BBB Tip of the Week: Marking Small Business Week

Small businesses are the backbone of our country. They inject stability into our local economy, and the collective commitment to their respective communities allows all of us to have a better quality of life.

This year, Small Business Week is celebrated nationally from Sunday to Saturday, and Better Business Bureau Northwest and Pacific will be in your community to celebrate those who have shouldered the responsibility of being a small-business owner.

The idea of starting a small business is a dream for so many, but knowing the risk is often high and not all of us decide to take the plunge. Along with the risk also comes hard work and long hours, a reality compounded by high expectations and the impatient nature of many customers. The service, quality and speed of delivery impact current and potential customers’ experiences in so many ways. Businesses who are unable or unwilling to appeal to and adapt to each customer’s needs could find themselves left behind.

In 2018, there were 590,908 small businesses employing 1.3 million workers in the state of Washington, or 51.5 percent of employed residents, according to the Small Business Administration. Health care/social assistance, accommodation/food services and construction comprise the top three industries, which in total accounted for more than 500,000 employees statewide. For those who want to dive deeper into job stats and facts for Washington or any other state in the country, visit www.sba.gov.

Better Business Bureau Northwest and Pacific wants to provide as much information for current and potential small business owners to give them the best chance to be successful. In June 2018, Better Business Bureau joined with the Federal Trade Commission to release information from a study on “Scams and Your Small Business.”

The three riskiest scams were:

Bank/credit card imposter scams were the riskiest, according to our measurement tool based on exposure, susceptibility and monetary loss. Under the guise of verifying account information, scammers fool their targets into sharing credit card or banking information.

Directory listing and advertising scams are the second-riskiest for small businesses. As new businesses begin to grow their customer bases, they are looking for new ways to get the word out about their products and services. Scammers ask them to pay for an advertisement in a directory or “Yellow Pages.” In some cases, the directory exists but is not widely distributed and therefore worthless. In other cases, the directory is fake, and the ad is never placed anywhere.

Fake-check scams are the third-riskiest and are used as a tactic for a variety of scams. Sometimes the check is a payment for products or services but it’s an overpayment, and the scammer asks the business to wire back the difference. In other cases, they ask the overpayment to be sent to a third party for taxes or to purchase supplies. In either case, businesses are asked to deposit a fake check and wire the difference. The business later learns the check is fake after they’ve wired money to the scammer and the business is liable for the missing funds.

To protect your business, BBB recommends the following:

Train and inform your employees. Discuss scams during team meetings, encourage employees to talk about it with their coworkers and train them how to respond to random phone and email requests.

Verify invoices and payments. Never pay until you’ve confirmed you received the goods or service, create clear procedures for approving invoices an dmake sure major spending can’t be triggered with an unexpected call, email or invoice.

Be tech-savvy. Don’t believe your caller ID (they can fake this). It’s easy to create legitimate-looking websites and emails. Don’t open attachments or download files from unexpected emails and secure your files, passwords and financial information.

Know who you’re dealing with. Do research on a new company before doing business, check BBB.org and ask for recommendations from other businesses.

We will be out in the community celebrating small businesses this week. If you know someone who has a small business, thank them. They do so much more for us on a daily, weekly and yearly basis.

Thank you, small business owners everywhere. We salute you all.

You can see profiles of small, medium and large businesses alike on our website: www.bbb.org.