By Debbie Gregory.

Virtual Assistant jobs popped up in the 80’s to support moms looking to work from home. This niche didn’t take off until home internet access and use became standard worldwide. The market is steadily growing.

What is a Virtual Assistant (VA)?

A Virtual Assistant or VA is an employee who supports various business operations from a remote location. VAs assist with things such as reputation management, inbox management, social media content, online customer support, phone support, and basically any business-related task that does not require a person to be in the office physically.

Reasons to Consider a Virtual Assistant (VA):

• You Can Focus On What You Do Best: You started your business for a reason and you have a specific set of skills. Hiring a VA to take care of things that are outside of your skillset will free up time that you may have wasted trying to learn the ins and outs of or struggling through trial and error to complete. Areas include bookkeeping, social media management, marketing, etc. You can use your free time to focus on things that you’re actually good at and grow those skills further.
• Tedious Tasks Taken Care Of: Areas such as data entry, email responses, and internet research are important to your business.  They can be very time consuming. Hiring a VA to take care of these areas provides you the confidence that these tasks will be completed without you really having to think about them or spend your time working on them thus allowing you to do other things for the success of your small business.
• Better Organization of Data: Data is essential to help you make decisions about your business but most of it can be distracting and overwhelming. Some data areas include customer data, web analytics, and more. Hiring a VA to go over and organize the data allows you to quickly access the information that’s pertinent to your business at a particular moment.
• Better Communication: Your business receives tons of emails, online inquiries, comments, and calls daily. Some are important but others are not. Hiring a VA to manage your communications can allow you to really focus on the ones that are worth your personal time and effort.
• Reduce Inefficiencies with Processes: Inefficiencies cost your business time and money and most business owners do not have the time to properly setup processes for their business. Processes can include automated invoicing or auto-responders to email inquiries. Hiring an experienced VA to set these processes up and run them will make your business more efficient.

Hiring a VA allows you to outsource the business items you struggle with or do not want to do.   Additionally,you can trust that the tasks will be handled competently. A VA can free up a ton of your time to focus on things that you are actually good at. It also gives you a better opportunity to work on growing your business, rather than getting stuck in the day-to-day operations.

By Debbie Gregory.

Branding your business is vital to your success. Branding offers consistency across   your promotional channels including social media, ads, newsletters, and more.  It    generates your unique identity and can increase your perceived professionalism.

What is Branding?

Branding is the entire visual representation of your small business. It includes:

• Your business name
• Your logo
• Your color scheme
• The fonts you use
• More….

Branding is much more than just a cool logo.   Branding encompasses how your business is perceived by your customers or potential customers, how you conduct your business, and what your business stands for. It is not too complicated to brand your business.

Key Areas for Successful Branding:

• Your Key Business Goals: Make sure that your business goals are clearly defined so that you start your branding from a solid foundation. Any ideas that do not fit your goals should be discarded.
• Define Your Brand: The more time you dedicate to developing your look and feel, the better you will be received in the market. You need to select your website’s domain name, your email addresses, your logo, your color scheme, the tone you will use when writing any communications, typography, etc. Additionally, make sure that your business name is consistent across all of the platforms you use; you do not want to make it difficult or confusing for a potential customer to find you.
• Who Is Your Target Audience? Though it would be nice if you could target everyone with your product and service, you are more likely to gain business if you have a clear idea of who your target customers are or will be. Make sure that the products or services you offer match the needs of your target clients. Find what makes your business stand out from your competition and highlight it.  How will you fulfill the promises you make to your customers? How will you make them connect personally with your business? When you can help people relate personally to your business, they are more likely to gravitate toward your products and services.
• Consistent Marketing: With clear goals in hand, a defined brand, and a solid picture of your target audience you can more effectively market your business. Make sure your marketing efforts are consistent with your business goals and establish your brand in the market. Most people today rely upon social media for recommendations and to connect with brands that they identify. Your website alone is not enough in today’s market. Make sure you are where your customers are and make sure it is all consistent! Your website, social media channels, ads (both online and offline), brochures, flyers, posters, business cards, and the like all need to have the same look and feel so that at a quick glance your customers know they are in the right place.

Branding your business will have a direct impact on your success.

Take the time to clearly define who you want to be in the market and make sure you stick to it.

By Debbie Gregory.

Humanizing your business will make you a lot more memorable to prospective clients and help keep their attention on you.

With all of the advertising we are bombarded with day in and day out, it can be challenging to reach or hold the attention of your target audience. People are becoming more and more selective with their attention span and it is shorter than ever. With so much to choose from, it’s more challenging for your business’s marketing message to resonate.

What can you do?

Content that consistently grabs and holds people’s attention has three things in common:

1. It tells a story.
2. It is personal.
3. It is visually stimulating.

How Do You Incorporate Into Your Marketing Campaigns?

This part may sound difficult, but it is surprisingly easy with a bit of thought, planning, and research. Start with a setup or situation that is interesting to your target customers, add a challenge that arouses their curiosity, and then bring it home with a conclusion that is satisfying to their needs. When we talk about ‘satisfying’ in marketing we mean getting your prospect to click on your website, call your business, and/or buy your offering.

For example, find a common situation that your target customer finds themselves in and start your story with a setup that can relate to. Is your business in landscaping? Maybe your clients have trouble with invasive weeds or not knowing how to properly trim a hedge? The challenge is what is standing in their way. Using the same example of a landscaper, this could be the proper knowledge and tools, or time to do the work. The conclusion is how you can solve this dilemma for them.

Just keep in mind that you need to tell your story in a way that your target customers want to hear it.

Including:

• Live video streams
• Recorded videos
• An animated video with cartoon characters
• Podcasts
• Social media posts with photos
• A brochure or flyer
• An ad in a newspaper, magazine, or other publication

…but how they want to receive it all depends on your target customers. You will need to do your research and find out what type of content they like best.

What makes people disengage?

• The story is not challenging them mentally.
• The content lacks any personal resonance.
• There is just too much text.
• Not enough visually appealing photos.

Also, make sure that your message is consistent across all of your marketing materials and make sure that you back it all up using your website’s “about us” page and your social media feeds. Customers are a lot pickier now-a-days due to the vast amount of options they are presented with. Make sure that your business resonates with them personally.

By Debbie Gregory.

Loyal customers are the best customers! They continue to buy from you and they will usually refer you to their acquaintances, family and friends.

Typical American businesses lose customers every year due to factors outside of their control such as a changing economic climate. However, most customer loss is due to a failing by the business itself. If your customers do not get the attention they need from your business they will move on to your competitor.

Here are five reasons your business may be losing customers:

1.) Focusing on Price Instead of Customer Value

The best approach for smaller businesses that cannot compete with the huge corporations is to focus on the value of their offerings more than the price point. Trying to get involved in a price war with a large corporation will only squeeze your margins and make it more difficult for your business to operate.  This leaves you vulnerable for someone else to swoop in and steal your customers. Customers demand good service, convenient operating hours, accessibility, and quality. Focus on delivering the best you possibly can instead of trying to be the cheapest in your market.

2.) Providing Poor Customer Service

Placing customer service at the heart of your business model will lead to a successful business and loyal customers. You need to be consistent, reliable, and responsive. One poor experience with you business can easily drive your customer to your competitor.

3.) Neglecting Technology

Customers today have very high expectations coupled with short attention spans and very little tolerance for inefficiencies. These expectations are not limited to a physical business location.  Your company’s digital presence must also be up to date. Slow checkout, lack of convenient payment options, lack of delivery options, bad website layout and design, unfriendly mobile website, and more will make customers turn away from your business and to others who better meet their needs.

4.) Not Rewarding Loyalty

Discounts and promotions are great but if a customer does not feel like they are receiving the best value from you, they may move on to your competitor. Continually making your customers feel appreciated in small ways can pay off big time in the long run.

5.) Staff Issues

If your employees are not happy and you have a high rate of turnover, you cannot expect to keep your customers happy either. Your employees need proper incentives, engaging work, and they must feel able and empowered to take care of the customers that come through your door. Happy employees = happy customers.

Operating a successful small business comes with many diverse challenges. Make sure that you are doing all that you can to provide what your customers need, make sure they can get it how they prefer to get it, and make sure that they know how much you appreciate their patronage.

By Debbie Gregory.

New changes to the US tax laws have made certain expenses no longer deductible.

Here is a quick list of 15 things you cannot write off on your taxes:

1.) Entertainment

Companies used to be able to deduct the costs of entertaining clients or employees, this is no longer the case. Now, you may not deduct any portion of items such as tickets to the theater or sporting events is deductible.

2.) Meals

Meals for clients and employees, such as entertainment, used to be deductible on business taxes. Now, only 50% is deductible and even that is only allowable in specific cases. There are still a few exceptions, such as company picnics or break room snacks, where you can deduct the entire cost.

3.) Commuting

No matter what form of transportation you use to get back and forth to work or how lengthy or difficult it is to get to your business and home again, you are not permitted to write off the costs of commuting.

4.) Work Clothing

In the past, purchases of business appropriate attire were deductible. Now, only clothing not suitable for any possible street use, such as company specific uniforms, hardhats, etc., can be deducted.

5.) Gifts

The deduction for giving gifts to business associates, vendors, customers, etc. is now capped at $25.00 per gift/person, even if it makes good business sense, in certain situations, to give a more expensive gift.

6.) Medicare Taxes

If your income is high enough, you cannot deduct the 0.9% additional Medicare tax paid on net earnings from self-employment or employee wages and the 3.8% net investment income tax paid on income from any business investments.

7.) Club Dues

Participating in a golf or tennis club, social club, or fitness center may be a great way for you to meet and network with possible clients and customers. However, the dues you pay to be a member aren’t deductible.

8.) Exploratory Costs

A lot of people spend money researching business opportunities before starting their new company. This money is no longer tax-deductible. Though, once you start the business, those exploratory expenses can be treated as start-up costs and then can be deducted in the first year of business.

9.) Property Purchases

Legal fees paid to assist with property purchases cannot be deducted on their own. Instead, these fees are added to the cost basis of the property. A portion of the fees can potentially be recovered through depreciation.

10.) Fines and Penalties

Generally, government-imposed fines and penalties are nondeductible, regardless of the amount or reason for the fine.

11.) Excess Business Losses

Excess business losses for non-corporate taxpayers are treated as a net operating loss carryover and cannot be deducted.

12.) Interest on Tax Underpayments

Sole proprietors and owners of pass-through entities (non-corporate taxpayers) that pay interest on tax underpayments cannot deduct them. The interest is viewed as personal interest even if it relates to business income.

13.) Interest Expense Payments

If your annual gross receipts for the three prior years exceeds $25 million dollars, you cannot deduct any of your interest expenses on borrowing.

14.) Certain Employee Expenses

Reimbursements for employees’ commuting costs or moving expenses are not deductible.

15.) Net Operating Loss Carrybacks

Only farmers can deduct carrybacks. All other business entities are only allowed carryforwards and they can only be used to offset 80% of the taxable income.

All these tax law changes can affect your bottom line. Working with a CPA or a good tax or accounting service can help you better adapt to these changes and offset some of their potential impact. Always consult with professionals if you have questions or need guidance with any federal, state, or local law changes and tax issues.