To an extent, this is true. Keeping an eye on your P&L is never a bad idea. But using it as the sole measure of performance is not only limiting, it could be completely inaccurate. Here is a list of other factors to examine to give you a more accurate and well-rounded picture of how your small business is truly performing:

• Number of proposals on the table
  Maybe potential new clients haven’t officially come into the fold yet, but if your company is engaged in the proposal process with a handful of genuinely promising prospects, that can be a huge indicator of growth that you won’t see by looking at any profit and loss worksheet. This is the kind of factor weighed heavily by the savvy small business owner who knows that a company’s health is more about where they’re going than it is about how they fared in the past.

• Investments that haven’t returned yet
  Perhaps your company just hired three absolutely stellar new employees that promise not to just strengthen your current efforts, but to help your business expand and grow. Or maybe you just moved into a new office that is going to infinitely increase your ability to meet with and serve clients effectively. Or you just bought a new piece of machinery that is going to streamline and/or increase production. The point is, there are a lot of low-risk ways you could be investing in your small business that are almost guaranteed to show huge returns, but you’re just not to that point yet. When looking at the books, don’t let an investment turn into a financial hit just because it hasn’t had time to mature and prove fruitful yet.

• Number of strategic relationships
  Growing your business isn’t just a matter of increasing sales and number of clients. Well, obviously that’s the bottom line, but going directly for them isn’t the only avenue towards attracting new business. Building new relationships with other people in your industry, or people in adjacent industries with whom you could forge strategic partnerships, is an essential part of establishing you and your company as a brand of thought leadership. There’s a difference between being a company who knows how to go after and lock down new clients, and being the company who people are vying to work with. And that difference has everything to do with how you manage your professional relationships and extend your brand in the personal, real world. So when measuring the current performance status of your small business, be sure to take into account any potentially advantageous new relationships or possible future partnerships you’ve been working on. Raising your company’s industry profile now means raising the bottom line later.

The short answer: Yes. Lots of companies do, and chances are, yours can as well. The slightly longer answer: this list of tips for navigating and exploiting the wonderful world of YouTube without losing yourself, your audience, or too much money:

• Have clear goals

If you’re going to embark on a YouTube project – or really any social marketing campaign – make sure you have a focused idea of what you want to accomplish, or where you want to see hard change. If you hire someone else to do this project for you, make sure they know, and have a means of tracking the success on this level. For example, if you know that you want the video to drive more traffic to your website, or your new blog, be sure you are monitoring that growth. One of the biggest mistakes businesses make is jumping into the YouTube game with no real idea of what they hope (or even can hope) to get out of it.

• Have a reasonable budget

If this is your first foray into video marketing, don’t put all of your eggs in one very crowded basket. Give yourself a set budget and a set time limit within which to start seeing results. Between production, promotion, and follow-up, don’t initially invest more than $1,000, and expect to see some traction within the first 30 days (although be prepared to let a video “walk around” for a good 6 months before you really judge it’s viability.) If you see considerable growth from this investment, then look into bigger, broader YouTube projects. There’s no need to dive into the deep end before you are sure it’s going to be advantageous for your company.

• Stop trying to go viral

We’ve all heard stories (and we’ve all seen the videos) of companies who make videos that end up getting millions of views and are all the rage online for a few days or weeks. It’s pretty much the Cinderella story of YouTube marketing. That said, it is so rare, and almost never intentional. Going to a social marketing agency or video production company and requesting them to make a “viral video” for your company is one of the most laughably unrealistic requests you can make. It’s not formulaic; if it was, it wouldn’t be special or powerful. Not to mention, having a viral video doesn’t always translate into a significant business boost.

• Work with the medium; don’t make it work for you

A video audience is different from any other kind of marketing crowd. You can’t put the same old marketing messages in video form and expect them to take hold. There is a more fickle attention span, and a greater expectation to be entertained, as opposed to just informed. If your video is just a long talk about how great your product or service is, you can bet no one is going to sit through that. Trying to find a way to get your message across in an engaging, entertaining way that still drives your viewers to take action? It’s not easy. But it is what makes your company work on video.

• Ignore traditional social media performance indicators

On Facebook, number of likes, comments, and followers are all genuine indicators of how well your efforts are doing. All of those things help expand your audience. On YouTube, however, it’s not necessarily true. Comments and followers are reflective of just those people’s interest in what you’re doing; the act of them following and commenting doesn’t itself open you up to a new audience like it does on Facebook and Twitter. So while comments are great, don’t let that mislead you into thinking that your video is super successful. Even high numbers of views aren’t entirely solid; sure, people are tuning in, but are they walking away after a few seconds? Are they actually converting and going to your website? Bottom line: YouTube is one of the marketing channels whose success will almost always have to be measured by watching those goal indicators you identified at the beginning of the project as wanting to see improve.

Particularly for small businesses, success and growth are largely dependent upon attracting the best, most qualified, most motivated employees. Increasingly, one of the most effective ways to be a magnet for this kind of amazing team is to make your company’s physical space a place that makes people say, “Oh wow, I want to be here.” It turns out, the office can be an enjoyable place to work – and when you create such an environment, the best job candidates come to you. And not just employees; when clients come for meetings, being a part of the special and unique vibe you’ve created will enliven them with the same energy that fuels your staff everyday, and they’ll want to be a part of it too.

So how does one go about building a happening company culture? Here are some starter tips:

1.    Consider work/life balance
If you want to have a staff that loves to work, you can’t demand that they live to work. More than ever, there’s a widespread emphasis on having more of a balance between work and other parts of life. This is actually a good thing for business; employees that are rested and relaxed because they’ve actually had time to tend to themselves and their families means a less-stressed, more focused workday. Whether it’s by having a few extra paid days off, the option to work from home on certain days, or taking a half-day on Friday, offering up demonstrations that you care about your employees have well-rounded lives will pay off on multiple levels.

2.    Foster personal career growth

Broad, sweeping generalization that’s totally true: The best employees are constantly focused on progress, growth, and where they’re headed. To short-sighted employers, this is a slightly off-putting quality in a candidate; they want someone who wants the job they’re offering, and won’t be in a hurry to leave it. But the truth is, being focused on the future makes people more committed to what they’re working on in the present. The key to bringing in these super motivated job candidates while neutralizing the fear that they’ll jump ship to pursue professional growth is to create fully developed avenues for that same growth to occur within your company. Make sure to lay out where the opportunities for ascension, learning, and achievement are when you’re in the interview. Express an enthusiasm for developing a game plan with this person that truly fosters their careers. Showing an interest in someone’s whole range of talents and a willingness to nurture their potential is how you get the very best candidates wanting your company, rather than going through a series of people using you as a stepping stone. An invested staff is the central component of a successful company culture.

3.    Be generous – with your time and money

Making sure that your staff feels that their ideas are valued is the absolute best way to make sure that those ideas keep coming. A workplace that is set up to foster the flow of communication between all levels of employees, and that gives celebration to innovation and forward thinking, is a workplace that will keep moving ahead. Allow employees to schedule lunches with you, or have team lunches once a week as an open forum for discussing and enjoying new ideas, rather than continuing to trudge through existing projects. And on the money front: people love a good cause. So your company should have one. And you can make picking it a team activity; have employees suggest charities to work with and support, and make the decision a consensus. Showing a commitment to giving back is good for your reputation, both internally and externally.

4.    And yes, beer is good.

Obviously, you’re not going to get much accomplished if you and your staff are hammered every day, but there actually is a lot to be gained from having a little intra-office happy hour on Friday afternoons. Enjoyable, relaxing, team-building rituals like this are amazing for office morale. And yes, winning “cool points” with your employees can go a long way towards building a sense of community and personal loyalty, not to mention a sure-fire way to end the week on a high note, but more than that, the act of cracking open a cold one and sitting together casually can put everyone’s mind in a completely different place. You’re most likely going to end up talking about work anyway, but now the pressure is off, everyone is relaxed, and the context for talking and thinking is entirely different – meaning an entirely new approach to issues and challenges that might have been leaving you all stumped while in “work brain”. “Beer brain” at the end of the week might just be the breath of fresh air that boosts brainstorming.

Barry Sloane, Newtek President, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer said, “We are pleased with S&P’s reaffirmation of the AA rating on the 2010 securitization by our lending subsidiary, Newtek Small Business Finance, Inc.  This securitization has been on our books for approximately 2.5 years, and this reaffirmation is testament to the quality of the loans we originate and adherence to our stringent underwriting standards.”

Newtek Small Business Loan Trust 2010-1 is an asset-backed securities transaction collateralized primarily by a pool of unguaranteed portions of U.S Small Business Administration Section 7(a), loans backed by commercial real estate and other collateral, such as equipment or receivables.  Since this issuance in December of 2010, Newtek Small Business Finance has completed two additional asset-backed securities transaction, in 2011 and the first quarter of 2013.  Guggenheim Securities acted as the placement agent for all 3 securitizations.

Mr. Sloane concluded, “Our ability to securitize has contributed significantly to the 42% increase in our funded loan volume in the first quarter of 2013 over the first quarter of 2012.  We have also seen an improvement in our securitization economics.  In our March 2013 securitization, we improved both our long-term cost of interest by more than 150 basis points and increased securitization proceeds by between 8% and 9% compared to our previous two securitizations in 2010 and 2011.  As we continue to grow our loan origination volume, we look forward to bringing future quality issuances to the market as early as the fourth quarter of 2013, or in the first quarter of 2014.”

Well, here is your how-to list. Because knowing your business inside and out is only a start when it comes to knowing how to interview someone, we’ve compiled a list of points to consider, questions to ask, and things to definitely not do when trying to filter through a waiting room full of potential new employees.

• Know exactly what you’re looking for
  There should undoubtedly be some prep work on your and your team’s behalf before ever issuing the first job posting, or scheduling the first interview. The primary goal of that prep work is to fully and precisely outline what the job is. What roles will this person fill? What tasks will they do? Who will they report to? Who will work under them? How good will their parking space be? You get the idea. And you should, as should your team before candidates walk in the door.

• Streamline the interview process
  With good reason, most interviews are not a one-and-done situation; many candidates find themselves in front of two or three different interviewers before being signed off on for the job. If this process is part of your hiring plan, make sure you know how it is going to play out: what the interview hierarchy will be, who will ask what questions, what will be the criteria for passing someone on to the next level, etc. You don’t want to waste your time and theirs by asking the same questions in every interview, so make sure you have a way of documenting the content of each meeting to share with the others in your company.

• Ask questions that fit what you really want to know
  If the job in question requires a lot of interpersonal interaction, like say, customer service, you need to get a feel for how each candidate would react in somewhat confrontational situations (hey, it happens.) You can either go about this by asking a question about their ability to handle stress (“Tell me about a stressful work encounter and how you handled it.) or you can ask a question that creates stress, like pointing out a part of their resume that makes them unqualified for the job, allowing you to actually witness their stress reaction. A little brutal? Sure. But effective.

• Don’t do all the talking
  It’s your company, you know the job and its roles, you know what you’re looking for…it can almost seem natural for you to do a lot of talking in a job interview. And any candidate who knows what they’re doing will want you to talk a lot; the more they can find out about you, your company, and your individual personality, the more able they are to appeal to you in just the right way. It’s smart. So you have to be smarter. Certainly offer guiding questions to give a framework to their responses, but let them do the talking. You want to know about them. Of course they’re also there to find out about your company and the job in question, but if they have questions, they should ask. No matter the job, you likely want someone who is assertive and pro-active enough to ask questions, right? So make sure you don’t hog the mic.

• Have a way to measure candidates
  Particularly if you’re having more than one person interview candidates, it’s essential to have a rating system, in addition to taking notes (or even recording the interviews, but of course, you’ll need permission) so each person on the hiring committee has at least a vaguely uniform way of communicating info about the candidates and a framework for discussions on who to hire. 

MySpace, a founding father of the social media movement, suffered a major decline in membership from the 2008 to present resulting from a range of poor decisions. It was soon overtaken and surpassed by Facebook which had the opportunity to learn from the former social media mogul’s mistakes. There is a lot of speculation as to why MySpace experienced such a massive exodus, but it is no mystery.

One of the major reasons for MySpace’s failure was lost control of their advertisements in the pursuit of monetization, creating a very unpleasant user experience ridden with ads. This is not to say that Facebook isn’t trying to monetize. But if you look at their designated ad space, located on the right hand side, you’ll notice that the advertisements are small, subtle and do not interfere with experiencing the site. Facebook ads are also targeted, meaning they populate with ads that are relevant to your needs or interests, based on your web search trends.

On MySpace, ad placement lacked subtlety, and many times, taste. The sheer amount of ads made the site slower and more difficult to use. Spammers were incessant; vandalizing innocent user profile pages with unwanted comments and unauthorized advertisements. Unlike Facebook, MySpace allowed raw HTML coding which gave the ability to embed malicious scripts within the page. In layman’s terms, security and browser stability were heavily compromised while using the platform.

The second major reason for the MySpace decline is they rarely evolved the service; it became stagnant and boring. Long-time Facebook users will witness several new layout and interface changes every year, put in place to improve user experience. One of Facebook’s most obvious and more recent changes was the introduction of the “Timeline” feature which made re-visiting particular years in your history possible in a single click. On the old layout, reverting to past years would take several clicks of the “see older posts” button. This could take a very long time depending on your level of Facebook activity. A few other examples of evolutionary features on Facebook since its launch are status upgrades, the integration of third party apps like games, “like” buttons, marketplace and mobile integration. These added features make Facebook more engaging, universal, and fun!

What do we learn from MySpace’s decline? That it’s important to be an innovator; to constantly evolve and grow. It’s important to serve your users/customers and accommodate their needs above all else. Could Facebook meet the same fate as MySpace?

Well, we may not have to wait to find out. Could it be that MySpace truly learned from it’s own foibles? Rebranded by a Timberlake-driven musical look and feel, it seemed in early 2013 that the missing caterpillar of social media was about to reemerge from a chrysalis to re-captivate fans with sparkling wings and effortless flights of harmonious fancy. A hesitant, albeit interested, anticipatory crecendo of “Oh, MySpace is back,” began to echo through the halls (at least the virtual halls of tech blog institutions.)

February came and went with many offering opinions. Some said “masterful,” others, “innovative,” while others reserved judgement while keeping a key eye on the user. Then, March and April came and went. Now it’s May. How do you like that new feature they just introduced? You know the one that allows you to … nevermind.

Sure, some patience might be necessary to see ground being gained in what is surely a colossal case of re-branding. But don’t you think the needle should have moved even just a little bit since then? Just a little?

While we still chuckle about the struggles of Google+ we never really give up on it, because Google is, well, Google – a Company that we seemingly cannot live without. So, we wait until they make good with their social media efforts. And if they don’t, that’ll likely be okay with us too.

But what about New MySpace? Well, say for example Google shuts down Google+ and then re-introduces it with the name “New Google+” after a significant time away? Exactly. Are those crickets we hear? And THEY’RE Google …

That being said, no reason to pen New MySpace’s obitiuary quite yet. I mean, would anybody bother to read it?

I guess the lesson here is simple, “once you’ve got it up, keep it up,” at least in the world of technology. With so much success and innovation to choose from, audiences have little time, and even less interest, to share with old friends who really don’t even look the same as they did in “the good old days.” The new days are fresher and  a lot more interesting.

Res Firma Mitescere Nescit

That’s right—doing everything you can to retain your valued customers before, during and after the move is complete.

Customer retention should be your top priority when the time comes to relocate, but in the rush to take care of everything else, some essential tasks can be overlooked. Now’s a good time to compile a check-list of actions that help ensure you keep existing customers and acquire some new ones, while you’re in the process of moving the business to its new (and hopefully better)  location:

Start letting people know now.

In advance of the actual move date, start communicating to your valued customers and others. There are many communications resources to draw on for this all-important message—every tool you’ve used in the past to alert customers about sales or new products should be tapped for news about your pending move as well:

• Eye-catching direct mail pieces
• Email alerts
• Press releases to local publications
• Announcements on the home page of your business site
• Changes to your “About Us” and “Contact Us” web pages
• Ongoing mentions in your business blog
• Brief note to accompany your invoices
• Frequent reminders to your Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn followers

Every message you distribute about the upcoming move should contain the business’s new address and telephone number, as well as easy-to-understand directions on how to get there.

A couple of options: If you anticipate the move will mean your store is temporarily closed for business, mention this in your communications along with an apology for any customer inconvenience (don’t forget to include your actual opening date!). Also, if the relocation is due to an expansion, thank everyone you contact for their valuable support and reaffirm your commitment to serving them in even better ways at the new location.

Update your online and community listings.

Make sure search engines accurately reflect the change in your business address. Update listings on Yelp, Trip Advisor, Google + and all other sites that include your location.

Get in touch with your local Chamber of Commerce and other business networking groups. Ask them to include a brief announcement about the move in their neighborhood newsletters.

Consider a grand opening event.

You don’t want a momentous occasion like this to take place in a vacuum. Hosting a grand opening (or grand re-opening) is a great way to stir up excitement among your customer base, as well as a good reason to get in touch with former customers.  Plan a gala event with entertainment and refreshments. Think about special discounts or giveaways that add more sizzle to the event.

Issue a press release about the grand opening to local TV and radio outlets. You never know when you might attract some media attention, combining free publicity with the possibility of drawing even bigger crowds to your event.

Relocating your business is a big deal. If you do things right, it’s also a fantastic, once-in-a-lifetime marketing opportunity.

Turn your patrons into your company’s biggest fans with these seven easy tips:

Interact. As your company grows, your employees will probably take on increasing amounts of daily customer interaction. The larger your company becomes, the more impact an email or even a smile from you will have. Start developing good habits now by connecting with customers. Think of the last time you dined in a restaurant and the manager came over and asked how you were doing. Didn’t that make you feel like he really cared? Create that same experience for your clients by personalizing your service, no matter how large you grow.

Hire the right team. Your employees are one of the largest contributors to your success. Sour faces needn’t apply. When interviewing people, ask behavioral questions designed to identify how they approach difficult situations. For example, ask job candidates to describe how they surmounted an obstacle in their own lives. People often prepare answers to expected job-related questions. Shifting the focus helps you elicit more honest answers.

Train your staff. Nothing fractures your company’s authority faster than an uninformed employee. Train your employees when first hired and again every few months to make sure they can thoroughly answer customers’ questions. Employees are a natural extension of you, and customers who trust the information from them will in turn trust and respect your company.

Spoil your staff. Happy employees will cheerfully help customers, so treat your staff well. Create incentives for employees to go beyond the call of duty. Offer perks such as ice cream or free lunch to those who customers point out as exceptionally helpful. Ask employees for their feedback, just as you would ask customers, to ensure they enjoy arriving at work every day.

Give your team authority to right wrongs. You’ve hired the right people and trained them. The next step is to give your staff the authority to please customers. Many times that means allowing your staff to offer disappointed patrons free items, up to a certain dollar amount. Handling small problems quickly prevents them from growing into big problems. Dissatisfied customers often feel better once their complaint has been addressed.

Follow up. Whether you sell computers or offer consulting services, connect with customers via phone or email shortly after the purchase and request feedback. Ask them how you did, what you can do better, and if they found value in your product or service. Following up with customers allows you to identify areas of strength and weakness. It allows you to respond to potential issues immediately and manage any dissatisfaction. It also makes your customers feel as if you care, which is key to providing personalized service.

Respond quickly. Nothing annoys customers more than waiting days for a response to a question or concern. During that time, they’re probably shopping around to your competitors or bashing you online. Quickly responding to emails and phone calls shows your customers you value their business and that your company is well run.

Greater Hudson Bank

“Greater Hudson Bank is committed to helping small businesses grow and prosper throughout the Hudson Valley,” stated Basel Rabie, SVP, Retail Banking Officer. “We are excited to partner with Newtek as we feel this partnership will allow us to provide even more options to assist and support our local business clients, especially during these tough economic times. Our goal is to be the Banking Choice in the area and offer services that our customers need and benefit from,” Rabie further stated.

Newtek President and CEO, Barry Sloane said, “We are thrilled to be partnering with Greater Hudson Bank and we are appreciative that Greater Hudson recognizes that our specialized small business loan products are a natural fit for their customer base.  Newtek is the largest, non-bank government guaranteed lender in the United Statesoffering a suite of loan products specifically designed for small businesses with loan amounts ranging from $50,000 to $5,000,000 and amortization schedules that extend out as far as 25 years. We look forward to working with Greater Hudson Bank in marketplaces in which they have a presence.”

For more information visit greaterhudsonbank.com or thesba.com.

This morning, the Small Business Administration published an insightful blog touting the benefits of tablet-based POS systems. And they’re right on point. For many small business owners, you cannot beat the savings or the versatility.

At this SBA, we want you and our friends at the Small Business Association to know that we’ve got it covered … we’ve got YOU covered. We have merchant processing solutions for every need and incredible pricing structures to make Newtek, The Small Business Authority the number one “go-to” company in the nation for your merchant processing needs. In fact, we’ll even give you $250 if we can’t meet or beat your current program. So, if you need a POS option that fits your company’s needs like a glove, don’t hesitate to stop by and speak to one of our experts by phone, live chat, or email 24/7/365.

HIhttp://www.sba.gov/community/blogs/turning-your-tablet-point-sale-system-–-it-time-make-switch