If you spend a lot of time using Microsoft Excel at work, learning some tricks will help you get more done and get results to your boss faster. And, hopefully, that will result in some promotions and bonuses for you.

So don’t take this lightly. Learning shortcuts and formulas can feel tedious at first - as you’ll want to do it the way you’ve always done it - but, once you get used to them, you’ll feel better about your skills, proud of your expertise, and wondering how you ever used to do it the old way.

The workforce is constantly changing and professional development skills and training should adapt as well. As society and the economy evolves, so does its workforce. In a rapidly changing market it is important to observe and predict trends as a business owner and/or professional. In this article, we’ve outlined four of the top workforce issues that we believe businesses should be aware of in order to make the most strategic business decisions, and avoid any surprises.

The PCC Small Business Development Center is proud of the great work all of their clients are accomplishing in their businesses. Our Business Profile feature series highlights businesses at all stages of development and success. 

Business: Sportland Tea Company

Summer can be a distracting time for the most motivated employee which leaves managers struggling to keep company morale high. Mostly, we associate being productive with being on task; yet, research indicates that is not always the case. Here are a few tips you can begin using today to keep your employees motivated all throughout the summer.

If your business doesn’t use Facebook, or your page lacks in presence, it’s time for your team to come up with a killer social media strategy. While you may not have hopped on the social media bandwagon yet, millions have. Many of these Facebookers could be potential customers. Can your company afford to neglect this growing and active audience? Below are 16 reasons why your business can’t ignore Facebook any longer.

In business, the ability to communicate effectively is perhaps the most important skill. From intense negotiations to office small talk, understanding the nuances of how and when to email can make or break one’s reputation. In this post, we’ll be going over some email best practices that can help you communicate more effectively.

Turning your passion into a career may seem like a great way to ensure you love what you do every day, but sometimes your vision and reality do not align. It takes more than passion to know how to capitalize on the things you enjoy and create a profitable business. Recognizing that starting your own business will be a challenge is the first step.

Sometime around the year 1906, the Italian engineer and economist Vilfredo Pareto is rumored to have been tending his garden, where he had the realization that 80% of the peas he harvested, came from only 20% of the pea pods. Curious to see if this pattern repeated itself in other systems, he went on to discover that 80% of the farmland in Italy was owned by 20% of the population.

It can be very easy to get “busy” at work. Every day, we’re inundated with emails, phone calls, messages, meetings—it’s very easy for the day to get away from us. However, being busy doesn’t always equate to being efficient or effective at our jobs. Indeed, sometimes the things that keep us “busiest” are the very things that prevent us from reaching our potential as productive employees. And it’s burning us out.

Your business is unique, and so are your clients. Instead of setting out a wide-reaching net, forget the idea that your product or service can be everything to everyone. Those successful with customer outreach and retention have a focused strategy to understand, track, and please a targeted consumer. By creating an ideal customer profile, your business can begin to build a community of clients that will bring you the most important thing: loyalty.