• Financing if $50,000 to $1 million


• Fully amortized up to 25 years


• No balloon of prepayment penalty


• Banner Bank will pay up to $1,000 towards the cost of the property evaluation or appraisal

Adobe Acrobat is a versatile software suite that offers a wide range of benefits for small and local businesses. From document management to collaboration and security features, Acrobat is an indispensable tool for organizations of all sizes for many reasons:

Efficient Document Management: Acrobat provides robust document management capabilities, allowing businesses to create, edit, organize, and archive documents seamlessly. With features like merging, splitting, and indexing PDFs, businesses can streamline their document workflow and reduce paperwork clutter.

Cost Savings: Acrobat offers cost-effective solutions that eliminate the need for expensive printed materials, courier services, and physical storage space. By going digital with PDF documents, businesses save on printing and shipping costs, reduce paper waste, and lower their overall operational expenses.

Enhanced Collaboration: Collaboration is key in today's business landscape, and Acrobat facilitates this through features like commenting, annotation, and real-time co-editing. Small businesses can collaborate with remote team members, clients, or suppliers, allowing for seamless communication and feedback on documents. This collaborative approach can significantly improve productivity and the speed of decision making.

Professional-Looking Documents: For small and local businesses trying to make a mark in a competitive market, the presentation of documents matters. Acrobat offers a wide range of formatting and styling options to create professional-looking documents. From customizing fonts and colors to adding watermarks and headers, businesses can enhance their brand identity and create visually-appealing materials.

Secure Document Handling: Acrobat provides robust security features, including password protection, encryption, and digital signatures. Small and local businesses can ensure the confidentiality and integrity of their documents, especially when handling sensitive information like customer data and financial information.

Mobile Accessibility: In today's fast-paced business world, being able to work on the go is crucial. Acrobat offers mobile apps that allow small businesses and local businesses to access, edit, and share documents from their smartphones or tablets. This mobility ensures that critical tasks can be addressed promptly, even when employees are not in the office.

Compliance and Legal Benefits: Acrobat helps businesses maintain compliance by providing tools for digital signatures and document tracking. This is especially valuable for businesses that need to meet stringent regulatory standards, like healthcare and financial institutions.

Streamlined Workflows: Acrobat integrates seamlessly with other popular software applications, including Microsoft Office and various cloud storage services. This integration streamlines workflows, making it easier to convert documents to PDF format, collaborate on documents, and access files stored in the cloud. Small and local businesses can save time and reduce errors by using these integrations.

Electronic Forms: Acrobat allows businesses to create interactive electronic forms that can be filled out online, reducing the need for paper forms and manual data entry. This simplifies the customer experience and ensures accurate data collection.

Just take a look at how Acrobat revolutionized the way The J. Morey Company runs its business. As an insurance agency, J. Morey handles a lot of paperwork — all of which was physical documentation until 2015, when president Joshua Morey digitized the firm’s paperwork with Acrobat. Because they no longer rely on wet signatures that have to be scanned into the computer system or sent via snail mail, the process of signing, password protecting, and sending signed documents takes only a minute instead of 20 minutes, freeing up as much as 10 hours a month per employee.

Acrobat’s features and tools allow The J. Morey Company and more than 500,000 other organizations worldwide to reduce costs while scaling their businesses. In fact, when Joshua took over the company in 2015, it had four offices with a total of 18 employees. After just three years of implementing Acrobat into its workflows, the company grew to 150 employees across 11 offices.

Paper’s out, people.

Award-winning comedian, writer, and producer Hasan Minhaj has partnered with Adobe Acrobat to celebrate 30 years of PDFs and to promote the power of paperless creativity and collaboration in today's digital age. The partnership highlights the importance of using digital tools to streamline workflows and enhance productivity, especially in the current work-from-home era.

As part of the partnership, Minhaj is featured in a series of videos showcasing how Adobe Acrobat can help professionals across industries to create, edit, and share documents seamlessly — no paper needed. The videos also provide tips and tricks for using Acrobat's features to improve collaboration and communication among team members.

Adobe Acrobat is a leading software solution that enables professionals to create, edit, and sign PDF documents securely and easily. The platform offers a range of features, including the ability to convert documents to PDF format, edit text and images, and add comments and annotations. It also integrates with other Adobe tools, such as Creative Cloud, to provide a seamless workflow for creative professionals.

The partnership between Hasan Minhaj and Adobe Acrobat kicked off with a range of digital and social media activations. Paper’s out, people, so stay tuned for more updates on how Acrobat is empowering creativity and collaboration in today's digital landscape.

Interdepartmental communication can help an organization achieve its objectives. It also strengthens employee relationships, which can result in improved productivity and increased profit. This article from the Lake Oswego Chamber of Commerce talks about why communication between different departments matters, why it sometimes fails, and how to easily communicate with other departments.

Why Interdepartmental Communication Is Important

Communication can make or break an organization. For example, if the managers fail to communicate the sales forecast to the operations team, the latter may not be able to achieve its quota. Chron. explains that this failure in communication has a negative impact on the business and may lead to conflict between team members in various departments. The only way to resolve this is by properly (and promptly) communicating the right message.

Good interdepartmental communication can build trust and save time. When departments accurately deliver information, there's little need to do fact-checking, which can be time-consuming and can impact the team's overall productivity. For instance, if the human resources department informs the recruitment team of the qualities to look for in new employees, it helps the recruiters hire the right talent. 

Why Interdepartmental Communication Sometimes Fail

One of the reasons interdepartmental communication sometimes isn't effective is the lack of proper communication procedures. An established communication protocol should be in place to get the right message across. Work pressure can also impact communication — the sales department may be so engrossed in reaching its targets that its members fail to consider the impact on other departments when the sales team fails to give updates promptly. 

It can also be difficult to communicate when many or all the employees in your Lake Oswego, OR, business work from home. You must have a communication plan in place to help resolve this issue. Decide on a collaborative tool to use to ensure everyone is heard, and all facts are communicated to the right departments. 

How to Easily Collaborate With Other Departments

If you're presenting a financial report to upper management and you have several documents to share, try to keep them all in one PDF file for easy organization. You can add charts or graphics to your PDF file, where you can edit or reorder them to help you better present the report. And the PDF converter is free and easy to use. Even if your original file type is different, you can convert, merge, and save it with a few simple steps.

Google Docs also includes a collaborative feature to make it easier for you to connect with other departments. Trello offers a task management feature that allows anyone to collaborate with other departments in real time. 

Tips to Effectively Communicate With Other Departments

A regular meeting to discuss new information or updates can help improve interdepartmental communication. Hugo recommends setting aside time each month or quarterly to let team members update everyone on how well the company is doing, adjustments to be made, whether to increase the workforce and other relevant matters. If you and other team members work remotely, use Zoom to better communicate with your employees. 

Use the right communication tools to allow team members to easily collaborate, and avoid using jargon to prevent confusion. Organize company events to help the employees in your Lake Oswego, OR, company build better relationships. 

Enhance Interdepartmental Communication 

Effective interdepartmental communication is essential to the growth of an organization. Having regular meetings and utilizing the right technology can also help. So make the time to develop healthy communication practices in your business. Your employees and your productivity will show the benefits.

As a small business owner, you know how important the holiday season is to your bottom line. According to the National Retail Federation, holiday sales amounted to nearly $890 billion last year, so it’s important to have a solid marketing strategy in place to ensure your business gets a piece of the pie. Not sure where to start? Check out these holiday marketing tips for small businesses from the Lake Oswego Chamber of Commerce.

1. Create a PDF gift guide

One of the best ways to market your products or services during the holidays is to create a PDF gift guide. This is a great way to showcase your offerings in a visually appealing way and make it easy for customers to find the perfect gift for their loved ones. You can even create multiple gift guides to expand your reach, and this online tool helps you split your PDF into separate files. Be sure to promote your gift guide across all of your channels, including social media, email, and your website.

2. Switch to holiday packaging and wrapping

Make things easy on yourself (and your customers) by switching to holiday-themed packaging and wrapping. This will save you time and money while making it clear that your business is ready for the holiday season. You can even use holiday packaging as an opportunity to upsell customers by offering special deals on products that are packaged together.

3. Host holiday giveaways and offer discounts

Everyone loves a good deal, so why not entice customers with holiday discounts and giveaways? This is a great way to show appreciation for your loyal customers and attract new ones. Just be sure to promote your deals and giveaways prominently on your website and social media channels.

4. Post useful web content

The holidays are a busy time for everyone, so help your customers out by posting useful content on your website. This could include blog posts with gift ideas, recipes, or tips on how to make the holidays less stressful. You can also add an FAQ section to address common questions about your products or services.

5. Drive social media engagement

Social media is a powerful tool that can help you reach new customers and drive sales during the holidays (and all year long). Make sure you’re active on all of the major platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.), and consider running targeted ads on each platform. You can also use social media to engage with customers by hosting holiday-themed contests or sharing user-generated content.

6. Partner with neighbor businesses

Partnering with other local businesses is a great way to reach new customers and build relationships with other small business owners in your community. There are several ways you can partner with other businesses, such as co-sponsoring events, cross-promoting each other’s products or services, or teaming up for joint marketing initiatives.

7. Host holiday events

Another great way to reach new customers during the holidays is to host a special event at your store or office. This could be anything from an open house or trunk show to a festive party complete with food, drinks, and live music. Be sure to promote your event through all of your channels—email, social media, and print ads—to get as many people as possible through the door.

8. Support local nonprofits

The holidays are also a great time to give back to those less fortunate in our community by supporting local nonprofits. There are several ways you can get involved, such as donating products or services, hosting fundraisers, or volunteering your time at a local shelter or food bank. Not only will this make you feel good, but it will also reflect positively on your business in the eyes of consumers.

9. Get creative with your marketing

Finally, don’t be afraid to get creative with your marketing during the holidays! This is the perfect time of year to experiment with new marketing tactics and try something outside of your comfort zone—you never know what might resonate with consumers and help boost sales.

Following these tips will help ensure that your small business has a successful holiday season! From creating a PDF gift guide to partnering with other local businesses, there are plenty of ways to market your products or services during this festive time of year.

Join the Lake Oswego Chamber of Commerce to connect with local entrepreneurs and resources that can help your business grow.

With uncertain economic times looming, it’s more important than ever to make sure your website is up-to-date and optimized for success. Making a few simple changes can help you boost your business and ensure that you are ready to take on any challenges that come your way. The Lake Oswego Chamber of Commerce is full of resources to help small business owners stand tall in the face of these challenges; here are some tips on how to make the most of your website in a recession.

Give A Call to Action

A strong call to action is essential for any website. Make sure that your call to action is visible on every page of your site so that visitors know exactly what they need to do next. Whether it’s signing up for an email list or making a purchase, having a clear call to action will help guide customers through the process and increase conversions.

Include Customer Testimonials

Testimonials from satisfied customers can be incredibly powerful when it comes to convincing potential customers to make a purchase. Include customer testimonials on your website so that visitors can read about other peoples’ experiences with your products or services and gain confidence in their decision-making process. These testimonials may be added via text, video, or photos, which can help boost your SEO ranking.

Improve SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is essential for any website looking to rank highly in search results pages (SERPs). Implementing SEO best practices such as including targeted keywords, optimizing images, and creating content regularly will help your website rank higher in SERPs and attract more organic traffic. It's also crucial to ensure that your site is accessible for individuals of all abilities.

Update Your Content

Fresh content is essential for keeping visitors engaged and coming back for more. Regularly update blog posts, product descriptions, and case studies so that visitors have something new each time they visit your site. This will also help keep search engines like Google interested in indexing your content, which could lead to increased visibility over time.

Boost Your Page Speed

Page speed plays an important role in determining how well visitors engage with websites, as slow loading times can cause users to abandon sites altogether due to frustration or boredom. Make sure you optimize images, minify code, leverage browser caching, and use a content delivery network (CDN) if necessary so that all pages load quickly no matter where users are located around the world. You'll also want to ensure that your website is compatible with mobile devices.

Learn To Make Repairs

Broken pages are often caused by coding errors, which can be difficult for non-coders or inexperienced webmasters/developers to identify and fix without assistance. Consider learning coding skills such as HTML/CSS/Javascript/PHP so that you can address broken pages yourself without having to hire outside help every time something goes wrong on the site. You can find tutorials or coding courses that will help you learn the basics online.

Make The Most Of PDF Tools

PDFs are a great way to safeguard confidential information such as a contract, protecting it from any malicious third parties who might try to download or manipulate it illegally. You can also use PDF tools to allow customers to fill and sign documents on your site, ensuring a quick and efficient turnaround. Take a look at the options and find out how to speed up your workflow.

Making small changes now can have big impacts later, so don't be afraid to update your business website and keep it fresh. By utilizing PDF tools, ensuring that your content is up-to-date, and improving SEO, you can take your business to the next level no matter what turns the economy takes. Be sure to track the effectiveness of those changes by using analytics tools.

The Lake Oswego Chamber of Commerce can help your small business get involved in the community, find networking opportunities, and more! Take a look at all we have to offer.