Author: knjohn

Los Angeles-To-Las Vegas High-Speed Train Wins $200 Million Nevada Bond Allocation | Forbes

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XpressWest, a high-speed rail line that will connect Southern California to Las Vegas, won $200 million of private activity bonds from Nevada, a critical final public allocation that allows the company owned by Wall Street investor Wes Edens to raise an additional $800 million for the project.

The Nevada State Board of Finance’s approval for the project, a unit of Edens’ Florida-based Brightline passenger rail service, comes after California awarded it $600 million of private activity bonds in April. XpressWest can sell four times the value of the awards as tax-exempt bonds to private investors, meaning it’s now lined up $3.2 billion of funding from the two states. Including a $1 billion U.S. Department of Transportation allocation in March, XpressWest has lined up $4.2 billion of the 170-mile rail line’s total $5 billion construction cost.

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Deloitte BrandVoice: Tracking The Recovery: What Manufacturers Can Learn From One Another | Forbes

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The recovery from COVID-19 in manufacturing will not be one uniform push. Rather, just as the virus worked its way across the globe, the recovery will be uneven as disparate regions and sectors move toward the next normal.

This won’t make things easy for manufacturers. But the one advantage of a staggered recovery is that it allows you to draw on the insights of regions and sectors that are ahead of you in the cycle. And based on several podcasts I recently recorded with colleagues who advise on manufacturing across the globe, everyone seems to be facing the same key challenges.

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10 Simple Client Appreciation Tips to Keep Your Business Growing | AllBusiness.com

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Client appreciation improves your client relationships and facilitates retention—and it doesn’t cost much to execute.

When customers feel appreciated, they’re much more likely to stick around, and they’re more likely to recommend you to a friend or colleague. If you apply a customer appreciation strategy consistently, you can greatly improve both client retention and acquisition, and sustain business growth indefinitely.

Of course, client appreciation seems like a very simple concept, but to execute it effectively you’ll need to consider your strategy carefully.

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A Guide to Non-Disclosure Agreements | AllBusiness.com

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In business, there are numerous instances in which you may want to share confidential information with another party. But the key to doing so safely is making sure that the other party is bound to respect the confidential information you provide them and not use it to your detriment.

One common way to protect the secrecy of confidential information given to another party is through the use of a Non-Disclosure Agreement, which is sometimes also referred to as a “Confidentiality Agreement” or “NDA.”

In this article, I will explain when it makes sense to have a Non-Disclosure Agreement as well as the key terms that agreement can include.

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Business Loan Terminology You Need to Know | Small Business Trends

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Business loan terminology can be confusing. Most small business owners would rather grow their companies than talk about loan interest and finance charges. That said, if you approach a lender without knowing loan terminology you could be — well — borrowing trouble.

Fortunately, we’ve created this glossary of loan definitions that a small business borrower must know in order to make informed choices. Knowing these terms will help you understand small business funding options and the obligations that come with them.

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Summer Check-in on Business Licenses and Permits – Make Sure You’re Operating Legally | Small Business Trends

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How will you remember the Summer of 2020? It’s probably been a bit of a rollercoaster ride for most business owners trying to ride out the pandemic and still keep their businesses healthy, profitable and in compliance with old and new regulations.

Business Licenses and Permits Requirements

One area you may have fallen behind in is making sure the business licenses and permits you need to legally operate your business are still current. Here’s some information to help get you back on track.

Pandemic requirements

Although there may not be specific permits and/or licenses your small business needs to reopen during the pandemic, your city or state will have guidelines you need to follow. New York City, which just began “Phase Four of Restart NYC” requires businesses in specific industries to read, understand and sign off on state-issued guidelines for that industry. Businesses not specifically named in Phases One-Three are required to follow executive orders supplied by the Governor and Mayor. In another example, Philadelphia is requiring each construction site to have a Pandemic Safety Officer with COVID-19 training present to keep workers safe.

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How to Calculate Employee Turnover | business.com

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Want to track your employee retention? Learn how to calculate your company’s staff turnover rate.

You can calculate your employee turnover rate by looking at the average number of workers who exit your business during a specific time period and are replaced by new staff.

Your business should monitor and track its employee turnover to gauge how appealing your company is to employees. It can also help you improve areas that may be causing workers to leave your company.

Your employee turnover rate helps you evaluate your risk of an employee leaving and recognize opportunities for retention when you hire new employees.

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Disney Delays Star Wars, Avatar Releases, Takes Mulan Off Schedule | Digital Trends

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The coronavirus has shaken up Disney’s biggest franchises — and Star Wars is the latest to be affected.

Disney announced Thursday it would push back the releases of the next set of Star Wars movies as well as James Cameron’s Avatar sequel, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The live-action Mulan remake, which was originally supposed to release in March, has also been taken off its theatrical release calendar.

“Over the last few months, it’s become clear that nothing can be set in stone when it comes to how we release films during this global health crisis, and today that means pausing our release plans for Mulan as we assess how we can most effectively bring this film to audiences around the world,” a Disney spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter in a statement.

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What Separates Great Companies From Average Ones? Arming Your Workers With Data | Inc.com

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A new Harvard Business Review report shows the power of putting data in the hands of front-line workers, but it also reveals that it takes a lot more than just technology and tools to succeed.

According to the report, which was commissioned by ThoughtSpot and based on responses from 464 business executives, employees must be trained on how to act on insights when they have them and be given autonomy to make decisions in the moment.

For companies that are arming their workers with data today, 32 percent see a “significant increase” in product or service quality, while 28 percent see an increase in productivity or efficiency, according to the report.

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