New York SBDC Research Network

By Rieva Lesonsky Marketing is crucial for small business owners. But all too often, we approach marketing in a haphazard fashion, adding a new element to our marketing mix “on the fly” without stopping to think about whether it makes sense for our overall business goals. It’s great to keep your marketing fresh and up-to-date by marketing your business in new avenues. But if you don’t take the time to assess each part of your marketing mix and how it fits into the larger scheme of things, you could be wasting time and money—and not getting the results you desire. Creating a marketing plan for your business can help ensure that you’re maximizing each marketing dollar you spend and that your marketing message is truly getting across to your target customers. So how do you get started? Think of your marketing plan as kind of a “business plan” for your marketing. In fact, if you are a startup, a marketing plan should be part of your overall business plan. If you’re beyond the start

Our understanding of behavioral psychology and technology innovations are changing the professional services landscape. We're not only accumulating tremendous amounts of data into consumer behavior in general, but we're learning specifically how professional services marketing and branding can influence buyers' behavior. But this new understanding raises some big questions for firms. Which business challenges are the most urgent? How should one prioritize marketing efforts? These questions have been answered through a recent survey of over 500 professional services firms conducted by the Hinge Research Institute. The survey sought insights from senior decision-makers at industries including management consulting, accounting and finance, marketing, technology, legal services, and architecture, engineering, and construction. What are firms' top challenges? Survey respondents were asked to list the major issues they face. One challenge very clearly stood above the

For U.S. workers, access to employer-provided leave is closely related to how much they earn. Specifically, low-wage workers have substantially less access to leave benefits from their employers than higher paid workers. This was one of many interesting findings in a recent Bureau of Labor Statistics article, A look at pay at the top, the bottom, and in between . while less than two-thirds (61 percent) of workers in the private sector have access to paid sick leave, an even lower proportion (only 30 percent) of workers among the lowest paid 25 percent have access to paid sick leave. In sharp contrast, the highest paid 10 percent of workers are almost three times more likely to have access to paid sick leave than those in the lowest paid 25 percent. Across all paid leave categories, (holidays, sick leave, vacation, personal, and family leave) workers in the lowest 25 percent of wage earners are two to four times less likely to have access to any form of paid leave compared with work

Equally-owned businesses (EOBs) represent a significant share of firms, employment, and receipts. These firms are frequently overlooked in discussions about business owner demographics. To say that 30 percent of firms are female-owned suggests that the other 70 percent are owned by men, when in reality, 53 percent are male-owned, and 17 percent are equally-owned by men and women. Compared to other firms, EOBs are more likely to be family-owned or owned jointly by a married couple, but less likely to be minority-owned or veteran owned.

As an entrepreneur, you’ve got 100 things to check off your list before you can open for business. Among the most important, but often overlooked, is providing a means through which your customers can pay you. Given that over 75% of transactions involve either a debit, credit, prepaid, or gift card, that means finding a credit card processor. For most entrepreneurs, the search for merchant services starts with their bank, as most banks either offer their own credit card processing service, or have a relationship with a provider that they recommend. Although you may love your banking services or trust the brand name you’ve seen over the years, those credit card processing companies generally aren’t the best solution for startups, because they are expensive and because they don’t offer the flexibility or services provided by startup-oriented providers. While compared to choices that startups face like where to sign a lease, or what equipment to buy, choosing your credit card proces

News about data breaches at banks, stores, and agencies is an everyday occurrence now. But if your private information has been compromised, it doesn’t feel commonplace to you. The sooner you find out, and begin damage control, the better off you’ll be.   IdentityTheft.gov , a new website, offers step-by-step checklists of what to do right away, and what to do next, depending on the information that’s been stolen or exposed. It lists  warning signs  indicating your identity was stolen, and gives websites and phone numbers for organizations you’ll need to reach. And, it has sample letters for disputing fraudulent charges, correcting information in your credit reports, and getting business records relating to the theft.

From the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational licensing directly affects nearly 30 percent of U.S. workers today and continues to grow in density and scope. In this article, we identify and analyze those rare instances when occupational licensing laws have been eliminated—what we refer to as “de-licensing.” We also discuss recent examples in which courts decided to limit the scope of occupational licensing laws, and we analyze recent efforts (almost uniformly unsuccessful) of a few states to de-license groups of occupations. The reason proposed for most of these efforts is that excessive levels of licensing have hindered job creation, especially for people with lower levels of education. We argue that the paucity of successful de-licensing efforts is due to intense lobbying by associations of licensed professionals as well as the high costs of sunset reviews by state agencies charged with the periodic review of licensing and its possible termination.

What it is: Crowdfunding is about persuading individuals to each give you a small donation -- $10, $50, $100, maybe more. Once you get thousands of donors, you have some serious cash on hand. This has all become possible in recent years thanks to a proliferation of websites that allow nonprofits, artists, musicians -- and yes, businesses -- to raise money. This is the social media version of fundraising. There are more than 600 crowdfunding platforms around the world, with fundraising reaching billions of dollars annually, according to the research firm Massolution. Crowdfunding Basics

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.