BizSugar.com › User › suzyQ › Voted

Women who own small businesses — about a third of all small businesses in the United States, in fact — have been pushing for years for a bigger piece of government contracts, which now total $400 billion a year. But few were happy when the Small Business Administration finally announced new rules in December to ensure that 5 percent of the cont Read More

Need a little help writing your next direct mail letter or web copy? This is a great summary of the steps needed for effective copywriting. Includes solid examples. Read More

Forced ranking is a controversial workforce management tool that uses intense yearly evaluations to identify a company's best and worst performing employees, using person-to-person comparisons. In theory, each ranking will improve the quality of the workforce. Top managers rank workers into three categories: The top 20% are the "A" players, the Read More

eMarketer has issued predictions for 2008 in key online areas, including those related advertising, videos, social networks, e-commerce and entertainment, saying online advertising will ride out potential economic storms in the US - and YouTube will decide political elections. Read More

The brain is often envisioned as something like a computer, and the body as its all-purpose tool. But a growing body of new research suggests that something more collaborative is going on - that we think not just with our brains, but with our bodies. A series of studies, the latest published in November, has shown that children can solve math prob Read More

Small-business lobbyists on both sides of the aisle will do their best to keep health care reform near the top of the next president's agenda. The difference, it seems, in this election: They are looking to compromise. Both sides have come a long way since 1993, when the United States' largest small-business lobbying group, the National Feder Read More

No, it's not adding Free Apple iPod to your site a thousand times. According to search engine optimization expert, Matt McGee, ranking high in SERPs can't be achieved overnight. Instead, it takes the commitment and patience to build what he calls the "SEO Success Pyramid." A great article for anyone beating their head against the Google wall. Read More

You can expect a changing workplace in 2008, centered around three themes: rising health-insurance premiums, expanding workers' rights and reforming immigration.

Although not increasing as fast as in previous years, health-care premium costs are expected to swell. Mercer Health & Benefits, a part of the global consulting company, projects that Read More

More employers now supplement salaries with one-time bonuses and rewards, with more than 90 percent of employers offering such "variable pay" in 2007, up from 80 percent in 2006, according to an annual survey of about 1,000 large U.S. employers by Hewitt Associates. Spending on such programs hit almost 12 percent of employers' payroll budgets Read More

Average sales people think they are most effective when they talk with someone WHEN they are ready to buy, but top performers seek to build relationships with the right people in the right companies BEFORE they're ready to buy. This is where marketing can have a profound impact by helping their sales team go beyond the lead. Read More