Bravery in the face of opposition, stalwart leadership, and unyielding ingenuity. These traits sound like the definitions of a Medal of Honor recipient, but have proven to be invaluable secrets to success in the economic realm. Read More.
The growth rate of new businesses remains stalled, but the share of women-owned firms has climbed. Read More.
National Veteran’s Small Business Week, celebrated the first week of November, honors veteran entrepreneurs who continue to serve our country by creating jobs and fueling economic growth. As part of the celebration, the National Women’s Business Council will recognize veteran women business owners, highlighting their great economic impact and community contributions. Read More
Branding is one of the most important aspects of any business, large or small, retail or B2B. An effective brand strategy gives you a major edge in increasingly competitive markets. But what exactly does “branding” mean? How does it affect a small business like yours?
Simply put, your brand is your promise to your customer. It tells them what they can expect from your products and services, and it differentiates your offering from your competitors’. Your brand is derived from who you are, who you want to be and who people perceive you to be.
It’s not from a financial statement. For a small-business owner, financial statements are generally useless. They’re prepared months after the fact. They show a snapshot from a historical period that is usually long past. And they’ve been jiggered and reconfigured by accountants to reflect accounting standards that usually don’t have much connection to the real world for most of us. Banks and investors may look to financial statements as part of their documentation to approve financing. But smart business owners don’t. Instead they rely on another report. A daily report called The Flash.
Anthony (Tony) R. Jimenez is the award-winning Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer of MicroTech, one of the largest Hispanic-owned IT Integrators in the nation. Under Tony’s leadership MicroTech is focused on Technology Services, Cloud Computing, Product Solutions, Network Systems Integration, Cyber Security, Telecommunications, Mobility and Big Data Solutions. Read More
As the market changes, so do worker expectations. Startups, perhaps more than any business today, are fighting to attract and keep talent by providing employees the support they seek — especially when it comes to compensation.
Nearly half of all employees expect a pay raise in the next 12 months to offset cost-of-living increases, Glassdoor’s July 2015 report shows.
Compensation is an important piece of how startups offer employees value, but it’s certainly not the entire package. There are stock options, of course, but there’s more to keep in mind when ensuring employees’ jobs are truly valuable to them. After all, employees can’t live on stock options alone.
There’s a sucker born every day — or so they say. But the way startup fever has been spreading across the land, it almost feels more like there’s a Zuckerberg being born every day. And that feeling is real. According to data from the Kauffman Foundation, 2015 has marked the first year startup activity has been on the rise since the Great Recession. In fact, it’s soaring — the numbers show we’re living through the biggest upswing in new companies, products, business deals, and jobs in the past twenty years.
If precision and focus are the name of the marketing game for startup companies, what is the best strategy for marketing your startup? I asked the members of the Young Entrepreneur Council for their advice on how to market startup companies most effectively.
All these entrepreneurs advocated for employing focus, consistency, and using a variety of unexpected sources, many of which are low cost—always a plus for a new startup.
Since April 2014, Maria Contreras-Sweet, 59, has been running the U.S. Small Business Administration as a member of President Obama’s cabinet. She was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, and came to America with her mother, Guadalupe Contreras, and five siblings when she was 5. Read More
