As the holidays quickly approach, your attention as a business owner is likely focused on keeping your store stocked, staffed and ready for high demand. The holiday season can be the busiest time of the year, and keeping up with the increase in sales often means long hours. If getting ready and getting through the season means you are pushing aside other items on your to-do list, make sure you are not getting lax on keeping your business secure. Read on →

As the busy season approaches, how do you handle the influx of business? Do you throw yourself all in and consider 12–14 hour days normal, or do you bring in extra help to get you through the shopping rush? If you bring in extra help, it can be tempting to take any warm body that applies. However, you want to ensure the integrity of your business, and bringing in the wrong workers can create more challenges than the actual help you will get. Read on →

As a business owner, you know the importance of carrying enough insurance to cover your risks and keep your people protected. You understand why covering any potential liabilities is necessary, and that providing benefits for your staff is one of the best ways to keep them happy. You might know that keeping your business insured is important, but do you really know if your insurance is meeting your needs? Do you find yourself wondering if you have enough or too much coverage? Read on →

Do you have remote workers? After the pandemic forced many to work from home, quite a few employees appreciated the flexibility. As offices reopened, being able to work remotely was a priority of many workers—and an expectation of many new hires. Whether your business has had remote workers since the start or it is something you began offering at the advent of the pandemic, managing employees who are not in office comes with a unique set of challenges. Read on →

Have you always dreamed of being your own boss? Walking into your very own business every day knowing that you are walking into something you built and dreamed about can be an incredibly rewarding feeling. There are lots of reasons many of us want to step away from the traditional workforce. Having a better schedule with more flexibility and freedom, bringing a needed service to your community, gaining the ability to do what you love every day—the list could go on and on. Read on →

There are so many risks associated with owning or running a business. There are risks that we face daily, risks that might only happen seasonally and risks that may never happen at all. And somehow we have to be prepared for all of them in order to not be blindsided and suffer a loss of time or money. A risk assessment is the best way to identify every potential risk and ensure that you are fully covered to handle anything that comes your way. Read on →

When you own your business it can feel like work never really ends. That’s what you signed up for, right? You are doing what you love, so work doesn’t really feel like work…and enter in here a bunch of other cliches that should make you want to grind your teeth. There is a lot of power in choosing a career path that allows you freedom to do what you love. Read on →

Owning a business comes with a number of risks. Those can include the day-to-day—like not making any sales or booking any customers, or they can be bigger-picture items like severe weather. There are a number of ways to insure your business for every potential risk, and maintaining that coverage can help save your company when a disaster does strike. While some disasters can be predicted, there are plenty of things that could happen you may have never seen coming. Read on →

When you think of insurance coverage as a small business owner, does your mind immediately go to risks that could lead to financial losses or do you think of your staff? It’s likely both come to the forefront, because in the end one could never be more important than the other. Your to-do list as a small business owner will never be empty, but none of it would matter if you didn’t properly prepare for risks. Read on →

Happy people make other people happy. It’s a pretty simple philosophy—and when you encourage a happy work environment, you encourage happy people. Workplace culture has become so crucial over the last few years. Employees are no longer just seeking a high paycheck and plenty of insurance, they are looking for employers who genuinely care and a business with a mission and vision that aligns well with their own. Keeping people happy isn’t new, particularly to the franchising world that relies so much on creating repeat customers and becoming an indispensable part of the community. Read on →