If everyone at your small company started coughing tomorrow you might suspect swine flu. But would you send your workers home? Could you send them home?

After reporting earlier this week that one of its employees was diagnosed with swine flu, Ernst & Young told its workers they could work from home. Typically, large firms like Ernst & Young have the technological resources and size to make such an offer.

The accounting giant later said it could not confirm the earlier diagnosis, but with the number of swine flu cases growing each day this is an issue you should think about carefully. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has told American workers to stay home if they feel sick. If they were to take her advice, what would that mean for your business?

Many small firms don't have a formal sick leave policy.

According to a poll taken last year by the Small Business Digest:

--Only 53% of respondents said they had a written policy that limited sick days (the average was 2.3 days per year.)
--41% said they had no such policy, but are flexible.
--8% said that non-exempt employees were docked for sick days.

Publisher Don Mazzella said his team made phone calls to a host of small firms this week and found that "some were prepared to relax policies for fear of getting more workers sick." But not everyone is worried about a possible outbreak, or how to handle it.

"If anyone were to report feeling sick, I know they'd be encouraged to stay home, especially since most employees here have a very physically demanding job," said Stephen Coady, a spokesman for the Gentle Giant Moving Company that has 200 workers.

Gentle Giant, he added, "tries to balance sick, vacation [and] personal time policies to benefit employees as much as possible, so god forbid we were hit with an epidemic here. I feel confident there would be some flexibility with policies so hourly people could skip working without worrying about their income too much."

Wow, they really are gentle giants!

If this course of action isn't an option for you, you may want to start thinking about how you'd handle something like this just in case.

If remote work is an option, here are some tips from Christine Durst, CEO of Staffcentrix:

--Small firms should focus on having remote collaboration tools in place and make sure that all workers are familiar with how they are used.
--There are a variety of online collaboration tools that will fit every budget and teams of every size.
--Phones can be forwarded in the event that no staff will be left on-site.
--Hardcopy files should be divided, according to who needs them the most, and shared via fax if necessary.

Also, here are some legal issues to keep in mind from employment attorney John Robinson with Fowler White Boggs:

--The Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) provides unpaid leave to employees for serious medical conditions (for employees and their immediate family members). Employees get 90 days of leave. The employer must have 50 employees for FMLA to apply. Employee must work a year to become eligible for leave.
--Check local ordinances and state employment laws, which may provide leave rights beyond FMLA.
--Require employees to provide notes from medical professionals for any non-routine, contagious, or work limitations on sick leave or return to work.
--Institute and apply a "no call, no show" policy for disciplining employees who fail to call in sick. If they fail to call when they stay at home sick, they are disciplined.
--Consider a personal time off policy, where employees have a set number of days in a "leave bank." Employees can take time off for sick days, appointments, family events and leave.
--Institute and publicize sick leave and reporting.

Have you come up with a plan yet? How have you dealt with employee sick time before, especially if many workers were ill at the same time? Share your thoughts below.

Louis Hotchkiss and Junko Kobori, owners of Kobo Candles, a candle making business based just outside Albany, New York, pride themselves on running a "lean and mean" operation. After starting out with 18 employees, they trimmed their staff to just six, and have found that efficiency is the key to success. With a high importance placed on every employee, they've been careful to hire people who can perform many different jobs. Find out how you can run your business more efficiently.

Panelists

--Rod Kurtz, Senior Editor for Inc. Magazine

--Barbara Weltman, author of numerous books on small business, host of the weekly radio show "Build Your Business," and author of the monthly e-newsletter "Big Ideas For Small Business"

Dollars & Sense: Reducing Your Rent

Every dollar counts in this economic climate, and rent is often a large monthly expense for small businesses. Howard E. Greenberg, active tenant broker and President of Howard Properties Ltd., provides some tips on how entrepreneurs can re-negotiate their rent and save precious dollars.

Learning From The Pros: Michael Eisner

Michael Eisner knows what it takes to build and run a successful business. Eisner is the former CEO of The Walt Disney Company, and is now involved in a number of ventures through his investment firm The Tornante Company. Find out some of the business philosophies this media mogul lives by.

1. Refurbished systems

2. Check out retailers and wholesalers

3. Consider a netbook

4. Make sure hardware is compatible

5. Hardware should be manufacturer certified and have a warranty

Source: BMighty.com

UserVoice.com can help you build a more interactive homepage. The site provides software as a service that collects and manages customer feedback through polls and surveys. The polling widget can be built directly onto your homepage.

I'm a big fan of finding a mentor or a counselor to help you launch or grow a business, but that doesn't mean everything they tell you is right.

Lately, a couple of entrepreneurs told me horror stories about advice they got early on in their careers.

One woman who runs a successful fashion Web site told me this week that a small business counselor actually discouraged her from leaving Corporate America and starting her own firm.

Thank goodness she didn't listen.

I tell you this because I'm going to encourage many of you out there to take advantage of a free counseling opportunity, but if you attend I want you to promise to take everything you hear with a grain of salt.

SCORE, a small business counseling program made up of retired executives who volunteer their services and a resource partner with the Small Business Administration, is now holding "speed coaching" sessions around the country.

Why everything has to be speedy these days, I don't know. But I digress.

"It's a chance to talk to our counselors one on one," says Martin Lehman of SCORE New York. "In these times people need help."

The sessions aren't that speedy, about a half hour each, and the events will also include workshops on business planning, financing and marketing.

Alicia Ingram, owner of Atlanta-based marketing solutions company ANI Communications, attended one of the speedy sessions last week.

She's looking to start a new division in her company and needed some advice on how to prioritize what she needed to do.

"For me, what I got most out of the half-hour session was I had someone to help me think through where to start. I solidified my elevator pitch," she explained.

But, like I said, not everything you take away from a counselor is helpful.

Leanne Chase, president of Career Life Connection, was excited about attending a SCORE meeting in Boston, but didn't end up with much help. Despite that, she plans on attending again next week.

"My business is Web based and the person I met with initially had just tried PayPal for the first time during a misunderstanding with an Ebay purchase," she explained. "To be fair, he was not an 'e-commerce' guy. I'm meeting with one of those next week, but he gave me no confidence that he or SCORE could help me take my business to the next level."

She's staying open-minded, but feels SCORE is more helpful in "nuts & bolts -- how to put a business plan together, how to evaluate a business idea, but not how to take a newly-launched business and get it to the next step."

Ingram, who got more out of the event, suggested interested entrepreneurs do their homework on the advisors they'll be meeting with to find out if it's a good fit.

For cities and dates for the SCORE event, done in partnership with American Express OPEN, check out this link.

Have you ever received bad business advice? Did you take it? What happened?

Looking forward to your comments.

One of my regular guests, Phil Town, author of the book "Rule #1," has offered us the following advice many times on the show:

"Hire slowly, fire quickly."

Training employees is expensive, so if you're going to go through the effort make sure you're doing it with the right person (hence, "hire slowly"). And paying for an employee who is not doing his job well is costly too, so get rid of them as soon as possible (hence, "fire quickly").

Phil is very clear that he does not believe in giving workers many chances (if any at all).

If you've been in this situation yourself, you know it's easier said than done.

In a small business, people often work so closely that they become like family. So when it's time to lay people off, the employer may have very intimate knowledge of how this will change that individual's life -- how they may have trouble paying their mortgage, or their child's school tuition expenses.

Or it could be even simpler than that -- the employer may just like the employee personally, or perhaps the employer is worried about how firing someone will change the dynamic of the workplace.

Because of the state of the economy, there are a lot of qualified people out there looking for jobs. Multiple guests have said on "Your Business" that this is the time to swap out people. If you have someone on your team who is not performing as well as you think he should, replace that person. People are available right now, and they're going cheap.

I recently had a long conversation with someone who was struggling with this issue. On the one hand, he knows that he could probably find someone better than the person he has to fill one particular position. On the other hand, he feels terrible about the idea of laying someone off in this economy.

He said that, as a business person, he knows that he should focus on his company, not his employee's personal situation, but that as a person with a heart, he cannot help but care about someone who has worked for him for the past year.

For the time being, he's decided not to replace that employee. He's going to give that individual a chance and hopes that with some more training and managing, she will do a better job.

I know that Phil Town would say that he's making a mistake. I'd love to hear what you think about this topic. Are you struggling with the same issue? Send me your thoughts.

Business incubators such as the Brooklyn Navy Yards are commercial areas where startups can find space with modest rental fees and a supportive atmosphere in which to grow their business. See how Miranda Magagnini, co-owner of Ice Stone, and Kevin McElroy of Green Matters have used this supportive environment to grow their businesses, and find out if a business incubator is right for you.

Panelists

--James Barrood, Executive Director of the Rothman Institute of Entrepreneurial Studies at Silberman College of Business at Fairleigh Dickinson University

--Steve Strauss, small business columnist for USA Today, and author of "The Small Business Bible: Everything You Need to Know to Succeed in Your Small Business"

Profit Margin: Web 2.0, Twitter

Joel Comm, CEO of new media firm InfoMedia Inc., and author of "Twitter Power: How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time" provides some tips on how small business owners can use Twitter to market their businesses.

Elevator Pitch

Scott Farrell, President of Scott Farrell Media pitches The Happeseat, a revolutionary car seat cover that is washable and can be installed and removed in seconds. He is looking for capital to expand production and distribution.

1. Eliminate raises and bonuses

2. Cut back on 401(k)

3. Examine medical coverage

4. Look at phone service

5. Cut shipping costs

Source: BarbaraWeltman.com

Schedulicity.com provides easy online reservation software so you never lose track of appointments. Registered users can create a listing for their business and link to it from their homepage. Clients can access your calendar and browse your schedule to find a time that works for them.

I keep hearing lately how a recession is a good time for people to start businesses.

Call me cynical, but this sounds like something a crazy person would say, or someone just being counterintuitive to get attention. There's a lot of that going around lately.

"It's completely counterintuitive," agrees Thomas Koulopoulos, author of "The Innovation Zone: How Great Companies Re-Innovate for Amazing Success."

But he still thinks there's some benefit in unleashing your entrepreneurial juices during a crummy economy.

"It's not going to be a cakewalk. I'm not going to be Pollyannaish about it," he maintains.

However, he adds, with so many people unemployed right now and the prospects of finding comparable work not that great, "why not take that break and innovate something, provide a benefit to folks, or start a new business?"

The question for me still is, is it a good idea, especially now?

He offers five reasons why it is a good idea:

    1. Many people will fall back and try to create their own venture while looking for new employment and waiting for the economy to get better. Of necessity, many of those folks end up building their own businesses at a time when costs are low and labor is relatively cheap. These new business often deliver the same services as their past employers at a far lower cost with lower overhead.
    2. Large companies are far less likely to interfere with competing employees and small entrepreneurial ventures even though they may pose a threat, since they have bigger problems to content with; therefore, innovation flourishes under the radar.
    3.  Powerful new alliances are formed among unemployed workers who join forces to recreate everything they felt was wrong with their old employers.
    4.  The companies that are started in a recession are very capital efficient and don't need a lot of money to keep going.
    5.  The abundant supply of cheap office space to rent and talented staff are easier to find.

OK, ok, so there are some good reasons. But I needed examples of companies that actually were born during tough economic times.

To that, he offered this list:

1876 GE
1931 Allstate Insurance
1939 HP
1954 Burger King
1955 McDonalds
1957 Hyatt
1973 FedEx
1975 Microsoft
1976 Apple Computer
1980 CNN
1981 MTV
1992 Cliff Bar
2000 Methods (soaps)

Hmm. There's still this particular recession, one of the worst on record. Maybe this economy is different than the rest. Indeed, credit markets are squeezed, and good luck getting a loan to fund your idea.

"When you're in the middle of a recession people always want to say this is different," he says. "They're right, but most small business owners get their funding from home equity loans or refinancing their house." And with low interest right now, he adds, that may be an option for many people.

Another factor making it easier for entrepreneurs to follow their dreams, he says, is social media and networking.

Good points, but what do you all think? Did you start a business during an economic rough patch? Or have you shelved your dreams until things turn around?

Despite the down economy, some small businesses are actually thriving. Elizabeth Frank, founder of Eye5 Marketing, which books models and actors for corporate events, and Alex Grossman, founder of Men on the Street Productions, a boutique advertising agency, are seeing increased business as a result of their competitive price points and the flexibility they can offer to clients. Find out how your business can benefit from a recession.

Panelists

--Michael Port, creator of the business consulting brand Book Yourself Solid and author of "The Think Big Manifesto: Think You Can't Change Your Life (and the World) Think Again"

--Liz Hamburg, President of Upstart Ventures, and co-host of Launchpad, a weekly radio show dedicated to small business and entrepreneurship

Profit Margin: Web 2.0, The Power of Facebook

Larry Weber, founder of the W2 Group, a marketing services company, and author of "Marketing to the Social Web: How Digital Consumer Communities Build Your Business"

Green Matters: Green Office Gadgets

Michelle Madden, CEO of GreenYour.com, a green living website, shows off some eco-friendly tools that can help you go green around the office.

1. Discount goods

2. Fast food

3. Education and health services

4. Secondhand goods

5. Medical facilities

Source: Entrepreneur.com

TopCoder Direct connects software developers with potential clients. Users can create a proposal listing all of their needs on a variety of projects, and developers can compete for the job. TopCoder Direct can help you with projects such as software creation, building a web site, and graphic design.

Many of you who read my Twitter post a couple of months ago took me up on the offer to get on the social networking site and started tweeting to help promote your business.

Unfortunately, many of you just don't seem to get Twitter yet (don't worry -- I'm not going to name names).

You can't just tweet over and over again about your products or services. Well, actually you can do whatever you want on Twitter, but just listing products in hopes someone will head over to your Web site and buy your wares is going to get you ostracized, aka un-followed, and fast.

For the majority of people out there that don't know, first I'll start by explaining what the heck Twitter is.

Don't pretend you know. You may have heard about Twitter on TV, but you're still scratching your head. I just spoke at a women's leadership conference in Omaha and when I asked an audience of 200 plus people how many of them didn't know what the heck Twitter is, 99.9 percent of the attendees raised their hands.

What makes Twitter so different from other social networking sites is that it's like a mini blog that is perpetually updated, but not by just one blogger.

The millions of people on Twitter update this public blog with small notes of 140 characters or less called "tweets."

So millions of people can potentially see your tweets. What better way to market your business?

The key is striking the right balance when promoting your stuff on Twitter.

People that tweet, for the most part, are looking to share interesting information. If you can share a great article, or an interesting video, be assured, you'll soon be getting a ton of followers. That's how it works. You follow interesting people and people follow you. The more followers you have, the bigger your audience.

Instead of focusing on what not to tweet, I thought I'd share an example of an entrepreneur, new to Twitter, who seems to have it down.

Tracy Barnhart owns the Web site MiniMeGeology and her Twitter handle is minimegeology. Her company sells rock kits for kids.

She's been on Twitter since Jan. 1 and believes it's helping to enhance her business. She hasn't done a breakdown on how many people actually found her on Twitter, but this past quarter her sales are up 25 percent over last year.

"I had heard people talking about it and at first I thought it was kinda silly," she admited. "But then I started using it and realized I could find people interested in the same things as me, or customers interested in hearing what I had to say."

Here's how she tweets:

If you have snow: Teach your kids about metamorphic rocks. Make a snowball and squeeze hard, see it change from snow to ice = metamorphism.

Good morning everyone! I'm working on igneous rocks today. Got a favorite? I'd love to hear it!

Need Easter Basket items? Check out our sister site www.MiniMeGeology.com. Mention twitter and we'll send you some rock candy w/ your order.

She maintains a nice balance of informing and trying to push her product.

Twitter has also provided her with a great business-networking tool.

She's in the process of hiring a sales team and found a prospect through a woman she met via Twitter who owns a toy store in Virginia.

Yep, it's all about making connections folks.

Have you started using Twitter, or any of the other social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn to promote your business?

(Go over to Twitter.com and check it out for yourself. You can also follow me at www.Twitter.com/careerdiva and ask me how you're doing.)

Your opinion counts!

We've made changes to the Your Business show Web page based on your previous feedback.

Now please fill out our survey and tell us if you like it.

Evident Technologies has an adaptive business plan. The Troy, New York based company originally started out in the telecom industry, but CEO Clint Ballinger shifted their specialization to the "small" world of nanotechnology when he saw that was a more profitable line of work. Evident Technologies now sells nanotechnology to a diverse group of customers including the military. Find out how small business owners can continually adapt their businesses to the changing demands of their market.

Panelists

--Steve Little, author of "The Milkshake Moment: Overcoming Stupid Systems, Pointless Policies and Muddled Management to Realize Real Growth"

--Kylie Sachs, partner with Ascend Venture Group

Learning from the Pros: Maxine Clark, Build-A-Bear Workshop

Maxine Clark, founder and CEO of Build-A-Bear Workshop, discusses the strategies she's used to grow her teddy bear themed retail entertainment empire to more than 400 locations around the world.

Profit Margin: Blogging 101

Elizabeth Kanna, business strategist with Kanna & Co., a boutique consultancy, discuss the blogging phenomenon and how small business owners can use blogs to cost-effectively market and grow their businesses.

MyFico.com provides personal credit information and education about the world of credit reports. You can find out what your credit score is and how to lower it. You can also look into what type of loan might work best for your business.

1. Detailed company history

2. Personal information

3. Finacials

4. Legal documents

5. Verify everything

Source: Business.gov

I attended a trade show down south last week and was surprised at how busy it was. In spite of the economy, attendance by both exhibitors and attendees was strong.

In fact, many companies I spoke to told me that this is not the time to skimp on marketing. While most of them are not planning any over-the-top campaigns, they're still continuing with efforts to attract leads and customers. So in light of that I wanted to go back to a story we did a while ago on "Your Business" called Trade Show 101.

Now more than ever, if you spend thousands of dollars on a trade show, you want to make sure you get a return on that investment.

Here's what we learned from Bill Lynch, Operations Manager for the Fancy Food Show in New York City, and from Dan Cohen of Clearbrook Farms who has been exhibiting at trade shows for more than 30 years:

--Never leave your booth. It sounds obvious, right? But it isn't. If you've ever worked a trade show before you'll know there are times when it's so slow you want to walk around to combat the boredom, or you're so sick of giving the same pitch that you feel like you're going to pull your hair out. It doesn't matter. You have to stay at your booth. After all, what's the point of being there if you're not actually there?

--Follow up on your leads. It's easy to collect leads these days. Most of the professional trade shows allow you to rent a gadget that will take someone's conference card and record their information for you to use at a later date. Be sure to add notes to those contacts -- a little something to make your future communication a little more personal.

--Read all of the show materials. Bill told us that exhibitors can save up to 40 percent of their expenses by just reading the show materials, where they'll find out about deadline dates, how to order the right supplies (so they're not adding things on at the last minute, which costs more) and how to deliver their booths to the show at a reasonable price.

--Take advantage of show specials. This is different for each show, but there may be discounts for first time exhibitors.

--Smile and look people in the eye.

Having an exhibit at a big trade show can cost anything between $10,000 to hundreds of thousands of dollars. It all depends on how you put together your booth.

These days, it's pretty easy to put together a nice booth without breaking the bank. You can get professional looking signs at advantumdisplays.com. And instead of offering a product as a handout --like a pen with your company's name on it -- put out a bowl of candy.

I'd love to hear from those of you who have exhibited at trade shows.

What have you learned? What works? What doesn't?

It's April 1 and the world has not come to an end.

Many of you might seem surprised because the latest cyber worm threat, Conficker, was billed as a ticking time bomb. Even 60 Minutes got into the act this past weekend with a scary piece on the cyber threat.

I don't know about you, but these endless stories about cyber sabotage are starting to sound like parent threatening a child with the bogeyman.

The latest cyber culprit is called "Conficker." It was detected in November and exploits security gaps in Microsoft's Windows program.

Supposedly, it's going to begin forming a computer army today to take over the world.

OK, I may be exaggerating a bit, but that's close to what the 60 Minutes episode tried to infer.

Here's Leslie Stahl's take:

"Conficker investigators have been talking about an April Fool's attack, because in dissecting the worm, they can see it's been programmed to receive new instructions on April 1. But nobody knows if the instructions will be benign, or something that could disrupt the entire Internet."

She called worms and viruses "creepy, crawly toxic software that contaminate our computers without our ever knowing it."

Sounds like something out of "Body Snatchers."

I'm not downplaying the damage cyber crimes can cause and the importance of Internet security. I even wrote about the topic for the New York Times a few years back.

But we're starting to take a sky-is-falling approach to these issues, and cyber protection companies that make money from our panic often fan the flames and are more than willing to be quoted by every media outlet out there.

I guess it makes sense since they're the ones with the knowledge, but we should be extra skeptical when they predict Internet Armageddon.

I've already gotten quite a few emails from Internet security companies this week, and one I got yesterday even mentions the 60 Minutes story in the subject line:

"60 Minutes" 4/1 Huge Internet Threat report ...

Among all the hype on the Internet, I found one voice of reason: Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, a ZDNet blogger,

He actually put together a "No Bull Guide to Conficker." Here's an excerpt:

"Some antivirus companies love to hype malware because it's a great way to sell security products. While Conficker isn't new (it's been around since November last year), the April 1st trigger date gives security firms the opportunity to ratchet up the hype a couple of more notches (and help drive concerned users straight into the hands of cybercriminals). However, it's important to note that it's unclear right now as to what will happen come the trigger date. However, what is clear is that you will need to be infected to be at risk of anything happening at all."

What's your take? Is it hype or sensible fear? Have you ever been a victim of a "creepy, crawly" cyber villain?