OWNER'S MANUAL ARCHIVE

Soothe Employee Jitters
As the economy gets shakier, your employees might, too. How do you know if your workers have the job jitters?

Are Gas Costs Pinching Your Profits?
If the cost of energy is eating away at your profits, don’t feel alone. Big businesses and small businesses alike are spending more on gasoline.

Pump Up B-To-B Sales
Don’t confuse business-to-business sales with sales to consumers. Selling to other businesses requires a whole different mindset – and a different marketing approach.

Will The Stimulus Package Benefit You?
The Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 that was signed into law on Feb. 20, 2008, could be a boost for small-business owners.

Build Better Business Credit
Managing your business credit can help pave the way to financial success for your small enterprise. Here are five smart and easy steps that any small business can use to establish and maintain good business credit.

Prevent Employee Fraud: 4 Tips
Every year businesses across the country lose billions of dollars to employee fraud.

Did You Have A Great Year?
It’s easy to have a great time and only later realize how much it cost. Conversely, it’s possible to feel like you’re doing terribly only to discover that when all’s said and done, things turned out pretty darn well.

8 Quick Tips For Leasing Office Space
Signing a commercial lease can be a confusing and intimidating process for small-business owners, especially for those moving into office space for the first time. But leasing office space doesn’t have to be a no-win situation. By keeping these tips in mind, you can secure a lease with the most favorable terms possible for your business.

Tips For Choosing A Merchant Account
Once merchants had to be persuaded that accepting credit cards would increase sales. If you’re still of that mind-set, you’re well behind the times – and probably in dire need of a credit card merchant account.

How To Write A Collection Letter
There is a fine art to writing effective collection letters. Follow these guidelines.

Measure Marketing Results: 6 Tips
The only way to know whether your marketing dollars are well-spent is to track the responses you get to advertising, direct mail, e-mail campaigns and other marketing strategies. Here are six ideas you can use.

Talent Search
Your small business may not be able to offer employees big bucks like the giant companies. But you can offer what many American workers are looking for in a job.

Make Your Slogan Stick
Using slogans to advertise and promote products and services is a proven way to build a brand and get your business in the minds of consumers. The right slogan can give your business character and pizzazz.

Take Savings on the Road
The American Express Global Business Travel Forecast reports that the cost of the average domestic business trip will climb 4.5 percent – or $46 – in 2007. And an International business trip will cost you 4.6 percent – or $180 – more this year. The report analyzed flights, cars and hotels – the three big travel spending categories.

But, in the era of increasing travel costs, there are ways you can save a few bucks here and there. Try these simple strategies.

Six Easy Ways To Save Lost Sales
There are literally dozens of reasons your small business can lose a sale.

And there are literally dozens of ways to avoid losing those sales.

Last Minute Tax Tips
Small retailers need an edge to successfully compete against the big boxes.

Boost Online Sales: 10 Tips
Maybe you use a Web site as a sales channel for your brick-and-mortar store. Or perhaps you sell only online. Either way, you need to take advantage of every e-commerce sales opportunity.

Try these 10 tips to boost your online sales.

Protect Your Business From Credit Card Fraud
U.S. consumers now have roughly 690 million credit cards. The amount charged on those cards grew from about $69 billion in 1980 to more than $1.8 trillion in 2005.

Find A Balance: 7 Tips
’Tis the season. And there’s no better time to feel the seesaw of work-life balance.

Rev Up Sales With Vehicle Wraps
No doubt you’ve seen them. Cars, trucks and vans completely covered with graphics so precise that they look like a professional, custom paint job. They’re colorful. They’re eye catching...

Interns Offer Low-Cost Help
Small-business owners that need a helping hand around the office (or on the sales floor or in the manufacturing plant) might want to consider hiring an intern.

Get Free Help For Your Business
Working for yourself doesn’t mean you have to go it alone. Plenty of free resources exist to answer your business questions and help guide you through tough business decisions.

How to Reduce Your Energy Costs
With gasoline prices at record highs and electricity bills soaring, small-business owners watch profit margins shrink as they struggle to cover the increasing costs.

Business Protection Checklist
There are dozens of ways your small business can take a hit: Identity theft, fire, natural disaster, data and equipment theft. Any of those can threaten the very existence of your enterprise.

Where To Find Temporary Help
Many small businesses manage to function quite well with a minimal number of employees. Some get by nicely with an owner-operator running the whole show all alone.

Upsell For Easy Profits
With little effort and at virtually no extra expense, upselling can turn a sale into a SALE in capital letters.

How to Make An Apology
In the course of your business dealings, you’ve probably done something wrong once or twice. Maybe you’ve failed to keep a promise.

Avoid Tax Time Troubles
Time to gear up for the April 15 tax deadline. To prepare you for the task, here’s a potpourri of tips, resources and insights that will help you avoid trouble, find more deductions and get assistance when you need it.

Is It Time To Raise Prices?
One of the most difficult and dangerous decisions to make in business is whether to raise prices.

Retirement Plan Primer
You already understand the importance of having a retirement plan. But what are your choices as a self-employed entrepreneur, and how do plans differ?

‘Tis the Season For Donations
Your business has touched lives while making you money. And now through charitable giving you want to touch other lives with the money you’ve made.

Promote Yourself
Are you using promotional items? Promotional products, also known as ad specialties, are items imprinted with a logo or slogan to be distributed to promote a company, organization, product, service or event.

Is WiFi Right For You?
WiFi is short for wireless fidelity. And it’s a hot topic among small-business owners.

Is Your Small Business Privacy Friendly?
Information is power. That’s why all good businesses collect information about their customers. The information tells you about customer preferences, and it helps you find other customers like them who are likely to have the same desires. That’s just good marketing.

Pros & Cons Of Contact Management Software
There may be more contact management software varieties than any other business application.

Should You Incorporate?
Nearly as important as your decision to go into business is your decision about what legal form your business should take.

Beat The Isolation Blues: 5 Tips
Many home-based business owners battle the nemesis of all social creatures: isolation.

Tips To Get A Loan
If you want to score a bank loan for your small business, the American Bankers Association (ABA) offers one big piece of advice

5 Books For Your Business
Every small-business owner should have a well-stocked bookshelf.

Procrastinator’s Guide To Business Taxes
If you’re a sole proprietor who’s in denial about the upcoming tax deadline, we’ve got a procrastinator’s guide for you.

8 Tips For Extending Customer Credit
When you’re trying to expand your small business, it’s tempting to stretch your limits. But if you extend credit to other businesses, don’t stretch too far.

Comply With This Law – Or Else
Starting this month, a new consumer protection law could change the way you do business.

8 Tips To Find New Customers
Whether you’re a new business owner or an old pro, finding customers is always at the top of your to-do list. Without customers, you’re sunk.

Make Your Online Marketing Drive Offline Sales
If your small business doesn’t market online, you could be missing sales at your
bricks-and-mortar store.

11 Reasons To Use Direct Mail
Despite the rise of e-mail marketing and pay-per-click advertising, traditional direct mail is still a dependable marketing tool for many small businesses.

Secrets To Marketing Your Family Biz
Your family business has a story to tell. It’s not just about your products and services. It’s about the traditions, values and stability that your family firm has built.

Charge It: 8 Rules For Managing Business Credit Cards
Paying with plastic is standard operating procedure for most small-business owners. Credit cards help you track expenses, ease online purchasing and give you a few weeks of float before the bill comes due.

Stash Your Tax Records: A 7-Point Checklist
Tax-related documents can overwhelm even the most prolific pack rat. Year after year, the tax forms, schedules and receipts pile up in folders and boxes. How long must you hang on to those records? This checklist will give you some guidance

Checklist for Your Yellow Pages Ad
A well-designed, properly placed ad in the Yellow Pages can direct ready-to-buy customers to your small business.

Is Your Marketing Diversified? Take The Quiz!
Marketing is the lifeblood of small businesses. It draws in customers. But just as your business can’t sustain itself by offering a single product or service, marketing isn’t successful unless you diversify.

Get Serious About Saving For Your Golden Years
Saving for retirement should be at the top of the to-do list for small-business owners. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Like most other Americans, owners of small businesses remain unprepared for funding their golden years.

>>Back to Owner's Manual