New York SBDC Research Network

Among employed veterans age 18 or older, the most common occupations for men are professional and related; management, business, and financial operations; and service occupations. In 2014, these three groups accounted for 50 percent of all employed men who had previously served on active duty in the U.S. Armed Forces. These were also the largest occupational groups among male nonveterans. Male veterans were more likely than nonveterans to work in transportation and material moving and installation, maintenance, and repair occupations. Male veterans were less likely to work in construction occupations. Female veterans were most likely to work in professional and related; office and administrative support; and management, business, and financial operations occupations. Seventy percent of women who were veterans worked in these occupations. Nonveteran women were less likely to work in these occupations. Female veterans were more likely than nonveterans to work in professional and relate

On average, 80% of people will only read the headline of an article or post. Headlines either pull people in or they push them away. While this is a bothersome reality, copywriters must find ways to harness their skills and write the most effective and attention-grabbing headlines they can muster. Otherwise, four out of five people will never make it to your very first sentence. Here are some ways to strengthen your headlines and grab hold of the limited attention of your readers. More from Black Stag Group

Think a brand is just for big businesses? Think again. Branding is critical for businesses of all shapes and sizes. Your brand is what the outside world thinks of you. That’s it. Read more from BPlans.com

Social media can be a formidable business tool, not just for customer relationship management and marketing, but for gathering business intelligence and even developing new product ideas. To benefit from these information sharing networks, companies are learning to manage the social media lifecycle to get the right content out there to the right people at the right time -- and then to figure out how to use the resulting activity to better their business. Internal collaboration in the enterprise has certainly been altered by social media, with tools like Yammer and now Facebook at Work offering new ways for employees to work together. But companies have also moved into the realm of "social business" to bring the consumer further into the enterprise fold and involve them not just at the end of business processes, but throughout. The needs, desires and complaints that consumers voice on social media platforms can be used to improve business operations, spark product ideas and

Florida Gains More Over the Last Year Than Any Other State May 27, 2015  — There were 23.0 million businesses without paid employees, or nonemployer businesses, in the United States in 2013, up 4.4 million from 2003 and 269,705, or 1.2 percent, from 2012, according to statistics released by the U.S. Census Bureau. Most industry sectors with nonemployer businesses experienced growth in the number of nonemployer establishments and receipts since 2012, according to  Nonemployer Statistics: 2013 , which includes data on businesses in nearly 450 industries located in metropolitan areas, counties, states and nationwide. For example, the construction sector ( NAICS 23 ) saw its first increase in number of nonemployer establishments since 2007. The sector added 21,644 establishments between 2012 and 2013.

For virtually every small business owner in the U.S., the importance of a good personal credit score when seeking a business loan can’t be underestimated. While it might feel counter-intuitive to be talking about your personal credit score when addressing a business credit need, a low personal score has been responsible for the undoing of many small business loan applications. Read more from BPlans

The Federal Trade Commission has completed its review of the Interpretations, Rules, and Guides under the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act and will keep them in their present form, with certain changes to the Interpretations as set forth in a Federal Register Notice (FRN) to be published shortly. In 2011, as part of its  systematic review of all current FTC rules and guides , the FTC sought public comments on its Interpretations, Rules, and Guides regarding product warranties under the Warranty Act, which became law in 1975. The Interpretations provide the Commission’s views on terms and provisions in the Act; the Guides help advertisers avoid unfair or deceptive practices; and the Rules specify disclosure requirements, require that warranty information be available before purchase, and set standards for any informal dispute settlement provisions in a warranty.

Milestones are concrete, specific achievements, such as a product launch, some number of customers, opening of a new location, number of reviews, presence in some list, overcoming some legal hurdle such as approval by the FDA or a patent, finishing a draft or a complete document, reaching the 1000th blog post, some defined number of likes on Facebook or Twitter followers, or some other measurable, visible, trackable achievement. Read more from BPlans.com

The Office of Advocacy has released the May 2015 issue of The Small Business Advocate. This edition features the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) proposed rule governing small unmanned aircraft systems (small UAS), also known as small drones. Advocacy held a roundtable to gather small business input on the proposed rule and submitted a comment letter to FAA on the rule. In addition, the newsletter covers six comment letters that were submitted to federal agencies regarding proposed rulemakings, and three regulatory alerts on new rulemakings. The newsletter also features Advocacy's new graphic and data visualization designer, new economic issue briefs released by Advocacy's Office of Economic research, and requests for quotations. In This Issue Rule Proposed on Employer Wellness Programs; DHS and DOL Issue Changes to H-2B Visa Program; Proposal Expands Retirement Advice Covered by Fiduciary Protections The entire newsletter can be found on Advocacy's websi

Interested in government  contracting?  The following events compiled by the NY SBDC Procurement Assistance Center may be helpful. Upcoming Procurement Events: 5/22/15 NYC College of Technology; Brooklyn, NY Meet Representatives from the NYC Department of Education and Division of Contracts and Purchasing Sponsored by Brooklyn SBDC 2:30 PM – 4:30 PM Register: http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07eay5z2zx08770ca0&llr=mrsiz8cab sbdc@citytech.cuny.edu ; 718-797-0187 6/3/15  Niagara Falls Culinary Institute; Niagara, NY How to Find State and Federal Contracting Opportunities Sponsored by SBA Buffalo District Office and the Niagara SBDC 1:00 PM – 4:30 PM Register:  http://events.sba.gov/eventmanagement/EventRegistration.aspx?id=bcbac067-39da-e411-8b10-02bfa56e2a24 ; 716-551-5670 6/4/15 Jacob K. Javits Convention Center; NYC Small Business Expo Sponsored by Empire State Development 9:30 AM – 5:00 PM Register:  https://

Thanks to emails and calls from people who sensed something wasn't right, the Federal Trade Commission has heard that an FTC imposter scam it's written about before is back. The email tells you there’s a complaint against your business, and wants you to click on a link. Here’s what one of the scammy emails said: “This notification has been automatically sent to you because we have received a consumer complaint, claiming that your company is violating the CCPA (Consumer Credit Protection Act).According to our policy, we have initiated a formal investigation before taking legal action. You can download the document containing the complaint and the plaintiff contact information, from...” followed by a link. At first glance, it might look legitimate. It has the FTC seal, the email appears to come from an FTC email address, and the web address looks like it goes to an FTC site. But if you hover over the web address, you’ll see the link actually sends you somewhere else. If

According to a study published in the Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, approximately 60 percent of restaurants fail within their first year of business. If you are dreaming of becoming a restaurateur, you can increase your chances of success by honestly answering all of the questions proposed in this article, as well as checking off everything suggested below. More from BPlans.com

In a letter to the court-appointed consumer privacy ombudsman in the bankruptcy case of the electronics retailer RadioShack, Federal Trade Commission Consumer Protection Director Jessica Rich recommended conditions the court could place on the sale of consumers’ personal information to protect their privacy. According to the letter, substantial amounts of personal data collected by RadioShack, including consumers’ names, addresses, e-mail addresses, and purchase histories, are among the assets being put up for auction to settle the bankruptcy. Documents indicate information from tens of millions of consumers may be among the assets for sale. In the letter, Rich points to the extensive privacy promises that RadioShack made to consumers both online and in its stores – including promises not to sell consumers’ information or the company’s mailing lists.  She notes the  FTC’s previous intervention in the bankruptcy of online retailer Toysmart , which sought to sell its customers’ pe

If you are creating 500-word me-too blog posts that get read by no one, you are completely and absolutely wasting your time. It's not your fault. You've been told by so-called experts for years that if you blog consistently, you will see truckloads of traffic, thousands of subscribers, and millions of dollars in sales. The thing is, a lot of these experts cut their teeth in the early years of the Web, when 500-word blog posts could win you fame and fortune. Now? Not so much. If you're serious about standing out from the 2 million blog posts pumped out every day, here's what you need to start doing. Read more at MarketingProfs .

The Office of Advocacy has released a new issue brief, Profile of Veteran Business Owners: 2013, which examines the demographics of veteran business owners. Using 2013 data from Census’s Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), this issue brief is an update to an Advocacy profile of veteran business owners released in November 2013. The issue brief looks at a variety of characteristics of veteran business owners as compared to non-veteran business owners, such as age, gender, marital status, level of education and citizenship. It also details the features of veteran-owned businesses, including industry sector, firm size and age of business.