If you are the manager of a small business, then you know how difficult it can be sometimes to properly manage human resources. Organizing interviews, talking salary and mediating employee conflict are some of the less-glamorous aspects of the job. However, it’s also one of the most important facets of maintaining a happy and stable workplace. Developing a positive company culture may be one of the best investments you will make as a small-business manager. According to a Gallup Organization’s study of employees across the country, of the three million employees studied, a shocking amount cited themselves as being “checked out” from their work. Here are the statistics:

• 29% are engaged. These employees are excited about their work and have a close bond with their company. They look forward to their workday and are the movers and shakers of their organization.

• 54% are not engaged. These employees are “checked out.” They feel little connection with their career and simply go through the motions of their day.

• 17% are actively disengaged. This category is made up of employees who openly dislike their work. They complain about other employees and are too busy contributing to negative office energy to add real value to their company.

To many small-business owners, these numbers may be a bit shocking. Hopefully, the vast majority of your employees fall into the first category, but given the statistics, that is probably not the case. It is important to target those in the second and third categories and find the root of their problems. Here are a few tips to help you maintain a positive work environment and make your employees eager to begin their workday and move into the first category.

1. Find out what makes them tick. Some employees respond well to the setting and achievement of team goals, while others appreciate verbal praise every so often. Finding out what makes your employees work hard can in turn help you and the bottom line.
2. Give promotions where they are deserved. Everyone deserves recognition for a strong and consistent work ethic. Giving a promotion is not simply a matter of paying more because you feel generous; it’s a way to keep your most talented and efficient employees at your company. If they’re great employees, it’s likely that other organizations are seeking them out as well. You must remain competitive.
3. Terminate when necessary. It’s important to recognize the difference between an uninspired employee and someone who is volatile to your company culture. As long as you have strong, well-documented and consistent reasons that an employee is acting inappropriately and not meeting expectations, you have potential reason to terminate. It’s not the best part of the job, but it could be essential to your overall company health.
4. Be available. Being available allows your employees to come to you with any issues they may be having. If you are bogged down with bookkeeping, answering emails and scurrying from one client meeting to another, you may appear distant and unreachable. Of course you’re busy, but try taking an hour or two out of your week to meet with employees and ask them about how their work is going. If you feel too strapped for time to do this, consider outsourced accounting or hiring an intern to help you manage some of your duties.
5. Set the example. Employees tend to mimic what they see other people in the office doing. If they see you merely surviving your workday, then that’s what they think is the norm. If they see you as inspired, driven and creative, then their best will come out.
6. Ask for feedback. If you notice an employee that appears to be bored or uninspired, ask them what can be done to boost their motivation and make them a standout team member. Likewise, if you recognize a particular employee being exceptionally driven, ask them what inspires them each day. Asking these questions can give you insight that would otherwise go under the radar.

These few tips can hopefully help you manage a successful and motivated team of employees and maintain a positive energy within your company. Putting these ideas into practice can help you move your employees from the second and third categories into the most-desired first category. Good luck.

About the Author

Bert Doerhoff is an expert in all things having to do with small-business taxes and accounting. He has been chosen multiple times by the CPA Digest for the “Digest 50 Award”, representing one of the top 50 CPA firms in the country. His accounting services in Jefferson City  have helped many small businesses find success. 

By Ella Davidson of Coupons.org; Coupons is a site dedicated to giving back to the community while providing informative couponing knowledge.

As any marketing strategist will tell you, understanding your target shopper is the best way to achieve success. Many factors can play a role in determining the outcome of your campaign. In a robust economy, simple tricks such as placing desired items at an entrance of a store can lure a potential shopper in. Once the shopper comes into the store, they will begin to look around and thus create sales that otherwise might not have happened. When an economy is lagging, a successful marketing campaign can be much more difficult to achieve, because even though you have an item of interest, the shopper is not prepared to spend anything other than what they initially intended.

McDonald’s Monopoly Campaign

One of the most successful coupon campaigns in recent history was carried out by fast food establishment McDonald’s. They found a way to get customers to spend more just for a chance at the big prize. McDonald’s discovered that by offering games pieces on their large and super-sized value meals they could sell double what they would without it. This strategy has proven to be successful for years. What no one paid attention to was the fact that they had to purchase a meal in order to get them, and not just a meal, a large meal. So instead of selling $4.00 to $5.00 worth of food per person they were selling $7-8 per person.

Famous Retail Rewards

Supermarkets aren’t far behind, though. Many supermarkets now give points on the total amount of items sold. These points can add up fast. For example, some supermarkets have points that go toward gas discounts. With the uncertainty in gas prices, offering points towards discounts on gas is brilliant. Not only does the consumer save big on gas but the supermarket has now achieved customer loyalty in a customer’s bid to save money. This promotion takes the worry out of the consumer shopping around for pricing at various stores, ultimately boosting the supermarket’s sales.

Blockbuster’s Failure

When Netflix hit the market, people were drawn in by the capability of renting a movie with no late fees. Blockbuster, in order to put itself back in with the new competition, decided to launch a similar campaign in which they also advertised no late fees. The intention was to draw people back to the video store chain in an effort to compete with Netflix. It backfired on the chain, big time. Instead of keeping a movie or video for the usual day or two, people began collecting them and storing them as though they owned the movies. To complicate the matter even further, Netflix was offering monthly rentals at a nominal fee with no late fees. Where Netflix outshined Blockbuster is that, despite the monthly fee, the company was smart enough to limit the amount of movies a person could have at once. You could receive new movies only when the old ones were returned.

Discount Sales Causes Restaurant’s Demise

Groupon is a great site for people to save money – usually 50% or more – on activities such as dining out in their area. While many businesses use the discount site as a way of drawing in customers, when these couponing adventures are mismanaged, it can spell disaster for the business. This is true for Drew’s Eatery, located in Chicago. Drew’s Eatery closed because of poorly managed discount offers, despite the owner’s experience in the business world. What people do not realize is that Groupon takes half of what the consumer’s pay, leaving only one quarter of the price to the business itself. In the case of Drew’s Eatery, it simply was not enough to cover the costs of the food they sold, and several deals later, the owner closed the doors.

A lot of preparation and research goes into promoting a campaign, and unfortunately there are no guarantees that any one campaign will be successful. Luck and marketing strategies play a big factor in determining how successful – or disastrous – a coupon campaign really is.

Reference

If you and your business have been hesitant to invest the time and effort into a LinkedIn account, what are you waiting for?

With some 120 million users, LinkedIn is still by far the choice of business professionals. Yet, many business pros, and their companies for that matter, have been late to the party when it comes to signing up for and maintaining accounts.

For the business professional, even if you choose to come and go with a LinkedIn page, it is a wise idea to have a company page in place so that you can draw people to your site and reach out in turn. This holds especially true for newer businesses that are looking to gain a foothold in their industry.

Without much of a social media presence, businesses stand the danger of falling behind the competition, given many individuals–be they potential job applicants or clients with your company–want today’s information yesterday.

With a LinkedIn page in place, both you and your business can measure the regular metrics to gain knowledge of who is coming to your page, what industry they are, the company they represent and more.

The LinkedIn site also proves valuable in:

• Telling your story and that of the company – While you don’t want to list every single detail regarding you and your business, it is important to paint a picture in your profile of who you are, why your company may be relevant to someone, and how your company has grown. If you’re a newer business, make it a point in your LinkedIn profile to show you’ve got the experience to both help consumers and attract new talent to your business. Listing something as simple as where you grew up and/or went to college is good too. If someone has a similar background to you, i.e. grew up in the same area or went to the same school, more often than not they are more likely to gravitate towards you being that you have a common bond;
• Communication with others – I must admit that my initial foray into LinkedIn consisted of posting my information and then not returning regularly. The more we discussed the site at work, however, the more I realized what I was missing out on. Coming across profiles of people who have similar interests to what my company does has opened the doors to some guest blogging opportunities and more. Although I still must admit I gravitate more towards Twitter and Facebook, I can see why LinkedIn is a great networking opportunity for business professionals. The group section is especially beneficial so you can nail down what would be of interest to you and your company, allowing you to avoid wasting valuable time searching;
• Target your industry – Whether you are in finance, real estate, marketing, or whatever it may be, you can target your search to specific industry updates. This is also valuable in order to prevent you from wasting time in endless searches. You can specifically follow those closest to your line of work, network with them, and see how they’re going about their specific tasks, hopefully providing you with some answers you may not have already had. From there, don’t hesitate to post blogs and articles, links to studies and white papers, etc., questions and more;
• Be authoritative – Another great feature is going to the Q&A portion of the site and posting and answering questions. This allows you to join in discussions and prove to others that you know your industry. In turn, it can open the door to more individuals coming your way for advice and possible business dealings.

As LinkedIn noted on a company blog post early last year, its ultimate goal is to connect all of the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.

One of my goals in 2012 is to become more LinkedIn with other business professionals, opening up doors to more opportunities to guest blog, among other things.

Being used in more than 200 countries and counting, LinkedIn is connecting professionals literally by the minute.

What are you waiting for?

Dave Thomas, who covers among other items obtaining small business loans, writes extensively for Business.com, an online resource destination for businesses of all sizes to research, find, and compare the products and services they need to run their businesses.

Tax (Photo credit: 401K)

According to the IRS, each year millions of taxpayers overlook deductions and credits resulting in overpaying their taxes. Here are seven tips so you won’t become one of the statistics.

Section 179 Deduction. If your business acquired assets in 2011 either through a lease or by purchasing them out right, you may be eligible to deduct up to $500,000. For more information about this deduction, you can read “End of Year Tax Tips” as well as the IRS publication “Bonus Depreciation and Increased Section 179 Deduction under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act”.

Additional Bonus Depreciation. If you are a business owner, don’t forget you can write off 100% of qualifying new (not used) assets—including most software, vehicles, and equipment in general.

American Opportunity Credit. Do you have a child in college? Then don’t forget to claim the higher education tax credits. Under the credit, taxpayers can get a reduction in their tax bill of up to $2500 per student provided the tax filers have an adjusted gross incomes of less than $80,000 a year (if single) or $160,000 (if they file jointly). An eligible family with two kids in college could get a tax credit of $5,000. Best part about the credit is that it covers all four years of college. In order to get the credit, you will need to fill out IRS form 8863.The tax credit is set to expire at the end of 2012.

Student Loan Interest.  If you are paying back your child’s student loan, and your child is no longer a dependent, your child is eligible to deduct up to $2500 of student loan interest you paid. However, parents can’t claim the interest deduction since they are not liable for the student loan debt.

Medicare Premiums for Self Employed. If you own your own business and are qualified for Medicare, you can deduct the premiums for Medicare Part B and Medicare Part D as well as supplemental Medicare (medigap) policies. According to Kiplinger, “you can’t claim this deduction if you are eligible to be covered under an employer-subsidized health plan offered by your employer.”

Retirement Accounts. Taxpayers have till April 17, 2012 to set up a new IRA or SEP or add to an existing IRA and have it count for your 2011 tax return.

Small Business Health Care Tax Credit. Small businesses that pay at least half of your employees’ health insurance premiums may be eligible for a tax credit of up to 35 percent of the premiums paid. You can find more information at the IRS web site

Mike Lockwood is President of TEQlease Capital,  a nationwide provider of equipment lease financing solutions.

Rebar Business Builders helps strengthen businesses from the inside out by installing small business marketing systems that systematically attract and retain ideal customers.

Their Managed Marketing programs provide everything a business needs to create, implement, and maintain their marketing plan. It’s like getting an entire marketing department in a box.

The man behind Rebar Business Builders is Bill Brelsford, a CPA turned marketing coach. According to Bill:

Accounting and marketing are seen as opposite ends of a spectrum. Left brain vs. right brain, analytical vs. creative, tie vs. turtleneck.

The question seems to imply that I escaped my accounting box and have to work to blend in, lest I am caught and sent back and forced to wear the green visor.

Technology is an important part of small business marketing. The internet and social media have opened up wonderful and affordable opportunities that in the past may have only been accessible to companies with large budgets. While technology provides great opportunities, it can also present challenges. I see a big part of our job at Rebar is using our experience to help remove, or at least minimize, the road blocks in using techology to market your business.

My goal is to help you create and implement a marketing system that allows you to spend less time chasing business and more time serving profitable customers.

Congratulations to the Rebar team! Check back next week for the next #IamBplans winner!

It all started with a simple email exchange. The final mail was short and to the point ‘ thanks for the great customer service, sadly it is unusual.’  It got me thinking.For me the exchange was pretty straight forward. A customer had emailed in with a query. I was in early, before the customer service team had arrived and I logged in to our email management tool. It was a straight forward request so I jumped in and answered it. The customer came back later than morning with another question and having had the initial correspondence with me I again answered it. No big deal?

Then I remembered a recent experience with a utility here in the UK. I was dumb founded when I mailed them with a billing inquiry and received an auto reply advising that I could expect to hear back from them “within 28 Working Days”. They had to be kidding? But they were not.

I diarized forward the 28 “Working Days”. The 28 working days passed. My query remained unanswered. It prompted another mail. You guessed where this is going – the same automatic response. I headed straight to Twitter where I relayed the story as best I could within the constraints of a 140 character limit. I think my post contained a phrase relating to them ‘abusing monopoly powers’. My response from a concerned customer service person was within the hour, yet this impressive response time was not matched by any substance. The query remained unanswered until eventually thirty something working days after my initial mail I had a meaningful response.

While these two extremes represent different narratives, I’d like to think more and more of us are striving to be more like my opening example. In today’s world, customer service needs to be improved to levels that even Tony Hsieh of Zappos.com fame would be happy with#. It needs to be personal, responsive and device agnostic. Customers are no longer content to sit ‘on hold’ while the premium priced number racks up a bill under their name. Social media brings transparency to all and service levels increasingly inform purchase decisions.

As managers we need to adapt to this new world. If it means extra training for staff then so be it. Or better product design. Or increased resources.  As one entrepreneur I heard speak recently put it – “every customer service contact is an opportunity for us to assess whether we could be doing things better”.

Finally, if it means better tools and products to manage customer service these too need to be considered as worthwhile investments. In this instance, Email Center Pro, a cloud based email management tool we developed in-house at Palo Alto Software played it’s part in enabling me manage incoming support mail efficiently. A good workman  praises his tools.

January of 1995. Few people knew of the Internet, Mozilla, and the world-wide web. The so-called “Internet” had existed for years, but seemed to the rest of us (anybody outside of a few spook havens and ivory towers) like a nerdy background utility for emails.  And I started bplans.com.

I hope you’ve noticed big changes at bplans.com lately: more information, more tutorials, and better organized, making what you’re looking for easier to find. And especially a new membership group. I hope it shows because we’ve put a lot of effort into it.

As part of the recent boom, the team asked me for stories of the so-called old days. When, how, and why did bplans.com get started. So here we go. Let’s call this a collection of loosely related stories:

1. A friend came by my office and showed me Mozilla, the first web browser, and the world-wide web. It knocked my socks off. I’d been active in Compuserve and its competition, but here was the whole new world. I was hooked.
2. I immediately registered a few obvious domain names. Businessplan.com had already been registered, but bplans.com was, so I registered it.
3. I did the earliest bplans.com sites myself, in my spare time, while running a company growing about 50% per year. In 1997 we hired an NYU undergrad to create a better bplans.com site, focusing on business planning and especially publishing sample plans. He worked for us remotely from New York. He’s now in his middle 30s, has become known for his success as CTO of Huffington Post and as of this month as founder of rebelmouse.com. He created a beautiful site very quickly. Within a couple of months it was getting national awards. And yes, that’s my son Paul.

From the beginning, bplans.com was always intended to be a resource site, offering free information. We did the software selling and support business at paloalto.com and gave people free content at bplans.com.  I’m not saying it was all generous and altruistic, because from the beginning – and still today – the smart people browsing at bplans figured it was dumb to not spend $99 (or less) on the software behind it. But I am saying it was all free, and we’ve kept it that way.

10 Leasing Tips Every New Business and Startup Should Know

By Michael Lockwood, President of TEQlease Capital

While startups and new businesses may already realize the many benefits of leasing their equipment, including conserving their cash and significant tax benefits, they also need to carefully research their equipment financing needs before signing the dotted line. Startups and new businesses should consider the following tips to make sure that they don’t make any costly mistakes.

1. Understand your business credit and organize your financial information before contacting an equipment lease financing provider.
2. Don’t assume your bank or the equipment manufacturer’s captive finance company will offer the best terms. The majority of equipment leases are done by equipment lease providers. Always compare rates, lease terms, fees and options.
3. Do due diligence on your proposed financing provider. Once you have a short list of providers make sure to check them out thoroughly. Go to Google and run a search on them. Also run a search on social media sites like Twitter. Work only with established financial solution providers.
4. Don’t pay upfront “application” fees to an equipment financing provider.
5. Be prepared to explain in advance any negative business results to a lease financing provider. For example, if you had a business loss in 2010 explain why.
6. Do the math and determine whether the Section 179 deduction and bonus depreciation will benefit your business or not. Section 179 allows businesses to deduct the cost of qualifying businesses equipment placed in service in 2012 up to $125,000. In 2013, the deduction will drop significantly to just $25,000 unless Congress acts.
7. Understand the difference between a Fair Market Value Lease and a $1 Purchase Option Lease. A Fair Market Value (FMV) Lease is one of the most common leases that businesses select because it offers the lowest monthly payments, provides the greatest flexibility at the end of the lease, and may also provide tax incentives. A FMV lease is often used for acquiring technology equipment.On the other hand, a $1 Purchase Option Lease gives businesses the ability to “purchase” equipment for a $1 at the end of a leasing period. The monthly payments are higher than a FMV lease. In addition, you may also have additional financial benefits including depreciation and interest expense benefits for tax purposes.
8. Describe to the equipment lease financing provider how the equipment acquisition will benefit your business. Provide a projection of cost savings or incremental realizable margins.
9. Consider bundling multiple equipment acquisitions from different vendors under one lease with an independent commercial equipment lessor. Rates tend to be higher for smaller transactions. Bundling equipment acquisitions generally results in lower rates, and also minimizes processing fees.
10. Ask your equipment vendor for payment terms so you can defer a portion of the equipment cost, and coordinate deposits, progress payments, and performance retention payments.

# # #

Earlier this month Bplans.com ran the #IamBplans Twitter contest as part of an effort to get to know the more than 100,000 Bplans members who have joined Bplans.com since the site launched a membership feature three months ago. One of the winners was Mike the Gardener Enterprises.

Business Name: Mike the Gardener Enterprises, LLC
Year Founded: 2009
Number of Employees: <10
Most Popular Product: Seeds of the Month Club
Status: Up and Running 

Mike the Gardener Enterprises was founded by Michael Podlesny, a 3rd generational home vegetable gardener and published author of the book Vegetable Gardening for the Average Person, who has been vegetable gardening himself for nearly 30 years. Mike`s vegetable gardening tips and tricks have been featured in newspapers, magazines and blogs around the world. He has also appeared on ABC and NBC talking about vegetable gardening and the Seeds of the Month Club.

Mike the Gardener has also done an exceptional job of growing a social media following through his businesses’ Facebook page: Vegetable Gardening, which has more than 30,000 followers. Mike took some time out to record a podcast for Bplans sharing his experience and some helpful tips on social media for a business. 

Bplans.com membership surpassed 100,000 members this week, just three months after the business planning and startup resource site launched a membership network in October. As part of the event, Bplans.com conducted a membership poll and #IamBplans Twitter contest to find out “Who are the Bplans 100,000?” Bplans also created an infographic of “Who are the Bplans 100,000?”

“Bplans.com is the top destination for small-business owners, entrepreneurs, and big-thinkers looking to find the tools to plan, start, and grow a business,” said Bplans founder Tim Berry, who started the site in 1995. “With the new membership component and greater integration with social media platforms, Bplans.com is now connecting small-business owners and entrepreneurs so that they may ask questions, share their experiences and ideas, and grow together as a community.”

According to a combined analysis of poll data and Google Analytics, Bplans.com members span the globe with members in more than 175 countries, or 90 percent of the world, total. The average Bplans member age was 36-50 (34%), and 73% of respondents were male. The most prevalent categorization of business was “start-up” and the average number of workers employed (or planned to be employed) was 1-5. The #IamBplans Twitter contest invited members to tweet their business name or idea for a chance to receive a free lifetime subscription to the business planning service, LivePlan.

Winners selected in a drawing earlier this week were:

Mike the Gardener, New Jersey, USA

Rebar Business Builders, Kansas, USA

It’s All Good Catering, California, USA

Food Vixenista (formerly PansPotsandFriends), California, USA

Photography by Yours Truly, Derbyshire, England