As small businesses struggle over health insurance, a National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) survey finds that two out of three business owners feel clueless about health insurance choices and costs.  

Here are your basic options, from full-featured major medical plans, to HMOs, PPOs, health savings accounts (HSAs) and more — plus what you can expect to pay right now for a small group plan, and some of the best ways to control the costs of providing health coverage at your business:

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In case you’ve been off-planet for the past several years, “social networking” has become the talk of the Internet. And more to the point, it’s now an essential tool for business, having moved from experimental curiosity to business networking necessity.

But social networking involves an increasingly complex and ever-changing web of technologies, communities and strategies that even the smartest business minds have trouble mastering.  Basically, social networking is the process of creating online relationships, conversations and connections through a wide range of social media such as blogs, networking sites (think LinkedIn), web communities (Facebook), photo and video sharing services (YouTube, Flickr) and the micro-blogging site Twitter, among many others. Read the full entry

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While many businesses have been slammed by recession, some entrepreneurs are using the downturn as a time to prepare for better times ahead. And a big part of that is not only getting your current balance sheet in shape, but lining up funding sources to support future growth.

It starts with understanding the different options, and that alone can be challenging. When American Express surveyed a group of small business owners recently, it found that many were having trouble separating financial fact from fiction.  Read the full entry

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Let’s go low-tech for a minute and talk stickers.  In general, stickers have been steadily shrinking for the past 20 years. Take it from sticker guru Jeff Nicholson, owner of Websticker.com. But while sticker sizes have shrunk, “the power of stickers for promotional marketing has steadily increased,” says Nicholson.

The key to using promotional stickers successfully is picking the perfect size, design and wording that encourages people to place them in visible locations.  This is why the big bumper stickers of old have all but disappeared.  Meanwhile, smaller promotional stickers now proliferate on helmets, bikes, skateboards, windows, water bottles, lockers and hundreds of other places. Read the full entry

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