Meet Mie-Yun Lee
Mie-Yun Lee is an expert on businesspurchasing for the office. Since she founded BuyerZone.com... Read more
Office and Operations
Recent Office and Operations Articles
Staffing: Independent Contractors
Contracting out work to independent contractors is another staffing option to consider, due to the many tax and non-tax benefits involved. However, the di... Read more
What Will It Cost Me to Hire an Independent Contractor as an Employee?
Q: Currently I use independent contractors in my business. What is the additional cost of making them my employees? A:Read more
Hot Tip: Recruiting
Brenda Love, founder of $20-million Love Advertising, in Houston, has always looked to pare her payroll. Her problem was how to get strong product... Read more
HW Flrs, Ocean Vw, Stck Optns
MedicaLogic, a 15-year-old medical-records-software company in Hillsboro, Oreg., made its first Internet play in 1999. That was late enough to run into th... Read more
Getting the Right Insurance When You're Going Solo
A fair number of home-based business owners confided -- off the record -- that they didn't have any additional insurance coverage, because they eith... Read more
East vs. West: Location, Location, Location
What does location have to do with venture-capital funding? Plenty, says Scott Randall, founder and CEO of FairMarket Inc., a Woburn, Mass., Internet-auct... Read more
3-2-1 Contract
Having trouble with complex government certification forms? EZCertify.com simplifies the application process and helps minority companies compete for governm... Read more
Keep on Trucking
Can't keep track of your trucks? Here's an efficient fleet-monitoring system that tells owners where their trucks are. Read more
A Fine and Private Page
Want to build an extranet for your customers but lack the resources? For a fraction of the cost and stress, consider creating Web pages that only specified p... Read more
Insuring Your Home-Based Business
It's a mistake to rely on a homeowner's or renter's insurance policy to cover the assets of your home-based business. These policies often exclude or stri... Read more
Proving a Worker Is Not an Employee
Q: I have a new, very small Internet business that I started last year from my home. I have no employees, but I hired a friend to answer ... Read more
Running a Business Without Insurance
What are the legal ramifications of not carrying workers' compensation insurance, should a claim arise? For better and for worse, the workers' comp system... Read more
The Downside of Losing Your Old Baggage
How to seek compensation from an airline. Read more
State of the Art: Broken
Q: I purchased a laptop computer from a company called Inca Computers. The company not only sold it to me but was also the manufacturer. ... Read more
Locating Your Business
Commercial real estate brokers are fond of saying that the three most important factors in establishing a business are location, location, and location. W... Read more
How to Create a Pre-Incorporation Agreement
This article describes a pre-incorporation form designed for people who plan to incorporate a small business owned by a handful of shareholders, each of w... Read more
Borrowing Money for Your Business
If you run a small business--or would like to start one--you'll probably need to raise money at one time or another. You may want to expand on your succes... Read more
How Planned Development Rules (CC
In subdivisions, condos and planned-unit developments, rules pertaining to home-based businesses are often significantly stricter than those found in city or... Read more
Pros
An independent contractor--IC--is a person who contracts to perform services for others without having the legal status of an employee. Most people who qu... Read more
Negotiating a Good Lease
Almost all small businesses start out in leased premises; many use leased space throughout the life of the business. By leasing rather than owning, you av... Read more
Hot Tip: Training the Technophobic
Gary Mandelbaum of Karman, a clothing manufacturer in Denver, knew he had to install an electronic-ordering system. His sales staff was shipping handwritt... Read more
Instant Maps Speed Deliveries
If your customers' ardor has cooled so much between the time they order and the time you can deliver that they refuse to accept your product, shouldn't yo... Read more
Second Time's the Harm
One CEO learned that expanding to a second city can have many pitfalls. The marketplace is different, and many of your needs are different, too. Read more
Upstarts: The Russian Connection
Entrepreneurs who've emigrated from the former Soviet Union are shrewdly benefiting from the crumbling economy of that once-mighty empire. And they aren't th... Read more
Mapping Bears Fruit
To keep track of fertilization schedules for his cranberry bogs, farmer Peter Beaton turned to MapInfo Professional, software that maps the fertilizer needs ... Read more
A Moving Experience
Relocating your business can be an agonizing and expensive experience. But when you weigh the benefits against the costs, moving could be the best thing you ... Read more
IT Outsourcing Can Be Profitable - or a Headache
Here's how to strike a mutually beneficial partnership. Read more
Saving Money in the Magic Kingdom
Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse (and friends) are the big draws as families all over North America make room for Orlando in their summer vacation plans. The ki... Read more
Do Your Own Thing
The Web is becoming a vital administrative tool for a growing number of businesses. Companies can now outsource almost anything to Web-based services, from d... Read more
Let the Net Do It
A look at the proliferation of new Web-based businesses that will handle your most arduous tasks, from personnel to technology management. Read more
Software That Cuts Legal Fees
When Munchkin, a $15 million designer and marketer of baby bottles and other products for infants, needed a secondinternational-distribution agreement, Ch... Read more
Getting In on the Ground Floor
The last thing Matt Phelan ever wanted to do was to run a storefront operation. But last year Phelan gave up his fancy office on the second floor of... Read more
The Fewer the Merrier
Michael Conley, CEO and founder of GeneraLife Insurance Co., cut fixed costs by operating chiefly on the Web. Here's why the insurance industry works so well... Read more
