Small Business Resource Center

If you have a specific question or need personalized assistance call 1-877-655-3566 and press 1 to receive free human resources (HR) consultation or Access Human Resources Services online.

Please have your USLI policy number available for easy registration.

Representatives are available from 8:00 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. ET to answer all of your HR questions.

This helpline can be used for personnel issues including but not limited to:

• Harassment and discrimination
• Corrective discipline and termination
• Wage and hour regulations
• Family and Medical Leave Act
• Americans with Disabilities Act

Conveniently access an online library of human resources information, forms and articles to assist you with your HR needs.

• Submit email inquiries after hours
• Gain advice on how best to address any human resource situation
• Access a library of human resources, industry training, newsletters,
  and human resource recommendations
• Retrieve sample administrator manuals and forms
• Access a New Hire Service Pack reference guide to assist you when
  bringing new employees into your organization. Acquire sample
  interview questions, and guidelines for processing applicants,
  documenting interviews, checking references, and completing
  background checks. You will also gain advice on how to process new
  hires and report new hires to applicable state agencies.

Access Human Resources Services >>
Please have your USLI policy number available for easy registration.

Background Check Services
Hiring the best employees is an important task for your organization. Through our partnership with Background Info USA, you have access to the comprehensive background checks that your small business needs, including:

• Multi-Court Criminal Database Search
• Sex offender registry for 50 states
• Social Security Number verification
• One Single-County Criminal Search
• OFAC/Global Homeland Security Check
• Adverse Action Notices

You will receive your first TWO background checks for FREE, and subsequent checks will be substantially discounted.

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Drug Abuse Screenings
A well thought out employee drug testing policy is an important component of an employee screening.  Through our partnership with Background Info USA, you have access to a 10-Panel Urine Screening for the low cost of $31. There are more than 8,000 collection sites, and representatives will assist you to match your company’s location with the closest collection sites available. 

Motor Vehicle Record Reports
Reviewing an applicant’s Motor Vehicle Record is important for those required to operate a company or personal vehicle for business purposes. Records highlight driving history over the past 3 to 7 years and are available in all 50 states and Washington DC.  Through our partnership with Background Info USA, you will have access to MVR reports for the low cost of $3.45 + the applicable state fees. 

Tenant Screening Services
Tenant screenings are necessary in determining if your prospective tenant has a good rental history and will be a rent worthy tenant for you.  Through our partnership with Background Info USA, you have access to these valuable tenant screenings at a discounted cost of $11.99.  These tenant screenings include:

• Consumer Credit Report & FICO Score
• Mutli-Court Criminal Database Search
• Multi-Court Eviction Database Search
• Registered Sex Offender/OFAC Search
• Adverse Action Notices

Access Pre-Employment & Tenant Screenings >>

One of the biggest challenges of running a small business is collecting on overdue accounts.  Through our partnership with Background Info USA, collection services are offered at a discounted cost of $14.99 and will help you collect on almost every account

Utilizing this service will get your organization the money it is owed and save you time that you can spend running your business!

Register today to access the above service and to learn more.  Once you have entered your contact information, a representative will contact you to activate your account.
Access Collection Services >>

Caliper Profile

The Caliper Profile is an assessment instrument that will assist your organization in basing hiring decisions on solid, objective information and in-depth insights. With the Caliper Profile, consultants provide you with a clear, accurate picture of a candidate's strengths, limitations, motivations, and potential. These insights will help you make the right hiring decisions and determine how someone will perform in a specific role. As an USLI policyholder, you have access to this resource at a discounted price.

Learn more about the Caliper Profile and account setup to receive discounted pricing >>


Recruiting and Interviewing Online Training Module

Learn techniques to recruit and interview with confidence with our FREE online training module. You will acquire skills necessary to select candidates that match your company values, as well as the requirements of the position. These skills are critical to ensuring your company’s success.

Register to view the Online Training Module >>

Find many useful resources through the links below.

Disaster Safety
Visit this website developed by the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety to identify the natural hazards that could put your business at risk.  You will gain access to news articles and tips on how to reduce risks and protect your business.

A Disaster Protection and Recovery Planning Toolkit
Prepared by the Institute for Business & Home Safety, this toolkit gives you access to business continuity forms that will assist you with disaster planning and recovery.  Recommendations follow many of the disaster planning and recovery processes used by larger companies, but you won’t need a large company budget to accomplish these planning and protection basics.

Be Red Cross Ready
Access a checklist prepared by the American Red Cross that outlines simple actions that you can take that will help you prepare for possible disasters and other emergencies.

Small Business Administration
Visit the U.S. Small Business Administration webpage to access a library of free online courses for managing your business and to gather information on disaster assistance, and applying for government loans and grants.

Annual Credit Report
Protecting yourself from Identity Theft is important and knowing your credit score is one way to monitor if you are at risk.  Under the FACT Act amendments to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, you are entitled to one free personal credit report in a 12-month period.  Visit the above link or call toll-free 877-FACT-ACT (322-8228) to request your free annual report.

The Virtual Small Business Tax Workshop
Access an online training developed by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).  This training is designed to help you understand and meet your federal tax obligations.  Learn what you need to know about federal taxes and how to set-up and run your business so paying taxes isn’t a hassle.  You will gain valuable information regarding the tax requirements of having employees and you will learn how to set-up retirement plans for yourself and your employees.

Online Learning – Crash Courses to help you run your small business
Crash Courses are powered by American Express Open Forum, and allow you to educate yourself on a variety of topics that will assist you in running your small business.  Courses are interactive and focused on providing you with the necessary information that you need to know!

An identity is stolen every four seconds in the U.S. If you’re ever a victim of identity theft, restoring your identity to pre-theft status can be costly and time consuming. Through our partnership with ID Experts, you have access to purchase discounted packages that include identity theft monitoring, recovery and $20,000 in reimbursement insurance if a theft does occur. You have four packages to choose from, depending on the level of credit monitoring you elect to purchase.

Learn more about ID Experts and the discounted packages that are available >>

Train your staff in the responsible selling and service of alcoholic beverages through liquortraining.com. Protect your business, your employees and save money in the process.

Save on your premium!

• 15% credit per year on liquor liability insurance if all servers are trained
• Low cost: Only $15 per server
• Three year certification
• Online course
• Complete training in less than two hours
• Visit liquortraining.com or call 800.442.1149, ext. 154

Once you complete the course and final exam, you can print a temporary certificate for your records. We will also send you an official certification card and notify any appropriate state agencies. Get started >>

As a small business, you and your team may wear the hats of owner, new business development, marketer, writer and designer.

We've rounded up the best marketing tools that our own professionals use everyday to make those hats less heavy. Our creative marketers also share many free resources that they have reviewed, trialed and recommend to help grow your business without busting your budget.

• Mail Chimp - MailChimp helps you design email newsletters, share them on social networks, integrate with services you already use, and track your results. It's like your own personal publishing platform.
• Wufoo - Wufoo is a web application that helps anybody build amazing online forms. When you design a form with Wufoo, it automatically builds the database, backend and scripts needed to make collecting and understanding your data easy, fast and fun.
• Big Tent - Use Big Tent to manage group conversations and documents within your team virtually anywhere via the Internet. You can also leverage this online service for creating and leading conversations in other interest groups with customers or community members.
• Stock Photography & Images (Royalty Free) - Purchase credits or through a subscription plan. Use your credits to download royalty-free images. Images can be used for advertising, Web sites, blogs, presentations, video productions, podcasts and more. Providers we like include Dreamstime and iStock Photo.
  
  Use Picasa to organize, edit and share your photos. Excellent desktop photograph editor with many features available to the professionals.
  
  Capture images or make a video of anything on your computer screen using Snagit or Jing. Snagit is a paid program with many more robust features like annotations. Both are developed by TechSmith which offers a complete array of useful tools for small and large businesses.
• Animoto - Create stunning videos using your own video clips, pictures and music to share on your Web site or on social media.
• EventBrite - Create your own events and sell tickets online.
• Quick Response (QR) Codes - Create graphic codes to place on your marketing promotions which when scanned with a smart device like an mobile phone or e-reader will open your Web page. Also, you can create your own QR code products here on merchandise items and more.
• InstaPaper - A simple tool to save Web pages for reading later. This is useful for all of the online resources at your fingertips but require a revisit.
• Document Management - Create, share and edit documents online with Google Documents. Make those documents into PDFs without the full version of Adobe Acrobat using Cute PDF.
• Prezi - Make amazing presentations
• Fonts - Whether you're developing your brand or just need some fancy looking headline for a promotional postcard, you will need the perfect font. You can find many great choices on the Internet which can be installed directly on your computer for use. We recommend dafont.com and abstractfonts.com. Many are free and allow you to search by categories, as well as view the font applied to your own sample text.
• DropSend - Send large files instantly. When your files are too big for email, this is a great alternative solution that's safe and secure.
• Training - Our designers' favorite training Web site is Lynda.com. The Khan Academy also offers many diverse training programs online.

Your company’s Web site can be an exceptional sales tool by providing information and outstanding convenience for customers. Getting your Web site in front of customers and increasing your visibility to potential customers can be overwhelming with acronyms, opinions, expensive programs and a significant learning curve. However, there are tools available, ready to provide you with the knowledge and technology needed to get optimal exposure for your Web site.

• Web Site Management, Analytics & Search Engine Optmization - Leverage Wordpress' easy to use platform primarily built for blogging as a tool to build your Web site. It features simple text styling tools to craft your content and embed images. Hosting services offer simple one-click installations. We recommend 1and1.com for hosting. We also recommend Artisteer for developing your Web site template. A very affordable solution, Artisteer allows anyone to be a Web site designer with quick tools to style and control many areas of the Web page layout. Templates can be exported as HTML to provide to a contracted designer or in many content management system formats like Wordpress and more. We also like Joomla! as a content management system.
  
  We also recommend Adobe Muse which will allow you develop not only a Web site page organizational chart, but allow you to start creating basic page drafts.

The best place to start improving your Web site’s visibility is by understanding where your existing traffic is coming from and your visitor’s usage habits. There are a number of Web analytics programs available to provide this information, with Google Analytics being one of the most popular. Google Analytics is a free resource that provides statistical information about Web site visitors, search words used to find your site and usage habits such as duration of visit, most popular pages and downloads.

Analytics programs offer the groundwork for the next step in improving Web site visibility. Search engine optimization (SEO) and pay per click (PPC) programs are two effective methods of increasing traffic to your Web site. Search engine optimization is a highly effective, no/low cost technique used to increase the natural (un-paid) visibility on a search engine using content, blogs, links and social media. Pay per click programs use words purchased from search engines to improve your Web site’s visibility. Using one method or a combination of both methods can give your Web site a boost in traffic and the potential for increased business.

The following resources will help you get started:

• Web Site Analytics - Tie it all together with free Web site analytics by Google. Read Understanding Google Analytics
• Curious about Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? Read this beginners guide. And learn various methods for increased traffic.

It can be difficult for a small business to find the time and money to implement a social media strategy. Regardless, having a presence on social media sites is important to future success and customer engagement.

Resources for managing your social media presence online are everywhere, mostly free and easy for anyone to develop. Before developing a social media presence, ask yourself:

Where your target audience is to decide where to promote products and services

• If potential customers seem to be connecting on Facebook, create a Facebook account
• If you want to network with professionals in business associations, join LinkedIn
• If your potential customers are ones that might be on the road frequently, create a Twitter to offer instantaneous information
• If you have videos about products and services to offer, create a YouTube account

The resources below are divided by topic to help you get started.

Landscape:
Social Media Landscape [Infographic]
CMO's Guide to Social Media Landscape

 

Popular Platforms:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Twitter | Google+ | YouTube | Instagram | Vimeo | Pinterest | Flickr | Foursquare | Tumblr | Wordpress

News:

Mashable | Social Media Examiner | Social Media Mags | Mari Smith | Smashing Magazine | AllFacebook | Social Media Today| Forbes | Sprout Insights

Resources & Tools:

DISQUS | Hootsuite | HyperAlerts | Klout | ShortStack | Woobox | SmugMug | Evernote | Reddit | Twitterfeed

 

Social Media Policies:

Social Media Policy Tool | Social Media Policy Examples

 

Good Reads:

Hiring for social media roles | Steps to social maturity and engagement | The fundamentals of posting and the modern crisis | Internal Crisis Management Webinar | Building Stronger Customer Relationships/Making Your Brand More Personal | How to Transform Your Small Business With Social Media | 30 Ideas for Your 2012 Social Media Plan | Gathering Customer Feedback Offline and Through Social Media | 7 Terrific Ways to Use Social Media for Instant Feedback | Top 3 Reasons You Must Follow Your Competitors on Social Media | Tracking Social Media: Introduction to Social Media Monitoring | The Basics of Social Media Monitoring | 64 Facebook Content Tips