Thinking about launching a new business? Here is where to look to for high profit margins.

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Every business needs well managed capital to scale. If you’re able to budget properly, then there will always be enough capital for you to grow your business. Every business operates differently which means there is no universal formula to creating a viable budget for your company.

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The tools, platforms and methods you use to grow your business are constantly changing. So you need to keep up with all the latest updates and trends. Members of the online small business community have some great insights about these changing tools and trends, ranging from social media algorithms to augmented reality. Read on for some helpful tips.

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Whether you realize it or not, artificial intelligence has become a ubiquitous part of our lives. Companies large and small are embracing the opportunity to achieve more and set bigger goals by using AI. Solid proof of this embrace can be seen in CRM giant Salesforce, which embeds AI into its leading CRM platform. Driven by the idea of democratizing AI so companies of all sizes can deliver smarter, more personalized, and predictive customer experiences, Salesforce created Einstein, your personal AI data scientist to guide you through your day.

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Marketing is a moving target these days. Technologies evolve and customer behavior seems to change almost every day.

Small businesses tend to be a little slow with marketing developments. Some are cutting-edge, of course – but most wait until theres proof a tactic works.

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Last summer, Square began offering loans to non-Square merchants with the help of a restaurant software partner called Upserve. Now, the payments and financial services company has created a formal partnership program with the long-term goal of reaching millions more.
Square Capital is launching the partnership platform with BigCommerce, an e-commerce software company that is letting Square make loan offers to its tens of thousands of small business clients.

Square is also extending loan offers to restaurants that work with its own delivery service, Caviar, but which do not already process payments through Square.

Taken together, these new partnerships give Jack Dorseys company a way to jumpstart further expansion of its lending program, which has already extended $1.8 billion in funds to more than 140,000 businesses since its launch three-plus years ago.

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Networking skills: sometimes it feels like you either have them or you do not. Putting yourself out there at social gatherings comes so naturally to a lot of folks, while others struggle when forced to strike up conversations with strangers.

Networking can be especially overwhelming for small business teams, who usually do not have a safety net of colleagues at networking events — or a big company name in their back pockets. Yet networking has clear benefits that can help your company and career. Not only does it expand your network of contacts, it introduces you to new opportunities, advice and opinions. Put in a little practice, and networking makes you more visible and even helps boost your self confidence.

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We have officially entered the holiday season! October through January is filled with holidays from Halloween to New Years. As a small business, you can take advantage of this joyful time by taking your marketing efforts to the next level. There are many different ways a small business can celebrate (and profit from) the holidays, so let’s jump right into to our extensive guide.

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While there are hundreds of thousands of brands competing online, there are a few e-commerce sites, like Amazon, that top the rest. Amazon is the big box store of years past. At one time, consumers would shop at several small businesses to get what they need, but later, larger stores like Walmart popped up, serving as one-stop shops for every consumer need.

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Amazon Business Prime Shipping is a paid annual membership program, which enables registered multi-user business customers to take advantage of unlimited fast and free shipping. The program is currently available for Amazon Business customers in the United States and Germany.
Small businesses are often faced with the challenge of sharing passwords for authorizing procurement and shipping tasks. With Business Prime Shipping everyone in a business account automatically gets Business Prime Shipping.

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For entrepreneurs in the natural food and products industry like Constantine, Whole Foods has served as a launchpad of sorts for companies looking to get on mainstream store shelves. Companies and local farmers often would get into one or two locations and grow from there if their products took off. Like the big supermarkets and food manufacturers who are nervous about Amazon's size and power, many small suppliers can see benefits of the combination, but are also concerned what it could mean for them.

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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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In recent years Instagram has risen to become one of the social media giants, with over 800 million monthly active users, it can be a fantastic tool for businesses and brands. Not only is it a great platform to showcase what you have to offer, it’s also a great place to make connections, get involved in influencer marketing and reach new clients and customers. So how can you use the platform to make money? Here are some Instagram tips for small business owners.

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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’s a list of the top recurring billing and payments tools to transition the process from the ledger to the internet.

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Roughly 60 percent of millennials want to increase sustainability efforts in business. Millennials make up the largest group of consumers besides baby boomers, and 72 percent are willing to pay more for products from businesses committed to sustainability.

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The freedom to chase your entrepreneurial dream is one of the great foundations of America. Owning a business is a freedom the U.S. Census Bureau of Labor Statistics records 29.6 million Americans pursue today, supporting local communities with products and services while contributing millions of dollars and jobs to the American economy.

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Twelve months later we have a full-time team and a company successful beyond our wildest dreams. Digital Press, named during one of our many coffee-on-an-apartment-balcony conversations, has been our attempt to empower the world's smartest people to share what they know. We work with carefully selected CEOs, entrepreneurs, investors, and venture capitalists (primarily at businesses doing $10M to $300M in revenue) to share their hard-earned insight with the internet. None of the atrocious writing most PR firms peddle as acumen. None of the ad-speak or jargon nobody finds helpful. Just the hard lessons learned and the personal stories of how these successful people learned them.

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Numbers do not lie, and the statistics are in -- there is a gender gap in salaries. There are varying statistics with different percentages, but the discrepancy is out there. Data from PayScale shows the difference in parity between controlled and uncontrolled pay gaps. The World Economic Forum shows gender gaps is a problem on a global level. But, how do employers structure and communicate salaries without any inequality?

After leading a small business human resources and operations department for 13 years, I know the answer is simple: Keep your policy simple and communicate it well.

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The beginning of the new year is when the worlds top investors make their predictions of industries to keep an eye on. Innovative technologies and ways of doing business are creating growth in certain industries. For those looking for something new to invest time or money in, take a look at these five industries that experts predict to have an increase in growth in 2018.

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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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The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was signed into law by President Donald Trump on Dec. 22, 2017, and it is being put into action starting with the 2018 tax year.

On the personal side, the final bill cuts income tax rates in almost every tax bracket, doubles the standard deduction, eliminates personal exemptions, doubles the child tax credit, expands medical expense deductions, repeals the Obamacare tax and doubles the estate tax exemption.

On the business side of things, the tax bill lowers the corporate tax rate from 35 to 21 percent -- which is the lowest rate since 1939. For pass-through businesses -- which many small businesses are -- the standard deduction gets boosted to 20 percent.

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Personal resolutions can be tough to keep — lose those pounds or quit smoking — but those of the small business variety can be a whole lot easier and bring you greater satisfaction and success by year’s end.

Seven resolutions to help you succeed in 2018:

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Although there are still many unknowns about the tax law that took effect Jan. 1, some small business owners have already figured out that they stand to gain from some of its changes and are changing their plans to maximize their benefits. Some believe they will get a break on income taxes for sole proprietorships, partners and what are called S corporations. Those who buy new computers, vehicles or other equipment can take a bigger deduction.

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Branding, services, promotions, products, pricing, prints, blogs, advertising, research and social media -- all of this is marketing. With all the marketing options out there, it can be difficult for small businesses to know what to do. Marketing is a concentrated effort to do push your brand across a variety of platforms and hope that enough makes it through to your customer. Customers need to hear your message several times, so brand, brand, brand! Here are some simple steps to help you market your small business:

1. Get organized. Getting an organized plan is the first step in any marketing effort. Make one. Start with brainstorming, create themes and transfer action items to a calendar or to-do list.

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Building a small business online is scary. Big businesses can easily outspend you with PPC, SEO, SMM and inbound marketing campaigns.

However, smart startup founders grimly pass around business battles on the blogosphere, charging low prices for quality product, reversing their vision, failing to voice their opinion on their podcasts, showing contempt for our product, and disrespect for our craft.

And yet, look around at the World Wide Web jungle. It's watered by the services offered by small businesses. The technology to produce product and convert customers exists because we create codes, design services, and write web pages, blog posts, and marketing materials that generate leads and close sales. And every 350-pound gorilla company uses our products or services to thrive.

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In fact, some business leaders get so overwhelmed by the din of competing voices from service providers, they sit on the sidelines and fail to take advantage of some productivity and profitability enhancing systems.

I want to point out several good apps and SaaS tools, but before I get into specifics, I want to create a simple framework in which you should evaluate these tools. Further, keep in mind that one of the biggest advantages these tools give you is the ability to successfully manage virtual teams. However, you will find almost all of them appropriate for local use as well.

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Being a small business owner is expensive as it is -- every penny counts when entrepreneurs are living on razor-thin margins and fighting for market share. But owning and operating a small business is even more expensive when you pay more taxes than you owe.

In a survey personal finance expert Garrett Gunderson conducted of his small business-owner clients and wrote about for Forbes, approximately 93 percent of them had overpaid over the past dozen years. Now, nobody expects owners to be tax professionals -- you do have businesses to run, after all -- but it's important to know where you can save money in order to invest that money back into your business.

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Like many entrepreneurs, in the beginning of my own business I did not really plan for growth. Instead, I responded to opportunities as they came. In fact, I first went in to business by literally bumping into an opportunity. One day, while walking my dog, I met a man who needed a business plan. He was my first client.

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Sixty-nine percent of small business owners have zero to little confidence they will be able to retire comfortably, Paychex found in a survey.

Thirty percent said they were somewhat confident, 21% said they were not at all confident, and 18% fall between somewhat confident and not at all confidentȒadding up to a total of 69%. Only 20% said they were very confident they will have enough money to retire comfortably.

Asked what could help improve their situation, 68% said being able to save more. Other ways they would like to receive financial help were assistance in converting a portfolio balance into monthly income, cited by 10%; guidance on investments and the appropriate savings rate, also cited by 10%; and retirement tools to cover a wide range of expenses, including health care, cited by 8%. Fifteen percent said that nothing would help them feel more confident about retirement.

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Enhance The Customer Experience

The term user experience or UX is often used in the context of web design, with the idea that features must be designed with the end user in mind. Customer experience or CX includes UX but also encompasses every touchpoint that customers have with your business.

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New-generation information technology continues to offer more efficiencies for small and midsize businesses, and for those ready to take a leap and invest in these fast new tools and services, 2018 promises to be a good year.

So what exactly are the top technology trends for small businesses? Well, basically anything that a large enterprise needs and uses, midrange-size companies also can put to work. This is not a trickle-down-type process; the midrange enterprise market is the largest in the world, and tech companies continue to come out with new and improved products designed specifically for them.


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A majority of small business owners, 63.8 percent, believe that President Trump's policies have helped their business, according to a survey from the Job Creators Network.

More business owners—57.5 percent—believe Republicans do a better job of managing economic issues than do Democrats (14 percent). The survey finds the support is likely due to Trump's ability to roll back regulations and red tape on businesses.

A majority of businesses also support the tax reform package that was signed into law and believe media coverage of the proposal was biased.

Sixty-eight percent of small businesses view the legislation favorably or somewhat favorably. Fifty-eight percent said the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act will benefit their business.

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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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Why does qualifying for a small business loan have to be such a mystery?

According to a CB Insights study, cash flow issues are the second most common reason startups fail, accounting for 29% of failures. In many cases, access to capital would make a big difference. Yet the loan application process is notoriously opaque for small business owners. Research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows the average small business owner spent 26 hours searching and applying for credit, contacted three financial institutions and submitted three credit applications. Despite this time-consuming work, only half of small-business applicants end up being approved for the loan amount they applied for.

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So much of success is knowing when to stay the course, even when you’re met with rejection after rejection.

30-year-old Melanie Perkins has been launching creative businesses since she was a teenager. Her first venture, designing and selling handmade scarves to sell in her hometown of Perth, Australia, was launched when she was just 14.  

At the age of 22, Perkins founded her next company, an online system for schools to design their yearbooks called Fusion Books. Today, Fusion Books is the largest yearbook publisher in Australia and has a presence in France and New Zealand.

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The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) was signed into law by President Trump near the end of 2017 and it mostly took effect in 2018. While the TCJA impacts almost every single individual taxpayer to some degree, the changes also significantly impact corporations and small businesses. In some areas, the impact was purposeful and directed. However, in other ways, the TCJA will have both positive and negative secondary effects. One area that could see a secondary or unintended boost due to a new tax deduction (IRC § 199A) for pass through businesses is retirement plans with small business employers.

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Koch wanted to give back in the most meaningful and valuable way he and his team could. Ten years ago, the company started the Sam Adams Brewing the American Dream (BTAD) program to mentor and provide funding to food, beverage and hospitality startups. Many of these companies are founded by African American women, including Jessica Spalding of Harlem Chocolate Factory.  During the past 20 years, African-American women’s rate of starting businesses was 605% versus 44% for all businesses, according to The 2017 State of Women-Owned Businesses* commissioned by American Express.

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If your small business has a team of employees, then you need a payroll service to manage all of those payments and details. A good small business payroll service should automatically calculate how much pay each employee earns during every pay period, then process those payments and calculate taxes and reports to help you keep your financial records in order.

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Landing a coveted spot on Shark Tank is an entrepreneurs dream. They get the opportunity to pitch their business on national television in front of millions of viewers and several rich and prominent investors.

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Salesforce may derive a grand majority of its revenue from large customers employing 1,000 or more people. But it reached out this week to the smallest of small businesses -- 20 employees or less -- with the release of Salesforce Essentials.

The new suite of Salesforce small business cloud tools, which manage both sales and customer service/support, will replace current offerings Desk.com and SalesforceIQ. The company will retire those in 2020.

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Below I have outlined three circumstances that should give you pause about the timing of asking for a raise:

1.You have been out of school for less than a year.
2.Your job has not changed at all.
3.You have not made your company any more money.

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The business terrain is one that changes much faster than most -- basically because the way business is done evolves based on cultural changes, changes in technology and even generational changes. It is safe to say that at all times, at least one of these things is changing.

We are in the era of giving back and social impact. Businesses should face this, and stop using the fact that they are not yet big businesses as an excuse for boycotting charitable involvements or social responsibility. Businesses that do this are missing out on the great benefits hidden on the other side of socially responsible companies.

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The majority of small business owners agree that online marketplaces have positively impacted their sales, according to a poll by Manta.

Nearly 70% of small business owners polled stated that marketplaces like Amazon and eBay have helped them increase sales, while about 30% believe they have had a negative impact. Most small businesses (81%) believe that online sales are critical to their companys success, but most rely on their own websites as an e-commerce channel. Sixty-six percent of small businesses sell products through their own websites, 24% sell on Amazon, and 22% sell on eBay.

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Facebook is more than just status updates and photo albums -- it's a major marketing tool for businesses. However, if you don't know how to use it properly and take advantage of all it has to offer, you might as well not use it at all.

From engaging customers to entertaining them, Facebook Insights provides some of the best tips and tools for boosting your business. To start, Facebook Insights will tell you information about your customer base, such as the type of people who follow you, where they are located, how old they are and more. Another important area that Facebook Insights covers is your competition. Using the tool, you can track their posts and engagement in order to get ideas for your own business.

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Digital marketing for small shops like local bakeries, grocers and regional accountants is growing into big business.

Those small-and-medium-sized businesses (SMB) are increasingly turning to growing outside firms to handle their digital outreach, according to industry sources. Among their goals is to become more social media-savvy: for instance, drawing a Facebook user on their phone clicking on a business page into a local shop.

Several digital marketing startups focused on smaller companies are looking to capitalize on the opportunity, and they are hungry for venture capital to fund their efforts.

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In our age of political polarization, the right, left and center agree on one thing: Big business is wicked, and small business is noble.

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Time is a valuable, nonrenewable resource that is distributed equally to each of us. We all get the same 1,440 minutes every day. Are you using your time successfully, or are you wasting your time and draining your energy?

In coaching top leaders around the world, I have discovered some patterns in how people waste their time and energy. Here are eight of the most common:

1. Being distracted.
Leaders who have a lot to do are easily distracted. No one can stay on task 100 percent of the time, but distraction can pose a serious obstacle to getting things done. It eats away at your time and causes unnecessary stress. Limit distraction by being mindful of how you organize your time and work environment and by preparing yourself to accomplish what needs doing. Develop habits and strategies to minimize your access to distraction, keep your focus on the task at hand, and improve your overall ability to concentrate.

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U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry today announced that the Department of Energy will award 219 grants totaling $34 million to 183 small businesses in 41 states.  Funded through DOE’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs, todays selections are for Phase I research and development.  

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