Deductible Expenses

1. Attorney for business affairs
2. Bank fees
3. Business cards
4. Bad debts, if you have already reported the debt as income or if you actually lent out money
5. Association fees
6. Advertising cost, including agency fees, printing costs, and giveaways
7. Accountant/bookkeeper fees for business finances
8. Computer and printer costs, including software, online services, and instructions related directly to business; If use is split between business and personal use you must keep a log of time used for business purposes and deduct only a percentage of the total cost
9. Courses taken to improve business skills, including training tapes
10. Public relations costs and fees
11. Office supplies, including paper, stationary, folders, pens, pencils, tape, envelopes and other materials
12. Employee salaries and wages
13. Car expenses including tolls, parking, and gas for business usage
14. Postage fees, including mail, supplies, and post office fees
15. Travel expenses, including transportation (car rental, bus or train costs, and airline tickets) meals, lodging, and entertainment
16. Licenses needed for operation of business
17. Pension Plan contributions
18. Interest on business loans and credit cards
19. Insurance fees for business
20. Office space costs, including rent, taxes, mortgage interest, and utilities, for home offices, the office spaces must be used exclusively for business purposes (including meeting with clients), and the deduction can only be a percentage of the total house costs based on the amount of space the office takes up in the house
21. Health Insurance premiums
22. Gifts to clients and associates
23. Entertainment for business purposes, including dinners, parties, and events for clients (usually only 80%decuctible)
24. Industry directories and listings
25. Magazines and journals for business
26. Consultant fees
27. Books used for business purposes

#1 Assess Your Strengths

Are you a good writer? Practice and be the best writer you can be. If you enjoy kayaking, perhaps you can pitch a story to an outdoor publication. Maybe you are a civil engineer with an interest in green construction practices. Have a knack with computers? A repair service just might put a little more jingle in your pockets. The possibilities are endless - closet organization, auto detailing, business consulting, photographing special events, tailoring - ask a close friend or family member if you are struggling to find your niche.

#2 Determine Who Will Buy What You Are Selling

When Ami Moore, a Chicago Dog Trainer, started Doggie Do Right to coach dogs and pet parents to live together harmoniously, she networked endlessly. “I partnered with veterinarians, gave advice to pet parents of rehomed dogs and looked for opportunities to promote my business in online communities.” Her plan worked. In 2005, she hit six figures. Ami did several things right that you can do to home in on your target buyers. She turned to bona fide plugged in communities and turned them into referral sources to minimize her advertising costs.

#3 Evaluate The Competition

If you want to offer a scrapbooking tutorial and there are five scrapbooking stores offering lesson within a five block radius of you, find a different angle. Maybe you can specialize in a type of book or paper, or you've developed a technique none of your competitors use. Instead of a run of the mill cleaning service, use only all-natural products. The bonus is by positioning yourself as an expert, above all the fray, the perceived value of your services is greater… which means you can charge more.

#4 Pricing

Ami Moore chuckles when she recounts one of her former competitors. “He hung advertisements on doorknobs, wallpapered the community with fliers and had no takers. He reduced his prices and even offered free lessons. When he finally landed a paying dog training client, he was losing money.” Turns out the value of his service wasn't at issue - he was focusing on a planned community that banned dogs. Think about where you are looking for clients and what the marketplace is. Lawyers may have more room to pay $100 for advertising design than a trucking firm. While you build up your business, don't be afraid to be flexible on your pricing strategy.

#5 Promote Yourself

Networking is key, as illustrated by Ami Moore's success. But you need materials you can leave behind with prospects. Ami always carried an extra leash with her website imprinted on it to send home with someone who forgot one, had one too short for the park, or maybe the dog escaped the off-leash area. She had professionally printed business cards and brochures. As the revenue rolled in, she upgraded her dogdoright website and hired a publicist, which she thinks gave her better results than constantly advertising. Promotional items can be excellent if they are relevant to your target audience.

#6 Get Business Help

Most communities have a small business resource center funded by the local government, the SBA, or the Chamber of Commerce. These are all free services, or available for a nominal fee. You also gain access to SCORE, which are retired executives who may have expertise in your field. Why pay thousands in consulting fees if those same services are available at no cost? Invest $1,000 or so with an accountant to set up your books properly if you've never done it before. You will pick up a wealth of information from your consultation, and ensure you are on the right path.

Start your venture part time if you have steady income already. If it starts to take off, evaluate the pros and cons of doing it full-time. Will your gas savings, for instance, offset your loss of a 401k match from your job? Where will your health insurance come from? Once you make your decision to start your home-based business, don't be afraid to follow your dreams!

• Yellowpages
• Konnects
• Kudzu
• Free Press Release
• Salespider

All of these have free options and some upgraded options to get more notoriety. These are easy on the wallet and have great results whether you pay anything or not. The more you are listed in databases, the more people get to know you and want to use your services. Also, it increases the chances for people to Google your company name. The top reasons to implement these Web sites now are as follows:

1. Get known faster than in traditional ads;
2. Save time and money by having a consistent image online;
3. Creates a better opportunity to network while getting new customers simultaneously;
4. Not everyone is using these places as their main advertising avenues yet, so you can be ahead of the curve;
5. It is free and you have control

When doing the press release take a look at free resources that offer guidance. For example, use this. It has samples and is another place to use that is a paid program once you are ready to get more exposure. Joining is free, but the least expensive option is around $40.00 to distribute the press release. The other four include social networking with ad placing opportunities. However, the Yellow Pages ad is strictly a plain listing and it does not include the print version, but most people use the Internet these days anyway. Therefore, try these simple ways of creating a successful e-marketing strategy that home based businesses can use to get the same share of business notoriety as the traditional brick and mortar business.

These are just some of the things you need to take note of when outsourcing your tasks to service providers. Hope it helps you get started on the right foot, especially if this is your first time outsourcing. If you have signed up for reliable service provider websites, you need not worry that your service provider will run away with your money. The system will guard you against such incidents. So, concentrate on the delegation of the tasks rather than the security of the system. All the best!

When it comes to writing articles or e-books for you, you need to be wary of the country of origin of your service providers. Why am I so particular about this? Firstly, you need to identify your target market. If your target market is the people in the US, it is better to get someone who writes in the style that is peculiar and unique to your target market. The use of slang and spelling of words are some of the differences when writing for the US market, compared to the UK market.

If your tasks does not require much writing, then the country of origin may not be so crucial. But it may still be important to ensure that your service provider can at least understand your language clearly, so that your tasks can be completed correctly and satisfactorily.

Reviews

Positive reviews is a must when selecting the appropriate service providers. As far as possible, try to select those which has had 100% positive reviews. You may want to read the comments by previous buyers who have selected that service provider, and take note of their comments.

Portfolio

Another way to select your service provider is by looking at their portfolio. What samples can they show you? Are the samples any good at all? Are you impressed by any of their work? This will give an indication of the quality of work your service provider will give you.

Communication

You may want to communicate with your potential service providers prior to awarding the job to them. You may want to do so to find out more about that person or check for understanding of your job description. When they reply back to you, check for spelling and grammatical mistakes. This will give you an idea of how meticulous your service provider is.

Response Time

By communicating with them, check the amount of time they took to respond to your message. Are they fast or slow? They should reply to you within 24 hours. If they are taking longer than that, you may want to reconsider because the longer it takes for them to reply to you, the longer your project will stretch.

Company vs Individual

Do you want to engage a company with a team of service providers? Or do you want to engage an individual? I would suggest that you engage a team if your project is a big one and if it takes a long time to complete. In this way, if your service provider falls ill, other members in the team can come to the rescue. A team of service providers also has the benefit of a variety of ideas and writing styles. If your project is a small one or if you want your project to be completed fast, you can simply rely on an individual to complete it. Individuals often work quicker alone and are usually self-motivated.

Special Requirements

If you want your service provider to have a certain knowledge or skill in a particular area, you must state that clearly in the job description. For instance, if you want your service provider to write articles on pets and you want them to have personal experience with pets, you may want to select someone who has worked in a pet shelter or a veterinary before. These relevant experience will help them complete the tasks quickly and easily.

Time Frame

Can your service provider complete the tasks you asked for within the time frame given? Or do they need more time? If many of the service provider request for more time, maybe the amount of time you indicated is too short for the tasks to be completed satisfactorily. You may need to revise the time frame if necessary.

Bid

Your job is to find the best qualified service provider with the smallest amount of investment. Although the lowest bid may not be the best, you can still try them if you are on a tight budget. You might just find a gem! Always give a range of amount you are willing to pay for the job. You also need to be wary of very high bids; there is a possibility that they might sub-contract the tasks to someone else, instead of doing it themselves. It might mean more problems for you!

Award Different Service Providers

If you have a large project, you may want to break it down into smaller, manageable parts. You can award a few service providers the separate tasks. In this way, you can test the quality of different service providers at the same time.

Selecting a service provider can be a little difficult, especially if you have many service providers bidding for your job. By following the guidelines in this article, I'm sure you will definitely be able to narrow down your choices to one or two good ones. All the best in your selection!

If time is not on your side, you may find that outsourcing may be the best answer. Your project is due next week and you have not yet started on anything at all. You may decide that getting a service provider to do part of your tasks is the best way to ensure you still have a job two weeks from now. The best things about outsourcing is that some of these service providers can complete their job fast. They are also working while you are sleeping. By the time you wake up the next morning, your report is done up.

Professionals

If others can do a better job than you, I would suggest that you leave some tasks to the qualified professionals out there. In this way, the final result of your project won't be disappointing! For example, if you know very little about web design, it's best to leave it to the web design experts to create web pages for you.

Tasks you Hate Doing

There are some tasks which you might hate doing. For instance, you may dislike writing articles, go ahead and leave it to those who love doing it. There is also a chance you will sit on something which you hate and stall the progress of your project. So to get it going, pass the tasks which you hate to the service providers and move on with other things on your project list.

Task you have been sitting on

Check your to-do list. Is there any task which has been there for quite some time? There is a high chance that you will continue to have avoid it for some reason or other. You may want to outsource that task to someone else.

Value for Money

Sometimes, money is not the main problem. It is a matter of whether you can make use of the limited time doing things which has higher value than the tasks you outsource. If planning for a project takes the same amount of time writing an article, but has higher value, then outsource the less valuable task. This is the real definition of value for money.

Practice being a leader

There is no better way to practice becoming a leader than by outsourcing some of your tasks. If you have no subordinates to delegate stuff to, outsourcing through the internet can be the best answer. You will learn a lot of things from the experience alone.

Focus on Bigger Issues

If you want to focus on more important issues such as understanding and creating the overall big picture of your company, you need to learn to outsource the smaller, less important stuff to others. You may be good at conceiving ideas, but not good at following through these ideas, outsourcing will help you achieve both goals at the same time.

When is the best time to outsource? Only you will be able to answer this question. Following the guidelines in this article, you will be able to understand what are the more crucial and important tasks you need to do, and learn to outsource the rest of them. Outsourcing helps you to prioritize your job and achieve more things in a shorter amount of time.

One of my experiences of a common mistake while running my business is NOT establishing a solid system integrating all of the different functions together. Every function within the business must smoothly go together and move into a smooth flow that will eventually move your business at a high speed. I found out that I needed to speed up the finance aspect with book keeping in order to keep up with my marketing and vice versa; I needed to make my marketing decisions based on my finances as we must have marketing and finance go at parallel speeds for maximum results.

Being Too greedy

While seeking the best profit margins, many experience the issue of distribution. What we normally would like to see is our products being sold everywhere to create easy access for our customers to purchase our products. But the problem is, while seeking profit margins, we have the tendency to get caught up in working with too many sub-distributors, that at the end of the day, they all end up killing and minimizing our profit margins. They would compete against each other to lower the selling price then make it difficult for our customers to choose where to purchase our products. A good solution for this problem is either to search for an exclusive distributor or distribute online. You will have more control of the situation to monitor and evaluate your business.

Bad Accounting

We depend on accounting for the growth of our business because accounting and finance is considered the "health" of our business. Make sure that balance sheets are balanced, financial statements are in checked and the amount of money written in the book is also the "actual" amount of money you have at hand. This occurs a lot where the book states you have $15.000, but at hand you only have $4.000. Where did the $11.000 go?

Tightening Promotion Money

Lastly, another common mistake is tightening your promotion money when your business is going down.

When business is slow, we should increase our spendings on promotions. As without promo, your business will either stay slow or go even go down in business. We must be brave to spend our money on promotions. It is key to growing our business.

Lets fall forward and succeed.

Running your own business takes a lot of courage, determination, and skills. You also need a little help from others. You can read articles and books about what you should do to succeed as a business owner.

We can look back and analyse life, but we can't live it backwards. We have to live with the unknown ahead of us. What marks those who succeed in business is a balance of optimism and pessimism-the ability to confront what went wrong honestly but not lose self-confidence and try better the next time. You look around and study why some people succeed while others fail. Then you discover that there are some no-break rules successful business owners never break. What are these no-break rules?

Never act on any advice without first investigating it thoroughly

No matter whom the advice comes from, you need to check if it is suitable for your particular case, your personality, history, other factors involved and how it fits with previous courses of action. The person giving that advice may not be aware of some crucial bit of information, which might change the whole picture.

Never drink during a workday

It is very dangerous when you start running away from decisions, problems with the help of alcohol, drugs etc. They don't help. You end up making a bigger mess. Drinking usually is an attempt to disregard the warning signs.

Never Moan

There is a saying “Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and you weep alone.” Attributed to the poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox. People react to moaning as it were an admission of failure, and people start avoiding losers. If a customer starts moaning, never join in. Just sympathise and try to find a way to help. Never get stuck in the moaning mode but push ahead.

Never think that Cash-flow problems will take care of themselves

Every business can occasionally face cash flow problems. This kind of crisis is not the end of the world. In fact, cash flow problems indicate needs for rethinking, changing processes, adapting marketing strategies, and approaches etc. This cash flow management crisis needs action and will get worse if you don't take care of it.

Never procrastinate

If something needs to be done, it should be done. Making a careful plan and deciding on a timetable for action is the optimal response. This way you can allocate both your and other people's resources better. But if you procrastinate, chances are that things grow until they explode in a crisis. As a business owner, if you just run from one crisis to another, you will never have any energy for development work and can't catch the new opportunities.

Never neglect yourself

Actually, this should be the number one rule! If you don't take care of your health and energy level, you'll end up in ruins. You will notice that your efficiency will increase if you take short breaks in a day. If you take vacations and spend time with family and friends doing entirely different things, your mind will be much more alert and agile at work. If you neglect to do these, you'll notice that your energy level will decrease, you'll be irritated always and the quality of your decisions and work will soon go below critical level. When customers start noticing, you are in big trouble.

Never neglect your family and friends

Sit comfortably, close your eyes and imagine looking at your funeral like a fly. As they lower your coffin into the bosom of the earth who do you see with sad faces looking down? Will it be your bosses, your shareholders, or important clients? Remember this - a business is a business. You can build another one if one goes. But, if you lose family and friends, you can't buy these from a Wall-mart near you! Small business owners face problems regularly. They need to have good support systems for the hard times. How successful you are in renewing your faith in your venture decides the future of your business.

Small businesses, for the most part, are on a strict budget and do not have a lot of expendable capital. In other words, unlike big corporations that can write off billions of dollars per financial quarter and remain in business, small businesses have no such luxury. This is what makes them “small” businesses. As such, should small businesses discover a change in customer spending habits, such small businesses may be faced with the unpalatable conclusion of having to “close shop.” Therefore, the question becomes, how does a small business survive during such an economy?

The primary reason that most small businesses are negatively affected by this slow economy is that people have less disposable income. Even though the primary factors that led to the current economic slump are the fallouts in the housing and lending markets, because the economy as a whole is negatively affected, all people and all businesses are negatively affected. Businesses are less profitable and are cutting jobs. This means that former employees are pulling their money out of their savings in order to survive between jobs. Additionally, because of this strain on their finances, people are less likely to spend money on nonessential merchandise.

The respective economies of many of the Southwest states have been exceedingly strained due to the massive fallout in the housing market. As such, small businesses in these states are finding it harder to survive. Should you be one of these businesses, there are some things you can do to stay afloat during this tumultuous time.

Because people have less disposable income, people are less likely to buy nonessential items. As such, should your small business operate in a “luxury” or “entertainment” market, your business will suffer more. Therefore, should you want your small business to survive during this time, you may have to cut your prices. As stated above, because a small business does not have a lot of expendable capital, lowering prices may be difficult. However, if cutting prices will cause customers to maintain their shopping habits with your business, cutting prices is a good idea as long as you still maintain a profit.

Another great way to financially survive during this economic depression is to cut your costs wherever possible. Cutting costs is a good business practice regardless of economic condition, but during times such as these you will have to go the extra mile and cut all non necessities out of your business budget.

During an economic downturn, consumers look for deals. They want to save money and find a bargain whenever they can. Because many consumers think like this during this time, you should give them what they want. Granted, you do not want to advertise a deal that will create a loss, but you should be able to provide some kind of special promotion that brings customers in the door.

The point is, during this negative economic time, you have to take action and change your business practices should you want to survive. The most important thing to remember is that the economy is cyclical. Therefore, even though your business may be slow currently, your business will return to profitability in the future if you do what is necessary to survive today.

But the worst has yet to come, particularly for small businesses and consumers like you and me. The federal minimum wage, previously at $5.15 an hour, went up to $5.85 last summer, and this summer, starting on July 24, will go up to $6.55 an hour. And next summer minimum wage rises to $7.25 an hour.

Don't get me wrong. I'm all for people making a living, and Lord knows with the way the prices of everything has gone up, one can't make it on $5.85 an hour. But the effect won't be marginal, but widespread on the way we currently live.

As the minimum wage goes up, so does the cost of a $5 value meal at McDonalds. You think Adriens or Piggly Wiggly or Wal-Mart or Albertsons or Winn Dixie or whomever isn't going to pass that cost on to me and you.

Put any business in the blank space here ____, and the cost of goods or services from that business is going to go up starting July 24 this year, and next.

I don't have the stats right in front of me, but I know generally, since we got over the oil bust of the 80s, the economy red line has been going up, with one major exception, and that is wages.

People, particularly those on the lower portions of the rung, will make more money. But they also will be spending a whole lot more of what they earn. Particulary if they want to go fishing with a box of worms.