Leadership

3 Mistakes to Avoid when Starting a New Business

Don’t fall prey to these common pitfalls for startups. When getting your startup off the ground, several steps should be taken and others should be avoided. Each year, thousands of businesses shut down for various different reasons. Some of these doors are closed as the result of one or more big mistake. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to know which mistakes are the big ones to avoid...

Motivating Uninspired Employees


How to Spark Inspiration Do you feel like some days you are wearing down to a thread, trying to motivate uninspired employees? Many managers do their best to coach employees to develop their own sense of motivation to achieve their goals – both on a personal and professional level. Yet many of these tactics are derived from a one-size-fits-all method, failing to account for the person and any impact...

Strategic Partnerships for Small Business



One of the biggest strengths that small and medium-sized businesses have over their larger corporate competitors is the ability to engage with the local community in truly authentic and personalized ways. This is commonly exemplified quite clearly through the relationships you build with customers and clients. However, an alternative opportunity for community engagement — both incredibly powerful and frequently overlooked — exists in the form of other local organizations....

Employee Reimbursement 101 – Minimizing taxable expenses and staying compliant with laws and regulations.

Keeping clients happy, vendors paid, and operations running smoothly is a tall task for any business — especially smaller organizations. For convenience’s’ sake, many employers find that allowing employees to pay certain expenses from their own pockets and reimbursing them later is a virtual necessity. However, business owners should be aware that this common practice does entail a bit of responsibility.
 Broadly speaking, there are three different ways of...

5 Onboarding Tips For New Employees

Adding new members to your staff can be an opportunity for increased productivity, teamwork and growth — or it can lead to disruption, discord, and wasted payroll. Smart onboarding policies are oftentimes crucial to determining which of these two paths your organization will take. And this is why you should consider implementing these simple onboarding tips and tricks: Announce your decision! Announcing and introducing your new hire — in-person,...

Five Habits That Drive Success

Looking to attain more success as an individual and as a leader? Here are a few habits that most successful people tend to cultivate. Goal setting. Simply making an effort to establish goals for yourself and for any teams that you lead can help make you a lot more successful in life. There are many different types of goals that you may wish to set. For example, it is...

3 Tips for Working Remotely

As a small business owner, there’s no doubt that your presence is a crucial factor influencing the success of your company. Nonetheless, it is also true that you are frequently busy, and from time to time, you may need to get work done from a hotel, from a coffee shop, or (don’t tell anyone!) from the comfort of your living room. When this is the case, it is important...

6 Tips for an All-Nighter

Running a small business isn’t for the faint of heart — it oftentimes requires enormous personal sacrifice and constant hard work. From time to time, all-nighters may be part of the job description. If you find this to be the case in your line of work, this simple list of tips may be able to help you get through it all with some serious production and a sane head...

3 Signs Your Employee Needs a Raise

Your employees work hard, but some always harder than others. Those who go above and beyond to make a difference at your company deserve to be rewarded. Raises are a great incentive to keep hard-workers at your company and encourage other employees to realize their full potential as well. Here are 3 signs that you have an employee who needs a raise. You are experiencing high staff turnover Is...

Techniques for Better Productivity

For most small business owners, the old phrase “so much to do, so little time” rings frustratingly true. With a virtually endless amount of tasks to deal with, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Of course, giving in to such feelings is oftentimes the worst thing one can do. Dwelling on feelings of discouragement or frustrating generally leads one to being even less productive, thus furthering a negative cycle. Instead,...