New York SBDC Research Network

From SampleTemplates : Commerce Introduction Letter serves as an introductory piece for getting into the business world. The main aim behinds its writing is conveying all the essential details related to any firm or product/service to the potential clients. It ensures the correct understanding of clients about the company’s businesses. It helps in seeking client’s attention and being noticed. You can even customize such letter in your own way so as to meet certain requirements or needs as well. See also, from Template Lab, 40+ Letter of Introduction Templates & Examples

From PC magazine : Amazon may have started as an online-only experience, but today the company is very much blended into real-world retail. This week, the company was granted a patent for technology that can prevent in-store shoppers from comparison shopping online. The patent - for "Physical Store Online Shopper Control" - is pretty self-explanatory. If you're in a store and logged on to that store's Wi-Fi, the network will see if you navigate to a rival's website to compare prices. The store can then block you from doing so, offer up a discount to purchase in-store, or even send a store employee over to persuade you to make that purchase. Amazon is expanding its brick-and-mortar presence so this technology could be deployed at its own stores, but it could also make a pretty penny licensing the tech to rivals. Call it augmented retail.

SBDC Staff Training seems like a long time ago already, and we left with the plan that I would share my presentation on Best Apps for Small Business. In the time between then and now, I've dabbled in even more apps that I'd like to share in case you might find them useful for yourself or your clients. I'll be making posts on the different categories of apps with a great deal of crossover. Calendars, Lists and To-Dos  For Chrome users, this is my actual favorite for a to-do product and it's actually for the desktop. I had been reading an anecdote about the Ivy Lee Method for achieving peak productivity which you may be familiar with. The gist is that at the end of each day, you write down the most important things to achieve the following day. Write down 6 items, but only 6. Prioritize those 6. Tomorrow, concentrate on completing the 1st item. Don't move to the next until that item is done. Carry on in this fashion for the rest of the list. Repeat daily.

From Jalopnik : Drive down any major interstate in the U.S., and you’ll see big blue signs decorated with business logos near most exits. Here’s who decides which businesses make it on the signs, and how much it all costs. Called interstate logo signs or specific service signs, these ubiquitous big blue billboards are godsends to weary travelers searching for gas, food, or lodging close to the highway. Unsurprisingly, the signs aren’t solely there to help out motorists, as they also provide monetary benefit to businesses and, crucially, to the state. Roadside advertising programs are administered by individual states, though specific service signs... tend to be farmed out to contractors. One of the biggest of these contractors is a company called Interstate Logos, which works with transportation agencies in 23 states to not only install the huge blue panels, but also to work with businesses to run the programs. If you own a business that falls into one of these groups—attractio

From Business Knowhow : Postcard marketing articles, tips, and advice. Get new ideas for marketing with postcards. Some examples: Creative Marketing with Postcards Most business owners don't use postcards as a marketing tool and those that do, use them infrequently and haphazardly, with no strategy involved. Yet they are extremely cost-effective and are six times more likely to be read than a direct mail letter. High Response Marketing with Low-Cost Postcards Postcards can drive a huge amount of traffic to your website, generate a flood of new sales leads or produce a surge in any business activity you want. And you don't have to spend a lot of time or money on them if you apply these four little-known postcard marketing secrets. 10 Common Postcard Marketing Mistakes to Avoid Postcards are the least expensive form of direct mail today, are easy to create, and typically generate a high rate of response.

From ThomasNet : After holding steady at 3.9% for March and April, the unemployment rate for manufacturing declined to 3.2% in May – its lowest point since June 2000. Meanwhile, the 0.7 percentage-point drop represents the largest improvement in the unemployment rate since June 2016, when the unemployment rate fell a full percentage point, from 4.7% to 3.7%. The number of unemployed persons within the industry fell from 620,000 to 504,000 – the lowest it has been since at least 2000. However, the number of people employed within the industry fell by 1,000 workers. Many durable goods sectors experienced job growth in May, including the Machinery sector, which added 3,700 new jobs – the most of any sector in the industry.

From Bplans : Have you ever discovered a mention of your business on social media and thought, “How should I respond to that?” If the post is negative, you may be especially anxious to answer that question. Should you delete negative comments, respond with a counter-argument, or ignore them altogether? The flow chart [at the link] offers a helpful way to evaluate social media posts, and provides a response strategy for each. Remember, what goes online stays online, and your response to posts on social media should positively reflect the mission and values of your small business. Before you respond to any negative post, use the flow chart as a quick reference to help cooler heads prevail. Above is another response chart, not from the article.

By  Joshlyn Ross , Contributor From the Small Business Administration When was the last time you’ve revisited your workplace safety plan? Not only is it the law, but it also can ensure that you and your employees are always safe. In honor of National Safety Month, we would like to highlight four resources that will help you identify unsafe behaviors, create opportunities for improvement and  help you (and your employees) make well-informed safety decisions on a daily basis. 1 .  Ensure your business meets legal requirements with OSHA Employers are responsible for providing a safe and healthful workplace for their employees. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s role is to assure the safety and health of America's workers by setting and enforcing standards as well as providing training and education to business owners. Check out  OSHA’s handbook  to ensure that your small business meets the legal requirements of the  Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970. 2.

From MarketingProfs : The other day, a friend of mine put her job and professional reputation at risk. Sadly, it wasn't for anything as significant as standing up for human rights or even bunny rights. No, it was a Facebook post: a shared image that was intended to be a funny political meme but, instead, offended many of the people who saw it. Should she have shared that post? Could she have lost her job? Might the issue have been avoided? Were people just being overly sensitive? Let's explore those questions—and others. So that we're all on the same page, let's start with what I mean by "political post." To my mind, there are two kinds: implicit and explicit.

From Glass Door : Oftentimes, it’s easier to identify a bad company to work for than a good one. Red flags like a pattern of not-so-great Glassdoor reviews, rude interviewers, and a high turnover rate stick out like sore thumbs, indicating that you might want to steer clear. But what happens if a company doesn’t exhibit any of these common warning signs? Does that mean you’ll enjoy working there? Fortunately, you don’t have to go into the decision-making process blind. In addition to the glimpse into a company’s culture that Glassdoor reviews, salaries, and interviews provide, there are a number of factors you can look out for during the interview process that will hint at whether or not you’ll enjoy working at a company. We reached out to a handful of career experts to get their thoughts on what makes a great place to work — here are a few of the top signs that you’ve picked a winner.

The Office of Advocacy has released a report on veteran-owned businesses. The report gives a detailed profile of this robust business population based on the latest available data, the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2012 Survey of Small Business Owners. • In 2012, the United States had 21.2 million veterans, and 2.52 million businesses were majority-owned by veterans. • Almost all of veteran-owned businesses (99.9 percent) were small businesses. • Veteran-owned firms had receipts of $1.14 trillion, employed 5.03 million people, and had an annual payroll of $195 billion. • These firms represented 9.1 percent of all U.S. firms. • The three states with the most veteran-owned businesses were California, Texas, and Florida. • The three states with the highest percent of veteran-owned businesses in their populations were South Carolina, New Hampshire, and Virginia. The report is called Veteran-Owned Businesses and Their Owners: Data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Survey of Business Owners. It

From eMarketer : An April 2017 survey by Campaigner, an email marketing platform, explored consumer interactions with brands. More than half of US digital buyers said they followed a brand on Facebook, which was significantly higher compared with any other social platform. It was even more common among millennials: Fully 65% of this cohort said they followed a brand on Facebook. But social networks are not necessarily the top choice for interacting with brands. As a whole, only a quarter (24%) of digital buyers in the survey said they preferred “to interact with their favorite brands” via social media. Instead, in-store and in-person communication was the most commonly cited channel (65%), followed by company websites (58%) and email (44%). Respondents could site multiple choices.

From the Small Business Administration : Many of you are familiar with etiquette when it comes to dining. However, did you know that there was a thing such as business etiquette? Similar to dining etiquette, these unwritten rules of behavior can help you not only close the deal, but also leave a great impression on potential partners/customers. From web communication to interpersonal communication, being aware of unwritten rules can help you represent yourself as professionally as possible. So in honor of National Business Etiquette Week (June 4th – 10th), we would like to highlight 6 unwritten rules that will help you excel in all business settings as a small business leader.

Courtesy of: Wasp Barcode Technologies For the third year, Wasp Barcode Technologies conducted a survey to identify how small business owners felt about their growth, confidence in the economy, employment, technology use, marketing tactics, and government impact. The State of Small Business Report research is based on a random online sample of 1,127 U.S. small business owners/managers with companies with five to 499 employees. The anonymous survey was conducted via the Internet by Survey Monkey from November 10-18, 2016. The survey has a margin of error of +/- 2.9 at the 95% level of confidence. Sikora Associates provided statistical analysis.

Study Conducted by America's SBDC Reveals Insights into the Entrepreneurial Mindsets of Different Generations of Americans America's SBDC partnered with the Center for Generational Kinetics to better understand how different generations view and approach entrepreneurship. The findings reinforced previously held beliefs such as a strong entrepreneurial inclination among millennials, while challenging preconceived notions about their motivations for starting a business. Generational Perceptions Small Businesses play a huge role in the lives of Americans. One-third of Americans (34 percent), have worked in a small business in the past and nearly a quarter (24 percent) of both Millennials and Gen X own or have owned a small business. The study found that the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well with 41 percent of Americans saying they would quit their job and start a business in the next 6 months if they had the tools and resources they needed. This number is higher fo

From ThomasNet : Your supply chain is similar to a line of standing dominos, if one piece goes down, it could cause a chain reaction and take all the other pieces down with it. If you have a supplier or manufacturer in your supply chain that goes bankrupt or consistently delivers late, you could have a serious disruption on your hands. It makes sense that you’d want to take the necessary precautions when choosing new businesses to add to your supply chain, in order to try and avoid the domino effect. But, you can’t exactly predict the future, so you’re often taking the risk that a key component to your operations may fall flat. There are a few ways, however, that you can assess a potential supplier or manufacturer and decide in advance if it seems stable enough to add to your supply chain. By analyzing a business’s credit report, you can use data and predictive scoring to help you decide which companies you want to partner with.

From the Library of Congress : The following is a guest post by Brad Greenberg, counsel in the U.S. Copyright Office, Office of Policy and International Affairs. Copyright law and new technologies have a long history, arguably dating back to the Gutenberg Press in the 15th century—more than 200 years before passage of the matriarch of copyright statutes, Britain’s Statute of Anne. New technologies provide new tools for creative expression and new vehicles for sharing those works. But sometimes they also disrupt existing copyright regimes—as seen with player pianos (late 1800s), radio (1920s and 1930s), cable television (1960s and 1970s), photocopying (1970s), home video cassette recorders (1970s and 1980s), and, of course, digital downloading and streaming technology (today). Emerging technologies continue to raise novel questions for copyright, particularly with a copyright system built around a law now more than forty years old. Is a poem written by a computer entitled to copyr

WannaCry: What can you do to protect your business? By Matthew Wall and Mark Ward Technology of Business, BBC News 19 May 2017   From the section Business There's been a lot in the news over the past week or two about the WannaCry cyber-attacks and what companies, in particular, are doing about the risk.   As well as keeping antivirus, firewall, application and OS software up-to-date, backing up key data regularly to offline hard drives should be a top priority, most cyber experts agree. This is because  data breaches and cyber-attacks  are inevitable these days. The bad news is that the average cost of a data breach globally stands at $4m (£3.1m), according to SailPoint, an identity management firm. This article from the BBC discusses what attacks mean for business and what steps can be taken.                       And this from Department of Homeland Security for what to do before, during and after: Cyber Incident  ... ·      

From eMarketer : A leaked document published by The Guardian outlines the guidelines Facebook is using to monitor big topic issues like violence and racism. Saying “#stab and become the fear of the Zionist,” for example, would be considered a credible threat—and Facebook moderators would be able to remove that particular content. But saying “kick a person with red hair” or “let’s beat up fat kids” is not considered a realistic threat of violence. Similarly, videos featuring violent deaths will be marked as disturbing, but will not always be deleted because they might raise awareness about issues such as mental illness. Clearly, there are gray areas in the way content is handled. What the leak has done is shed light on one simple truth: Publishing mammoths like Facebook and Google (which has also experienced its share of controversy over content) can’t currently provide 100% brand safety. At scale, user-generated content provides too great of a challenge. And this doesn’t ne

From the Bureau of Labor Statistics : The unemployment rate for foreign-born persons in the United States was 4.3 percent in 2016, down from 4.9 percent in 2015, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. The jobless rate of native-born persons fell to 5.0 percent in 2016 from 5.4 percent in the prior year. Data on nativity are collected as part of the Current Population Survey (CPS), a monthly sample survey of approximately 60,000 households. The foreign born are persons who reside in the United States but who were born outside the country or one of its outlying areas to parents who were not U.S. citizens. The foreign born include legally-admitted immigrants, refugees, temporary residents such as students and temporary workers, and undocumented immigrants. The survey data, however, do not separately identify the numbers of persons in these categories. Highlights from the 2016 data: --In 2016, there were 27.0 million foreign-born persons in the U.S. labor force, comprising