Getty Images

Hotels have found a new business opportunity in today's mobile, technology-driven world: selling small, tech-equipped meeting rooms for private business gatherings.

Westin today will announce a pilot program to replace at least some of its old-fashioned hotel business centers with contemporary meeting rooms that offer some privacy.

After about a year of research into the mobile traveler of today, Westin is convinced that more people want to collaborate on the fly and that they're willing to pay for a quiet space that's away from the bustling hotel lobby.

 » Read More

Source: Bandals.com A Bandals sandal.

In the middle of 2010, Tom Sesti decided he needed to do something about the cost pressures that had been plaguing his business, Bandals. Based in Rochester, Mich., the company had introduced a product, women’s sandals with interchangeable decorative tops, soon after the economic crisis hit in 2008. Almost immediately, the five-employee company was hit with cost increases of 15 to 30 percent for manufacturing and raw materials.

Mr. Sesti decided Bandals needed to sell its way out of the problem. “We had to get to a level where our economies of scale cleared the hurdle of all our fixed costs,” he said. To that end, he considered two paths — offering a new product or expanding overseas. After running the numbers, he decided to do both.

Lots of people advise staying aggressive during a difficult economy, but spending money when times are tough can be scary. This small-business guide looks at how Bandals and two other companies managed to do it.

 » Read More

I get asked every day about ideas and theories about how to make a small business successful. It’s funny because most people just miss the point: Business has to answer a real need to be successful. Whether you own your own company now, are thinking about starting one or just have Facebook dreams of riches, take a few minutes and think about the basics before you invest another shekel or hour of time.

Can you explain what the mission of the company is?

Sounds simple right? Well, think again grasshopper, because the “mission” of the company is not what it does for a living. A plumber’s mission is not “I fix pipes,” it’s something like “To give customers confidence that we will not rip them off, do shoddy work or wear our pants too low when we fix the sink.” Get it? What is the problem your new genius firm is addressing and how will your solution be different? That’s the real mission you need to write.

 » Read More

AP Local regulations are of more concern than federal regulations to small business owners, according to the Thumbtack.com survey.

What states are the most friendly for small business owners?

While taxes and federal regulations top a lot of other surveys about the biggest issues small business owners face, Thumbtack.com asked owners of some of the smallest businesses across the country what mattered most to them in operating their business.

Small businesses have been described as the engine driving America’s economy, and with good reason. According to the Small Business Administration, small businesses accounted for 65 percent of the net new jobs created between 1993 and 2009 and employ nearly half of all private sector employees.

Despite this, the share of GDP produced by small businesses has steadily declined over the past decade. There has never been a more important time to determine what matters most to small businesses.

 » Read More

Jetta Productions | Getty Images

North Brunswick-based manufacturer XPAK USA has developed machinery that can, among other things, help PepsiCo

PEP loading...

Quote  |  Chart  |  News  |  Profile

[PEP  Loading...      ()   ] robotically bundle different flavors of Gatorade into one package.

The company is taking off; sales in the first quarter are 10 times higher than they were in all of 2007.

Who knows how much faster it could grow if it could find the skilled workers it needs to keep up with its expansion.

 » Read More

Fredrik Skold | The Image Bank | Getty Images

Small business owners were more optimistic in April, but compared to a year ago they haven’t really moved the needle forward on feeling more confident about the economy.

While the National Federation of Independent Business’ Small Business Optimism Index rose two points in April to 94.5, the index is back to the same level it had been in February 2011.

“It’s positive from last month,” said NFIB chief economist William Dunkelberg. “But we’re in the same place as a year ago, so a whole year has gone by and we don’t go anywhere.”

Looked at another way, there are signs that confidence in the economy is slowly being restored.

 » Read More

Beginning in the 1970s America’s high-paying manufacturing jobs in the steel, textile, electronics and automotive industries relocated first south to Latin America and then east to Asia.

Jetta Productions | Getty Images

In what some dubbed “a global race to the bottom,” labor rights have dwindled all along the way and the American middle class, long sustained by those manufacturing jobs, finds itself gutted. Now the fate of what is left of the American middle class is at the center of a presidential election and forcing a reexamination of the impact of the global decline of labor rights.

But after years of pain for America’s manufacturing sector and its workers, some economists and analysts are wondering if the tide may be turning.  » Read More

Most small businesses are seeing a recovery in revenues, according to a recent report from Intuit

INTU loading...

Quote  |  Chart  |  News  |  Profile

[INTU  Loading...      ()   ]. The study included revenue data from Intuit's Small Business Business Employment Index and from 200,000 small businesses that use QuickBooks software.

According to the analysis, while the professional, scientific and technical industries were virtually unaffected by the recession , the construction and real estate industries were the hardest hit and have seen little recovery since 2007.

 » Read More