New York SBDC Research Network

JUST LAUNCHED! There is ONE website where you can find free government programs, grants, events and advisors near you! BusinessUSA has just launched its newest website feature, the State Resources Portal. Together with the other local resource tools on the site, American businesses can find local resources, events, and business assistance centers in their state. Try it today! Click the State button at the top of the Business.USA.gov Home Page . You can also find local resources and events by using the Local Resource Finder on the home page of Business.USA.gov . Simply type your U.S. ZIP Code in the box shown and click GO.

Collected by Kate Baker, advisor with the NY SBDC office in Albany 1. The goal as a company is to have customer service that is not just the best but legendary. Sam Walton, Founder of Wal-Mart 2. Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning. Bill Gates 3. It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. Charles Darwin 4. It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages. Henry Ford 5. Well done is better than well said. Benjamin Franklin 6. Spend a lot of time talking to customers face to face. You’d be amazed how many companies don’t listen to their customers. Ross Perot 7. Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless. Mother Teresa 8. If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful. Jeff Bezos, CEO Amazon.com 9. In the...

Where in the U.S. will you find the most satisfied employees? And what makes them so satisfied in their jobs? For job seekers looking to relocate or launch their career, Glassdoor has released its second annual Employment Satisfaction Report Card by City (2014) , offering a comparison by city of overall employee satisfaction, number of employers hiring, business outlook expectations and more, according to local employees in the 50 largest U.S. metros. Based on local employee feedback shared over the past 12 months, the San Francisco Bay Area takes the lead for the second year in a row, with San Jose, CA ranking #1 (3.5 employment satisfaction rating) and San Francisco, CA taking #2 (3.4). Both cities are home to several companies that won a 2014 Glassdoor Employees’ Choice Award, honoring the 50 Best Places to Work.

From Jim's Marketing Blog : Some business owners get it all wrong. They think that they can offer an average service, to average clients for average prices and use marketing to make average sound amazing. The challenge with that approach, is that it has never been harder to hide bad or average work. A quick search on Google, Tripadvisor, Linkedin and Facebook, etc., allows your prospective clients to build a pretty good picture of your business and what your business stands for. For example, claiming to offer a professional service, yet operating behind a cheap website, littered with bad grammar, is a huge warning sign to prospective clients. With the majority of people now checking service providers out online, before contacting them, this is a very big deal.

BizStats is the home of free, accurate business statistics – well organized and easy to access. Search for: industry financial benchmark reports industry profitability risk data a selection of other useful industry statistics click here. free financial calculators, financial tools for your web site or financial glossaries

From FORBES : A best and worst of franchising list is tricky to put together. The methodology is just as important as the objective of the ranking. For the FORBES “best” and “worst” in franchising, FRANdata considered demand for the franchise brand, success of existing franchisees and franchisor support from the perspective of “lender friendliness”. This brings up another factor we reviewed, transparency and the average investment. As important as these criteria are, they can also appear nebulous, and indeed some are difficult to measure. In fact, we used proxies. Starting with demand, FRANdata examined a brand’s growth rate over the 2008 to 2012 period. High growth rates may be impressive but they can be misleading. Fast growth can become unsustainable and mask underlying issues. Therefore, as a proxy for sustainable growth and existing franchisee success, we calculated the franchised unit continuity rate between 2008 and 2012

American Association of Certified Fraud Examiners Report to the Nations on Occupational Fraud and Abuse gives statistics on white collar crime, including statistics on behavioral red flags PricewaterhouseCoopers Global Economics Crime Survey For research based info on U.S. culture related to business: The Hofestede Centre