Suzanne DeChillo/The New York TimesDeirdre Lord. Two new owners have joined the business group. Their companies operate in different industries and are at very different stages in their evolution. This post introduces one of them. Owner: Deirdre Lord. Company: The Megawatt Hour is an online subscription service that helps commercial and industrial clients manage, track, [...]

In a bid to retake the initiative on small-business policy, President Obama Wednesday is expected to propose a 10 percent tax credit tied to new hiring. But the policy appears designed as much to draw a political distinction as to generate new jobs. In describing the proposal, which Mr. Obama will flesh out in a [...]

Now that I’m back from my travels, I think it would be nice to tell you what happened with my paycheck. I had posted about our cash flow issues at the end of April. In the post, I asked whether, in response to a slump in sales, I should cut my own salary to conserve [...]

 

Marilynn K. Yee/The New York TimesShara Mendelson: “A lot of my friends said this was going to be the worst year of my life.” In a small-business guide we’ve just published, Shara Mendelson talks about selling the company she had spent 12 years building. Early on, she was excited that her business, Plum Benefits, which [...]

In a previous post Susan Parker, a member of our business group, mentioned that she wanted to investigate her domestic manufacturing options, which are complicated by the fact that her company, Bari Jay, is unionized. Toward that end, the labor lawyer that represents Bari Jay in its union dealings reached out to union factories that [...]

 

Jessica BruderQiong Qiong Wang (left) and Pan Pan Chen founded the Tao Ming Xuan Teahouse in China. In 1981, a gang of teenagers mugged the owner of an import-export business while he was walking on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. They ran off with the contents of his wallet, $10. But Steve Mariotti took away something [...]

What’s affecting me, my clients and other small-business owners this week. The Big Story: A Shift in Europe France simmers, Greece boils and an economic crisis threatens Europe’s “storied way of life.” Spain owns up to its banking mess. Jeff Miller says no one should panic. Richard Bailey explains why the euro zone is undergoing [...]

What’s affecting me, my clients and other small-business owners this week. The Big Story: A Shift in Europe France simmers, Greece boils and an economic crisis threatens Europe’s “storied way of life.” Spain owns up to its banking mess. Jeff Miller says no one should panic. Richard Bailey explains why the euro zone is undergoing [...]

What’s affecting me, my clients and other small-business owners this week. The Big Story: A Shift in Europe France simmers, Greece boils and an economic crisis threatens Europe’s “storied way of life.” Spain owns up to its banking mess. Jeff Miller says no one should panic. Richard Bailey explains why the euro zone is undergoing [...]

To prepare for my trip to Germany, I spent a couple of weeks making a list of every question about every procedure I could think of, and then passed it around the shop so the guys could add any queries I had missed. Then we had it translated into German. I was as ready as [...]

Many people who start businesses, including me, have little or no experience and just jump in. Over the years, I have compared notes with many fellow entrepreneurs, and I have seen them make the same mistakes over and over again — I recognize them because I have made them all, too. Here is my list [...]

So I spent a week in Germany, touring a factory that makes conference tables and office chairs. I have been working with this company, which I’ll call Company G, for almost a year now. The head of its North American operations called me last June, out of the blue, to ask whether we might be [...]

 

Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesJessica Johnson (left), with Alexandra Mayzler: “Sometimes things don’t make sense.” As if managing health care insurance isn’t complicated enough already, the Supreme Court is expected to rule soon on the constitutionality of the partially implemented Affordable Care Act. During the most recent meeting of our business group, we asked the owners [...]

This week’s Dashboard roundup of small-business news includes a link to a column about United Airlines written by Joe Brancatelli, a travel columnist: “Worst. Airline. Ever. Again.” According to his own Web site — “the homepage for business travelers” — Mr. Brancatelli “has logged countless miles, spent way too many nights in mediocre hotels, wasted [...]

What’s affecting me, my clients and other small-business owners this week. The Big Story: Optimism Up, Hiring Down Gallup reports that the optimism of small-business owners has risen to its highest since 2008. Optimism is also up among chief financial officers. Small-business revenues are recovering from their recessionary depths. The latest jobs report is a [...]