• Businesses struggle to cope with the flu
  The flu is making a lot of people sick this year, and small businesses may suffer if employees or customers become ill. "The last time we experienced this was in 2009 with the H1N1 flu. But the situation with this flu is much worse," said Cheryl Rumley, who owns a company called Apex Healthcare Services. Rumley has had to bring in temporary workers to fill in for sick employees. CNNMoney (1/11)      

Check out the Social Buzz around Retail's BIG Show SmartBrief's live coverage of Retail's BIG Show on Storify provides a curated collection of the best social media content about the show. See it now.

• How to turn Pinterest into a business tool in 4 steps
  Businesses can set up dedicated Pinterest accounts instead of trying to work around the restrictions placed on personal accounts, Amber Wallor writes. The network makes it easy to set up a business account, verify your business' website and integrate Pinterest's social features into your home page, Wallor writes. The network also offers a best-practices guide to help business users find strategies that work, she writes. SmartBrief/SmartBlog on Social Media (1/11)      

• Resolve to enhance your customer service in 2013
  If you want to improve your company's customer service in 2013, you should resolve to keep calm and be nice, writes Michael Hess of Skooba Design. "Don't ever argue or be defensive with people -- there will always be difficult, unreasonable and angry customers, but very few of them are out to get you or your company," he advises. CBS MoneyWatch (1/11)      

• Why Asian-Americans are a key demographic you should be targeting in your marketing
  NetworkSolutions.com/Grow Smart Business blog (1/11)      

• A 6-part process for evaluating your employees
  If you don't want to do a traditional performance review for your employees, there's another way to evaluate their contributions, writes Tom Searcy. If you choose to use this approach, you should focus on your employees' achievements and personal characteristics and your company's goals during the review process, he writes. Inc. online (free registration)/Explosive Growth blog (1/8)      

• How to get problem employees back on track
  Ineffective management could be the problem if you're noticing performance issues with your employees, according to Jason Carney of WorkSmart Systems. It's important for managers to hold regular meetings with the people they oversee and to provide additional training if necessary. "Making sure they feel they're getting the support they need from their managers is absolutely key," Carney explains. BenefitsPro.com (1/11)      

• What you need to know about smart pricing
  Pricing your products and services is a key part of doing business, and yet many companies don't make it a priority during the product-development process, according to Kevin Mitchell of the Professional Pricing Society. "It works much better if you consider the pricing from the start and have everything else follow behind that, because the price is essentially the money that you're going to get," he said. You should also realize that your customers may be less price-sensitive than you think. Intuit Small Business Blog (1/11)      

• Where SMB websites frequently fall short
  Small-business owners should carefully audit their websites to make sure they aren't dropping the ball in key areas, writes Melissa Fach. Glitchy contact forms, bug-ridden payment pages or long load-times all risk turning off potential customers and sending them to search elsewhere. "Your website is your storefront online. It needs to be flawless," Fach explains. Small Business Trends (1/10)      

• How to stop sensitive data from falling into the wrong hands
  Businesses may risk exposing sensitive information to crooks if they fail to wipe the data from their computers before recycling them. A number of techniques can be used to destroy data; for example, hard drives can be shredded or exposed to a powerful magnet. Bloomberg Businessweek (1/8)      

• The best free substitutes for Microsoft Office
  Intuit Small Business Blog (1/10)      

• State laws secure employees' social media accounts
  Six states -- Illinois, California, Michigan, New Jersey, Maryland and Delaware -- now have laws designed to prevent employers from forcing employees to hand over their account information for social media sites, writes Dave Johnson. However, employees should remember that they may still face repercussions for content they post on sites such as Facebook or Twitter, he notes. CBS MoneyWatch (1/11)      

Top five news stories selected by SmartBrief on Main Street readers in the past week.

• How small companies are misunderstanding the employer mandate (Forbes)

• How to handle an IRS audit (CFO.com)

• How to improve your professional reputation (Council of Public Relations Firms)

• 3 tips for explaining your company in a way that connects with customers (Entrepreneur online)

• 3 tips for protecting your online reputation (Small Business Trends)

• Results based on number of times each story was clicked by readers.

The flu spreads easily. The risk in the workplace is that we can touch a sick person's computer, phone or even transmit the flu just by passing a folder." --Scott Burger, emergency room physician and founder of Doctors Express, as quoted by CNNMoney