Successful Blog

Is Your Business Hiring the Wrong Folks?

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It is 2013 and you have some three-fourths of the year in front of you to take your small business to new heights.

So, what are a few things that concern you over the remaining nine months? If hiring the right talent to helped carry your business to more success is one of those concerns, what do you plan on doing about it?

As a small business owner, you obviously have a full plate to handle on a regular basis. Decisions involving products, services, budgets, promoting your company, and more likely consume you on a daily basis. That being said, where does hiring the right employees rank on such a list?

For some business owners, it just takes one wrong hire to throw off the office chemistry, potentially throwing the company into upheaval as you try and right the ship.

If you have made a bad hire or two in the past, consider the following to negate such choices in the future:

* Chemistry – Just like if you were buying a bus and placing your employees on it, finding the right seats for each of your workers is critical. Let’s face it, some personalities just don’t mesh well, leading to potential conflicts around the office. Although some individuals can fool you or your HR department during the hiring process, never underestimate the importance of personality when looking to hire. An individual can have the most sparkling resume going, but their personality should matter just as much if not more when considering bringing them on board;

* Qualifications – Have you ever decided to hire someone with less qualifications because you could flat out pay them less money? Yes, it does happen more often than you may think, especially in a day and age when companies are trying to save money wherever possible. Some businesses will hire an individual that is less qualified than another applicant, albeit to save money. Keep in mind that making such a move can surely backfire on you, especially if you have to bring someone new in a short time later and go through the training process once again. Qualifications should always be right at or near the top of the list, otherwise you simply get what you pay for;

* Attitude – Just as chemistry and qualifications prove important, an applicant’s attitude ranks right up there too. The most qualified person could be a proven winner for your company, yet their attitude is less than stellar. Yes, attitudes can change over time, but are you willing to risk hiring such a person? If during the interviewing process you sense an individual’s heart just isn’t into your company, great qualifications and all, look elsewhere;

* Mileage – Finally, locating that individual who will go that extra mile for you and your business is golden. Extra mileage means the man or woman who will stay past their regular hours or come in early, speak up regularly at company meetings to offer constructive ideas to grow the company, and not afraid to offer their talents and experience to others in the office. Some employees do just enough that is required of them, while others will go above and beyond. When you find those latter individuals, your business stands to gain.

As the calendar prepares to turn to April soon, are you making it your business to find the right employees in 2013?

Photo credit: employeescreeningblog.com

About the Author: With 23 years’ writing experience, Dave Thomas covers a variety of small business topics, including helping those who might say i need online reputation protection.

What All Freelancers Must Know About Tax Season

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By Adria Saracino

To the new and veteran freelancer alike, tax season can be a time of dread. While there are many tax benefits to be taken advantage of, it can be difficult to navigate the maze of regulations surrounding each deduction–not to mention you have to make sure you’re sending all of the correct forms to the correct places.

But it doesn’t have to be a complete headache — not with the right resources. That’s why we’re recommending the seven tips below, which cover all of the essentials, as well as the documents available in this extensive tax resource center. With these two sources, you’ll find answers to all of your most burning freelancer tax questions — and a few you didn’t even know to ask.

1. Know What Taxes You’ll Need to Pay

If you’ve ever worked directly for an employer, you’re probably used to paying income, social security and Medicare taxes. As a freelancer, you’ll also need to pay a self-employment tax. This is because you are your own business, and therefore have to match your tax contributions in the same way your employer would have, for a total contribution of 15.3%. That’s 12.4% for social security and 2.9% for Medicare tax.

You’ll also have to pay an income tax, for which you can use your last year’s rates as a guide, or you can check the IRS site for income bracket cutoffs. Lastly, it’s important to check with your state revenue department and municipality to determine whether or not they are expecting taxes from you as well. For most freelancers, you will make the bulk of these payments in the form of estimated taxes at the end of every quarter — that’s the 15th of every January, April, June and September — using form 1040-ES.

2. File the Correct Forms

Every time a new client hires you as a contractor, they will have you fill out a W-9. That’s so that when tax season rolls around, they can send you a 1099, which will state the amount of money they’ve paid you. Note: You won’t receive this form for total income of less than $600.

You may be used to filing a 1040A or 1040-EZ form; as a freelancer, you’ll have to switch back to the original 1040 form, as you’ll be reporting self-employment income. To account for taxes related specifically to your business you will also need to file a Schedule C, though those with relatively simple businesses like writers or graphic designers will be fine filing a less complex Schedule C-EZ.

Lastly, you will need to calculate your self-employment tax on Schedule SE form.

Note: These forms and types of taxes paid will differ slightly for freelancers who have filed as a corporation — something all freelancers should consider for tax and liability purposes — but that is an article unto its own.

3. Take Advantage of Deductions

Now for the fun part! There are a number of juicy deductions available to freelancers. That said, it’s important to know the difference between what counts as a business lunch and what counts as a “ridiculous splurge that will anger the IRS.” And we can’t say it enough: keep your receipts.

  • Office Supplies: From the furniture in your office to that colorful new packet of Post-Its, office supplies are fully deductible. However, if you’re just starting out, you may want to brush up on the differences between current and capitalized expenses.
  • Advertising and Internet Expenses: Billboards, fliers, leaflets, online ad campaigns, and the internet connection itself. Add the expenses up, and deduct away.
  • Professional Services: Whether you’ve employed a bookkeeper to keep track of your finances or you’ve taken a continuing education course to further your career, the costs you paid are all deductible.
  • Insurance: If you have business insurance, it’s fully deductible. Health insurance is as well on form 1040 as an adjustment to income.
  • Home Office: You can deduct a percentage of your rent and utilities, based on the size of your home office.
  • Travel: If you travel to clients, track your mileage for a deduction at the 2012 rate of 55.5 cents per mile. Travel for business trips is also deductible, as are any meals and hotel rooms related to business travel.

This is just a sampling of the deductions available. You’ll find a more extensive guide here.

4. Be Wary of Audit Red Flags

One big caveat to all of these deductions: the IRS keeps its eye on freelancers for any kind of fudging, so you’ll want to make sure you’re not setting off alarm bells. A few common triggers include:

  • The Home Office Deduction: This is by far one of the most commonly abused deductions, partially because the regulations concerning just what you can and cannot claim are both strict and a little difficult to understand. The gist of it is that the area you claim as a home office needs to be used exclusively for business, and you need to stick quite tightly to obvious borders. Read more about these regulations in IRS Publication 587.
  • Mileage: While we highly recommend you deduct mileage, if you use your car for both business and pleasure, you’ve got to do a good job of tracking and separating the two. Keep in your car a little book with columns for start and end mileage, date, and description.
  • Meals and Entertainment: Again, deducting for this is perfectly acceptable, as long as it’s within the realm of reason. Deducting for a good meal with an important contact is fine, but perhaps not if it costs several thousand dollars. Use a good dose of common sense to avoid this trigger.

5. Sign Up for Electronic Filing

Repeat after us: filing your taxes electronically will make your life infinitely easy. Through the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System, you’ll even be able to file your estimated taxes. It takes a little time to set up, but will be well worth it in the end.

6. Use Tax Software Made for Businesses

Likewise, tax software can make your life so much easier, as can accounting programs that automatically create reports and forms for you. File for free through the IRS, or compare a number of good tax programs here.

7. Hire an Accountant

You’re in business for yourself, and you may very well enjoy being totally self-sufficient. But hiring an accountant can mean outsourcing many of these steps. It can also ensure you’re not missing anything, especially in terms of new tax laws. Lastly, a good accountant will find you deductions and loopholes you could have never known existed (unless you wanted to read through a mass of byzantine tax documents in your free time…). All of these things make hiring an accountant an expense that pays for itself, at least in the beginning of your freelance years. Just make sure to do so early before they book up.

Take-Away

Filing taxes as a freelancer can be complicated, but doing so allows for numerous personal benefits. Take the time to learn the regulations and get to know the forms so you can take advantage of all there is to offer and also cover all of your bases.

Still Confused? Check Out This Tax Checklist

Author’s Bio: Adria Saracino is a marketer, blogger, and occasional freelancer. When not consulting on best business practices, you can find her writing about style on her personal fashion blog, The Emerald Closet.

Devil’s Advocate or Guardian Angel?

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By Lindsay Bell

Why are people afraid of being challenged? I’m not talking about the “throw down the gauntlet”, back alley type of challenge, which of course would be unsettling.

I’m talking about healthy debate – defending your ideas, and being asked to think otherwise about a certain subject or path of action. Sure, I’m making a sweeping generalization, as there are loads of people who rise to a spirited exchange of ideas, but in my experience, there seem to be many these days who view it as a negative.

DEVIL’S ADVOCATE OR GUARDIAN ANGEL?

Being a proud devil’s advocate myself, when I stumbled upon an old post by Liz recently, where she dissects devil’s advocates and guardian angels in the workplace, it caught my eye.

Here’s what she had to say about them both:

The position of devil’s advocate is inherently negative. The role is to find holes in the proposed idea. Arguing for the sake of arguing easily can degrade into arguing for inconsequential details or arguing to show how clever the person presenting the argument can be.

The position of guardian angel is inherently positive. The role is to find and fill holes in the proposed idea. Arguing for the possibility of what might work, while checking for risk, leads to dialogue that builds and moulds ideas into useful realities.

FACING THE CHALLENGE

Religious imagery aside, I respectfully disagree.

If the devil’s advocate is looking for holes, it’s to stick a big ol’ red flag beside them so you don’t fall in! They are brainstorming, and looking to better an idea or proposed path. They are thinking of the company’s bottom line, and are trying to avoid the cost of cleaning up after something has gone wrong.

When I’m playing devil’s advocate, I always let people know: “Just playing devil’s advocate here…” – and the reason I do is to NOT insult whoever’s idea it is that I’m challenging. It’s my way of saying “Hey, I’m not asking this to be a jerk, I respect you, but let’s look at it from the other side. I don’t find it ‘inherently negative’. And I certainly don’t “argue for the sake of arguing”.

Granted, my career for the most part has been in journalism/television production. Trust me. You don’t even know what being challenged means until you’ve had your story/idea/interview flayed from top to bottom by a TV executive! But I look back on those formative years with appreciation.

Being challenged like that – daily – teaches you to think differently, it makes you always question “what else” or “what if”, and it forces you to always look at what you’re producing through the eyes of your audience – your community.

An employee fearful of speaking up or proffering an alternative thought is not a productive employee.

Fear creates a culture of complacency within an organization and its teams, and inevitably leads to miscommunication and needless extra work being done.

And yes, both sides of the spectrum need to take responsibility for opening the lines of communication.

Employees need to buck up, get a backbone, and not fear that their manager will think poorly of them if they bring up something that she/he doesn’t agree with. They also need to be prepared to argue their points, thoughts and ideas.

Management needs to ensure there are safe spaces where anyone can raise issues without consequences.

Let’s stop seeing devil’s advocates – who actually have the confidence, candor, and courage to speak up and challenge – as somehow negative.

They might be a little feistier and more fiery than your other employees, but if given the option, I would choose devil’s advocate over guardian angel any day.

And I sure as heck would want one on my team.

What do you think? Do you see the value in healthy debate and a good challenge, or do you immediately feel it’s a negative? Would you choose a Devil’s Advocate or a Guardian Angel? Would love to hear your comments! 

Author’s Bio: Lindsay Bell is the content director at Chicago-based strategic communications and online marketing firm Arment Dietrich, and works in Toronto. A former TV producer, she’s a strong advocate of three minutes or less of video content. She has a cool kid, a patient husband, two annoying cats, and just welcomed Hank, a Vizsla/Foxhound cross, into her home. 

How Do We Get More Social With Our Clients?

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Whether you run a small, mid-sized or large company, how social you are with your customers can go a long way in determining just how successful you are destined to be.

Whether they feel like they can’t properly engage their return on investment (ROI), don’t want to make the time and effort or are essentially ill-informed on how to properly run social media campaigns, there are still many businesses that are missing the boat when it comes to socially engaging consumers.

So, how can you and/or your marketing team (where applicable) get the most out of what social media has to offer moving forward?

Among the tricks of the social trade:

1. Be a good listener – Even if your business is just using social media sporadically, you can pick up a ton of valuable chatter by listening to what is being said about you and your industry in general. If you do not use Facebook, Twitter, Google+ for any other reason, use them to hear the conversations. You can pick up valuable discussions as to what consumers need more and less of, along with what their most used questions and issues are;

2. Be a consistent presence – Like many other things in life, you need to be constantly active in social media to truly benefit from it. Just being a casual social media participant leaves you and your company with several problems. First, you are not there regularly to see and hear what is going on. Secondly, you won’t be viewed as an authority in your industry if you just pop in and out on the social channels. Finally, you miss out on potential sales from those consumers who do not yet have the product or service they need;

3. Be someone who engages – One of a number of reasons consumers are on social media for starters is they come looking for answers and solutions to their questions and problems. With social media, you can respond to them in a real-time fashion, something you can’t do through traditional means like in-person store visits or phone calls. Actively engage consumers that are both present and potential customers with you, showing them you want to be the go-to man or woman for their shopping needs;

4. Be void of spamming – With all the positives that social media can offer you as a business owner, never use it to spam consumers. The spammer is the individual or company that inundates consumers with messages, mostly trying to push a sale down their throats. Some consumers will automatically revolt against this, feeling like you are being too pushy. Use your social media tweets and shares to answer questions, solve problems, along with educating the consumer. The latter can be easily done via links to tutorials and other items you hopefully have on your website;

5. Be human – Finally, make your social media posts fun and entertaining from time to time. Yes, your main goal is to draw people back to your website, but you can’t be about sales and business 100 percent of the time. Show those who view your SM posts that you and your company are just like them, doing this by interjecting some humor into your posts. You should also humanize your entire office team by either getting them to post or talking about them (images are great) from time to time. Being social is just that, putting a social side to your business.

So, how do you as a business owner go about getting the most out of social media in 2013?

Photo credit: dimespring.com

About the Author: With 23 years’ writing experience, Dave Thomas covers social media and business topics, including Internet reputation management.

Online work is never “done”

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This morning I woke up to the latest Google+ change to the cover photo and did a classic face-palm. I thought that was done. Handled. Taken care of.

Except, when your business is online, there is no “done.”

There’s a classic myth about King Sisyphus who was cursed to roll a huge boulder uphill only to watch the boulder roll back down and repeat the process. For eternity.

Perhaps that’s an extreme reference, but sometimes dealing with the shifting sands of online business feels that way, doesn’t it?

Don’t worry, we’re all in this together.

You can maintain your sanity with these handy tips:

Don’t get caught by surprise

Stay on top of breaking news in your niche and for online business in general. Sites like Mashable, ReadWrite, TechCrunch, and TheNextWeb all offer quick punches of information, and you can often get a heads-up on trends before they catch you flat-footed. Consider subscribing to the technical blogs of the big social networks, to get advance notice of design or other changes (like this post where Twitter warned of upcoming API changes).

Do your chores consistently

Set aside time each week for housekeeping, tweaking graphics, updating links, and fixing your site. If you schedule specific time to do this, you won’t end up shoehorning it in between client calls. Use a block of time consistently to line up chunks of content, or batch change graphics, or do other maintenance tasks.

Delegate if you can

Some repetitive tasks can be outsourced or delegated, so you can invest your own valuable time doing the things that only you can do. Find a virtual assistant, get a freelancer to write some content for you, or judiciously use automation tools to gain efficiency. One of Tim Ferriss’ key suggestions in The Four Hour Work Week is to use outsourcing as a time saver.

Finally, recognize that everyone else is scrambling to keep up too. We all have our boulders to roll.

(If you’d like to update your Google+ cover photo, you’ll need an eye-catching 2120 pixel by 1192 pixel picture that conveys your brand message.)

Do you have any tricks for keeping pace with constant online developments?

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Twitter as @rhogroupee

 

Image: pasukaru76 via Flickr CC license.

6 Tips to Boost Your Productivity

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By John Murphy

I don’t think I have ever met anyone who does not want to be more productive each and every day.

The day just never seems enough to get all you want done! Recognize this? Let’s be honest, it is an issue for all of us and is a constant challenge that comes up in all my coaching work.

Books have been written, courses delivered and seminars run on this subject – many wonderful (some not so much!) but the volume of advice can be so overwhelming that it actually inhibits your productivity. Not quite what you were looking for!

So, to assist in the elimination of the overwhelm I have set out my 6 Tips to Boost Productivity, which, if undertaken, will vastly improve your productivity and give you that sense of achievement at the end of the day that you are really seeking.

1. Be Razor Sharp About Priorities.

You can never be effective unless you have clarity about your priorities – otherwise you are just engaged in the next activity that lands on your desk or in your head. Busy? Yes. Efficient? No!

To get really clear about your priorities you need clarity about your goals so that you can decide if the specific activity you are undertaking is moving you towards the achievement of your goal.

Your priorities are those actions that will support the delivery of your goals. So, those things on your to do list today – do they progress your goals or not? If they don’t why are you doing them?

Get your priorities crystal clear!

2. Schedule Your Activities

This is fundamental to any discussion about time management and effectiveness! Schedule your activities as if they are appointments with yourself – and make that time as sacred as a meeting with your most valued client.

If one of your priorities this week is to prepare a performance review of your staff, or draft a proposal to a prospective client, then do not leave that activity on some to do list to do when you find time. Be disciplined about it and schedule to do it at a specific time and then be resolute about adhering to that.

An item on your to do list is an aspiration, a scheduled activity is a commitment! Being productive is all about commitment!

3. Be a Continuous Learner

Never be content about how productive you are – we can all get better! So have an attitude of continuous learning about ways to improve productivity. Now, just to be clear, I am not suggesting you spend your life trying out different systems for productivity. What I am saying is that new technology is being developed all the time that can really help your productivity, and don’t just ignore it. Check it out to see if it will improve your productivity – if it does, then incorporate it. If it doesn’t just dump it!

For example, I have become a recent convert to Evernote – a great tool to capture “stuff” on the go that I can refer to later. It really does help me to be more productive – I can have folders for various pieces of information I want to keep to look at later, and I know it is all in one place.

4. Celebrate Progress.

Every day celebrate your progress! Sound naff? Not at all! There is great value in reviewing your day and celebrating your successes and the progress you made towards your goals.

It is the fuel that boosts your energy for the following day.

5. No Multi-Tasking

I take real exception to those who laud “multi-tasking!” I do not believe it is a male/female thing – I believe it is simply a bad habit we can get into and then justify as a virtue!

Multi-tasking has to be inefficient because we are not giving full attention to any one thing, and consequently the output will reflect the input, which is divided and lacking focus!

Do one task at a time, and do not move to the next one until you have completed it. If you have scheduled the time for that activity, then give it 100%.

6. Restrict Your Time on Email

Email is one of the great tools we posses but it is also one of the greatest time stealers and inhibitors to productivity.

How often do you check your emails every day? Go on, be honest!

Checking your emails that frequently is only ensuring that your agenda is being run by everyone else – you want to know who has sent you what, and then you find that really interesting link.. ! 15 minutes later you realize that you are not doing what you should be.

I heartily advise that you allocate 3 periods in the day to check your email – and that is it! The world will not stop turning because you have not checked your email for 2 or 3 hours! Be in control of your time, not reacting to other people’s priorities.

We all can do something about our own productivity – and it is our responsibility to do so. So, now that you have read this – what are you going to do? And when are you going to do it?

Author’s Bio: John Murphy a business coach who writes about what makes executives and business owners more productive at www.johnmurphyinternational.com. You can find him on Twitter as @jmicoaching.