Canadian Small Business Women

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Common Mistakes Made by Small Businesses

You have this fabulous idea to start a business, and you go for it…yea! But then the reality sinks in that running a business is so much more than just selling your product and service. There’s HR and Marketing and IT and ugh worst of them all….accounting!

As an accountant I see small business owners making a few critical mistakes all the time. And the result is they either pay too much in taxes, do not have money to pay themselves, or worst of all go out of business.  Unfortunately accounting is as important to a small business as any other aspect of running a business; and it has a direct financial impact to your business! Here are some the top mistakes made by small business owners:

Not having a budget

You obviously do not start a business thinking it will fail, but in the beginning there WILL be more expenses than income. Until your brand and client list grows your budget is extremely important to sustain you. There will be tough calls to make but without a clear budget, you won’t know how to spread out your expenses.

Not keeping up-to-date records

A budget is fine as a guide but how do you know if you are sticking to it if you only do your bookkeeping once a year for tax time? At a minimum doing your bookkeeping quarterly (monthly is ideal) allows you to track progress and adjust your path accordingly. By doing your bookkeeping ONLY at tax time means it is often too late to make any informed decisions and corrective action.

If they walk, talk and look like an employee…they are an employee

Employee vs contractor is a huge area of audit with the CRA. Many employers will classify workers as contractors to avoid paying into CPP & EI when in reality they are employees and subject to payroll deductions. There are a few factors to consider when making this difference but a big red flag is control – who controls their work and schedule? A legitimate contractor likely will not be reporting to someone else who is controlling and reviewing their work.

Not recording all the personal contributions (properly)

If you ask most entrepreneurs how much money have they put into their business the answer is usually “a lot”…but when you ask them how much they cannot quantify it. This can have significant tax impacts when both taking money out of the business to pay yourself and when you are looking to sell the business.

 

 

 

“Behind Every Great Business is a Great Accountant”

For more information on how to keep your business tax efficient, or to get a consultation on whether you are making all the right tax choices for your business, contact Dharna CPA. www.dharnacpa.ca. Info@dharnacpa.ca

Four Common Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make

Praveeni

Being an entrepreneur is a challenging and rewarding experience but it’s not without its pitfalls. Although a business idea may seem profitable  it may not always be the case and in business as in life failure (along with success) is inevitable. Everyone makes mistakes but it doesn’t mean success won’t come your way eventually, here’s a quick look at the 4 most common mistakes entrepreneurs make:

  1. Overvaluing their product/company
    Most businesses start off with funding in the way of a business loan or investors. Although there are many sources for investment, funding may be hard to come by if you’ve over valued your company. If you’ve ever watched the show Dragons Den you’ll find that many entrepreneurs do this,; not maliciously but because they believe so strongly in their product or idea that they fail to see it’s realistic value.
  1. Overly diversifying product offering
    As a new business owner it’s easy to get caught up in expanding your product offering as your business grows. Though it’s good to provide a range of choices, overly diversifying business services or products can lead to dilution of your company’s mission and vision. It’s important to take a step back and look at why you started in the first place. In most cases a few key products will drive sales and increase business, instead of offering new products work on improving the ones that are profitable.

 

  1. Calling themselves “experts”

The term “expert” gets thrown around way too often in the business world. These days everyone’s an expert at                    something, or so they say. Some may argue that marketing yourself as an expert gives clients the impression that no          one else can provide the same level of service.  However labeling yourself as an expert can limit your ability to learn            and grow as an entrepreneur. The key is never to be the smartest person in the room; this doesn’t mean downplay              your knowledge but rather be open to increase your knowledge base.

     4. Spending marketing dollars too early

Marketing is tricky as it can help increase and decrease sales. Many entrepreneurs end up spending too much money         on marketing campaigns that have no goal or focus and thus do not result in profitable returns. Simply building brand           awareness is not enough. In order to build awareness you must first build a brand, and this can only be achieved                 through clients and sales. Although it’s tempting to run ads or start accounts on all the latest social media channels               first focus on building a clientele, without clients you have no brand.

Praveeni Perera is the CEO and co-founder of Professional Edge Consulting a corporate training company based in Ottawa offering training and coaching services to clients around the world.  She can be reached via Website, Twitter, Facebook or her Blog.

Six Introduction Mistakes to Avoid

Praveeni

 

Introducing yourself and others to key contacts is essential for building business relationships and networking effectively. However there are pitfalls that many professionals can avoid when making introductions.

Here’s a look at 6 introduction mistakes to avoid. This information comes straight from our program How To Be A Polite Professional

  1. Looking away: Looking away when you are being introduced to someone gives off the impression that you are disinterested and don’t care about who you are meeting. Always maintain eye contact when being introduced.
  2. Making overly personal comments: When introducing someone to a group you should give a piece of information about them. Avoid alluding to divorce, job loss, illness or any sensitive topic. Instead stick to their job title, where they work or what field they’re in. You can even indicate how you met them.
  3. Interrupting: Don’t break in to a conversation or simply force yourself into one. Wait until you are introduced to the group or brought in to the conversation.
  4. Deferring to one person: Avoid speaking only to one person and ignoring the others in the group. This behaviour is especially prevalent in groups of 3, and makes the person being ignored feel awkward. Make sure you engage with everyone in your group and at least make eye contact and acknowledge people you are not immediately speaking to.
  5. Overly enthusiastic introductions: It’s always nice to highlight something positive about the person you are introducing but keep it within reason. Don’t introduce colleagues or clients with superfluous introductions as these tend to embarrass people. Avoid using phrases such as “the smartest person at our firm” “the greatest” “ the most accomplished”  “ the most amazing” etc. These come off as unprofessional and a little immature.
  6. Making someone wait to be introduced: Introduce any newcomers to the group immediately, making people wait causes them to feel left out, embarrassed and awkward.

Praveeni Perera is the CEO and co-founder of Professional Edge Consulting a corporate training company based in Ottawa offering training and coaching services to clients around the world.  She can be reached via Website, Twitter, Facebook or her Blog.

Top 5 Ways to Get More Confident

Laura Bungarz

There are a lot of people out there that struggle with computers.  It’s a common theme that I hear at every networking event I attend.  It gets posted on my Facebook page and I get emails and phone calls from people that tell me they aren’t confident in their skills.  Many ask me how I did it so I figured I would share that today.  So below are the top 5 ways that you too can become more confident in your computer skills.

  1. Practice makes perfect!  I know its cliché, it’s an awful saying, but it’s true.  How did I get good?  I guess you could say I got addicted to it.  How did Tiger Woods get good at golf or Wayne Gretzky good at hockey?  Hours and hours of practice.  They found something they loved and they spent hours perfecting their craft.  The same is true for computers really.  It’s about spending time at it, trying things, making mistakes and trying again.  Eventually you figure it out, you get good at it and your computer skills no longer slow you down.
  2. Trial and error.  I just did a webinar about this very topic!  Even if you aren’t addicted to computers and you have better things to do in your spare time, the best way to learn is simply to try.  The computer will not blow up if you make a mistake while putting together your PowerPoint presentation.  It just won’t.  You may mess up a slide or two, but that’s easy to fix.  It’s a matter of trying it, figuring out how to get what you want and then remembering what the heck you did so you can do it again another day.
  3. Have some small successes.  Did you figure it out after a while?  Probably.  Did it take you much longer than it should have?  Did it frustrated you all to bits?  Yep.  But you did it!  Take some pride in the fact that you did it.  Whether or not it took you ten times as long as it might have taken somebody else is irrelevant.  You figured it out and that’s all that really matters.  Be proud of yourself and remember that next time you have to do it won’t take as long.
    You know that program you can now use with your eyes closed?  Yeah that one that used to take you hours to figure out.  You have it now don’t you?  You know how to do it and it doesn’t take you hours, in fact you don’t even have to think when you use it.  Well guess what?  You can do that with any program you want to.  Getting comfortable just takes time.
  4. Be okay with making mistakes.  This is a toughie.  It’s hard to accept that we screw up sometimes.  But we do.  Making mistakes in computers, ruining that PowerPoint slide, mucking up the Excel spreadsheet, stuff like this happens.  But there are ways to avoid disaster like saving often and CTRL-Z (undo your mistake, it’s like a mulligan only better!).   Once you learn some simple tricks like these it’s easy to feel confident that even if you do mess up you’ll be able to go back and fix it.
  5. It’s okay to ask for help!  When I first started with computers everybody was learning.  Windows was brand new.  The Internet was still an infant.  There weren’t experts all over the place, geeks that knew everything and had blogs and forums full of information.  It didn’t exist.  I basically had to figure it out on my own.  I learned by a combination of simple need and trial and error.  I learned by doing.  But you don’t have to.  You have resources like myself and many other people just like me.  The Internet is chalk full of forums, blogs and FAQ’S, whole websites dedicated to helping you with your computer troubles.  You need to do nothing more than ask for help.
    Never be ashamed of your questions either!  We all start somewhere.  We were all new at one time.  It was foreign to me too at one point.  I still run across things that I don’t know.  I still have to find people that specialize in certain areas to help me.  It happens even to me!  And it’s okay!  If it’s okay for me, it should be okay for you too.

Always be proud of how far you’ve come!  You’ve come a long way baby!  And you will continue to improve.  Keep doing what you’re doing.  Keep asking those questions! Be proud of small successes!  Don’t let anybody tell you different!

Now be proud! You did it!

If you have questions feel free to contact me using the information below.
Laura Bungarz Computer Training
212-207 Fort Street
Winnipeg, MB R3C 1E2
Laura@Laurabungarz.ca
Web:  http://laurabungarz.ca
Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/nontechforwomen

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