Category: Advice
Five Ways to Motivate Your Best Employees
No matter how successful your company’s business plan is, how many investors you can excite, or how many hours you spend working yourself, there’s one thing your company can’t do without if you want it to thrive. Star employees. Great employees are the people that make the behind-the-scenes of your business run smoothly. They’re the…
Comfy Office, Happy Employees: 5 Easy Upgrades
Comfortable office spaces are a must for both you and your employees. A comfortable working environment will make your employees more productive. Whether you’re a retail outlet, a technical service provider, or a warehouse, here are five quick tips on how to increase the comfort factor at your office without breaking down the walls—or breaking…
20 Business Tasks You Can Easily Automate
Between long to-do lists, email responses and the never-ending cycle of meetings, the workday can be consumed by the mundane missions of everyday business life. That’s why taking routine, recurring tasks off your to do list is essential for your productivity. While you may be able to delegate some complicated, repetitious chores to employees, you…
5 Questions With…Modwalls’s Rebecca Lonergan
Our blog series “5 Questions With…” takes a behind-the-scenes look into the lives of our small business customers. Our next installment is below! Name: Rebecca Lonergan Company: Modwalls Location: Aptos, CA Products/Services: Online modern tile store Years in Business: 12 Years Facebook: Modwallstile Twitter: @Modwalls 1) Tell us about your business – what do you…
Can Small Restaurants Get Rid of Tips?
The idea of getting rid of tipping has reached a tipping point at some restaurants–most notably high-end dining rooms in big cities. But is the trend here to stay? And will it trickle down to smaller restaurants? In many states, waitstaff at restaurants depend on tips to round out their paychecks. Minimum hourly wages dip…
5 Questions with…Force Fin’s Susanne Chess and Bob Evans
Our blog series “5 Questions With…” takes a behind-the-scenes look into the daily lives of our small business customers. Our next installment is below! Name: Susanne Chess and Bob Evans Company: Force Fin Location: Santa Barbara, CA Products/Services: Underwater equipment Years in Business: 31 Years Facebook: ForceFin Twitter: @ForceFin 1) Tell us about a day…
Planning a Successful Succession for Your Business
Sometimes in business, you may come to a point where the best option is to shut down. Making the decision to close the doors of your company is difficult, but at times, the hardest choice to make is the right one. This does not mean you’re in dire straits. Perhaps you know the right path…
Three Things that Nobody Told You About Paying Overseas Suppliers
There are many small businesses that do business overseas either importing merchandise to sell in their local markets or exporting products to other countries. When James Cole, Director of Strategic Partnerships at Align Commerce, reached out to me about making a contribution to the OnDeck blog I thought it might be helpful for those in…
Start the Year Off Right: Six Things You Should Do This January
This time of year it’s natural to think about resolutions and how we want to make progress within our business and personal lives. These six things aren’t resolutions, but they’re things we can do right now to start the year off right and prepare your business for a healthy and prosperous year. Review your business…
Your New Year’s Resolution Should Be To Plan Strategically
At the beginning of the new year, business owners are often as eager to make resolutions for their companies as for their personal lives. There’s no better time to turn over a new leaf, to embark on previously neglected projects, or to commit to a change you may have been considering than the start of the New…
Feeling Flush: How to Optimize Extra Cash
You work hard, you put in the hours, and now you’re seeing the effort pay off. When your profits leave you with extra cash in hand, what’s the best way to spend it? Setting up a proactive savings plan can make extra cash a normal thing for your business. However your coffers fill up, here…
How To Get Happy Customers To Write You Online Reviews
In the age of the Internet, reviews of your business are easier than ever for customers to write, and for potential customers to access. Before checking out a new store or the latest restaurant, potential customers frequently whip out Yelp or the company’s Facebook page. Positive reviews boost your visibility, give you a good reputation,…
How to Nail These Four Business Public Speaking Occasions
There’s one thing that consistently tops the lists of people’s fears. It beats spiders, heights or plane crashes—even drowning. It’s public speaking. People would literally rather die than speak publically, according to this 2014 Washington Post poll. But as a business owner, you may be called upon to deliver a speech, with expectations that you’ll…
Open or Shut? How Small Businesses Owners Pick Business Hours
A sign with opening hours is one of the fixtures of a small business storefront. But “open” and “closed” are not quite as black and white as they appear at first, and there are a lot of decisions when it comes to the right times to operate as a small business. When should doors swing…
Building a Team to Defeat the Evil Empire
I was a junior in High School in 1977, when I waited in line for several hours to purchase two tickets to the premier of this new science fiction movie everyone was talking about. “The spaceships actually fly,” one of my friends had said. I wasn’t disappointed. Like most of my friends, I think I…