SmallBusinessExecutiveInforming, Inspiring and Connecting Businesses
4 steps to a customer-facing culture
By George Brown Jr. Guest Columnist Executives often want their companies to be more customer-facing. That aspiration is admirable. The best companies thoroughly understand their customers and fully incorporate customer insights into their plans and priorities. Yet the challenge is implementing that vision. Here are four ways to transition to a customer-facing culture: First, create [...]
5 steps to a successful business turnaround
By John Treace Guest columnist I have taken part in many business turnarounds in my career, and time and again I have noticed the same problems: ineffective management, poorly defined culture, a weak team, lack of vision and the absence of a strategic plan. To turn around a struggling business, use the following steps. [...]
At Care Team Connect, government regulation furthers entrepreneurial concept
By Ann Meyer – Leave it to entrepreneurs to create solutions to problem areas the government has stepped in to regulate. For Ben Albert, co-founder and chief executive at Evanston-based Care Team Connect, professional expertise in health systems coupled with personal experience helping to coordinate medical care for his grandfather from a distance spawned a [...]
Women share tales from the front at entrepreneurial conference
– Count Sherrie Matthews among those rare women business owners who have passed the $1 million mark in annual revenue and are forecasting more. In the six years since its inception, Matthews’ Crown Point, Ind.-based marketing company, PrintSolutions, has grown to $20 million in revenue and 110 workers. That makes it among the top 2 [...]
How to improve customer service by empowering workers
By John Tschohl Guest columnist Imagine a business strategy so powerful it will create loyal customers who will drive a company’s revenue to new heights. That strategy is empowerment, or allowing employees to make a decision on the spot in favor of the customer. Empowered employees can save a business time and money because customer [...]
Online disaster preparedness resources aim to help businesses plan for worst
Nine out of 10 companies impacted by a disaster fail within a year unless they can resume business operations within five days, the U.S. Small Business Administration reported. Due to recent hurricanes, floods and wildfires, insured catastrophic losses for the first half of 2011 totaled more than $17 billion, surpassing the $13 billion in insured losses [...]
10 years after 9/11, security still top of mind
By Ann Meyer – Chicago photographer Jimmy Fishbein hasn’t forgotten the terrorist attacks that struck New York 10 years ago, where his photography studio was located at the time. Fishbein lost just about everything, including his portfolio, when his studio next to the World Trade Center got caught in the disaster of Sept. 11. “I [...]
Small business owners willing to trade tax credits for less red tape
The more government tries to help, the more some small businesses say “thanks anyway.” For the amount of time it takes to read the fine print of most government programs, Roy Chomko, president of Adage Technologies in Chicago, says he could be finding new customers or serving existing ones. As a result, he is among [...]
Jane Adams Hull House receives funding for microentrepreneurs
The Jane Adams Hull House Association in Chicago is one of 100 nonprofits throughout the United States to receive a grant this year from the U.S. Small Business Association’s Program for Investment in Microentrepreneurs (PRIME). The grants, which total $7.6 million nationally, are designed to help the nonprofits provide business training and technical assistance to low-income entrepreneurs [...]
Capital constraints deter job creation: poll
By Ann Meyer With President Barack Obama expected to announce a jobs act Thursday night, experts said what small businesses want most is access to capital. Without capital, small businesses often are constrained from adding workers. And after business owners are turned down for bank loans or other types of financing, they often are reluctant [...]
