All posts tagged home-based business

Home home-based business Page 30
Blog

How to Grow your Small Business in a Down Economy

How to Grow your Small Business in a Down Economy

Don’t let the constant drumming bad news of our anemic economy get you down. You can still grow your business in a slow economy. While big businesses are cutting back and figuring ways to save money by sacrificing customer service, your small business can pick up their dissatisfied customers. Here are some tips to grow your small business in a down economy.

  1. Maintain a positive and growth attitude
  2. Revise your business plan for the new reality
  3. Be more proactive and flexible
  4. Become more organized and disciplined
  5. Focus on your local market, but think globally for growth
  6. Be more involved in your community to take advantage of the increased exposure
  7. Get social – use social media to promote your business by word of mouth and provide even better customer service
  8. Provide solutions – don’t just focus on selling products/services…use your products/services to provide solutions for your customers and potential customers
  9. Lead with innovations – market your business by promoting new incentives and products/services
  10. Focus on your loyal customers and keep them happy
  11. Provide a easy way for customers to provide feedback, and then act on it!

The key to growing your business in a down economy is satisfying your customer’s needs, providing great customer service, developing and growing a strong loyal customer base.

How are you growing your business? Would love to read your thoughts in the comments!

Blog

Recordkeeping for your Business: What do you need to track?

Recordkeeping for your Business: What do you need to track?

As a business professional, keeping accurate records is essential to your success. Doing this allows you to:

  • Monitor the progress of your business
  • Prepare any financial statements
  • Identify the source of receipts
  • Keep track of deductible expenses
  • Prepare your tax returns
  • Support items reported on tax returns

Recordkeeping Systems
Which system works best? The quick answer is “the one that works for you.” Opting for expensive and elaborate recordkeeping software may not be the best choice if you’re just starting your business — and if your business is large and well-established, tossing paperwork into a shoebox will likely cause headaches at tax time.

The system you choose should be one that allows you to easily track your income and expenses and keep your business documents in an orderly fashion and in a safe place.

What to Keep?
Saving these items is a must as you’ll need them to prepare your tax returns (and as support for items reported on tax returns):

  • Paid bills
  • Invoices
  • Receipts
  • Deposit slips
  • Cancelled checks

What Else?
The links below are to sites that are great sources of recordkeeping information. They’ll help you determine exactly which items you need to keep to ensure your business runs smoothly — and legally!

  • Moneywise Women Get Smart — Free monthly educational teleseminars on a range of financial topics.
  • The IRS — Which records to keep, how long to keep them and why. Articles, videos, publications and answers to frequently asked questions.
  • SCORE — This nonprofit resource partner with the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) provides info on local-area recordkeeping workshops and more.
  • U.S. Small Business Administration — Information on how to manage your tax obligations, tax recordkeeping and more.
Blog

Getting Your Kids Involved in Your Business

Getting Your Kids Involved in Your Business

Life is crowded, and if you’re a business owner, you’re busy! You may be a parent, a spouse and a business owner.  How do you juggle it all?  And how do you help your children understand that what you are doing is important?

One way is to include your kids in your business.  Show them that what you are doing is worthy of your time, and important to others.  When you include your kids in your work, you demonstrate that they are important to you, and you invite your kids into your day-to-day. This brings huge rewards!

How do you do it?  It’s not as hard as you think.

  • Talk to your child about what you do. Make this a natural part of your day.  Over dinner, ask your son or daughter to tell you about his or her day, and tell him or her about yours.  Use simple terms.  Talk about the good that you do.  Talk about the struggles you have.  Talk about your task at hand.  Children learn so much from you and your example.
  • Show your child what you do. Maybe you work from home and you have an office set up right in your house.  Show your child how you set it up and why.  Show her that there are special programs you use for different tasks you accomplish during your day.  If you work in an office, bring your child to work with you.  Show him the different offices and explain what each employee does and why.  Keep your explanations simple.  Depending on his or her age, the details may go over your child’s head, but he/she will get that all these different people and all of the different software and computers you use get your task completed.  This makes it personal for your child.  It makes your child feel connected with your business.
  • Let your child help you. Every child learns differently.  But most children, most people, learn by doing.  Find some small way that your child can contribute to your business.  Maybe your son can deliver supplies to your employees or come with you when you purchase items for your office.  If your child is older, maybe she can assist as you do some number crunching or word processing work for your company, or help you with some internet research.  These are all great life skills and they also connect your child to your business in a personal way.

Connection is essential to making your business important to your child.  You are busy and your son or daughter is busy.  You already know your child is priority number one.  Now it’s time to show your child that they can be part of another of your priorities.  Make the time to connect them to your business.  You will teach your child life skills that last a lifetime.

How do you help your child feel connected to you and your business? Would love to read your thoughts in the comments below!

DSEF Academic Engagement

Complete a brief survey to help us identify academic or university connections companywide.

This survey will help us learn more about:

  • The various partnerships each department has with a professor, college or university.
  • The existing connections that our employees may have with a university.
  • How our team can better support or align with these relationships.

Please provide us with the following contact information:

Do you or your department have an ongoing professional partnership or personal relationship with a university, college professor, program or department?