It’s a reality for most business owners, but no matter how successful you think you are, there’s always more to learn. Whether it’s marketing, sales, operations, or finance, you can’t know everything and there’s always gaps to fill. But how do you know when it’s time to invest in additional training and education? Will it be worth your time? And what areas should you be focused on?

Here we’ll discuss the importance of business education and what questions you need to ask yourself to determine if it’s time for you to invest in additional training.

There’s probably no better way to get customers interested in your food product than giving them a live demo. They not only get to look, taste, and smell your product, but they get to experience your brand and the story behind everything.

With that being said, when you do demo your food product at a live event, you want to make sure it’s a memorable experience for consumers. Not only do you need to showcase your product in an effective manner, but you need to get creative in order to stand out in the eyes of potential customers.

Digital marketing can be a dizzying arena when it comes to the amount of tools, systems and platforms available to businesses. The moment you think you’ve seen one platform that can literally “do it all,” two or three others spring up with more functionality or the same feature set at a cheaper price.

Keeping up with the latest in digital marketing tools might seem like an impossible task, especially for small businesses. How exactly is one to supposed to find the best digital marketing platforms for small businesses?

Regardless of the kind of exit you're considering for your business, it's going to take time to complete and will have an array of effects on you, your employees, your family, your finances, and more. In today's post, we'll elaborate on why you need a business transition plan.

It's hard to start a business, and even harder to admit when your business is struggling. The admission is only the first step to determining what's right for your struggling business. Do you fight onward and find out how to improve your struggling business? Or is it that your business will only continue to struggle, draining your energy and your wallet? There's no way to address this directly without looking at all the specifics of your business and industry.

In today's article we'll talk about some of the questions you should ask yourself to help figure out what's right for your struggling business.

As a small business owner, you're sure to know that your storefront is important. But do you realize just how important it is? Everyone's heard the adage, "don't judge a book by it's cover," but the truth is, customers make judgments about what they're interested in or what seems most likely to meet their needs in the first 15 seconds. Your storefront is the first impression you can make on a customer, and depending on their reaction, you may not get another chance to capture them.

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Carl Pruett is the owner and education consultant of Tutor Doctor of Portland. For 15 plus years, Tutor Doctor has provided affordable one to one in-home tutoring for students of any age. Tutor Doctor of Portland is a franchise that employs 128 tutors as independent contractors today. Carl participated in the 10-month 2015 Small Business Management program. 

Your food business is your baby, which makes it hard to let go of any aspect of your business. But just like hiring the right staff to do the work you can't, at some point your business needs to hire the right contractors to help you with work neither you nor your staff can handle so you can focus on helping your business grow. The benefits of outsourcing for small business owners is undeniable, and in this post, we'll discuss why outsourcing your food business tasks is so important.

National Mom and Pop Business Owner's Day is on March 29th. In honor of day, today's post will tell you how "mom and pop" shops can out compete the big brands.

Community Connectivity — Citizens

No matter how altruistic or charitable a big brand may be, they can never really participate in community the way that a small business can. After all, big brands aren't tied to any one location, and the people in charge of them, even on a local level, need to concern themselves with multiple, regional locations and issues. Local businesses not only depend on the community to thrive, but they're capable of giving back in many more personal and meaningful ways. Every action that a local business takes within the community not only garners brand trust and a positive brand image, it also builds community pride.

Becoming an entrepreneur and opening your first business is thrilling and rewarding, but it's not without its risks. After all, so many that are inspired by the American dream and the glowing success of startups, fail and close their doors for good. Today's post will discuss the five most common small business pitfalls as well as how you can avoid them and come that much closer to lasting success.