Business Generation

“More than a year into the official recovery, small businesses face what some say has become a permanent legacy of the recession: Their vendors are demanding faster payment even as their customers are taking longer to pay. Companies with the least bargaining power get squeezed the hardest.”

Sound familiar? A recent article in Bloomberg Businessweek, which mentions The Receivables Exchange, describes the challenge that many small and midsize businesses face every day with stabalizing cash flow. The Receivables Exchange is mentioned as an innovative solution to the cash flow squeeze, allowing companies to sell receivables in an online marketplace for working capital.

The article quotes Exchange Seller Joe Reini, of Mason-Grey Corp., who uses the Exchange to handle longer payment terms from his customers. “It seems to me that ‘net 30? is gone

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A small business survey conducted by TD bank in Florida revealed that many businesses expect to see increased revenue earnings and have stable staffing levels in 2012. Performance of small businesses has gone up as 54 % of small businesses polled said that they met or exceeded revenue earnings in 2011s last quarter.

TD Banks sample of 300 small business owners was spread across Floridas Northeast, Central and Southeast regions. It has been found that 69% of Floridas small businesses expect to exceed revenue projections during first few months of 2012. Many respondents are found happier now compared to previous year. About 53% of company owners feel optimistic about the U.S. economy.

Floridas small business owners have been resilient and upbeat. They will inevitably bolster sales and enjoy success as the economic recovery continues.

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This question was posted on my ask me page on my timberry.com site. I cant promise to answer all the questions I get, but I try, and Im particularly happy when I get one whose answer might be useful to other people. So heres a question:

Do you have any idea how to value a SaaS business? Do we use our users, growth in users, revenues, margins, or what? What do investors like to see?

My answer: Im probably a bit biased on this one because of my position in Palo Alto Software, which publishes our LivePlan SaaS offering for online business planning. But I cant say I havent thought about it. Heres what I can do to help:

1. I really like How should you value a SaaS company, posted a few months ago by Robin Vessey and then edited by Joel Spolsky on OnStartups.

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Margaret Donnelly, marketing director at Meltwater Buzz met with CBR to discuss the ins and outs of managing brands on social media channels.

How can you build branded trust using social media?The people engaging with your brand already have some sort of affinity; for them to be coming to you, to follow you, and to like you on Facebook already showcases a level of trust that they have with the brand, because they are exposing themselves as someone that is a brand fan.

Social media is about building that trusted relationship. Speaking to customers and clients in a manner that is acceptable to them, so not spam them with offers unless they ask for them and asking for permission to use their information are ways to showcase that the brand isn’t just a name, it’s a face behind that who really cares about the client and the customer and about building that relationship.

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With immediate cloud computing open positions and job listings on the BizCloud job board , Coit Group, a BizCloud partner offers practical advice to job seekers on creating great resume.

The tips below present six ways to write and improve resumes in an effort to optimize them for today’s machine and human audiences. In recent years, the means by which staffing firms and HR departments have managed hiring and candidate sourcing has changed drastically. With the rise of tools such as Monster, Dice and applicant tracking systems the manner in which resumes are filtered and found is no longer as simple as emailing a resume to an HR professional. Because of this shift, there is a need for candidates to write resumes for two audiences: Machine search engines and human staffing experts. T

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Investors who are just starting out with their retirement planning efforts should seriously consider utilizing buy and hold strategies. This will help prevent them from not saving enough to retire comfortably.

Data that was recently compiled by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) indicates that only 0.2 percent of individuals who are saving for their retirements have accumulated more than $1 million in their 401(k)s, according to SmartMoney.

EBRI research director Jack VanDerhei told the news source that only 2 percent of people who are 55 or older and have been putting money into the same 401(k) plan for 20 years have accumulated more than $1 million in their retirement plan.

The equity markets have displayed substantial volatility over the last few years, but investing in the stock market still provides better average annual returns in the long run than putting the same funds into “safe” assets such as cash, bonds and cash equivalents.

Substantial evidence suggests that active management generally provides lower returns than employing buy and hold strategies. Read more…