Great Business Ideas: Take This Time-Management Quiz

Great Ideas for your Small Business: Take This Time-Management Quiz Marketing consultant ruth klein helps clients manage their time, which of course then allows them to work more effectively and make more money. She sent along this provocative little time-management quiz to help you determine how well you organize your day. Spend a minute or … Read more

Great Business Ideas: Send Flowers to an Employee’s Spouse

Great Ideas for your Small Business: Send Flowers to an Employee’s Spouse Being on the road away from home can be a drag. But when you get to spend time with people like Dr. Allan Weis, it’s worth the trip. Weis and I met a few years ago when we were part of a traveling … Read more

Great Business Ideas: Rely on Temps or Leased Workers

Great Ideas for your Small Business: Rely on Temps or Leased Workers Finding skilled workers is a small business owner’s nightmare. Talented people, especially in the high-tech arena, are fielding multiple job offers. In a seller’s market, top people demand high salaries, incredible benefits, and perks. Big companies can afford to woo them, but what … Read more

Great Business Ideas: Take Your Sexual Harassment Policy Seriously

Great Ideas for your Small Business: Take Your Sexual Harassment Policy Seriously In june 1997, a federal jury awarded $6.6 million to a woman who was subjected to regular sexual taunts from her coworkers at a car dealership. Sexual harassment is serious business. That’s why even the smallest company should have a written policy in … Read more

Great Business Ideas: Deal Carefully with Issues of Workplace Violence

Great Ideas for your Small Business: Deal Carefully with Issues of Workplace Violence What would you do if your sales manager walked into work one morning with a black eye? What do you say when your secretary shows up with a split lip and puffy, swollen eyes? Do you ask what happened? Do you pretend … Read more

Great Business Ideas: Offer Employees the Right Incentives

Great Ideas for your Small Business: Offer Employees the Right Incentives If you think glitzy trips to atlantic city or Las Vegas are great sales motivators for your employees, think again. When offered the choice between a trip or money, 44 percent of the employees polled preferred the financial reward, while 39 percent said they … Read more

Great Business Ideas: Offer to Train Your Employees

Great Ideas for your Small Business: Offer to Train Your Employees Spending on training and education pays off big for you and your employees. For a modest sum, your employees can learn a new skill, build confidence, and boost productivity. Subsequently, you and your business benefit from happier, healthier, and more energetic workers. Ask your … Read more

Great Business Ideas: Hire an Interim Executive

Great Ideas for your Small Business: Hire an Interim Executive Big and small businesses are turning to temporary executives more and more to fill important positions. While the number of traditional clerical temps is declining, the professional and technical segment of the temporary staffing industry is growing by about 5 percent a year, industry experts … Read more

Great Business Ideas: Find Out How Disney Does It

Great Ideas for your Small Business: Find Out How Disney Does It No one is surprised when an entrepreneur heads to Harvard, New York University, or USC for a management training program, but eyebrows raise when they sign up for a course at Walt Disney World’s Disney Institute in Orlando, Florida. More than 60,000 people … Read more

Great Business Ideas: Offer Classes in English as a Second Language

Great Ideas for your Small Business: Offer Classes in English as a Second Language It’s no surprise to me that two of the nation’s most successful entrepreneurs offer free, onsite English as a second language (ESL) classes to employees. David Giuliani, president of the Optiva Corp., and the Small Business Administration’s 1997 Small Business Person … Read more