Where can a business owner obtain tax information? When you don't know what questions to ask, it's very helpful to take some classes, and read a few articles prior to visiting with a CPA. Enjoy these resources: Internal Revenue Service (IRS) The IRS has the best free classes around! Call your local office to find out when the home business or sole proprietorship classes are held. The home business class is a half-day class; the sole proprietorship class is a full day. The difference between ...
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If there's one thing I've learnt in business it's this. You can't always do everything yourself' even if it is sometimes quicker and cheaper to do things yourself. Unless you're running a 'one man band', every business needs good, reliable, well-trained staff. Surprisingly enough, I've discovered that delegation is one of the best methods of staff training. In fact, I believe that delegation is a management skill that is often overlooked. Although not every staff member will possess leadership ...
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If you own or manage a small business, you know how much time can be spent chasing down paper invoices, purchase orders and sales reports. It can be a real nightmare! That is where billing software comes in. It allows you to record all your customers, sales, invoices, inventory, suppliers (and more) in a PC-based system that is easy to use. Deciding that you need to invest in good quality billing software is not hard. The tricky part can be choosing the right software package for your ...
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Recently Kevin Pine shared an argument he uses with clients in his site design business. It goes like this. Picture the greeter in WalMart stores, the one that gives you a warm welcome, offers you a cart and a flyer announcing specials for the day. Suppose this person was directed to turn aside every tenth person who enters the store, saying, "Sorry, we don't want your business today." Then asks them to leave. If this were repeated throughout all stores, WalMart's bottom line would drop. ...
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a.k.a. PROTECT YOUR ORGANIZATION'S PROPRIETARY INFORMATION & AVOID BREAKING U.S. LAW The other day one of our overseas clients called in a state of near panic, to ask a question. At issue was whether they had unwittingly violated U.S. law by transferring technical information to a joint venture partner in a European country. After hearing a two minute description, I was able to answer a resounding "Yes"! Such are the dangers of operating in a global environment. The worst part is that my client ...
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When it comes to generating publicity for a product, business or website, one of the hardest decisions entrepreneurs have to make is whether to launch the campaign themselves. What makes it tough is trying to determine the amount of time it might take to launch and maintain a successful publicity campaign. This article will help address a couple of those critical elements: the length of your publicity efforts and; the respective number of hours it may take to get the job done effectively. In my ...
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There are probably as many definitions for success as there are people who want to succeed. And the targets for our efforts are many. We want to succeed in business. We want to be successful husbands and wives and parents. We want to whittle that golf score down to size. We want to be successful students, whether we are nineteen trying to decide on a major, or 45 trying to master that new computer program, or reaching for that promotion. More of us than ever, want to be ...
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This article introduces the concept of fostering creativity in the workplace as a prelude to building a world-class Knowledge Creation and Management system. Peter Drucker was quoted in Forbes Magazine's Management New Paradigms 'Managing people will become increasingly crucial in developed countries like US. For the only competitive advantage developed countries can still hope to have is the productivity of their knowledge workers. The productivity of the knowledge worker is still abysmally ...
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A man went into the local Big and Tall Man's store several times looking for a job. Finally, on his seventh visit, the store's owner told him, "I will tell you what. I have this suit here on the shelf that has been here for years. I cannot find anyone to buy it. I have some errands to run, so if you will watch the store while I am out, you will get your chance. If you can sell this suit while I am gone, you will have yourself a job." A few hours later, the store's owner returns to find the ...
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There's more to customer service dealing with order fulfillment, returns, complaints and questions. Good customer service is based on respect and concern --- qualities that can't be spelled out in a company policy. Consider: The managers of two department stores frantically scrambled to do damage control following employee-actions that sparked public outrage. In the first scenario, a sales person refused to call 911 when a mother requested help for her child who was experiencing a seizure. ...
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