Small-business optimism was lower in August, with an index maintained by the National Federation of Independent Business declining to 91.3, compared with 91.9 during the prior month. The drop represented the first decline since April, and NFIB Chief Economist Bill Dunkelberg said that "inflation and the worker shortage continue to be the biggest obstacles for Main Street."

Personal consumption is predicted to decline early next year, according to more than half of the respondents to Bloomberg's latest Markets Live Pulse survey, which would mark the first quarterly drop since the pandemic's onset. Meanwhile, 21% of respondents said the drop will occur in the last quarter of this year as consumers spend their COVID-19 savings and borrowing costs erode budgets.

Imperial Dade recently announced the acquisition of Quebec-based Ralik, a distributor of paper goods and packaging materials. The Ralik acquisition is the 72nd deal under the leadership of Chairman Robert Tillis and CEO Jason Tillis and the 10th acquisition of 2023. Tillis called Ralik "a great addition to [Imperial Dade's] growing North American platform."

B2B buyer behavior report from BigCommerce finds that many respondents shop online at business-to-business marketplaces, use search engines and online marketplaces to find products, value accurate prices and are most frustrated by technical problems, poor customer service and slow websites. "B2B merchants need to have a strong online presence and offer a seamless omnichannel shopping experience to keep buyers loyal and converting -- or risk losing market share," says Lance Owide, BigCommerce's general manager of B2B.

Developing a digital supply chain to better understand data and analytics is expected to be the top supply chain trend in 2024, according to the Association for Supply Chain Management. Last year's top trend -- big data and analytics -- fell to number two this year, and other notable trends include artificial intelligence, visibility/traceability and supply chain investments.

Salespeople should spend more time asking customers the right questions and genuinely listening to the answers to help buyers discover their needs, insights and ideas, which will help generate more sales, writes Paul Reilly. The sales trainer offers seven questions salespeople can ask customers, including queries on their product expectations, ideal outcome scenarios and what does and does not work with their current solutions.

Internal customer service has three parts: "the warm welcome, service or product delivery and fond farewell," writes consultant Micah Solomon. Internal customer service training should stress listening to co-workers, careful choice of language and no tolerance of bad behavior, Solomon writes.

Accomplish more in your day by breaking big projects into a series of smaller tasks that can give you a sense of accomplishment, avoid multitasking and take interruptions into account when thinking about how long a project will take, writes psychologist Michael Wiederman. "Schedule and protect blocks of time set aside for specific deep work, and alter your surroundings to minimize distractions and interruptions," Wiederman advises.

For a long time, Federal Reserve officials were united in the idea that it is better to raise rates too much than too little, but that consensus now appears to be faltering. Some officials have started to point to risks on both sides of the equation, highlighting the threat of raising rates too fast, leading to an unnecessary downturn.