Part 1: End of the Year Tax Preparation
Happy November! Where has the year 2011 gone?! It is already getting to be that time when you need to start planning for end of the year taxes. By planning ahead, you can avoid extra fees and charges. We’ve decided to share a couple of tips to make the next couple of months a bit easier and less stressful on your small business:
• Work with a bookkeeper to help reconcile accounts and assure your books are up to date.
• Send out a W-9 to your subcontractors to fill out so you can file a 1099 Form for them.
• Add any QuickBooks journal entries that your accountant has given you for the past year; your accountant will most likely charge you if he or she has to enter them.
• Mark your calendar for when you need to give your accountant the company information so your accountant can file your tax returns. If you are late, an extension is filed, and you are charged for the extension.
• Talk to your accountant about tax planning – make sure you and your accountant have a game plan for the end of the year. Sit down and have a chat so you know how much money you will owe and how much you need to start saving.
Stay tuned for more end of the year tax planning tips coming in December!
Readers, do you have any tips or strategies you use to successfully plan for end of the year taxes?
What Makes a Good Leader
Good leadership is crucial to successfully managing a small business. The following four concepts will help any small business owner effectively motivate and interact with employees:
Relationship Building
Make the effort to get to know your employees on a personal yet professional, level. You should maintain a healthy balance between acting as an authoritative figure and someone that can be easily approached with problems or concerns. Make sure to give public credit to your employees when appropriate as well as provide positive, verbal feedback as often as possible. The office culture of your small business depends on how you build relationships with others.
Delegation
Understand your employees’ individual strengths and h
old any completed tasks to a consistent quality of work. Most bosses agree that delegating about fifty percent of tasks has proven helpful. According to Rice University’s ‘Learning to Delegate’ article, when you assign someone a task, be sure to include what you want to be completed, when it should be finished, and overall goals for the scope of the project, among other details. Make sure you communicate this information accurately and clearly.
Goal Making
When you identify the goals of a project, employees should understand its importance and relevance to the company. It’s important to mark and measure progress, so be sure to set quantitative goals as well.
Follow Though
Meet with employees on a regular basis in order to create consistent deadlines, according to Rice University’s ‘Learning to Delegate’ article. It is that much easier to establish a transparent relationship with employees by correctly following through after assigning tasks.
Social Media Marketing Tip
Social media 
can help move your company’s brand from ‘I’ve never heard of this company’ to ‘who is this company’ to ‘I know this company’ to ‘I do business with this company’. It’s easy, fun and relevant!
As with traditional marketing, your communication messages must be laser focused on your ideal prospects. If you try to aim at ‘everyone’, your messages will feel too generic. Get inside the head of your prospects. Get to know them and what challenges they have. Become intimately educated on your ideal prospects ‘pain points’. What motivates them? What keeps them awake at night? Once you know these things, you can address clients and prospects in short, informative blasts through your e-newsletter, blog, tweets, and other updates. Give your prospects and clients information that they can use.
Consistently writing about problems and solutions these prospects have demonstrates that you understand them. You have earned their respect and ultimately the ‘right’ to become the trusted adviser.
Accounting Helpful Hints
N
o matter what size your business is, your bookkeeping habits are critical to its success. Your record keeping needs to be accurate and current. For instance, receipts should be entered within one week of the transaction. Don’t rely on online banking for your account information; use only what your bookkeeping records tell you. Also, keep your records reconciled to the bank.
Business owners can effectively use their time increasing sales,
building relationships with the clients, and overseeing the delivery of the service. Therefore, it’s best to hire a competent bookkeeper to do the bookkeeping and then you can review the reports on a weekly basis. If you don’t know how to read the reports, find someone to teach you. Once you become familiar, you can quickly scan a profit and loss document to see any areas that your company needs attention.
Developing a 30-Second Elevator Pitch for Your Business
Imagine you are on an elevator – a businessman steps in beside you, and presses the button that will bring you both to the top floor. Suddenly, you have about thirty seconds to network: initiate a conversation, explain what your company is all about, and invite feedback.
Small Biz 1, a resource for small businesses who are looking for management, finance, sales, and marketing tips, explains that “your elevator pitch is not a traditional sales presentation but it is a story of your business so make your story interesting and exciting so your prospects will be interested to learn more about you and your business when you finish your elevator pitch.” Practice your story with anyone but your co-workers – you then will know what words and phrases to say in order to summarize what your company does in basic terms that are easy to understand.
It is also helpful to state your case through common and well-recognized business functions. For example, does your company specialize in a new and innovative type of training? Have you developed new scripts that guarantee a sale nearly every time? Begin by discussing a concept that the average person understands and finish your story by claiming your company’s unique selling proposition.
It definitely pays to be strategic while on the elevator. Develop a SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat) analysis for your company beforehand in order to have some concrete points already in mind. As you are speaking, be able to discuss your company’s strengths in a clear and concise manner. Pay attention to any potential opportunities that could arise while you are listening during the conversation.
According to Small Biz 1, “the desired outcome of your elevator pitch is to have your prospects ask questions and you can use this opportunity to talk in more details about your business.” After finishing your pitch, it is important to leave time for the other person to ask questions and gain more details.
Readers, how would you describe your company in thirty seconds or less? Could you describe your individual role and responsibilities to the average person?
Sources:
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_05.htm
http://smallbiz1.com/30-second-elevator-pitch.html
http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/business-function.html
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_11.htm
How To Handle Client Objections
What exactly is an objection? RainMaker Blog, an excellent resource popular among B2B professional services providers, defines an objection as “an explicit expression from a buyer that a barrier exists between the current situation and what he needs to engage your services.” Examples include a comment that the product or service you are trying to sell is too expensive, unnecessary, or not as good of a value as a competitor’s offer. The question then becomes, how do you eliminate these objections and sort through any of the clients’ doubts to achieve a sale?
The following lists some useful tips in handling common client objectives:
- Remember that objections are not necessarily a bad thing. True objections reveal to us the clients’ values and beliefs, and expresses to you, the salesperson, that a client is genuinely interested. In fact, acclaimed corporate trainer, strategic mastermind, and business growth expert Chet Holmes preaches that “an objection is an opportunity to close.”
- Recognize the entire objection. In order to ease any tension that may arise, remember to listen very carefully and not to interrupt when the client is stating an objection. Break down the reasons to why there is an objection and you’ll get to the root of the concern.
- Sympathize with the client’s feelings. Remain neutral by acknowledging that others may have the same objections as the client – you can even go as far as to thank the client for identifying it.
- Foresee objections. Many objections are very similar, and, therefore, easy to predict and overcome. According to Pam Lantos, President of PR/PR, a public relations firm based in Orlando, FL, “after a few months in any industry, salespeople have heard most of the objections they will hear over and over again for years.”
- Pay attention to the nonverbal cues. Watch for positive and enthusiastic signs, such as nodding or smiling, coming from the client. These will signal greater cooperation as you try to make the sale.
- Know the difference between an excuse and an objection. While there is no perfect method to determine whether a client who says “I can’t afford this” is politely refusing your presentation or actually means that the product is too expensive, try your best through observation and questioning to discover the clients’ true feelings.
Hey readers, what are some of your client objections? What strategies have you used to overcome them?
Sources:
http://www.bluinc.com/news/eliminating.html
http://www.raintodayblog.com/dealing-with-objections/
http://www.chetholmes.com/develop-master-level-sales-people.php
Effective Time Management Strategies
Find a piece of paper and write down the top five things that prevent you from being able to effectively manage your time. How often do you run out of time while trying to complete a task? What distracts you? How well do you perform while multi-tasking or under pressure? Take this quiz to determine which time management tools are best for you. Here are some other strategies to consider as well:
Keep a To-Do List – and be sure to follow it! To-Do Lists are excellent for prioritizing and managing which tasks must be completed first. They also provide an opportunity to visually break down large projects into sub-tasks.
Be flexible. Understand that plans change and that unanticipated jobs may arise. Be ready to tackle the unexpected by not packing your To-Do List full of urgent tasks that must be completed that day.
Develop an awareness of when you become restless or distracted as you are working – you’ll know then it’s time for a break. Remember productivity increases when your mind is focused.
Avoid procrastination by actively creating a successful work environment. Leave distractions like personal cell phones or music players at home and come to the office ready to work.
Know your limits and don’t take on too many tasks that you aren’t able to handle. It’s important to complete work accurately, and too much responsibility can overwhelm and ultimately distract.
Regularly assess your ability to effectively manage your time. As your tasks and priorities will naturally change, so will your attention span. Adapt your time management strategies to what works best for you at any given time.
Readers, how have you struggled with time management? What helps you to manage your time effectively?
Sources:
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newHTE_88.htm
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/time-management-mistakes.htm
http://www.calpoly.edu/~sas/asc/ael/time.mgt.strategies.html
Keep Track and Report Your Service Payments For Your Rental Properties
Have you had work performed on your rental property in 2011?
Check this out…if you own a rental property of any size, starting January 1, 2011, you are required to track and report service payments to the government.
The Small Business Act, which was enacted in 2010, has now expanded its requirements to all rental property owners to issue 1099-MISC forms to vendors who perform services worth $600 or more in the year. Prior to the expansion, the requirement only pertained to large rental properties. Now, it includes every rental property owner of any size property.
Important information that you will need in order to provide the vendor with a 1099 is their name, address, tax identification number, and the total amount that you paid them throughout the year. Of course, in order to keep accurate records of how much and with what method you paid, you will need to have a system in place where you can easily track the information. You or your bookkeeper can keep track very easily by using an accounting software, such as QuickBooks. As with all information reporting to the government, there are due dates and subsequently, penalties for filing late. Late penalties can be as much as $250.
Here’s how the process works…track all of your ‘handyman’ expenses for each vendor throughout the year of 2011. As long as the amount you paid to the vendor totals $600, in early 2012 you will issue the vendor a 1099 form with the correct amount that you paid them in 2011. They will then use that form for their own records and tax returns.
Since the amount is for the entire year, that means it’s cumulative. Therefore, you’ll need to keep adding any other charges from that same vendor throughout the year. For example, if you pay a plumber to fix something and the total for that service comes to $200, you still need to keep track because if he comes back and charges $200, then comes back once more and charges another $200, you will have to issue a 1099 form because $600 was paid to that plumber in the year 2011. The plumber will need include that 1099 in his tax reporting.
If you haven’t been tracking your rental property services, you might want to start now. Depending on how many properties you have and how big they are, it’s possible that it could get ahead of you if you wait. Start now so that the end of the year won’t be a big headache.
