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One of the most costly and time-consuming expenses a business has to deal with is employee turnover. When the business is small and the departing employee was filling a vital role, then the loss is felt even more. The direct and indirect drain on resources that goes along with losing those key employees can seriously set a business back and undermine its operational stability.

While there are numerous reasons why employees choose to leave, sometimes they go simply because they are too stressed and over-worked to be productive. In this case, if you can recognize the symptoms of employee burnout early on you will be in a better position to address it and make any necessarily changes before anyone walks out the door.

Here are five of the biggest warning signs to watch out for:

1. Productivity declines. If you see a sudden drop in the productivity of one of your solid performers, then it could be a sign that this person is feeling a little stressed or distracted. We all have our off days, so if this happens once and while, it could mean nothing. But, where the drop in productivity is both significant and over the long-term, then it’s something that requires your attention.

2. Work quality declines. Sometimes you may notice that the overall level of productivity stays more or less the same, but the quality of their work diminishes. The number one sign that employees are overworked is when they repeatedly make simple mistakes. If your employee usually takes care of typos or produces clean code or calculations, then you should be paying attention.

3. Absenteeism increases. A key indicator of how happy your employees are on the job is how often they unexpectedly call in sick. Happy, productive employees typically want to show up for work; unhappy employees burn out and take many sick days. So, if your employees are starting to call in sick more than usual, it’s probably a sign that they’re overworked. Work-related stress is a factor that can lead to a number of health problems that ultimately prevent employees from showing up for work and having productive days.

4. There is tension in the air. When your employees seem irritable, stressed, and frustrated or on the other end, a little blue, then it’s a sign that you need to jump in and do something to help ease the tension and unwind.

5. Employees become despondent. Apathy is an innovation killer. If you notice that some of your employees seem apathetic and unconcerned with their work and the business as a whole, then it’s time to step in. When employees are stressed out, then enthusiasm is one of the first things to go. So, keep an eye out for employees who don’t seem to have the energy they once did, and be on top of it immediately. You don’t want their despondency and lack of enthusiasm to rub off onto others.

In short, employee burnout happens- even to the best of businesses. But it if you can learn how to recognize the warning signs and respond to them right away, then it doesn’t have to cost you a good employee.

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Recent research indicates that the road ahead may still be a bit bumpy for America’s smallest businesses.

Most economic indicators suggest that the economy continues to slog on with a recovery that has been both slow and uneven. This comes at a time when the stock market has been under-performing, the presidential campaign has been both colorful and unpredictable, there is a new, imposing legal reality surrounding Obamacare, and we are facing a tight labor market in some vital sectors, as well as declining GDP and consumer confidence.

Not a pretty picture…

Caught in the middle are the nation’s small businesses- many of which have been struggling to stay afloat ever since the Recession hit seven years ago. According to the new State of Small Business Report by software solutions provider, Wasp Barcode, the top three challenges facing small businesses in 2016 are: hiring new employees (50%), increasing profit (45%), and providing health care to employees (43%). Small business sentiment is also down, according to the monthly NFIB Small Business Economic Trends report. The NFIB reports that expectations for future business conditions are low as are expected sales volumes. More business owners also responded that they are cutting average prices as opposed to raising them.

Not everything is doom and gloom, however. On the positive side, small businesses are looking forward to an increase in revenue in the coming months. According to the Wasp Barcode study, 71 percent of small businesses expect some increase in revenue this year. According to the NFIB study, for all the struggles, actual spending and hiring numbers have remained at average levels as compared to the previous years.

But, much also depends on the outcome of the Presidential election as well as the buoyancy of the global markets. While the year ahead may not be smooth sailing, there may at least be some pockets of light to look forward to.

Ever since social networks became popular several years ago, small businesses have been told to spend their limited time and money there in order to remain competitive and relevant. Yet, while the number of active social networks have multiplied, the real ROI of spending that time and money maintaining a presence on these platforms remains fuzzy at best.

There is, however, one robust platform that presents a more convincing case for small business involvement: LinkedIn. While LinkedIn may not be perfect, it offers a powerful set of tools to help small businesses network, build their brand, close sales, and even recruit talented professionals. Plus, it claims to have the biggest network of professionals and business owners on the Internet. So, this platform is great if targeting these people or businesses they work for, and it is certainly a place where you should be directing your resources.

That said, here are 6 of the most powerful and useful tools for small businesses that LinkedIn has to offer:

1. Showcase Pages

As the name suggests, Showcase Pages are used to highlight the various products and services your business offers. They are extensions of your many company page on LinkedIn. Why is this so important or unique? When done right, your company page and showcase pages work together to create a dynamic mini website. Instead of listing all of your company’s products and services on one profile page, LinkedIn is the only major social media platform that gives you the ability to richly convey what your company does and offers

2. LinkedIn Pulse

Content marketing certainly isn’t new. But, with LinkedIn’s native publishing platform, Linkedin Pulse,  you can potentially get your content in front of a massive professional audience. Moreover, as your content gets more popular, anyone who looks at your LinkedIn profile will have greater reason to believe that you are an authority on those topics. They don’t need to head offsite to your website or personal blog.

3. LinkedIn Recruiter

If you are looking for top talent in your industry, then LinkedIn Recruiter is definitely a tool to consider. Recruiter allows you to search through a vast pool of candidates by location, industry, profile key words, and more. Plus, you can include people in your search who will entertain job offers even though they aren’t actively searching. Once you have located potential candidates, you can reach out to them via LinkedIn’s InMail messaging feature.

4. Targeted Updates

Like every other social network out there, we are being bombarded with an overwhelming amount of information, and the worst part of it is that , most of this noise is not even relevant to us. With targeted status updates you are able to deliver relevant content to your contacts rather than bombarding your entire network. You can sort your list of contacts and connections into groups of 100 people or more.

5. Paid Advertisements

The last few years has seen a shift to paid advertising among social networks looking to capitalize on the user traffic they are generating. Most of this is due to a number of high-profile public offerings from Facebook, Twitter, and, you guessed it, LinkedIn. What makes LinkedIn’s paid advertisement platform unique, however, is that it supports the world’s largest online community of professionals. If your customer base involves college-educated professionals, or if you are a B2B business, then you almost cannot afford to overlook LinkedIn’s robust paid advertisement feature that allows you to micro-target media-rich ads to groups of people based on job title, industry, age, location, etc.

6. Sponsored Updates

The last important LinkedIn tool to make the list is also part of the advertising features. With sponsored updates, you can easily get your brand in front of current and potential customers in a way that is less distracting and annoying. Another benefit to this method is that you can let your content do the marketing for you without having to set up and tweak a formal advertising campaign that involves banner and text ads.

While the previous 6 tools can be extremely useful for a large population of small businesses, this really doesn’t even scratch the surface. There are countless Linkedin tools and third party apps and services that can enhance the user experience on LinkedIn. It just takes a little research coupled with a bit of experimentation to find the most useful and profitable combination for your business.

Now that the new year is upon us, it’s a good time to reflect on the way we work (and live) and resolve to uproot the negative habits that may be preventing us from maximizing our potential. Some of these bad behaviors are keeping us from being productive; others cause us to work harder than we need to, resulting in unnecessary stress.

You don’t have to re-invent the wheel or totally re-design your life to reach the kind of real, lasting change that will make a significant impact. Sometimes the biggest positive difference can come from a few small tweaks to the way you approach your daily routine.

Below are seven such tweaks that can make you significantly more productive and happy in 2016:

1. Don’t sleep next to your phone. Studies have shown that the blue LED light that electrical devices emit interferes with the body’s internal clock, making it harder to settle down and fall asleep at night and exposing you to a whole host of adverse health effects. Instead, keep those devices far away or shut off and make your room as dark as possible.

2. Don’t go to bed too late. While we are on the topic of sleep, research also suggests that if you want to maximize those sleeping hours, then you really need to be asleep by 12:00. After this point, the quality of your sleep gets increasingly poor no matter how many actual hours you are sleeping.

3. Don’t let yourself be easily distracted. Create blocks of time during the day when you turn off that cell phone, close your browser, and leave social media till later. These kinds of distractions not only whittle away at your energy level and your ability to focus, but they can quickly eat away your precious time, putting pressure on your daily to-do list.

4. Don’t multi-task too much. While multi-tasking may seem like a great way to “cheat” father time by getting several things done at once, research reveals that multi-tasking can have adverse effects not only on your health but also on your productivity.

5. Don’t take your work with you. Not so long ago it used to be that when you left the office your work for the day was done. Now that mobile technology allows us to be constantly connected, it’s much harder to resist the impulse to check email or make work-related phone calls and chat sessions.

6. Don’t check your email too often. And, this brings me to the next bad habit. Even with all the options out there, email is still one of the primary forms of online business communication. It is also a place that can quickly get inundated with unwanted solicitations and other forms of spam. Have set times during the day when you check into your email account. The rest of the time, keep the account (or window tab) closed and turn off email notifications.

7. Don’t live an unhealthy lifestyle. Routinely skipping meals and eating unhealthy food is a recipie for disaster. The same is true for not regularly exercising. While you don’t have to totally overhaul your diet, nor start training for marathons, even small changes, such as reducing the amount of processed foods you consume and taking a 20 minute walk a few times a week, can go a very long way. Taking care of your body will not only improve the quality of your life, it will also help you to better focus and maximize work performance.

So, what are you waiting for? Start the new year with the energy and motivation to climb the mountains you need to advance your business and career.

While social media may currently be driving only a small percentage of online retail sales, all indications suggest that these channels will continue to expand in the future. In fact, social-driven retail sales and referral traffic are rising at a faster pace than all other forms of eCommerce.

According to the Business Insider Internet Retailer’s Social Media 500 report, the top 500 retailers earned a total of $3.3 billion from social commerce in 2014. That represents a 26% increase from 2013. The overall growth rate for eCommerce in the US, however, only rose by about 16%. Moreover, between the first quarters of 2014 and 2015, social platforms increased the number of eCommerce referrals by almost 200%.  Analysts are predicting an even greater surge in social commerce in 2016.

As I mentioned in my previous post, a number of major social networks including, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube, have all recently introduced “buy” or “shop now” buttons to their platforms. The goal behind this move has been to significantly simplify and streamline the purchasing process from these networks.

Aside from direct commerce, social networks are also being used to engage consumers in the beginning stages of the purchasing process. In this case, strategies are designed to bring highly targeted traffic from social media to retailers’ websites and mobile apps.

In this eCommerce landscape, here are five of the most significant social commerce trends to watch out for in 2016:

1. Increased spending in mobile advertising. Now that the biggest social networks have all jumped into the mobile commerce fray, and the media has been generating plenty of hype around it, we can expect more businesses to pump money and other resources into their social commerce efforts. Jumping in feet first is not necessarily a good thing, though. If you are running a small business with limited marketing dollars, then it definitely pays to research the most effective platforms and strategies before committing to any one promotion.

2. More integration between online and off-line, in-store experience. Perhaps one of the coolest things about social commerce, is that it allows retailers to merge the online and off-line shopping experience. Some examples of this in action include:

• Offering product-specific, in-store discounts to customers while they are standing in the store and researching these products via their mobile phones.
• Allowing customers to create a “favorite product” list of items they may want to purchase in the future
• Offering customers recommendations for products that compliment what they are purchasing

3. Re-aligning the business around omni-channel experiences. This is not just about revamping marketing, but restructuring the business to have the flexibility to respond to changes in consumer behavior and preferences. This means a few things. First, you may have to re-organize your operational teams internally to maximize your business’ ability to recognize and respond to customer buying habits. Then, you should take advantage of the fact that people are often researching products on their mobile devices before they come into a store. This means your mobile and social presence are essentially the digital entrances to your physical store.

4. Greater reliance on local targeting. Social and mobile commerce often revolves around instant, real-time impressions and decisions. You want to make sure your business and its products are properly positioned at the time when your potential customers need them the most. So, locally-based mobile searches for the products you carry, for example, could trigger a targeted ad offering a promotion on those products.

5. Making intimate, data driven decisions. While big data has been a buzz word for some time now, the goal for business owners is to understand in a more “intimate” way what makes their customers tick. How do customers make decisions, where are they going for answers, and what are they feeling as they are doing it? As consumer attention is increasingly drawn to mobile devices and social media platforms, the vast amounts of audience data and information available can be used to give businesses a leg up on their competitors.

In short, social commerce, like mobile commerce, is set for explosive growth over the next few years, and businesses need to make sure that they are ready for it. Their customers already are.

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With the end of the holiday season just around the corner, one emerging retail trend has been impossible to miss: the explosive growth of mobile-based commerce (or mCommerce) among consumers.

According to the Adobe Digital Index, online sales for Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday (November 26th-30th) totaled $11 billion this year. This represents a significant sales increase from 2014. Adobe’s statistics indicate that sales were 25% higher on Thanksgiving ($1.7 billion), 14.3% higher on Black Friday ($2.7 billion), and 12% higher on Cyber Monday ($2.98 billion) as compared to the previous year.

One of the big drivers of this growth in sales has been the increasing prevalence and reliance on mobile devices in the shopping process. According to the Adobe Digital Index, mobile purchases accounted for approximately one third of all holiday buying, with 37% of online sales coming from mobile on Thanksgiving, 33% on Black Friday, and 28% on Cyber Monday.

This trend doesn’t look like it will be slowing down any time soon. In fact, a recent study by eMarketer, predicts that 25% of all retail eCommerce sales in the U.S. will take place on mobile devices by the end of 2016.

Fueling the trend further, this holiday season also saw the rise of “social commerce.” Over the past few months, some of the major social networks including, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube, have introduced “buy” or “shop now” buttons to their platforms. The goal behind this move has been to significantly simplify and streamline the purchasing process from these networks particularly for consumers on mobile devices.

It’s important to note that much of this increase in mCommerce is originating from smartphone users, and it is affecting even offline sales. According to research conducted at Google, over 80% of smartphone users say they consult their phones about the purchases they are considering while in a physical retail location. Moreover, the majority of purchases following a mobile search (73%) are actually taking place in a physical store.

So what does this all mean?

It’s not just about online sales anymore, and it’s not enough to just maintain a mobile friendly website. Consumers are increasingly looking for integrated, interactive buying experiences, and all indications point to the fact that the digital experience often precedes the physical one. So, just as you put in the time, money, and other resources into the physical experience of buying from your business- regardless of whether you offer products or services- you need to be investing in your digital experience as well. In this face-paced, noisy world, it’s the one area where your customers are directing their attention. You’ll have a better chance of being successful if you meet your customers there.

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This holiday season has seen the rise of on-demand courier services, and it promises to spice things up for small, local businesses looking to make fast, cheap deliveries of their products to customers.

The concept of on-demand delivery is certainly not new (think: failed dot com company, Kozmo.com, which promised to deliver a variety of goods at any cost to customers in less than an hour). But, with recent announcements by both Uber and Amazon that they have launched their own courier services to deliver packages, it’s now a viable reality.

And that is very good news for small businesses looking to expand. In October, Uber began offering its delivery services in Chicago, San Francisco, and New York City in a partnership with local businesses. As the company states on their website: “In hundreds of cities across the globe, you can press a button and get a ride in minutes. Now, through UberRUSH, business owners can use that same technology to get customers pretty much anything in minutes.”

By partnering with UberRUSH, businesses can not only easily, quickly, and cheaply manage deliveries, but they can expand their delivery zone. This is made possible by the fact that new couriers are always available, and they don’t need to make round trips. To make the deal even sweeter, Uber has joined up with eCommerce platforms, such as Shopify and ChowNow, to provide the smoothest customer experience possible.

Shortly following Uber’s announcement, Amazon.com revealed its own entry into the logistics space. Amazon’s initiative, called Amazon Flex, relies on contractors who have their own cars and smart phones to instantly deliver products that were purchased via its online sales platform. Flex is currently offered as part of Amazon’s premium one-hour delivery service, Prime Now.

One of the direct results of Amazon’s and Uber’s entry into the on-demand delivery space is the rise of the freelance delivery industry. As the demand for freelance couriers increases, we’ll likely see a number of individuals launching part-time or full-time businesses performing deliveries. Or, a more elaborate example: how about a person who invests in a small fleet of electric bikes, then hires other people to make the actual deliveries? There are many possibilities and a lot of potential all of which is poised to help the local economy- this year and beyond.

As you go through the process of growing your small business, there will come a point where you will have to decide whether or not to take on additional full time or part time employees. On one hand, the added human input can help you scale up your operations. But on the other hand, taking on employees can be a very costly and time-consuming process. Plus there is always the risk that your new hires won’t end up working out.

One way to overcome this dilemma is to outsource some of your business’ operations to another individual or business. Doing this will allow you to expand while reducing the risk of a costly bad hire or even a good hire made at the wrong time.

But, outsourcing parts of your business comes with its own set of challenges. After all, who says that this outside entity will properly “get” your company and its unique culture. How well will they be able to relate to your customers, and how do you ensure that there is enough motivation on their end to do a good job?

Outsourcing can truly make or break a company depending on how it is approached. So before you outsource anything- especially those front-line positions, such as customer service and sales- make sure you consider the following five pitfalls:

Businesses don’t consider the scope of their needs. This is the very first, critical step to successfully outsourcing your business’ operations. Before you start the process of looking for an outside company to take over, you should figure out exactly what it is you need from them. Not only will this help to make your search process easier, but it will help you avoid some of the other pitfalls mentioned below.

Businesses don’t allocate enough money. You really do get what you pay for, so beware of prices that seem too good to be true. While many small businesses are working with tight budgets, price shouldn’t be your only consideration when hiring a service provider. If you discover a company that offers the same basic services yet they are charging much less, then it could be a indicative of the kind of work quality you can expect from them.

There is not enough due diligence. Don’t just fall for a company because they have a flashy-looking website. You need to dig into this company’s reputation as well as the amount of time they have been in business. You should also research customer reviews and seriously consider trying to contact previous clients to see how satisfied they were. During the research process, pay attention to any red flags that could signal potential problems or mis-representation. For example, if it takes a long time for you to speak to a real person when you try contacting the service provider or if customer representatives are unfriendly and not knowledgable, then it may be sign to take your business elsewhere.

Businesses forget about cultural fit. Just as you should hire people based on their cultural fit with your company, not just the skills and experiences listed on their resumes, the same is true for any business partnership- whether that partnership is contractual or a joint venture or a full, working partnership.

There is no system to monitor performance. Outsourcing vital operations is not a set-it-and-forget-it process. There needs to be a system in place to monitor and review the company’s performance as well as the ROI that the setup is supposed to be achieving. By doing this, you will be able to quickly spot problem areas and then decide whether or not the partnership is a good one. One of the biggest factors to successful outsourcing is knowing when to walk away from a bad setup.

In short, outsourcing business operations can be a very reasonable and profitable method for expanding a business- but only if it is approached in the right way. In order for such as setup to have the best chance of success, the company needs to consider it as an important investment. With a bit of time, effort, and money upfront, they have the best chances of watching that investment grow.

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With the evolution and proliferation of ecommerce and chip enabled credit cards, credit card fraud has been going through a metamorphosis over the past couple of years. As the tides change, smaller businesses in particular need to be paying attention and taking action. Without the proper precautions, small businesses are prime targets for fraudsters and hackers who can compromise sensitive data and send a crippling financial blow.

The Closing Window of Opportunity and the Opening of a New Window

As the US is slowly introduced to EMV chip credit cards, point-of-sale credit card fraud is expected to decline in the coming years. According to reports by Javelin Strategy and Research:

POS card fraud will become progressively less lucrative. Card counterfeiting will border on impossible, given the inherent security of EMV chip-cards…  Additionally, merchants who use encryption or tokenization would effectively render data gained from compromised terminals useless for future POS transactions. These factors will largely restrict POS card fraud to lost or stolen cards… [which] are significantly more difficult to acquire and are more likely to be canceled shortly after compromise… [F]raudsters at brick and mortar stores face a closing window of opportunity.

But while physical credit card fraud may be on the decline, all indications point to a significant rise in online credit card fraud as the surge in ecommerce continues. According to Javelin Strategy and Research, online fraud in the U.S. is expected to nearly double to $19 billion by 2018 from $10 billion in 2014.

Though all businesses and organizations operating online are being affected by fraudulant activity, small businesses are the most vulnerable because many are unable to afford the systems to detect and prevent it. Moreover, when it comes to online purchases, the merchant is typically the one paying for the fraud. If for example, a fraudulent customer uses a stolen credit card to purchase a product, typically by the time the real cardholder discovers the charges, the fraudster already has possession of the items. While the real cardholders are often not liable for unauthorized transactions, retailers have no such protection. Thus, when the true cardholder eventually reverses the payment, the retailer must foot the bill- an amount that includes the cost of fulfilling the order, the lost revenue of the sale, and the fees associated with receiving the chargeback (which can easily reach 25% of the transaction amount)!

What Can Small Businesses Do to Prevent Online Fraud?

In order to prevent or at least reduce a small business’ exposure to credit card fraud online, there are three things that need to be in place: knowledge of safety compliance, technology, and good payment processing practices. We’ll briefly go through each one below.

1. Maintain PCI Compliance. The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a set of requirements designed to ensure that all companies that process, store, or transmit credit card information do so in a secure way. PCI is developed to proactively protect customer data, such as account numbers, names, addresses, and social security numbers. PCI compliance generally involves basic security precautions, such as maintaining a firewall between the business’ Internet connection and any system that stores credit card numbers.

2. Technology. There are various software applications out there that can help companies weed out fraudulant activity. Usually, these tools consider a number of potential red flags, such as whether the shipping and billing addresses match, whether the order is placed from an unfamiliar computer, device, or location, and whether the email address associated with the order has changed. Once suspicious activity has been identified, the business can then investigate further.

Another important element to consider is the ecommerce platform. Some of the most popular platforms actually do not offer so much fraud protection. So, this is something that should be researched before hand.

3. Payment Processing Best Practices. The best software in the world, however, won’t help a business that is careless with sensitive data. Businesses that are serious about data security will make the effort to routinely check that their fraud protection systems are working as they should. For example, business owners should check to see if all checkout URLs maintain a secure connection (“https”) during the checkout process. They should also set up system alerts that allow them to quickly and effectively screen out fraudulant activity, and make it a point not to store any more data than needed on customers and their transactions.

Bottom line: those businesses that process payments online need to be extra vigilant these days. Online fraud can easily ensnare a business, causing severe damage to a business’ reputation and its profitability. But, with the right knowledge, preparation, and tools, small businesses have the best chance of making it through unscathed.

Are you are Instagram? Pinterest? Snapchat? How about Meerket, Periscope, or Blab.im…

It seems that with every new social media platform that comes out, there is the ever increasing expectation that small business owners should maintain a presence there. Sometimes, business owners will have a compelling reason for setting up an account and giving it a go. But even with the best of intentions, chances are that most of a business’ social media profiles will eventually lay dormant, collecting a whole lot of Internet dust.

The reality of running a small business is that your time, energy, and money are limited. Yet, each new social media platform comes with its own learning curve; it’s own draw on resources, and it’s own ability to offer an ROI on those resouces.

Many business owners will try out a new social media platform because everyone else is on there or because they are looking for a magic short-cut to good marketing and customer engagement. But, they then eventually abandon that platform when it doesn’t deliver what they were hoping for. They are hurting their business in a few of ways:

1. They take a loss on all the resources they put into maintaining a presence on the platform
2. If potential customers see these abandoned profiles it makes the business look unprofessional.
3. They continue to miss the whole point of social media marketing

Case in point: there has been a lot of discussion lately about the use of live streaming video apps, such as Merkeet and Periscope. Many successful Merkeet users “defected” to Periscope when it first came out- eventhough the two platforms do essentially the same thing.

What happened? These users understand that their audience of fans and buyers relate to the spontaneity and engagement that live video streaming offers. It almost doesn’t matter which platform this happens on.

This applies to any business with any form of social media. First seek to understand your target market or audience. What is important to them? How do they would want to engage with you? Where are they already hanging out online, what are they doing when they are there, and what does that tell you about them?

Once you know these answers, then it’s just a matter of finding the platforms that allow you to best connect with your audience today. If you go in with this attitude, then even if a new, shiny platform appears, you will know ahead of time whether or not you should be there.

Moreover, when really important platforms make important notices or changes to the way they operate, small business owners will know when and how to respond. For example, a couple of weeks ago Google has issued a notice for small business owners with a Google My Business account. The notice states that business owners who have not logged into their Google My Business accounts in over a year may receive an email asking them to sign in and confirm their business information. If no action is taken then Google could turn a business’s account into an unverified one, and even more dangerous, Google could also remove a business from Google Maps which could seriously affect both a business’ online search traffic and off-line foot traffic.

Bottom line: you don’t want to litter the Internet with a social media graveyard of inactive or outdated accounts. Get to know your audience and spend your time and resources where it matters the most.

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