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24 Nov I’m considering offering teleclasses to my employees so they can learn new things. Is there an advantage to doing it this way rather than holding a company retreat or similar and doing it in person?

There are several advantages to a teleclass if your company is large enough to support it. You can reach a wider audience for less cost. It's more environmentally sound to not have people traveling all over the place. People can review later if they want....

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24 Nov I have a small fashion boutique store and after being at my current location for 3 years, my landlord has raised my rent and I simply cannot afford to stay here any longer. I have looked around for a new home for my store but the asked rent is too high for me. I would love to be able to negotiate with my existing landlord but need help with the strategy. What can I say to him so he will agree to reduce the rent?

First of all, keep in mind that real estate works in cycles. By agreeing to a longer-term lease with your landlord, you might put yourself at a slight disadvantage in the future, let that idea alone for now. Remind him that it won't be easy...

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24 Nov My wife and I have a well-established dry cleaning business. Due to increasing operating costs we are in a real need to raise our prices but are concerned that a lot of people will complain and that potentially we can lose some of our customers. Anything we can do to make this a smoother transition?

Honestly, you may be worrying too much about this. A common problem that small business owners have is that they underestimate their own product and its worth. A reasonable price increase is unlikely to drive away most of your key customers and might even draw...

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24 Nov I’m developing a compensation plan for outside sales reps selling a managed IT solution. I’m starting from scratch so any tips, examples or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. No point in trying to reinvent the wheel, right?

For one thing, keep the compensation simple. Percentages of order values work well in cases like this. Decide if you're doing straight commission or a base plus commission. Try to keep the program incentive based on performance and long term contractual agreements. If you speak...

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