US Small Business News Round-up - 15/03/2008

Here is this week’s news round-up for home business, micro business, sole-traders, freelancers, self-employed and any one who is interested in small business news from the United States:

• How ‘07 Changes Affect Small Business: Small-business owners take note: Changes in the tax code this year could add a few dollars to your coffers. But you could be in for colossal headaches if you’ve been sloppy in your record keeping.
• Shifting Careers: The Complications of more leisure time: Because there are so many of them, baby boomers are the most competitive generation we’ve ever seen, but as they retire, many will experience a kind of forced leisure.
• Isilon gets NASDAQ deadlines: The NASDAQ exchange has given Isilon Systems Inc. deadlines to submit materials and reports — required information that contributed to the company being found out of compliance with NASDAQ listing requirements.
• The American Small Business Coalition Signs 75 New Members Since beginning of the Year: Focused Vision of The American Small Business Coalition, To Become the Most Trusted Facilitator of High-Value Relationships to Government and Industry, Drives MembershipCredited by Members with Contributing to Their Receiving More than $1.6 Billion in Direct and Subcontract Awards from Government Agencies and Contractors.
• Small Business Roundtables with 2008 President Candidates at FOSE 2007: Democratic presidential candidate Mike Gravel to meet with small business owners to discuss issues and tour FOSE 2007 Small Business Pavilion.
• Small biz in city has big hopes: New Yorkers have big hopes for their small business ideas. That was clear Tuesday at the Daily News’ second Small Biz: Big Impact Conference, which featured speakers from the city’s business community and government, and drew a crowd of 500 attendees.
• New Postal Shipping Rates Set: For years, the U.S. Postal Service has wanted to offer volume discounts on shipping and premium mail services. Now, it is about to begin doing so. Beginning May 12, shippers using Express Mail, Priority Mail and certain parcel services will be able to…
• It’s Easy, and Expensive to Forget About Old Equipment: Controlling accumulated technology inventory is a problem for companies large and small.
• National Small Business Week to honor top entrepreneurs: The U.S. Small Business Administration will celebrate National Small Business Week April 21-25 in Washington, D.C., and New York City.
• Small business owners to weigh in on regulatory enforcementt: The Small Business Administration is giving business owners, community leaders and representatives of trade associations a chance to vent about government regulation.
• Birth of a Sales Tool: Linkedin Meets eBay: Serial entrepreneur Evan Sohn believes that sales is a broken trade. He’s’here to fix it, and he’s attempting to do it with an intuitive venture that’is an experiment in sales all its own.
• New program to help small business get federal R&D funds: The Tennessee Technology Development Corporation, the state’s lead organization for promoting technology-based economic development, has launched a program to help small businesses improve their potential for securing research and development funding from the federal government.
• Survey: Inflation worries plague small businesses: Most small business owners surveyed in February say their credit needs were being met, but many weren’t ready to invest in new equipment, despite the stimulus package passed by Congress Feb. 7.
• SBA offers disaster relief in seven counties: Small businesses in seven counties surrounding Sacramento are eligible to apply for low-interest disaster loans from the U.S. Small Business Administration to help their recoveries from storms in January.

As always this list is not exhaustive, but I hope it will give you a little overview. — ST.

5 Responses to “US Small Business News Round-up - 15/03/2008”

1. Mark Taylor
   http://www.shippingcoach.com
   
   Said on March 15th, 2008 at 11:30 pm

   Many small businesses are concerned about the May 12 Postal increase. We know that the cost of a first class stamp is going up by $.01. New prices for Express Mail and Priority Mail have been announced.

   The amount of the postal increase is chump change compared to the massive amount of shipping dollars that are wasted every day. On average, a small business is spending 50% more than is necessary. Why? Because small business people don’t ship smart. They have little knowledge of shipping options. They don’t know what they don’t know. As a result, on 9 out of 10 packages, they pay way too much.

2. Stefan Töpfer
   http://www.winweb.com
   
   Said on March 16th, 2008 at 8:34 am

   Hey Mark,

   Maybe you want to write a post I can put up here and tell people what they should do?
   If you are interested let me know.

   Thanks for the comment anyway.

   Stefan

3. Mark Taylor
   http://www.shippingcoach.com
   
   Said on March 16th, 2008 at 10:24 pm

   Stefan,

   Thank you very much. I would be happy to write a post. I am new to blogging, so tell me how you would like me to do it.

   Mark

4. Rita
   http://boomersurvive-thrive.typepad.com
   
   Said on June 21st, 2008 at 8:49 pm

   Thanks for the article on boomers.

   I write a boomer consumer blog called The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide at http://boomersurvive-thriveguide.typepad.com and a blog called the Boomer Consumer for the Seattle Post Intelligencer at http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/boomerconsumer/.

   Rita

5. Good Therapy
   http://www.goodtherapy.org/New-York-Therapy.htm
   
   Said on September 12th, 2008 at 2:09 pm

   Mark Taylor,
   I notice that there have been two increases in the stamp postage in the past year. The postage rates really affect my business because I have to ship a lot of products to customers. I have to agree with you about small business not knowing how to ship packages because I have lost a lot of money on shipping. I am much better at shipping products but there is still room for improvement.

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