New York SBDC Research Network

How often do you pick up your smartphone throughout the day? When you wake up; when you’re standing in line for your coffee; when you get a notification? According to a study by Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, the average person looks at their phone 150 times a day. With 57% of customers saying they would not recommend a business with a bad mobile site, the power of mobile for small businesses is undeniable. Here are a few tips to get started: Put your website to the mobile test. More from America's SBDC

Upcoming IRS webinar for the Affordable Care Act: Small Business Health Care Tax Credit (SBHCTC). Date: 8/5/2015 Time: 1:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. Location: On-line Webinar Contact Name: Susan Jensky Contact Email: Susan.R.Jensky@irs.gov Event Information: The IRS will discuss the Small Business Health Care Tax Credit, who qualifies and how to report the credit. SEFCU will discuss the market place and how they can assist you in choosing a health care provider to offer your employees. This webinar will be conducted via WebInterpoint. Pre-registration is required. To pre-register, email Susan Jensky at mailto:Susan.R.Jensky@irs.gov . Include the following information: Name: Email: Job title: Name of organization you represent: Affiliated organization (ie: chamber of commerce, SEFCU, etc.): Phone number:

Sometimes employment discrimination is obvious; for example, a particularly bigoted manager or supervisor may use racial slurs or explicitly admit to discriminatory intent. Those cases are rare, however. More often than not it is much harder to prove employment discrimination because employers who want to discriminate have become quite good at hiding their intentions. One trick these employers use is using coded language in their job postings. They list job qualifications that are a pretext for eliminating certain job candidates. This is particularly common when it comes to age discrimination. "Digital Native" and "Recent Graduate" Can be Code for "Young" More from Payscale

The FFIEC Geocoding/Mapping System (System) helps financial institutions meet their legal requirement to report information on mortgage, business, and farm loan applications. Geocoding refers to the Metropolitan Statistical Area/Metropolitan Division (MSA/MD), State, County, Census Tract combination (address information) that must be provided for each reported loan application and the System allows institutions to enter a street address to determine the corresponding geocode. The System also provides Census demographic information about a particular census tract, including income, population, and housing data. Go to FFIEC

Boost your email's chances of being opened by following these quick tips from Sikich. "Before sending your emails, tell your recipients what type of content they can expect and how often they'll be hearing from you," states Sikich. When you do send the email, send it from a real person. Avoid impersonal info@company.com email addresses. Also, spend time crafting an engaging subject line: "64% of people say they open an email because of the subject line," states Sikich. Find out more about critical email elements and how they increase your email's open rates by checking out the infographic from Marketing Profs

As reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, we are currently enjoying the longest run of private sector job growth on record―64 consecutive months to the tune of 12.8 million new private sector jobs overall. We’ve come a long way since late 2008 and early 2009 when the economy, on the brink of meltdown, was shedding hundreds of thousands of jobs each month. The resilience of American workers―together with the ingenuity of our businesses and leadership from the Obama administration―pulled us out of the worst economic crisis of our lifetimes. And I have every confidence that our workers, ever innovative and industrious, will continue to be our most valuable economic asset a quarter century from now. But still we face lingering and looming challenges. For about the first 25 years of the post-World War II era, wages rose more or less in line with productivity. But from 1973 to 2013, productivity has continued to soar (an increase of 74.4 percent), while hourly compensation for the t

You’re considering going into business for yourself. Perhaps you’re looking into a franchise, but you’re not sure you’re ready to start a brand new franchise outlet. Even with all the support and systems in place to aid new franchisees, the thought of tackling a brand new franchise outlet can be intimidating to some. An attractive option for those individuals may be a resale franchise opportunity. Franchises all over the country will routinely be resold by the previous franchisee for a variety of reasons. These outlets may be a little more “ready-made” for an immediate business opportunity, yet all businesses aren’t created equal. Also, you may not know which franchises are for sale. Many times, the franchisee must work back through their franchisor in a resale opportunity. You need to find the right guidance and investigate, there’s no substitute for performing your proper due diligence throughout the business investigation process. More from America's SBDC