Last-Minute, But Great, Vacation Deals

Finding the best price for a great vacation requires patience and flexibility. If you don’t plan to put a package together at least a year in advance, it’s hard to find the best deals. But, sometimes, waiting until the last minute nets you the best price on a package or even a la carte travel

New Identity Theft Red Flag Rules

Several federal regulatory agencies, including the Department of the Treasury and Federal Trade Commission, have adopted final rules requiring anyone extending credit to adopt policies aimed at fighting identity theft. Here’s what you need to know.

Becoming a “Positive” Control Freak

Anyone who runs a business of any size knows it’s hard not to be a complete control freak. Here’s how to use “positive control” to become a better leader.

Finding the Right Attorney

In much the same way you would seek the help of a qualified tax or financial professional for your business, it helps to hook up with the right attorney from the beginning. You need someone that can give you the right guidance when it comes to legal situations.

Your Competition Has a Personality

Competitive research can take any number of forms, but it may be best to go right to the top. Start by looking at the way leadership at any competitor makes its decisions; it’s actually the key to understanding how those you’re up against will move.

Firing Bad Customers on Their Terms

If you handle the jettisoning of an unprofitable or particularly difficult customer properly, it’s possible to have them view the severing of your relationship as their decision.

Good to Great: Are You a Hedgehog or a Fox?

In his book, Good to Great, author Jim Collins discusses the “Hedgehog Concept.” He says that it’s “not a goal to be the best, a strategy to be the best, an intention to be the best, a plan to be the best. It is an understanding of what you can be the best at. The distinction is absolutely critical.” In this article, Collins describes how the Hedgehog Concept works in developing a foundation for good-to-great companies.

Building a Unique Customer Experience

You’re only as great as your customers say you are. While 80% of companies think they deliver a superior customer experience, less than 10% actually do. So how do you bridge the gap between perception and reality to deliver a great customer experience?

Controlling the Clock: Time Management Resources

You can’t account for every second of every day, but at least you can set key priorities and finish the day feeling as though you’ve accomplished your “must haves.” Here’s a sampling of systems and resources that can help you manage and budget your time.

Top 5 Time-Management Do's and Don'ts

How many times have you sat down to review your e-mail and then looked up at the clock to see that you’d lost a valuable hour? It’s easy to say that you need to both prioritize your time and narrow your focus, but it’s no easy task.

Mapping Business Processes

As your business expands, complexity grows right along with it. While there are any number of steps you can take to main control, business process mapping may be among the most effective.

Charting Small Business Best Practices

Everyone eventually runs into problems that might be just too tough to solve alone. Fortunately, others have taken the steps you’re taking now and best-practice guidelines exist for almost any aspect of your business.

Entrepreneurs Untethered

Small business owners are increasingly abandoning their desktop PCs in favor of laptops. The reason? The value and flexibility of working anywhere.

Cover Yourself with Employee Background Checks

Regardless of what any resume might tell you, you never know who’s coming through your door, and it only takes one employee to affect your entire operation. Here’s how to protect your company with a solid background check.

Is Business Interruption Insurance Right for You?

A business that has to close down completely while the premises are being repaired may lose out to competitors. Business interruption insurance offers compensation for lost income based on a stoppage.

Be the Squeaky Collections Wheel

To make your collections as effective as possible, you first have train your customers to pay from the start, and second, don’t be afraid to be the “squeaky wheel.”

Pre-Qualifying Vendors and Suppliers

For most small business owners, vendors and suppliers are the lifeblood of your business. Pre-qualifying suppliers helps you create lasting partnerships based on trust.

Background Checking Resources

If you’re searching for resources that can help you in the background check process, here’s a list of free and low-cost services, as well as clearinghouse sites, that can get you off to good start.

HSAs, HRAs: Saving for Health Benefits

The world of healthcare for small business continues to be an imperfect one. In fact, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, only 47% of businesses with fewer than 10 employees offer healthcare benefits. While there is still no healthcare silver bullet, shifts in legislation have made a couple more opportunities available for small business.

Finding the Right Resources Online

If you’re going to make a business decision based on something you find on the web, your decisions will only be as good as the site itself. Learn how to spot online content and resources that are credible and verifiable.

Nonprofit Online Small Business Resources

Two well-known nonprofit organizations, the Edward Lowe Foundation and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, offer excellent small-business content and resources.

New Small Business Online Resources

A brief review of recent online small-business services from well-known organizations.

Record Retention: What to Save, How Long to Save It

Retaining certain records does more than help you out at tax time. It can support you if you’re audited by the IRS, help protect you against fraud and in resolving disputes and assist you when employees, vendors or clients seek copies of certain records they may have lost.

Back It Up!

Whether it’s competitive data, your P&L information, customer data or any other information, a dead hard drive, a hacker or other unforeseen circumstance can leave you with no access at all. With the floppy disk all but dead, you have two real choices for robust data backup: an external hard drive or online systems.

Getting Closer to Your Suppliers

It takes time to build trust in any relationship, but the bonds you develop with suppliers are likely among the most important to your business. Once you’ve formed a long-term relationship, you may want to take the next step and create a partnership that can help grow both your businesses.

Negotiating a Better Lease

If you’re moving into a new space for the first time, evaluating new space or dealing with a lease coming up for renewal, you can negotiate better terms. Whether it has to do with rent or the way in which you use the space, you can always find some wiggle room to get your best deal.

Ethics: Setting the Standard for Your Business

Having a code of ethics or written policy in place sends a message to your employees, vendors and customers. It clarifies your expectations for trust, meeting obligations and even serving the community around you, which can define the foundation of your business.

Building an Ethics Policy

Research has shown that businesses with ethics policies in place outperform those that don’t. If you’re looking to create a policy—and it doesn’t have to be voluminous—here’s a set of tools that can help direct you.