3 Things You Should Know About Small Business: June 29

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- What's happening in small business today?

1. Small businesses react to health care ruling. Then initial reaction from small business owners regarding the Supreme Court's landmark decision to uphold President Obama's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was mixed.

One California business owner plans to outsource as many jobs as she can to contain labor costs, according to the Washington Post. Others have more questions than answers at this point, CNBC says. Still more small business owners that TheStreet spoke with say they will likely just deal with the changes rather than skimping on offering employees health care.

2. Big banks most frequently rejected small business loan applications in 2012. It comes as no surprise that the largest banks most often declined small business funding in the first six months of the year, according to Biz2Credit. The data found that of the 1,000 loan rejections through its system, Bank of America , JPMorgan Chase , Wells Fargo and TD Bank were the biggest culprits to deny funding, even to their own customers.

"Small business owners have been saying for quite some time that big banks have been unwilling to lend to them. This survey proves it," said Rohit Arora, CEO of Biz2Credit. "It's ironic that Bank of America has advertised that they are friendly to small business lending, but the opposite is the case. They have been the most rigid in their loan criteria and now are cutting credit lines."

Small businesses examined in the analysis included only businesses in operation for more than two years, had credit scores of 650 or higher and had an existing banking relationship, Biz2Credit says.

3. Are you hiding behind your emails? Lonny Strum of Strum Consulting says in the digital age this is far too often an occurrence that is likely hurting your business, according to his blog.

Strum writes: "Too often see the use of email as a surrogate for relationship building or as a means of hiding from people and not dealing with issues. Too often people are scared or reluctant to talk to someone, they use email, and then ask defiantly: 'Didn't you see my email?'"

Strum cites data from Constant Contact which found that the open rates of emails are plummeting, particularly when it comes to marketing emails.

"Human discussion builds relationships, trust and allows for instantaneous discussion that changes the direction of conversation. How often have you seen a heated email exchange when a person to person voice dialogue (or forbid, a meeting) would have resolved the issue. Far too often," he says.

-- Written by Laurie Kulikowski in New York.

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