Choosing the right business type is important to the success of your business. Find out whether your company should be an LLC or S corporation.
Whether you’ve just barely started a new business or you’ve been in business for several years, a business bank account is vital to both your sanity and survival.
Many entrepreneurs start as solopreneurs: They start a new business by themselves and don't have any partners or staff members to assist them with their business's management and operations. This can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on the circumstances. If you start a business by yourself, you have total control over your company's leadership decisions. You aren't forced to consult with a partner about anything beforehand. You'll also own 100 percent of the company, which means you won't have to split the profits with other owners or partners. It is not a great idea to remain a solopreneur forever, though. Eventually, there comes a point when you want to scale up your business, and it becomes impossible to do so unless you hire more help. Let's examine the top five key pillars to scaling from a hungry solopreneur to an unstoppable enterprise. 1. Create a popular product or service Solopreneurs try to do everything themselves. Aside from managing their businesses, they must focus on creating products or services which people will want to purchase. That can be difficult for a solopreneur because they have so many other things to focus on. These distractions make it difficult to perform the proper research needed to learn what consumers in their market are demanding. If you don't want to feel overwhelmed as a solopreneur, then start your business as simply as possible. Don't worry so much about renting commercial property, marketing your website, printing business cards or any other repetitive task. Instead, focus entirely on your industry's target audience and what they are demanding from companies in that industry. Then create a product or service which matches their demand. The idea is to put all your energy into creating or offering something that people will want to buy in overwhelming numbers. If you're selling products, it is OK to hire a manufacturer to create those products for you on a contractual basis. And if it's a service, offer it to the best of your ability and make your customers extremely happy. When you have something worthy to sell, everything else about running your business will come easy. 2. Hiring and outsourcing Solopreneurs are usually on tight budgets, which is why they do all their daily tasks themselves. They don't want to outsource work or pay employees to help them because they cannot afford it. Do you feel this way too? You will stress yourself out by taking on too many responsibilities. Don't expect to become your own accountant, marketer, tax advisor, customer service representative and manufacturer. It will get to the point where you become too tired and exhausted to produce quality work, and your business will suffer for it. There is nothing wrong with working 12-plus hour days to grow your business. But once your business starts making money, you should hire additional workers to help you. These could be freelancers, part-time employees or full-time employees. Start with one freelancer or employee and gradually hire more people as your business generates more profits. You'll know you have an unstoppable enterprise when you have several different managers and employees working under you. But you cannot get there unless you break free from being a solopreneur at some point. 3. Invest in a CRM system Your customers are the backbone of your company. Even if you think you can handle all the managerial responsibilities on the backend by yourself, how will you manage all your customers too? The more you grow your company, the more customers you will receive. It will become nearly impossible to answer all their questions and fulfill all their orders without some way to manage them better. Therefore, you should invest in a customer relationship management system to manage customer information, sales and actionable insights. Building a strong relationship with your customers is how you get repeat business. As a solopreneur, you'll need all the help you can get in that department. That is why a customer relationship management system is an invaluable asset to bring into your company. 4. Invest in fast and easy marketing techniques Automated marketing is a great way to save time as a solopreneur. Some experts will tell you to post classified ads and blog messages to attract new customers online. But these actions are repetitive and time-consuming. You will have trouble devoting each day to marketing when you have so many other tasks to do as a solopreneur. It is better to invest in fast and easy marketing techniques, such as pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns. In PC campaigns, each time someone clicks on your ad, you pay the bid price set in your campaign for the searched keyword. You only pay when people click on your ads and visit your website. The point here is that you don't need to spend as much time doing search engine optimization or ad postings because the PPC campaigns do all the advertising for you. After you set up campaigns, you can leave them on autopilot and let them get to work promoting your business for you. 5. Don't sell out As you build your business as a solopreneur, you'll increase the value of your company significantly. If the business generates a lot of profit, you might get offers from investors who'll want to purchase your company for a decent amount of money. It is always tempting for a solopreneur to sell their company and collect a nice big check. But do not give in to this impulse. If you have a business that is worth buying, then it must be a valuable business. Why would you want to sell it when you could build and expand it? The whole point of creating a business is so you can turn it into a huge success. Don't just sell because you achieved a little bit of success. Go all the way with it until it is an unstoppable enterprise!
Joe Biden will likely begin working on his promise to raise taxes in his first 100 days. So how can you plan now to reduce or avoid the proposed tax increases? Biden promised to avoid tax increases on anyone with less than $400,000 of income, so that amount becomes your new goal for taxable income when investing and tax planning, regardless of your actual income or cash flow. Set up your business as an S corporation First, never ever use a Schedule C to report your business income. Instead, form your business as an S corporation. You can either form it as a limited liability company (LLC) and elect to tax it as an S corporation on form 2553 or you can form as a corporation as use the same form 2553 to elect S corporation status. When you form an S corp, these now fall under business expenses: car payments, home office expenses, 50% of meals, travel and continuing education tuition. Don’t forget that Biden also wants to increase social security taxes on all income over $400,000. When your company is an S corporation, you only pay social security tax on your salary. Unlike a Schedule C or partnership, you don’t pay social security taxes on your distributions. The key is to pay yourself a reasonable salary. What is reasonable? According to the IRS, a reasonable salary is what you would pay someone else to do your job. Remember, as a business owner, you really have two roles. One, as the leader of the business (e.g., CEO or President) and two, as the owner. Only pay yourself enough to compensate you for being the leader of the business. Typically, this should not be more than 50% of the total amount you take out of your business. Some people seem to think an S corporation requires a lot of work. Consider this fact, if your net income from the business is $800,000, under the Biden tax plan, you would pay $63,467 less each year in social security taxes by forming your business as an S corporation and paying yourself a salary of $200,000. You may be able to justify an even lower salary, which would only increase your tax savings. By the way, in this scenario, even under the current tax regime, you would lower your social security taxes by more than $23,000 by forming your business as an S corporation. Consider reinvesting in your business or other tax-incentivized activities Remember that the tax law is basically a series of incentives, primarily for business and investing. Any money you reinvest in your business is deductible and therefore not taxable. If your net income is $800,000 from your business and you reinvest $400,000 back into your business, your taxable income from the business will be reduced to $400,000. This takes you back down to $400,000 of net income. Now, in addition to reducing your taxable income to $400,000, you should also receive full benefit of the Qualified Business Income Deduction (QBID). Biden has suggested that businesses with income over $400,000 would lose the QBID. The amount of the QBID, in this case, would be as high as $80,000, or 20% of taxable income. This means you would only be taxed on $320,000, as substantial tax savings from your original tax liability on $800,000. Business is only one tax-favored investment. Currently, real estate and natural resources are also highly-favored investments, effectively allowing 100% deduction for every dollar invested. Biden has suggested both investment preferences will be reduced or eliminated. Instead, the most favored investment will be clean energy. All this means is that investors who don’t or can’t reinvest all their excess earnings back into their business should consider realigning their investment strategy to include clean energy investments. How to do this will depend on how Biden actually changes the tax laws. This brings us to our third recommendation. Develop a comprehensive tax strategy with a good CPA Every business owner will have different objectives for both their business and their investing. That’s why having a strong CPA on your team who has a system for developing tax strategies, and who stays on top of tax law changes is critical to your success. Take the time now, before the end of 2020, to develop your tax and wealth/investment strategy. Then, when the tax laws change, you will be prepared.
I am really concerned about starting a new company right now. I think the world is too unstable and it’s just too risky,” a very close friend of mine was relaying to me the other day. “I have a job. I don’t want to voluntarily quit, have my company fail and then struggle to find something on the other side.” “You need to look at things differently,” I responded. “You need to look at the extraordinary opportunities and the lower barriers to entry for starting a company right now. You can have access to people and talent that you would not have had previously.” “Yes, I know, but I am still worried," my friend immediately responded. “I guess I want to have my cake and eat it.” As technology futurist Kevin Kelly would say, right now is the best time to start a new business. Unfortunately, many potential founders, like my friend, are fearful. This is not anecdotal. Between 1978 and 2012, the number of new companies declined by nearly 44 percent, according to the Kauffman Foundation. Paradoxically, recessions and unstable periods present the best opportunities to start new companies. During the 2008 Financial Crisis, billion dollar startups like Uber, Airbnb, and many others were founded partly as a response to changing market dynamics. Related: What the Work-From-Home Boom Means for Your Future The present day is no exception, offering once-in-a-lifetime opportunities and unfair advantages to potential entrepreneurs. Among these are increased access to people and talent at lower and negotiable costs, and an environment in which consumers are more willing to try new products and services — often out of necessity. Increased Access to People and Talent During boom periods, engineering, design, product and sales talent can be incredibly challenging to recruit and eventually close. Not only is the talent scarce on the market, but the best ones often command fees that can quickly bankrupt a nascent startup if they do not show value from their hires quickly. Now, many established companies and even startups have laid off talent due to decreased marketplace demand. And due to larger market dynamics, overall salaries have also declined for once in-demand positions. This has opened up people and talent-recruiting opportunities for entrepreneurs; with the ability to access talent that is critical to early stage growth that would otherwise be lured by larger salaries or more stable opportunities. Entrepreneurs can also rely more on alternative compensation schemes like equity to lure potential hires as the cash compensation and bonuses become more scarce. Time to Negotiate “Fixed” Costs Although the fixed costs to start a new company (i.e. servers, real estate, etc.) have come down considerably over the past 20 years, they are still relatively high for early stage entrepreneurs. For real estate leases, SaaS and other capital and operating expenditures, entrepreneurs are often faced with high initial upfront expenses before their business ever generates its first spate of revenue. In leaner and meaner times, real estate costs often decline considerably and landlords are more than willing to provide attractive deal terms to close a deal, including office renovations and more flexible lease terms. Other cost centers like SaaS and independent-contracting services may be more open to negotiation and flexible business terms as well. All of this decreases the cost of starting a business and allows entrepreneurs to deploy precious capital resources into hiring and product rather than fee based services. “Trysumers” A foundational challenge to starting and growing a new business is acquiring customers. An expensive proposition, this will often involve persuading consumers to try a new product option or category or switch between brands. Many entrepreneurs often fail at this process, even when equipped with a significant capital war chest. In the current environment, customer-acquisition costs may decrease considerably. First, due to economic necessity and changes in routine, consumers may be more willing to try new products and services or even switch brands from their normal selection. More importantly, as new behaviors and routines come to the fore, consumers may adopt different products and services. This provides ample new opportunities for acquisition. Related: 2 Vital Things You Need to Do to Protect Your Business Leaner and meaner times present a host of macro-economic challenges. Somewhat paradoxically, but also logically, this makes right now the best time to start a new business. Chiefly, this is because of greater access to people and talent, negotiable fees and a greater willingness amongst consumers to try new products — sometimes out of necessity.
More than 1 in 4 people with side hustles (27%) rely on that income to help cover basics like bills, according to a May DollarSprout survey of almost 700 adults. Fall offers plenty of opportunities for those looking to earn extra money, especially this year. “I think the trends we’re going to see this fall will all be about providing services to working parents,” says Kathy Kristof, editor of Sidehusl.com, including tutoring and child care. “If you can provide that support, you’re likely to find plenty of work. And there’s a good chance that you’ll be able to get premium rates for your time, too.” Here are five side hustles to consider picking up this fall. Babysitting With many schools electing to go remote again this fall, at least temporarily, many parents working full time will need someone to help take care of their kids throughout the day. If babysitting seems like a viable choice for you, “there’s gonna have to be a certain degree of vetting that goes on,” Dr. David Hirschwerk, infectious diseases doctor at the North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, New York, told Grow. “I would want to know, in the household, has anybody recently been ill? And I think you’d want to know to what degree is that household practicing social distancing.” Sitters nationwide can make anywhere from around $13 to $20 per hour, according to Care.com. Sign up to be a babysitter on sites like Care.com, Sittercity, and UrbanSitter. Tutoring Similarly, as the school year begins, parents may be looking for people who can help their kids improve in certain subjects or supplement school activities. If you’re especially good at algebra, love writing essays, or have a vast knowledge of world history, for example, consider signing up to be a tutor on a site like Varsity Tutors. Varsity Tutors offers students hour-long virtual lessons in anything from calculus to German with tutors making between $15 and $40 per hour, according to SideHusl. If you’re great at an instrument, consider offering lessons on platforms like Lessonface. Prices vary anywhere from $60 for four one-hour lessons to a group to $50 for a 30-minute lesson that’s one-on-one. Lessonface typically takes 15% of teachers’ earnings if students found them via the website and 4% if teachers recruited the students on their own. Delivering groceries With the pandemic ongoing and some experts warning of a second wave this fall, millions of American may continue to order groceries to be delivered to their homes rather than going to the supermarket themselves. Consider signing up to be a shopper for services like Instacart, which pays an average of $13 per hour, according to Glassdoor, or Shipt, which pays an average of $22 per hour, according to Indeed. But given ongoing virus concerns, it’s important to make sure that in supermarkets and grocery stores, you can still “adhere to the principles of social distancing,” says Hirschwerk. Keep that six-foot distance from other people and wear a mask. These rules apply for making the deliveries, too. Ask your employer what kind of contactless delivery system is in place to mitigate your risks. And make sure your employer has a break system in place to allow you to wash your hands frequently and to rest. Taking notes for a class If you happen to be taking an undergraduate-level college or university course this coming fall, you may be able to make some money off of it. Sites like StudySoup let you post materials like class notes and study guides for others to use, with the site paying $35 for every subscription your notes generate. You can also get paid $2 every time a current user or free trial user adds your notes to their library. For the best results in terms of profits, StudySoup recommends picking courses that draw in 50 or more students, have three or more exams, and include regular lectures. Selling your stuff online As long as you’re inside and social distancing, this fall might present a great opportunity to clean out your bedroom and sell whatever’s in good condition online. Apps like Poshmark offer great opportunities for selling used clothes and sites like Decluttr will buy your used electronics. Sites like Mercari and eBay are good for selling anything from baby toys to car parts. In the last three years, college student Aleah Mazyck has made $41,000 selling used clothes online.
In April, the unemployment rate rose by more than 10%, with at least 26 million Americans out of work due to the Covid-19 pandemic. With more time spent at home to stop the spread of the virus, many people are turning to side hustles as a way to make more money in trying times. Curious how you can earn some cash? Here are some areas where you can find lucrative work that you can do from home, according to experts from freelancer platforms Fiverr and Upwork. These companies examined their database to see trends and popular gigs that are getting traction while people stay home amid Covid-19. Some of these jobs require special skills or expertise, while others can be done remotely with just a computer and internet connection. When considering a side hustle, “think about your competitive strategy,” Nancy Van Brunt, director of freelancer and agency success at Upwork, tells CNBC Make It. In other words: What skills do you already have that could be marketable? “Really think about your services as a business,” she says. Blogging, building websites and social media As more businesses transition online, they’re looking to hire people who know how to build an online presence for a brand, a representative for Fiverr tells CNBC Make It. The side hustles There are lots of ways you can do this, for example, you can earn anywhere from $75 to $1,045 writing an online article, or $135 to $995 optimizing existing content for SEO, according to Fiverr, which looked at a sampling of what users are earning now in their more than 300 categories. (Pricing depends how long the project will take to complete and level of expertise, and both Fiverr and Upwork take a percentage of earnings.) Building a website, which entails writing code for Wordpress, can earn you $395 to $4,095, according to Fiverr. Video editors can charge between $100 and $3,200 to edit everything from social media videos to event footage. And managing social media accounts for a brand, which includes strategizing, writing and creating posts for platforms like Twitter and YouTube, can earn you $25 an hour on average, according to Upwork. App development and product testing The Covid-19 pandemic has led to a 50% increase in registration volume across many categories on Upwork, including technology-related jobs, according to data from the end of March and April. Specifically, there’s a demand for web, mobile and software development, says Upwork’s Van Brunt. The side hustles Mobile app development is one of the highest-paying side hustles on Fiverr, with projects costing between $300 and $3,000, but this requires knowledge of software engineering and coding. Graphic designers who focus on UI, or user interface (which basically means designing the way users interact with a product like an app or website via the buttons they click or the text entry fields that use, etc.), can earn $185 to $6,300 on app projects. Quality assurance testing, which is essentially testing that a piece of software or an application does what it says, can earn you $36 an hour on average, per ZipRecruiter. (QA testers typically have a computer science background and knowledge of testing software like Selenium.) Teaching whatever you’re good at More consumers are looking for productive ways to spend their time in lockdown, according to Fiverr. If you have internet connection and a computer, you can earn money teaching a variety of skills you already have. The side hustles Fiverr introduced new service categories between March 20 and April 3 to cater to people stuck at home during the pandemic, such as crafting, cooking, music, language and fitness lessons. People charge from $5 a class to $100 depending upon how involved the lesson is, and their own experience. For example, home chefs sell recipes and remote cooking tutorials starting at $5, and as high as $100. Personal trainers offer virtual training sessions or classes from $15 to $75. Covid-19-specific projects While the pandemic crisis has put many people out of work, clients and freelancers on Upwork are seeing a demand for projects that are specifically related to Covid-19, according to Van Brunt. “There’s opportunity to really make an impact by helping companies looking for help on these immediate and urgent needs,” she says. The side hustles Van Brunt has seen job listings on Upwork for graphic designers who can create new signage for hospitals, software developers who can build apps that track Covid-19 cases, for example. Graphic design projects like this — creating displays, logos or marketing materials — can sell for $100 to $3,000 on Fiverr. To find work that relates to Covid-19, Upwork has added a “Covid-19 Job Feed” for users who are registered with the site and looking for Covid-19 jobs. You may also want to search for keywords like, “healthcare industry” or “online educational services,” according to Upwork.
Your company is your baby and you would do anything to protect it. The worst feeling in the world is when someone does not feel the same way or even insults your precious baby with a negative review. No company can avoid a negative review. It will inevitably happen no matter what field you are in, even if it is creating clothes for puppies. The best action you can take is to be prepared with a plan of action. Here is a list of tips to help you handle a negative review. Take a deep breath – When you first see a negative review, you may feel the need to respond right away. While it is important to respond within 48 hours of the negative review, responding when you are emotional will lead to remarks that may come across as insults, accusations against the reviewer, or something inappropriate. Apologize but do not make excuses – “I am sorry you feel that my company did not respond to your inquiry quickly, but we have been busy.” Responding with an excuse will make you appear insincere and take away from the apology. Either apologize for how your company handled the complaint or use this as a time to highlight your strengths, maybe even both. An example would be “We sincerely apologize that our company did not respond in a timely fashion, with 10 years of experience and thousands of customers we understand the importance of each individual…” Make sure your page looks professional – Make sure that you have claimed your business on review sites. It will make your page look more professional and might deter some from writing a negative review. Even if it does not deter people, it will appear to those who write a review that his or her complaints or issues will be resolved. If you are not sure about how to claim your credit repair company or are not sure why you should, check out our blog on why claiming your company is necessary. Remember Social Media – There are two major things to remember about social media when dealing with reviews. The first is that social media can be harmful if you are not careful. On Facebook, there is a feature that can allow customers to post on your page, but you can and should disable this feature. People can still comment or like your posts, but you do not want people posting negative comments directly onto your page for everyone to see. While there is a chance that social media can hurt, posting and providing new content regularly can help your SEO score and push negative reviews down and ensure that people see good content first. You will have to deal with negative reviews at some point in your company’s life. It is important to remember that it is not a reflection on you and reviews can be actually be beneficial. Reviews, both positive and negative, are a way to help you see where your company may have shortcomings but also where you are excelling.
Unemployment in the U.S. fell for the third month in a row, from 11.1% in June to 10.2% in July, as Americans slowly find work again during the coronavirus pandemic . Still, despite the more than 1 million job gains last month, tens of millions of Americans are out of work and considering their next career moves . For those using this time to start their own side businesses and doing so on a budget, here are three tips from entrepreneurs who started now-six-figure businesses with just a few hundred bucks. Start a business where you are the service Jen Glantz launched Bridesmaid for Hire as a side hustle with only $250. Now she brings in six figures a year. Glantz suggests beginning your side hustle by “mining your skills,” she says, and asking yourself two questions: What do you enjoy doing, and why do people usually come to you for help. If you start a business by leaning into a skill set you already have and are good at, you’ll save yourself the time and money it might take to learn something new. Plus, you’ll have the confidence of knowing you’re offering something that has already benefited people. “If you can start a business where you are the one providing the service,” Glantz told Grow, “your start-up costs can be relatively low.” Make your service personal Depending on what your side hustle is, there are likely ways to personalize it for your customers, says Vix Reitano , whose digital marketing side-hustle-turned-full-time-job now brings in six figures per year. Say you’re a dog walker : You might ask your clients the most convenient times for you to walk their dogs, if there are special treats a dog might like to have on their walk, and so on. Asking these questions won’t cost you anything, and they’ll make clients feel like you care about them, specifically. Personalization “helps you with your new business acquisition goals,” she says, “and also retains clients because people care about people who care about other people.” Build an affordable website When starting a side hustle or business, many entrepreneurs stress the importance of having your own website, a place clients can find you and learn about your services. It doesn’t have to cost much, if anything. “If you wanted to build a site to launch a coaching or consulting business as a side hustle, for example,” says author and leading business strategist Scott Steinberg , “you could install WordPress (free), grab a pre-made web template from ThemeForest ($5 and up) or TemplateMonster, and get access to a variety of free, and royalty-free, graphics from StockSnap.io .” “A host of free and value-priced WordPress website plug-ins can help you add functionality from newsletters to membership or subscription services to online courses you teach,” he adds. Once you know what service you’ll offer as your side hustle, you’ve figured out how to personalize it for clients, and you’ve built yourself a website, don’t forget to use free tools like Twitter and Instagram to help promote your work and build client relationships. Especially now, as people continue to social distance, they remain “glued to their phones because they are craving some sort of social interaction,” says Elma Beganovich, co-founder of influencer marketing agency Amra & Elma . Embrace this opportunity to use those platforms and capture some of that audience.
Get A Comfortable Chair Permanent Work From Home Is Coming
