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Planning and promotion keep your spa or salon booming all year
Depending on factors like location, customer mix and the kinds of services offered, most salons and spas experience cyclical highs and lows in business volume. The holidays or the first blush of...
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Look around! Inspiration sources are hiding in plain sight.
What inspires you as a small business owner? By definition, you must be inspired—not every minute or every day or even every week—but often enough to help you re-frame problems, come up with new...
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Cash flow affects businesses in positive or negative ways
Cash flow. Are these words music to small business owners’ ears, or do they represent one of the most vexing and ongoing challenges small business owners face? As it turns out, the answer is both:...
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Non-stop planning: Time to turn your sights to Q4
Time flies, but business owners say that for them, time moves at the speed of light. The proof is on the calendar: Q3 2013 is here—already. Rather than panic that the year is slipping away, turn it...
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Customer expectations, demands an evolving & intriguing mix
Quick! What’s most important to customers: Convenience? Value? Service? You’d be correct if you answered “all of the above,”—but only partially… It used to be if you met those three customer...
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Boosting profitability may be more doable than you think
Would you like to make your business more profitable? Is this a trick question? There’s not a business around that wouldn’t like to see some additional profit flowing to the bottom line. But, if you’re...
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Why aren’t you delegating more?
As any business owner will tell you, growing a small business is a rollercoaster of OJT, or on-the-job training. Facing an endless stream of new challenges, business owners are constantly figuring out...
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Feeling stuck? Could your business use some working capital?
If you’re struggling with cash flow—and what small business hasn’t been there—or just feeling stuck in general, could it be that you need working capital? Many equate the need for capital only with...
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Want to be more productive? Learn to unplug.
Work harder, work longer, work smarter. Hire staff. Expand into new markets. These are just a handful of the things we can do to boost our businesses’ productivity. But there’s another, powerful...
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Where are the best cities for ‘small business vitality’?
Where in the U.S. are small businesses most likely to thrive? Writer G. Scott Thomas reported exclusively on the best cities in America for small business for The Business Journals earlier this...
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10 innovative businesses that will have you saying ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’
Thousands of small businesses do a fantastic job of fulfilling basic, everyday needs, competing in crowded categories where competitors sell similar things or variations on the same things. This is...
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CRM systems gaining popularity fast with small businesses
Managing customer relationships is a big deal for all businesses. But for small businesses, it often falls on the priority list—for no another reason other than there are just not enough hours in the...
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How to save money when looking for office space
Image courtesy of vorakorn / FreeDigitalPhotos.net If you’re in the market for new office space it can be an expensive time. However, there are a few places you can reasonably save money without...
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Mobile payments technology seek inroads to small businesses
Photo courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net If you aren’t already, accepting mobile payments is clearly in your future. Mobile payment technology is here to stay, plain and simple. But it...
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Diversify or die! Creative solutions will help you survive
Diversify or die! That sounds a little dramatic. Have you ever heard that saying and thought that maybe, just maybe, it was a bit of an exaggeration? Well, as it turns out, it’s not an overstatement at...
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10 Ways to Protect Your Business from ‘Traditional’ Crime
Cyber crime gets a lot of attention, as well it should: Cyber criminals increasingly target small businesses that they perceive as having looser security than larger companies. But traditional crime is...
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How much does office space influence job performance?
One of the most-debated topics in the working world is what makes a productive environment. Trends come and go, businesses try out various approaches. And yet, the question continues to be asked, over...
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Laugh it up at work! (But be positive & politically correct)
We all love to laugh, right? In fact, we’re probably hard-wired to laugh. That’s why we keep going back time and time again to photos of grinning dogs and videos of cackling babies. Laughing just feels...
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The power of lunch: Don’t make a habit of skipping it!
If you watch the hit show Mad Men, you know that in the 60s, lunch was an event. Bosses and employees alike left the office for lunch; there was eating and drinking and negotiating and new-business...
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Do business worries keep you up at night? You’re not alone
Small business owners are notorious for keeping 1,001 things in their heads at all times. No wonder your head sometimes feels like it will explode! But it means that if you’re a typical small business...
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