Facing the Inevitable: When Business Bankruptcy May Be Your Only Option | AllBusiness.com

December 21, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Bankruptcy was a big topic in this year’s presidential campaign. With President-elect Trump previously filing for bankruptcy protection, the topic has probably never before received so much attention.

As much as I don’t want to admit it, I have personal experience with bankruptcy. A failed business, regardless of the reasons, can often leave you in a position where you have no other choice. While most of the advice I write about is on starting a business, I thought it would be a great time to talk about what to do when your business is failing. Keep in mind that being broke is not always a reason to close your business. In fact, that is why there are numerous options afforded to you as a debtor.

What to Consider Before Buying a Company Car for Your Startup | The Startup Magazine

December 16, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Maybe you need a transportation van to make home deliveries. Maybe you want a souped-up truck to carry all your tools and equipment from home to work. Whatever your reason for considering buying a company car, you should take a breath and consider whether you’ve thought the decision through.

A company car ― just like a personal car ― is a significant expense, and if it doesn’t provide any additional value to the business, it might be the cause of your business’s downfall. Especially in new and relatively unproven businesses like startups, such an expense could bleed your business checking account dry before you know it.

Here are a few considerations you should make before you make any trips to the auto dealership for your startup’s first car.

Choosing a Digital Copier for Your Business | Business News Daily

December 16, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

If you’re looking for a new copier for your business, you’ll want to make sure you consider whether a digital copier is right for you.

Though analog copiers are still available on the used market, the bulk of copier sales now belong to digital models. Often multifunctional in scope, digital copiers are all-in-one office suites, capable of scanning, copying, printing (via network connectivity), faxing, downloading and emailing.

19 Wellness Program Ideas for Your Company | Getentrepreneurial.com

December 15, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

As an employer, you need your company and its workers to be productive. Keeping staff motivated, engaged, and happy on the job is hard enough—but when you factor in the many health conditions affecting the United States, balancing the challenge of keeping everyone healthy and happy so they can work (and you can save money) can feel overwhelming. Obesity and related chronic diseases are very costly to employers averaging $93 billion per year in health insurance claims. Many of these conditions are strongly linked to factors that include smoking, inadequate exercise and poor dietary choices—all of which can be modified with the help of company wellness programs.

Tips for successful wellness programs

Workplace wellness programs can help offset some of these challenges. After all, what’s more fun than competing against your friends and co-workers for bragging rights and fitting in to a smaller pair of jeans? For the best possible buy-in, allow your employees to have a say or suggest programs they would like to participate in. Send around a survey or list of some ideas and ask them for their own. Regular and short term programs. Activities that have a quick duration (usually no longer than a month) will help employees stay motivated and focused on the goal ahead. At the end of the challenge period, offer a prize for their efforts. Just make sure it’s something healthy and beneficial, not something that would set them back.

84 Percent of Online Customers Trust Online Reviews, New Survey Says | Small Biz Trends

December 15, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Here’s a good reason to pay extra attention to your online reputation.

According to a new survey, 84 percent of customers trust online reviews as a personal recommendation.

Customers Trust Online Reviews

Online Reviews Matter

What’s more, 74 percent of online customers say positive reviews make them trust a local business more.

These astonishing insights have come from the Annual BrightLocal Local Consumer Review Survey 2016. For the survey, BrightLocal interviewed 1,062 people.

Among other things, the survey has revealed 54 percent of people visit a website after reading positive reviews about it. In other words, a positive word of mouth can help you draw potential customers to your site.

Four Reasons You Hate Networking And What To Do Instead | Fast Company

December 14, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

If you’re a normal professional, you may just feel at least a smidge of apprehension or resentment when it comes time to drag yourself to (or get dragged to) a professional networking event. Sure, sure, the crab puffs might be killer, but there are so many things to not love about these shindigs that I’d be here for hours if I tried to highlight each one.

Because that doesn’t sound fun for either of us, let’s start with four common reasons why you don’t enjoy them—even when you know (or suspect) they’re important to attend. And then let’s find a better option for every stinking one of them.

Disrupt or be Disrupted | Duct Tape Marketing

December 12, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

In a few short years much of what you do, make, fix, sell, and ship, won’t mean much to anyone. In fact, there’s a pretty good chance that if you stay put doing whatever it is your business does right now – you’ll be out of business.

If you want to survive, let alone thrive, you must tap new trends and produce new ideas at an accelerating rate.

Robots, artificial intelligence, and technology built on top of the internet will continue to threaten the very fabric of what most business (and jobs) are set up to do today. If I’m to be totally honest, it will wipe most business and jobs as we know them today completely away.

No one was a social media manager, app developer, or drone operator (there are 70,000 of these now) ten years ago.

And in ten years there will be very few cashiers, travel agents, and social media managers (coming full circle on this one pretty quickly).

Nintendo Is Leaving Its Comfort Zone, and We’re All Better Off | Entrepreneur

December 12, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Super Mario will finally jump to iPhones on Thursday, and I will get to live out my boyhood dreams of exploring the game series’s Mushroom Kingdom in the real world sometime in the future. Today, Nintendo revealed initial plans for its first-ever theme park attractions, which will open in Osaka’s Universal Studios Japan in 2020, with other locations to follow.

There will also be Legend of Zelda-themed escape rooms. My inner child just can’t even.

You see, the Japanese company that’s also behind Pokémon and Donkey Kong has majorly shifted its strategy in the past few years, at a time when the smartphones in all of our pockets increasingly threaten its grip on the handheld games market and its Wii U console failed to live up to the success of its predecessor.

3 Best Free Recovery Software to Get Your Data Back | Life Hack

December 8, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Data loss can happen on any device that is capable of storing data. Even a simple misplacement is a loss of data, and it is a loss technically. There are number of reason for this like human error, file corruption, hardware, site relates thefts, viruses and damaging malware, mechanical damages of hard drive, power failure, spilling coffee, and other water damages etc. Thus the permanent loss of data needs to be avoided as it hinders the ongoing success of business.

Though there are number of ways for recovering the data but it is expensive business so it’s better to take substitute which is backing up your data, photos and key documents on regular basis. Even there are number of backup regimens but it is of less comfort. As and when you are aware that data loss had happened, first thing which is critical is stop using drive immediately which is affected.

Almost Half of Job Applicants Don’t Follow Basic Directions, Say HR Pros | The Simple Dollar

December 8, 2016December 8, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Were you one of those kids who always followed directions on classroom activities? If so, you probably had an advantage when you started your career, because standing out from the pack may be as simple as paying attention to the details as you submit your job application.

While there’s little hard data on the subject, it appears a startling number of job seekers don’t follow basic directions when applying for a job: The human resource professionals I spoke with estimated that about half of all candidates are guilty of leaving out critical information on their applications.

Whether it’s forgetting to include an attachment or requested references, or accidentally leaving a section blank, a haphazard application can have real consequences for your candidacy; depending on the circumstances and the strength of your resume, it could even get you knocked out of contention.