Small Business Blog

In this season 3 episode of Back of the Napkin, Kelly O'Neill, owner of Fusion of Iron and Earth, shares the inspiring story of her transition from the corporate world to starting a small business from little more than clay, scrap metal, sheer determination, and the passion to honor her father's legacy.

Cory Hershman, online payroll training expert, reveals common small business payroll mistakes and shares her thoughts on whether you want to mess with the IRS.

In this season 2 episode of Back of the Napkin - Friday Fails, Hiran Patel, owner of Naansense Indian restaurants in Chicago, discusses the issues he encountered when expanding to a second location and the wisdom gained from failure. Listen to the episode.   

In this season 2 episode of Back of the Napkin - Friday Fails , Rachel Doyle, social entrepreneur, CEO and founder of GlamourGals, shares an early failure due to inexperience writing thank you notes.

In this season 2 episode of Back of the Napkin, social entrepreneur Rachel Doyle, owner of GlamourGals, merges makeovers and service to bring joy to isolated seniors. Listen to the episode. 

As a small business owner with employees, it’s important to accurately pay employees. While this may seem obvious, a lot goes into preparing paychecks and the opportunity for miscalculations is high when following a DIY approach to payroll. 

There is no better feeling than bringing a new employee into your company. You’re positive that he or she will have a huge impact on productivity, efficiency, and of course, your bottom line.

When starting a small business, there are many things that you are going to have to consider and important decisions you’ll have to make in order to get your business up and running. One of these decisions that you won’t want to take lightly is choosing a legal structure. As a small business owner, there are several options to choose from, with pros and cons for each depending on your business goals.

There’s nothing better than the feeling of a new year. While you’re resolutions and best intentions may have dipped a little in the last month, it’s not too late to re-focus and take control of your business.

Located in Wheaton, IL, Diane Moore owns and operates the toy store MOORE Toys & Gadgets. Originally a forensic accountant, Diane was looking for a way to spend more time with her family, and possibly get them involved in a business, and thought a fun toy store is something her town needed. 

When thinking about customer service, you probably are focusing more on the actual conversations with customers or ensuring you have a plan in place to help them throughout their buying journey with your small business. However, customer service is more than just the face-to-face interactions or the emails you send to customers and the help you provide when customers have questions or problems. To make your customer service efforts better than ever, we encourage you to look at other areas of customer service that you may have not considered.

Being productive comes in waves; some days it’s easy to hop out of bed and be ready to hit the ground running, and other days you’re hitting the snooze button continuously. If you’re trying to be more productive this year and start crushing your goals, we found some articles that can help.