Business Planning

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Calendar or Fiscal? Which is the right year for your business?

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Did you start a business last year? No? Are you planning to start one this year? Did you know you can choose the tax year you intend to operate under? Choose well, because there are pros and cons for either method.

A tax year is an accounting period for which you must report your taxable income and business expenses, and the law requires you to operate according to a consistent tax year. The most common is the most obvious: the calendar year. However, businesses can also report based on a fiscal tax year and a short tax year.

Here are some tips for choosing the right period for your small business.

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Keeping Your Business On The Right Track

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A business plan is a roadmap that sets out your route for the development of your business. It doesn’t tell you just about the current state of the business, its strengths and its weaknesses, it will also show up the opportunities and what needs to be done to stay ahead of the competition.

You might think you know all this now and don’t have to write it down. But what if something happened to you and someone else had to take over the operation? What would they need to know so it was still there and profitable when you returned? This is the kind of information contained in your business plan and its good insurance against the unknown.

It clarifies your objectives

What are your goals? These will be in your business plan, the original goals you had plus any additional objectives that arise in the course of business. Your business plan spells out the goals and shows the milestones along the way that tell you how close you are to achieving them. Goals are flexible and can be as varied as achieving a certain level of turnover or simply acquiring new customers. It’s important, however, that each is presented in the same way – as a target with milestones or indicators that will let you measure how near you are to achieving it.

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Are You On Top Of Your Competitors?

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Here’s a list of questions that every business manager should be able to answer with an unqualified "yes." They relate largely to the fundamental need of identifying and understanding your competition, and if you find yourself giving a "no" answer to any of them it means you could be short of valuable information that would provide you with a competitive advantage.

  • Do you know who your competitors are? Do you know where they are and how big they are? Would you be aware if any new competitors entered your market?
  • Do you regularly monitor your competitors’ advertising and promotions by looking for their advertisements, visiting their premises and looking at their websites?

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Brand "Me"

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Personal branding, self-branding, self-positioning, whatever you choose to call it, it’s really about personal marketing. Why would you want to do that? It’s a great way to market your business in a way that can cost you nothing. You see it in action constantly. Donald Trump, for example, uses his name on his buildings, but he also has it placed on products that he endorses. While you mightn’t be prepared to go that far, let’s look at some ways of using personal marketing.

Remember, prospects are everywhere

Whenever you travel, attend a sporting event, go to a parents’ night at your local school or even wait in line at a bank, it’s possible there is a potential customer among the group. So always be willing to talk to people. You never know who you might be talking to. Naturally not everyone is going to be a potential customer but even if somebody isn’t a prospect for your business they may well know of another person who is.

This doesn’t mean pushing yourself onto anybody a

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Protecting Your Most Important Assets. Your Intellectual Property Rights.

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When you think about protecting company assets, several things probably come straight to mind, such as land, buildings, machinery, inventory and vehicles. In many instances companies overlook their intellectual property (IP), which can be one of their most valuable assets. By understanding the different types of intellectual property and how they can be protected against infringement you can help your business stay ahead of the competition.

Your business 'intellectual property' can include:

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Finding Acres Of Diamonds By Marketing In Your Own Backyard

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Acres of Diamonds is an old story of an African farmer who sold his farm and wandered the countryside searching for diamonds. It later turned out that the land that he sold was full of diamonds and eventually became the site of a large mine.

Similarly, many businesses seek their customers far afield when they might find acres of diamonds in their own backyard. Despite globalization and the trend towards working at greater distances, it’s worth taking a serious look at promoting your business in your local area. There are advantages to finding new customers close to home - the cost of communicating with and meeting these customers will be lower. By working with local customers you will lower your environmental impact by not having to travel so far for meetings and making deliveries.

Here are six ways you can expand your local market with minimal cost.