Small Business Trends

Washington, DC (PRESS RELEASE - July 4, 2009) - SCORE “Counselors to America ’s Small Business” announces the July toolkit, “Accelerate Your Customer Retention,” at www.score.org/accelerate. SCORE is offering the new toolkit as part of the “Accelerate Your Success” Campaign to help entrepreneurs start up and succeed during the recession, keep Americans employed and create new jobs.

Visit www.score.org/accelerate for featured content, including:

Free Resource : Understand Online Customer Service. Learn the differences between online and traditional customer service, their advantages and disadvantages, how to keep up with customer expectations, and what every online customer service plan should include..

Start Now: Follow @scorementors on Twitter. Sign up with Twitter and get free resources and info to help start, manage and grow your business. Read posts online at http://twitter.com/scorementors.
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Chicago, Illinois (PRESS RELEASE - July 3, 2009) - TalentDrive, the creator of the advanced SaaS sourcing technology, TalentFilterSM, just today released the results from the recent “What Steps Are You Taking to Leverage this Recession” April through June 2009 survey. The economic recovery survey found that 50% of HR Professionals surveyed are actively preparing for the return of hiring and “the other side” of the recession.

When asked what positions HR will be struggling the hardest to fill, 60% claimed Information Technology (IT) talent is anticipated to be the most in-demand, followed by Sales and Operations both at 30%. Although 50% claim to be proactively preparing for the hiring return, TalentDrive when on to ask how confident they are in their department’s readiness to handle…

REDWOOD CITY, California, (PRESS RELEASE - June 3, 2009) - Pricelock, Inc., the company that combines patented technology and commodities expertise to bring price predictability
to the volatile $700 billion retail fuel market, is bringing innovative fuel-price management services to fleet owners and other businesses.

“Fleet owners today need peace of mind and insurance against rising fuel prices,” said Pricelock CEO and Founder Robert Fell. “Pricelock’s patented service offerings allow fleet owners to manage fuel costs closely in a time of extreme price volatility.”

With gas prices rapidly rising, companies with fleets have been working with Pricelock to protect their fuel exposures. For example, Pricelock is currently providing a budget-protection program for a wholesale building-materials supply company that will help insulate the company
against a spike in the price of…

Los Altos, California (PRESS RELEASE - July 2, 2009) – A new study by Quantcast ranks MerchantCircle the nation’s fifth largest local directory site and Top 160 site in the U.S. overall (#151). MerchantCircle, currently, is the largest and fastest growing social network of local business owners. Over a one year period, traffic to the MerchantCircle site has nearly doubled with unique visitors increasing by a factor of 2.5X. The Quantcast data confirms MerchantCircle’s continued growth and reemphasizes their mission to bring local merchants increased exposure on the web.

1. Yellowpages
2. Superpages
3. Citysearch
4. Yelp
5. MERCHANTCIRCLE
6. Local.com
7. Urbanspoon
8. Insiderpages
9. Yellowbook
10. Servicemagic

“We’re extremely pleased that we’ve been able to nearly double the number of unique visitors who find local business owners through MerchantCircle to 17 million a month,” says…

Mountain View, California (PRESS RELEASE - July 2, 2009) – Cloud computing solutions are increasingly being adopted by small business, but a new survey conducted by Egnyte, a leading provider of on-demand file server solutions, revealed that most small businesses have a fear of flying in the cloud. The survey, completed by small business owners and entrepreneurs across the U.S., showed that less than 10% of small businesses have complete trust in cloud computing solutions, yet trust and security was identified as the top attribute in selecting a service provider.

Inability to access data due to Internet outages (55%) and data security (55%) were the top two concerns cited among small businesses utilizing cloud computing software solutions.

“There is no doubt that cloud-based computing services offer significant benefits…

GLENVIEW, IL (PRESS RELEASE — July 1, 2009) — It’s every business owner’s nightmare. After spending time and money to fill a job opening, the candidate you hired turns out to be a dud — maybe even a danger to fellow employees and customer relations.

According to a recent survey from online payroll provider SurePayroll, this nightmare appears to be transforming into a reality for many small business owners.

The survey reveals that three out of four surveyed business owners admitted to hiring at least one employee they later wished they never had, and many indicated that the mistake resulted in a significant financial loss – more than $10,000 a pop, according to 12 percent of respondents.

SurePayroll attributes the growing trend of hiring mistakes to difficult economic times…

San Francisco, California (PRESS RELEASE - July 1, 2009) — Fed up with President Obama’s ongoing neglect of small business owners, San Francisco entrepreneur Victor Cheng will offer to “bail out” 1 million small business owners starting July 4, 2009. ( www.BailoutUSA.com )

As America’s Small Business Coach, he will be giving away 1 million copies of his book The Recession-Proof Business: Lessons from the Greatest Recession Success Stories of All Time.

“According to the Small Business Administration, small business owners create 7 out of 10 new jobs in this country. It’s crazy for Obama to be giving the big guys all the money and not doing more to help the little guys-especially when the little guys are creating the jobs that will drive our economy’s recovery,” says…