Tax time is often dreaded.  The fear of error and penalty is a common one among small business owners.  It is a common among anybody that pays taxes!  Tax laws change from year to year.  Wading through pages and pages of unclear information can be overwhelming.  An accountant is a sure bet for maximizing deductions and profit.   

An audit, especially for a business, is a lengthy and complex process.  This is another time when having a seasoned professional on your side can save you thousands of dollars in fees and penalties.

Accounting software is an option many small businesses are turning to.  Different packages are widely available and the features are robust.  The downsides are the cost of purchasing the software, especially if additional user licenses are needed, as well as the time it takes to properly learn the software.  Weighing the cost verses the benefit is crucial.

Factor in not only the purchase price but also the cost of integrating the software within your technology structure.  How long will it take you to learn the software?  Time invested is spent money, money that could perhaps be better utilized elsewhere.  Will you need to hire another employee and supply benefits for the sole job of maintaining the software?  Crunching the numbers can easily lead you to the decision of hiring an outside accountant.  

The beauty of an accountant is flexibility.  Most accountants, especially sole proprietors and smaller firms, will accept contracts for special or one time projects.  Many are retained only during tax season.  Often times an accountant can custom tailor a plan solely for your business structure.  

Any business will experience ebb and flow.  Having a dedicated “money man” can eliminate the burden and really help a business grow.  Even better, the expense of an accountant for business purpose is tax deductible.

Utilizing an accountant truly is an investment in your company’s future.  The experience an accountant possesses, not only in financial matters but also in general business planning, is an invaluable tool.  Choosing the right accountant will require research but the end result will be well worth the time and effort.  

When you hire an accountant you are also purchasing a piece of mind.  Small business owners have many irons in the fire.  Sometimes the best decision is to pass the work along to somebody with your best interests in mind.  

When it comes to running a successful membership site, a membership management tool is a necessity.  A membership management program will automatically sign people up, collect payments and grant access to private areas. 

Some programs will also automatically revoke or suspend access when a payment is missed or a subscription is canceled.  A quality membership manager will also allow you to automatically make members into affiliates and provide the flexibility for non-paying people to sign up as affiliates.

A great time management tool is a feature offered by WordPress.  Using their “delayed post” feature you can upload content and schedule exactly when you want it published on your site.  You can create the content for your membership site several months ahead of time and it won’t be displayed until the date you have specified.  Best of all, WordPress is a free, open source content management system that can easily be installed on your server through the push of a button.

An autoresponder is another very important tool.  An autoresponder is a service that allows you to create mailing lists and schedule emails, which will automatically be sent to the mailing list in the order you have requested.

Let’s say that Sally signs up for your membership on Tuesday.  She will automatically be sent any welcome messages that you have specified to be sent on the fist day of membership.  If Joe signs up for the membership site on Wednesday, he won’t miss any emails. He will also be sent that first day’s email on the day he signs up.

You can also use an autoresponder to send broadcast messages to your whole mailing list on the same day.  This is great for sending out newsletters or invitations to events.

A credit card processing service is another tool to look into.  Look carefully into the different services, as their rates can vary.  You can certainly start out with Paypal, but eventually you may want to go with a different service, as not everyone has a Paypal account and Paypal isn’t offered in every country. 

Shop around and compare the different automation tools and packages available.  It is a good idea to have your pricing strategy and a rough growth plan in place before buying anything.  You don’t want to lock yourself into something that will not grow or adapt with you. 
 

While owning a business may be a great dream or fantasy, it’s not always a great reality.  Becoming “the boss” generally means that a person will be taking on more work, more responsibility, and more stress than they ever had as an employee.

It takes a lot of people to make the world turn, and some people are more suited to being employees than business owners.  The following are some personality traits that can help a person become a more successful business owner.

Business owners truly need to be independent.  Owning your own business could mean working by yourself.  People who enjoy being surrounded by a team of co-workers may be very lonely as a business owner.

Organizational skills are a must!  A person who is constantly losing clients’ phone numbers and assignment details will have a hard time being successful in their own business.

Along with organizational skills, time management skills are also mandatory.  As the boss, a person needs to know what work needs to be done, when the work is due, and be able to organize the tasks in a way that is efficient and timely.

Having the freedom to create their own schedules is one of the reasons people start dreaming of becoming their own boss.  This freedom can get business owners in trouble.  It can be very easy to procrastinate on tasks or simply put off work to do other activities.  A successful business owner needs to be self-disciplined in order to complete the work, even when they would rather be doing something else.

Being self-motivated is another trait that will lead to success.  As an employee, a person may get various rewards for meeting goals and accomplishing tasks.  As a business owner, there won’t be anyone else to push and pull you towards your goal.  This drive is something that needs to come from within.

It can take several years for a business to actually become profitable and successful.  Having the ability to stay positive, even in hard times, as well as making the commitment to keep working every day towards the end goal, will help a business owner tremendously.

Deciding to become a business owner can be scary and daunting, but it can also be one of the best decisions a person will ever make.  Only you can decide what is right for you.

Not all direct sales companies require their associates to conduct parties.  In fact, some direct sales companies don’t require parties at all.  You may want to look further into companies offering a different plan for marketing if you are not comfortable talking to crowds of people.

Melaleuca, Avon, and World Book, among others, do not require a party plan.  So, are they necessary for success?  Obviously, the answer is no.  Even people that are associated with party plan companies can succeed by using other marketing plans.  It happens every day, you just have to do some research and determine what the other options are.

Direct sales success really depends more on you than on the method of marketing the product to potential customers.  If you don’t believe in the company and the product, it doesn’t matter what you do – you won’t be able to make your home business a success.  Here are some ideas to help you succeed whether you’re using a party plan or not:

1. Familiarize yourself with the business manual you received in your start-up kit.  Make a list of questions you have and then contact your upline sponsor as soon as you can.  Understanding what is expected of you, what you can and cannot do to market the product, and how the company will pay you will make all the difference in how you conduct your business.

2. Follow the instructions given to you during training.  Most likely you will be told to make a list of everyone you know. This will be your master list, the first people you will contact about your new business.  If you don’t complete this task, you’re not going to do the rest.  Swallow your pride and ask for your money back.  This company is not for you.

3. Begin networking with other business owners.  Join the local Chamber of Commerce and get plugged into regular meetings.  You must promote your business if it is to grow, and networking with other business people is a great way to let others know about your company.

4. Schedule specific times during the week to work on the various aspects of your business. If you’re at home, make sure to let friends and family members know that you do not want to be interrupted during your “work” hours.

5. Tell everyone about your business. Don’t assume that they already know about it or that they’re not interested.  You might be surprised to find that more people are interested than you think.

These five points show that you do not have to be involved in home parties in order to succeed in direct sales.  Your success is ultimately up to you, and depends on how serious you are about treating your business as a business.  If you want to see your business grow, you have to act in ways that will cause growth to happen.

What Is a Moderator?

If you have participated in an online conference or conference call, you have probably seen or heard a moderator even if you didn't realize it at the time.  The moderator is the person who introduces the speakers, but that is only a small portion of his duties.  A moderator's function is to keep everything going smoothly.

The moderator may help with technical checks before the conference starts, making sure everyone is logged in and there are no audio or video problems.  He can make sure that everyone has the notes they need and there is no undesirable background noise.  He may also greet participants as they call or log in and tell them anything they need to know.

Once the conference has begun, the moderator does an introduction and then hands the reins over to the first speaker.  If there are other speakers, he will usually introduce them as well.  And once the speakers are finished, the moderator can maintain order during a question and answer session.

Do I Need a Moderator for a Small Conference?

It is up to the conference holder to determine whether a moderator should be used or not, but with large conferences with multiple speakers it is almost a necessity.  Smaller conferences may or may not really need a moderator, but they can certainly benefit from having one.  The moderator can smooth transitions between segments of the conference and assist participants with any technical difficulties they may have during the presentations.

If there is just one speaker, even at a small conference, having a moderator is probably a good idea.  The speaker won't be able to attend to technical issues while speaking.  If you have two or more speakers and are not expecting a large audience, however, a moderator might not be necessary.  If both speakers can handle technical issues and one would like to take on the question and answer session, they may do fine on their own.

In most cases, a moderator is essential to keeping your conference on track and free of problems and distractions.  If you don't have someone in your company who can serve as a moderator, you can hire someone you know or post an ad online.  While it is possible to have a conference without a moderator, having one gives you the peace of mind of knowing that things will likely go much more smoothly.

Do you waste more and more time each day?  This is not a slight.  We all waste a fair amount of time, even with our businesses.  Wasting time could be spending too much time answering emails or looking something up on the Internet.  It could be taking thirty minutes to write up a “To Do” list and then only doing one or none of the things on it.

This could be a sign that the business is overwhelming us.  Instead of jumping in and tackling the tasks that need to be done, we avoid the one job we know we need to address because we either don’t have the answers or don’t want to deal with it.  Either way, our business is going to suffer as long as we hide from the task.

Look to fellow business owners for help.  This is why it is important to be a part of forums and organizations that deal with your area of business.  You are not the first business owner to feel this way and you won’t be the last.  Someone out there has practical tips that can help you to get over the hurdle and be successful in your business.

Does it seem that you work and work each day but the pile of work never seems to get any smaller?  This is a sign that you need help.  Take a step back and look at your business as a whole.  What is consistently not getting done?  What is the nature of the majority of the work that is left each day?

Consider your options.  If emails have you bogged down, find ways to organize things so that it doesn’t take five or more hours to answer them.  Set up your work day to include an hour for dealing with emails.  During this time, you can answer, organize, flag, create drafts, and whatever else you have to do to keep the emails from overwhelming you.

It is marketing that concerns you?  Choose one area to market your business.  This doesn’t mean that this is the only area to use.  Quite the contrary is true.  Once this area gets going, explore another part of the marketing strategy.  Diversifying is necessary but not all at once.

Are you overwhelmed?  Take time to discover the source and find solutions to alleviate the stress.

There are two basic ways to manage your content.  You can maintain all content forever and constantly have it all available to your members.  Or, you can keep new content active for a certain period of time and then remove it from member access. There are pros and cons with both choices and you will have to decide what ultimately works best for you. 

Some of the pros associated with leaving all of the content up forever is that new members will really feel they are getting their money’s worth by having access to content from, possibly, years before they started paying for it.  Of course, you also run the risk of having someone pay for a membership, download everything in sight and then drop their membership.

There are also some pretty serious advantages to making content available for a limited time only.  You can go through your past content and repackage it and sell it again.  Once you have a decent sized library of content to work with, you can find many different ways to repackage things for resell.  This can provide a real increase in profits.

Some people know ahead of time that they want to provide content for a limited time. They may choose to update the content on the first of every month, for example.  If you choose this method, you may want to have a few pieces of content accessible at all times, such as some beginner, “how-to” type of information.

Another option is to bring back popular pieces of content from previous months as a special “bonus”.  This works out great for people who were not members at the original time the content was published.  To keep things fair, you may want to add on to the material, or provide some additional notes, or other information that was not included in the original form.  This will make the customers who saw it the first time feel that they are still getting the bonus.

There are a million things that can influence your decision; for instance, the amount of available web space you have.  All the factors that go into this decision will be unique to you and your site.  There are no magic formulas or “right” answers to managing content.  You can experiment to figure out what works best for you and your members. 
 

An intern is a person who takes a position, usually for no pay, in order to gain experience.  Some people may choose to pay their interns, but even if they do, it is usually the minimum wage.

Teenagers and college students make great interns.  This generation has been working with technology since elementary school and can work wonders for those needing help in this arena.  They may be able to help create a customized website, viral videos, podcasts, and more.

If you are comfortable with technology, interns can still help with a myriad of tasks.  Tasks such as answering emails, customer service, posting content on a website or blog, social networking, internet research and even writing can be handed over to an intern.

If you are short on space or only have one computer in the home, the intern could meet with you once a week to learn a new task or get feedback on previous tasks and complete their weekly assignments from their own computer at home or at school.

There are many benefits to working with an intern.  Since the intern will be taking over some of your business tasks, you’ll be able to accomplish more within your own business.  Hiring an intern will also be very budget friendly, as they will most likely be working for free.

A student intern will also be able to give you a fresh perspective that you may not get from other sources.  For example, someone with years of experience may have a certain routine or way of doing things.  Someone who is being faced with that problem for the first time may have a very creative way of solving it.

These students are currently being trained in the subjects you will have them working on.  If they are attending a good school, they most likely have access to great teachers, tools, and sources of information.  The intern could be learning about a new business technique in class and end up teaching you something new.

On the other side of things, a non-business intern can still help you grow your business.  A student who is majoring in early childhood development or education could be a great help for your childcare needs.  The student could come to your home and entertain your children while you are working in your office.

The intern will be gaining valuable experience that will help them in their chosen career field and you will be getting help for your business.  It’s a win-win situation on all parts.

With this type of program, the affiliate will earn a commission for every lead they send to the business.  Adding this type of program can have many advantages for both the affiliate and the business.

The affiliates will more than likely be bringing in targeted leads that are already familiar with the type of products or services the business is offering.  This will, of course, lead to higher conversion rates and increased sales.

When a pay per lead program is in place, the business will need to pay the affiliate for each lead they send, whether the lead converted into a sale or not. If the leads coming in are less than stellar, the business could end up losing money.

There are a few ways to prevent this from happening.  One option would be to implement an invitation-only program.  In this case, the affiliate manager would look over the list of affiliates and do a bit of review of each affiliate’s blog or website to determine if they are reaching the desired target market.

After the review, if the affiliate manager feels that quality leads could be gained from the affiliate’s website, the affiliate will be sent an email with a link that allows them to sign up for the program.

Another option for this type of program that allows all of your affiliates to participate, would be to have the lead cover the cost of the affiliate’s commission.  Most people are happy to pay negligible fees for information programs.  These fees can then be used to cover the cost of the affiliate’s commission.

For example, if an internet marketer is about to launch a new information product, they could hold a teleseminar and charge the participants $1 to attend.  An easy way to add value is by recording the call and sending the registrants the Mp3 to download and listen to later.  In this scenario, most people would feel that is a worthwhile value.

The internet marketer can easily build buzz around this teleseminar by allowing their affiliates to promote the call with 100% commission for each person that signs up.  The internet marketer has just created a win-win situation.  The affiliates will be happy to earn $1 for each lead, and the internet marketer will have created a legitimate mailing list of interested, targeted leads for the launch of their new product.

1.  Exchange shows – chances are you know other people who have direct sales businesses.  If your goal is to book another party, ask them to do it and then tell them that you would book a party through them in return.

2.  If the school doesn’t object, leave a catalog or two in the teacher’s lounge where your child goes to school.  Teachers are always on the lookout for bargains and things that will benefit their children.  If you sell educational toys or items, you may be able to obtain more than one booking.

3.  Leave brochures or catalogs in the waiting room at your doctor's or dentist's office on your next visit.  Also leave a copy with the receptionist or ask if you can leave one in their lounge.

4.  Check with your local Chamber of Commerce to see if there is a Welcome Wagon for new people moving into the area.  If there isn’t a Welcome Wagon, ask them if you could leave a stack of brochures or business cards to be placed in welcome packages for new citizens.

5.  Send catalogs or opportunity literature to people chosen randomly from the telephone book.  Make sure to keep a record of everyone that you have sent this information.  If you choose to try this tip in the future, you want to send the information to other people.

6.  Begin your demonstration by mentioning to the guests that the hostess will be receiving free gifts for having the party. Also tell them what the hostess is working toward and exactly what she needs to receive that item.  Don’t be afraid to boldly ask them to book a party to help the hostess reach that goal.

7.  Make the suggestion that by booking a second show in the future, the hostess will be guaranteed an opportunity to see and try new products as they are released.  This is particularly effective if your hostess last held a show in the spring. Hosting a party closer to the holidays would help her save money on her own holiday shopping.

These seven tips for getting more bookings at your next direct sales party are just a drop in the bucket.  Take a few minutes to think of other things you could do to get bookings.  If all else fails, ask family if they will host a party for you.