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Delegation Skills – The Difference Between a Good Manager and a Great One

Of all the skills you’ll use as a manager, delegation is one of the most valuable. It’s also one of the most underused and underdeveloped management skills. Just 30 percent of managers claim to be able to delegate effectively – and of those 30 percent, only one-third have earned the praise of their subordinates regarding their delegation skills.

Delegating works

A Bachelor of Arts in Management can help you get your foot in the door career-wise, but if you aspire to be a truly great manager, polish your delegation skills while you study for your degree. Strong delegation skills help you make the most of your team’s resources.…

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3 Great Online Business Ideas You Can Implement Right Away

The idea of starting an “online” business is one that’s no longer the foreign concept it was less than a decade ago. However, with that said, so few of you have the intestinal fortitude to move forward and “leap into the fire” to become a “Webpreneur”. There are so many great ways to go ahead and start making real money online. All that’s required is the courage and resilience to do something that the other 95% of the world doesn’t (or did but failed miserably.)

Online business setup

Regardless of your current status; successful business owner, highly motivated career-person, recent graduate – or just unhappy and sick of working 9-5 for the boss(hole) and having “too much month at the end of the money” – quote from the original “Lifestyle Coach”, Business Philosopher, and professional mentor to Tony Robbins, Mr.…

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Economy, the Government and Your SMB: What to Expect This Year

The economic situation in this country and various government reforms are two factors that you have absolutely no control over as a business owner. One could make the argument that you can’t control your customers either, but that isn’t really true.

Marketing and customer service can always be controlled. Most of us would like to have as many customers as possible, but you can limit how many you do business with too, if you like.

Both the uncertain economy and government changes are the two big issues facing us in the coming months.

Business and economic outlook in 2014

Leading into 2014, there’s a glimmer of hope for the first time in years.…

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How to Take Advantage of Business Finance to Grow Your Company

As we all know, cash flow is incredibly important for all businesses, without a positive cash flow companies are very often forced to cease trading.

The early years of a company are critical, many companies aren’t concerned with growing the business and just want to keep it afloat in these early stages. With a bit of extra finance it can smooth the progress from start-up to a steadily growing company.

Business growth funding

Finance options

When starting out business owners have a few options when it comes to raising finance, they can go through formal routes such as banks or finding investors, or they can raise money through personal finance using short terms products like a logbook loan or credit cards.…

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Why You Should Consider Hosted Small Business Forms

As an SMB CEO, you are required to find the best solutions offering you the best value for money, as resources are scarce these days.

When you are running a full-fledge business website, you need to give emphasis to one of the most important – yet often neglected – features of your website: Your online forms.

Online small business forms

Your online forms – particularly your contact forms – need to be crafted in such a way that it converts well. Increasing your contact form conversion rate should be your top-most priority.

When you design online forms, you essentially have two options: design and host on your own, or design and host using a third-party service.…

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When the Numbers Don’t Add Up: Three Ways to Improve Your Business Credit Score Quickly

If you find your business becoming rejected and denied for loans left and right, then chances are that your business’ credit score and history are to blame. Obtaining a copy of your current credit report will allow you to quickly see just how bad things have gotten, especially if you have an extensive list of negative accounts and activity within it. Fortunately, there are several effective ways that you can get the ball rolling in the right direction again and eventually improve your business credit score over time.

Business credit report analysis

Identify and Rectify Your Errors

Although the vast majority of the information that is reflected within your business credit report is accurate, it is possible to have an abundance of errors in it, as well.…

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How to Explore Overseas Market: Learn from Illy and Estee Lauder

SMB CEOs… want some inspirations on how to explore overseas market? Check out this Singapore Sessions video, featuring a candid talk with Estee Lauder Companies’ Executive Chairman, William P. Lauder, and Illy’s CEO, Andrea Illy.

This session features on how Illy Coffee and Estee Lauder approach the challenges presented by the South East Asian market.

South East Asia is a market promising significant growth, but is surely challenging, especially for coffee and cosmetic products. Fortunately, there is not a single way to market to Asia, which mean that the market favors companies with innovative business model and sound strategy.…

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Apps for a Small Business’ Accounting Needs

Being in the accounting department of a small business doesn’t mean being tucked away in the back corner of the office hammering away on a Dell desktop running Windows XP and an old copy of QuickBooks. No sir, accounting can actually be fun thanks to the help of mobile devices like smartphones and tablets, and some nifty apps as well as long awaited Mac accounting software.

small business owner using mobile accounting apps

The idea of putting accounting-related tasks into a mobile device might seem scary to some accounting pros. But the concept of being able to touch, swipe and manipulate numbers at the stroke of a finger can be pretty liberating.…

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Broken Data Storage – How to Recover Your Data?

As winter storms strike North America, chances are good that disaster will strike right at the heart of your business.

Hopefully you have surge protection to safe-guard your IT equipment and storage devices…

Hopefully you back up your data so persistently that there’s no chance you won’t be able to do a fast and easy disaster recovery once the storm lifts…

broken hard drive

There’s a lot of things an SMB CEO needs to be hopeful about. If you are like most people, some lessons have to be learned the hard way, and you now find yourself in a position where you have to recover some uber-important data from a dead or otherwise discombobulated storage device – your laptop, PC, thumb drive, SD card, or main server.…

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8 Essential Small Business Sales Apps for 2014

I just received a package delivered by one of the leading International shipping companies. The package needs to clear customs, and thus I obviously need to pay some fees. The company accepts collect-on-delivery (COD) payment, so I took that option. To my surprise, the delivery man requests the fees to be paid in hard cash – or a bank transfer before the delivery is made.

collecting payment using sales apps

I don’t know how about you, but as I rarely have cash at home this arrangement is, by any means, not that convenient for me. I thought, “Why on earth such big business don’t facilitate payment collection via credit cards/debit cards method?”…

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