As many small businesses struggle with every day cash flow problems and the threat of Covid lawsuits, this episode gives listeners specific advice on how to manage both.

Tips:

* Track better how much workers are filing for expenses and make sure they’re directly related to the work you’re doing. Cash flow is one of the biggest problems that small business owners face.

* Create designated debit cards for specific vendors you use regularly so that you don’t lose money with the wrong vendors getting paid.

*Think about getting a waiver for your business if you can’t afford the cost of fighting a lawsuit when a customer accuses you of giving them Covid.

* If you’re a restaurant or a bar and can not exactly give customers a waiver when they patronize your establishment, post them on your website or at the entrance of your shop.

Now that we are well into reopening, small businesses of all shapes and sizes are trying to figure out whether it still makes sense to reopen or if they should remain closed. We talk to one hotel owner who reopened .

Tips:

If you do reopen, weigh the realistic cost that you may have to close down again.

Recognize that reopening in the summer months may be too costly when alot of people are on vacation and have not yet returned to work. Think about when you can get the most value out of reopening.

Think of reopening in terms of two timelines: Things may pick up in September. Then business may pick up again in January.

This episode is devoted to a challenge that many small businesses are facing: what to do when workers test positive for Covid. We get specific advice from two businesses who have been dealing with this over the past few months about what they have learned.

Takeaway tips:

Keep testing. Don’t just trust if a worker has been cleared by a doctor that he or she does not test positive.

Make sure to reward and recognize workers for coming to work.

Look into buying your own cleaning equipment since it may cost less than a cleaning company.

Be as open and communicative with customers as possible.

Don’t count on local health departments for contact tracing to get you up and running quickly. Expect to take this into your own hands

Surviving as a small business right now requires constantly rethinking every aspect of it from how you make money to how you handle reopening. This episode offers specific tips on how small businesses are rethinking their businesses. It also looks at how small businesses that are reopening are already rethinking how they handle Covid policies going forward.

Nearly four months into the Coronavirus pandemic, small businesses are getting the first moment to reflect on what mistakes they’ve made and what they’ve learned from those mistakes. This Small Business Lifeline episode shares practical tips on what we all can learn about running a business over the past few months and what has led businesses to succeed or fail.

One of the biggest lifelines for small businesses in the past few months has been the Paycheck Protection Program and it ends on June 30th. This episode gives listeners tips who don’t have the loans on how they can still apply in the final days. It also gives advice to small businesses that received the loans what they should know about the changing rules on forgiveness.

Takeaway Tips:

If you still have not applied for a loan, the bank must submit your completed loan with all of its qualified paperwork on June 30th.

Rules are changing to make the loan forgiveness process easier - from the length of the application to how much of the loan you have to spend on payroll.

There are pros and cons to the changing rules for loan forgiveness. You have 24 weeks to use the money to pay employees instead of eight weeks. But you can’t simply pay them less.

As small business owners all struggle with how confusing it is to run a business right now, this episode tries to give some tips on how to avoid going broke. We talk to an accountant working with small businesses nationwide on what they’re doing to keep themselves going. And we talk to one small business owner in New York City focused on taking running his business one week at a time.

Topline takeaways

Proceed cautiously with everything you do: If you’re a restaurant reopening, add items gradually to your menu. Hire only back the staff you can keep.

Try not to spend your relief money until you have enough clarity on payback terms.

Try not to spend any revenue you have coming in that you think you could lose later on.

Reevaluate how you run your business and budgets on a week to week basis.

As small businesses have been hard at work trying to reopen after COVID, many dealt with a new roadblock in recent days: looting. This episode of Small Business Lifeline transports listeners into the story of one small business owner navigating the aftermath of being looted on the heels of three months of financial losses. It then features an interview with an insurance company executive who offers specific tips for small businesses that have been looted and what they should do to build the best case to be reimbursed for their claims.

This week on Small Business Lifeline, we focus on what works and what does not work when you do reopen. We talk to a jewelry store owner in Brooklyn who recently reopened and then head to Chicago to talk to a serial entrepreneur.

This week on Small Business Lifeline, we are talking about dealing with insurers and helping you get some answers. We talk to one reporter in New York who has watched small businesses fight back. We then head to Austin, Texas where we talk to an analyst of the insurance industry who may offer other suggestions for what the industry may pay for.