Hopefully this won’t happen. But it could. The best owners are always thinking ahead, so what should businesses — particularly small businesses — be doing right now to prepare? (This column originally appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer) Congress will vote this week on an extension to the federal debt ceiling. If not approved by the first week of June, many consequences could befall the U.S. economy, particularly small businesses.

S corps and other similar businesses could benefit from the tax deduction provided to pass-through businesses becoming permanent. Speaking of money, a report on independent contractors says they made $286 billion in 2022, yet the DOL could determine soon whether those freelancers must become employees. Gene Marks, who use freelancers, isn’t in favor of the move, but he does like an idea proposed in North Carolina to ban fees on cash-paying customers. Listen to the podcast.

Benefits in 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act to expire (This column originally appeared in the Washington Times) To pay for the trillions of dollars in spending the Biden administration has overseen over the past two years, President Biden has been advocating tax increases, particularly on the “wealthy” and corporations. …

Getting Information from Bigin In the first installment of this series about small business CRM I described a CRM system as being nothing more than a database. No matter what all the software companies say and no matter how many features or bells and whistles they include, the fact is still the same: you’re…

Access To Data And External Apps with Bigin My company has been implementing CRM systems for more than two decades. Sometimes people ask me what’s changed the most over that period of time. For me, the answer is easy: it’s the cloud. Back in the day most software could only be accessed locally or from an internal server…

Increased Automation And Productivity with Bigin I write and speak a lot about the economy and although there have been plenty of economic challenges facing small businesses over the past few years the largest — and longest lasting — has been our dire need for people. As I write this there is an unprecedented 11 million…

Better Communication and Collaboration With Bigin In my first blog I explained why Bigin is a better and more cost effective option for a small business than Zoho CRM or other mid-level CRM applications on the marketplace. …

Why choose Bigin by Zoho as your small business CRM? If you’re researching a customer relationship management (CRM) system for your company you’ve probably already run into Bigin, the small business CRM application made by the same people who brought you Zoho CRM. So why would you choose Bigin over Zoho, or any other CRM application? Before I answer that…

Are you a member of your local chamber of commerce? If not, then you’re missing out on an indispensable opportunity to make your voice heard. In this episode, Gene Marks and Tom Sullivan, Vice President of Small Business Policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, discuss how small business owners can advocate for change through active participation in their local and state chambers of commerce. Listen here.