Small Business
30 articles
The Small Business Guide to ADA Website Compliance: A Self-Audit Checklist You Can Run Today
Small businesses can audit their websites for ADA compliance using a self-checklist to identify common accessibility gaps like missing alt text or poor color contrast, helping them avoid lawsuits and improve user experience.
How Small Businesses Can Take Control of Their Online Reputation: A Four-Step Process and a Toolkit Decision Framework
Small businesses can strategically manage their online reputation through a four-step process: claiming profiles, setting up monitoring, establishing response protocols, and generating positive reviews. A decision framework helps choose the right toolkit based on budget, effort, and scope.
Choosing Sustainable Packaging: A Small Business Decision Framework
For most small businesses, recycled paper and cardboard packaging is the smartest starting point due to its affordability and customer familiarity. While compostable and reusable options offer greater environmental appeal, they involve higher costs and operational complexity, requiring careful consideration of product, brand, and operational capacity.
How a Local Merchant Association Turns Small Budgets Into Collective Clout
Local merchant associations leverage collective action to provide benefits like new customers, cost savings, and policy influence that individual small businesses can't achieve alone. The article offers a framework to help businesses determine if membership is a worthwhile investment by matching association offerings to specific needs.
Choosing a Small Business Payment Processor: Start With Architecture, Then Pricing, Then Integration
Choosing a small business payment processor starts with selecting the right architecture: a Payment Service Provider (PSP) or a traditional merchant account. This foundational decision impacts pricing models, setup complexity, and integration options.
How to Run a Small Business Waste Audit and Price Out Your Cardboard Savings
Conducting a waste audit is a practical step for small businesses to lower disposal costs and improve sustainability by identifying specific savings opportunities. By sorting and weighing waste, businesses can pinpoint materials like cardboard that dominate the stream, allowing for accurate calculation of potential recycling savings.
Four Criteria for Choosing the Right Business Consultant for Your Small Business
Selecting the right business consultant for your small business hinges on four key criteria: matching specialization and experience to your needs, verifying a strong track record and measurable results, understanding their fee structure and value, and ensuring a compatible communication and working style.
Points, Tiers, Punch Cards, or Hybrid: Which Loyalty Program Fits Your Small Business?
Choosing the right loyalty program for your small business means selecting a model that effectively changes customer behavior without eroding margins. This guide compares points, tiered, digital punch card, and hybrid programs to help you align your choice with specific business goals, operational capacity, and budget.
CEO Times Profiles Brad Sugars Around the Idea That Entrepreneurship Can Be Taught
CEO Times profiled Brad Sugars on the idea that entrepreneurship can be taught, emphasizing his programs and frameworks that convert business experience into learnable, practical skills. This approach challenges the notion of entrepreneurship as an innate instinct, making business capability accessible through structured learning.
The Squeeze on Main Street: How Gentrification Challenges Legacy Businesses
Gentrification creates economic and demographic pressures that threaten legacy small businesses, but documented strategies like preservation programs and façade improvements offer pathways for adaptation and survival.
A Small Business Owner's Guide to Securing a Zoning Variance
Securing a zoning variance is crucial for small businesses needing property-specific waivers from zoning rules for expansion or adaptation. This guide outlines the challenging process, focusing on proving "unique hardship" and submitting a meticulous application for board approval.
How Local Business Collaboration Strategies Drive Growth
A small bakery in Portland, Oregon, saw its revenue jump 40% in a single year not by opening new locations, but by partnering with three local coffee shops and a flower delivery service for joint prom
WhatsApp Power Your Hustle campaign empowers Nigerian small businesses
In Lagos, the founder of FHR Spices now focuses entirely on production, while an AI-powered assistant within WhatsApp Business handles all customer inquiries.
How to Get Local Business Permits and Licenses
Restaurateurs in New York City typically need some 30 permits, registrations, licenses, and certificates, along with up to 23 separate inspections to start their business, according to the Manhattan I
Ways to Support Local Businesses in 2026
In San Francisco, a 'First Year Free' program saved qualifying new businesses over $7 million.
Buying and Scaling Companies With Brad Sugars’ Entrepreneurs MasterClass
Brad Sugars’ Entrepreneurs MasterClass, part of the Scale Master $10M Club, focuses on buying, selling, and scaling companies through acquisition. The two-day session, scheduled for October 14-15, 2026, covers acquisition strategy, due diligence, deal structure, and integration.
Main Street disaster relief in 2026 is an illusion, recovery efforts fall short.
After a historic flood, my fiancée and I incurred $5,000 in out-of-pocket costs for basement damage, even after insurance coverage.
What Is Social Entrepreneurship and Why Small Businesses Need It
Imagine a local bakery where every loaf sold directly funds a meal for a homeless person.
Diverse entrepreneurs are key to Main Street revitalization
In Arlington County, Virginia, immigrants are 41.
Local Entrepreneurship Thrives Amidst Community Commerce Growth in 2026
In Wisconsin Rapids, eight local entrepreneurs recently shared $30,000 in grants, directly boosting their businesses and demonstrating a powerful model for community commerce.
Local Businesses Need More Than Resources; They Need Community Backing.
MI Small Business Helper, a free online platform, has facilitated over 734,000 interactions for more than 25,000 users seeking entrepreneurial resources since August 2025.
What is a Gross Lease? Understanding Small Business Rent Costs
For a small business in California, merely drafting a commercial lease agreement can cost $890.
AT&T Connects Small Businesses with $50,000 Contest
Small business owners have until September 30, 2025, to apply for the AT&T 'She's Connected' contest.
What Are Key Performance Indicators for Main Street Revitalization?
A Main Street initiative in the small town of Harmony nearly lost its critical state funding in late 2025.
Why Supporting Local Businesses Pays Back: The Multiplier, the Community, and the Climate
Supporting local businesses yields significant economic, social, and environmental benefits by recirculating money within the community, strengthening local identity, and reducing transportation-related pollution. The local multiplier effect, community engagement, and a smaller carbon footprint are key advantages of prioritizing local spending.
Gen Z Embraces Franchising for Small Business Success in 2026
A new generation of entrepreneurs, Gen Z, is turning away from the romanticized image of the lone startup founder, instead flocking to established restaurant franchises for their first venture.
Couples Launching Businesses: The Academic Case for Shared Success
The aroma of scratch-made chicken and Belgian waffles filled the Flint Farmers' Market on May 30, 2026, as Craig and Jaquita Kelley officially opened Wafl Wafl, their joint venture into the food truck
Great service alone won't make millions; scale products instead.
Zappos built its brand on legendary service, yet its $1.
SBA Offers Disaster Loans for Businesses Through April 27
Over $8.7 million has already been distributed by FEMA to victims of the December floods in Washington state, including residents of Whatcom and Skagit counties, according to Cascadia Daily News . Nea
Strategic marketing budget shifts for small business growth
Budgeting for the status quo will result in the status quo, a trap many small businesses unknowingly fall into, according to Accountingmarketing .