Small Business Success Blog

10 easy-to-follow rules for conducting productive and effective meetings.

If the legal protection of the two types of these business entities is almost the same, which is better, corporation or LLC? Most of the time, the simple answer is this – an LLC is better. It’s simpler to form and it allows for the most favorable tax elections.

Businesses need mission statements to tell the public and especially their customers what it is the business does.

It takes more than a better mousetrap to be successful in business. The purpose here is to tell you what you need to be successful, in addition to the better mousetrap.

One of the early-developed lean tools, developed in the 1930’s, is The 5 Whys. It is a problem-solving technique developed by the founder of Toyota Industries Corporation, Sakichi Toyoda. It's also useful for solving your business problems, regardless of your industry.

I have had an exciting, intense and wonderful career as a management consultant and have worked with organizations around the world. I have worked with groups trying to chart their future, groups that were stuck trying to get to the future, groups that were locked in conflict, and all kinds of situations in between.

Companies using a calendar year to do their financial statements need to take this time of the year to do budgeting for next year. Budgeting? Why would a company need that? Just do their thing – sell and hope for the best? That’s NOT a good way to run a company. Not good at all. All the big corporations budget everything – sales, expenses by category, cash flow, etc, etc. And, they do it on a quarterly basis. Why? One, they want a target that they believe they need to hit and so they then plan what they must do to hit that target. And, secondly, they use it for accountability – to measure the performance of each subsidiary or department that fed their budgets into the overall budget. Planning and accountability.

If you don’t have customers, you don’t have a business.  First things first, who’s going to buy what you’re selling?  And why buy your product, or service, instead of the competitions?

From asking about short and long-term goals to identifying top-performing employees, there are several questions to cover during a midyear check-in.

From adopting solid business practices to working with a goal-oriented mindset, there are several success secrets shared by AAPI business owners.

Social media has increasingly become a more important channel for retail sales, so it’s even more an imperative to make social commerce a part of your sales strategy.

From evaluating yourself to asking for help, there are several tips for overcoming adversity as an Asian entrepreneur.