Another great source for business intelligence: the Retail Owners Institute offers industry benchmark data on six key financial ratios. In a section called Store Benchmarks, they break down industry averages into 51 different retail lines. They give five years of data for these six financial ratios: Current Ratio Gross Margin Percentage Return on Assets Percentage…
Our friend Denise McGill, author of the “Writing Tips for Small Business Owners” booklet, asked about using social bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon and Delicious to promote her works online. Here’s a very quick introduction. StumbleUpon aims to help people discover neat things online that they otherwise might not. Delicious allows you to bookmark favorite items…
At the recent Small Business 101 workshop in Alva, Oklahoma, two people with lending experience presented some secrets to getting a small business loan. Maybe these are not really secrets, but they are keys you’ll need to understand to get a small business loan. Laura Girty, REI Laura Girty works with REI, Rural Enterprises of…
Every so often, we feature common small business mistakes, so you can learn from them. Lots of small business make a mistake in setting and keeping their business hours. Here’s an example from a retail business, open only 11 hours per week. But hey, they do say you can call and they’ll come open up….
Do you sit down to spend 30 minutes checking your social networks, and then look up 3 hours later? Do you get sucked into Mr. Computer, like Sheila Scarborough says? Barry Moltz asked how to manage social media time at the Small Business, Big Impact panel at BlogWorld Expo. Here’s the best answer I came…
Congratulations on a terrific event. Now what? Before you jump onto the next thing, what can you do to make that event continue to work for you? Let’s brainstorm some ideas that will work just as well for tourism events as for promotional events from a small business. Post your photos from the event to…
Don Zahorsky is an old cattle breeder in my neighborhood. He’s been in the business of registered Angus cattle for decades, even back when my dad was a kid. Ride around in the pasture with Don, and he can tell you the parentage of every animal. “What’s that tag number? 0282? That’s another Dominator son….
Following up on Why you procrastinate on invoicing and what to do about it, Chris Van Patten sent this question by email: It’s great to have clients who pay on (or ahead of!) time, especially when I have to deal with other clients who still don’t pay months after the job is done. I’d be…
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