If numbers are a barometer of success and figures don’t lie, how do we explain the following contradictory evidence: More than 50 percent of all chief executives of Fortune 500 companies had C or C- averages in colleges.   Sixty-five percent of all U.S. senators were in the bottom half of their classes.   Seventy-five percent...

Credit sales are a fact of business life. And to keep those accounts from spinning out of control, your company must maintain a delicate balance between the total cost of bad debts and your profit gains. Your cash manager needs to constantly monitor your total receivables and bad debts. Part of the process involves weighing the...

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) has announced that the minimum wage rate for federal contractors will increase from $10.20 per hour to $10.35 per hour, effective January 1, 2018. Background Information On February 12, 2014, President Obama signed Executive Order 13658 which established a minimum wage rate for federal contractors. The...

Establishing a winning position in the marketplace is obviously critical to your company’s success. The position, however, must be based on a sustainable competitive advantage. What constitutes an unbeatable advantage? There are two choices: You have consistently lower costs than your rivals. As long as your product or service maintains an acceptable quality level, this advantage...

If your business finds that it must lay off a large number of employees, make sure you are in compliance with a federal law that requires some employers to provide advance notification. This little-known law is called the Federal Worker Adjustment Retraining and Notification Act (WARN). Under the law, employers who are covered must give 60...

A business trip is meant to solidify relationships with clients and customers or to gain new ones. Or perhaps it’s a time for sales calls and “meets and greets” with suppliers. In any event, the goal of business travel is generally to make money — not to fritter it away on needless expenses. Businesses have to keep...