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The Small Business Advocate – December 2013/January 2014

The December-January issue of The Small Business Advocate newsletter features new research from Advocacy, the chief counsel’s review of 2013 highlights, and the chief economist’s perspective on the important policy choices of 2014. The issue also includes reports on regulatory activities in several areas that affect small business: crowdfunding, cybersecurity, reverse auctions, and critical habitat designations. In This Issue (PDF) The Year of Innovation: The Ride to Entrepreneurial Advancement Factors Leading to Firms’ Hiring Their First Employee Positive Small Business Indicators in 2013 and the Challenge Ahead New York City Roundtable on Crowdfunding Comments Filed on Fish and Wildlife Service Proposals Congressional Testimony on GSA’s Reverse Auctions Advocacy Comments on NIST’s Preliminary Cybersecurity Infrastructure

Blog Series - Business Valuation

Whether selling or purchasing a small business, determining the value of the business is essential. There are multiple different methods for valuing a business.  Below is a description of some of the most common methods of valuing/pricing a business. Descriptions have been provided by American Business Masters & Investments, Inc. (1) Rules Of Thumb Rules Of Thumb (ROT) can be useful tools for appraising small and medium size businesses. But, there is no one, universally acceptable, “Rules Of Thumb” method. All of them are only rough descriptions of reality. They are all gross simplifications, and can be as inappropriate as they are appropriate. Some are based primarily on “comps” (comparables with the sale of similar types of businesses), some are based on standard accounting approaches, some are based on the experience of the compiler/publisher of the ROT, and can be in conflict with ROT’s available, on the same business, from a different compiler/publisher. So, Rules Of Th

The 10 Best Interview Questions That Find Great Talent

Throw those standard interview questions out the window. Use these questions to find the best employees for your business. While folks seeking employment may spend hours prepping for their interviews, the failure to adequately prepare typically comes on the end of the person asking the questions. The people you hire can be your greatest strength or your biggest liability, and we owe it to ourselves and our businesses to take the time to find the most talented employees who are also a good fit for our business model. Prospective employees prepare canned responses to the questions they think you’ll ask. Their goal is to make themselves look good—to amplify their strengths and minimize their weaknesses. Your goal should be to set up a discussion that reveals patterns in their behavior and predicts how they’ll fare in your company. Past behavior predicts future behavior, so make it your goal to collect some honest, thoughtful responses that will give you a better idea of how each candid

Blog Series - DISASTER PREPAREDNESS & RECOVERY

 Don’t lose your business to a power outage, hacker disruption, fire, flood, earthquake or other disaster.  A 2012 survey by Alibaba polled small-business owners to gauge how prepared they were to run their business if a natural disaster struck. The findings were alarming: 74% of American small businesses do not have a disaster preparedness plan; 84% of them are without natural disaster insurance. Preparation, an Active emergency and later, Recovery. Sadly for many businesses, Preparation is the missing component that could have lead to a successful navigation of an active emergency and a graceful navigation of Recovery. More than half of all businesses affected by a disaster level event will not reopen their doors.  In this series we will dive into the three pillars and offer you guidance and routes of assistance to help you plan, prepare and act when the time comes for you to shepherd your business and your employees through an unforeseen (but not an un-planned for disaster)

New York State License Center

When trying to get to the NYS Online Permit Assistance and Licensing site is "temporarily unavailable." The message reads: For information regarding the status of your OPAL ID, please contact the OPAL Help Line at (518) 474-8275 during the hours of 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday – Friday, except State observed holidays. For information about starting or expanding your business, please visit the New York State License Center. [ This page , which I was not familiar with previously, seems to have most OPAL stuff.] Under the heading, “Other NYS License Center Services”, click on the second bulleted hyperlink, “Find out what permits or licenses your business needs” to access the Business Wizard Home page. To apply online for a Certificate of Authority to Collect Sales Tax or Certificate of Registration to Sell Cigarettes and Tobacco Products, please visit the New York State License Center at https://aca.licensecenter.ny.gov/ACA/Default.aspx and click on the “Login to get

Should malls close during snowstorms?

Crossgates Mall is taking some heat for keeping stores open during last week's snowstorm. Retail employee Alli Dillenbeck's open letter to the mall on the subject was passed from her blog, http://allidillenbeck.blogspot.com , to Facebook and Twitter users. Commenters on the mall's Facebook page joined the chorus calling for the mall to let stores close and workers go home during such storms. After recounting how she struggled to get to the mall Thursday in the storm, Dillenbeck notes that she called the management office only to be told all those responsible for deciding whether stores could close left at 5 p.m. "Obviously, you care exponentially more about money than the people that work there," Dillenbeck wrote on her blog. ... "I have like 13,000 views on my post," she said. "I was shocked. It went up from 5,000 the day I posted it." Read more from the Albany Times Union . What is YOUR business's policy in case of inclement

Older workers less likely to have severe work injuries, but they miss more work days to recover

From the Bureau of Labor Statistics : The rate of nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses requiring days away from work to recuperate was 112 cases per 10,000 full-time workers in 2012, down from 117 cases in 2011. The median days away from work—a key measure of severity of injuries and illnesses—was 9 days in 2012. Workers age 65 and older had the lowest incidence rate in 2012 at 89 cases per 10,000 full-time workers, but they required the longest time away from work to recover, a median of 14 days.

NEW NYS CONTRACT REPORTER WEBSITE LAUNCH – January 6th, 2014

The new NYS Contract Reporter will launch the morning of January 6th. The current site will go down at 2 pm on Friday January 3rd, with the new site going live on Monday January 6th. Your current account will NOT be transferred to the new site. When you visit the new site you will be prompted to create an account and will have the opportunity to register your business in the new Business Registry. If you created an account on the new site during the pre-registration period, you will receive an eAlert bid notification from the new system and you will be able to log onto the new site to view all open solicitations. The new NYS Contract Reporter is well designed and offers new features, functionalities and resources to help you find opportunities in state contracting. New tutorials will help you learn how the site functions. Please note that after launch on January 6th the NYS Contract Reporter’s new domain is: www .nyscr.ny.gov and eAlert messages will come from nyscr_noreply@n

Blog Series - Affordable Care Act

There are many key dates to watch for in the Affordable Care Act rollout. To start, here is what happened on January 1st. -Coverage begins. Many low-income Americans who didn't qualify for Medicaid in the past can use it now. People who signed up for private insurance in a state or federal marketplace by Dec. 24 (or later in some states) and have paid their first premium are now covered, too. -Coverage begins for workers at companies that have signed up for new small business plans through the marketplaces, also called health care exchanges. -Coverage lapses for people whose existing plans were canceled, if they haven't signed up for a replacement or received an extension. At least 4.7 million people got cancellation notices, despite Obama's promise that Americans with insurance they like could keep their old plans. Obama recently gave insurance companies the option of extending old plans for existing customers for a year, but only where state insurance commissioners

The Best Data Visualizations of 2013

Gizmodo, the design and technology blog for Gawker Media, presents a rundown of the best infographics and data visualizations of 2013 . Not all are based primarily on public data, but showcase the strengths of the medium just the same. Want more? Check out Cool Hunting’s Information is Beautiful Award Winners for 2013 .

Employment Projections: 2012 - 2022

Occupations and industries related to healthcare are projected to add the most new jobs between 2012 and 2022, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported. Total employment is projected to increase 10.8 percent, or 15.6 million, during the decade. In addition to projecting employment for each detailed occupation, BLS depicts the education, related work experience, and on-the-job training typically needed for occupations. Occupations that typically require postsecondary education for entry are expected, on average, to grow faster than occupations that require a high school diploma or less. This news release [PDF] focuses on several areas of projections data: labor force and the aggregate economy, industry employment, occupation employment, education and training, and replacement needs.

Practices to Protect Your Small Business from Employee Lawsuits

From SBA.gov : Getting sued by current or former employees happens more often than you might think. In fact, the number of lawsuits filed regarding wage-and-hour laws alone in 2011 went up 32 percent from just three years prior. Don’t be too busy to check in and ensure you aren’t breaking laws or otherwise opening yourself up to a potential lawsuit — no small business owner has the time, or money, for that. There’s a plethora of advice out there on the subject of protecting your business from lawsuits. Before you read on, remember, you should always consult your legal counsel to ensure you are complying with federal and state laws. Laws regarding certain practices, such as non-compete agreements, vary widely from state to state. SBA has compiled a list of some of the most helpful tips from around the Web.

A Holiday Retail Lesson for Small Business: Be More Like Amazon

Here are three things we just learned about Christmas commerce in 2013: 1. Lots of shoppers skipped the mall, even as retailers kept slashing prices. Store traffic in the week leading up to Dec. 22 sank 22 percent, with sales growing at the smallest rate since 2009, ShopperTrak reports. More from Business Week .

Blog Series - Affordable Care Act

There is a lot of information and then there are even more questions about doctors who are accepting Affordable Care Act.  There is also plenty of discussion and questions involving how patients can find doctors that do accept Affordable Care Act coverage.  Here are links to article and information provided both by the federal government and the news agencies. I feel I must give a disclaimer regarding information provided from the news agencies.  These articles are to give you an idea of what people are saying and hearing, and there is no guarantee that what is being reported is accurate or current. Factsheet: What You Should Know About Provider Networks What’s a provider network?  A provider network is a list of the doctors, other health care providers, and hospitals that a plan has contracted with to provide medical care to the plan’s members. These providers are called “network providers” or “in-network providers.” A provider that hasn't contracted with the plan is call

Vast Majority Of US Businesses Say Intellectual Property Is Not Important (oy)

This post is licensed CC-BY SA 3.0, and may be shared and reposted with attribution. Please include a link back to the original, which will contain the most up-to-date version . by Gabriel J. Michael Last year, the USPTO released a widely cited report entitled “Intellectual Property and the U.S. Economy: Industries in Focus.” This report emphasized the importance of IP to the U.S. economy, claiming “the entire U.S. economy relies on some form of IP,” and estimating that “IP-intensive industries” accounted for 40 million American jobs and 35% of the U.S. GDP in 2010. While many pro-IP groups hailed the report as demonstrating the importance of IP to the American economy, the report was widely panned by critics who pointed out that the definition of “IP-intensive industries” was so broad as to be meaningless. Indeed, according to the report, the number one IP-intensive industry by employment in the United States was… grocery stores. Although supporters of stricter IP regulation and