You've heard much of it here before ... Take Action, Plan Carefully ... so take a minute to reinforce that mantra by reading a short article from the Harvard Business web site from Jeff Stibel, brain scientist and entrepreneur.As we know, small businesses employ more than half of our private…
In his fascinating book, Freakonomics, Steven Levitt remarked that “Incentives are the cornerstone of life” … yet so many companies don’t pay more than cursory attention to them, and invariably, only with respect to the most mundane, traditional sales compensation plans.
There’s probably nothing you can do to more powerfully drive the performance of your employees than to carefully consider your incentive plans. If you think yours are working beautifully and don’t need any attention, check in with Steven Levitt to see how easily they go astray. (more…)
Small-business owners applauded when the Small Business Administration unveiled a lending program in May. But ... no surprise here ... the program is off to a slow start. With $255 million, the program is prepared to make about 10,000 loans of up to $35,000 each. As of Monday, the agency…
The Center for Economic and Policy Research, a liberal research organization in Washington, recently published a study looking at the rates of small business employment around the world.
The finding: “By every measure of small-business employment, the United States has among the world’s smallest small-business sectors.” This is the chart they published showing the self-employment rates in industrialized countries: (more…)
CFO Magazine recently included an article entitled “Imperfect Futures“, describing the growing challenge of forecasting in an uncertain economy. It’s never been easy but maybe never before, this hard.
There is a valuable perspective in this article worth considering. (more…)
Disappointing sales are the number-one problem afflicting America's small businesses, and few business owners expect consumers to start spending again any time soon, according to the National Federation of Independent Business's latest monthly survey of its membership. As we know, sales declines have also forced businesses to shut down. In…
Judging from a survey by the Boston Consulting Group, your best bet is a business that knows how to cater to women. According to BCG, women today are driving $12 trillion of the overall $18.4 trillion in global consumer spending and will contribute an incremental $5 trillion in earnings over…
Small businesses have become more pessimistic about the chance for economic recovery in the next six months, according to a survey by the National Federation of Independent Business. The indicator fell 1.3 points in July to 86.5. "Now they are expected to finance the new experiments of Congress and the…
The North Bay Business Journal, a publication of the New York Times, is a weekly business newspaper which covers the North Bay area of San Francisco – from the Golden Gate bridge north, including the Wine Country of Sonoma and Napa counties.
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Article published -Monday, August 3, 2009
By Lary Kirchenbauer
“Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.” — Warren Buffett
Victory … Defeat. Won … Lost. Revenues … Expenses. These are well-understood concepts among business executives. Profits … Cash? Oops, sorry. That may be the biggest conundrum among business leaders: If I’m making all these profits, why don’t I have more cash? My company generated $500,000 in profits this year, and we have only $10,000 in cash. We can’t pay bonuses or contribute to benefit plans without cash – where did it all go? (more…)