Don’t Get Sued, Get Smart!: 5 Tips to Protect Your Business From Costly Lawsuits

As a small business owner, getting unexpectedly caught up in a lawsuit can be both overwhelming and scary, not to mention a tremendous drain on resources. But you don’t have to sit around waiting for it to happen. There are many actions you can make to protect yourself in the event that one of your customers, employees, or suppliers tries to take you to court, and there are several best business practices that will help to ensure you don’t end up in court in the first place.

Liberty Finance Australia is a specialist provider of debtor finance solutions to small and medium sized businesses throughout Australia.

1. Learn about your insurance options. About a year ago, I put up a post describing the major forms of insurance small business owners should be aware of. It is good business practice to ensure that you and your assets are properly protected- especially if you are running a sole proprietorship or a simple partnership since under these business structures the owners are basically sitting ducks for claims against them or their business. For more information about business insurance, check out Insure U for Small Businesses.

2. Go
Read full article…

5 Top Resources to Build a Local Search Presence for Your Small Business

As smart phones and other mobile devices become common place and people increasingly turn to the Internet to help them plan out their daily business and leisure activities, the growing importance and impact of local search cannot be ignored. If you run a local brick and mortar business, you should do what you can to ensure that your company has a clear and accurate presence within the local search engines, directories, and social networks.

Below are the five most important local search sites to consider. All of them offer free submission, and some of them cover several simultaneous databases as well:

Google. Google offers a few neat options for locally based small businesses: The first is Google Places , The information you list in Google Places allows online searchers to find your local business listing within the search engine results and it also gives your business a presence on Google Maps. To complete your submission you must verify the information with a postcard or telephone call.

 

 

Once at Google, you should also check out Google Lattitude- Google’s latest foray into local deals and couponing. The


Read full article…

Citi Credit Card Data Hacked

Last week, while I was away on vacation, I received a call from Citibank about my credit card. Since I wasnt keeping up to date on the latest financial news and gossip, I wasnt aware that Citi had been hacked. Normally, when systems get hacked like this, Ive dodged the bullet. This time, I wasnt so lucky because my Citi mtvU card was a victim, part of the lucky 1% of North American credit card holders. While on the phone with Citi, they agreed to ship out a new card to me as soon as possible, which is standard procedure.

What gets a little annoying is that replacing a card, especially one so intertwined in my financial network map is time better spent elsewhere. This does, however, force me to update my map to reflect its current state something Id been too lazy to do. Thankfully, due to my desire to simplify our finances, the updated map has fewer lines on it.

Whats not cool is how Citi allegedly knew about the hack for weeks before going public.

Are You Piecing Your Transaction Management Together Like LEGO’s®?

As a parent or a child, all of us have been the “lead architect” on a massive LEGO project. When tearing open a box of LEGO’s, children throw pieces everywhere, ignore the directions and immediately try to match the structure on the box. Soon after, they get frustrated; yell for mom or dad who organize the pieces and go through the instructions piece by piece.

If you’ve built LEGO’s, you know they package the pieces separately to be combined for a final product. This is very similar to how some real estate professionals are conducting their real estate transactions. They use various services and tools on different platforms to complete the transaction.

Electronic signatures allow businesses to complete transactions online in a secure and efficient manner. They reduce the need for paper as transactions are conducted faster with more efficiency. Consequently, reducing paper is more cost effective as electronic signatures eliminate the need for excessive printing and storage.

Real estate professionals using forms software can access to their forms and transactions anytime they connect to the Internet. Users hav


Read full article…

Why Bootstrapping Small Biz Owners Should Still Pay Attention to Mobile Payments, Square

The high profile search engine giant Google Inc., recently announced it’s new pay-by-phone service, Google Wallet, slated for a limited run this summer. Though many are quick to point out the service’s glaring shortcomings, such as that it only works with the MasterCard network, is available for only one Android phone model, and so far only 15 retailers are signed up, nevertheless Google’s foray into the mobile processing market has drawn a significant amount of attention to mobile payments in general.

 

Then there are the newcomers, such as Square, the brainchild of Twitter founder Jack Dorsey. This service promises to simplify the complicated, convoluted world of credit card processing costs and fees, and in many cases offers a cheaper payment processing option for those who already own an iPhone, iPad, or Android mobile device.

But even as the tech world is abuzz, the majority of small business owners are receiving these announcements with a resounding “So what?”

Despite wide adaption in many Asian countries, industry experts do not expect mobile payments to really take off in the U.S. for another few years. While much


Read full article…

Page 29 of 98« First...1020«2728293031»405060...Last »

Featured Posts

Insurance Websites