New York SBDC Research Network

From the Federal Reserve Bank's Business Payments Coalition: The Business Payments Coalition recently released the third version of its Small Business Payments Toolkit . This document, available as a free download, encourages the adoption of electronic business-to-business (B2B) payments by small businesses. Checks are the main way small businesses make B2B payments. This is a problem because checks are expensive, labor-intensive and prone to fraud. Using plain language, the Toolkit educates small businesses on the benefits of using electronic payment types such as Automated Clearing House credits and debits, wire transfers, and credit and debit cards instead of checks. It offers tips on working with bankers and covers what small businesses need to know to get started making and receiving electronic payments. It provides practical information on how to avoid losses due to payments fraud. An extensive resources section has links to additional information. The Toolkit isn’t just

From NerdWallet This could be the year you decide to stop working for someone else and start your own business. While your individual skills and interests are key to determining what type of venture to pursue, the last thing you want to do is start a business in an industry with a gloomy outlook. Here are five industries with promising futures, based on data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, market research firm IBISWorld and financial information company Sageworks.

From Bplans It is daunting to start your own business—very daunting. There are a hundred and one things that can go wrong, and inevitably it will the thing that you’re least expecting. To be honest, it doesn’t matter if you are starting up a business for the first time, or kicking off your latest venture; it doesn’t get less challenging. This is why advice from people who have gone through something similar can be both hugely helpful and crucially important. I should know: I have started a few online ventures, the most recent of which has grown into a market-leading VPN site. But the road has not always been a smooth and straightforward one, and I am the first to admit that I have made a few mistakes along the way. But if reading this helps you to avoid these five simple—yet costly—mistakes, then it will be a few minutes very well spent. So here is my run-down of the five biggest mistakes I made when starting my business (so you don’t have to make them too)

From the Bureau of Labor Statistics In 2015, households spent an average of $528 on pets, or about 1 percent of average household spending. Pet expenditures include pet food; pet purchases, supplies, and medicine; pet services; and veterinary services. Average household spending on pet food jumped from $190 in 2014 to $230 in 2015, or from 37 percent of average household spending on pets to 44 percent. Average household spending on veterinary services, which reached over $200 in 2008, was $133 in 2015, or about 25 percent of average household expenditures on pets. Average household spending on pet purchases, supplies, and medicine, which represented 34 percent of average household spending on pets in 2010, measured only 22 percent of pet expenditures in 2015, falling from $163 to $116 over that period. On average, households with one consumer spent the least on pet expenditures in 2015 ($360), while households with two consumers spent the most ($672). Average household spending

From MarketingProfs : For over 60 years, the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) system has served as a widely accepted structure for the analysis of businesses participating in the US economy. Marketers have long looked to the SIC system and its predecessor—the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS)—to simplify the processes behind identifying, segmenting, and targeting potential customers and prospects. But what if you don't have a lot of marketing experience in an industry? Perhaps you are just starting out and need to quickly understand the makeup of your potential customers and prospects, and profile them. Understanding SIC and NAICS can seem like a daunting task, but having a cursory comprehension of these systems can help you support various marketing activities. The US Census Bureau assigns one code to each establishment based on its primary activity (generally the activity that generates the most revenue). Classification codes are typically deri

From The Balance : What skills are most important for companies that are hiring? There are some skills and qualities that employers require of all applicants for employment, regardless of the position they are hiring for. These are called soft skills, and they include the interpersonal skills and attributes you need to succeed in the workplace. In addition, there are the more tangible skills you need in order to do the job effectively. These are called hard skills, and they are the specific knowledge and abilities required to do the job. Here's information on the difference between hard and soft skills. You’ll need both for most jobs, and it's important to show employers that you have the skills they need when you're applying and interviewing for jobs.

Don't Miss U.S. House Committee on Small Business Hearing, "Taking Care of Small Business: Working Together for a Better SBA" Wednesday, April 5, 2017, 11 am EDT Linda McMahon, SBA Administrator will appear in front of the U.S. House Committee on Small Business. The hearing titled, "Taking Care of Small Business: Working Together for a Better SBA" is scheduled to begin at 11:00 A.M. on Wednesday, April 5, 2017 in Room 2360 of the Rayburn House Office Building. The Honorable Linda McMahon was sworn in on February 14, 2017 as the 25th Administrator of the United States Small Business Administration (SBA). From 1980 to 2009, Administrator McMahon was active in her family's company, World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc., eventually becoming President and Chief Executive Officer. WWE began as a small regional company and grew into a large, global business. The Committee will hear from Administrator McMahon about her priorities for entrepreneurs and the SBA.

Cornell Program on Applied Demographics has updated the series of county profiles it published a few years ago. PAD got many requests for an update and finally, it is here. This update consists mainly of updated data, but also includes some changes in charts and tables. PAD also decided to concentrate on Demographic, Social and Economic data in this update and not update the agricultural and related data that was in the 2013 version. The updated profiles can be found here .

From the American Institute for Economic Research : In March 2017, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin made headlines by saying that the displacement of jobs by artificial intelligence was “not even on our radar screen … 50-100 more years” away. This drew a host of shocked responses from those who point out that AI and automation have already eliminated millions of American jobs and may replace many more in the next 5 or 10 years, let alone 50–100. In fairness to the secretary, his comment responded directly to a question about artificial intelligence. In the broader discussion, he spoke about low-paying jobs being replaced by automation, which many of the critiques consider together with artificial intelligence. The impact of automation is of unquestionable importance: One report released on the same day as Secretary Mnuchin’s comments suggested that 38 percent of U.S. jobs are at “high risk” of automation in the next 20 years.

From Entrepreneur : By Brandon Turner, Real Estate Investor and Co-host of the BiggerPockets Podcast! Starting a business is exciting -- and scary. I've started more businesses than I'd care to admit. In my experience, it's a bit like driving through a heavy fog where you are only able to see a few feet in front of the windshield -- you don't know what's up ahead until it's upon you. However, the longer you are an entrepreneur, the better you can navigate through that fog. As I've been driving through the fog for over a decade now, I thought I would take today's post and boil down 15 of the biggest lessons I've learned over the past decade of building and growing businesses. Consider these tips "stuff I wish I had known when I was young and stupid." From Forbes : By Nicole Robinson, CEO, Gloss and Glam. Starting my company Gloss and Glam was the best thing I ever did. But before I opened my business, I spent countless hours s

From MarketProfs : Email has come a long way from rich-text messages and hidden images, and today some emails are works of art. They contain animated gifs and they're responsive by device. So if that's the present, what does the future of email design look like? The folks at EmailMonks took a stab at answering that question in an infographic that looks at email design trends over the past year and predicts what we can expect to see as 2017 moves along. Some throwbacks from 2016 that we're continuing to see are lightweight animated gifs in emails, flat design, and design that builds suspense as the user scrolls on a mobile. Last year also gave us some technical updates to email, such as how emails render in Gmail, and iOS 10's allowing embedded video, the infographic explains. Moving forward, EmailMonks predicts, we'll be seeing...

From Daily Inequality : Younger employees keep getting stereotyped as insecure and needy - perhaps the rest of us need to reconsider why we find it normal for bosses to be jerks Recently, the University of British Columbia’s faculty of medicine circulated a video meant to make its instructors aware of "student mistreatment." With a minor-chord piano medley providing the soundtrack, viewers were asked to avoid putting students on the spot with questions, to minimize "cold and clinical" interactions, and to cultivate "safe" learning environments for the young residents. It seems a little like something created by The Onion, but the video was sincere, and its message will be familiar to a lot of employers dealing with people in their 20s. For many who remember what business was like pre-Internet, millennials seem an appallingly sensitive lot, having been protected from the vagaries of the world by helicopter parents, trigger warnings and—to especially cy

From AIER : One mistake made frequently by economists is to focus on the destination rather than the journey. We like setting two sides of an equation equal, solving for a variable and focusing on that neat and tidy result. But a little common sense shows that even the most canonical equation in the field, “supply equals demand,” requires a process to become true. Firms don’t know the magical market clearing price, they must experiment to find it, and every time there’s a shock an adjustment process must ensue. If shocks are frequent enough, that process would never end—a complex real-world economy might be all journey and no destination. Alexander Salter has an interesting post at the Sound Money Project about nominal versus real interest rates that echoes the scenario above. Economists like to think central banks can only influence real variables in the short-run.

From eMarketer : What’s stopping mobile users from making purchases on their phones? Unfortunately, the solution is out of the hands of retailers. For one thing, the screens are too darn small. That was one of the findings of a PricewaterhouseCoopers survey conducted in September 2016. The data was part of a UK-focused report that compared consumer usage and attitudes in the UK with those in China and the US. According to eMarketer’s latest estimates, some 147.3 million people in the US will use a mobile device to make a purchase this year. That works out to slightly more than 55% of all mobile phone users.

From the Federal Trade Commission : “Free” and “risk-free” trials come with hidden charges The Federal Trade Commission has charged a group of online marketers with deceptively luring consumers with “free” and “risk-free” trials for cooking gadgets, golf equipment, and access to related online subscription services. According to the FTC, the defendants asked people for their credit card information to cover shipping and handling, and then charged them for products and services without their consent. The FTC’s complaint alleges that Brian Bernheim, Joshua Bernheim, Jared Coates, Robert Koch AAFE Products Corp., JBE International LLC, BSDC Inc., KADC Inc., Purestrike Inc., and BNRI Corp., formerly known as Bernheim and Rice Inc., violated the FTC Act and the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act. According to the complaint, the defendants’ websites, TV infomercials and email deceived consumers by prominently claiming that their products and services were free, without clearly d

Re-posted from the NYS Enterprise Information Security Office 's March 2017 Newsletter.   View more of their great newsletter topics here .  From the Desk of Thomas F. Duffy, Chair Day in and day out, employees hear the same things from their IT staff about cybersecurity and safety. Though they may sound like a broken record, there are very important reasons and rationale behind these practices and advice. Keeping safe and secure while connected isn't just about how your system is set up - it is also very much about how you end up using it. Below, we discuss some common IT staff wisdom and provide some background information and the rationale as to why it definitely merits your attention.   Make sure you lock your screen when you are away from your desk: Screen locking policies exist for a reason. Even if you are leaving for just a few minutes at a time, be sure to lock your screen. Though physical intruders are rare during daytime and in conventionally sec

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — AT&T, Verizon and several other major advertisers are suspending their marketing campaigns on Google's YouTube site after discovering their brands have been appearing alongside videos promoting terrorism and other unsavory subjects. The spreading boycott confronts Google with a challenge that threatens to cost it hundreds of millions of dollars. YouTube's popularity stems from its massive and eclectic library of video, spanning everything from polished TV clips to raw diatribes posted by people bashing homosexuals. But that diverse selection periodically allows ads to appear next to videos that marketers find distasteful, despite Google's efforts to prevent it from happening. From:  Fox Business News

From the New York Times : A class-action lawsuit about overtime pay for truck drivers hinged entirely on a debate that has bitterly divided friends, families and foes: The dreaded — or totally necessary — Oxford comma, perhaps the most polarizing of punctuation marks. What ensued in the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and in a 29-page court decision handed down [last week], was an exercise in high-stakes grammar pedantry that could cost a dairy company in Portland, Me., an estimated $10 million. In 2014, three truck drivers sued Oakhurst Dairy, seeking more than four years’ worth of overtime pay that they had been denied. Maine law requires workers to be paid 1.5 times their normal rate for each hour worked after 40 hours, but it carves out some exemptions. A quick punctuation lesson before we proceed: In a list of three or more items — like "beans, potatoes and rice" — some people would put a comma after potatoes, and some would leave it out. A

The New York SBDC will join other SBDC centers across nation in celebrating the first annual SBDC Day on March 22. SBDC Day is a national recognition movement to share the small business success stories and notable impacts SBDCs have fostered in communities nationwide. Clients, guests, and prospective entrepreneurs are encouraged to stop by NYSBDC locations to meet the staff and learn more about the SBDC. Since 1980, America’s SBDCs—the nation’s largest small business and entrepreneurial assistance network—have helped aspiring and emerging small business owners achieve the American dream of entrepreneurship. SBDC Day will celebrate the collective impact and success SBDCs have across the nation and in local communities each year. With nearly 1,000 locations across the country, SBDCs provide local businesses and entrepreneurs with the resources needed to succeed. In 2016, America’s SBDCs provided 1.3 million hours of consulting to 192,205 client businesses, resulting in 100,233 jobs crea

From Bplans Although cash is critical, people think in profits instead of cash. We all do. When you imagine a new business, you think of what it would cost to make the product, what you could sell it for, and what the profits per unit might be. We are trained to think of business as sales minus costs and expenses, which is profits. However, we don’t spend the profits in a business. We spend cash. Profitable companies go broke because they had all their money tied up in assets and couldn’t pay their expenses. Working capital is critical to business health. Unfortunately, we don’t see the cash implications as clearly as we should, which is one of the best reasons for proper business planning. We have to manage cash as well as profits.