Blog Posts by Adrienne Burke

If you claimed the Small Employer Health Insurance Tax Credit last year, congratulations. You are one of few employers who not only qualified but persevered through complex calculations.

Health care tax credit too complex for employers

According to a report issued this month by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, fewer than 12 percent of the businesses that were expected to claim the credit in 2010 did so. The GAO study, conducted at the request of Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee ranking member Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and House Small Business Committee Chairman Sam Graves (R-MO), found that 170,300 small businesses claimed the credit in 2010 at a cost of $468 million.

The numbers fall far below the estimates of government agencies and small business advocacy groups, which suggested that between 1.4 million and 4 million businesses would be eligible to claim the credit and that the cost of the credit would come to $2 billion in fiscal year 2010 and $40 billion from fiscal years 2010 to 2019.

According to two

A growing number of small business owners are optimistic about the post-election economic outlook, and the majority of them in key swing states plan to vote for Mitt Romney or the GOP nominee for president, according to a survey conducted this month by Manta, an online community for small businesses.

The organization polled nearly 1,600 of its members nationally, including nearly 400 in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia, and Wisconsin. In those key states, 28 percent of small business owners surveyed said that if Governor Romney is the GOP nominee, he has their vote. Another 25 percent said they would vote for whomever is selected as the GOP candidate. Four percent said they would vote for the GOP candidate only if it is Ron Paul. And 32 percent said they would like to re-elect President Barack Obama. Fewer than 10 percent of small business owners in the swing states remain undecided.

Numbers in the swing states nearly mirror national stats

Constant Contact seminar on social media for small businessConstant Contact will generate $250 million in revenue this year helping more than 500,000 small businesses, nonprofits, and associations use email, social media, surveys, events, and local deals to create and grow customer relationships. Among Constant Contact’s own customers are about 350,000 small businesses with fewer than 10 employees. Yahoo! Small Business Advisor customers can also benefit from Constant Contact’s expertise through a partnership that brings them into the Yahoo! Small Business Dashboard.

We caught up with CEO Gail Goodman on the same day Constant Contact was celebrating the hiring of its 1,000th employee with a company-wide breakfast. Goodman, whose new book, Engagement Marketing: How Small Business Wins in a Socially Connected World, hits bookstore shelves this the week, shared her unique insights about small businesses in the U.S. in this exclusive interview with Yahoo! Small Business Advisor.

How important do you think small businesses are to the overall economy?

Verizon reaches out to small businessesEvery small business knows the name Verizon as a provider of technology products and services. But have you considered Verizon as a resource for small business advice, educational tools, Facebook apps, webinars featuring leading small business experts and authors, and website building help? Those are some of the services they provide online, and for two years in a row, Verizon’s website has been ranked by Compass Intelligence.com as the number one resource for small businesses.

Yahoo! Small Business Advisor caught up with the Verizon managers leading that initiative: Chief Small Business Advocate, Mary Yarbrough, who has responsibility for the small business segment at Verizon and her colleague Mark Adams, Director, Small Business Marketing, who is responsible for marketing online and offline as well as digital assets and social media assets for Mary’s team. They spoke with us by phone from Verizon’s Basking Ridge, NJ, offices for this exclusive interview.

How important do you think

Small Business SaturdayTwenty-five years ago, American Express was the first company in the financial services sector to create a team and business unit dedicated to serving small businesses and offering small-business-specific products. Mary Ann Fitzmaurice Reilly, Senior Vice President of Customer Marketing and Experience for American Express OPEN, says those years’ experience and time spent getting to know the needs of small businesses is what inspired American Express to broaden its focus beyond offering credit cards to giving small businesses tools and resources that can enable them to do more business and grow.

In this exclusive National Small Business Week interview with Yahoo! Small Business Advisor, Reilly shared American Express OPEN’s insights about small businesses in the U.S.

How important do you think small businesses are to the overall economy?

According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, small businesses create more than half of U.S. jobs and more than half of our $11.7 trillion GDP.

Asked what business tasks they could do better, "being more efficient" was top on the list of one in five entrepreneurs who responded to a recent national survey of small businesses. A cluttered calendar, daily distractions, and an overwhelming to-do list can keep any busy business owner from succeeding, and time management tips like the ones we shared here last week can help you streamline your schedule.

An uncluttered mind is key to entrepreneurial success

But getting control of your time is just one of three steps that business coach Linda Tomb recommends to business owners who seek greater success. Hand-in-hand with clearing the clutter from your calendar goes clearing the clutter from your mind, she says.

Tomb's consultancy, Unleash Your Business, helps women entrepreneurs "grow a small business into a big business…with heart." In part two of our three-part "Time, Focus, Money" interview with Tomb, she says, "Focus is about taking charge of the thoughts that are occupying your brain. You can work till you drop but still be

Small business owners are split

With regard to who is the better candidate for small businesses, President Barack Obama has only a slight edge over Governor Mitt Romney, according to a survey of small business owners commissioned by Office Depot. The Office Depot Small Business Index, conducted in April and released today, revealed that 53 percent of small business owners see the current President as the top small business advocate, while 47 percent chose the former Massachusetts Governor.

The Internet-based national survey, which interviewed 1,002 owners of businesses with between 1 and 99 employees, also asked respondents how they feel about the state of their business. Compared to a year ago, more small business owners say they are "much more or slightly more optimistic." There has been a drop in optimism, however, from January 2012. Survey interviews are conducted monthly.

The survey also asked about measures of success. Most respondents define success as "being profitable" (73 percent); "having a work-life

How does your state rank on small business friendliness? If you run a business in California, Hawaii, Rhode Island, or Vermont you probably aren't saying "great." Those states all got failing grades in a recent national poll.

Giving the grades were more than 6,000 small business owners who were surveyed by Thumbtack.com and the Kauffman Foundation. Business owners were asked about the economic health of their businesses, their state’s overall friendliness towards small businesses, its regulations, and the availability of networking/training programs there. Thumbtack.com, a provider of online local services search directories, translated the answers into a point system and awarded small-business friendliness grades to 45 states and 40 cities.

The survey data, released this week, could be “used by would-be entrepreneurs to decide where to start their companies and by governments to determine where they excel and where they can improve,” Thumbtack.com suggests.
 
The results, presented in a