Business Strategies

Brainstorming is a fun and effective way to stimulate the creative side of your brain. If you want to leverage the post-pandemic surge in business, you may be thinking about starting a business. But ideas can be hard to come by; especially when you feel that time is of the essence. The pressure to come up with a viable business idea within a certain timeframe can make it even harder to think creatively. Thankfully, there are tools available to help you brainstorm your next business idea.

What Does It Mean to Brainstorm?

If you’ve never done brainstorming before, you may not know exactly what it means to brainstorm. Brainstorming isn’t just sitting around trying to think of something. You already know that doesn’t always work, especially when you feel pressured or put on the spot to hurry up and think of something great. Brainstorming is a way of generating ideas that are completely out of the box. You can brainstorm by yourself or with another person or with a group of people. The idea is to record every single idea, no matter how ludicrous it might sound. The reason is that ideas all lead somewhere. Follow that path, and you may just land on something that’s completely new and innovative; the kind of business idea that consumers would flock toward.

Physical Tools For Brainstorming

There are many physical tools you can use to assist your brainstorming session. They include:
Paper and pens
Whiteboard
Brainstorming cards
Bowl and slips of paper
What you can do with these tools is have everyone just write down or call out their ideas. Make sure everyone knows that anything goes. The idea is not to hold back. Every idea is a good idea, because every idea has the potential to either be “the” idea or to lead to “the” idea.

Brainstorming Cards

Brainstorming cards are physical cards that you can use to help come up with your next business idea or just about anything else you’re trying to do. Created by the Board of Innovation, each deck comes with 52 cards. The way it works is, you randomly choose one of the cards in the deck. Use what’s written on the card as inspiration to come up with ideas. It’s recommended that you spend about 20 minutes on each card. You can use this tool alone or with your brainstorming team.

Study Trends

Whatever kind of business you think you might want to start, you’re going to need customers. It’s always a good idea to get in early on a trend so you can leverage consumer interest. There are many “threads” of trends happening in the world at any given time. But they can all be broken down into basic groups:

Consumer Trends

This includes things that have to do with consumer behavior. For instance, you might want to study the recent consumer trends of using mobile devices for shopping online, downloading store apps for shopping, having consumer goods delivered, etc.

Technology Trends

Technology trends are related to things like virtual reality gaming, biometrics, online security, artificial intelligence, etc. This area is rapidly developing on a daily basis, so if this is the area where your business interests lie, you’ll really need to keep your finger on the pulse.

Market Trends

Market trends have to do with the economy, how people acquire, spend and save money, price indexes and even alternative forms of currency like Bitcoin, Ethereum and more. A good understanding of market trends could help you to make or save considerable sums of money.

Regulation Trends

You always need to know what the laws and local regulations are regarding your intended business model. For instance, if you plan to get into the natural supplements space, you’ll want to carefully follow the FDA’s guidelines, interests and announcements. Tracking regulation trends can help you stay on the right side of the legal system as well as prevent you from accidentally entering into an area that will soon be prohibited. It can also help you position yourself early in emerging markets, like the way CBD became a billion dollar market a few years ago.

New trends are always developing, even as older trends surge and wane. Focus on trends in categories that are relevant to your business. For instance, you don’t need to spend valuable time studying fashion trends if you intend to get into the automotive business. The earlier you can spot a trend and position your business idea, the more likely it is that you’ll be able to benefit from it financially.

Monitoring trends isn’t too hard. You can set up Google alerts for your areas of interest to get news and other articles delivered to your inbox. Subscribe to print or digital trade magazines in your niche for the latest trends and industry updates.

Vision Board

A vision board is a visual tool to help you gain clearer focus on your goals. The board can be done with physical materials, or you can make a digital vision board using an online tool like Canva or Pinterest. Fill the vision board with inspiring words, images and materials that speak to your business interests. For example, you might be inspired by a swatch of fabric or leather, a word or phrase or an old photograph. All you need to do is tape or pin the items to the board in any manner you like. It can be organized like a grid or haphazard. Looking at the vision board and rearranging things, adding things and removing things can help you to pinpoint ideas for your next business idea.

When it comes to starting a new business, your CPA is an invaluable resource. Not only is your CPA trained to help you with finances and taxes; they also work with other business owners and can offer insight into trends, business models, and just different ways to set up your new business.. Your CPA can be a team member as you get your business up and running.

As a business owner, you have put in many long hours making sure your business is successful. But if you want to keep it growing in the years ahead, you will need to develop a brand strategy that will keep your business and its products or services appealing to both new and existing customers. Contrary to what many may think, defining and managing your brand will allow you to project the image you desire, which is especially important in today's age of social media. If you are preparing to develop a brand strategy for your business, follow these steps to turn your vision into reality.

Conduct Your Research

Like any successful project, developing a brand strategy for your small business begins with conducting plenty of research. This should focus especially on the types of customers you are targeting, and include learning more about what attracts them to brands similar to yours, what factors go into their purchasing decisions, and what current and potential customers may already associate with your brand.

When conducting your research, you can use a variety of methods. The simplest is to have customers who come into your brick and mortar business fill out a short and convenient survey, which could also be done online at your company's website. Also, you should take advantage of your social media sites such as Facebook or Twitter to conduct online polls or allow customers to leave comments. In addition, don't forget to do research on your competition. While you may not want to necessarily copy everything a successful competitor is doing, you can get new ideas for your own business and find out why certain things are popular with customers.

Define Your Brand

If there is one thing you don't want your customers to experience along the way, it is brand confusion. To prevent this, always tie in your brand strategy with your company's values, mission statement, and personality. Perhaps most of all, your brand ultimately needs to be able to convey a clear, concise tone and voice. If it doesn't, customers will take a much closer look at your competitors.

Ultimately, you need to know what your brand will stand for, and who it is trying to reach. From brands that are positioned to be fun and exciting to those that convey a sense of elegance, making this easy for your customers to understand will keep your business moving in a positive direction.

Develop the Components of Your Brand

Once you have a good idea of who you are targeting and have been able to define your brand, your next step is to start developing its creative components, most notably your logo. Since the vast majority of people make purchasing decisions within only a few seconds, having a logo that is eye-catching, communicate your company culture and that is appealing to your target audience will do wonders for your business. After all, when you stop to think about it, the most successful businesses often have logos that are instantly recognizable. From the golden arches of McDonald's to Coca-Cola's unmistakable logo, your goal should be to make your logo just as well-known.

However, don't make the mistake of many business owners and try to make your logo too complex. Instead, strive to make it one that is memorable, yet also simple and versatile, allowing it to capture the true essence of your business. If you are a very creative person, you may be able to design your own logo. If not, don't hesitate to work with professionals who can incorporate your ideas into a logo for the ages.

Marketing 101

In many ways, developing your company's brand strategy incorporates much of what you may have learned in Marketing 101. For example, are you in the midst of creating an entirely new brand, or simply trying to update an existing brand? Are you determined to reach a new target audience, or are you focused more on luring customers away from your main competitor? Whatever the case may be, making your goals laser-focused will go far in helping you develop your brand strategy.

After answering some of the previous questions, take the time to plan out your marketing campaign. Whether it's television commercials or primarily a digital advertising campaign on social media, the style of advertising you select will dictate how successful your brand strategy is, if it has the emotional impact on customers you hope for, and whether or not is stays consistent in its tone and voice.

Analyze and Refine

Once you develop your company's brand strategy, don't assume your work is finished and it will stay the same forever. Instead, be prepared to do plenty of analyzing and refining as needed. Even when the best of brand strategies are created, changes of various types will always need to be made now and then. In today's business world, online search results often give business owners a good idea of which direction their business is going. Therefore, use Google Analytics to your advantage. When you do, this will tell you if visitors to your website came from advertising campaigns or other sources.

Also, if your brand strategy is focused mostly on online efforts, make customer engagement a prime component of your plan. To do this, always respond quickly to any customer concerns, post consistently on social media, and keep your website's content updated with fresh content for blogs.

While it takes plenty of time and effort to develop a brand strategy for your small business, the payoff can be tremendous if it proves to be a success. By putting these tips into practice, what may be a small business today may in the future become just as big, recognizable, and profitable as McDonald's, Coca-Cola, or any of the other businesses whose brands are well-known worldwide.

For some businesses, the COVID-19 pandemic changed things overnight. Employees went home with their laptops and some haven’t returned to the office in over a year. What people thought would be temporary is looking very permanent.

Corporations have closed headquarters and terminated their leases early, and one survey of small business owners found that only one in five plans to reopen their physical store. As you think about the future, do you need an office?

If you’ve been asking yourself if paying rent on that storefront or office is truly necessary, here are some questions to help you make the decision whether or not to renew your lease.

Do Customers Expect to Meet with You in Person?

While everyone has had to adjust to quarantine and shelter-in-place, that doesn’t mean that everyone likes it. Have clients complained that they can’t come by the office, or drop off paperwork in person?

If your customers have set a clear expectation that things will return to normal, you may still need to have a physical present to keep their business. Also, if your sales process depends heavily on forming relationships and building trust, it’s easier in person.

How Easy Has it Been to Work from Home?

No matter how great your digital tools, sometimes a face to face meeting works better. Do you need to sit down and go through files, laying out papers side by side and asking and answering questions? Has it been difficult to transition to a virtual world, and have you dealt with miscommunications?

Not all work is done best through a video chat or via email. Emails make it difficult to judge tone and sometimes a reader can take offense where you intended none. If you work with sensitive issues - such as family care, conflict resolution - or regularly explain complex topics to clients, you may still need the ability to meet face-to-face.

Can you Sell Online?

That same survey found that small business owners who could sell online increased their online sales by 41% during the pandemic, while those who only had a physical presence saw sales plummet 61%. Your online sales might have supplemented physical store sales during the pandemic, so could you transition to selling online 100%?

If a 100% online model works for you, you could save on overhead and personnel costs. You might have to increase spending elsewhere - such as investing in inventory management software, or hiring more warehouse personnel - but it could work out to net cost savings.

Can you Attract New Customers Online?

Attracting new customers is essential to both maintain your business - to compensate for attrition - and to grow. During the last year, many businesses have grown savvier about social media marketing, SEO, and positioning themselves to attract new customers online. But not all businesses work in a digital world.

Before you decide to close your office or store, examine how easy it’s been for you to bring in new business during the pandemic. Look at the key performance indicators for your social media campaigns and analyze how they’ve fared.

If you’ve been able to successfully connect with your customers online, then maybe you could successfully close an office and continue the trend.

Do Your Employees Like Working from Home?

While employees report missing interactions with co-workers, six in ten U.S. employees prefers working from home. They can be just as productive, if not moreso, when not constantly interrupted or drawn into chitchat. And they value the flexibility that working from home offer them.

While the initial transition might have been rough, and you might have had to learn new management skills, if productivity has bounced back or even increased, continuing to work from home could be a permanent option.

Can you Downsize?

Maybe you can’t go entirely work from home and take your business fully online, but could you downsize? Even corporations that are keeping some offices open have reduced their footprint, subleasing or simply closing floors in their buildings.

Think about asking employees to come into the office only during crucial periods, or a few days a week or month, and downsizing your office’s square footage. This way, you would still have a location to meet with clients and sell in person. Need to hash out the solution to a complex problem? Ask everyone to come into the office that day.

Sometimes the solution isn’t to close offices entirely, but to have a hybrid model.

Ultimately, there are pros and cons to permanently closing your doors and doing business without a physical office. You could try it and find that, eventually, you prefer being in the office. Or, a hybrid model could end up being the best solution. But, after the last year, one thing is for sure. You’ll know how to quickly pivot and figure out what works for you.

If things work out the way they are planned, you may be receiving a second stimulus check in the coming weeks. Nothing is yet guaranteed, but there are certainly plenty of people who are banking on getting a financial boost from the government during this COVID situation. Any money that may be forthcoming won’t be life-altering, but there are smarter ways than others to use your next stimulus check. If you want to get the most value out of anything you do receive, consider the following suggestions for using your stimulus money.

1. Invest in the Services of a CPA

Whether you’re new to running a small business or you’ve just never considered CPA services good value, consider it now. Using your stimulus check to pay for the services of a CPA could reap you tremendous benefits in 2021. You could even get back the amount of your stimulus check (or more) in the form of found tax benefits or a tax refund. Consider the fact that CPAs save you money in several ways:

• They save you (or your bookkeeper) countless hours in trying to do your own taxes

• Find hidden deductions that you never even knew you were entitled to

• Ensure your business entity is set up for optimal success

• Minimize your chances for an audit

• Provide third party oversight for all your financial transactions

• Offer strategic advice during financial business challenges

• Make sure you’re correctly declaring income, losses, etc.

2. Invest in Capital Improvements

Have you been putting off making capital improvements to your business? Is there some piece of expensive equipment that would allow you to service a previously untapped part of your industry’s market? Spending your next stimulus check on capital improvements makes solid business sense. First, you would be making your business more solid and perhaps even enabling more growth. Second, capital expenses are tax deductible and could be depreciated over time. So you get the benefit of immediate use plus tax benefits – a win-win for your business.

3. Pay Off Debt

Do you have high interest business credit card debt, an installment loan or other debt? Once your stimulus check has cleared, it’s a good idea to pay off as much debt as you can. Debt only holds you back, whether you’re the owner of a thriving business or whether you’re still struggling to get a leg up in the world. Even though business interest is tax deductible, it’s still money down the drain. Another benefit to paying off debt is that it makes your business appear more solvent, which is a boon if you ever want to take on business partners in the future.

4. Shore Up Your Emergency Fund

If your business is already in fairly good shape and you don’t really need the stimulus money right now, you could make good use of it to shore up your emergency fund. Every business goes through tricky financial times every now and then. You might have cash flow problems in the future or need to replace a piece of vital equipment that suddenly fails. Storing your stimulus check in an emergency fund will give your business added security and someday might make the difference between holding steadfast or having to shutter your doors. 

5. Add to Your Retirement Account

The financial impact of COVID has struck everywhere. If you’ve had to forego funding your retirement account this year due to reduced business income, it’s smart to use your stimulus check to add to your Roth or IRA. You have until the end of Spring to make your final decision, but rest assured this is a good investment. You’ll be glad you did, especially if this pandemic stretches into the new year.

6. Give Treats

In a time when many employers have had to reduce or eliminate workplace perks, wouldn’t it be wonderful to give each of your valued employees an unexpected treat? While you might not be able to give official monetary bonuses—and a typical stimulus check wouldn’t go far among several employees—you could offer something that everyone could enjoy. It would be a token of your appreciation and acknowledgement of their hard work during these tough times. Ideas that fit the estimated stimulus check amount as well as the existing social distancing requirements include:

• Amazon gift cards 

• Barnes and Noble gift cards

• Prepaid gas cards

• Holiday food/gift baskets

• Instacart (or other food delivery service) gift card

7. Buy Promotional Merchandise

If you really want to spend your stimulus check the way it’s intended-as an economic stimulus, then you could pay it forward and benefit by buying some promotional merchandise. Usually businesses only buy promotional materials when they have excess marketing dollars-something that few businesses have these days. But now’s a good time to stock up on things like pens and pencils with your business logo, logo water bottles, baseball hats bearing your company name, etc. In fact, you’re more likely to stand out with these materials now since other businesses have reduced their advertising presence. Just remember to use these items judiciously. They don’t work just sitting in a box in your office; they need to be distributed to potential customers to be effective.

Since there’s no way of knowing whether this will be the last one or not, it’s best to put it to the best use you can think of. Your CPA may even have more ideas for smart ways to spend your stimulus check.

Have your sales dived during COVID? You wouldn’t be alone - many small businesses have struggled with the abrupt shift in our economy. Despite government programs designed to help, it’s estimated that over 100,000 businesses have closed during the pandemic. 

With stay-at-home orders and quarantines in place, it’s hard to network and drum up business. You can’t go to the local Chamber of Commerce meeting or meet with clients in-person. A lot of shopping has shifted online - with some purchasing categories up over 30% since the pandemic began - so why not meet your clients where they’re at? Here’s how you can use social media marketing during COVID to support your sales strategies.

Paid Promotions on Social Media

CPC, or cost-per-click, paid ads on Facebook, or promoted posts on Instagram, there are plenty of online advertisers eager to take your money. But where should you promote your business?

First, go to where your clients interact with you the most. Maybe your Facebook posts receive more likes and shares than tweets. Or, Instagram posts consistently have a better engagement rate. Paying for promotions can increase these metrics on a social media channel, but if you’re trying to get the most bang for your buck, promote on a feed where you already know your clients interact.

Second, what do you have to offer them? While brand awareness is a part of a marketing strategy, during tough times you may need to take a more aggressive tactic. If you’re hearing a consistent theme from clients - what do payroll tax cuts mean for their business? When should they lay off employees - write a quick post or blog post that answers their questions. Sharing and promoting that post may bring new clicks and clients to your virtual door.

Offering value for customers who are cash-strapped builds loyalty and shows that you’re on their side. You want their business to succeed. Even if they don’t have the cash flow to engage your services now, they’ll come to you in the future.

Third, look at the return. If you pay five dollars to promote a post on Facebook, how many people click through? How many new clients contacted you through the ad, or how many existing clients inquired about additional services? If you’re not seeing a good return, shift your advertising dollars elsewhere.

Most platforms, and google analytics, provide robust tools to analyze a promoted post’s or advertisement’s performance. They also have free training for business owners so you can learn how to get the most out of those tools. Take advantage of some of this COVID downtime to educate yourself about returns to get better results from your paid promotions. 

Paid Promotions on Search Engines

When you sign up for Google Analytics, they’ll start sending you emails offering a free ad credit for Google Ads. Google Ads is the program that places ads next to search results. If you decide to use them, you can pick keywords and a location to target so that your ad shows up when someone types “accountant + Des Moines.”

Before throwing up an ad, do a little keyword research for your area. Keyword research can show you the potential demand for your services. If a lot of people are googling “bankruptcy” plus “small business,” it tells you that they could need your services consulting on their financial situation.

While it’s a good idea to look at your competitor’s ads to see what they target, ask if you could promote something a little different from them to rank higher in search results. How do you differentiate yourself? Maybe it’s through years of experience, or by offering a bankruptcy package that saves people money. Highlight that in your advertisement.

Google Ads and other options can be quite expensive, so take the time to craft an advertisement that looks and sounds professional before hitting “publish.” Keep a close eye on the returns you’re seeing from your ads - are people clicking? How long are they staying on your website? Are they contacting you for business? - and monitor your budget closely.

Blogging and Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing refers to driving people to your website and social media channels, rather than going out and soliciting new business it brings people to you. It’s based upon strong SEO and keyword usage on your site, as well as good content.

First, hire someone to optimize your site for SEO. They will rewrite pages, alt-tags, and meta descriptions to better highlight keywords and target your ideal customer. A well-designed website can do wonders and raise your company above the competition.

Second, think about adding a blog. It’s a place where you can answer questions that you often hear from clients. Blog posts give you content that can be shared across your social media channels, sending people to your website, and giving them a reason to follow you.

Influencer Marketing

The term “influencer” has made its way into marketing verbiage. An influencer is someone with a large following - whether on their social media channels or blog - and who can “influence” people’s buying decisions. Brands form partnerships with influencers to promote their products and services to their followers. 

Whether or not influencer marketing could help your business depends upon your type of business. If you own a beauty supply store or spa, partnering with a local beauty influencer could make a lot of sense. A clothing store might want to talk to a fashion blogger who has a strong following in their town.

But before you jump on the influencer train, think about the value they’ll offer you. Some products and services - particularly those with a visual component (like clothing) do well with influencer partnerships. If you have a small business, you’ll want to focus on influencers in your area whose audience lives nearby. But an accounting firm may not see much value in paying someone to post a picture analyzing a spreadsheet on Instagram.

Just as your business is not one size fits all, neither should be your marketing strategy. With people stuck at home, online shopping and time online is way up, so you could realize a lot of benefits from increasing your online presence. Just be smart about it and look at the numbers before committing to any one channel.

For many small businesses, operating under ordinary conditions is hard enough when it comes to maintaining cash flow, especially for small businesses.  However, when you toss in a pandemic on top of the usual obstacles that appear, the situation may feel overwhelming.  Yet, despite the vast majority of small businesses in the U.S. taking a severe hit in recent months, the good news is that there are several cash management strategies out there that can be very effective even under the most difficult circumstances.  If cash flow is currently one of your biggest concerns, here are some strategies you may want to try.

Forecast Cash Flow

As you know, a successful business is one where you as the business owner are able to plan ahead regarding your finances.  While it may seem as if it is impossible to predict cash flow for your business, that is not the case at all.  In fact, it's much easier than you may think.  By using various types of business data software such as Excel, you can take existing data from your business and quite accurately predict your upcoming cash flow.  By using records that can span only one year, you’ll be able to compare the cash you currently have on hand and money currently owed to you against money that needs to be paid out over the same period of time. 

Shorten Your Sales Cycle

The sales cycle for your business, which consists of the time it takes a customer to discover your business, purchase your products or services, and pay you what they owe, may be much longer than you realize.  If it is, this could be a major contributor to your cash flow problems.  To rectify this problem and keep cash consistently flowing through your business, you may need to shorten your sales cycle.  To do so, there are a few steps you can take.  First, make sure your sales and marketing methods are reaching your target audience.  Second, concentrate mostly on "hot" leads that are more likely to pay off in sales.  Finally, automate as many tasks as possible within your business.  Once you do, your sales team will be able to spend virtually all its time prospecting leads and converting them into sales, resulting in increased cash flow for your business.

Learn About Working Capital

Perhaps more than anything, having an in-depth understanding of the working capital for your business will help you to develop an effective cash management strategy.  Working capital, which is arrived at by subtracting your current liabilities from your current assets, is the best indicator of just how big a cash flow problem your business currently has on its hands.  While in a perfect world your business would be able to deliver a product or service and get paid immediately or the next day, the real business world does not work this way.  Instead, you need to retain money to cover various expenses.  As for how you can improve working capital, you can start by reviewing invoices and their terms.  Once you do, it may benefit your business to shorten payment windows or increase the penalties for late payments.  Along with this, you should also try to pay your invoices on time, which may allow you to ask for discounts.  Last, monitor your working capital on a regular basis so that you can spot potential problems ahead of time.

Ask for Deposits

If your business is one where its products or services cost substantial amounts, it may be good if you start requiring customers to put down a deposit upon making their purchase.  By doing so, you can at least keep some money flowing through your business while you wait on the remainder of the payment from your customer.  Though some small business owners hesitate at making this change, those who do often find it can be a quick and easy way to solve cash flow problems.

Delay Various Expenses

If cash management issues continue month after month, you may be incurring too many expenses that could be put off or spread out over the course of several months or even longer.  For example, you may think about exhausting your current inventory before purchasing new inventory.  In addition, depending on your company's workload and how much you are paying out in salaries, it may benefit you to hire part-time or even independent contractors rather than keep full-time employees on the payroll.

Increase Your Margins

Even though times may be tough for you and even your customers, it may be time to solve your cash management issues by increasing your margins.  To do this, you have two options.  If you want, you can try to decrease what it costs you to deliver your products or services to your customers.  However, since this may not be feasible, your other option is to raise the prices of your products or services.  Though this may sound risky, if you have a product or service that is in high-demand and has a solid customer base, you may be able to use this cash management strategy to your advantage.

Though cash management problems are always common for many small businesses, this doesn't mean they have to be a recurring problem month after month.  Whether you shorten your sales cycle or try raising prices for your products or services, you are sure to eventually come upon a cash management strategy that works best for your business and your customers.

When they first launch their business, few small business owners think about putting together and documenting policies. They focus on marketing and reaching new clients, the services they’ll offer, and what they’ll charge for them. But, once your business has grown and is past the launch stage, you will need guidance for responding to common issues that arise during business.

How will you handle it if an employee abuses the paid time off policy? When do you send past due invoices for collection? Having a formal procedure protects you from lawsuits. It can guide employees when they don’t know what to do, relieving you from the need to answer the same question repeatedly.

If you’ve realized that it’s time to formalize how you’re running your business, here’s some advice to help you with writing policies.

What is a Business Policy?

A policy is a written document that lays out the rules that govern your business. They could be best practices as you define them or, particularly in the case of sexual harassment policies, dictated by law. In general, policies should have several characteristics.

They need to be specific, clear, and simple. Employees cannot follow a rule if they are confused about what they’re supposed to do, and “use your best judgment” leaves too much open to interpretation. Often, you’ll discover what you need to clarify in your policy when a situation arises.Complicated policies lead to uncertainties and differences in application. Keep them simple.

Policies must also be universally applied. Every employee must be subject to them equally, otherwise you could face accusations of favoritism. In extreme situations, failing to apply them equally could lead to a lawsuit. They must also be appropriate to the situation.

Avoid overly harsh punishments for minor infractions. If employees feel that they can’t be tardy occasionally, or risk losing their job for small mistakes, they will likely start looking for employment elsewhere.

Keep all of these principles in mind when it’s time to write policies for each key area of your business.

Human Resources Policies

The amount and type of human resources policies you need will depend upon the size of your business.

Ethics and behavior                            

The way that employees conduct themselves with internal and external stakeholders will impact your reputation, an area of risk. If they reveal a client’s secrets, or are overhead gossiping, you could lose business. Your human resources manual needs a section that addresses ethics and behavior.

This section could include advice on accepting gifts from clients, or attending social events. It should address confidentiality and privacy as it relates to your business. In larger organizations, you may wish to include a process for reporting ethics violations. Many corporations have set up phone lines that employees can call and make an anonymous report.

Employment policies

Employment policies could cover everything from appropriate business attire to expectations of professional behavior. It’s in this section that you’ll address tardies, paid time off, and sick leave.

While it’s an uncomfortable topic, your employment policies will need to spell out grounds for termination. This could include a warning process, or when employees will be put “on notice,” remediation plans, and steps that will be taken prior to termination. If it does become necessary, ensuring that these steps are followed shields you from wrongful termination lawsuits.

A policy differs from a job description, which you could include in a new hire packet and ask your new employee to sign as part of their onboarding.

Sexual harassment

Sexual harassment is often a component of employment policies, as well as grounds for termination. Consult local and state laws when writing this section, and perhaps bring in a lawyer for review.

It is a good idea to include a definition of sexual harassment in your policy, one that matches or is drawn directly from the local law. Again, you’ll need a process to lodge complaints and address them. Make it clear how violations of the sexual harassment policy tie to termination.

Compensation and benefits

If you have both salaried and hourly employees, or directors and non-directors, it might be wise to include sections related to each. Salaries employees may accrue vacation time differently than hourly workers, and your company might have chosen to pay a higher amount of a director’s health insurance costs than they do for a non-director.

Also, cover payroll processing issues such as when hours must be submitted and if employees must notify a supervisor if they are going to go into overtime. Think of the usual questions that new hires ask - when is payday? How will I receive my check? - and speak to them in your manual.

Accounting Policies

While you can create accounting policies and memos that describe how to handle and book specific transactions, such as leases or sales tax, you might want overarching policies to guide a bookkeeper or back office staff. Even in a small organization, your business might benefit from having policies that address two areas important to continued operations; accounts payable and receivable.

Invoice Processing

Invoices may arrive daily in the mail, but that doesn’t mean that you have to process them daily. If you have multiple invoices and only one printer, it could back up the whole office. Do you prefer that your bookkeeper run checks and mail payments every Friday? What about logging them in your accounting software?

A policy is not meant to be a training manual, so there’s no need to include step-by-step instructions. Think of it as providing overarching guidance rather than specific detail.

Accounts Receivable

When do you send late notices to clients? Do you charge late fees, or interest, on the balance due? Following up on past due invoices is a delicate balancing act - you want to get paid, but you don’t want to anger a client. Without clear policies, your A/P clerk could follow up too frequently, or forget to follow up and allow an invoice to languish unpaid.

All policies should direct employees to an individual in your organization that they can talk to if they have questions. While devoting time to creating your business policies may not seem like a high priority, it can prevent future problems.

Every small business is different, even in the same industry. Services, products, and clients all bring with them unique challenges. But most problems small business owners face fall into similar, broad categories.

Knowing which challenges your business could face can help you prepare for handling them. If you’re in the midst of a challenge, simply identifying it can guide the solution.

Failure to Diversify Clients

Ever heard the expression - don’t put all your eggs in one basket? Business owners should take this saying to heart. If 50% of your business comes from one client and their business goes through a rough patch, so will your revenues.

Keep an eye on how much of your revenue comes from each of your clients. Simply divide a client’s revenue by total revenue to get the percentage of your business that they represent. Depending on your overall size, you likely want to keep each client’s contribution to around 20%.

If your calculations reveal that losing a core client would significantly hurt your ability to keep operating, brainstorm marketing ideas to bring in new business. Consider targeting remote clients, or expanding your services.

Money Management

Money management is probably one of the biggest challenges small business owners face. It goes beyond balancing your checkbook. Even if you have a monthly budget, do you track it? Are customers paying their invoices when you expect it, or several days late? You might need to revise your budget accordingly.

Money management includes keeping track of late payments, following up with past due clients, and paying your bills on time. Avoiding late fees and interest charges, and using a line of credit or business credit card wisely, can save you money. 

During high-growth, high-income periods, overhead can balloon. Who cares about the cost of catering daily lunches when times are good? But high overhead during a slump or status period can hurt your results. Examine your overhead costs on a regular basis to keep them from ballooning out of control.

Dedicate time on a weekly or monthly basis to take a look at your business’ overall financial health. If you’re seeing a consistent problem with collections, think about processes you could put in place to shrink the number of days past due and amounts past due.

Depending on Key Employees

If one of your employees quit, how would it impact your business? Are they the only one who knows where the copier toner is saved, or that important client spreadsheet? Failing to think about what would happen if someone quit could leave you scrambling.

Sit down with a list of core employees, list out their duties and responsibilities, and then ask how losing one of them would impact your operations. Start with these questions;

• What specialized knowledge of your business or customers does this employee have?
• Do any of my other employees have this knowledge?
• What operational questions would I have if they left? (i.e., who supplies our toner).
• Could another employee fill in for some of this key employee’s duties during the hiring and replacement process?

The answers to these questions could reveal an over-dependence on one employee. Once you’ve identified the potential problem, it’s easy to solve. Ask the key employee to write procedures and document how they do their job. Set up times to have them cross-train other employees.

Communicating and Training

The time you spend onboarding and training new employees supports continued success. It ensures that they’re doing their job properly and representing your business well to clients. But many small business owners fail in this area.

Communicating expectations to both new and current employees can be a challenge for owners. If they’re hiring due to an exigent need, time could be of the essence. Or, you might have grown accustomed to relying on others to train new hires.

At some point, however, a decentralized and informal communication and training strategy could lead to variable quality in customer experience or job performance. At a minimum, you want a written job description that outlines duties and expectations. But larger businesses might also benefit from written policies.

Quality vs. Growth

When expanding, businesses often face a trade-off between quality and growth. They may have built their reputation on high-quality products or great customer service, but as they expand to serve more customers or fulfill more orders...quality slips.

Failing to keep an eye on quality during a growth period could lead to reputation risk, which could, in turn, wipe out all your growth. You might even lose pre-growth customers. Maintaining quality while growing is a common challenge.

If you’re in a growth pattern, or preparing for one, put quality checks in place. Appoint supervisors to perform those quality checks, and scale back on growth if you’re seeing issues. Managing this challenge after-the-fact can be tough - it’s hard to win back disgruntled customers - so try to prevent it from ever becoming an issue.

Marketing while Maintaining Service

Diversifying your customer base reduces your risk, but it also can help maintain your business. Attrition is a natural part of the business cycle - customers move, go out of business, or no longer need your services. Continually marketing to bring in new business can offset naturally losing clients, but you must maintain your service levels to existing clients.

One of the easiest ways to market while maintaining service is to outsource your marketing efforts. Hire a firm to help with SEO or social media management, or to create a cohesive strategy. You can also hire an employee to handle marketing, rather than spreading it amongst employees who are also trying to serve customers.

Every business will encounter one or more of these challenges during its lifespan. Knowing what’s coming, and being prepared, can mitigate their impact.

Reputation is everything - particularly for a small business owner. Referrals bring you new business, and word-of-mouth can establish you as a trustworthy partner in your community. In the past, your reputation flowed between individuals or written recommendations that you solicited, but all this has changed with the Internet.

Online reviews, Facebook comments, and more extend a client’s reach beyond their circle of friends. This shouldn’t only be viewed as a negative - an online presence and positive reviews could help you expand your business.

Top Review Platforms

Yelp, Angie’s List, HomeAdvisor, and more. Depending on your type of business, there’s likely a website where customers can review your services. Customers might leave a Google review or a comment on your Facebook page, and

Studies have shown that 74% of consumers trust a local business with positive reviews more. A company with one negative article on the first page risks losing up to  22% of their business, and with two negative reviews this statistic goes up to 44%. Failing to pay attention to what people are saying about you online could have serious consequences.

If you haven’t googled your business in a while, take some time to explore search results and review websites. You may need to put more effort into building your online profile.

Soliciting Positive Reviews

All of the major review platforms have policies that prohibit businesses from paying for or incentivizing people for positive reviews. They want honest feedback on a business’s performance, which they encourage by giving special badges to prolific and verified reviewers, or giving them access to new technology and features. So, how do you get positive reviews?

Ask for them! In the same way you might have once asked a client to give a positive recommendation to a prospect or talk to them on the phone, ask for online reviews. Insert a request or a link in the signature block on your email when you send a client’s final tax return.

You can also send a direct email soliciting reviews. Keep them short and personal, use the client’s name, and customize the email’s body to the work you did for them. Don’t send an email requesting a review of your tax preparation services to a company that used your firm for a valuation during an acquisition.

Have the associate or employee with whom the client has had the most interaction make the request - the client likely feels more personal connection with them. Include a link that takes the client directly to the review site. The easier you make it for them to leave a review, the more likely it is that they’ll take the time.

If a small business owner praises your help with tax planning at the end of a meeting, ask them if they’d be willing to put that feedback on a review site. Most people are willing to help out and flattered that you asked them to submit feedback.

It’s not a good idea, however, to create fake accounts or ask employees to leave feedback. If you’re caught, it could cause reputational damage. The site could ban your business from posting or appearing in search results, and customers will lose trust. Honesty is always the best policy, and this includes the online world.

What to Do About a Negative Review

Unfortunately, negative reviews happen, and sometimes due to a situation completely out of your control. A client is unhappy with their tax return or thinks you missed a deduction, so they trash your firm on Yelp. As tempting as it may be to respond with - we don’t write the tax laws - a snarky or defensive response looks unprofessional.

Always respond politely and without swearing or name-calling. Offer to take another look at their tax return, thus demonstrating excellent customer service, if they believe you made a mistake. A bad review could be an opportunity to recapture a dissatisfied customer.

Prospects who are considering using your business could view a lack of response as a sign that you don’t offer superior customer service. While you could ignore them, the better choice is to formulate a documented and approved strategy to guide your social media manager in responding. Think about how you would handle someone if they came into your office and complained to your face, and maintain the same level of politeness.

The good news about negative reviews is that most people who frequent online review boards can recognize an overly emotional or retaliatory review. If you receive a fake review from someone that you have never served, you can report it to the website. They will investigate your complaint and take it down if it does turn out to be fake.

Oddly, people view negative reviews as a sign that all of the feedback is honest. If you don’t delete or hide negative comments, it shows that you’re not hiding anything. And if every single review is overwhelmingly positive, readers view them suspiciously and think they might be fake.

A balanced mix of reviews that  hopefully leans positive is preferable to giving a false impression.

Include Online Reviews in your Social Media Strategy

Facebook allows people to rate and review a business on its platform. If you post on Instagram, a troll could show up in the comments. When working with a company like CPA Gardens to formulate an SEO or social media strategy, make sure you address social media reviews.

In surveys, social media users have indicated that they trust a page’s reviews more than they trust the brand’s content. Comments on a Facebook post could also reveal a growth opportunity, give you a chance to sell more services, or tell you what your clients value.

The online world does impact your brick and mortar business, just like IRL or “in real life” will make its way online. Addressing customer service concerns in both venues will help you build a positive reputation no matter where a customer finds you.

In the process of taking stock of your business at the start of 2020, did you decide to look at your insurance policies? Before you review those thick stacks of paper, you should learn about the major types of insurance policies. Each protects a different aspect of your business, so you may not need every single option out there. But if your business has been going through change, it might be time to review your existing policies.

Here are seven of the most common types of insurance policies that every small business owner might need.

General Liability Insurance

General liability insurance covers small business owners from claims related to bodily injury, property damage, and personal injury. It protects you from liability claims where you are found liable for causing harm.

Third-party bodily injury covers a possible lawsuit and medical bills if someone hurts themselves on your property. Third-party property damage kicks in if one of your employees damaged someone else’s property, like if your forklift driver backs into inventory owned by another business. If another business thinks that your advertising looks too much like theirs, they can sue you for damages. General liability insurance also covers that.

And, lastly, there’s reputational harm. If you, or an employee, badmouth a competitor or their products, they could sue you for libel or slander. General liability insurance protects you from unexpected accidents or lawsuits.  

Property Insurance

Property insurance is the professional equivalent of homeowners insurance. It protects the physical aspects of your business from a covered loss. Covered losses could include:

• Fire
• Theft
• Customer injuries
• Income loss

If your building is damaged or destroyed in a fire, business property insurance will help cover the costs of rebuilding or repairing. It would also provide some assistance with income loss while you couldn’t operate.

Theft coverage would replace computers, inventory, or other items if someone broke into your commercial space and stole them. Customer injury protection helps cover the expenses of a lawsuit if a customer is injured on your property and sues you. 

A robust business property insurance policy protects the following:

• Inventory
• Tools and equipment
• Personal property
• Furniture
• Outdoor landscaping
• Computers
• Important documents

As your business grows, your previous coverage limits may not provide adequate protection. If you’ve invested in or significantly expanded inventory, replacement limits on your policy could now be too low. Maybe you had to expand into adjoining warehouse space to accommodate the new inventory – did you call your insurance agent and add that square footage to your policy?

Small business owners whose businesses have been going through a period of change would be wise to review the adequacy of their business property insurance.

Business Owner’s Policy

A business owner’s insurance policy covers small and medium-sized businesses. It bundles general liability insurance and property insurance into one policy, which typically lowers the premium and saves the business owner money.

A BOP policy covers you from lawsuit risks related to third-party bodily injuries, third-party property damage, product liability issues, and advertising injuries. If damage occurs to your building or property under a covered incident, typically fire, theft, vandalism, or some weather-related events, you will receive financial remuneration.

Not all business owners need property insurance, for example, if you provide services rather than sell products or don’t have a physical office or warehouse. But if you do, combining property insurance and general liability insurance into one business owner’s policy will likely reduce your monthly premiums.

Workers’ Compensation

Most states mandate that employers purchase workers compensation policies. This policy replaces lost wages and provides medical benefits to employees who’re injured on the job. In exchange, the employee relinquishes their right to sue you for negligence.

State laws vary in the amount of coverage they mandate you carry, as well as exemptions. Often, you’re not required to cover domestic workers, farm laborers, or casual employees.

Professional Liability

If you provide services to clients, you need professional liability insurance. Common professions that need protection include accountants, physicians, and lawyers. It protects those who give their clients advice from negligence claims and lawsuits.

Professional liability, sometimes called errors and omissions, insurance, pays some of the costs of defending yourself against a lawsuit and covers any damages awarded. If you provide services and advice, you might want to add this coverage to your general liability insurance.

D&O

Businesses structured as sole proprietorships don’t need D&O insurance, but larger corporate entities do. Directors and officers liability insurance covers those in higher-level positions from lawsuits that could go after their personal assets.

Employees, vendors, customers, investors, competitors, a number of people could file a lawsuit against a director or officer of your company for something related to their role. Common lawsuits allege:

• Misuse of company funds
• Misrepresentation of company assets
• Fraud
• Noncompliance with workplace laws
• Theft of IP or a competitor’s customers
• Breach of fiduciary duty

These policies help pay legal fees, settlements, and other costs related to the lawsuit. If you have recently changed your corporate structure or added new directors or officers, take time to update this policy.

Data Breach

Businesses that collect confidential customer information should carry a data breach policy. These policies protect you in the case of intentional or unintentional release of private and confidential information. The policy will cover any fines, penalties, or legal costs resulting from the data breach.

If you store customer credit card data, social security numbers, or medical records, you will need data breach insurance. It can often be added to either a business owner’s policy or a general liability policy.

Acting quickly is the key to minimizing reputational risk and the risk of being sued. Data breach policies also pay for public relations and other associated costs if a breach occurs.

Business Owned Life Insurance

Would your business keep functioning if something happened to your CFO? Business owned life insurance protects the business in the event a key shareholder or employee passes away. They would help you stay afloat by covering the costs of an executive search, paying for any loss-of-business costs. If you decided to shut down after the death, the insurance benefit can be used to pay debts or severance.

These policies can also serve as investment vehicles, with cash value insurance included in an executive compensation plan as a retirement supplement. In addition to providing life insurance protection, businesses can use them to fund a buy-sell agreement or cover a loan.

Small Businesses and Insurance

The right insurance policy protects your business and ensures that you don’t lose what you worked so hard to build. It covers you from the unexpected and, while you hope to never need it, it could be a lifesaver if anything goes wrong.