Ed King, editor of the Small Business Digest, is an MBA and CPA who has been Director of Small Business Services at Wayne State University (Detroit) for 30 years. Hello SendGrid.
He has helped thousands of businesses become more profitable.
To the right, are just some of the newspapers Mr. King has been featured in.
In addition to the Small Business Digest, we also have a new service for small business owners. It is our $100 Tip of the Day. We call them $100 Tips, because if you can use the idea, it will make you at least $100. Most of these tips are less than 50 words… so they are short and profitable.
For more information go to www.100DollarBizTips.com/wordpress. If you or a friend would like to subscribe to that publication or the Small Business Digest… just enter your email in the box to the right and press submit.
Making a business decision is easy…
if you have the facts!
Whether you file as an individual, a corporation, a small business owner, or are self-employed, as the end of the year draws near, you’re probably thinking ahead to tax season and filing your business taxes.
Most business tax provisions of course, remain the same (IRA contribution limits for example), but a few such as personal exemptions have been adjusted for inflation and others have been extended due to legislation and are set to expire at the end of 2012.
From business tax credits, exemptions and deductions for individuals and Section 179 expensing for small businesses, here’s what you need to know about business taxes changes for 2011.
Individuals Business Taxes
From personal deductions to business tax credits and educational expenses, many of the tax changes relating to individuals remain in effect through 2012 and are the result of tax provisions that were either modified or extended by the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization and Job Creation Act of 2010 that became law on December 17, 2010.
Personal Exemptions
The personal and dependent exemption for business tax year 2011 is $3,700, up $50 from 2010.
Standard Deductions
In 2011 the standard deduction for married couples filing a joint return is $11,600, up $200 from 2010 and for singles and married individuals filing separately it’s $5,800, up $100. For heads of household the deduction is $8,500, also up $100 from 2010.
The additional standard deduction for blind people and senior citizens is $1,150 for married individuals, up $50, and $1,450 for singles and heads of household, also up $50.
Business Taxes Rates
Due to inflation, tax-bracket thresholds will increase for every filing status. For example, the taxable-income threshold separating the 15-percent bracket from the 25-percent bracket is $69,000 for a married couple filing a joint return, up from $68,000 in 2010.
Estate and Gift Taxes
The recent overhaul of estate and gift taxes means that there is an exemption of $5 million per individual for estate, gift and generation-skipping taxes, with a top rate of 35%. For married couples the exemption is $10 million.
Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT)
AMT exemption amounts for 2011 are slightly higher than those in 2010 at $48,450 for single and head of household fliers, $74,450 for married people filing jointly and for qualifying widows or widowers, and $37,225 for married people filing separately.
Marriage Penalty Relief
For 2011, the basic standard deduction for a married couple filing jointly is $11,600, up $200 from 2010.
Pease and PEP (Personal Exemption Phaseout)
Pease (limitations on itemized deductions) and PEP (personal exemption phase-out) limitations do not apply for 2011, but these are set to expire at the end of 2012.
Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA)
The Affordable Care Act, enacted in March, established a new uniform standard, effective January 1, 2011, that applies to FSAs and health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs).
Under the new standard, the cost of an over-the-counter medicine or drug cannot be reimbursed from the account unless a prescription is obtained. The change does not affect insulin, even if purchased without a prescription, or other health care expenses such as medical devices, eye glasses, contact lenses, co-pays and deductibles.
The new standard applies only to purchases made on or after Jan. 1, 2011, so claims for medicines or drugs purchased without a prescription in 2010 can still be reimbursed in 2011, if allowed by the employer’s plan.
A similar rule went into effect on Jan. 1, 2011 for Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), and Archer Medical Savings Accounts (Archer MSAs).
Long Term Capital Gains
In 2011, long-term gains for assets held at least one year are taxed at a flat rate of 15% for taxpayers above the 25% tax bracket. For taxpayers in lower tax brackets, the long-term capital gains rate is 0%. Read the rest of this entry »
After nearly 10 years of helping entrepreneurs improve their business to business sales, I still get a kick out of people that claim “my business is different”.
Usually they claim their Business to business sales buyers are different than any other buyers.
Often though business to business sales comes down to this…
“…I sell to businesses – not consumers. And business buyers don’t fall for the same tricks you are sharing Troy.”
I will say this… Business to Business (B2B) buyers are NOT different than Business to Consumer (B2C) buyers!
A BUSINESS cannot buy anything.
Someone, somewhere, has to be involved in the Business to business sales purchasing process.
And anytime a person is involved, there are biases, prejudices, emotional triggers and hidden motives involved… even business to business sales.
As much as we like to pretend otherwise, I don’t think there are too many businesses who use robots for purchasing from strangers.
Yes, there can be minor changes you make to your campaigns to target business to business sales, but people are people and the exact same tools and techniques that work in the B2C market ALSO work in the B2B market.
I have shown this many times over the past blog posts. Read the rest of this entry »
What is the best path to become an entrepreneur?
Here’s the business start-up strategy I created for my friend SA. It contains the steps necessary to make the transition from overworked and underpaid to an entrepreneur with early retirement.
My goal for you … just like my goal for SA … is to show you how you can replace or add to your income working just a few stress-free hours a day as an entrepreneur.
With the plan I’m recommending, you get the freedom, sense of purpose, and fun that comes from being an entrepreneur. You can create a second income stream above and beyond what you’re making now – enough to essentially retire in a year or two. And thanks to technology and current trends, it’s the easiest (and cheapest) way to become an entrepreneur.
So here it is …
If I went broke tomorrow and wanted to start making money as an entrepreneur by next week and leverage that money into a multimillion-dollar fortune over the next 10 years, I would do the following:
- Get on my computer and do a search for businesses that are selling books, newsletters, and reports online, focusing on subjects I’m interested in and know about. Knowing what I know about searching the Internet, I figure this would take me less than 30 minutes.
- Use one of several free applications to identify about a dozen of those businesses that were growing rapidly. Again, this would take no more than 30 minutes.
- Review the websites of those businesses and select the one I liked the best. This would take three to four hours.
- Using a list of top copywriters broken down by their fields of expertise, I’d make a deal with one of them to write (a) an information-packed report that was similar to something being sold by my favorite online business but in some key way better and (b) a promotion to sell that report. An hour’s phone call.
- While my copywriter was writing the report and the promotion, I’d get online and identify the best places to attract potential customers. Using easy-to-use, free, and widely available software, this would take only 30 minutes.
- As soon as the promotion was ready, I’d have the copywriter create a half-dozen small ads enticing potential buyers to come to my website in order to get a free one-page report (based on the information in the full report).
- As prospects came to my website, I’d have them sign up for a free information service that would allow me to start marketing to them directly. (This would be done automatically. It would take me no time at all.)
- And then I would send them the promotion for the full report … and sit back and wait for the money to start coming in.
As you can see already, this is a simple strategy to become an entrepreneur that requires very little in the way of start-up costs. My total invested time would be four or five days. And I’d have the business fully operational within 30 days. By the end of the second month, I’d be making money. After that, the business would pretty much grow itself.
By Michael Masterson, an expert entrepreneur
How to make an offer
Make an offer: Simple change.
Most service people fear… giving away your time for free.
When I think about it, I still get that feeling in the pit of my stomach.
I was chatting with a woman with an interior design business about the changes she needed to make in her website. The conversation was going well — she loved all my ideas and was ready to rebuild her site.
I started getting excited, thinking I had found my next project. I was already putting together her proposal in my head. Then she uttered those dreaded words …
“I’d love to take you to lunch and pick your brain sometime.”
I didn’t know what to say or do. I felt my face turning red and I stammered out an excuse about getting back to her when I checked my calendar.
Requests for “brain-picking” are rampant in any business, and they’re never fun if you’re the one whose brain is being picked. It used to happen to me so much that I found myself becoming resentful.
Every time I spoke with someone new I heard a little voice in the back of my head saying “Ugh, I bet they’ll never hire you, they just want a bunch of help for free”. Read the rest of this entry »
A price tag is not necessarily a take-it-or-leave-it offer.. you can haggle with ANYONE (including large department stores). Faced with a weak economy and declining sales, an increasing number of retailers are willing to haggle lower prices.
Most furniture stores, many department stores and some home—supply stores, electronics stores and smaller retailers give certain employees the freedom to haggle with prices. Savings of 20% or more are often possible.
To haggle lower prices…
HAGGLE SMART…
- Approach a manager or owner. Clerks often are not empowered to offer discounts, though commissioned salespeople might be.
- Don’t let the first ”no” dissuade you. If one manager or salesperson declines to haggle, come back later when the shift has changed and other salespeople are on duty.
- Select items with “shelf wear” or other minor flaws. Ask whether you can get a lower price if you take the unit with the flaw or buy the floor model.
EXAMPLES: A big dent in the box or plastic packaging…a small stain or scratch on the item in an inconspicuous spot…the product appears to have been opened and returned by another shopper.
- Play “beat this deal. ” Bring evidence of a lower price elsewhere on the same item, and ask if the store will beat it. Lf the low price is from an online merchant that would charge a 6 shipping fee, you could save money if a store simply matches it, as long as sales taxes do not eat up the savings.
- Ask for a cash discount. Credit card companies charge retailers about 2% to 4% of the purchase price. Some retailers will knock a few percent off the price if you pay with cash or a check.
- Shop during slack weekday hours. On weekends, retail employees often are too busy with other customers to haggle.
- Ask for free accessories. If the merchant won’t lower the price of an expensive item, ask if he/she will throw in an “extra,” such as a carrying case, spare batteries or a maintenance kit.
PICK THE RIGHT ITEMS...
Some products and situations are particularly promising for hagglers…
- Items that have already been marked down. There’s a good chance that the store would drop the price even further to get rid of it, especially if a newer model is available.
ALSO If a sale item is not marked “as is,” and you notice a small flaw, ask for an additional discount.
- Big-ticket items. The more a product costs, the greater the odds that the merchant will be flexible.
- Multi-item purchases. When you intend to buy several of an item, first ask, “Can you cut the price if l buy more than one?”
Written by Sue Goldstein, a haggle expert, www.undergroundshopper.com
When pricing a product or service you have to know “Sticker shock.” This refers to a price so high that when you reveal it to the customer, she is flabbergasted – and immediately protests that “your price is too high” or “I could never afford this.”
If your customer experiences sticker shock, it means that you have not convinced the buyer that the price of the product or service is a ”drop in the bucket” compared to the value of the product.
Even if you’ve done a good job of communicating value, the prospect may experience sticker shock if the price is extremely high or beyond their means.
Sticker shock reduces your chances of closing the sale: if the customer gasps when she learns the price, she’s probably not ready to pay it.
If as a marketer or salesperson you can head off sticker shock before it happens, your odds of closing the sale increase tremendously.
But how do you prevent sticker shock in pricing a product or service?
One way is to show the customer products in your line with higher prices before showing him the product you want him to buy.
In his book “Influence,” Robert Cialdini describes how this is done in a retail setting.
Say you want to sell $100 sweaters in your store … but are afraid your customers will faint at the price.
You put a table in the aisle near the front door and place three stacks of sweaters on it. Read the rest of this entry »
Local search engine results have recently experienced a major overhaul within the Google SERPs (Search Engine
Results Pages) which has resulted in a fantastic opportunity for small and medium-sized businesses.
Local engine search results were previously relegated to a small map, which would appear within the first page of results, but now they enjoy first page domination for local search terms.
The benefit of this to small businesses is that local engine search results can now appear above their much larger revivals who are relegated to the last few results on page one of Google.
Don’t miss out on local engine search results; they’re your next customers. Here’s 10 tips to help you capture them:
1. Claim your Google Places listing – it’s easy to do and if one doesn’t exist for your business then you can quickly and simply create one. What is it? A Google Places listing is effectively a profile attached to Google’s local engine search results. It is important because Google ranks these profiles above all others in their new first page local engine search results.
2. Add pictures to your Google Places listing. The effectiveness of your Google places listing is impacted by its completeness. Images will not only flesh out your listing, but when they appear in the search engine results, besides your Google Places listing, they are eye-catching and attractive which will increase clicks. Read the rest of this entry »
Client Needs
By John Doerr John can be reached at jdoerr@raingroup.com.
Ray Kinsella: So what do you want?
Terence Mann: I want them to stop looking to me for answers, begging me to speak again, write again, be a leader. I want them to start thinking for themselves. I want my privacy.
Ray Kinsella: No, I mean, what do you WANT?[Gestures to the concession stand they're in front of]
Terence Mann: Oh. Dog and a beer.
From the movie Field of Dreams (1989)
All too often it seems I am stuck in this great scene from the movie Field of Dreams (one of my all time favorites) when I ask professional service providers what needs they fill for their clients.
Me: So what do your client need?
Service Provider: They need an organizational assessment followed by an intensive training program. A six-stage customer research evaluation survey; a communications review. They need a detailed tax evaluation. They need a will.
Me: No, I mean what do they NEED?
Service Provider: Oh, profitability and a good night’s sleep.
The tendency is to think of what prospects need in terms of what services we have to offer. Even though we know prospects do not think of our service set, we retreat to the familiar in describing what we do in our marketing messages and sales conversations.
As a result, we try to persuade a prospect to buy our services. Meanwhile the prospect’s eyes glaze over as her thoughts turn to her own worries and dreams, which usually have little if anything to do with the services listing we are babbling on about. Read the rest of this entry »
Great Small Business Idea was written by Andrew Wood www.cunninglyclevermarketing.com
Sitting here looking at the yachts in the harbor, each one worth millions more than the next I can’t help wondering how each owner made his money. Having studied the biography’s of hundreds of the world’s most interesting people I suspect that most of these fortunes were fueled by the power of a single great small business idea!
One of the interesting parts of being a marketing consultant is trying to get people to pay you for great small business ideas. For while people will gladly pay you for designing stuff, writing stuff or building websites few people truly understand the value of a great small business idea!
A single great small business idea can launch any business or turn any business around, but instead of searching for the great small business idea, most businesses are resigned to looking only at cutting costs and incremental growth at best!
Where are most great small business ideas found?
- A change in positioning, going up market, down market or better still finding a USP that no one in your market can touch.With the stroke of a pen, you would instantly have number one positioning, plenty of PR and an excess of potential members. Read the rest of this entry »