Everyone by now is well aware that IT networks are subject to various cyber threats, and small and medium size businesses (SMBs) must protect against them just as larger enterprises do. But these threats are not limited to the online world. SMBs also have to protect the IT equipment itself from physical dangers.

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1. Have a point of view and unique product offering

Commodity businesses such as books and electronics were the first to see e-commerce really squeeze out mom and pop stores. The product offering is uniform and easily comparable.

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Deciding what to call your company is probably one of the most fun and exciting aspects of  starting a small business. You might have launched this venture by scribbling business name ideas on a bar napkin while hanging out with friends.

But naming your small business is also serious business. Your decision could affect your ability to reach a broader audience and grow. And making the wrong choice could even get you in legal trouble.

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Although your small business needs a healthy amount of software to conduct operations, it's not necessary for you to spend a fortune on web-based products. In our comprehensive testing of business and consumer software, we have come across dozens of incredible and free solutions that can help you get the job done. We've tested free tools in almost all facets of business—from email marketing to endpoint protection to project management.

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Running your own business is no simple task. From hiring and payroll to other day-to-day operations, there are a million different responsibilities needing your attention throughout the work week. With a few of these tools, you can make your business run more efficiently and in turn, take the stress off of your shoulders.

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Britains vote to leave the European Union is already taking a toll on some small U.S. businesses, with canceled tour bookings in New York and U.K. retailers cutting back their orders from American suppliers.

The plunge in the pound against the U.S. dollar after the vote three weeks ago makes goods and services more expensive for those in the U.K. and means British tourists get less for their money while traveling elsewhere.

Many of the companies are trying to plot a course without clarity on exactly when or how a split may occur.

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When you first start a business, you have your work cut out for you. Not only do you have to figure out if you have a viable product that people will actually pay you for, but you have to also find your customers, manage administrative tasks and deal with your staff, if you have one.

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Brands are often associated with large businesses. However, a brand can be used effectively by small businesses as well to increase their profitability. Branding a new business is just as important as insuring your business and knowing when to hire an employee. Your business will not be maximizing its profitability if you are not building a strong brand.

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A business that makes the decision to be environmentally-conscious will often promote goodwill among potential customers, while making the world a better place for future generations. Many businesses hesitate to adopt green practices because they fear it will hurt their bottom line and negatively impact profits. But many eco-conscious businesses discover that they can actually save money and bring in new customers who specifically patronize companies that actively make an effort to be environmentally friendly. Many customers may even be willing to pay a bit more for a product or service from a company that is green.

Businesses Going Green

You do not have to be an adult to start your own business. In fact, there are many different business opportunities that teens can use to get their entrepreneurial journeys started. Here are 50 business opportunities for teens.

50 Business Ideas for Teens

When you run a business, it’s important to always keep an eye on the future if you want your business to grow and improve. Members of our small business community understand what it takes to keep businesses moving forward. Here are some of their top tips.

Make Sure Your Small Business is Prepared for the Holidays

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In the wake of new rules and new attitudes, HR departments changed the talk about equality in pay, hiring, promotions and retention.

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When it comes to buying and selling, small business owners are pretty good at that – every company is founded, and has been built to do those things. But operating a small business in the 21st century has become more complicated than ever before, which is why people who know small business know the best way to find out what is really going on is to ask the owner what keeps them up at night.

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When it comes to buying and selling, small business owners are pretty good at that – every company is founded, and has been built to do those things. But operating a small business in the 21st century has become more complicated than ever before, which is why people who know small business know the best way to find out what’s really going on is to ask the owner what keeps them up at night.

One organization that knows how to ask small businesses the right questions is the National Federation of Independent Business.

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Small businesses are an integral part of our economy. Every business aims to solve a problem and create value in doing so. This is particularly true of small businesses. They provide a service or product that meets local needs and can fulfill requirements for larger businesses.

The benefits of small businesses are numerous, but often they can have difficulty creating, sharing, and establishing their message. Entrepreneurs, startups, and freelancers watch their budgets carefully, and expenses outside of delivering the product are kept to a minimum. That means marketing budgets get shaved first.

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Companies that can figure out how to take advantage of new technologies for digital retail will outsmart and outpace competitors.

Any company of any size -- whether it is one employee working out of her basement or a multi-national company balancing millions in revenue -- must consider how digitization is affecting business as we know it.

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Optimism is powerful -- but so is preparation. In a live chat, Todd Herman explained that too much positivity can actually derail your goals. To that end, he shared three essential questions everyone should ask themselves to stay truly grounded.

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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 – A new form of ransomware centers on a fake font update.

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Getting there starts with breaking down profit into its components and using six tools to move those pieces in the right direction.

Profit is revenue minus costs. But to boost profit, it helps to break it down further into gross profit -- price times quantity minus variable costs (e.g., costs that increase with each unit of product you sell) -- minus fixed costs (e.g., salaries, benefits, rent, and utilities).

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1. Wasting five minutes.
When you have five minutes of down time, how do you spend that time? Most people use it as an excuse to rest or laze.

By lazing for five five-minute breaks each day, we waste 25 minutes daily. That's 9,125 minutes per year (25 X 365). Sadly, my guess is we're wasting far more time than that.

34 Things You Need to Give Up to Be Successful

Your small business is up and running, and you have a product or service that you are excited about. How do you boost your chances of building a venture that will last for the long term? A government statistic shows roughly 40% of Australian businesses fail within the first four years.

Three Key Success Metrics Every Small Business Owner Should Focus On

Businesses are incredibly difficult ventures to start. More than half of all businesses fail within five years of starting, according to statistics gathered in 2016. While this is far better than the traditional belief that half fail within a single year of starting, it is still clearly a challenge to start and continue running a small business.

6 Things Your Small Business Needs to Spend More Money On

A few months before most of the Affordable Care Act provisions that restructured health insurance markets took effect, a broker described the great lengths to which he thought many small businesses might go in order to keep their relatively low insurance premiums. He anticipated that these small companies would start to pay employee health care costs out of their own treasuries — what's called, in the industry, self-funded insurance.

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The worlds top companies are starting to manage employee energy like a strategic asset. They know that ever-increasingly pace of change requires more and more human energy. Any entrepreneur will tell you that it take a tonne of energy to grow a business. The key is to manage it; sometimes you have to exert energy, other times you need to conserve it to go the distance, and after a sprint you need to replenish it.

A group of senior executives from companies like Facebook, Alibaba, IBM and Johnson & Johnson got together to come up with strategies to better manage collective human energy in their companies. Here are their top five hacks to maximise human energy:


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New Years resolutions: We love to make them. And, statistics show, we almost never keep them. (Eighty percent of people who make New Year's resolutions abandon them by the second week of February.)

Of course you could try using silence to accomplish a goal. Or you could try to sneak up on big goals. Those strategies help, but they are far from foolproof.

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Technology has made it so you can start a new business without even paying for a lease. Simply using your laptop and smartphone, you can create an ecommerce site and have customers buying items from you with minimal expense.

But technology solutions are not always as helpful and convenient as they’re cracked up to be. A brick-and-mortar store is still a huge plus for many types of businesses, especially if you sell products that people want to try out.

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Minimum wage increases in states across the country are helping drive up wages, although the rate of job growth at small businesses has slowed down, according to payroll giant Paychex.

The Paychex | IHS Markit Small Business Employment Watch, which Paychex compiles with the research firm IHS Markit, ended the year with a decline in small business job growth, but with wages higher compared to the previous year. The Small Business Jobs Index slipped to 99.70 in December, down 0.16 percent for the month and 0.78 percent for the year.

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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 — Amazon Go cashier-less convenience store opens to the public in Seattle.

This week in Seattle, Amazon opened its cashier-less convenience store to the general public. At Amazon Go, customers scan their smartphone on the way in and are then tracked with cameras and other sensors as they browse.

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Entrepreneurs always need more -- more help, more time, more insight. So we asked: What is the one product you wish someone would create to help your business? Now maybe someone (you?) will make it.

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Every successful leader or entrepreneur has used creativity to help them get to where they are today. In fact, creativity is a core component to anyones success. Take a look at J.K. Rowling -- using creativity and imagination, she created a successful franchise full of witches and wizards. Or how about Steve Jobs? Without creatively thinking about the simplest, sleekest way to create products for consumers, Apple would have never been born.

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There are a lot of reasons to hate a job: annoying co-workers; bad working conditions; long hours for too little pay; the stress level; and more.

But one of the worst things -- arguably the worst -- is having a bad boss.

When you don't feel seen, appreciated, or listened to by your direct manager, it can have a dramatic impact on not only your work performance, but also your sense of self-esteem. Over time, you can begin to feel anxious, worthless, and demoralized.

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Optimism appears to be rising among small business owners (SBOs): 53% of the SBOs who participated in TD Banks 2018 Small Business Survey said they expect their revenues will grow in 2018. That is an improvement over the 46% of respondents who said the same in 2017.

In addition, the number of small businesses -- defined for purposes of the survey as those with $5 million or less in annual revenues -- that plan to hire this year more than doubled. In 2017, only 9% of respondents said they expected to add staff. This year, 22% said they intend to.

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Leaders of movements--entrepreneurial businesses included--incite followers to believe in a vision, in one another, and in themselves. To amass the power of many, they address the needs and dreams of individuals.

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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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Despite recent stock market turmoil, everywhere you looked this year someone was heralding the strength of the economy, which grew at 3.5 percent in the third quarter. However, not all economic growth favors small businesses, and some even detracts from it. The Inc. Entrepreneurship Index, which measures the quarterly health of the U.S. startup economy, currently sits at 83 out of 100 for the third quarter of 2018. This is down two points from the second quarter and a full nine points from the first quarter of 2017, when our Index peaked. Our indicator sees one factor in particular still dragging like an anchor on the startup economy: job growth.

Even though overall economic conditions have been largely favorable, small businesses have hit a growth ceiling as larger companies--bolstered by generally strong market conditions, favorable tax policies, support from local governments, and easing federal regulations--have been gobbling up talent. This is why, for the past year, the Index has shown a startup economy that is strong but slowing.

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I am pleased to bring you my top five tricks for disconnecting – and at least temporarily escaping the job stress.

1. Make the business case.

Taking time to recharge is not just good for your mental and physical health -- it is the smart thing to do for your business. Studies have shown that increased stress leads to reduced productivity, while decreased stress levels lead to increased productivity.

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The standards for small business success have unquestionably gone up. Todays small businesses must do a lot more to stay competitive than their predecessors. Myriad businesses, however, take this notion a bit too far. Once they discover yet another resource or strategy with the potential to elevate their success, they jump all over it. This is partially due to the many online articles urging business leaders to devote more effort to virtually every element of their businesses.

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Today, tens of thousands of people are considering starting their own business, and for good reasons. On average, people can expect to have two and three careers during their work life. Those leaving one career often think about their second or third career move being one they can run out of their own home. The good news: Starting a home-based business is within the reach of almost anyone who wants to take a risk and work hard, as are a plethora of other low-cost ideas.

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Here are three popular things that are actually not mandatory for all small businesses:

1. Aggressive Marketing

It is easy to go overboard with marketing. With so many tools available, your gut instinct is to try anything with the slightest potential. Even if you stand to lose money, you want the assurance of knowing you are doing everything you can to gain the interest of your target audience. And it is difficult to ignore a marketing tool that has worked marvelously for other small businesses. If they had to do it all over again, these businesses would likely spend 10% of their time developing their products or services and 90% marketing them.

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Switching careers can feel intimidating, but you have got to make some moves if you’re spinning your wheels at your current job. Tech industry jobs are hot right now, and you can make great money once you’ve got the know-how to compete with other tech candidates. Here’s a breakdown of the fields with the best opportunities.

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Billing your customers is, of course, vital -- but even more critical is getting paid for those bills. Thanks to the ongoing evolution in the payments industry, there are more payment tools and platforms to choose from to help find the perfect option for your business based on how many payments you receive, the type of business you have and your budget.

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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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Spreadsheets have long been an important tool for businesses. You can use them for just about anything. This includes budgeting and planning out important marketing campaigns.

No tool seems more synonymous with spreadsheets than Excel. Microsofts tool allows you to easily fill in spaces and create tables. But it also takes advantage of some more advanced features. However, starting from scratch will not give you a productive business.

You may want to take advantage of all that Excel has to offer. But maybe you don’t know exactly how to get started. So templates become a great option. Check out some sources for Excel business templates that can help you in 15 different areas of business operations.

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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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One of the main conclusions Brian Tracy has come to from his years of study is that self-confidence is key to what you can accomplish.

If you have a good amount of self-confidence you will be more likely to try more things. If you are constantly trying more things, that means you're likelier to accomplish more things, since success is often just a measurement of odds.

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Several customers owe you money, but you have no idea when those payments will arrive. Meanwhile, your vendors and contractors are contacting you daily to pay your own invoices. For small-to-midsize businesses (SMBs), this is an all-too-common cash-flow conundrum.

A recent Kabbage survey of 500 successful entrepreneurs showed cash-flow issues are front of mind for SMB owners. Of the respondents surveyed, 63 percent said they are regularly stressed or have anxiety due to cash-flow concerns. Yet, respondents have run successful companies for an average of 10.5 years.

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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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Eleni Gianopulos spent more than 15 years selling her handmade sugar cookies to a famous gourmet grocery chain. Then Dean & DeLuca stopped paying its bills. By January 2018, Gianopulos, founder and owner of New York City-based bakery Elenis Cookies, realized that she might never be paid for $86,000 worth of 2017 custom holiday orders.

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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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As companies like Amazon, Walmart, and Target begin to dazzle us with the growing possibility of same-day delivery, it’s becoming harder for small businesses to compete in ways that provide the same speedy delivery without relying on high-emission forms of commercial storage or transportation options like renting space in large warehouses and air delivery.

That is all now changing thanks to an organization called Ohi—a US-based warehousing and delivery service that allows small businesses to offer speedy, sustainable delivery options.

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