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5 outside-the-box profit boosters for your business

Lisa Mulcahy Business Management, Services & Risk Management

The healthiest bottom line possible is what every company is constantly striving for. Your team has no doubt brainstormed many effective conventional ideas to boost short-term profits — but a good, unexpected approach can often expand your earning capacity in fresh, long-term ways as well, as proven by research. Put these outside-the-box strategies into practice to garner excellent results.

Report: US job losses to China grow, as does trade deficit

Seth Sandronsky Civil & Government

The U.S. trade deficit with China has reduced sharply employment stateside since 2001, according to "The China Toll Deepens," a new report from the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. The finding from the EPI’s Robert E. Scott and Zane Mokhiber "examines the job impacts of trade by subtracting the job opportunities lost to imports from those gained through exports." Their thesis is simple. The bilateral trade deficit in goods between the planet’s two biggest economies is the main cause of the U.S. employment losses that are concentrated in the American manufacturing sector.

The road to association excellence

Robert C. Harris Association Management

"Are we the best we can be?" It’s a question boards and association executives should contemplate. There are many roads to excellence. Begin by considering what’s best for the association. Some programs focus on the organization and others the individual. What are the associated costs and how much time will it take? What will be the return on investment for the cost of time and fees? Which platforms for excellence positions the organization to advance its desired outcomes?

An ill wind blows: Hurricanes and supply chains don’t mix

Delany Martinez Distribution & Warehousing

Natural disasters are a huge headache for man-made systems — in addition to disrupting services like water and power on a residential level, they can also bring supply chains to a screeching halt. From flash flooding to outright facility damage, hurricane-proofing your supply chain is a challenge, but one well worth tackling. While you can't predict when and where a hurricane will completely shut down 3PL availability and reach, you can commit to frequent monitoring and communication throughout the storm.

How to make a project management tool work for your church

Deborah Ike Religious Community

Project management tools such as Asana, Basecamp, Trello, and others can be useful in helping church teams plan events and manage projects. Many church leaders select a tool and excitedly roll it out to their teams hoping this will make their projects immediately run smoother and finish on time. Unfortunately, there’s often a level of disappointment that happens once a church staff starts using the tool. That disappointment probably has nothing to do with the tool and everything to do with the process.

Tom’s Ice Cream Bowl in Zanesville, Ohio, has the scoops

Connie Ulman Food & Beverage

Joe Baker, ice cream maker at Tom’s Ice Cream Bowl in Zanesville, Ohio, and an employee since 1977, gets up early every morning to bring guests the scoop; the many scoops of ice cream, that is. Baker is sole creator of the seasonal flavors and introduced many of the regular ice cream flavors you’ll find at Tom’s. He alone makes about 600 gallons of ice cream a week. Baker started with the company in 1977, as clerk, while still in high school. He then became assistant manager to Bill Sullivan, who also began his career at the store while in high school.

LinkedIn’s best new features in 2018

Emma Fitzpatrick Marketing

As we were talking about last week, Facebook has been struggling. After just recovering from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook announced another data breach. Plus, more businesses may pull ads because the ROI just isn’t what it used to be. Now, we’re all on the hunt for new ways to reach our audience (beyond Facebook). Surprisingly, LinkedIn is proving itself to be a breath of fresh air. Of course, LinkedIn isn’t a new platform. The company recently turned 15, but here’s what is unprecedented: LinkedIn’s levels of engagement.

The online war on professional beauty products, and how to fight back

Elizabeth Donat Retail

Without many people taking notice, during the summer of 2017, Amazon drastically changed how it sells beauty brands to their millions of online shoppers. According to Kiri Masters of Forbes, Amazon no longer requires beauty brands to go through a strict approval process before being allowed to list on the site. Now, brands apply to be sold under one of three categories: luxury beauty, professional beauty, and indie beauty, once approved. This means, as spa professionals, we now have another major online retail outlet to compete with in terms of how we stay competitive in terms of sales of professional-grade skin care products.

Where to draw the line

Catherine Iste Business Management, Services & Risk Management

Leaders must be clear, firm and consistent. In this article are three steps to ensure you are drawing the line at the right time, the right way and for the most benefit. For example, integrity is a big word to throw around at work. Most of us do not work in an environment that tests our ethics regularly. Yet it is because of this, many supervisors do not know where to draw the line. My specialty and favorite kind of work challenges are those that push me to think about ethics, integrity and the impact the lack of these characteristics can have on the work environment.

Is the Toys R Us revival too little, too late?

Katherine Radin Retail

Given the number of long-standing retailers that have recently shuttered, the news of an almost-immediate revival for one has come as a surprise. Toys R Us has announced that it has risen from the grave — otherwise known as bankruptcy court. With plans for both Toys R Us and Babies R Us to be operated by the very debtors to which the company owed money, and to have the new moniker of "Geoffrey’s Toy Box," both questions and excitement have emerged for how the company will revive itself.

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