Small Business Operations

Tales Of Micro-Multinationals: Generation Alliance

By Bernard Lunn - Jul 7, 2010 - 8 Comments

How about re-branding an entire country? That is what Generation Alliance did for Botswana as part of the global Fair Trade initiative. This branding and design firm delivers projects to clients all over the world via a federated structure, with core employees in Australia and specialist … Read More

Introducing The Tales Of Micro-Multinationals

By Bernard Lunn - Jul 7, 2010 - 2 Comments

This is the era of tiny companies that operate globally. These micro versions of multinationals outsource almost everything to specialists all over the world and sell to people all over the world through the Internet. In olden days, "multinational" meant big. And it took a long time to get … Read More

New Act Introduced in Senate to Help Women Business Owners Get More Federal Contracts

By Rieva Lesonsky - Jul 4, 2010 - 5 Comments

Women business owners' access to federal contracts has long been a bone of contention. I blogged here earlier about the Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB) rule, proposed in March of this year, and how it would affect women's access to federal contracts. Now, further change is afoot. U.S. Senators … Read More

5 Warnings About So-called Corporate Culture

By Tim Berry - Jun 23, 2010 - 5 Comments

There's a lot of good web writing on corporate culture lately. Business Insider has a series by Small Business Trends regular Lisa Barone on corporate culture and innovation. And Tony Hsieh of Zappos set off a wave of blog posts with his post about culture on Inc. There's some great advice here. … Read More

How to Rewrite Your Job Instead of Retiring

By Tim Berry - Jun 16, 2010 - 4 Comments

Not to bring up a sensitive subject, but are you getting older, but not wanting to retire? Are you getting tired of the day-to-day details of the business you started, own, and love, but not wanting to leave it? I found a way to have my alleged cake and eat it too - a solution to both these … Read More

The Accountant’s Office: You Can Outsource Just About Anything

By Anita Campbell - May 24, 2010 - 9 Comments

At the National Small Business Week festivities, I met Carolyn Brown, owner of The Accountant's Office. She was one of the SBA award winners -- named the "Women in Business Champion." The Accountant's Office helps small businesses that want to outsource their accounts payable, accounts … Read More

Sixty Eight Percent Is Yours To Keep

By Diane Helbig - May 2, 2010 - 12 Comments

Dan Kennedy conducted a study to discover why clients leave their vendors. His findings were dramatic. Sixty eight percent of clients who leave do so because they feel unappreciated, unimportant, and taken for granted. Remarkable. So while you are working on the quality of your product, your … Read More

Multiple System Chaos: How to Avoid It

By Tyler Garns - Apr 19, 2010 - 4 Comments

One of the strongest trends in small business today is the emergence and adoption of technology. If you've started or run a business in the last 10 years, there's a good chance that you have turned to technology for help. You may have created a spreadsheet to track leads. You might use a … Read More

Make This Your Most Profitable Year Ever – Profitability Tips

By Dawn R. Rivers - Mar 9, 2010 - 4 Comments

If you're like a lot of small business owners I've talked to since we rang in 2010, you probably sympathize with this statement: "Enough with the doom and gloom already. I don't want to know how awful the economy is, I want to know how to make a profit anyway!" A couple of weeks ago, our very … Read More

The 10 Customer Service Trends for 2010

By Barry Moltz - Dec 15, 2009 - 43 Comments

In 2010, customer service makes a big comeback. It becomes the new marketing. Forget about paying lip service to offering "great customer service". Let go all of those "the customer is always right" myths. It's time to offer outstanding customer service only because it makes economic sense for your … Read More

How to Work ON Your Business, Not IN it

By Jason Cohen - Oct 19, 2009 - 41 Comments

We get so caught up in the daily life of running a business, it's easy to miss the forest for the trees. Not that you have a choice! You're fighting fires, handling a pissed-off customer, rending your face over an emergency bug-fix, the website just went down, and the accountant is coming … Read More

51 Tips For Saving Money On Technology

By Anita Campbell - Oct 7, 2009 - 34 Comments

Recently we asked you to contribute your best real-world tips and advice for how small businesses like yours can save money by using technology, or how to save money on technology purchases. Once again, the readers of Small Business Trends did not disappoint. The following tips and pointers … Read More