You've held back your true feelings about someone at work for the benefit of your working relationship, but one of you resigns and you finally get to tell them what you really think of them. Should you?
Well, being the better person feels good, but I'm not recommend you don't do it for any of that hippy garbage. Here's why you don't do it: you never know who you are going to cross paths with again and you never know what friends or contacts will have in common with people. Bad news travels faster than good news and if you resume or proposal ever crosses their path, it will never get any farther along the chain.
People feel more comfortable about making import decisions when they have a lot of other people backing them up. Make sure you always leave on a good note and you never know who can help open a door for you in the future.
Thursday, 27 February 2014
Monday, 17 February 2014
Bank Loans for Business
In school you hear about bank loans a lot as a means of financing a project or starting up your business. Forget about it. They don't exist. At least not in the way that they do in text books. The bank is more than happy to give you a loan, but let's be clear, it's YOU who's getting the loan, not your corporation. Be very very careful if you go down this path to get finances.
When I incorporated I didn't need a loan, but I did want a visa. The bank wouldn't give it to me without me providing three years worth of my tax returns. Without that information, they would give me a credit card, but only if I maintained a minimum balance in my account to guarantee the credit amount.
Banks have no faith in small businesses, but will have faith in you. Keep this in mind if you thinking about going to a bank to help finance your business.
- L
When I incorporated I didn't need a loan, but I did want a visa. The bank wouldn't give it to me without me providing three years worth of my tax returns. Without that information, they would give me a credit card, but only if I maintained a minimum balance in my account to guarantee the credit amount.
Banks have no faith in small businesses, but will have faith in you. Keep this in mind if you thinking about going to a bank to help finance your business.
- L
How Much To Do Yourself
Starting your own business is easy enough, but determining how much to do on your own is a challenge. I'll let you know what parts I handle myself, what I choose to outsource, and where I do both.
IT/Tech Support (Me)
I handle all the computer set up and issues that arise. My operation is entirely Mac based and therefore really easy to manage on my own
Sales (Both)
I have my own network that grows slowly and provides a large portion of my sales, but it's hardly exhaustive. That's why I also use sales agents to help me. Pay commissions for sales. It's worth it.
Payroll (Outsource)
I use Ceridian for my payroll. It's relatively cheap (I pay around $100/month for the pleasure). They do all my source deductions, provide me with a web portal to enter my hours per payroll, provide professional reporting (including T4s), and have expert staff. I considered hiring a payroll person on a part-time basis, but it would take them about half a day to do my payroll for me. With Ceridian, it takes about 20 minutes.
Hiring Staff (Both)
Sometimes I post ads myself and other times I use a temp agency to find people for me. A rep that makes $12/hour costs you about $14.50/hour (excluding hiring costs) if you pay them yourself when you add up the employer tax contributions and WSIB. If you use an agency, the same rep costs between $16.50/hour and $17.50/hour, but that includes hiring costs. What else do you get for an extra $2 -$3/ hour? Well, they tend to provide really good staff as they are hiring experts and have access to more resumes then you. But they also guarantee their staff, which means if one doesn't work out they will replace them the next day. You can also pay them with a credit card, which you can't do with your employees - this is particularly good if you are cash strapped. And they save you a lot of time making phone calls, setting up interviews, checking references, etc.
Accounting (Outsource)
I would never consider doing this on my own. There's too much to know and I'm more than happy paying someone else to know it.
Law (Outsource)
See accounting.
As you can see, I outsource a lot. It frees up a lot of my time, which I need to manage various projects and clients. You need to pick what's mix is right for you.
- L
IT/Tech Support (Me)
I handle all the computer set up and issues that arise. My operation is entirely Mac based and therefore really easy to manage on my own
Sales (Both)
I have my own network that grows slowly and provides a large portion of my sales, but it's hardly exhaustive. That's why I also use sales agents to help me. Pay commissions for sales. It's worth it.
Payroll (Outsource)
I use Ceridian for my payroll. It's relatively cheap (I pay around $100/month for the pleasure). They do all my source deductions, provide me with a web portal to enter my hours per payroll, provide professional reporting (including T4s), and have expert staff. I considered hiring a payroll person on a part-time basis, but it would take them about half a day to do my payroll for me. With Ceridian, it takes about 20 minutes.
Hiring Staff (Both)
Sometimes I post ads myself and other times I use a temp agency to find people for me. A rep that makes $12/hour costs you about $14.50/hour (excluding hiring costs) if you pay them yourself when you add up the employer tax contributions and WSIB. If you use an agency, the same rep costs between $16.50/hour and $17.50/hour, but that includes hiring costs. What else do you get for an extra $2 -$3/ hour? Well, they tend to provide really good staff as they are hiring experts and have access to more resumes then you. But they also guarantee their staff, which means if one doesn't work out they will replace them the next day. You can also pay them with a credit card, which you can't do with your employees - this is particularly good if you are cash strapped. And they save you a lot of time making phone calls, setting up interviews, checking references, etc.
Accounting (Outsource)
I would never consider doing this on my own. There's too much to know and I'm more than happy paying someone else to know it.
Law (Outsource)
See accounting.
As you can see, I outsource a lot. It frees up a lot of my time, which I need to manage various projects and clients. You need to pick what's mix is right for you.
- L
Wednesday, 12 February 2014
Globalization
I get approached by a company in India about once a week to provide me with some form of outsourcing support. The usual sort of fair is: Web Design, Data Entry, Data Mining, and Phone Support, to name a few. Every now and then, I get a pitch from a company that wants to form a sort of informal partnership. They know that I provide document scanning services and propose that I perform the scanning and they perform the indexing (file naming/metadata tagging). It's an interesting proposal, but not for me. Here are a couple of my concerns with outsourcing out of the country.
1) Privacy. One of the keystones to providing onsite document scanning services is privacy. These companies promise locked doors, locked computers, secure servers, etc. None of it is ever going to be enough.
2) Laws. Let's say that you do have a serious problem with your relationship with your international partner and you've suffered a financial loss as a result. There is a big difference between winning in court and actually receiving your damages. It's enough of a problem without an ocean between you.
3) Control. Consider the difficulties in running a project in your line of work. Now consider that you still have all the responsibilities for the project, but have little to no control over the outcome. Enough said.
Thanks for reading.
L
1) Privacy. One of the keystones to providing onsite document scanning services is privacy. These companies promise locked doors, locked computers, secure servers, etc. None of it is ever going to be enough.
2) Laws. Let's say that you do have a serious problem with your relationship with your international partner and you've suffered a financial loss as a result. There is a big difference between winning in court and actually receiving your damages. It's enough of a problem without an ocean between you.
3) Control. Consider the difficulties in running a project in your line of work. Now consider that you still have all the responsibilities for the project, but have little to no control over the outcome. Enough said.
Thanks for reading.
L
Sunday, 9 February 2014
Cottage Industries are Back
Before the industrial revolution, a lot of people worked their trade from home and would sell their goods through order taking or at markets. The rise of industrialized workhouses created greater efficiencies and brought about the end of the wider cottage industry.
The cottage industry is on the rise again today, but in a very different way. Small businesses are finding it hard to compete with medium and large businesses and need to run as lean as possible. Here are a couple of ways to modernize pre-industrialized thinking:
Project a Professional Virtual Presence. A professional website can look as good as your biggest competitor's and a lot less than a prime location.
Provide Onsite Services. If you are providing business-to-business services, consider performing your services at the client's location. This will eliminate the need for a permanent location for your equipment.
Use Your Home. Making your home your primary business address allows you to right off part of your utilities, vehicles, mortgage interest, and whatever else you can reasonably claim is also used by your business. Not only is your business costing less to run, but so your personal expenses get smaller too.
Thanks for reading.
L
The cottage industry is on the rise again today, but in a very different way. Small businesses are finding it hard to compete with medium and large businesses and need to run as lean as possible. Here are a couple of ways to modernize pre-industrialized thinking:
Project a Professional Virtual Presence. A professional website can look as good as your biggest competitor's and a lot less than a prime location.
Provide Onsite Services. If you are providing business-to-business services, consider performing your services at the client's location. This will eliminate the need for a permanent location for your equipment.
Use Your Home. Making your home your primary business address allows you to right off part of your utilities, vehicles, mortgage interest, and whatever else you can reasonably claim is also used by your business. Not only is your business costing less to run, but so your personal expenses get smaller too.
Thanks for reading.
L
The Paperless Office: Is It Still a Myth?
The paperless office is an idea that has been lingering around the workplace for a couple of decades now. The irony was that the more that technology advanced, the farther away we seem to be from achieving the paperless office. However, we have made significant progress with the following developments: increased usage of email over snail mail, cloud storage of documents and other media, tablet and smartphone advances and the ubiquity of the internet. However, it hasn't been enough.
The biggest hurdles in the way of achieving the paperless office are overcoming challenges pertaining to authorization and legality. Often these challenges go hand in hand as they do with something like a will. A will is something that is only legally recognized in paper form and only valid with the 1st party's signature authorizing the document. There is no electronic equivalent for some documents and until these problems are overcome, the paperless office will remain a myth.
Monday, 3 February 2014
Networking
I am competing in an industry filled with large competitors. These are companies with office buildings, billboards, notation newspaper ads, etc. As a small business, it's impossible to reach as many people as they can. Instead, you will need to find or target the right people and get yourself introduced through networking. More often than not this will cost you nothing (well... a lunch, maybe) and can get you everything. Here are three easy networking tips to get you started:
1) Look at your own network first. You may be surprised how close you are to your target customers. Social networking sites like Linkedin are great ways to see who you are only one or two handshakes away from. Ask your connection to make an introduction for you or set up a coffee with the three of you.
2) Strategically align with other service providers. As a document scanning company, we do not shred documents, but we do have connections to a couple of them should someone ask us for a referral. They in turn refer business to us. Think about all the services you don't provide, but are related to yours and contact those business about a mutually beneficial relationship.
3) Pay Commissions. If you don't have the network or the sales chops, then find people who do and get them to work for you. As long as you are only paying on success, this isn't costing you anything extra and you can inflate your costs to absorb the commissions if needs be. It's a win-win.
Thanks for reading.
L
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