By Bonnie Bochniak
MBPA Government Relations
Dec. 11, 2012
The Michigan Business and Professional Association (MBPA) and its sister group, the Michigan Food and Beverage Association (MFBA), make it priority #1 to keep you up to date on the federal healthcare law and how it affects you, your business, and/or clients. Today the Michigan House Health Policy Committee, when given a second chance to approve a state based exchange, rejected that opportunity. The Speaker of the House made a statement mid-December that establishing a state based exchange in Michigan will not happen this year, but has potential in next year’s session.
As a refresher, in the state-based healthcare exchange, Michigan would be allowed to participate in essentially twelve different areas, making decisions on what is best for our region. In the state/federal partnership plan, Michigan is allowed to participate in two out of the twelve decision areas, which stated by law is Planned Management and Customer Service. Lastly, in the complete federal run plan, Michigan is not granted any decision making power. The continued inaction by the House of Representatives leaves no other choice but for Michigan to pursue a state/federal partnership, giving Michigan less decision making power.
Per the ACA, if Michigan choses now to pursue the state/federal partnership, it still has the opportunity in 2013 to switch over to a state based exchange, if approved by the legislature and governor. Also, per the ACA, the 9.8 million dollars in federal grant funding to lay the ground work for establishing a state-federal partnership is still available.
The 9.8 million dollars in federal grant monies in no way ties our state to any permanent healthcare decisions; it merely gives us much needed revenue to begin technical compliance, while saving our general fund dollars. The time to act is now. This is the last remaining option we have for Michigan to maintain some control over decisions made in regards to our healthcare
If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact our government relations team by phone at: 586-393-8800 or by email: bbochniak@michbusiness.org
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This month we’re sharing an article entitled, “Do you have a Sales Plan for 2013?” Please feel free to use this article in any of your publications. Also, if you could please send us a copy of the article when it is published, it would be much appreciated.
If you haven’t already signed up to attend our Keeping On Track Open Line web conference entitled, “Selling Secrets: Connect UVP with Style” December 18th at 11am PT. Then please click on the following link to sign up http://lighthouseconsulting.org/openline/121812/.
Our programs are very interactive. Many participants invite their management team to attend and set up discussion time at the conclusion of the programs since we provide many pro-active ideas that organizations can begin to implement. Participants also receive a complimentary audio and slides for future use. Other programs are available for purchase on our website.
Many companies have found that forwarding our articles through email to be an easy way to share them with staff and friends. So, please feel free to share our articles in any way you would like to. If you have any questions, comments or problems reading our publication, please e-mail us at:reception@lighthouseconsulting.com.
https://mb-wp-uploads.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/04/MichBusiness-logo.png00michbusinesshttps://mb-wp-uploads.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/04/MichBusiness-logo.pngmichbusiness2012-11-27 16:00:502015-10-08 00:00:00Do You Have A Sales Plan For 2013?
An employee who was fired for embezzlement starts circulating e-mails that inform people you are about to go out of business. A contractor is using your company e-mail to send out solicitations to people to visit a gaming site she has created. You are selling your business to a long-time, trusted employee and want to assure your customers that everything remains in good hands – should you set up a blog?
In today’s business environment, where e-mails spread faster than a bad cold and blogs are the order of the day, every business should have a plan for communicating during a transition or crisis.
Whether it’s embezzlement, workplace accident, natural disaster, lawsuit or layoffs, every business owner should be prepared to communicate to both internal and external audiences. These audiences include employees, vendors, customers, business allies and the media.
Here are some tips for creating a communications plan that will guide you during those times of transition or crisis.
Designate a spokesperson. Your business should have only one or two key individuals that may speak to the media and respond to customers, vendors and employees during a critical situation. A spokesperson may be the owner, CEO, PR counsel, HR manager, attorney or another trusted individual. Only these individuals may take and respond to media and other inquiries. Once these individuals are identified, communicate this information to all employees.
Speak to employees first and be frank. Put safety and people issues first.
Never lie, cover up or say “no comment.” Give the facts as you know them.
Make sure you tell your side of the story, including key messages. If necessary, issue a press release with the facts and get it out to all pertinent audiences. Post information on your website. If your business is responsible for what has happened, tell why it happened and how you will fix the problem.
Be timely in responding to inquiries. If a reporter calls, find out their deadline and ask if you can get back to them. Then prepare your message and call them back. Prepare a message ahead of time for when customers or vendors call.
Remember the three C’s – confidence, control and credibility. Have confidence when delivering the message. Exercise control over the message by having a designated spokesperson who communicates the key points. Maintain credibility at all times; if you don’t know an answer, say so and get back to the individual.
Create your communications plan, communicate it to employees and make sure they understand it. Remember, during any transition or crisis, your company’s hard-earned reputation is at stake. Take steps now to protect that reputation.
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1. How to remove a connection
Want to ditch a connection? Sometimes you need to give someone the boot. Maybe its a colleague, a competitor, an ex, or just someone you don’t want to be associated with. Getting rid of them is easy as pie. Even better, they won’t know you’ve given them the heave-ho.
How to wield this magic?
When you’re logged into LinkedIn, Select Contacts in the main navigation bar. At the far right, you’ll see two options: Add connections and Remove connections. Click Remove connections, check the box next to the contact’s name and click OK.
2. Hide your status updates
Sometimes it makes sense to operate in stealth mode. If you’re connecting with new business prospects or making changes to your profile in preparation for job seeking, you may not want to broadcast that activity to your network.
Click the drop-down menu under your name in the top right corner of the page, then select Settings In the profile section, click Turn on/off your activity broadcasts under Privacy Controls. Uncheck the box that appears in the pop-up window and click Save Settings. Easy as can be and now you’re flying below the radar.
One tip: Remember to turn this setting back on as soon as you’re done, otherwise, you’ll be invisible on Linkedln and that kind of negates the whole point.
3. Privacy matter to you? Opt out of ads
There was a big brouhaha about Linkedln and a few months back when it was discovered that a default setting called “social sharing” allows Linkedln to pair an advertisers message with the social content from a Linkedln user’s network.
If you don’t want your info showing up in random ads, opt out. Click Settings under your name, then click Account. Under Privacy Controls, select Manage Advertising Preferences. If you don’t want to see ads, uncheck the box that appears in the pop-up window and click Save Settings. You can also read more about each type of advertising, if you want to learn more.
4. Get a custom URL
It’s much easier to publicize your LinkedIn profile with a customized URL, rather than the clunky combination of numbers that LinkedIn automatically assigns when you sign up. Plus, if you use a consistent name across all of your social networks (and you should), this is a great way to boost your own “brand awareness.”
Laugh if you will, but its an important part of networking. And when it comes to networking, do you really want anything less than a custom URL on your business card? We think not.
How to get your own custom URL? Log in. Click Profile > Edit Profile in the main nay bar. At the bottom of the gray window that shows your basic information, you’ll see a Public Profile URL. Click “Edit” next to the URL and specify what you’d like your address to be. When you’re finished, click Set Custom URL.
5. Make yourself anonymous
If you’re gearing up for some serious Linkedln stalking, whether for competitive research, new business prospecting, or job hunting, you may want to switch your profile setting to anonymous so that individuals and companies can’t tell that you’ve been looking at their profiles.
To make your profile anonymous, choose Settings > Privacy Controls > Select what others can see when you’ve viewed their profile. From there, you have three options: Display your name and headline; Display an anonymous profile with some characteristics identified such as industry and title, or totally anonymous.
Once you’re done with your sleuthing, be sure to switch your settings back- remaining anonymous on Linkedln for a long period of time won’t do you much good when it comes to networking and lead generation.
6. Customize a link to your website
When you set up your profile, Linkedin lets you display links to up to three URLs. And although Linked In provides several choices when identifying the website content to which you’re linking (personal website, company website, blog, ASS feed, etc.), it’s better to customize those. For instance, mine says: The V3 Website, The V3 Blog, Shelly Kramer’s Facebook (which is where I’d like to send people if they want to know more about me).
To customize the URLs on your Linkedln profile, select Edit Profile from the Profile menu in the main nay bar. In the gray box that includes your photo, select Edit next to Websites. From there, choose Other from the drop-down menu. A new box will appear that lets you name the website and enter the URL. When you’re done, click Save Changes.
7. Add your blog feed
If you have a WordPress blog, we highly recommend feeding your blog into your LinkedIn profile (unless, of course, the content isn’t appropriate for a LinkedIn page.) To enable this setting, select More in the main nay bar and select Applications. From there, choose the WordPress application and enter the link to your feed. The blog will then appear in your profile and will update each time a new post is added.
Want to move where that blog application is appearing in your profile? Easy. Click Profile > Edit Profile and hover over the application title. Your cursor will change into a hand, and you can “grab” the element and move it to a different spot on the page. You can also use the BlogLink application if your blog isn’t a WordPress site.
8. Hide a recommendation
Ever get a recommendation you didn’t ask for? Or one that isn’t something you’d want to showcase on your Linkedln profile?
If you get a recommendation that’s poorly written or is unsolicited and don’t feel comfortable reaching out to the writer and asking for some revisions, no biggie. You can easily hide the recommendation. Select Profile > Edit Profile and go to the position with which the recommendation is associated. Click Manage. Uncheck the box next to the recommendation that you want to hide, and click Save Changes.
9. Add to your connection base
Duh. (Sorry, that just slipped out). A social networking site doesn’t do you much good if you don’t focus on building a network and adding to your connection base.
If you’ve mined your email contacts for possible connections and have exhausted Linkedln’s People You Should Know recommendations, there’s an easy way to expand your network-stalking. Yeah, I said stalking.
Simply go to a friend or colleague’s profile and click Connections in the main profile box. From there, you’ll see an alphabetized list of connections, and before long you’ll probably be saying to yourself: “Oh, I know her. And him. And I can’t believe I’m not connected to that guy.” And you can quickly and easily send invitations to connect.
For me, this is one of the easiest ways to build Linkedln connections—and candidly, I also get a little thrill out of stalking.
One last reminder: Don’t forget to customize the invitation before you send it. Nothing’s worse than getting the default, “I’d like to add you to my connections,” email for telling someone “you’re so unimportant to me that I can’t take the 20 seconds it would require to send you a personal note,” Just. Don’t. Do. It.
10. Block connections and group activities from competitors
If you’re using LinkedIn for new business development (or job seeking), its probably a good idea to slip into stealth mode again when you’re focused on this kind of work, in some cases, it makes sense that you’ll want to keep competitors (or current employers, if you’re job hunting) from seeing your new connections and group activity.
Its easy to do, Select Settings > Account > Customize the updates you see on your homepage. In the pop-up window under General, uncheck the box that says New Connections in your network. Scroll down and, under Groups, uncheck the box next to Groups your connections have joined or created. Click Save Changes and you’re set.
11. Get LinkedIn updates in an RSS feed
Want an easy button when it comes to Linkedln Updates? If so, you can add Linkedln updates to your feed reader. This is especially good when you’re focused on new business development. And when doing this, you can choose from the public feed and your personal feed, which contains private information from your network.
To add a feed to your reader, go to LinkedIn’s feeds page. You can turn on the feed for network updates and add it to your reader using one of the reader buttons or by copying the link. Additionally, you can add an RSS feed of a LinkedIn Answers category, a great way to stay up-to-date on discussion about a particular industry or subject.
Before you add a personal feed to your reader, be warned that some Web-based readers will publish your feed URLs, meaning that information could show up in search results. If you want to avoid that disclosure, make sure your feed reader guarantees that your feeds are kept private (sorry, Google Reader fans).
12. Beef up your experience with projects
This is a relatively new LinkedIn feature and it is uber cool! You’ve probably listed a summary of your career experience, as well as individual jobs, to your Linkedln profile, but projects take it to a whole new level. It enables you to further showcase specific skills. Plus, you can add a relevant URL to each project and, if your team members are also on Linkedln, you can connect them (by name and by link to profile) to the project as well.
Want to add this to your profile? Click Profile > Edit Profile. Under the primary gray box of your profile, you’ll see a new Add Sections feature on a blue background. Click Add sections, Projects and enter a project description. You may want to add other sections, too, depending on their
relevance.
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As part of its service and commitment to the community, DTE Energy representatives are currently helping customers save energy and take control of their energy costs. Energy consultants are visiting homes throughout the DTE service area to provide personalized energy assessments and evaluate the energy efficiency of homeowners’ gas and electric usage.
The program, called the DTE Home Energy Consultation program, was created to advise homeowners on ways to conserve energy with a goal toward helping residents to better manage their energy costs. Energy consultants assess the customers’ energy usage, make energy saving recommendations and discuss ways to reduce energy usage that will help lower energy costs.
During the assessment, energy consultants will install:
Up to 40 compact fluorescent light bulbs which generally use 75 percent less energy than incandescent bulbs and can often last 10 times longer.
Water-saving faucet aerators in the kitchen and bathroom that can reduce water usage without lowering the water pressure in the pipes.
Water-saving showerheads that can save up to three gallons of hot water per minute which can reduce water-heating costs by 30 percent.
Wrap on the water heater pipes – up to nine feet from the hot water tank – an energy-saving measure that can reduce heat loss and increase water temperature in the pipes, which will save on water-heating costs.
In the first year of the program, DTE Energy visited more than 25,000 homes. This year, they plan to reach more than 30,000 households with energy-saving tips and products.
To learn more information about the DTE Home Energy Consultation program, or to schedule an appointment for DTE to visit your home, call (866) 796-0512.
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AGENTS – MORE ROBUST & COMPLIANT SPD’s & SECTION 125’s
AT NO COST TO MEMBERS!
To help members reduce their costs, the Associations are providing complimentary services such as Summary Plan Descriptions (SPD) and Section 125 plan documents to all dues paying members in good standing. Our adoption agreements are compliant reflecting ALL the Health Care Reform Law changes as of January 2013. These documents are FREE to our members…Effective 5/1/12, the cost to non-members is $50 each.
What’s Different about MBPA/MFBA’s Summary Plan Description (SPD)?
The Employer Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) guidelines make it mandatory for all businesses with 2 or more employees to provide employees with a Summary Plan Description (SPD). We continue to take a leading role in informing and helping our members meet their obligations under ERISA.
Types of benefits covered by Summary Plan Descriptions include: Medical, Long Term Disability, Short Term Disability, Life/AD&D and freestanding Dental/Vision.
The MBPA SPD is a comprehensive document that satisfies the all Department of Labor (DOL) requirements for SPDs.
The MBPA SPD can be tailored to cover all of an employer’s employee benefit plans, and is not limited to only insured medical or medical/vision bundled programs.
The MBPA is essentially a “wrap plan SPD” under which an employer can combine all of its benefits into one plan and one plan document for ease of administration and for purposes of DOL reporting requirements (e.g. Form 5500s) for those employers subject to such reporting.
The MBPA SPD can be used for both insured and self-insured benefits.
New Summary of Benefits Coverage (SBC) Option Available with our SPD’s:
Simply send us your clients SBC and MBPA will make a combined SPD/SBC customized document available to all Association Members who have BCBSM insurance through MBPA or MFBA.
MBPA will create a combined document in its original DOL mandated form with no alterations, as permitted pursuant to the DOL final regulations.
MBPA will issue this combined document with a letter containing clear disclaimers about differences in distribution requirements for SBC’s and SPD’s, consulting their own legal counsel, etc…
We have SBC templates available for self-insured members.
NEW Material Modification Sheet Available for the SPD’s
NOW, Two Easy Ways to Get Your Client’s SPD for all Active Members:
Let Us Do It
Create Your Own On-Line
Please contact our Member Services Team at 1-888-277-6464 or 1-586-393-8800 We look forward to continuing to provide you and your clients with the most up to date and easily accessible services in this important area.
Preparing for an DOL Audit: Is your Employer or Client Ready?
Please join Michigan Business & Professional Association for a FREE Webinar on December 13 at 10 AM (Eastern Time). During this Webinar, we will review how to prepare when your employer or your client is notified that its health and welfare plans are being audited by the Department of Labor (“DOL”).
This Webinar will be approximately 60 minutes in length.
Are you prepared to advise your employer or your clients when this happens?
From this Webinar, you will learn:
Which areas are being audited by the DOL under Health Reform
Which areas are subject to ongoing DOL audits
How to prepare for an DOL audits
The do’s and don’t for surviving an audit
The possible fines and penalties your employer or client will be subject to if any violations are found
This will be conducted by Attorney Larry Grudzien. Title: Preparing for an DOL Audit: Is your Employer or Client Ready? Date: Thursday, December 13, 2012 Time: 10:00 AM – 11:00 PM EST
After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.
System Requirements
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server
Mac®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.5 or newer
Mobile attendees
Required: iPhone®, iPad®, Android™ phone or Android tablet
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What Health Reform changes are effective for 2013?
Please join Michigan Business & Professional Association for a Webinar on November 14 at 10 AM (Eastern Time). This webinar will review those Health Reform changes that are effective for 2013.
Space is Limited, Click Here to reserve your space
These changes include:
Health FSA contributions caped at $2,500/year
An additional hospital insurance tax of .9 percent imposed on high income individuals ($200,000 individual, $250,000 joint
An additional 3.8% Medicare payroll tax imposed on unearned income for high income individuals ($200,000 individual, $250,000 joint)
Employers required to provide written notice to employees about exchange and subsidies
Determination of full-time employees for variable hour and seasonal employee for health coverage in 2014
The webinar will be presented by Larry Grudzien, Attorney at Law.
Title: What Health Reform changes are effective for 2013? Date: Wednesday, November 14, 2012 Time: 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM EST
After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.
System Requirements
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server
Mac®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.5 or newer
Mobile attendees
Required: iPhone®, iPad®, Android™ phone or Android tablet
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The problem with best practices is that they’re usually someone else’s best practices.
You need to find your own best practices and then follow them, hone them and make them your unique brand. One of the best ways to be different is to be totally focused on the needs and wants and desires of your customers.
There are a lot of problems for every kind of customer from the largest to the smallest. Everyone is faced with changing marketplaces, shifts in how products and services are sold and the commoditization of everything. Research your customers’ pain points. Look at the challenges facing you in our industry, in your market and think about the common areas. In diving deep into where they hurt, you just might have the added bonus of better understanding how to create new and innovative approaches to your own business.
What is your model? If it’s not working, change it or throw it away. Your purpose is to solve problems and create results. How are you going to do that? The answer to that question cannot be found in old models, broken models or in what worked pre-Internet with a predictable buyer following established paradigms.
Be different and risk being misunderstood. You’ll find your niche and you’ll find people who understand your passion and your mission to simply relieve pain and solve problems. Here’s the thing. Problem solvers always make money. Specialists always make more than generalists. Those who stand out get noticed. And yes, those who stand out get shot at. But at least people are paying attention.
Your value lies in creating value. There’s little value in “me-too.” Did you ever wonder why there are no trade shows for advertisers (end users) where all the exhibitors are distributors? Probably because every booth would look the same, like the yellow pages of old and the distributor websites of today. The value proposition of finding any product has been worn out. The Internet provides that service and it does it with a focus on the lowest price. You need to create new value. Be a problem solver. Bundle more services. Present proposals instead of quotations.
How Are You Different? Remember the old Apple Computer ad about “Here’s to the crazy ones?” Be a Crazy One.
Paul A. Kiewiet is a former chairman of the Promotional Products Association International, and an international speaker, writer, coach and facilitator. Contact him at:
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Despite obstacles and declines, start-ups still popular. An Executive Briefing produced by the Michigan Business and Professional Association
American entrepreneurs – both current and prospective – are facing difficult times these days. The still-struggling economy, combined with unpredictable tax policies and tighter availability of lending capital has made starting and running a small business more challenging than any other time in recent history.
Several recent news reports suggest that the deep-rooted U.S. tradition of starting and running one’s own business has reached its peak, and is now in a declining state, while other reports and experts counter that new business creation through self-employment and other means has been higher than average.
It’s a statistician’s dilemma. Whether entrepreneurism is wilting or thriving depends on how it’s defined, and how the numbers are juggled.
From a “glass half-empty” standpoint, a number of studies are warning of America exiting the business of starting new businesses. One report, from the non-profit New America Foundation, says that the U.S. is in serious danger of losing its entrepreneurial spirit because the number of small businesses created has been declining since the 1970s. Their study contends that the rate of entrepreneurship has fallen as the population has increased – down 53 percent between 1977 and 2010, and that the share of self-employed Americans has been declining since 1991 – dropping more than 20 percent by 2010.
According to Lina Kahn, co-author of the study, the U.S. government has largely “failed to adjust how it gathers data to reflect the outsourcing revolution of the last two decades” and counts as small business independent contractors who depend on one large company for work.
One example, published in the July/August 2012 edition Washington Monthly, is the classification of FedEx Ground drivers in many states as independent corporate entities, with drivers leasing their own trucks from the company, and responsible for their own benefits. “Even those drivers who might have been counted as wage and salary workers are now counted as independent small businesses,” the report said.
Another widely-publicized 2011 report, by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, which regularly tracks entrepreneurial activity, said the number of business births had already “peaked,” and the number of new independent employers dropped 27 percent in a three-year period (2006-2010). A later Kauffman study, released March 2012, said the startup rate for new businesses declined again in 2011 by 5.9 percent and new entrepreneurs were more likely to “go it alone” than hire employees.
And, a March 2011 report by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, which, like Kauffman, follows various measures of entrepreneurism, found that the number of new businesses which has hired employees – one indicator of entrepreneurial activity, like self-employment, dropped considerably. It said 68,500 more businesses closed in 2009 versus the 2007 closure rate — up 11.6 percent. In addition, in 2009, 116,800 fewer employer businesses were founded than in 2007, marking a 17.3 percent drop in new startup companies.
All of the studies which have reported a drop in entrepreneurial activity point to a number of factors which have stifled small business growth over the last several years. Among them:
Industry Consolidation: Scott Shane, a professor of economics at Case Western Reserve University, calls it “the Wal-mart effect.” The economies of scale spreading across industry after industry – particularly in retailing – have encouraged the growth of mega-companies. “Wal-mart replaces a lot of people who have their own businesses,” Shane says. “This is the long-term trend in many industries.” Similarly, the nation has witnessed Home Depot capturing a vast proportion of the U.S. hardware market, Best Buy taking the lead in electronics and appliance sales, and Macy’s, through its acquisitions over the past decade of smaller, regional department stores, grabbing the lion’s share of U.S. department store sales.
Some retail industry analysts have argued that many of the former smaller, regional department stores such as Marshall Field’s and Kaufmann’s would have failed anyway because they lacked the buying power needed to offer customers attractive prices.
Technology: Over the last generation, Internet retailing and other online services have displaced many “bricks and mortar” independent businesses. A walk along any main street in America will show a lack of travel agencies, book stores, and music stores. In addition, technology has created opportunities to combine many smaller businesses into the hands of a few giant online retailers, such as Amazon, which sells a vast variety of goods, and in the bookselling sector alone has created a nationwide monopoly. On the other hand, technology in the form of less expensive computers, easy-to-use bookkeeping software, and credit card readers have enabled many individuals to start and run a their own businesses. And, not to forget that many of the most famous business startups in recent decades (think Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook) have been in high-tech fields.
Financing: While the U.S. has the world’s most mature venture capital industry, it’s more difficult than ever to obtain business startup financing. James Hop, a business professor at Northwood University and chairman of its Entrepreneurship Department, speaks from his former experience as a commercial banking executive. “How to find capital is a pressing problem for new businesses. Simply put, banks don’t like to fund startups,” he said. “In order to encourage and drive entrepreneurism, we need to have a continued source of investment and venture capital.”
One financing problem of late, according to the Washington Monthly, is that the vast majority of entrepreneurs have traditionally relied on personal savings and contributions from family and friends to start their businesses. However, the poor economy and inflation in both health care and higher education costs means fewer families have the savings needed to start a small business. The report also blames the large consolidation of the banking industry for a lack of startup capital: “Relatively few bank officers today have the leeway and local knowledge to lend to local established businesses, much less new ventures.”
Tax policy: According to Northwood’s Hop, the lack of a long-term federal tax policy for businesses – both small and large – has dissuaded many potential entrepreneurs from taking the first steps towards business creation. “Everyone is unsure of what the taxing situation is in store for businesses,” he says. “We don’t know from one year to the next, and no political body can seem to come to grips with a consistent, long-term tax policy. This has a huge impact on startups and the willingness to loan or invest capital. It would be great to know what the next 10 years will be like.” In Michigan, repeal of the controversial personal property tax on business will go a long way towards freeing up money for small business expansion and investment, Hop says.
Regulation: Poorly-conceived government regulation makes it difficult for entrepreneurs to get into and stay in business. Excessive paperwork, redundant requirements, and licensing laws can discourage even the most-impassioned, forge-ahead entrepreneur. Bob Zadek, a finance attorney and manager of a small business lending firm, told CNBC.com, “Licensing requirements have little to do with the protection of the public, but rather are imposed to keep out competition.” Professor Hop, who also operates a small business in addition to his teaching duties, says he believes most small businesses are happy to comply with regulations which ensure a safe working environment out of responsibility for their employees, but that “government in many cases has to get out of the way, and help small companies pursue chances for growth.”
Despite the claims of a “slow-motion collapse of American entrepreneurship,” as the Washington Monthly forecasts, there are plenty of bright spots attesting to the “can-do” spirit of Americans willing to put up the cash and take the risks in order to be able to control their own destiny. For instance:
As of 2012, there are an estimated 8.3 million women-owned businesses in the U.S., generating nearly $1.3 trillion in revenue and employing nearly 7.7 million people, according to the second annual “State of Women-Owned Business Report, commissioned by American Express OPEN. The growth in the number (up 54 percent), employment (up 9 percent) and revenues (up 58 percent) of women-owned firms over the last 15 years exceeds the growth rates of all but the largest publicly-traded firms. “There has been a significant increase in the number of women entrepreneurs in the last 20 to 30 years,” says Christine Janseen-Selvadurai, director of the entrepreneurship program at Fordham University. “Technology has really made things easier.”
According to the 2011 Kauffman Foundation report, even with the drop in startups, the level of entrepreneurship in 2011 is among the highest during the last 16 years, with overall business creation over the past four years higher than average.
The Kauffman Foundation Index of Entrepreneurial Activity reports new Latino entrepreneurs more than doubled from 10.5 percent to 22.9 percent from 1996 to 2011. During that same time period of entrepreneurs ages 55-64 grew from 14.3 percent to 20.9 percent, and immigrants now make up nearly 14 percent of small business owners.
“Entrepreneurialism is alive and thriving,” says Northwood University’s James Hop. “Many of our students and alumni want to control their own destiny. They’ve seen what’s happened to their parents and grandparents and their jobs, and they see entrepreneurship as a better place to be.
“An entrepreneur can be someone who is simply self-employed, or one who has the ability to employ dozens of people. There are probably 20 different definitions of what constitutes an entrepreneur,” Hop notes. “The most important thing is that you are doing something which is creating value, and contributing to the overall economy.”
https://mb-wp-uploads.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/04/MichBusiness-logo.png00michbusinesshttps://mb-wp-uploads.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/04/MichBusiness-logo.pngmichbusiness2012-10-02 16:00:452015-10-08 00:00:00What’s The Future For American Entrepreneurship?
By Bonnie Bochniak
By Dana Borowka
By Sue Voyles
1. How to remove a connection
As part of its service and commitment to the community, DTE Energy representatives are currently helping customers save energy and take control of their energy costs. Energy consultants are visiting homes throughout the DTE service area to provide personalized energy assessments and evaluate the energy efficiency of homeowners’ gas and electric usage.
By Paul A. Kiewiet
American entrepreneurs – both current and prospective – are facing difficult times these days. The still-struggling economy, combined with unpredictable tax policies and tighter availability of lending capital has made starting and running a small business more challenging than any other time in recent history.