Category — Small Business Advice

Small businesses need to save as much money as possible. Smaller companies simply do not have the same financial resources that a larger company will have. Controlling how much money is spent on payroll can be a way for a small business to stay competitive. Hiring independent contractors offers a cost-effective solution when a business needs to hire extra help.

Save On Payroll Taxes
All workers must devote 15.3 percent of their salaries to payroll taxes. Employees only have to pay half that amount while employers pay the other half. Independent contractors must pay the full amount of payroll tax themselves. Employers are also responsible for unemployment taxes as well for their employees. Independent contractors do not get those benefits in most cases.

Negotiate A Price Per Project
Independent contractors will be used only for specific projects. All payments are negotiated ahead of time meaning you know what your labor cost will be per project. Employees paid by the hour must be paid for each hour they are on the clock. A project that takes longer than expected would cost more if a small business relied heavily on hourly employees. Any increase in payment for an outside contractor must be negotiated and approved by the company.

Terminate The Relationship Whenever You Want
It can be very hard to terminate an employee. There are many laws that dictate how you must fire an employee. It takes a long period of time documenting behavior before you have enough protection against a wrongful termination claim. Court costs and legal fees also could potentially add to the cost of terminating an employee. Independent contractors may be let go after the completion of a project. You may even be able to end your relationship even sooner than that depending on your contract with that contractor.

Contractors Cover Their Own Costs
Employers generally will cover travel and other expenses racked up during the course of business. Contractors must provide the funds to cover their expenses. A small business can now afford to send a contractor out to Arizona from New York for a sales meeting without footing the bill. This allows the company to expand its marketing reach without spending too much money. Not having to cover these costs can be a winning scenario for a company that is just starting out with limited funds.

Small businesses need to use every advantage available to save money on operating expenses. Using independent contractors to save on payroll costs can be one advantage to large to overlook. Contractors will usually perform at a high level while offering increased flexibility to the company. Small businesses can operate more like a large company without having to spend like them as well.

Opening a small business is a daunting enterprise these days. There’s a lot to remember, but most small business tips fall into four broad categories: plan, specialize, advertise and save.

Plan
Small business owners may be tempted to start right away, but without a plan, they’re going nowhere. An owner needs to take the time to sit down and write out a business plan. A business plan is simply a road map that lists business goals, how the owner means to achieve them, and in what time frame. Owners who plan to borrow money should always have a business plan. Potential lenders will demand to see this document, because a detailed plan shows them that the business owner is serious about his venture. It also tells them exactly how he proposes to pay back the loan.

Specialize
A small business owner won’t be able to undercut large competitors on price – at least, not for long. The best small business strategy is to offer unique, value-added products or services that customers will be willing to pay more to get. An owner should find a unique niche and do his best to provide products or services that others don’t have.

Market research is also essential for a small business owner. He needs to identify not just a unique product or service, but who he’ll be selling it to. A business owner should ask if there’s a demand for his product or service, and if so, how much? He needs to determine if he will have many competitors, or few, and what their strengths and weaknesses are.

Advertise
Once a business owner has chosen a product and identified his market, he must get his business out there, and these days, that means going online. While it’s possible to be up and running within hours with free or nearly-free websites, it may be wiser for a business owner to spend a little money for a professional website, since the look of a business website influences customer perceptions about the company. It’s also important for the website to be glitch-free and easy for customers to use. A business website should offer customers many payment options, and every page should have a link to the checkout.

A business website needs to rank high in online searches to be found by online customers. Ranking high requires an understanding of search engine optimization, or SEO. If, for example, the owner of a small spa wants his business to rank well in online searches, he might sprinkle phrases like “spa services” or “spa facial” many times throughout his website. When potential customers search for those terms, websites with heavy concentrations of those terms get called up.

An owner should also consider establishing a Facebook and Twitter account for his business. Social media are increasingly important marketing tools and can provide a fledgling business many new customers.

Save
It’s important for a business owner to resist the temptation to max out that new business card. It usually isn’t necessary for a new business to have brand-new furniture or office equipment. Owners should buy used equipment whenever possible to save money, and purchase non-perishable supplies in bulk. An owner should work out of his home for as long as possible to save on rent. Banks, libraries, conference centers and many apartment complexes and resorts offer rooms that can be reserved for business meetings–sometimes for free.

Debt settlement is a suitable debt relief option that helps you reduce your outstanding debts to some extent when you find it difficult to repay the entire debt amount in full. This situation happens mainly when your financial condition is not strong and you cannot manage your outstanding debts on your own. You may settle your debts either on your own or seek professional help so that you can free yourself from its clutches at the earliest time possible.

5 Advantages of a debt settlement program

Have a look at the 5 advantages of a debt settlement program.

1. Outstanding balance gets reduced – The main advantage of enrolling with a debt settlement program is that your outstanding balance gets reduced by 40-60% of what you actually owe. This can be done when your debt expert negotiates with your creditors and makes them understand about your financial condition due to which you cannot afford to make the debt payments in full.

2. One time payment – This is another advantage of a debt settlement program. You pay the settlement amount to the company and when the entire amount gets accumulated, the company distributes it amongst your creditors. Thus, you do not have to face the trouble of paying your creditors individually.

3. Professional experts guide you – If you are a debtor who finds debt unmanageable, you decide to enroll with a debt settlement program. In this program, the debt expert assesses your financial condition thoroughly and then fixes upon a payment that you have to pay to the company. With the proper guidance of the professional experts, you find it much easier to repay your outstanding dues within a specific time period.

4. May get rid of harassing calls – As you enroll with a debt settlement program, you make your debt payments through them. The company then informs your creditors about it so that they may stop giving you harassing calls for payments. Thus, you may get rid of the harassing calls of the creditors.

5. Quick way to get rid of debt problems – Debt settlement is an easy and quick way to get rid of your unnecessary debt problems. When you find it difficult to repay your entire debt amount, you opt for this debt relief option so that you can manage to make your debt payments and, at the same time, free yourself from the clutches of debt burden.

If you are a debtor who has fallen into excessive credit card debt problems, it is advisable that you do proper research and get in touch with an authentic debt settlement company. Debt settlement is the right option to wipe away your debt problems even when you face financial problem so that you may be able to live a debt free life.

Here’s an idea to put to work with your small business, one you can apply to your work no matter what you do whether you’re a real estate developer, a baker, an artist, a copy writer or an inventor: Every morning, you probably hop on your computer and check your emails. Tomorrow when you wake up, don’t do that. Instead, use those early minutes of the day to create something new.

Put together a new banner ad, write a new article, make a new contact and start a new business relationship, but take the first hour of the day and use it to focus on what new things you’re going to experience in your immediate future. Don’t waste that hour reading up on how everyone responded to what you did yesterday, use it to make people respond to something you’re going to do today.

The approach that people have to communication and business on the internet is quite often totally backwards. They’re more focused in studying past successes than pursuing new ones. Don’t fall into that trap. It’s true that you can learn from your mistakes, but dwelling on them suggests a timidity about making new ones, and making new mistakes is how you learn from them, not by focusing on ones you made yesterday or a week ago.

Say you put in a proposal at your favorite freelancing website yesterday. You’re probably eager to see if any of those proposals got a response. Why not put in five more proposals before checking? The sting of disappointment when your proposals are turned down hurts a little less because you’re not focusing on your past mistakes, you’re focusing on future opportunities.

Many bloggers do their best work in the morning for this very reason. At 7 AM, there’s no telling how the day is going to turn out and anything is possible. It’s exciting to start a new day full of possibility, and the easiest way to squander that excitement is to immediately start worrying about whether the client replied to that email, whether that banner ad you designed yesterday is drawing in hits, whether you have any positive comments on the new video you posted and on and on.

Use lunchtime to focus on the past if you like, but use the morning to create something new, to do something exciting. As fun as it might be to look and see if you’re getting any extra hits from that new blog directory you just submitted to or whether your new ad campaign is working, the bottom line is that it’s not getting you anywhere to obsess over those factoids early in the morning. Start something new every time you get out of bed and you’ll be surprised at what you can accomplish in a day.

If you run a business in a service or private contracting field, if you’re a freelance graphic designer or a broker for article writers, the most important thing you can do to get more work is to make your past accomplishments visible and available.

A cartoonist, for instance, who draws a graphic novel one year and charges $20 a download might earn some modest returns on his investment, but he’s not winning any new clients by hiding his crowning achievement behind a twenty dollar price tag.

If you have an impressive resume, if you can ace an interview, that’s great, but all of that is complimentary to having a powerful body of work behind you, and making all of that work as visible and as accessible as possible is absolutely going to help you earn new clients, new business and make more sales.

There are a few things that you can do to make your work a little easier for clients and customers to see.

1. Start a Hub

A hub of some sort is really a requisite. Not a traditional website or blog necessarily but a one-stop shop for people to find all of your past work. It could include a link to some Youtube videos you’ve done, articles you’ve written, eBooks you’ve published or your webcomic. Occasionally you’ll want to link a prospective client specifically to your blog or your eBook or a certain video, but in general, you’ll do well to have a place where people can go to look at everything you’ve done that’s worth looking at.

2. Produce More and Better Work

When you take all of your accomplishments, all of your output and lay it out end to end, you may be a little disappointed. Some of it perhaps isn’t as good as you remember and maybe there’s not all that much of it. The only solution to this is to keep trying. You might wind up with nine articles you’re not very proud of for every one that you are, but you’ll only get the good stuff by taking the risk that you might make something crummy, too.

3. Keep it Simple

Any more than a dozen or so links and you’re really overwhelming people. If you have a lot of stuff to show off, keep it under subcategories so that they don’t get overwhelmed. A video section, an art section and a writing section, for instance, can be a big help in providing a greater depth of content without throwing too much at browsers at once. Another option is to simply keep it down to a greatest hits collection of sorts. If you want to turn a friend on to a favorite band, you play them a few of your favorite songs, you don’t just start them off on their debut album and tell them to listen to everything they’ve ever produced.

Focus, productivity and being brutally honest with yourself are three things that will help you to produce a great timeline of your work and win more clients and more sales.

Every penny counts for owners of small businesses. Saving money is a never-ending quest, because any savings can lead to growth by the company and even higher revenue. Owners can get more out of their small businesses by following these four practical-yet-effective tips.

Utilize Social Media
When most people think of social media as a marketing tool, they think of widespread viral campaigns. While a lot of viral campaigns have enjoyed nationwide or even global popularity, the truth is that a social media campaign doesn’t need to be huge. Small businesses can utilize social networks effectively, and they can even do it faster than most large companies.

Twitter is a great example of a way to quickly market through social media. On days where sales might be slow, business owners can offer a sale or other discount and then tweet about it. By retweeting form a personal account, the company will reach its followers and the owners friends. All it takes is a few followers retweeting a deal, and suddenly a short Twitter message will have generated a boost in revenues. Getting the word out locally is the goal.

Save on Office Supplies by Buying For the Long Term
Owners of small businesses tend to go day-by-day when business is sluggish, but this can backfire. The cost of minor expenses for a business, such as pens or paper towels, can add up quickly when they’re bought in small quantities on an infrequent basis. By joining a warehouse club or buying in bulk, owners can save a good deal of money. Since the supplies will be used eventually, there’s no real drawback associated with buying in bulk.

Owners Need to Know Margins
This is common sense, but the number of business owners who don’t know their costs is staggering. Margins fluctuate in every industry, they are rarely a static figure. Owners need to be aware of the margins on the products or services they’re selling so that they can adjust prices properly. Companies that aren’t paying close attention to their margins are companies that aren’t maximizing their revenues, and in some cases they’re also companies that are going out of business.

Contractors Are a Cheap Way to Get Online
A website is a critical component of a small business. Just giving customers a landing point to learn more about the company can lead to increased sales, and web hosting for small companies is more affordable than it’s ever been. Hiring a web designer is usually the cost that stops a lot of businesses from launching sites.

Fortunately, there are cheap ways to have a site designed. A large firm isn’t necessary to get a great website built. Small business owners can look to independent contractors in classified ads to get quality work. Another great option is to recruit from nearby college campuses. Students who have significant progress in their degree program can offer professional-grade results at a fraction of the cost of larger design companies.

Here’s an idea to put to work with your small business, one you can apply to your work no matter what you do whether you’re a real estate developer, a baker, an artist, a copy writer or an inventor: Every morning, you probably hop on your computer and check your emails. Tomorrow when you wake up, don’t do that. Instead, use those early minutes of the day to create something new.

Put together a new banner ad, write a new article, make a new contact and start a new business relationship, but take the first hour of the day and use it to focus on what new things you’re going to experience in your immediate future. Don’t waste that hour reading up on how everyone responded to what you did yesterday, use it to make people respond to something you’re going to do today.

The approach that people have to communication and business on the internet is quite often totally backwards. They’re more focused in studying past successes than pursuing new ones. Don’t fall into that trap. It’s true that you can learn from your mistakes, but dwelling on them suggests a timidity about making new ones, and making new mistakes is how you learn from them, not by focusing on ones you made yesterday or a week ago.

Say you put in a proposal at your favorite freelancing website yesterday. You’re probably eager to see if any of those proposals got a response. Why not put in five more proposals before checking? The sting of disappointment when your proposals are turned down hurts a little less because you’re not focusing on your past mistakes, you’re focusing on future opportunities.

Many bloggers do their best work in the morning for this very reason. At 7 AM, there’s no telling how the day is going to turn out and anything is possible. It’s exciting to start a new day full of possibility, and the easiest way to squander that excitement is to immediately start worrying about whether the client replied to that email, whether that banner ad you designed yesterday is drawing in hits, whether you have any positive comments on the new video you posted and on and on.

Use lunchtime to focus on the past if you like, but use the morning to create something new, to do something exciting. As fun as it might be to look and see if you’re getting any extra hits from that new blog directory you just submitted to or whether your new ad campaign is working, the bottom line is that it’s not getting you anywhere to obsess over those factoids early in the morning. Start something new every time you get out of bed and you’ll be surprised at what you can accomplish in a day.

1. Ensure That Grammar and Spelling Is Correct
Many small businesses believe that they should not concern themselves too much with spelling and grammar. The most important part, to them, is that word gets out about their products and services. No matter how passionate and professional they may be about what they do, it does not matter to the customer if they have poor spelling and grammar on their website. It is important to check every bit of writing for mistakes before it goes public.

2. Do Not Create a Confusing Layout
When a business wishes for people to get around their site with little problems, they should make sure that their layout is not confusing. If a person has to guess where a link is, the business is not doing a good job with their design. It should be very clear where everything is, and everything should work properly. It is never a good idea to try to be too creative; going for something artistic usually means that nothing is where it should be. People expect to navigate a website flawlessly.

3. Choose a Color Scheme That Makes Sense
Any and all colors used on the website should complement each other in some way. No matter how perfect the text on the website may be, it does not matter if the reader cannot make out anything. It is vital that people be able to read anything they come across, as otherwise they could miss out on important information. If they become frustrated a small business can suffer for it. It is not advisable, for example, to put yellow text on a black background, or green text on a red background. If the business is not sure about what to do, they should consult a professional.

4. Provide Contact Information in a Visible Place
Visitors may not go to a website simply because they wish to look at some text and images for awhile; they may also come to a small business website because they have a question. For this reason, the business should make sure that contact information is provided. The information should also be in an obvious and visible place, as otherwise people could become frustrated. If a business cannot communicate with their clients and customers, little can get done. The information should consist of a phone number, email address or both.

5. Do Not Use Large Images or Embed a Media Player
Not everybody has a fast Internet connection. While it may only take a few seconds for a picture to load for one person, another person may have to wait several minutes or longer. Because of this fact, a small business should make sure that everybody has a chance to load and enjoy the website. They should not use large images, and nothing should be too complicated. They should also avoid the use of a media player. Some people go online while they sit in class or ride the bus; should music or a video start playing without warning, the customer could become embarrassed and abandon the site.

Starting a small business is a big challenge and a big step. One of the first things you need to do is really get into a win/loss mindset. You can’t run a business based on your feelings, based on emotions, you have to run it on cold, hard logic. Maybe you’d like to hire your unemployed cousin, for instance, but if you don’t really have the budget for another employee then you don’t really have the budget for another employee.

Other decisions will be more difficult. For instance, if you see an opening in the market that will allow you to expand, you need to stop and consider whether or not expanding is actually worth it. At the end of the day maybe both choices are equally valid in their own way but you can only choose one. Here are three tips to making those decisions a little easier.

Someone Needs to Have Final Say

A beast with two heads will always be bickering with itself. Even if you’re running a business with your wife or husband or your twin brother, somebody needs to have final say and everyone else needs to be willing to go along with it if they want to stay with the business.

Obviously, a good leader will take into account suggestions made by their staff, but they need to have total authority over their business goals if they are to stay focused and driven towards those ends. It does no good to have three or four managers all with different visions for the company.

Writing a Pros and Cons List

When you sit down to settle a difficult decision such as whether to sell the company or whether to expand, it helps to write down a list of pros on one side and cons on the other. Keep at it and sooner or later you might come to the pro or con that settles everything and makes the whole decision a lot easier.

For instance, if your business has fallen on hard times, selling is an easy way out that frees you of debt and stress, and that alone is worth selling for. On the other hand, if it’s doing very well and the price you were offered is half what you think you could make in a year, then you might want to hold onto it. Many decisions become very easy once you lay out the facts.

Understanding Loss Avoidance and Instinctive, Gut Feelings

A lot of small business owners are afraid of losing what they’ve built. So afraid, in fact, that they never make any decisions that would improve their income or expand their business or see them becoming more successful. This instinct for loss avoidance is vital to survival, but detrimental to long term success. It’s important to understand that your trepidation about some things is not realistic or logical but an instinctive want to avoid any sort of loss whatsoever. Sometimes the safe choice is the smart choice, but understand that your intuition can be your downfall.

Every small business owner looks for ways to do two things on a regular basis: drive-up sales and cut costs. Cutting costs is a never ending pursuit and can only be done to a certain degree before the company itself begins to suffer. That leaves increasing cash flow to lead generation and salesmanship. The question then becomes how to do so without going over advertising budget or even how to do so with little or no advertising budget.

The increasing answer is to get a business presence online, taking advantage of the ubiquity and cost-friendly management of e-commerce and brand promotion.

Publish a Website

This can be done by even an Internet novice, someone unfamiliar with HTML, CSS and SEO or Search Engine Optimization. There are many “push-button” website publishers available online which provide user-friendly, intuitive website creation. A business owner need only select a theme, an industry, enter some text and arrange the appearance of images. Within minutes, a business owner can design and publish a website. Changes–when needed–are typically nearly effortless.

Use Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is the practice of placing text, links and/or images on social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Unation, Pinteres and LinkedIn. Social media marketing, often abbreviated SMM, is a great way to get a brand out to the public without having to pay a publicist or hire an advertising agency. Social media profiles are free to create and use. But there worth can be priceless.

Create a Blog

In addition to a website and social media profiles, businesses will find blogs to be a great way to connect with customers. Think of a blog as a virtual newsletter featuring the best aspects of your company, most used services and products with the added benefit of no design, printing and mailing costs. Each post is a chance to reach new customers as well as cater to existing customers. The trick is to make every post SEO and LSI keyword friendly–that is, using specific words or phrases and synonyms to get your blog indexed by search engines. An example of keywords and LSI keyworks for a dog grooming service would be “dog grooming”, “pet grooming”, “pet care”, “grooming services” and “master pet stylist”.

Make Yourself Available to Traditional Media

Being online doesn’t mean ignoring traditional media. If you want more traffic to your website, generating more sales, then make yourself available to print, radio and television media. Granting interviews and commenting on news items related to your business will only bolster your online presence.

Don’t Forget about Old-Fashioned Networking

There’s a reason local Better Business Bureaus and Chambers of Commerce still have brick-and-mortar locations. They support local businesses, help companies to get there name out among area residents. Just because a company has a website doesn’t mean people living a few blocks over will visit the business online.

In addition, being involved with local volunteer groups, sports groups, schools and churches will increase your business’ overall image and up the patronage to your brick-and-mortar.