Insights, Ideas, Results
Tax challenges are common among small business owners and it’s more than likely that one of your biggest pain points is filing your taxes. While it may only occur once per year, it requires substantial preparation.
At this point you may be asking yourself simple questions like “Should I do them myself?”, “What will cause the IRS to audit my small business?” or even “how can I save money filing my small business taxes?”
As a business owner, keeping the office in complete working order is always one of your main duties. And a large part of that is ensuring that the office is a safe environment to work in. Not only is this a legal concern in most places, but it is a moral one too – and it also happens to help your business when you are as safety-conscious as you can be. Nonetheless, even the most sensible business owner can sometimes struggle with keeping everything – and everyone – safe and sound. After all, how do you really ensure that your office is a safe haven for everybody? To try and answer that, we have put together a few of the essential checklist points for anyone trying to improve the safety of their office. Let’s take a look.
Effective leadership is at the core of any successful business. A good leader knows how to motivate his employees and listen to their needs. He also has the skills required for managerial activities. The best leaders will approach each new project thoughtfully, see the lighter side of things when times are tough, and help others reach their career goals.
From situational leadership to transactional leadership, there are various ways to run a business. An experienced manager or CEO should be able to choose the right approach for the situation. Studies indicate that successful business owners combine two or more leadership styles. The goals and culture of an organization determine which one works best.
Here are the most popular leadership styles and their unique characteristics:
Small business owners have hundreds of tasks on their to-do list at any given time. It’s impossible for anyone to tackle them all by themselves. Even if you are a super human and can take care of these tasks yourself the question still remains – should you? Are you better off spending time on tasks that are directly tied to your core business instead of the ones that can be taken care of by others? Based on interviews with number of small business owners and opinion of experts the answer is unequivocal YES. By focusing on core competency and letting others take care of non-essential ones you will be able to focus on and grow the business. So what tasks are better suited to delegate to others? Here are few that easily come to mind.
Your new business venture can feel awfully lonely and empty if you don’t staff it with the right team members. Unless you have a business idea that can be solely run by yourself and the help of freelancers, you are going to need some employees. In fact, if you haven’t already gathered some interest from internet and local job listings, then you’re going a bit too fast with your new startup and you need to slow down before you crash and burn.
2016 was an eventful year to say the least. The presidential election in the U.S. brought in a new leader in Washington and with him a very different approach to government policy and business regulation. Donald Trump has already started to make his presence felt in the first week. If that is any indication 2017 will be an eventful year for small businesses for sure.
As a small business owner it behooves you keep an eye on the trends that will impact your business. Not only will it help you avoid getting into trouble, but also position your business for the future growth. So what trends do we expect to see in 2017? Here are the top 10 from my viewpoint.
Employee engagement has an impact on everything from productivity to employee retention to morale. A variety of studies have found that highly engaged workplaces have 20% or higher productivity and profits per employee than those that don’t. Let’s look at three ways companies can improve their employee engagement.
There are a lot of interesting crafts that can be turned into a home business. You can start with an idea you actually love and develop unique, beautiful products that customers are willing to buy. There have been plenty of successful businesses built around home crafts and creative art too.
Turning a hobby and a craft into a business is actually easier than you think. In this article, we are going to take a closer look at how you can take the crafts and creative projects you love so much, make them into a business, and then take that business to success. Let’s get started, shall we?
For your business to succeed and thrive, you need dedicated and hardworking employees working together in harmony. And to have that, you have to keep your staff engaged. The people you want to have on board are those who are enthusiastic and committed to doing their job.
However, according to a recent study, there are only about 13% of employees worldwide are engaged. This means that the majority of workers around the globe are unhappy, unfulfilled, and unproductive. Employees like these are the ones you should avoid having, as they can cause a string of negative effects on your business.
While these workers can be a source of frustration and can hurt company performance, an effort to improve your people management skills can turn the tide. Here are 7 tips that can help you keep your employees engaged and motivated:
It can be quite daunting when you first leave the world of work behind to set up on your own, and even more intimidating if this is your first time dipping your toe into running a business. Not everyone’s cut out to make millions. In fact lots of new businesses, and start-ups fold within five years. Still, there are a few key things you can do to give yourself the very best chance at success before the ink on your company logo’s even dry.
