
Dilemma of the Month: Negative Feedback From Direct Reports
Recently, my boss held a meeting with my direct reports where they filled out a survey about my performance as their manager. When my boss shared the results with me, he disclosed that “someone” mentioned I wasn’t allowing my team to learn, but rather I was micromanaging them. In discussing my frustration with a peer, she expressed that he is not allowed to do this. Can you shed some light?

3 Steps for Using Discernment in Your Business
Discernment is a criminally underused tool of business owners. We often forget that the one person who knows the most about a company’s vision, mission, budget, team capacity, goals, strengths, weaknesses, projects and growth potential is not the random person who wandered into the store — but the owner of the business.

Sacramento’s Best Friends for Frosting Explores Brick-and-Mortar via Airbnb
In an increasingly crowded digital space of bloggers and influencers, Melissa Johnson, founder of the Sacramento-based lifestyle blog Best Friends for Frosting, knew she had to create a thumb-stopping moment to stand out.

Classification Complications
How to navigate the maze of California’s new rules on overtime and independent contractors
Employee classification is already murky territory for many business owners, and recent changes have further tightened requirements. Yet, with huge penalties attached to mistakes, the laws are critical to understand.

Who Are We, Anyway?
How to leverage personality tests for team building
There’s a lot of controversy about team-building exercises in the corporate world. Do they really boost morale? Does rappelling down a cliff actually build trust that translates into a more productive accounting office? Is retreating worth the time and expense?

Dilemma of the Month: Managing Seasonal Labor
Dilemma of the Month: My business is quite seasonal. We have work year round, but in the off-season we don’t need the same number of employees. It’s just not profitable to keep everyone on the payroll 12 months out of the year. Can I drop hours? Can I lay people off and rehire? Are there things that make one option better than the other?

Lessons in Lemonade
El Dorado County teen finds business success the old-fashioned way
At age 14, Jake Van Ry is already an all-star in the Foothills food truck scene.

The Business Of Online Business
Eight tips from local entrepreneurs succeeding in this crowded realm
Stephanie Stiavetti had an IT job that she liked in Sacramento, managing a company’s servers, mobile devices and computers. Yet her real passion was cooking. She had attended culinary school, designed recipes, dabbled in freelance food writing and had even written a cookbook.

Back and Forward: Kelly Azevedo
Business strategy consultant discusses operating online
Kelly Azevedo, founder of She’s Got Systems, a company that provides coaching and strategy for online businesses, offers their insight into the digital marketplace.

Dilemma of the Month: Low Salary Expectations
I’m a corporate recruiter. For candidates that progress to an HR phone screen, we ask their expected salary and share the range we have for the role. Is it appropriate to use someone’s low salary expectations as a reason for not moving forward? I’m concerned that a candidate who makes so much less won’t be a good fit. Is that the case?