SBDC Centers offer free consulting and free or low-cost training. (Find yours here.) Their results speak for themselves: SBDC clients grow sales by an average 18.1%, which is 4.3 times the national average. March 20th is SBDC Day, and to celebrate, we assembled some tips from their experts.

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A Small Business can be identified as a being a privately-owned corporation, partnership, or sole proprietor that have fewer staff and less annual revenue than a regular-sized corporation. The European Union (EU) defines a small business as one with under 50 employees.

Small business or as they are sometimes known, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) contribute 47% of revenue to the U.K. economy. They have a key role in boosting productivity but need support to expand activities and increase their economic impact.

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Owning and operating a small business is challenging in today’s market. And common issues that small business leaders often must handle on their own are the countless HR tasks and responsibilities that take a significant amount of time and energy to properly manage.

The frustration and stress involved with modern HR has resulted in an increase in the use of outsourcing solutions. But one in particular can prove to be valuable to small employers: professional employer organizations (PEO).

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As a (new) small business owner myself, I am very much talking from experience with these stay sane tips. You will find that you can never prevent work from piling up but you can lay down some strategies that will help you manage the work.

You need to consider your own state of mind and do what is best for you. Whatever your goal is in a business, your dream will eventually turn into an illusion when you become overwhelmed. There are a few secrets to staying sane by breaking up stress. Here are a few tips to get you started.

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Owners of small businesses should consider hiring their children.

A young person whos claimed as a dependent on their parents return can still have $12,000 of wages in 2019 and pay no income tax. The Standard Deduction offsets the wages.

The parents probably provided more than 50 percent of the basic support of the child (housing, food, clothing, medical and transportation expenses). The parents can still claim the exemption for the child, but dependent exemptions are no longer done (allowed). If the child is younger than age 17, the parents do get a Child Tax Credit of $2,000. That credit directly offsets income tax of the parents.

If the business is a sole owner business, a single member LLC or a partnership owned only by the childs parents, there are no payroll taxes for the child or the employer to pay on the wages.

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As any entrepreneur will tell you, owning a business comes with a lot of demands, pressure and hard work, but it can also be extremely rewarding. Thanks to an impactful conversation with an old friend and fellow business owner several years ago, I realized that I was wasting a lot of money by just having one credit card to pay business expenses.

Multiple credit cards can provide big bonuses.

Credit card companies are fighting a turf war, and they all have enticing offers to get us to sign up with them. My rationale is, why be exclusive to one bank? Why choose only one credit card? Why not enjoy the benefits from multiple banks?

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Ranking a business website higher enhances its chances of gaining a lead that could ultimately turn into a new business sale. To rank, a website higher needs quite a few steps and does not happen overnight. Let’s figure out the five most common and impactful professional SEO tips that a CEO insists upon.

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It is hard to start a profitable business in a competitive landscape. No doubt, business starts with a primary goal of making profits. Getting these profits from the phase of no client to multiple clients is a period of learning, falling, getting through and finally managing to sustain.

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Cybersecurity remains one of the most challenging issues for small business owners. And the problem leads small business owners to seek out managed service providers to present them with solutions.

But a new report from Continuum says the state of cybersecurity among small businesses in 2019 still needs to improve. The data suggests great opportunities for service providers who offer cyber security as part of their package.

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People have a lot of opinions when it comes to debt and borrowing. At one extreme, some believe that all debt should be avoided and there’s no room for argument on the subject. Others perhaps borrow a little too freely, taking out new financing with little thought about whether doing so will be a benefit or a hindrance in the long term.

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A new report finds that a good number of small businesses (29%) are spending somewhere in the sweet spot of  ($750-$2499) monthly to get the data needed for good online advertising results.

WordStreams Online Advertising Landscape in 2019 report also found that only 10% of the respondents had a monthly advertising budget less than the low end plateau for effectiveness of $750 monthly.

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Chatbots are all the business buzz – and for good reason.

They give customers of any-size business critical answers to pressing questions quickly.

They can:

Boost your average order value.
Accelerate the buyers’ journey.
Reduce your customer service costs.

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As your small business grows, it will eventually become too big to run out of your home. With steady clients coming in or an expanding workforce of people you have hired, you probably don't want to keep conducting business in your basement or at your kitchen table.

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Grow or die.

It sounds like the title of a rap song, but its actually the business idea that if your company does not grow, it is probably not going to make it. The reality is that you don't need to get bigger. What you need is a stream of customers to replace the ones that move, buy from you a little less, or have other life circumstances that change the level of business they do with you.

Yes, it is nice to add business and grow.

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I started my first business out of my university dorm room, and like most startup business owners, I had to be resourceful and use whatever tools I could afford. Thus, I taught myself how to use Photoshop and I designed my own business cards, my own logo and all of my own marketing materials — and they looked bad. Unfortunately, friends, family and everyone who I marketed my startup entertainment business to knew that my branding materials looked bad — except for me.

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Most small business owners today know that they need a website. But what many fail to realize is that their websites need to be more effective.

A website is meant to attract consumers to your business. But what do those consumers do once they land on your website? Maybe they give you a call or pop into your bricks-and-mortar location some time. And, sure, that’s all fine and dandy. But even better than that, your website itself can actually generate leads and sales for you with just a few simple tweaks.

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Being a small business owner puts you in control of your destiny, but there are major costs that go along with being the boss. With licences, office rent, and staff payroll to deal with already, some aspiring entrepreneurs shrug off the idea of purchasing business insurance in the start-up phase.

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Whether you are a freelance photographer, own a hardware store, or have another type of small business, a great website is essential for your companys success. As a webmaster who has worked on building or marketing over 100 small business websites, I know what it takes to create great and engaging business websites.

If you are looking to build a new startup website or make your current site more effective, here are 10 key steps to getting started and helping your small business website compete effectively in the online marketplace.

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Many people dream of owning a small business. Owning a company is ideal for people who are naturally creative, are visionaries, and want freedom from the daily toil of a corporate job. However, launching a small business is not solely about having enough capital or a great idea. A would-be entrepreneur should also have the courage to take risks, a great imagination to be innovative, and the self-discipline to sustain the work needed to attain set goals. Here are some important considerations to think about before launching a small business.

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About one third of small business owners still do not have a website. Some might not want to invest in the cost. Others might think they can get by with just a Facebook page or Google My Business Profile. And a few may even feel like a website is not relevant for their business if they do not sell anything online.

But a website can benefit nearly any small business. Even if you do not sell products or services online, it can help to direct people to your location, get your business in front of more potential customers through search and provide some credibility for your brand.

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Every year, more than 400,000 entrepreneurs launch small businesses in the United States, many driven by the desire for ownership and independence. Local mom-and-pop shops, online services, food trucks — the skys the limit.

But taking on a new business is a lot of work and risk. According to the Small Business Association, over 20% of new small businesses fail during the first year of operation.

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There are dozens of small things to keep in mind before calling yourself an entrepreneur: Have you found a good accountant? What's your niche? Who are you bringing onto your project?

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Statistics show that cybersecurity is a legitimate threat to small businesses, but small businesses don't always act on that knowledge. According to the 2018 Small Business Cybersecurity Report, 47% of small businesses experienced an attack in the past 12 months. Cybersecurity is a serious concern, yet the report shows only 52% of businesses have a cybersecurity strategy.

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Running a business is often about setting goals and putting in the long hours and hard work to achieve them. Regardless of what type of business you run, it’s likely that selling more has a frequent, if not long-term, place on your to-do list. It’s a goal that requires staying up to date on new techniques, honing strategies, and being in touch with the latest industry news.

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Secure-computing engineers generally view these schemes as sound in theory and productive to deploy. But in practice, it can be dangerous to rely on a sole element to act as the check on the whole system. Undermining that safeguard—which has proven possible in many companies implementations—strips a device of critical protections. Worse still, manipulating the enclave can make it appear that everything is fine, even when it's very much not.

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Small-business owners were victims in 43 percent of data breaches tracked between Nov. 1, 2017, and Oct. 31, 2018, according to a 2019 Verizon report. The report tracked security incidents across all industries, but the most vulnerable sectors this year were retail, accommodation and healthcare.

What does the issue look like on a national scale? If we take the sample size of infected sites SiteLock said they found in 2018 -- approximately 47,244 out of 6,056,969 checked -- and apply that percentage to the country’s estimated 30.2 million small-businesses websites, minus the estimated 36 percent that do not have one, then we can loosely estimate the amount of infected small-business websites to be around 150,757.

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Micro influencers are social media personalities with anywhere from 2,000-50,000 followers. The numbers vary depending on the source, but their importance is universal. They are a great cost efficient way to provide targeted advertising for small businesses with limited budgets

Here is what you need to know about how these people can benefit your small business.

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Running a small business may not seem too challenging from a distance. After all, it is a small business, so how much operational and management work could there be? But since I started my own agency, I’ve realized that running a small business or firm is not as easy as it looks.

The good news is that there are plenty of best practices small businesses can follow to save time and manage their tasks more efficiently with the help of automation.

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When running a small business, there are a lot of things to focus on. Making sales, finding new customers and motivating your employees are among them; however, keeping your business secure from cyberattacks might take precedent over of all of them.

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Your 6-Step Guide to Successful Project Management

1. Define your goal and get buy-in from all project team members.

As you do this, you will want to determine each team member’s role and responsibilities. In this step, also consider how the project will affect your company and how you’ll measure the projects impact.

2. Determine the project deliverables.

What key tasks do team members need to accomplish to move the project along the path to completion? You will also need to identify which deliverables depend on other deliverables, so you can establish a timeline that puts tasks in a logical order.

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If you want to ensure new customers are able to find your business, then you need to know how to optimize your business for voice search, which is becoming one of the most popular ways of searching.

Voice search is not quite taking over the search world yet—but it is getting closer. Last year, more than half (58%) of consumers used voice search to find local business information, according to BrightLocal’s Voice Search for Local Business Study 2018. Almost half (46%) of voice search users searched for a local business daily; 28% used voice search to search for a local business about once a week.

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If you own or are employed by a small business—and are among the approximately 38 million people in the U.S. with no access to a retirement plan at work—you may be interested in a new U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) rule set to take effect Sept. 30, 2019.

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Effective Aug. 19, the Small Business Administration (SBA) is raising its monetary-based small business size standards for inflation by an average of 8.4%, an adjustment that the administration expects will allow 90,000 additional companies to participate in its loan and contracting programs. The SBA said that this increase could result in $750 million more total contracts awarded to small businesses and as much as $65 million more in small business loans.

In order to be considered a small business under current SBA guidelines, most general, heavy and civil construction companies cannot have more than $36.5 million of average annual sales receipts.

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Online security was a big topic in the past week.

Of course, news broke mid-week about the big Capital One data breach. And we talked about how you can deal with that as a small business owner and entrepreneur. There’s a good chance your data was compromised in the attack in some way so be sure to do a little digging to find out how you should respond but not overreact.

And that brings us to another bit of news we learned this week, and that’s how small business owners feel about their own cyber security.

In the 2019 SMB Cyberthreat Study from Keeper Security, we learned that nearly 2/3 of small business owners do not feel threatened by a cyber attack. However, that same survey found that 2/3 of small business owners have been victims of a cyber attack in some way.

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Since its inception in 1994, Amazon.com has grown from a small online bookseller to an online retail juggernaut. In the second quarter of 2019, Amazon facilitated $63.4 billion in sales of everything from telescopes to toothpaste. It’s a ubiquitous part of the American business landscape, and that can either work for or against a small business owner.

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Web accessibility may not be the first thing you think of when designing a website for your small business, but in the long run, few things could prove more important. Just like how a brick-and-mortar store must comply with ADA guidelines to ensure that all individuals can access their facilities regardless of whether they have a disability, business owners, as well as web design and digital agencies, must also ensure that those with disabilities have equal access to web content. Failure to make web accessibility a priority when designing your website could have significant long-term consequences.

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High-profile entrepreneurs like Stitch Fixs Katrina Lake and The Riveter's Amy Stern Nelson are using Stories to answer questions about everything from managing cash flow to storing breast milk during business trips.

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Running a small business or being self-employed can offer flexibility, freedom and control over your earning potential. While the perks are plentiful, there’s one thing thats usually missing when you own a small business: an employer-sponsored retirement plan.

Self-employed people do not have 401(k)s, and small business owners tend not offer them, citing the time and cost to set up and administer them. The good news is there are several other retirement plan options available to small business owners. If you have yet to begin saving for retirement as an entrepreneur, here is how you can change that.

Small Business Retirement Plan Basics

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To say the United States has many small businesses would be an understatement — according to JP Morgan Chase & Co., more than 99% of Americas businesses are included in this category. Collectively, they contribute $5.9 trillion dollars to the economy every year.

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As is common in many aspects of life, there are lessons we learn that we wish we’d known sooner. When it comes to being a small business owner there are insights you can only gain from gathering years of experience. That is why it’s important to surround yourself with people that know things you don’t.

Here are a few tips from successful small business owners.

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A lack of available workers will make the holiday season a challenge for companies of all sizes. Some of the bigger retailers have already begun ramping up their seasonal hiring efforts. That puts more pressure on small business owners to figure out how to meet their holiday season employee needs sooner rather than later.

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If you run a small business, security is probably near the top of your priority list—and if it’s not, it should be. Businesses are the most common targets for cyberattacks, and the consequences of having data stolen can be huge ever since the passage, implementation, and consequences of the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) in Europe.

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A new free analytics tool introduced on Sept. 10 by the Atlanta-based lending platform Kabbage analyzes the live data of more than 200,000 companies in an effort to give small business owners a way to assess how their businesses are performing in real time. It’s daring to meet the demands of the ever-changing world of small business.

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Graphic design is an essential aspect of any marketing campaign or emerging business. You can't brand a business without design tools. When you are starting a business, contracting designers for a website, marketing materials, flyers, a logo, and countless other business expenses can add up fast. At some point, you have to be willing to take on some of the creative challenges yourself.

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Embedded Financial Services is the Future

Another group of companies to watch are those that focus on one particular vertical. They can build out capabilities unique to a particular industry and while they will not have broad data sets they can go very deep within a vertical. Shopify is a good example of this as they become the go to platform for ecommerce companies. They have functionality they call Shopify Manage which is billed as the mission control for your business, wherever you go available on desktop or mobile. They also have Shopify Capital for lending and Shopify Payments.


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Selling a small business for the maximum value to the right purchasers on the right terms can be a tremendous challenge, even for experienced business owners. Buying and selling an existing company is a complex process, but one that should be demystified. At its most basic level, the process is straightforward, just like the purchase of a single item. The small-business owner sells the object (in this case, their own business) to a potential buyer for an agreed-upon price and mutually acceptable terms. Yet, as always, the devil is in the details -- in this case how the deal is structured.

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- Forty-three percent of cyberattacks are aimed at small businesses, but only 14% are prepared to defend themselves, according to Accenture.
- These incidents now cost small businesses $200,000 on average, reveals insurance carrier Hiscox, with 60% of them going out of business within six months of being victimized.
- More than half of all small businesses suffered a breach within the last year.
- Today it’s critical for small businesses to adopt strategies for fighting cyberthreats.

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In other words, press coverage is priceless, but where do you start? To find out more, we asked 16 marketing experts and entrepreneurs to share interesting and cost-effective ways to get media coverage.

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Learn how the easy availability of big data can help SMBs compete with big businesses.

- Data is now easier to collect and cheaper to host, making it accessible to nearly every business.
- The availability of data helps small businesses compete against big corporations, but they may still struggle to use that data in practical ways.
- Three ways small businesses can use big data to grow include checking on credit data about your business, monitoring supply chain data, and keeping an eye on artificial intelligence and automation innovations.

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If you run a small business for a long time, you will probably need to navigate through a lot of major changes. Members of the online small business community are very familiar with these shifts. From getting started to deciding when to retire, here are some valuable insights for making big changes in your business.

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