February 2023 - Page 10 of 12

SAP Sucessfactors

SAP SuccessFactors As an SAP Partner, learn what DYNAMO can do to help you purchase and implement S/4HANA Cloud with proven best-practice packages and learning. DYNAMO has the tools and experience to deliver a fast, affordable, and low risk implementation with predictable time to value.

Contact DYNAMO today about a scheduling a demonstration of how SAP S/4HANA Cloud can simplify your business today.

SAP successfactors

SAP solutions for successfactors has an installed base of more than 3,600 customers with 20 million users in 177 countries worldwide; and renewal rates above 95 percent.

million users in 177 countries worldwide; and renewal rates above 95 percent.

Recruiting

End-to-end recruiting solution that helps you attract, engage and select better candidates and then measure the results.

Onboarding

Makes onboarding a strategic process that improves job satisfaction, time to productivity and first year retention.

Compensation

Drives calibrated compensation decisions.

Employee Central

Next generation, user friendly core HR system

Workforce Analytics & Reporting

Delivers powerful combination of talent and business data that produces easy to understand and consume information.

Succession & Development

Anticipate and plan for staffing changes and assure the readiness of employee talent at all levels.

Learning

Content-as-a-Service (CaaS) learning management solution (LMS) that eliminates the need to manage the infrastructure, bandwidth & delivery, management, security and updates for all of your e-learning programs.

Performance & Goals

Enables executives and managers to communicate strategy, create meaningful individual goals across the organization, focus employees on what matters, and monitor goal progress in real-time.

Predictable Costs, Lower TCO

No large up-front fees, no upgrade or 3rd party license costs, no maintenance costs. Pay a single annual per-user subscription.

Time to Value

SuccessFactors typical implementations range from 4 weeks for the basic platform to 6 months for Core HR.

Compliance

SuccessFactors includes current compliance requirements for more than 80 countries globally.

Integration with SAP

As an SAP company, SuccessFactors integrates with all your SAP applications so you can get the most from your data from your entire organization.

Start anywhere, go everywhere with SAP SuccessFactors Services.

Wherever you are on your business journey, we want to support your HR transformation. We offer a robust menu of services for all your SAP SuccessFactors solution needs. We can help you plan, imagine, and design your HR landscape; implement and run SAP SuccessFactors solutions, and help ensure that your organization is leading HR with the latest technology.

Our commitment is “customer first.” You benefit from prescriptive services that are based on leading practices from thousands of implementations. With our experience and tight collaboration with the product management and engineering teams for SAP SuccessFactors solutions, we can help you take your business live. This is what some of our customers have to say about working with our services team:

Affiliate Marketing Secrets – What I Wish I Knew Before!

The affiliate marketing secrets I’m sharing here aren’t really “secrets” to some affiliates. But for me, when I started affiliate marketing back in the early 2000’s, they would have been useful to know about. It would have saved me several years of hard work if I would have known about these factors in an affiliate business.

I spent a huge amount of time trying out bad strategies and promoting low paying products. It was immensely frustrating not only to struggle getting results as an affiliate, but when they did eventually come to see such tiny little commissions that it was hardly worth all that struggle!

The fist insight I’m going to share is to get an email autoresponder. An auto-responder is a software which allows affiliates to collect emails from a website and automate the delivery of email messages to your list.

For a long time I didn’t have an auto-responder. I simply tried to get people to my websites and sell affiliate products directly from there. But there’s a problem in that customers will often need several contact points before they purchase something. So a single landing on a website will seldom generate a sale. On a website, a visitor only has a small window of opportunity to make a buying decision. But once you get your visitors email information, you can extend this time period by months, years and even decades!

You can give them many more “touch points” with which to showcase your offerings, give value and help your subscribers with whatever issue they are facing.

The next issue I faced was choosing the affiliate products which I would sell. The products I chose as an affiliate were those which I would have bought myself. This is a good policy because you can more easily create content around something you’re interested in. But I choose low value products and used affiliate programs which paid the least! I didn’t know this was an issue till much later when I discovered subscription affiliate programs which paid ongoing commissions for each sale.

With a low value product from eBay or Amazon, for example, you only get tiny amounts – usually less than 10% commission. Digital products pay more like 30%-50% commission. Then there’s high ticket products which have a much larger value. A high ticket product sale can earn you the same as by selling hundreds of the lower value item.

With a product range you can benefit from subscription products, one off commissions and high ticket sales. In addition to this you can also benefit from a built in sales team, who close sales on your behalf. With most affiliate products, you refer a sale and only get paid once. So you need to continue selling more and more products. With subscription and high ticket, you can continue earning from your referrals, potentially for years. So the same work is rewarded much more with such a strategy.

Another huge benefit of using such a product range is that paid marketing strategies are much more within reach. I struggled with free marketing tactics, making sporadic sales which amounted to very little income. With a high ticket product range, it’s much easier to make a profit while running paid marketing.

Plus, once you’re profitable, and are running paid advertising campaigns, you can scale up quickly. Simply increase marketing budget! With organic and cheaper marketing strategies, this is much more difficult. I was struggling for years because I was selling low value products and using free marketing strategies which couldn’t be scaled up!

Another affiliate marketing secret which I didn’t discover until a few years of struggle is to get help. Back in the early 2000’s it was far more difficult to build an online business from scratch. You needed more technical know-how. You needed to be able to build websites yourself. Today software takes much of the technical wizardry out of building online business. You can press a couple of buttons and have a ready made website up and running in minutes. You can also join a group of other affiliates which can help enormously with your mindset and personal growth.

Going it alone as an affiliate is tough, especially when well meaning family members and friends are trying to talk you out of it, and telling you that it’s a scam! Once in a community of online entrepreneurs, my confidence grew. I was able to ask questions and get things done more easily. Other people had similar questions to me, and joining groups where coaches and mentors were on hand shortened the learning curve.

Most of all joining a community of online business owners helped me believe that I could build an income from affiliate marketing. Before this I struggled with mindset issues and lack of confidence. If you doubt you’re going in the right direction, it’s much easier to quit, or dawdle. It’s easier to procrastinate and lose your direction.

To sum up, these are my affiliate marketing secrets:

1. Get an autoresponder – an email marketing service made a huge difference to my affiliate business

2. Use subscription products, high ticket products and a product range, rather than low value products which only offer single commissions

3. Get help – join an online community where you can build trust with a coach, find accountability partners and get questions answered.

Affiliate marketing is a tough business to crack and the drop out rate is around 95%. Remember the reason you’re doing it and find a good program and stick to it.

How to Pick Your Business Proposal Writing Solution

Looking for a solution to help you write business proposals contracts, RFPs or grant applications? There are three main types of proposal writing systems available on the market:

Desktop software and template-based for PCs and Macs
Monthly paid subscription web-based services
Expensive enterprise class solutions

The prices of the various products vary; so do their features and how many add-on services you may have to purchase to make use of the system. How do you know which system is right for you? Here are basic descriptions and pros and cons of each system to help you decide.

Template-based products generally contain a variety of Microsoft Word documents that will work in many platforms and word processors, along with instructions, samples, and sometimes additional software to help manage the assembly or other processing of documents into a final polished proposal. To use a template-based proposal writing product, you simply download the product to your personal computer, and then use the templates with your word processing program to put together a proposal and print it or save it as a PDF for electronic delivery by uploading to a web site or sending via e-mail.

Template-based products are generally the easiest solutions to get started with, because most people already know how to use their word processing software. If you work remotely or while traveling, you can use a template-based product on any laptop or tablet with a word processor, regardless of whether you have an Internet connection at the time.

The license fee for a template-based product is a one-time license fee, and you can use the product as many times as you like, and as often or intermittently as you like without incurring additional costs. There are no ongoing subscription fees to contend with (which will substantially increase your total costs beyond the costs of template-based products within a couple months); you have complete control over the product material and you manage your proposal content (when you deal with trade secrets and confidential data you don’t want to be giving access to all of that material to an unknown entity that may not be able to keep your information secure).

The main issue to consider in template-based products is that the different offerings vary widely in quality, so carefully compare the actual contents of packages to be sure you’re getting the best value and a quality product. Look at packages carefully to avoid the low-quality knock-offs and don’t be afraid to ask questions and review demos.

Web-based proposal writing systems are exactly what they sound like: you type your proposal information into a web site to create your proposal online and your potential clients look at your web based proposal online. Advantages of using a web-based system are that it usually has a low starting cost (but those monthly fees add up quickly and quickly surpass the cost of a PC/Mac template package) and you don’t have to download and install a program to your personal computer, so it may initially seem cheaper and faster to use. Also, after your proposal is posted, you may have access to some analytics, such as the ability to track how many people view your proposal. However it is typically better to simply reach out to your prospects with the personal touch of a phone call or e-mail and you will gather more-or-less the same information.

A big disadvantage to using a web-based system is that the proposal software and your business information are stored on the web. A web-based system is potentially more at risk from hackers, because the data from thousands of businesses presents a high-value target for hackers seeking confidential business information. Also, a web-based solution may not be available when you need it, like those times you can’t log in when you are flying or on the road. You should also consider whether or not you can easily extract your proposal data from a web-based system for use elsewhere. Most web-based solutions are new business ventures without proven track records – and if you read some of their support blogs you will find out which ones have frequent web site outages.

Web-based programs generally offer users less guidance and formatting and styling options than template-based packages. Web programs typically favor more of a “blank slate” approach and are usually much more limited in the amount of actual proposal writing content (templates, samples, etc.) than a template-based package. Current web-based solutions do not offer many basic features or the layout, design, and graphics capabilities of word processing systems available on PCs, Macs, and tablets. You may be very restricted in how you can create, format, and lay out your proposal, so you might not end up with the most polished looking proposal when you use a web-based system (or even a web-based word processor).

Web-based systems are not very well designed for responding to RFP’s or grant requests. Most of the time you have to follow strict guidelines for how proposals are to be written, formatted and submitted that cannot be done with web-based subscription services. While it may seem they offer something “new” in a web-based interface they are typically 10 years or more behind the curve in creating proposal writing content and polished professional proposals versus other solutions.

While a web-based solution may initially seem like the lowest cost product, keep in mind that a web-based business model depends on extracting monthly fees from customers, using a subscription payment plan. Over the course of just two or three months, a web-based solution will generally cost more than a downloaded product – and the costs will keep rising.

Now for the third category: enterprise class proposal solutions. These products are targeted for the use of big businesses. Often you cannot find a price or place an order online to download an enterprise product; you typically have to schedule a talk with a salesperson to get started. Plan on spending thousands of dollars or even tens of thousands of dollars on an enterprise solution, plan on significant setup time, and plan on bringing in consultants to set up and teach your employees how to use the system.

Enterprise proposal systems may be the best solution for large corporations that need widespread collaboration for their proposal projects and large sales teams, but enterprise systems are not designed (or priced) for individuals or small businesses. Even within large corporations, an enterprise proposal system is sometimes not the most efficient choice for doing a quick custom proposal or a small team project. Low-cost template-based solutions are frequently used by individuals or small teams within a large organization for one-off project proposals or to prototype a very complex proposal.

The three types of proposal software systems are not necessarily mutually exclusive; they can also work well together. You may want to pick multiple solutions to cover a wide array of situations and needs. Many users consider a downloaded template-based package a low-risk investment and a great addition to their basic business toolkits.

Most large corporations use template-based solutions alongside other systems for quick one-off proposals and prototyping. A template-based system allows users to work anywhere, view more samples and get more writing assistance, and use formatting tools to create a polished proposal that can be delivered in print or PDF format.

Template-based proposal kit systems are generally more efficient for smaller projects. And the information from these proposal kit template-based systems can often be uploaded to an enterprise system or to a web-based system when you want to use the extra analytics and other tools they offer.

Experteer Review – Experteer Premium Subscription Service Reviewed

During September and October 2008, I was an active user of the Experteer.com premium subscription and this is my honest feedback and review on their services.

DISCLAIMER: I’m not affiliated in any way to any recruiting company, job portal, HR firm or Headhunter. The thoughts shared here are just from my personal experience. Any recommendation is based just on my opinion and nothing else.

The web / Usability… OK

In general I would have to say that I’m satisfied with the usability of the site. Filling the forms and entering the data of your profile is easy and intuitive. The advanced search criterion and additional filtering capabilities are indeed very cool. The web lets you refine search results by salary, km away from your base city, Country and a scoring system. It does not have as many features and possibilities like Monster, but I would say It’s OK.

Exposure to headhunters… Really?

One of the things they advertise is that Experteer is the place where all headhunters in Europe come to look for candidates… Well, this might be true or not, but the only thing I can tell you is what happened to my profile: It was viewed 1 (yes, one) time by a headhunter during the 2 months of I was subscribed to their service. Just to clarify, I had 100% of my profile completed (so there was no excuse to exclude me or down-rank me because my profile was incomplete). If there is something they need to work on, I would say is this point: they need to get more recruiters/headhunters to use their service.

Access to “hidden” offers…NO

One important thing is that they do not have access (at least in my experience) to exclusive or offline job opportunities; in other words, everything you will be able to find on Experteer is already online. This is an important clarification because many specialized headhunters, and more specifically in the 60.000EUR+ job market, do have positions that are either exclusive for them or are not being advertised.

Access to real 60.000EUR+ job offers?… YES

This is indeed one of the few but important positive things I got out of their service: They do have a broad, updated and real base of job offers offering salaries 60.000EUR+; not like other online recruiters. Of course you will find eventually some broken links or offers that appear in search results, but have expired, but I would say this happened in a small percentage of time. A rough estimation would be that 90%-95% of the offers that appear on their search results are real, haven’t expired and are indeed 60.000EUR+ positions

As a conclusion, I would say that if you have a lot of time to research (maybe if you’re unemployed), it may not make sense to pay for the premium subscription given that most of what you’ll find you could find it yourself. On the other hand, if you don’t have much time or perhaps are still employed, you might not get exclusive or offers but you can save some time researching… and if you’re earning more than 60.000EUR per year, it may worth a try for 25EUR a month.

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Getting a Satellite TV Subscription

In today’s troubled economic times, it pays to be careful before making purchases of any kind. This especially rings true when it comes to choosing a home entertainment provider. These days, the two basic sources of home entertainment are cable and satellite TV. In order to help you make an educated selection that you will be happy with in the long run, this article will focus on the pros and cons of opting for a satellite subscription.

There are actually many advantages to choosing satellite service for your home. Among them are great programming variety in general, access to exclusive sport packages, affordable premium movie channels, hundreds of high def channels, a personalized viewing experience through interactive features, virtually unlimited accessibility, budget friendly package pricing, and superior customer service.

Because satellite TV signals are transmitted through the air by satellite that orbits the earth and communicates with a satellite dish mounted on your roof or a high exterior wall of your home, this service can be received just about anywhere in the United States. Access to cable television, on the other hand, is limited by the restrictions of physical networks of wires that do not reach every rural community and remote location in America. The way in which satellite signals are broadcast also makes for great picture and sound quality. Unlike cable signals, all satellite signals are in digital format, which is much easier on both the eyes and ears than standard format. Digital format is also responsible for making high definition channels possible. A basic satellite subscription comes with a wide variety of high def programming.

Another key benefit is the overall programming variety that satellite delivers. If you compare a satellite package with a similarly priced one from cable, you will notice that the satellite package comes with a lot more channels. This means that satellite service actually costs less per channel than cable service. This includes premium movie channels – with satellite, you not only have more to choose from, but they are less expensive as well. In fact, a lot of times you do not have to pay anything to add these premium movie channels to your satellite package, at least for a given trial period, during which time you can get a feel for how much you actually want them. There are also a number of sport packages, such as the ever popular NFL Sunday Ticket available exclusively through satellite service.

When you sign up for satellite service, you can also expect fantastic customer service. This begins with the professional technician who is sent to your house to install all of your system equipment completely free of charge. Once everything has been set up, you will receive continued technical support throughout the duration of your subscription.

Of course, satellite TV has its downsides as well. For instance, in some areas satellite subscriber do not have access to all the local programming that is available through cable TV. Another disadvantage is the fact that extreme inclement weather can disrupt satellite signals, so this should be taken into consideration depending on where exactly you live.

Social Media Marketing: A New Era of the Booming Online Business Industry

You need new and inventive ways to connect with your customers and prospects. Social media is currently a very powerful tool to reach the masses.There are many ways to utilize social media. A highly utilized method is through influencer advertising. If you think it won’t work, just look at the thousands of companies that are having successes with it. Every organization and business is now connected via social media.

Having owned Physical Therapy clinics in the past, I wish I had known social media marketing strategies as I have now. Looking back on what was accomplished with conventional marketing, (advertising in local papers, radio, bringing lunch to doctors, distributing flyers and business cards, etc.) I would have grown my private practice better with this powerful tool. Being a business owner opened my mind to self sufficiency and to always seek out better ways to position myself towards my lifestyle goals.

WHAT IS INFLUENCER MARKETING?

The best advertising method of all times is word of mouth. It costs nothing for someone to tell someone else about your products or services. Another advantage of word-of-mouth marketing is that it keeps you on your toes. You must ensure customer satisfaction for them to refer your company to others. Influencer marketing goes along the line of a friend telling a friend about an experience with a product or a service.

First you start by identifying strategic individuals within your target market. These people are going to influence others. The idea is unpretentious- instead of Taco Bell telling you how amazing their new Taco is, a spectacular review from a famous food critic can do more. The food critic is the influencer. In this hypothetical scenario, Taco Bell uses them to generate influencer marketing.

HOW TO BEAUTIFULLY EXECUTE INFLUENCER ADVERTISING

One example of influencer marketing is a company called Fab Fit Fun. This company sends out monthly box subscriptions to those who love their products. Now, you never know what is in these boxes. It could be anything from a scarf, to a throw, and even some make up and perfume. Many people are leery about monthly subscriptions that charge directly to their credit cards monthly. These boxes automatically ship whether you want it or not. So how does this company overcome this hurdle? Well, they get celebrities like Rhianna and Tori Spelling to do influencer advertising for them. A simple video of Tori Spelling opening her box subscription, going through each item enthusiastically and then sharing it on her social media network just made this subscription system a hit.

Another company came up with an idea. The Younique cosmetic company came up with a product, a mascara that gave a dramatic lift to the eyes. Now, there are more companies out there who have the same product. How did they step up their game? Their Moodstruck 3-D fiber lashes looks great on just about anyone.

To prove their point, they gave out free mascara tubes to the general public. All these recipients had to do was to post a video of themselves on social media using the mascara. What happened next was history. The company had so many orders that they were on back order for six weeks. Every woman wanted to increase their lash volume. By showing how well this mascara does, the company created a hype. The demand was overwhelming.

Now, I kind of went all girl here. Mascaras and Fab Fit Fun. However, this is just a few of the many creative ways that companies conjure to move their product on the market. What made their strategy work?

It was providing VALUE. By providing more value than the other companies and being talked about on social media gave them an edge over their competitors.

THE POWER OF SOCIAL MEDIA

We have heard of ordinary people posting simple funny videos on You Tube, Facebook, Pinterest, on Instagram which goes viral by simply being shared multiple times on all social media networks. This just proves that people are watching. They are hanging out on social media. They see products, events, and they share it on their social media circles. This is very powerful.

It is no wonder that during the past few years, big online retailers like Amazon, Wayfair, and the rest have utilized social media advertising. Even brick and mortar businesses like Best Buy, Target, Walmart, have gone online to expand their market. It is sad to contemplate that it is also due to this era of online advertising that many companies have to close their doors. The competition has become rabid. Those who do not step up to the plate lose. The most recent one closing as you might have heard is Hhgregg.

FINDING A KEY PLAYER

What if you can be the influencer in your online business? Yes, you can be the Key Player in this success. Yes, it is more than possible. This is how many online entrepreneurs have positioned themselves as the experts, coaches and founders of online business systems which has created wealth for themselves and others they have mentored.

How many times do you see pop up on your Facebook page “sponsored” ads of webinars, free E-books, free courses, free videos or free reports? This is the power of social media at work.

The new era is here. An average entrepreneur can leverage his advertising budget by effectively using social media to his advantage. This is because customers hang out on social media networks. This is a very effective way of reaching out to to prospects and introducing your product or services.

Moreover, if your ad also comes with an added value, customer response is overwhelming. It is going above and beyond what everyone else offers. This has been proven many times by local businesses offering products and services. A free dental cleaning coupon from a dentist can end up in a 4-5k sales in orthodontics or other dental services because of the one free offer.

Online coaches and online business experts who offer free webinars have been known to make thousands of dollars from memberships or purchases made by participants in one webinar alone. I sure have attended some of them, and although I have never really purchased a product or a system initially, it had opened my eyes to the possibilities. There are ways to earn income online and work your way to a passive and residual income.

Whether your goal is just to make extra income to supplement your current one or to make it a full time occupation, there are multitudes of systems and programs that you can get started with online. Many have plunged into online businesses full time and never looked back.

The key is to find your niche, find what feels good and right for you. Explore your passion, your talents and your goals. Then act on it. That first step is always the hardest.

Most successful online entrepreneurs not only “engage” in their business; they also “live” it.

After all, it is up to us to explore all possibilities and take advantage of opportunities presented to us. With the onset of the Social Media Marketing Evolution, the future of digital marketing is here.

Magazines For Salons – Keeping Your Customers Happy!

As a salon owner, you already know that you are in a tough business, a business in which you must possess more than just skills to succeed. This is a business in which you have to maintain friendly and personal relationships with your customers to make them feel at home in your salon. This is what makes you unique and helps you stand out from the crowd. Smart salon operation involves many different management decisions like choosing the right interior decor and staff to maintain a light, and friendly environment to cater to the various needs of the customer.

One crucial aspect of salon management is how you occupy the customer when he is waiting for his appointment or between procedures (like waiting for the color to process). Depending on the convenience and preferences of your customers and you, consider offering electronic media, snacks or just conversation. Keep in mind that magazines are and always have been the best way to entertain your waiting customers.

Magazines helps in covering the diverse interest of any number of customers that come in your salon. Some like sports and health and some are die-hard fans of machines and technology and would like keep themselves updated about those fields. Magazines cover so many aspects of life, like fashion, styling, technology, health, sports, economics and politics, they provide the customers with the opportunity to pass time while pursuing the topic they find interesting.

But covering all the leading brands and providing different reading material can prove to be an expensive step. One can minimize the cost of subscription bills by just planning ahead. First, identify your customer base. Try looking for periodicals that overlap interests. Divide your customer base on the basis of gender and ethnicity and find overlapping interest fields and cut the unnecessary magazine subscription costs.

Seek general interest magazines that run consumer interest pieces, how-to articles, news and profiles. The best selection of magazines include Reader’s Digest, People, Time, Vogue, Outdoor Life, Allure, Ebony, Elle, Self, Shape, Seventeen, Family Circle, Teen Vogue, Glamour, Parents, Latina, Shape, Working Mother, Automobile, Cosmopolitan, Texas Monthly, ESPN Sports, Better Homes & Gardens, Field & Stream, Car & Driver, Road & Track, Consumer Reports and more.

Magazines are a great tool to enhance the ambiance of your waiting room. They can be used to improve client mood. Most importantly, the customers appreciate the presence of magazines that make waiting time pleasurable.

Making Money Online: Traditional Print Publishing versus Online Subscription Website Publishing

If you want to see a traditional print publisher explode all you need to do is say “Print publishing is dead; it’s just old fashioned editors that are keeping it on a life support system!”

I don’t actually believe print is dead, but its fun watching the reaction.

Indeed online publishing should be a natural extension of traditional newsletter, newspaper and magazine publishing, but many of the publishers look at the web as it is persistent and unwanted veruca, which they can’t get rid of.

And they never will be able to get rid of it!

The web is here to stay and it will start eating more and more of the traditional publishers lunch…..and here are some of the reasons why.

If you are a traditional print publisher please take note.

Low cost of delivery at a time when postage and physical distribution costs are rising
No typesetting and printing costs. Editors and contributors can add articles and comments directly to the website as they are written
Archives of content can easily be made available in a simple, searchable format, adding great value for subscribers. Print publication readers rarely archive old magazines and newsletter as they are difficult to search, so the value of the information is quickly lost
Ability to constantly update and refresh content. No need to be restricted by publication dates. These opens up new areas of content that would previously not been possible. E.g. breaking news, investment advice, etc.
Online membership administration can be completely automated, avoiding the need for costly manual processing of cheques, standing orders, direct debits, etc.
Members can interact with each other through online discussion forums; this interaction creates a sense of community and engenders greater loyalty
Global reach enables niche subject areas to become commercially viable at little extra cost
Content can be provided in multimedia formats including audio and video. Podcasts are becoming an important way of distributing information
Different membership offers can be easily tested, tracked and tweaked
The publisher can observe in real-time what areas of the site are most popular and use this market intelligence to continually improve the offering. Print publishers have no idea what articles subscribers read and value
A website is always on and always available wherever a reader is
The cost of marketing will be reduced as the search engines starting listing a site on the search results pages
New members get instant gratification. They can sign up and be reading the very latest information within minutes

To finish off with I will leave you with a quote from one of the most powerful and influential publishers in the world, Rupert Murdoch:

“I believe we are at the dawn of a golden age of information – an empire of new knowledge. It is difficult – indeed dangerous – to underestimate the huge changes this revolution will bring to print media or the power of developing technologies to build and destroy companies”

“Companies that expect a glorious past in print to shield them from the forces of change driven by advancing technology will fail and fall.”

10 Things a Small Business Can Write Off

We all have one fear in common – everybody is just a little bit afraid of the IRS. Although a little fear is healthy, for the small business owner or self-employed individual, too much fear of the IRS can be bad for the bottom line.

If you want to pay less income tax, take the time to learn what others in your industry are deducting, and track every legitimate business expense. The savings could easily be several hundred dollars. Start with these ten categories.

Home Office Expenses: If you operate your business from your home, a portion of your household insurance, rent, repairs, maintenance, utilities, and other expenses could be deductible.

Business Mileage: If you track every business mile driven, you’ll pay less tax. But, if those miles aren’t tracked properly they can be disallowed.

Interest on Business Debt: Monthly business checking account fees, bank overdraft penalties, business credit card finance charges, interest on a home equity loan taken out to fund your business, and annual credit card fees are all deductible.

Self-Employment Health Insurance: Self-employed health insurance costs are a business deduction, and are subtracted on your personal tax return.

IRA and Retirement Deposits: Self-employment and small business Retirement Accounts and IRA Deposits are also posted to your 1040 personal tax return.

Promotional Expenses: If you spent money, or traded goods, to get your business name or product out to the public, that cost is deductible as a promotional expense.

Seminars and Classes: Any classes that make you better at what you do to produce income, as well as general business classes are all deductible. Remember to record all mileage and travel expenses if you have them; those are deductible too.

Subscriptions: All magazines, newspapers and newsletters you purchase to enhance your business knowledge, including online subscriptions, can be deducted on your business tax return.

Rent: If you pay rent for an office, desk space, chair space, or storage space, rent tools or equipment, pay for loft space, or have other rent expenses within your business, those expenses are deductible.

Inventory: Inventory costs are only deductible as inventory is sold; unlike most other business expenses, it is not always deducted in the same year as the money is spent. The IRS has specific rules for inventory management.

A tax professional can only work from the information you provide, and unless you understand what you can and cannot deduct on a business return, even a good tax professional will miss valuable deductions. Keeping good records, documenting all business expenses are all you’ll need should an audit arise.

Reducing Operating Costs for Your Startup Is Essential for Longevity

Cash flow management is already a challenge for startups, but COVID-19 is not making matters better. With unemployment rising and people spending less money on certain goods or services, startups are likely to suffer during this time. However, reducing operating expenses can help a startup stay afloat until operations are back to normal.

Reducing overall operating costs can certainly impact your bottom line, especially as the impact of COVID-19 is felt. Also, reevaluating the budget and allocating funds to different operations can keep essential parts of your business going. Keep reading to learn more about how to reduce the operating expenses for your startup while staying productive during COVID-19.

Review your budget with a new lens

When you created your budget for the year, the coronavirus was not likely to be on your mind. And, with updates and changes happening so fast over the last several months, 2020 can feel like one big game of catchup. Now that shelter-in-place ordinances are lifting and people are venturing back out into the world, it is a good time to reevaluate your operating budget.

Revenue projections are likely in need of an update, and your outlook for 2021 is different now than it was a few months ago. From lower sales numbers to higher churn rates, the priorities of your budget need to be evaluated. However, it is important to avoid simply slashing your budget. Wisely evaluating the numbers may indicate that some areas of your business are actually improving during this time.

Renegotiate contracts

The impact of COVID-19 is being felt across the country. If your business has shifted, it is likely that others connected to you have done the same. You may be able to renegotiate terms or contracts during this time to give yourself some breathing room. From reducing office costs to eliminating subscriptions, there are some measures you can take to prevent waste.

Office Space

If your company has shifted to remote work, you are likely paying for empty office space. Your landlord may be willing to negotiate your terms due to the unprecedented circumstances. In some cases, shelter-in-place orders may prohibit you from working in the office altogether. Review your contract to see if there are any provisions for a situation when the office space is not usable.

Subscriptions

Your startup likely has multiple active subscriptions. Whether you rely on monthly professional services, like IT support, or SaaS licenses to run your business, there might be some room for cuts. Try negotiating with your partners or vendors to reduce subscription costs. You may have licenses that you are no longer using or termination fees that can be renegotiated.

Deferred Payments

In cases where you cannot reduce operating costs in numbers, ask for deferred payments. Lengthening the payment cycle can improve your cash flow temporarily and get you through a rough patch.

Eliminate nonessential tools

When you reevaluate your budget, you may find that it is skewed in one area. Go line by line to review the various tools and services used by your business, determine which are essential and which items can be cut. Reviewing financial statements is a great way to visualize where your budget is going, instead of assuming. You may have duplicate tools, tools that are no longer in use, or items that can be replaced with a less expensive alternative.

Cut Unnecessary Licenses

Reviewing all the tools and services used by your team could also highlight which services have too many licenses. Are all licenses being used, or can some be eliminated? Also, you may be paying for additional functions that you could go without, at least for the time being. Dropping your subscription tier or reducing the number of licenses could help lower operating costs.

Cut Out Paper

While it may seem small, going paperless can help your bottom line. Businesses spend quite a bit on paper, printers, and ink every year. If your team is working remote, there is even less reason to use paper. When you return to the office, you can continue the habits formed during quarantine to reduce the overall paper usage of your business.

Stay flexible

Things are likely to continue changing as we learn more about COVID-19 and its overall impact. There may be unlikely opportunities to reduce your operating expenses over time. The unpredictability of COVID-19 combined with the changing nature of startups makes it important to stay on your toes. You may find yourself considering new or innovative ideas that you would not have previously thought of.

Evaluate More Frequently

Periodically evaluating your budget and outlook can help you stay more agile and flexible. As your startup changes and evolves, your operating costs need to follow. Set up more frequent evaluations to stay on top of your operating costs and adjust as needed.

Pause large investments or projects

For many startups, cash flow is limited. COVID-19 is putting major purchases and projects on hold until businesses can stabilize. Instead of considering these pauses as losses, pay attention to the money you are saving and the cash you are making available.

New Equipment

Were you planning to upgrade everyone’s laptops this year or purchase a new phone system? COVID-19 may not be the right time to make major investments like purchasing new equipment. Instead, stick to only buying what is necessary. Look for refurbished or second-hand items when possible to save on operating costs.

Marketing Initiatives

Unless your marketing initiatives are seeing a positive ROI, it may be time to pause big projects. Instead of rolling out previously scheduled campaigns, reevaluate your marketing calendar to determine what will move the needle for your business. If your customers are pushing off on buying decisions, now might not be the time to invest in sales and marketing.

Utilize Free Trial Periods

If you absolutely must purchase a new service or equipment, take advantage of free trial periods. Ensure the vendor is the right partner for you by testing their product or service ahead of time. In some cases, vendors will negotiate on the trial period if you are serious about buying.

Reduce payroll

Finally, reducing payroll can help lower operating costs. Many startups see this as a last resort because it greatly impacts your operational capacity as well as the individual lives of employees. However, in some cases, it is a necessary measure.

Implement a Hiring Freeze

You can make steps towards reducing operational costs by implementing a hiring freeze. Avoid filling positions unless necessary. Your team may be stretched thin, but you can avoid eliminating current positions this way.

Contract Out

Instead of hiring for new positions, contract out when possible. For example, you may need financial guidance during COVID-19. You can contract with a freelance CFO to work part-time at a lower cost than hiring an executive-level position. Firms like K-38 Consulting provide services from top-notch financial advisors, and you only pay for services when you need them.