One of the most significant considerations when choosing a business structure for your company is: “Will it give me the most favorable tax outcome?” And the entity type you select impacts how the IRS will treat your business’s income taxes. After weighing the options, many entrepreneurs decide to form a limited liability company (LLC). What are the possible tax advantages of an LLC? The LLC is a sort of hybrid between a sole proprietorship or partnership and a corporation. So, it offers the best of both worlds, providing liability protection for business owners without intensive compliance o ..read more

For many modern businesses, tech teams are the backbone of operations. Business leaders can support their IT staff in many different ways, from allocating an adequate IT budget to recognizing and acknowledging tech employees. Here, 10 Young Entrepreneur Council members share ways to set up your tech department for success. A business's tech team plays a key role in the company's ability to operate. What's one way a business leader can better support their tech team so they can perform their job well? 1. Provide tech teams with necessary resources One way a business leader can support their ..read more

Do a quick search online for business-related articles about millennials or Gen Z and you’ll be flooded with results. Since these two younger generations entered the workforce, they've dominated headlines with controversies, lessons, and new-age approaches to business. In the meantime, older generations and traditional ways of doing business have been pushed to the side. Apps have taken the place of paper in the office; new market demands have forced teams to shift their focus. Yes, many changes have taken place over recent years as Gen Z has entered the workforce, but one of them isn’t talk ..read more

It’s impossible to know if your business will succeed; however, I believe there are indicators that predict whether or not you will be a successful business owner. I haven’t done formal research on the qualities of successful entrepreneurs, but I have learned from my own experiences. I’ve started several businesses and I’ve spoken to hundreds of small business owners throughout my career; I have found that my story and their stories are similar in so many ways. Does your story match up? Do you have what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur? Characteristics of successful entrepreneurs I’v ..read more

Continuing education is crucial for not only improving skills, but making sure your company is up-to-date on the latest industry research and developments. Learning new tricks or approaches gives access to different ways to solve problems and keeps you from getting into a mental rut. Education takes time, however, and there's only so much time in a day. To find out the best ways to help your staff to keep learning, we asked eight members from the Young Entrepreneur Council the following question: Q. What is one way you use continuing education or training to keep your team members at the top ..read more

By Andre Lavoie You see your team being disengaged at work every day. They sit at their workstations, heads down and quiet—clicking mouses and tapping keyboards. Then they punch out. This could go on like this for a long time, and then eventually some people will leave. New employees will come in, and more will leave. This cycle is common, and it proves employee retention is the biggest challenge you face. The good news is you’re not alone. In fact, more than half of employees say they're disengaged at work. What’s more, 10% of workers surveyed said they were very or somewhat likely to quit ..read more

Post sponsored by Upwork By Rieva Lesonsky The digital landscape can feel overwhelming for many small business owners—even the basics, like a website. Sure, you have a site, but do consumers know your site even exists? Are you attracting clients and customers? With so much online competition, how do you get consumers there? Search engine optimization (SEO) is the obvious solution, but it too can seem like a complex beast, requiring technical expertise and an army of consultants. Following, we’ll share some actionable tactics and strategies to elevate your SEO game, specifically designed for ..read more

By Boriana Ditcheva Though the tech we use in our corporate day-to-day has changed a lot in the past decade, one central business practice remains the same: the presentation. In today’s corporate world, most information, sales, and important decisions are still made in meetings with presentations, either face-to-face or online. And while some important presentations, like investment pitches or important sales decks, warrant hiring a professional presentation designer, most of us still create our slides ourselves. That's where these practical strategies come in. They are tried and tested tech ..read more

By Brett Farmiloe From simplifying your pricing system to remembering to factor in shipping costs, 12 business leaders share best practices for pricing your business's product or services. How to price your product 1. Simplify your pricing system "One pricing mistake I made in one of my other companies was having too many price points. We were a service-based business, and pricing varied based on event type, location, and group size, for example. "We soon found that it took up a significant amount of our sales team's time to explain the differences in pricing and the reasoning behind the nua ..read more

If you haven't already, now is the time to jump into digital marketing. So where do you begin? There is a lot of advice out there, good and bad, and many people who will promise you big returns for large sums of money that you likely don’t have at the moment. Well, since you’re here, it's likely you are looking for free advice on how to go it alone. To help you out, I've put together a little free advice to help get you started (or hopefully at least motivated). The state of digital marketing Marketing in the digital age has taken on a decidedly new form than the marketing tactics of the pas ..read more