29. November 2007 by Tim Collier.

Even with Santa’s arrival fast approaching, make sure that you do not wait until after his arrival to do your tax planning.  Make sure your books are up to date and hand them off to your accountant.  Hopefully they will be able to come up with some tax savings strategies before the end of the year.  If you wish to do the planning yourself look go to the IRS website for some pointers and the 2007 forms.  If you do want an accountant, but don’t currently have one, then go to the website of you states CPA chapter, or the National CPA association to find accountants registered with them.  A little tax planning now can help you get a less stressful start to the new year, probably one of your resolutions any ways.

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11. November 2007 by Tim Collier.

While bookeeping isn’t the reason you got into business, it is the only way you can keep track of how you are doing. Think of it as your scorecard (also the if the IRS ever comes calling think of it as your saving grace). There are several accounting packages that you can use such as Quickbooks or Microsoft Accounting that are relatively easy to use.  The Microsoft accounting program, express edition is actually free and integrates with MS Office (follow the link above).  This helps you with your invoices as they are tied into your accounting system and gives them a real professional look.  One other benefit of using an accounting program is that it should save you money with your tax accountant come income tax time.

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8. November 2007 by Tim Collier.

While it sounds like you are on the range, branding is just a fancy name for having a consistent message attached to your product and image. Branding is not just the sole area of large companies, small and medium companies need to focus on their brand as well.

One way to determine how you are doing with regards to your brand image is to do a “brand audit”. This is just taking a look at how your customer base looks at you when they are looking to make the decision to purchase your product or service. You can do this fairly inexpensively by trying the following:

1) Create a survey on a service such as Survey Monkey and send the link to your clients either on a postcard or e-mail link.

2) Ask them when they come to your shop or purchase your product/service. How did we do? Would you come to us again?

3) Ask for feedback through your website. You can do this be setting up an additional e-mail address and asking for feedback on a page of your website.

Use the results from these informal surveys to then assess where your brand is and where it needs to go.

Other tactics would be such things as:

Having somebody review your website, redesign your logo and put together a website. This can be done relatively inexpensively through consultants which you can find through sites such as guru.com or elance.com.

Develop a blog, this will allow you to talk about your services, add examples and have others give you input. Remember once you start a blog and are using it as a tool to develop your brand, you need to stay with it to continue to be effective.

While branding may seem complicated it basically boils down to how do you want people to see your company when they are looking for a product or service. Focus on your message and the tips listed here and an increase in your brand equity will follow.

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8. November 2007 by Tim Collier.

The type of business entity that you want your company to be is extremely important. Findlaw is a great site to help walk you through the decision process. Hitting just the highlights, sole proprietorship leaves you exposed liability wise, an llc helps shield your personal assets, but remember to make sure you keep the books seperate from your own. C Corporations are beneficial if you are going public, but otherwise are a little more difficult to manage because of the potential for double taxation and bookeeping requirements. After you do your own research and come up with a general idea of what entity type you want to be, make sure you consult with an attorney.

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6. November 2007 by Tim Collier.

I came across a recent article in the Wall Street Journal about websites for people to bounce ideas off of each other with regards to startup ideas. Intuit sponsors two of these sites Iwilljuststart.com a site that helps you get focussed on starting your new project and offers a contest for winners to receive 40K and 10k in professional services. Jump Up is the other site that is a social networking site for entrepreneurs. This site helps get you some of the resources you need and connects you to other people starting a business. I really like this site as it helps you not only find other people in your field, but can help you meet up with the professionals that can help on the business side of your idea. Ideablob is a networking site to help you find other small business owners to bounce ideas off of. The extra cool thing about this site is that it has a contest for 10K a month for your ideas. Last but not least is a offering from Bank of America, this site focuses on connecting entrepreneurs with others and gives good advice on starting a business and other interesting links.

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5. November 2007 by Tim Collier.

It has been a while since I posted, so as I was molling over items to write about I started playing movie scenes in my head (my wife calls it a very annoying habit) so this is what I came up with. In the movie Braveheart, Robert the Bruce, says “From top to bottom this country has no sense of self.” What he meant was that all of the major players of Scotland had divergent paths and desires. Only when all of the nobles had a common cause was Scotland able to become a country. For your company to be successful it must must be focussed in the same way. While you want to be everything to everyone, it will be a determined focus on your core products or services initially, that will make you truly successful. By limiting the number of items that the your business focuses on, you can actually increase the business that you are in, leading to long term success and a true “sense of self”

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1. October 2007 by Tim Collier.

Netflix recently has been reeling (pun intended) from the onslaught of attacks from Blockbuster. There have been multiple discussions about how Netflix needs to meet the attack. From, “they must focus on small indie films” to “lower prices is the only way for them to compete.” The lesson to be learned is that when you are expanding your business remember to focus on building your foundation. If Netflix were to decide to compete on price now they would get unmercifully hammered. Netflix needs to compete on differentiation, just like any new company. Netflix developed the better mousetrap, however they did not perceive that the other mousetrap makers would be able to compete with them. Once Blockbuster finally realized that they had the infrastructure to compete, based on inventory, market share and sites, they started kicking butt. Remember to look at the business you are getting into and then to look at differentiation. If Netflix had taken their original cash hoard while they were doing well and invested that in the foundation/differentiation pieces of the business (indie or foreign language films, etc) then they would be in a better position to compete against Blockbuster.  Where Netflix is positioned now though will make it incredibly difficult to take a step back and focus on differentiation without getting pummeled by the market.

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26. September 2007 by Tim Collier.

Over on my company website, I have recently posted the links to 140 venture capitalist sites, for people to look at.  A very broad range of sites and some interesting reading.  If you have any sites that are not on there and would like to share, email me at info@cascadebusinesssolutions.com and i’ll get them posted right away.

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26. September 2007 by Tim Collier.

During my MBA courses one of my classmates (an engineer) declared during finance class “This ain’t engineering!”  What he meant by that was that there is no exact answer in building a business as there is in building a bridge.  One of the biggest mistakes that a person deciding to make the jump into the business world makes is insisting on an exact answer.  There isn’t one.  The sheer amount of variables allows, sales projections, expense projections, ability to get a SBA loan, that if any one of your estimates is off by the slightest amount  you will have a different answer then when you originally started with (to the good or bad).  You can be close, and what you want to do is limit the amount of variables to get the best answer, not necessarily the perfect answer.    Focus on what you know, look to see if you truly believe you have a good idea, run some base numbers, put together a business plan and go for it. 

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22. September 2007 by Tim Collier.

Ever felt that you have so many things on your plate that you feel overwhelmed, but when you write it down you say “that’s not so bad.”  Your business is the same way.  When you are first starting that new enterprise you can easily get lost in the details and as such never find a way to accomplish what you need too.  Using a time management system such as FranklinCovey, Outlook, or even a Microsoft time management template in Excel, is all you need.  Take 15 minutes and just start writing the list of things that you need to do for your new business.  Start prioritizing them.  Pick off a few of the easy ones to start just to get a sense of accomplishment and momentum.  Just start writing it down, your business will appreciate it in the long run. 

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