Should Your Small Business Provide Cell Phones? The Answer Just Changed…
Editor’s Note: This post is sponsored by Staples. All thoughts and opinions are my own. I think companies like Staples, that offer an expansive selection of cell phones, are in a great position to help small business owners who want to take advantage of recent a rule change from the IRS. To make the tax code more simple and predictable for small business owners, the new law eliminates the onerous reporting requirements that used to be necessary whenever a small business provided a cell phone for employee use. You can now write off the cost of small business cell phones for tax reporting purposes without having to substantiate business versus personal use. Previously, that required cumbersome recording keeping on the part of businesses and employees. By the way, if you want to take advantage of these changes for this tax year – and it’s virtually always smart to front load your write offs as much as possible – a trip to the Staples cell phone department before year’s end would be smart. I should also add that timing new smart phones for your staff during the holidays is a great way to lift their spirits and show your appreciation. (Other tech purchases and upgrades boost employee loyalty and engagement as well; more on those in a moment.) Aside from the new tax advantages there are other reasons to provide company smart phones for your team: * If you don’t, both you and your staff have a bigger record-keeping burden. That’s lost productivity. * Company cell phones eliminate various accounting headaches. * You can maintain continuity with business phone numbers. Do you really want clients calling your employee’s personal cell phone numbers? If you own the phone, you can own the number and keep it as your workforce evolves. * You have far better control over data security. * Upgrades and maintenance is easier for your IT department, which is often you in a small business. * You can define a set of apps you want your team to use and also have private apps created for your business. * You can be sure that cell phones are safely recycled. The next hurdle for small business owners is to zero in on the best cell phones for their teams. This is where a trip to Staples can be extraordinarily helpful. If you survey cell phones at Staples, you’ll find virtually all the brands, all the operating systems, and phones that are compatible with all the carriers. Whether you want an Android phone, iPhone or a Blackberry, you can browse a full lineup of gear from all the top manufacturers. You aren’t limited like you are when you get corralled by a sales rep at one of the major carriers. For example, you could settle on one platform but at the same time know that you’ll have some heavy users and some lighter users. You could match employees to phones that have the features that best fit their usage. And speaking of platforms, are your computers running Windows 10? If not, you need to upgrade. Microsoft made major strides with this release. It’s not merely a computer operating system, it’s a platform that will power virtually any kind of device and that means that universal apps will function everywhere –...
read moreWondering how to sell a small business? Three ways to groom it for maximum value.
For many – if not most – small business owners, the biggest “chunk” of value they have is their business. Often small business owners look forward to cashing out someday with hopes to retire or perhaps start another venture. However, it’s easy for small business owners – who have been so intimately involved in the growth of their companies – to suffer a huge letdown when someone slaps a price tag on their “baby.” Waiting to the last moment isn’t how to sell a small business and expect to get its highest value. I want you to consider three specific areas that will bring down the value of your business, no matter how impressive your yearly revenue looks. If you give these areas some attention, not only will it increase the value of your business when it’s time to sell, it will increase your revenue and safety in the meantime. 1. Little or no recurring revenue There are few things more valuable to a small business than a steady flow of recurring revenue. Being able to automatically charge a client’s credit card every month or year boosts the value of your company. It also lowers your overhead because you don’t have to be working your tail off for those sales. Do you have any revenue streams like this? If they are in place already, give them more attention so they grow even bigger. 2. Revenue overly concentrated If you have one or two big clients who contribute to your profits in a major way, it pulls down the value of your business. We’ve all seen the movies where a major New York firm is about to lose its biggest client. Everyone goes into panic mode. No one wants to buy a business where panic mode is just one lost client away – or at least they won’t pay top dollar for a business like that. This certainly isn’t how you want to sell a small business. Look at your list of customers or clients. Do just a handful contribute the lion’s share of your revenue? If that’s the case, you need to find ways to diversify your clients. It might mean being more creative in finding new clients or maybe you need to branch out into a related area that would bring greater diversification with it. 3. Your business depends on one person If there’s a key individual in your small business who keeps everything going, who’s the keeper of the “secret sauce” – and this might be you – that makes buying your company a risky venture and it pushes down its value. If this isn’t you, then perhaps your key person is the logical buyer for your company. This person may be your best shot when you consider how to sell your small business. If that’s the case, you need to start planning a sale in plenty of time. If you don’t, this person could take his or her knowledge and leave if there’s no future in your company. If this person isn’t going to buy your company, they you need to make him or her less mission critical to your operation. There are a variety of options to give yourself and potential buyers insurance against this problem. You can cross train, develop systems, create training modules,...
read moreThis Week in Small Business: Break out of blogging and get ready for holiday sales
Ready to break out of the blog rut and start cashing in on other forms of content marketing? This week’s roundup has some great advice. Of course, we’re on the cusp of the year’s major shopping season, so that topic is covered as well. Marketing and sales Get the most out of your blog content by transforming it into new media. And if this interests you, here’s more good information on non-blog content marketing. When you want to make a big leap and truly differentiate yourself from the crowd, you need to focus on branding…and most small businesses don’t! Maybe that’s why it’s the first “secret” in this article about small business marketing. If you don’t want to pay for Facebook ads, you need to be sure you’re doing all the little things right to engage your prospects. These 11 tips will help a lot. Chad Brooks, Business News Daily Senior Writer, looks into his crystal ball and discusses 10 trends that will impact small business marketing. Leadership, management and productivity After 10 years as a Special Forces Green Beret, Michael Montgomery joined the army of small business owners. Learn from how he is conducting this mission. When it comes to customer service, small business owners should think like a customer, says an American Express survey. Are you handling your seasonal hiring in the best way? Check out these tips from Daniel Flores. You need to pull out all the stops to make this holiday season a rip-roaring success, like impressing your customers with mobile pay. Tabatha Coffey, of “Tabatha Takes Over,” gives us three ways to guarantee small business success. To grow your business you need to grow your knowledge and expertise. Here are seven web resources to get that done. Entrepreneurship, startups and innovation Entrepreneurs and startups: Check out this advice on how to handle big data that is especially targeted to your position. If you’ve enviously watched “accredited investors” make fortunes through startup equity investing, you need to know that new SEC rules are game changers that allow average folks to invest. Politics, government and the economy First-time CEO and startup founder Chris Myers thinks rising interest rates could be good for entrepreneurs and small business. Read what he has to say and see if you agree. The economics of small business health insurance continue to have a critical impact on profits. 90 percent of small biz owners surveyed say their costs are up and they expect them to go even...
read moreHow to pick your shots when advertising a small business
Almost every small business and startup faces a single problem and it’s one that gets very little attention in articles like these: How can you compete against bigger or more established businesses? If you only pay attention to the conventional wisdom that is most often articulated in advice articles, it will make marketing or advertising a small business very frustrating and expensive. Let’s look at some strategies that will make advertising a small business more successful. Study the competition The first thing you need to do is to discover where advertising a small business won’t work. You need to know where your competition is focusing its marketing efforts and judge their success. With a little research you should be able to identify the areas where your competitors are spending most of their time and money. Look for consistency and effort. Just because your competitor has a Twitter account, for instance, doesn’t mean that it’s being used successfully. A great place to begin this research is on SimilarWeb. SimilarWeb offers a free and paid service. You might get by with just the free service, especially if your competition depends on the Internet for a lot of advertising and marketing. I just looked up a site similar to mine and discovered that nearly 50 percent of the traffic to this site comes from organic searches and this site doesn’t do any paid search advertising. This might present an opportunity to explore. If your competitors do a lot of traditional advertising – print, radio, television, etc. – you’ll probably have a fairly good feel for this. Do the basics Look for the low-hanging fruit first: If your competitor is not getting organic search volume, then make search engine optimization (SEO) and content marketing a priority. If your competitor is not getting a lot of traffic from the social media, concentrate some of your effort there. If your competitor is not buying any online advertising, pull together a small budget and start advertising your small business on this avenue. These are very standard ways of marketing and advertising a small business today and it’s fine to invest time and money in one if you sense your competitor is not very active in it. But avoid the areas where your competitor has a significant presence; you don’t want to wage a scorched earth battle for the advertising and marketing turf where your competitor is strongest. Advertising a small business in other places If your competitors seem strong in these areas, start looking to non-traditional avenues for advertising and marketing: Trade shows. While these aren’t really non-traditional, you might find they are ignored by some of your competitors. They can be excellent venues for advertising a small business. Public relations. Become an expert at promoting yourself to the local media. Get free publicity and whip up interest in who you are and what you’re doing. When it comes to advertising a small business, nothing beat “free.” Compete for awards. If your industry or community gives awards, get into the contests. You’ll meet people, make a positive impression and you might actually win sometimes. Business development. Where are new places that your business can “plug in”? Brainstorm strategic alliances with related businesses. Direct mail. For some local businesses, targeted direct mail campaigns are the most powerful...
read more7 great web resources to build your knowledge and grow your business
“Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.” – Warren Buffett. Almost every person who starts a small business begins from a position of not knowing a whole lot about what needs to be done. Learning while doing is fine, but some people don’t learn quickly enough to be successful. Further, many others get to a certain level in developing their small business and then their knowledge stops increasing. They reach a sort of equilibrium between the amount of money they’re making and their desire to gain more knowledge to see what the next level looks like and discover how to get there. Many in this situation have merely adjusted to a certain pain level. Things may not be great, but they’re making ends meet so they learn to live with it. This is sad because honestly, taking a small business to more profitable levels, isn’t as difficult as one might believe. The most important things you need are desire and the willingness to take a risk. If you have those attributes, then you must find some places to increase your knowledge. You’re on my website, so it looks to me like you’re a good candidate for supersizing your small business brains, so let me steer you to some excellent online-resources. SCORE. The Service Corps of Retired Executives has been around since 1964. It offers all kinds of free counseling and mentoring for small business owners and entrepreneurs. The website has a lot of solid resources. However, developing a relationship with someone who has “been there, done that” can be invaluable. Find your nearest chapter and connect. The best business books. The link I’ve provided here will take you to the best-selling business books on Amazon.com. Be sure you’ve read the classics – don’t just focus on what’s hot today. After the classics, find the titles that will build you up in areas where you’re weaker. SBA. I want to point you toward the training section of the SBA website and its listing of Small Business Development Centers. You’re going to find a wide range of topics covered here and if there’s an SBDC near you, make yourself familiar with what they offer. Wall Street Journal blogs. The Wall Street Journal itself is behind a pay wall now, but you’ll find a lot of important current information covered in its free blogs. Small business owners are always short on time, this is a good page to scan each day to stay on top of what’s going on. Crowd-sourced knowledge. The Internet allows you to ask questions in forums where anyone can answer. Sometimes the answers are absolutely brilliant and from people who have an incredible depth of knowledge and experience. Two of these are Quora and the Small Business Forum. Quora takes questions on any topic under the sun; you’ll find many small business and money-making questions explored there. The Small Business Forum is an old-school website with topics and threads. I encourage you to explore some of these resources and dig up new knowledge and information. Build relationships with experienced business owners who have successfully grown their companies. If you find inspiration, the desire to grow and willingness to take risks will...
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