Anxiously waiting for clients to pay overdue invoices is no way to manage a business. Unfortunately, it happens to so many freelancers, consultants, and small business owners. Overdue invoices can leave you short on cash and high on anxiety. The good news is that you can tackle your biggest invoices struggles with two plug-in-play strategies […]
7 Ways To Get Better Credit
Because a number of different factors affect your credit score, the best thing to do to improve it is, well, everything you can. Even if you decrease your credit card debt by just 10%, you will likely see an improvement in your scores by the next month. Having a proven path forward that is the […]
When Business Credit Cards Make Sense
If you’re self-employed or run a small business on the side, one of the most dreadful tasks at tax time can be sorting through your personal and professional expenses. Should you be using the same credit card for both? Or is it time to get a card which will be used exclusively for your business? […]
What Really Affects Your Credit Score?
If you read my last post on the basics of credit, you already know that good credit can save you money on things you were already wanting to buy. Credit is a crowbar that you can use for leverage. It is a coupon with no expiration date that can get you huge discounts on homes, cars, […]
The Basics of Credit and FICO Score
Credit is a conversation killer. If you’re at a dinner party, you might as well bring up your curious rash, or your meditations on death, or how much you love a McDonald’s FiletO-Fish sandwich on a Friday. Bring up credit if you want to clear out the room. I know this from experience. You may not give […]
What makes a client difficult to deal with?
If you’re a small business owner or solo freelancer, there aren’t five layers of staff between you and your clients. You probably deal with your clients directly. Some of them are easy to work with, but others are…problems. Why? What makes a client difficult to deal with? Identifying the problem areas between you and your […]
Our New Hire Checklist Makes Employee Onboarding Paperwork Easier
You’re running your small business. One day you drop into your chair to catch your breath, and you realize you need help. Maybe you have employees, but they’re working as hard as you are. You need a new hire. What’s the paperwork process when you hire someone? The first thing you need to sort out […]
What Is Gift Marketing?
What is “Gift Marketing”? Gift marketing is sending a potential customer or social media influencer a gift. For the record, I hate the term “social media influencer,” but I couldn’t think of a better name for “a person with a lot of followers on Twitter.” I’m up for suggestions. But what’s the purpose of gift marketing? […]
End of Year Tax Planning
It’s fall…as a business owner what should you be focusing on? Fall is such a distracting time for me. The weather changes, there’s excitement because it’s football season, and on the coast we start fishing more. It’s so hard as business owners to pull our heads out of the day-to-day or week-to-week grind of running […]
How Afraid Should You Be of the Fiscal Cliff?
Everywhere you look, you find someone talking about the impending doom of “taxmageddon” a.k.a. the fiscal cliff. You can gather by the name that no good is expected to come from the tax disaster that lurks on the horizon. Congressional negotiations are underway to prevent. Before panicking, though, it’s important to understand the potential outcomes, […]