Three Reasons to Care About Your (Financial) Ratios
Financial ratios aren’t usually the first topic at cocktail parties. But for small business owners, maybe they should be. A solid understanding of the role of ratios can be an…
TripAdvisor: A Road Trip to Success Tip for your Small Business (But Don’t Tell Anyone)
Shhhh. We have a secret to share with you. Did you know on average 390 million people visited TripAdvisor last month alone? And 60 million people on average actively…
Pricing Your Product (or Service)
Chart the right course. As a small business owner, you know that pricing your products correctly is crucial to sustaining and growing your business. But the price you’ve pinpointed for…
Data That We Track, February 2017
New Data and New Information The February jobless numbers came out last week and as would be expected all but two communities saw rising jobless rates. Michigan winter,…
Data That We Track, December 2016
Not unexpected for rural Michigan, winter brings seasonal adjustments and they are almost always upward with respect to joblessness. Two of our 51 counties saw a decrease in joblessness…
Becoming Tax-Smart Takes Planning
What is tax planning and why is it important to your small business? First, let’s consider the word “plan.” According to Merriam-Webster, a plan is: Effective planning requires…
Access to Capital
Access to capital is a major barrier to starting a small business. Because it is more risky to provide start-up loans, this type of financing is typically not available…
Data That We Track, November 2016
Every month we look at data that helps drive future strategies for the regions and businesses we serve. This blog series will provide you an opportunity to view this…
Want to Drive More Traffic to Your Small Business? Three Reasons to Use Google Search Ads
Imagine you are traveling to northern Michigan around the holidays. You search Google for a good restaurant and small batch beer. You type in your search words (‘restaurant’ ‘northern Michigan’…
Data That We Track, October 2016
Every month we look at data that helps drive future strategies for the regions and businesses we serve. This new blog series will provide you an opportunity to view…
