If you’re a small business owner who has outgrown your spare bedroom or garage, or if you’re looking to expand to a new location, you might want to consider whether to buy or rent your next commercial space. Leasing Commercial Property Let’s start with making the decision to lease a commercial space. In some cases, you [...]
To many small business owners, a franchise sounds like the best of both worlds: You’re starting a small business on your own, but you’re not going it alone. Many business owners have built mini-empires by affiliating with franchisors instead of trying to build a brand from scratch. Franchising is a unique business arrangement, however, and [...]
“No one is indispensable,” goes the saying. But as many small business owners know, there may be one or more people whose knowledge, work, and overall contribution is in fact vital to the company. Many small businesses aren’t prepared for the consequences if the business owner or another highly valued employee becomes disabled or dies, dramatically reducing [...]
If you’re a small business owner, now could be the time to consider selling your product online. Online shopping is so popular that, according to the “U.S. Online Retail Forecast, 2011 to 2016 ” report by Forrester Research, Inc., e-commerce sales in the U.S. are expected to reach $327 billion by 2016. Providing a product online [...]
Many times when I’m helping new small business owners, they ask me questions about what kind of business entity they should form. Many have heard about a Limited Liability Company (LLC) and want to know more about personal asset protection and the potential to save on taxes. Here’s the real scoop: While you may certainly [...]
With a proliferation of telemarketing calls and business solicitations, small businesses seem to be constantly fending off unwanted marketing offers. Sorting through solicitations can take up valuable working time for a small business, and opportunities can be lost if you cut short a customer call only to find out that on the other line is [...]
As a small business owner, hiring your children to work for your business may save you money when filing taxes. It might sound too good to be true, but if you handle the situation properly and file the right paperwork, you may be able to write off nearly half of their wages on your business’s taxes. [...]
For a small business, pricing products and services can be a difficult task. Figuring out your costs can be challenging, but you’ll also need to take into consideration profits, competition, value, and brand image, as well as how you want to position yourself in the marketplace. Pricing communicates quality, says Bryan Ziegler, director of the [...]
There’s a misconception that many small business owners have about loans made through the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA). They think that the government hands out money to struggling small businesses. It doesn’t. In fact, the SBA guarantees loans to small and mid-sized companies. Banks and other lending institutions make the loans themselves. SBA-backed loans [...]
There is a lot of bookkeeping that has to happen when you first start a business. This is important not only so you can run your business successfully but also so that when tax season rolls around—or worse, you get audited—you have pristine paperwork to present to the IRS. As tax professionals, we help a [...]
