New York SBDC Research Network

Stories of illness and tragedy abound at nail salons across the country, of children born slow or “special,” of miscarriages and cancers, of coughs that will not go away and painful skin afflictions. The stories have become so common that older manicurists warn women of child-bearing age away from the business, with its potent brew of polishes, solvents, hardeners and glues that nail workers handle daily. A growing body of medical research shows a link between the chemicals that make nail and beauty products useful — the ingredients that make them chip-resistant and pliable, quick to dry and brightly colored, for example — and serious health problems. Whatever the threat the typical customer enjoying her weekly French tips might face, it is a different order of magnitude, advocates say, for manicurists who handle the chemicals and breathe their fumes for hours on end, day after day. More from the New York Times .

Millennials tend to stay at a job for a shorter period than the average worker, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Wall Street Journal highlighted these numbers  in a story this week, also raising the question of whether all the movement in the workforce is a problem or opportunity. According to the BLS, the median time in a job for workers 20-24 was less than 16 months, and it was three years for those 25-34,  according to the story .  The median time in a job for all workers 25 and up was 5.5 years. More from AIER .

During any job interview, there are some questions that almost always get asked. So, there's no excuse NOT to be prepared. To help you ace the interview, Glassdoor has compiled a list of the 50 Most Common Interview Questions . We sifted through tens of thousands of interview questions to come up with 50 questions you're most likely to get asked when interviewing. "What are your strengths and weaknesses?" "Where do you see yourself in five years?" Check out these questions and more that you should expect to be asked in any job interview.

Soon, virtual currency businesses will have to answer to BitLicense. It’s an apt choice of name for a regulatory framework that will govern an industry whose players have included BitPay, BitGo, BitAccess, BitPagos, BitInstant, and BitWall . Companies like those, and others in the bitcoin community (and beyond bitcoin), anxiously await the final version of the policy that Benjamin Lawsky, superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services, has spent nearly a year revising. The policy will require digital currency companies to obtain a license in order to transmit money on behalf of customers. (Former BitInstant CEO Charlie Shrem went to prison last month for operating an unlicensed money-transmitting service, among other charges.) New York will be the first state to roll out such a policy, but broad bitcoin regulation has a long way to go in the U.S., where 48 different states have their own set of money-transmitting regulations.

The Remittance Coalition released the first volume of the Small Business Payments Toolkit , an educational resource to help small businesses learn more about payments. The toolkit is intended to encourage the adoption of electronic business-to-business payments and remittance information exchanges by small businesses. It explains payment types, describes electronic payments like automated clearing house (ACH) transactions, offers advice on working with bankers, and provides tips on avoiding payments fraud. It lists resources for further information and education on payments. Feel free to share this practical guide with your small business clients. The Toolkit is intended for public use, is not copyrighted, and can be shared and linked.

In 1952, the owner of a chicken restaurant named Harlan Sanders began franchising out his brand to other restaurateurs throughout the country. Colonel Sanders’ chain, then known as Kentucky Fried Chicken (and now KFC), spread quickly, and Sanders became a very wealthy man. The key to his success: a secret recipe. It would have been easier to simply give the franchisees the herb and spice recipe mix and prohibit its unauthorized use via contracts and patents. But KFC decided not to, believing that the recipe was their biggest point of differentiation. And the recipe remains a secret even today -- in no small part because the company wants to keep it that way. More from Now I Know .

What exactly does sales have to do with leadership? You can’t build a successful enterprise if you don’t know how to motivate a team and get them to buy into your vision. This is where the art of sales comes in. Great leaders seem to have this uncanny ability to motivate people to take action. It might appear that this ability is natural, but that isn’t always true. Leading others is a skill, one that can be learned and that needs to be honed over time. Read more from BPlans.com

SBA is acknowledging the outstanding work of Empire State Certified Development Corp. (Empire State CDC), a New-York-based CDC, as the winner of the first-ever National Small Business Week Community Advantage Lender of the Year Award. A subsidiary of the New York Business Development Corporation, Empire State CDC is New York’s largest SBA 504 lender and consistently ranks in the top five among the 242 certified development companies nationwide. In FY 2014, Empire State CDC led the nation in approving $8.6 million of Community Advantage (CA) Loans to 66 different small businesses. Empire State CDC President and CEO Patrick J. MacKrell will accept the award. The award will be presented as part of the National Small Business Week 2015 Celebrations in May. A table showing both the top 10 Microlenders and top 10 Community Advantage lenders with their respective rankings and loan production may be accessed at https://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/Top10-microloan-ca-lenders-fy14.pdf

WASHINGTON – A Pacific Northwest mayor who managed recovery efforts in the aftermath of a devastating mudslide, a Long Island college student who used social media to ignite volunteerism in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, and a New York marina owner who reopened his business less than six months after Hurricane Sandy nearly destroyed his property will be presented at the White House with a 2015 Phoenix Award on May 8 during a U.S. Small Business Administration National Small Business Week event. Since 1998, the SBA has presented Phoenix Awards to business owners, public officials and volunteers who displayed selflessness, ingenuity and tenacity in the aftermath of a disaster, while contributing to the rebuilding of their communities. Dan Rankin, Mayor of the Town of Darrington, Washington will receive the 2015 Phoenix Award for Outstanding Contributions to Disaster Recovery by a Public Official. On March 22, 2014, a major landslide occurred in Oso, Washington, killing 43, engul

When you pitch a startup to angel investors, you want to get questions. If you don’t get questions then your pitch fell flat and nobody is interested. My advice to you, if you’re pitching, is to love the questions that interrupt and answer them eagerly. Do they throw you off pace, out of your planned sequence? Welcome to startups. If having your pitch sequence disturbed bothers you, keep your day job. More from BPlans.com .

Starting a business can put a burden on your personal finances. It takes time before your new venture turns a profit and provides financial support for you and your family. Before starting a business, it is important to get your finances in order. Read more about how business and personal finances are related , and why strains on your personal budget can cause a financial risk to your business.

Thanks to the huge range of accounting applications available for today’s small and medium-sized businesses, it’s easier than ever to keep an accurate record of where your business’s money is going. While accounting software has made bookkeeping and accounting easier for small businesses, it’s also made errors and accounting mistakes—from incorrectly categorizing a transaction to doing all accounting yourself—much more common. Some accounting mistakes are minor, insignificant, and—when they’re inevitably noticed by someone within your business—easy to correct. But others are more serious and could have a significant effect on your business’s financial health. Over time, poor accounting practices can distort the reality of your company’s fiscal health. In severe cases, repeated accounting mistakes and bad accounting practices can lead your business toward insolvency or company administration. Read more from BPlans.com

U.S. consumer spending accounts for about 68 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). As goes the consumer, so goes the economy. This month, AIER looks at various aspects of Americans' economic behavior and factors that tend to drive spending such as attitudes, income and wealth. In particular, it highlights areas that may contribute to consumer sentiment since historically this has been a good indicator for future consumption.  Click here to read more.

By  Donna Butler The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has taken a dual approach to sustainability this Earth Day. The SBA is leading by example by reducing the environmental impact of our own operations while continuing to offer resources to small businesses who are interested in “going green.” Since 2008, the SBA has reduced its total greenhouse gas emissions by 17%. In addition, the agency has recycled over 1,000 lbs. of electronics through an innovative partnership with the U.S. Postal Service and increased the percentage of alternate fuel (hybrid, low greenhouse gas emitting and flex fuel) vehicles in the agency’s fleet up to 72% of the total fleet, among other successes. For more information on SBA’s sustainability activities please see the agency’s latest  Strategic Sustainability Performance Plan . For businesses interested in reducing their own environmental impact, the SBA has several resources.

We’re big believers in  green businesses  and the notion that making money and being eco-conscious are not mutually exclusive. In honor of the upcoming Earth Day on April 22, we’d like to outline some great ideas to “green” your business – ranging from ways to lessen your company’s carbon footprint to dealing with EPA regulations. These tips underscore the idea that going green is a great business strategy. For starters, make sure your facility is as energy-efficient as possible, something that benefits you and the environment. Once you’ve done that,  you may also want to consider renewable energy .

Ideas have to run through an obstacle course of hard realities before they are really opportunities. Few ideas make it. Everybody has ideas, Millions of them are floating around everywhere. Every problem anybody encounters is a solution waiting to be unwrapped. Every time somebody follows the comment “there should be a better way” by suggesting a better way, that’s an idea. An opportunity is way more important than an idea.The difference between idea and opportunity is huge. An opportunity is an idea somebody can execute. More from Bplans.com

Consider the following email marketing statistics from a recent consumer research study of British consumers: The average person's inbox has 260 unopened emails, 56% of which are from brands. 60% of those people who never open brand emails admitted they would if the subject line were personalized. The above facts tell us that consumers find impersonal marketing communications—let's call it "brand spam"—irrelevant as well as annoying. Often, unread emails from brands are those the consumer initially elected to receive, a process we call "self-selecting." Self-selecting is defined as ignoring emails originally requested but no longer relevant by the time they reach the individual's inbox. The solution to eliminating brand spam is to provide greater context for improved personalization. Read more from MarketingPros

Choosing the right name for your business is really important. Not only should you pick a name that reflects your brand identity, but you also need to ensure your name is properly registered and protected for the long term. And be sure to give some thought to whether it's web-ready. Is the domain name even available? Here are some tips to help you pick, register, and protect your business name .

by Lisa Furgison After years of working for micromanaging bosses, working ten-hour days, and feeling completely drained at the end of a workweek, my husband and I decided to call it quits. We left our jobs in the media world and started our own business, McEwen’s Media. While I’m happy to report that it pays the bills, it didn’t start off with rainbows and lollypops. At the beginning, we made some marketing mistakes. I started talking with other entrepreneurs and quickly learned everyone suffers from a case of the “marketing hiccups” at the beginning. In an attempt to help other entrepreneurs, I’ve put together this list of avoidable marketing mistakes. More from BPlans.com

According to the  findings of a 2014 Intuit study , more than 40 percent of U.S. small businesses consider themselves financially illiterate. Yet, 81 percent handle their business’ finances. April is National Financial Capability Month, so now is a great time for small businesses and aspiring entrepreneurs to brush up on their  financial literacy skills . Whether you are a seasoned small business owner, a new small business owner or have dreams to be a future small business owner, it is inevitable that you will at some point have to deal with securing the capital to fund and/or expand your business venture. There are several  financing options  to explore when funding a small business such as loans, grants, venture capital, angel investors and crowd funding, but most small businesses rely on lenders to obtain the capital needed to open a business or to finance capital improvements.