New York SBDC Research Network

As the popular saying goes, No Farms No Food.  But small farms constantly face difficulty in competing with the big players and in order to compete they need assistance.  They need funding.  The National Agricultural Library of the United States Department of Agriculture has compiled a list of Small Farm Funding Resources .  There is assistance provided on how to write a business plan, financial and planning resources, funding and program assistance, useful organizations and websites, and more.

For many businesses, the holidays bring in half of annual sales, and this crucial time of year can easily sneak up on them. The time to get ready is now, before getting wrapped up in the day-to-day holiday rush. To help businesses make 2014 their best holiday seasons yet, PlanningShop and Rhonda Abrams have assembled their 14 best tips of the season into a FREE downloadable e-Guide! The 2014 Holiday Success Guide is packed with actionable tips, 'Do this now' instructions and interactive worksheets. You can use the guide to plan for the season no matter what type of business you are running. Rhonda has included tools for planning a social media calendar, capturing new customer names and contact information and even a guide on all the apps that Santa himself will be utilizing this holiday season. Please share this FREE guide with others via www.planningshop.com/HolidaySuccess or via social media utilizing the hashtag #HolidaySuccess.

What technological trends can we expect to shape the enterprise in 2015? According to predictions released by US carrier Verizon, strategic network investments will be a top priority for chief information officers (CIOs) working in the corporate world next year, as more and more companies seek to make sense of Big Data, profit from the internet of ihings (IoT) and make the transition to the cloud. In the coming year, now perhaps the worst of the recession is behind us, companies will also begin to adopt technologies that drive business innovation and provide a strong basis for future growth. More from ZD Net

Sales and marketing teams both have helped break down the sales process by perpetuating leads from poor-quality customers who will never buy anything. Sales teams often dump erroneous information into the customer relationship management system without running it through marketing software to scrub the data for authenticity and other data problems. But marketers, too, have been known to pass leads on to sales departments without knowing whether they are prospects who are ready to buy... "These leads are no good," a salesperson would say, and I would say, "What are you talking about? These are great names: Look at the titles, look at the companies." And she'd say, "Yeah, but you know what? They're not ready to buy." More from Search CRM .

Online enrollment in the SHOP Marketplace began Saturday,  November 15th. Today, you can: See if you qualify for the SHOP Marketplace See if you qualify for the Small Business Health Care Tax Credit Browse plans and prices for 2015 SHOP coverage in your area Learn how to  apply online  or use an  agent or broker If you offered SHOP coverage to your employees in 2014,  learn how to renew or change your offer online. Join representatives from Small Business Majority, the Small Business Administration, and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services for a conference call and Q&A, where we'll discuss how the marketplace works and answer any specific questions you have about using it. We'll also discuss the individual marketplace, which also begins open enrollment on November 15, where the self-employed, small business employees and others can shop for quality, affordable insurance online. Register HERE .

On September 19th, 2014, Alibaba, a Chinese e-commerce company that provides consumer-to-consumer, business-to-consumer, and business-to-business sales service via web portals, broke records when at the end of the day of their Initial Public Offering, Alibaba's market value was measured at US $25 billion. For a long time now, Westerners have viewed China as an inferior country when it comes to business.  But things have changed, and now China is making it's mark on the international business market, especially when it comes to technology.  China has four Silicon Valleys compared to one in the United States.  Read more about how "China Triumphs as Silicon Valley Primps"  here . Text from Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alibaba_Group ) used  under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.

Now that you've decided to build a website for your small business (congratulations, BTW), there’s no room or reason for procrastination. Right now, your potential customers are on their smartphones, tablets and computers looking for products or services like yours. The facts don’t lie: -- At least 85 percent of today’s consumers use the Internet to find local products and services. -- More than one-third of U.S. smartphone owners use their phones to find store locations online. -- And people used their phones, tablets and desktops to shop online to the tune of more than $70 billion in 2013. Most likely, your competitors are already online. You’re losing out if you’re not. Of course you’re busy. More from America's SBDC