The Sacramento region’s higher education opportunities may get an incredible boost in the next few years should the University of Warwick, England, be successful in building a campus in Placer County. 

It’s a challenge that faces many entrepreneurs of self-built companies. How do you gracefully and lucratively transition a business to a successor or new owner when it’s time to retire?

The challenge of finding sales talent keeps some companies from growing or even surviving. That’s why sales training boosters say it’s time for university business schools to turn out graduates who can take sales jobs and quickly hit their numbers without months — or even years — of on-the-job training.

Are you a successful professional yet perennially single? Your refusal to get digital might be the problem.

Innovative thinking and new market pressures are removing many of the barriers that once stood between small businesses and the capital they need to launch and grow. Now more than ever, small and medium-sized companies are finding success by raising funds from everyday investors.

A well-organized focus group provides feedback you can use to create a strategy to move forward, build on what’s working well, remove obstacles and finally articulate a clear and concise elevator pitch for your brand. Here’s how to conduct one: 

Bad news first: Vacancies in the Sacramento office sector remain high, there were no new construction projects in 2014 and average asking lease rates stayed flat at $1.69 per square foot per month. But these stats are yesterday’s news, say real estate analysts.

All too often, companies fall into bad habits and need a systematic reset of their marketing program in a way that is manageable and sustainable in the long-term. They need to do away with bad habits and increase the good. So where should you begin?     

For all its importance to business survival, companies tend to fail miserably at hiring sales staff. A 2011 survey of more than 400 firms by DePaul University researchers found that hiring one seller costs $29,000. But a lot of that money flutters out into the ether; a third of recruits don’t make it through their first year.

Your next visit to the public library might not be to check out a book. Libraries are becoming critical agents in a sprouting local food movement, so you might instead bite into an actual meal, join a cooking class or even check out garden seeds.