Twenty percent. At the high end, the U.S. Small Business Administration has noted that a reasonable marketing budget for a growing business in a competitive space could be up to 20% of annual projected revenue. That’s no small amount of money. Hopefully, you’re...
So what’s your company worth? If you’re not sure, you have plenty of company. Putting a realistic market value on your business involves a skill set and a degree of experience most small business owners don’t possess. Valuation involves a certain balance of art and...
In Section 162 of the IRS tax code, it’s stated that to qualify as deductions, business expenditures should be “ordinary and necessary.” Fair enough. But with tax laws and the way business is conducted constantly changing, maybe the real danger is not that...
Writing Your Company Crisis Plan When you think about it, most business crises can be divided into two broad categories. First, there’s what might be called the operating crisis. This is where something happens to, or at, your company, which prevents you from...
It’s no secret that financial decisions you make in, say, February and March can seriously impact your tax liability for the entire year. So ideally, you and your company should be constantly engaged in intelligent tax planning. But even if that’s not the case,...
Frankly, the best advice you can read regarding your company’s expense management is this: Make time between now and the middle of December to talk with your accountant or financial adviser. If you do that, your chances of getting it right in terms of cash flow...
No, you didn’t accidentally land on Martha Stewart’s site. But about a year ago, this space did – improbably – devote a few hundred well-chosen words to Surviving the Office Holiday Party. Looking at it now, the piece isn’t nearly as cynical as the title might have...
Here’s one sure way to clear a room. “Thanks for coming everyone. We’re going to spend the next 90 minutes talking about our knowledge management plans.” Okay, that was a little rough. But let’s be honest, we tend to judge our books by their covers, and our companies’...
“The most valuable commodity I know of is information.” – Gordon Gekko (Wall Street) It never fails. Just when you think you have all the answers, someone changes all the questions. For years, business owners were advised to consider the “Four Ps” when...
It’s difficult to say exactly when it happened, but somewhere along the line customer service crossed a line from something a company just did, to something a company could strategically implement to grow and profit. Customer service’s evolution from cost center to...
