New York SBDC Research Network

Employees and even executives sometimes start to think about their customers with an "us vs. them" mentality, particularly in times of stress—during, say, the busy holiday season or when a customer has a complaint. That's a dangerous mindset, especially if it becomes habitual. Competitive advantage these days demands customer-centricity. The more customers your organizations can engage meaningfully—especially those who care enough to tell you how to do things better—the better off you'll be. Social media, where you can see eye to eye and develop interactive relationships, is a terrific venue for doing that. And if you use it not just to engage but also to empower, you'll transform a customer from someone who likes your product to someone who feels like a part of your product. That's an important shift, because the latter customer is the one who is far more likely to find every opportunity to tell people, online and off, why they think what you do is so g

From the Sales Tax Institute . You collect the tax for the state where the property is delivered to your customer. If the item is shipped to the customer, then tax applies for the delivery state. You should collect the tax only if you are registered to collect tax in that state. If the customer picks up the item at your location, tax should be collected for your state. If you are selling goods over the Internet and your company has a presence in the state of delivery, your company has established nexus and will be required to register to collect sales tax on all taxable items regardless of method of order placement. Whether the order is placed over the Internet or through traditional means, if a company has nexus with the state in which the product is being shipped, sales tax should be billed and collected. For example, if a New York company ships to New York, there is nexus, and tax is collected. If the New York company ships out of New York, whether they collect sales tax or not

Chris Brogan is the publisher and CEO of the business magazine Owner. He is a sought-after keynote speaker who has addressed crowds of thousands, he has been on the Dr Phil show, and he once presented to a princess. Chris has consulted with Disney, Microsoft, Coke, Titleist, Pepsico, Google, Motorola, and many others. He's the New York Times best-selling author of six books, including The Impact Equation, written with Julien Smith. [He is discussing] his latest book, The Freaks Shall Inherit the Earth: Entrepreneurship for Weirdos, Misfits, and World Dominators. Read more from MarketingProfs HERE .

(This is useful to think about what NOT to do in business ...) After going through all of your nominations, [the Consumerist is]... proud to present the first round match-ups for this year’s Worst Company in America tournament ! As you’ll see from the image below, there are several returning competitors, including previous champs EA and Comcast, three-time runner-up (and sort of winner from when it acquired Countrywide) Bank of America, the perennially hated Ticketmaster and PayPal (with their respective corporate counterparts LiveNation and eBay). There are also some new names on the list, like Koch Industries and lawsuit-happy seed company Monsanto. There’s also SeaWorld making a splash on WCIA 2014, presumably because people have been watching that Blackfish documentary. Voting will begin tomorrow, March 19. In the early rounds, each match will be open for votes for only a few hours. While they are open, polls will be placed at the top of the Consumerist homepage and in a s

When you purchase taxable property or services from a seller (vendor) located in New York State and take delivery in New York State, the vendor should collect state and local sales tax due and send it to the Tax Department. However, you are responsible for paying the tax directly to the Tax Department under the following circumstances: Deliveries into New York State without collection of sales tax You owe state and local sales tax if you purchase taxable property or a taxable service that is delivered to you in New York State without payment of New York State and local tax to the seller, such as through the Internet, by catalog, from television shopping channels, or on an Indian reservation. Purchases of property or services outside New York State with subsequent use in New York State You may also owe New York State and local use tax if you are a resident of New York State at the time you purchase any of the following outside New York State: • property you bring into New

We're all trying to win people to our causes, to get them to believe in our companies or products or missions. Fact is, all other things being equal, we choose the products and movies and stores and people we deal with because of their stories. This is why story-driven companies like Whole Foods exceed financial expectations over competitors. It's why a lot of us bought Apple products after reading Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs biography. It's why people who hate sports watch the Olympics, and root for people they've never heard of. Once we know the underlying stories, we're driven to support. Read more from LinkedIn .

"Every cell tower in the Long Island community stopped working and representatives from wireless companies were nowhere to be found…Schnirman (Long Beach city manager) said he spent a week after the storm trying to persuade a wireless carrier, which he declined to name, to deploy a portable cell tower -- known as a "cell on wheels" -- to restore service in Long Beach.  “We reached out to the carrier’s customer support to ask about getting a cell on wheels and the voice on phone said ‘You might want to look that up on Internet. I don’t know what that is,’” he recalled. “ Of course, we had no Internet. " (smith 2013) What is your Businesses’ Communications Backup Plan? When disaster strikes, when the coming spring brings floods, tornadoes or the unexpected ice storm, are you prepared? And the power and communication outages that come with it, are your businesses prepared to keep open the lines of communication. Do you have an emergency communications plan? Cons