Articles September 2008

Enhance your productivity and grow your business with advice from the experts. We've highlighted some of the most insightful new small business articles from Enterprise Magazine - a national publication with 100% Canadian content.

A Challenging Year

Numerous issues have battered SME confidence such as inflation, the strong Canadian dollar, a weakened US economy, sagging consumer confidence, and job losses in the manufacturing sector. Canadian entrepreneurs, known for their eternal optimism, have begun to waver.

Borrowing For Your Business

It is 1998, the eve of the Canada Small Business Financing Act. Most of the owners of the country’s 927,000 small businesses—those with fewer than 50 employees—are experiencing challenges in accessing the financing they need.

Practical R&D Really Pays Off

Small businesses must adapt and innovate to prosper. But, few business owners know that innovation investment can qualify for R&D tax credits and actual refunds. They are missing out on big dollar refunds that are available to just about any business.

“What’s your bank doing for Canada’s SMEs?”

Enterprise Magazine wanted to know what our banks are doing to help Canada’s SMEs during these tough economic times. So we posed the above question to our top five banks—four responded. The following outlines some of their products/services designed to provide assistance.

Leaders Inspire Others

“I have yet to find the man, however exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval, than under a spirit of criticism.”—Charles Schwab, legendary steel industry pioneer

What Makes You Different?

To grow your business you must attract new business. There is only one reason that you will attract new business. It is by being different. Different from your prospect’s existing supplier, different from their existing experience, or different from their other options. You must be different.

To Web Or Not To Web

A few years ago most of us wouldn’t have imagined buying food, furniture, rugs, or contact lenses online. These were items we were accustomed to seeing before making a commitment. So it may come as a surprise that companies like Clearlycontacts.ca are doing extremely well. In fact, Clearly Contacts does all of its business online and in terms of sales is a leading contact lens distributor. More and more this is the norm; a traditional bricks-and-mortar purchase is now done with a click.

Relationships And Referrals

Putting your money where your mouth is—when it comes to networking—is really “word of mouth” referrals. And when I think about the word “referral”, I immediately think of BNI www.bni.com.

Information Technology 2.0: It’s Evolution

Information is now the de facto currency of the global economy. It drives business and enables organizations to analyze and project customer needs, make better management decisions, measure business performance, improve operations, drive business transactions, and more.

Articles September 2008

Other Articles and White Papers