

For more about this and other topics follow the links below.

SMALL BUSINESS ALTERNATIVE LENDING: Alternative roads to capital will add billions to the small business lending market.

Small businesses are the backbone of the US economy. Small businesses — businesses with less than 500 employees — represent 99% of US companies, 54% of total sales, and 55% of all jobs, according to the US Small Business Administration. And these businesses need capital in order to grow.

But small businesses are underfunded — only half of small businesses with $100,000 to $1 million of annual revenue received at least some of the financing they applied for from large banks in late 2015. This is partially because banks have retreated from this segment because issuing loans to small businesses using the traditional underwriting model is expensive. This leaves a massive amount of unfulfilled loans that we estimate reached $96.5 billion in Q4 2015.

Alternative lending companies have stepped in to capitalize on the opportunity available in helping meet more small business’ lending needs. Alternative small business lending platforms use machine learning and digital tools to extend credit to a wide array of small businesses quickly and efficiently, particularly to those that have been rejected by banks. Alternative small business lending companies provide digital platforms that connect small business borrowers to capital using nontraditional means.

Small Business Loan Approval Rates Surge

Big banks have long been accused of turning a blind eye to small businesses’ credit needs, but things are changing for the better now.

According to the Biz2Credit Small Business Lending Index, March 2016, the monthly analysis of more than 1,000 small business loan applications on Biz2Credit.com, loan approval rates at big banks and institutional lenders has hit new highs.

By contrast, approval rates declined slightly for small banks, credit unions, and alternative lenders.

Key Highlights

Some of the top findings of the monthly study include the following:

  • Big banks approved 23 percent funding requests in March, up two-tenths of a percent from February 2016,
  • Institutional lenders improved their approval rates to 62.8 percent, up from 62.7 percent in February,

Chase Quietly Launches Its Online Small-Business Loan Platform

Following months of behind-the-scenes work with OnDeck Capital, JPMorgan Chase has quietly started offering online loans to its existing small-business customers.

The New York megabank launched its digital lending platform on a limited basis last week, spokeswoman MaryJane Rogers confirmed Monday.

Existing Chase small-business customers are being prescreened, and some of them are being invited to apply for loans of up to $250,000, according to Brian Geary, director of platform solutions at OnDeck.

JPMorgan has roughly 4 million small-business customers. The bank declined to say how many of those clients have received invitations to apply for a loan, or when its online lending platform will be opened to a broader group of prospective applicants.

 

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