How Washington Punishes Small Business

STACY MITCHELL & FRED CLEMENTS - Small business looms large in American political rhetoric. From the campaign trail to the floor of the U.S. House and Senate, members of Congress love to evoke the diner and dry cleaner, the neighborhood grocer and local hardware store. Ensuring the well-being of Main Street, we might easily assume, is one of their central policy aims.

The legislative track record tells another story. It is one in which the interests of big corporations are dominant, and many laws and regulations seem designed to bend the marketplace in their favor and put small, independent businesses at a competitive disadvantage.

Since the late 1990s, the overall market share of firms with fewer than 100 employees has fallen from 33% to 28%, according to U.S. Census data. There are nearly 80,000 fewer small retailers today than in 1999. Starting a new business also appears to have become harder. Despite their prominence in our tech-fueled imagination, the number of startups created annually fell by about 20% between the 1970s and the 2000s, Census data shows.

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When starting a business, it's you vs. the world

Ryan Smith - Most entrepreneurs will agree that you need to be a little nuts to start your own business.

The Leadership Insider network is an online community where the most thoughtful and influential people in business contribute answers to timely questions about careers and leadership. Today’s answer to the question “What advice would you give someone looking to start their own business?” is by Ryan Smith, CEO and founder of Qualtrics.

You have to be a little nuts to start your own business. Seriously–ask any entrepreneur. But that’s what makes it fun. When I meet with people who want to start their own business, I always share the following advice:

It’s you vs. the world
Get comfortable with this idea. If the word “no” doesn’t fire you up, you might want to think twice about starting your own business. A lot of people are going to tell you that things cant be done–and not just people outside of your company. Most entrepreneurs I talk to say that it often feels like it’s them against the world even within the walls of their company. So always remember your vision for the business. This is the only thing that will keep your company alive and thriving as you constantly adapt—especially in the beginning. These early changes and decisions are often the most pivotal for a company, mainly because they require the founder to test his or her willingness to do whatever it takes to succeed.

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Wendy’s to Sell Bakery Business, Over 600 Restaurants

CHELSEY DULANEY - Wendy’s Co. announced plans Wednesday to sell off its Ohio bun-making business this month, while the burger chain provided greater detail about plans to sell off more than 600 of its company-owned restaurants to franchisees.

The company also reported profit that narrowly topped Wall Street expectations for the first quarter, through sales fell below expectations amid fewer stores.

Shares of Wendy’s, up about 30.5% in the last year, gained 4.84% in late morning trading to $10.94.

Like many other restaurant chains, including McDonald’s Corp. and Burger King Worldwide Inc., Wendy’s has been selling off its company-owned restaurants to franchisees to ensure a more predictable cash flow and higher margins.

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6 Habits To Make Your Small Business More Productive

John Paulsen - Not enough time in the day? Too much to do? That’s the lament of all entrepreneurs and small business owners!

There are lots of ways to save time, and plenty of tools to help you work faster. Recently I talked about super handy smartphone apps that make work easier and improve time management, and I also rhapsodized about this year’s new gadgets that can help you work smarter. And of course you know how a business-savvy storage solution can simplify your workflow!

But some of the best things you can do to be more productive are simply about habit and intentions.

You may have tried using an organizer system, or reading a self-help book on getting organized. Those are great things — keep plugging away. But perhaps these few tips about how to attack your workload can serve to quickly remind you how simple it can be to take control of your work and improve your productivity.

Think of these as the basics. Look at this list each day (it’s short) until one day you find you’ve incorporated all these practices into your daily work habits.

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McDonald's rips up corporate structure in attempt to regain lost customers

Rupert Neate - McDonald's rips up corporate structure in attempt to regain lost customers
The chief executive of McDonald’s admitted on Monday that the world’s largest burger chain is “not on our game” as he announced sweeping changes designed to revitalise the company which is rapidly losing customers to new a breed of customer-focused fast-food chains.

“The reality is our recent performance has been poor. The numbers don’t lie,” Steve Easterbrook, McDonald’s new president and CEO, said on Monday as he ripped up the company’s global corporate structure in a plan to “shape McDonald’s future as a modern, progressive burger company”.

Easterbrook, a Briton who took over as CEO on 1 March, said he would “return excitement to our proposition and brand”. In a 23-minute video presentation he said: “The message is clear we are not on our game … We must improve, or we will be selling our customers short and leaving open opportunities for competitors.”

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Amazon to Offer Window Into Web Services Business

ROBERT MCMILLAN - When Amazon.com Inc. reports its quarterly earnings Thursday, it will, for the first time, provide financial information on an important division: Amazon Web Services.

AWS has grown over the past decade into a front-runner in the race to build a big business in cloud-computing services. It offers to replace traditional corporate computing—a complex assemblage of hardware and software housed in a company data center—with a la carte services over the Internet.

That innovation set in motion an information-technology shift that is squeezing the sales and margins of vendors of hardware, such as Dell, EMC Corp., and Cisco Systems Inc., and of software, including Oracle Corp. and VMware Inc. Along the way, it attracted direct competition from Google Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., International Business Machines Corp. and Microsoft Corp. that, by all accounts, it is winning handily.

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Earth Day 2015: Celebrate Cheap Abundant Oil Unleashed From The Earth By American Innovators

Mark P. Mills - On Earth Day 2015 let’s take a brief walk back in time.

Just before Earth Day 2011 when oil was selling for $120 a barrel, former Saudi oil minister Sheikh Yamani put out the idea that oil prices could imminently reach $200 to $300 per barrel.   He was referring to the implications of unrest in the Middle East in the wake of the then recent Tunisian riots, which kicked off the poorly named “Arab Spring.”

However, instead of rising, oil prices hovered around $115 for the rest of that year and then started to slide. The slide turned into a collapse over the past year, with oil dipping below $50 per barrel in recent months.

Prices didn’t go into free-fall because turmoil in the Middle East abated: if anything that has gotten worse. The price collapsed because the world is now oversupplied with oil. This has happened once before in modern history.

The first price collapse from petroleum oversupply happened contemporaneous with Earth Day 1986.

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Money Smart Week offers 'speed dating' for business owners

Susan Tompor - Money Smart Week has a variety of programs in southeast Michigan, Lansing, the Grand Rapids area, Berrien County, Muskegon County, the Alpena area, Saginaw County and St. Clair County, and elsewhere.

It's a quirky little idea. What if you could let small-business owners go on aspeed dating spree to meet with experts who can talk about how to maximize cash flow, use social media to market a product, or give tips on how to use micro lending or crowdfunding to raise capital?

Quirky, yes. But Money Smart Week is full of all sorts of clever ways to get the community thinking about how we spend, save and, yes, even how we waste our money.

Angela Barbash, founder of Reconsider, a research and development firm in Ypsilanti, will be one of the experts hosting a speed dating table at the "Small Biz Buzz" seminar to be held Tuesday.Preregistration is required.

She'll be talking about the Michigan Invests Locally Exemption, which offers game-changing potential for local restaurants, brew pubs and Main Street-oriented outfits to raise capital through intrastate investment crowdfunding.

Barbash, 34, noted that campaigns like Kickstarter might raise about $5,000 or so for a local business. But she maintains that the Michigan program, known as the MILE Act, has the potential to raise $100,000 or $150,000 in many cases and rebuild local economies. The MILE Act, signed into law in 2013, expands investment opportunities by allowing Michigan residents to support local businesses.

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Women Are Owning More and More Small Businesses

GILLIAN B. WHITE - Owning your own business is often touted as the ultimate coup in the working world. You set your own hours, pursue projects you're interested in, and maybe work in your pajamas. Obvious challenges aside, it sounds like a pretty nice gig. Such jobs are largely enjoyed by men, who make up an estimated 71 percent of business owners in the U.S. But that might slowly be changing.

A report from the Institute of Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) shows that women are steadily increasing their presence in the world of small-business ownership. About 29 percent of America's business owners are women, that’s up from 26 percent in 1997. The number of women-owned firms has grown 68 percent since 2007, compared with 47 percent for all businesses.

The progress for minority women has been particularly swift, with business ownership skyrocketing by 265 percent since 1997, the report says. And minorities now make up one in three female-owned businesses, up from only one in six less than two decades ago.

Why have minority women had such an apparent breakthrough in the world of entrepreneurship? It’s partially a numbers game—in 1997 minority women represented such a small number of owners—less than one million—that even moderate growth would have likely helped them outpace the growth of the broader field of women-owners. But Jessica Milli, a senior research associate at IWPR, says that the characteristics of minority women who opt to open businesses may also play a role in the runaway growth.

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Credit-Card Fee Reform Stays on the Back Burner

Brian Burnsed - Credit-card holders got relief earlier this year when Congress pushed through legislation to eliminate some of the card industry's sneakier practices. But store owners, who have similar long-standing gripes about the transaction fees they're charged by banks and card companies, are getting little traction for their cause.

It's not for lack of trying. Retailers have spent years and millions of dollars lobbying for tighter rules on "interchange fees"—the non-negotiable 1.6% or so merchants pay to card-issuing banks each time a consumer buys something using a card. At an Oct. 8 hearing the House Financial Services Committee heard a small-store owner describe excessive and opaque fees the industry claims aren't held in check by competition and can wipe out already thin retail profit margins. Kathy Miller, owner of a grocery store in the 961-person town of Elmore, Vt., told the committee she may as well give small-ticket items away free because selling them costs her money after the interchange fees are accounted for. Currently, merchants are barred from demanding a minimum price for credit-card purchases. "We can't keep absorbing these fees," Miller said. "Some days I feel like I should just turn my keys in."

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Wholesale Distributor: Favorable Business Insights

John A. Roberts - So you know the benefits a true wholesale distributor can mean to your e-commerce shop. The situation right now is that you do not seem to trust such company for immediate monetary trading. Whether it is drop-shipping items, buying a substantial bulk of merchandise or signing a net-30 agreement for a high price ticket item, you are not sure whether you should conduct business with the supplier, wholesalers or distributor.

You are not the only one. With the monthly TV news and overwhelming craze about the 724,000 of regular people like you and me confirming that eBay is their primary or secondary source of income, anyone with an intriguing or the sort of like skeptical mind, shouts- how are all this people from Alaska, Hawaii, China, Egypt, Argentina, Puerto Rico and never heard countries by you, constantly selling a bulk load of items on a continual basis?

The answer is with a trustworthy wholesale distributor. Getting such reliable merchandise trader or drop-shipper is beneficial once you gather the correct wholesale list online. But how can I know when a wholesaler, supplier or distributors are of need for my e-commerce product line?

The answer might shock you because it is really much simpler when you focus on the sell in two marketing channels. If you focus your e-commerce store in the less than $50.00 a month eBay store, you will get the traffic all at once- but you need to understand that selecting a crowded and popular niche may be potential suicide if your distributor does not have the right price.

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Effective Use of Business Insight Reports

Melanie Thompson - Times Are Changing

In the current economic climate things are all concerned with change. Customer behavior has changed and competitors have changed their pricing and brand loyalty is no longer as important as value. Because of this we now find ourselves having to use different sets of marketing dynamics.

Below we describe how using Business Insight Reports can help us to cope more effectively with changes and also identify the five benefits to an organization that carries out these changes.

The Stages of Effective Business Insight

In order to cope with changing market dynamics there are various stages involved and these need to have their own particular Business Insight report created.

1. Using a Monitoring Dashboard report allows a business to identify changes take place through external factors.

2. The Interactive Discovery report you use will enable you to understand better what is causing the changes to occur.

3. The Detailed Planning report is what a business needs to help adapt its current practices and so come up with a marketing response that is effective.

4. Using an Operational Dashboard report allows a business to implement appropriate changes that will be necessary.

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International Business Degree Schools Online

Renata McGee - Online schooling options are available to students looking to obtain a degree in international business. There are numerous schools and colleges that offer online degree training in the field of business. Students can prepare for the career of their dreams by enrolling in a number of programs. Online schools and colleges allow students to train for careers working in international finance, management, marketing, sales, importing and exporting, and more. Student may study coursework such as foreign culture, economics, imports and exports, tax, and much more depending on the chosen level of degree and specialization. Online degrees in international business can include an associate's, bachelors, masters, and doctorate degree.

Associates degree programs are available from numerous online schools and colleges. Students can obtain an associates degree in international business in as little as two years depending on the specific area of concentration they choose. Coursework may consist of studying international trade, macroeconomics, global markets, international marketing, and other related courses. Students who wish to enroll in an accredited online program can train for careers with banks, multinational manufacturers, import/export corporations, consulting firms, and other international organizations. With an accredited associates degree students will have the skills and knowledge to pursue a bachelor's degree in the field.

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Focusing on International Business

Abby Reid - If you have always been fascinated by world cultures, exotic languages, international travel and foreign customs, you may want to pursue an Associate's Degree in International Studies. Unlike a Bachelor's Degree, an Associate's Degree only requires two years of schooling.

What does an Associate's Degree in International Business entail? Students who choose to enroll in a college training degree program in International Business will participate in intensive courses, focused classes and career preparation training that will prepare them for successful careers.

International business generally encompasses any subject or topic that deals with the function and operation of any businesses that are involved with or located in several different countries. These companies are often called multinational corporations.

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Run Your Business With Math

Michiel Schuitemaker - Simple math lets you run your business more effectively.

When you look at your monthly financials, you get a snapshot insight into how your business did in the previous month. It is helpful to also have the YTD figures on your monthly statement but these are the absolute basics.

Obvious changes like inventory, accounts payables and receivables can be spotted right away. Other trends might not be so easy to see but some simple math equations can cure that.

Let's take a look at sales. The Gross Sales number will be on the financials but what is not on there is just how profitable those sales were. Sure, the bottom line is there but it doesn't tell you much. This is where the math comes on. Rather than just reporting the gross sales figure, work on a ratio that might be more meaningful to your business. For a service business, this could be gross sales divided by payroll. What ratio are you striving for? What ratio is acceptable and what isn't? Is there a ratio you need to achieve and could you tie a bonus program to this? In manufacturing you can formulate similar meaningful ratios. You might want to have a ratio pertaining to sales vs the cost of carrying inventory.

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