The Launch Blog: Expert Advice from the CorpNet Team

Every single business owner goes through periods where they've lost their oomph. Sometimes, it's due to a struggling business. Perhaps that growth curve has stagnated (or flatlined) or the feedback you're getting is that your product is all wrong. Perhaps your team is in conflict. Perhaps your expansion has failed, and you're having to go through layoffs or cutbacks or stop the growth of a new division. Oomph goes away for other reasons. One friend of mine found herself without the oomph to keep going because her business had succeeded. She had spent years pursuing financial freedom, and...

Although Valentine's Day has passed, it doesn’t mean the time has expired for us busy business owners to show our family and friends we love them. Building and nurturing relationships never goes out of season. And now more than ever, with the divide among people getting wider as the political and social climate becomes ever more heated, I believe we all need to step up our efforts to show we care. But when you’re an entrepreneur bogged down with countless tasks and multiple concerns on your mind, how can you mange all that AND show your people some love? That’s challenging for all...

Small business owners may be new to the phrase professional employer organization, but PEOs have been around now for several years and changing the face of human resources management. According to the National Association of Professional Employer Organizations (NAPEO), small businesses that work with a PEO grow 70 to 9 percent faster, experience 10 to 14 percent less employee turnover, and are 50 percent less likely to go out of business. Although these sound like terrific benefits for any small business owner, there are also some drawbacks to working with a professional employer...

Hiring the right people requires a sure-fire interviewing process. To effectively interview job candidates, you need more than a little dedicated time and a list of questions; you need an understanding of how you can draw out the information you need about an individual’s knowledge and capabilities. You also need to tune into character nuances that might indicate how well a candidate will work with your team. And, of course, you need to do all of that without breaking any anti-discrimination laws. Interviewing can be intimidating, for not only prospective employees, but also for...

Hiring the right people to be part of your team can greatly affect your business’s ability to succeed. It’s an important process—and a tricky one! When considering job candidates, you need to be careful or you could find yourself facing legal problems. If at any point during the hiring process you don’t comply with the federal and state (and even some local) laws that protect people from job discrimination, you risk having a lawsuit filed against your company. When hiring employees, you must comply with all anti-discrimination laws. Even an unintentional misstep can cause major issues for...

As a business owner, it’s exciting to hire employees and watch your company grow. But there are legal risks if you give job candidates and employees reason to believe your staffing decisions and policies are discriminatory. The first step in avoiding a job discrimination lawsuit is to have a basic understanding of what you can’t discriminate against and the nature of the laws that prohibit employment discrimination. You need to comply with all applicable federal and state (even some local) laws that protect people from job discrimination. So, in your employment ads, job applications, job...

Bookkeeping is a big concern for small business owners as many don’t have past experience managing the books. However, being smart about how you deal with it will save you a lot of time, effort, and headaches. In this article, we’ll cover 5 tips to help you manage your books. Manage Your Books With These Tips 1. Keep all of your business records organized. If you want your business to run efficiently and smoothly, you need to keep a record of every part of your business. Imagine if a client refuses to pay and it leads to a court's summons. Having a paper trail of your records can help...

As a freelance professional, establishing a solid working relationship with your clients often hinges on mutual understanding and clear expectations. New entrepreneurs learn that very quickly upon starting their businesses! That’s why having a proposal that covers all the bases can be one of your best business assets. Proposals that provide clarity and detail help to ensure you and your clients are on the same page. That’s important for both “one-off” transactional projects and ongoing assignments. What should your proposals include? At a minimum, I recommend you make sure they have the...

With any investment property, liabilities come with the territory—faulty electrical wiring, broken stairway railings, black mold, and other possible flaws are all inherent threats. It’s no wonder savvy real estate investors decide to form LLCs (Limited Liability Companies) to protect themselves. The LLC legal business structure shields investors’ personal assets from liability associated with their investment properties. So with an LLC, your personal assets won’t be vulnerable if a tenant or visitor to your property sues you. While forming an LLC can be done rather quickly and without any...

With school back in session, students of all ages are learning new things—and discovering how much they don’t know in the process. Whether you’re an aspiring entrepreneur or long-time business owner, one thing is certain: like the kids who are back to school, you always have room to learn and grow. As I’ve learned and grown as a business owner, one of my favorite phrases has become, “You don’t know what you don’t know.” How true, right? It’s far too easy to fool ourselves into thinking we really know all there is to know. But the truth is we will never ever know everything when it comes...

While you know the importance of continuing to develop your own knowledge about running a small business, have you given much thought to helping your employees with their own professional development?

Did you know that 68 million employees don’t have a retirement savings plan at all? This is often due to the fact that their employers — often small businesses — don’t offer employer-sponsored retirement plans. And small businesses aren’t eager to offer retirement plans for employees, either because they don’t know how to go about doing it or they can’t afford to.