Olive Garden has been in the news a lot recently. The chain offered a $100 “pasta pass” to 1,000 customers that allows pass holders to chow down on unlimited pasta for seven weeks. That marketing ploy got a lot of coverage in the press, but more important to the restaurant in the long run is […]
How cozy are you with your local planning commission, city council or county officials? If you want to preserve existing small businesses and the look of a local business district that has evolved over many years, those are the decision makers you need on your side. While it’s popular to blame national big-box retailers for […]
Pornography in the workplace is a problem in more ways than you might imagine. Here are two examples: In a case that got a lot of publicity, a high-ranking official at the Environmental Protection Agency downloaded more than 7,000 porn files and spent as much as six hours of his work day viewing them. A […]
Some years ago a friend of mine had an idea for a new cross-country ski binding that he thought would be an improvement on what was available then. He made a simple drawing and took it to a local fabricator to get an estimate for a prototype. The cost was so high, he abandoned the […]
If you were getting paid what you’re really worth, would your paycheck go up, or down? Don’t worry, I won’t make you answer that question, but it does put into focus an important issue: How to determine the pay rate for a position in your small business. A recent PNC Economic Outlook Survey found that […]