Author Archives: Gary Barzel

These days when the speed of life and business just keep quickening, it can seem like we are never being productive enough. There is always more to stay on top of; more to do, yet less time to do it; and often with less money and other resources at our disposal. Ironically, all this focus […]

Even the most sophisticated spam filters cannot keep out the wave of scam emails flooding inboxes world wide, and from all accounts, business for these cyber thieves is booming. According to the 2012 Internet Crime Report conducted by the FBI, there has been an 8.3 percent rise in cybercrime from the prior year. This works out […]

According to statistics of income provided by the IRS, the average revenues of sole proprietorships has been on a downward trend for the last 50 years, with the average sales per U.S. sole proprietorship dropping by two-thirds since 1966. How can we explain these numbers? Does this reflect the state of small businesses since about […]

What steps should you take when you find out that your website is down? Though some web hosting services advertise “100% uptime,” in reality, it’s false advertising. Even if you invest in the best possible hosting service, a website’s server and associated apps can and do malfunction from time to time. It’s not hard to […]

If you are using Paypal to process your business’ online payments and money transfers, you may be interested in the payment platform’s new cloud packages service for business owners… at least Paypal thinks you should be. Paypal Business users now have the option of four Web-based business add-on services, dubbed the Cash and Customer Management Package. […]

Over the past few years, crowdfunding has been steadily climbing the charts of ubiquitous Internet buzzwords. It’s inclusion in last year’s JOBS Act only added fuel to the fire and on the surface seems to give a nod of legitimacy to crowdfunding as a source of business capital. At first glance, it’s not hard to […]

The growing acceptance and implementation of inbound marketing represents a definitive shift in the way businesses are approaching sales and advertising. Instead of running after customers and looking for ways to make them open their wallets, smaller companies in particular have recognized the value of creating and sharing valuable content in order to encourage potential […]

Over the past few years, LinkedIn has been growing in both it’s user base and it’s reputation. The social networking platform has practically become synonymous with the online resume and business hobnobbery and recently boasted over 225 million members across 200 countries. But, with so much happening on LinkedIn, getting noticed can be a real […]

Under the terms of a $7.2 billion settlement reached last summer between credit card companies and retailers, retailers will be allowed to impose a surcharge on customers paying by credit card. The amount of the surcharge depends on how much the retailer pays in processing fees, but it can range from 1.5 to 4 percent […]

For as long as it has existed, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has been in a heated hunt-down for Americans who under-report income and who evade paying taxes outright. Why such a persistent effort? Consider this: for 2006, the most recent year for which data are available, the IRS collected 86% of what it was […]