To-do lists should be an invaluable part of any small business owner's day-to-day productivity strategy. They do not just help you monitor your tasks, they help keep you motivated and on track. And they seem self-explanatory: Write down a task. Then do it. But, a to-do list can too easily take a wrong turn and become exhaustive and exhausting. Here are five quick tips to help you get the most from your to-do lists.

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On Thursday, the Supreme Court overturned decades of law and precedent by allowing states to levy sales taxes on internet purchases. Like many things in life, the South Dakota v. Wayfair decision is a mixed bag. On the whole it was probably the right call, cleaning up an enormously incoherent and unfair tax regime that's only gotten worse as online retail has expanded.

But it will also hit many small businesses hard.

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For most of us, that means establishing a nest egg in the form of an IRA, 401(k), or both. But a large number of small-business owners have a different sort of backup plan for covering the bills in retirement: their businesses.

An estimated 42% of small-business owners say that their businesses will serve as their personal pensions, so to speak, according to data from New York Life. But that's a dangerous proposition in several regards.

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Delissa Reynolds, an actress, ran a popular local bar for years, until the neighborhood changed.

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Growing your business is an exciting task. It means customers are receiving your business well and you are bringing in a profit.

But, growing your business can be intimidating. Many things have the potential to go wrong. That’s why you need a plan. When you know what to do and what to avoid, you can avoid stumbling.

Use the following seven dos and do nots to successfully grow your business.


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Intimidated by negotiations? Focus on these five simple negotiation skills first and get much better.

Think of all the times in your business week you negotiate:  with new hires and existing employees; with sales prospects and long-term clients; with vendors and suppliers. If you're a business owner or leader, you need to know how to negotiate. This is non-negotiable.

Here are the five most important negotiation skills you should focus on first. Each of these skills has proved to be worth millions to my clients and to me over the past 25 years. This all recently came to a head when I had 35 of my top business coaching clients join me for a day-and-a-half program on negotiation in my hometown of Jackson Hole, Wyoming. These were 35 of the most successful entrepreneurs and business owners in the United States.

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Making the right investment in your small business can mean the difference between growth and stagnation. What that right investment is – marketing, training, technology, labor, personal development – will vary from business to business and owner to owner, depending on a variety of factors.

Several entrepreneurs recently shared their best business investment from the past year, or top planned investment for this year.

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While two-thirds of Americans dream of opening their own small business, recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics reveals that approximately 20% of small businesses fail in their first year, and about 50% of small businesses fail in their fifth year.

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Are you looking for ways to use email marketing to grow your business? Then you will want to take a look at these five email marketing tips to help boost your sales.

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Marketing has evolved significantly in last few years. Now is the era of demand-driven social marketing which makes email marketing a core part of successful small business marketing strategies. Technological advancements have given marketers no shortage of channels to leverage. Email marketing can be a powerful way for small business to market their brand and their website. It provides them with the flexibility to reach current customers, find new leads, and convert those leads into customers without making a big hole in their pocket. Email marketing can help small business to reach their subscribers and prospects as quickly as possible.

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Technology has started to feel like a four-letter word these days—especially in the business world. Stand by the water cooler and you might hear chatter among employees about what programs, such as machine learning and artificial intelligence, will mean for the future of jobs.

As this technology comes to life, many people fear for their professional future. They worry that robots will soon sit at their desks while they’re out on the street struggling to find work.

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Here are five things in technology that happened this past week and how they affect your business. Did you miss them?

1 — Googles secret to protect its employees from hacking is physical keys.

Google has announced a robust solution for phishing cyberattacks against its employees. The company says the adoption of physical Security Keys has stopped the attacks. Security Keys are small USB stick devices made by companies like YubiKey that function similar to two-factor authentication (2FA) methods its employees may already be using.

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Harvey Weinstein. Bill Cosby. Kevin Spacey.

No, there apparently is no shortage of accused sexual predators roaming Hollywood. And, while there are have been stories galore over the years about the creeps and their casting couches, it wasn’t until the #MeToo movement that women really were able to get the word out about the seriousness of the issue and, if not put an end to it, at least shine a light on it.

And that begs the question: Will there be a #MeToo moment for small business?

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If you do not have something nice to say, don't say anything at all.

Remember this one, from, like, kindergarten? Apologies are one thing, but better to just avoid the whole thing altogether. Note: this is not the same thing as ignoring criticism. There are constructive ways of responding, though, that will not send your companys stocks plummeting.

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Amazon is often blamed for the demise of the Mom and Pop store and other local and cultural icons of Main Street USA. There may be some truth to this, but it is also just as important to say that the company has helped many small and midsize businesses to grow and thrive.

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No. 1: First, have a pretty good idea of what you are getting into before you start. Running a company is not a 9-to-5 occupation. And much, if not most, of running a business has little to do with the quality of the product or service you sell. You have to work long, hard and smart. And learn new things. Fifty percent of new businesses close (not fail) during the first five years, often because their owners didn’t realize how much time, expense and uncertainty would be involved.  

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Every business has to find the right marketing tools to engage its desired audience, and there doesn’t appear to be one magic widget that works for every company every time.

Some find amazing results with social media, SEO and influencer strategies, often combined with compelling online content, some with old-fashioned direct mail, as in messages on paper delivered by a human postal carrier.

Several small businesses recently shared their best marketing moves, which cover a broad range of approaches and media. Here are a few of their ideas in this first in a series of articles on the topic.

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Email is not going anywhere. There are 3.7 billion global email users, and that number is expected to grow to 4.1 billion by 2021. What is more, this communication channel is supremely popular: People check their emails multiple times a day, and when you're trying to market your company, you can get your name into thousands of inboxes just by launching an email marketing campaign.

The cost? Email marketing is also super-affordable, which makes it great for small businesses.

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There is something incredibly important in life that I do not hear enough people talking about. It is called your personal brand and it goes far beyond your career.

I started learning about personal branding over 10 years ago when I got into the entrepreneurial world. I noticed a big difference between some peoples brands and others. So I started taking notes.

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As a small business owner or manager, sometimes the sheer volume of things that need to be done makes it hard to remember to think about others. It's important, however, to give back to your community. In fact, if you own a small business that draws on local customers, it's important to do things that strengthen your bonds with your community.

Not all of these apply to every type of small business. A retail store can do things that a small service-based business can not, but at least one of these should apply to your business.

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The #MeToo movement is making a major impact across industries, small businesses included. From reviewing internal policies to getting the right kind of insurance, these steps can help small business owners protect their companies and employees.

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Overwhelmed leaders cringe at multiplying demands, such as identifying and recruiting talent, envisioning the next iteration of their product, or developing their public-speaking skills. There are only 24 hours in a day, they plead.

True. But there are 168 hours in a week, 730 hours in a month, and 8,760 hours in a year. View time in that way and many of the larger-picture, often open-ended tasks that are crowded out by in-the-moment demands appear more feasible.

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Business owners need to constantly learn in order to be successful. Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned entrepreneur, resources like business experts, books, tools and exercises can help you shape your strategies and cultivate sustained success. Here are some suggestions from members of the online small business community for resources and tips that can help you build a successful business and life.

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Those are the types of questions Google set out to answer. In 2008, they began research into what makes a good manager, code-named Project Oxygen. They originally identified eight behaviors that were common among their highest performing managers, and began training all managers to develop those behaviors. Over time, Google saw a marked improvement in key metrics such as employee turnover, satisfaction, and performance.

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Instagram is a great source to build your brand’s identity, engage new followers and expand your reach. However, if you’re simply posting images to your business Instagram page, you’re missing out on a major opportunity on the platform: Instagram Stories. With Stories, you can show a behind-the-scenes look at your brand while developing its personality and building authentic relationships with your followers.

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How to Get Traffic to Your Website

In building this strategy, it can help to get input from the experts who have been there before. Here are some tips and tricks ranging from content creation to SEO to social media from digital marketing experts around the web.

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Here are seven reasons why your business is not generating sales:

1. You are marketing, not selling.

Reaching out to a networking contact is a sales call when that contact has expressed a need and interest for what you are selling, and you actually discuss your offer, your pricing, next steps and or other ways to move forward. If your networking meeting is to introduce what you offer or to reconnect in general, that is a marketing call. Many small business owners are busy on social media, tweaking their website, writing blogs, and catching up over coffee – all of which is great for marketing and may lead to sales eventually -- but these activities are not directly generating sales.

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Social media, email, text messaging and other communication technologies are transforming government into a more efficient, effective and dynamic process. Whether it’s an elected official using Twitter to address constituents or a city using a Facebook page to make public announcements, government entities and elected officials are becoming more accessible and connected to constituents. And therein lie today’s nuanced First Amendment related challenges

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Small business optimism is at a record high. In this year’s Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index, business owners consistently reported positive attitudes about their current situation and their future.

Part of that optimism is due to the high availability of financing and access to credit that many small businesses need in order to grow. Indeed, many small business owners are taking the opportunity to use these and other cash flow management tools to expand their business.

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Most small businesses can perform a simple audit and improve their SEO considerably without involving an agency. Ten steps you can take to get started.

I am a big fan of getting the basics precisely dialed in for small business search engine optimization (SEO). Ensuring you lay a solid SEO foundation will typically deliver around 80 percent of the results, for only 20 percent of the effort, for small local businesses.

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It is often assumed that giving back is something that only big corporations can do. After all, larger businesses often have more profits and can easily give away money to notable causes. But it doesn't mean that smaller businesses can't do the same. Often times, small businesses can also have a significant impact on organizations that can use their help.

We asked members of the Forbes Business Development Council for ideas on how small businesses can give back to their communities.

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The company has launched a new store focused on smaller U.S. companies.

For many businesses, Amazon operates as both a competitor and a partner. The online giant offers a platform for companies to sell their goods while it also competes with the same companies it works with.

Now, the digital retailer has launched Amazon Storefronts, a new store that exclusively sells products from small and medium-sized businesses from the United States. It offers more than 1 million products curated by Amazon from 20,000 small and mid-sized businesses.

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Then, as the recovery progressed, taxes and regulations reemerged.   But over the last year, those two concerns have been displaced by the availability of qualified labor.  Finding qualified employees is always a concern in a growing economy and has certainly grown in importance in this expansion, even more prominent than in 2000, when the ratio of employment to the population hit a record high.

Assisting its rise to number one has been the decline in the concerns about taxes and the cost of regulatory compliance.  The sharp decline in concerns about taxes and regulatory compliance are most likely due to the policies of this administration.  Record levels of proposed regulations peaked in the last two years of the last administration but dropped to practically nothing early in this term.  Since then, many existing regulations and rules have been eliminated or scaled back.

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Going into business for yourself is a big deal. There is always a long to-do list and you will find yourself wearing many different hats from time to time. Your business is more of a hobby if you are not making money. Properly managing and organizing your small-business finances can contribute to the success of your business and make sure you’re hitting your profit goals. Like personal finance, there are plenty of ways to organize your small-business finances depending on what your goals are.

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Have you ever shared bad news with coworkers, employees or partners? As much as we don't want to shoot the messenger, sometimes we associate negative feelings with the person who tells us bad news.

Work is hard enough as is. You do not need a negative halo effect associated with you, especially if a situation was out of your control. For example, maybe you and a partner organization submitted a proposal and were waiting to hear back from a Fortune 1000 client. The client tells you that another company out-bid you with a lower quote.

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It is not a one-time undertaking but an ongoing process that must be revisited throughout the life of any business. In fact, nearly half of all CEOs launch a company reorganization during their first two years on the job.

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Well, it turns out that, according to decades of academic research, introverts are more likely than extroverts to have those characteristics:

1. Introverts are generally more creative.
Introverts are famously more creative than extroverts. According to the journal Perceptual and Motor Skills, Creativity is a problem-solving response by intelligent, very active, highly emotional, and extremely introverted persons.

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Behind every Google search, there is an intention. People are looking for something in particular when they are searching the web -- the answers to their problems, information about the services available to them or sources for the product they want. If you want your business to be discovered by users on the web, your content needs to be optimized for user intent.

Since Google can recognize user intent, it displays pages in search results that are most relevant to what the user is looking for. Because of this, understanding user intent and creating content with the user's intent in mind is essential to improving the relevance of your website pages and improving SEO.

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There are a lot of ways to build fast-growth companies. Just consider this year's Inc. 5000 list. The annual ranking of the fastest-growing private companies in America includes everything from canned wine producers and freight movers to kayak makers and truck bumper manufacturers.

The six companies below, though, take the cake when it comes to innovative business models. Whether it's reinventing hospital garb or hosting mind-blowing vacations, these startups all have one thing in common: They have tapped into something their customers really  wanted.

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Entrepreneurs start their own businesses or side hustles--which you can do in just a few hours--for a variety of reasons. Some want to be their own boss. Others want to make their living by doing something they love. Others seek the opportunity to make a bigger difference in the lives of others.

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These days, content marketing is considered a crucial aspect of any company's advertising efforts. Yet, for a new startup with a limited budget, trying to find a way to craft compelling blogs, social media posts or infographics can seem overwhelming.

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It is easy to see why text messaging is the most-used data service across the world. We send and receive five times as many texts compared with the number of phone calls each day, according to mobile intelligence firm Informate.

A huge 90 percent of the time, a text is read within the first three minutes of receiving. Customers who receive texts from businesses tend to have a 40 percent higher conversion rate than those who do not. Small businesses could benefit from this consumer behaviour.

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In the modern business world, companies make use of SEO basics to secure a digital footprint. SEO is everywhere. What is more, the Internet is constantly changing. In order for businesses to keep up with demand, they have to cater to an audience that lives and breathes the Internet.

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A few rules of SEO, like publishing great content and providing a good user experience, are universal.

But not all websites thrive by using the exact same set of SEO guidelines.

News websites, in particular, place greater emphasis on certain elements than other types of sites.

Here are five best practices you should keep in mind to optimize your news site for search.

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To really manage and maximize your time — to squeeze every opportunity out of it — you have to appreciate how much you have. Take control of your time, and don’t allow others to. Get family, friends, colleagues, and employees to agree on the most important priorities. Otherwise, they will pull you in multiple directions. When I do this, I'm able to control my time better.

I typically wake up before the sun and stay busy all day. Time is either invested or wasted, so I do not like white space on my calendar. I make time for myself, my family and my business, to do things like writing my goals, working out, taking a walk with my kids, and leading calls and meetings.

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Running a business often means you have your hands in every aspect of the company. You are managing day-to-day tasks and making crucial business decisions all at the same time. It's no wonder small-business owners can often lose sight of the forest for the trees and get mired in the task of simply getting through each day.

Taking a step back gives you a tremendous amount of insight that not only reenergizes you to keep going, but can lead to crucial business decisions that transform and grow your business. Finding a way to build that inspiration into your life is not just a luxury—it is a necessity if you want to maintain a thriving business.

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Books can make us smarter, more informed, even more intellectually humble. But one of the most powerful benefits of regular reading is greater empathy. Through words you are transported to another's perspective. You look through their eyes. You understand their pain and their joy.

That can relieve loneliness and make life a whole lot more pleasant, but it's also good for business. Understanding customers and collaborators helps you get more done and be more creative.

So how exactly do books accomplish this magic trick? On Lit Hub recently Tufts University professor of child development and reading expert Maryanne Wolf explained the fascinating neuroscience of exactly what immersion in a good book does to your brain.

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Your role as CEO, president or founder is critical to your small and growing company — you need to focus on products, customers and strategies. One of the last things you want to do is babysit your bookkeeper. Yet I can think of dozens of horror stories born of a lack of accounting oversight in the early stages of startup growth.

What should you track? Here are seven items I have found are key to request from your bookkeeper and how to review them. Asking for these items is good accounting hygiene: It informs your bookkeeper that you are inspecting their work and allows you to quickly identify and minimize potential problems. And, in my experience, it should not take you more than an hour a month.

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Social media is a crucial component of any small business' marketing efforts. When done well, a strong social strategy helps you connect directly with your customers, and can even create some free publicity along the way.

For all of social media's advantages, there are pitfalls as well. The internet can look like a cavalier place when it comes to copyright rules, but there are plenty of no-nos that you need to follow if you want to stay out of legal trouble.

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There's a lot of advice out there for the lazy and unmotivated: Take baby steps! Set a timer! Enlist an accountability partner! But what if the best way to tackle lack of motivation is not to give any sort of advice at all, but to ask for it instead?

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