Will, you’ve got yourself a pretty good product there, good luck with your business getting it distributed!  You’ll be famous someday like the Red Bull guys… don’t forget the little people!

Check out the product for yourself at their site: Mojo Boost

It’s days like today that make me appreciate living in Florida. As I sit here in my “office” working I look up from my laptop screen and this is what I see. It’s mid 70s with a breeze blowing and I just finished up on a call with a client who was complaining that he had to go so he could beat the 5PM rush hour traffic to make it home for dinner. Just goes to prove that no matter how stressful you think life is, you can’t take things for granted that make life good. Just wanted to say that out loud. That is all.

• KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE
• BUILD YOUR NETWORK
• ADVERTISE EFFICIENTLY

KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE
For any business to be successful, you must know who your audience is and what their specific needs may be prior to beginning your marketing efforts. Narrow down your key audience and focus on those products and/or services that will capture their attention. This is a good head start for any business strategy. Starting out too broad or starting with a niche that is highly competitive are frequent reasons that small businesses fail. Find your niche and exploit it! And furthermore, don’t try to sell your audience something that they are not interested in. You will come across as being a pushy salesman and you will lose credibility and trust with your audience immediately.

BUILD YOUR NETWORK
In order to build your network, begin with current contacts and expand upon those. Network with old friends and colleagues and build relationships through those with others. There are several ways to do this: attend local and national events, host an event yourself, and utilize internet web sites to build your current network such as facebook.com, myspace.com, etc. These sites are usually free to join and very helpful in building a network of contacts.

ADVERTISE EFFICIENTLY
Advertising is a key factor for any business. Without appropriate advertising, you are limiting your business potential. Depending on what type of business you have, you may want to advertise in local or national newspapers and magazines to target all audiences or travel to local areas and pass out flyers, business cards, etc. for more local prospects. Billboards are another option, but can be quite costly. Another, more economical avenue would be the internet to market your business. There are free web sites such as craigslist.org, backpage.com, local classified websites, etc. that can be a very effective tool. Whatever you choose, know what you want to advertise to get the most bank for your buck!

When you are in business, especially for yourself, expect the unexpected. The worst problems are usually the ones that are least expected. This applies to all aspects of your business. If you’re self-employed, you ARE your business. You are customer support, you are technical support, you are billing, you are accounting, you are the single problem solver for your own well being. Be prepared for the unexpected. Things do happen, sometimes more often than you’d hope for.

Once a problem does occur, you can either make or break your business depending on how you handle it. The single most important thing that most self employed business owners forget about is customer service.

Once you have a problem on your hands, the one single thing you can do to lose all your customers is not to inform them about your situation and leave them wondering if you’ve scammed them or if you’re doing anything to fix it.

Let’s face it, today the technology is so advanced that you can almost do anything from anywhere!!

Personally contacting all of your customers to inform them about the issue is probably not feasible. In these situations, leaving your customers in the dark without informing them about your current status would be the worst possible thing that you could do. Not only will you lose the current project you are working on with them, but also the chances of getting any further business from them becomes almost zero.

You might be the best in your industry, but if you are not well organized, don’t expect to build a solid business.

A simple solution that you may overlook is simply posting a message on your website telling your customers what has happened and that you are working towards a resolution. In the event that your website is unavailable, change the voice mail greeting on your main phone number to a message explaining the problem and that you are working to a resolution. Personally, I would do both.

A happy customer is your best friend. One of my favorite sayings is: A good customer relationship takes years to build, but only seconds to destroy. Keep this in mind as you are handling your next problem.

And for those of you who are wondering, yes, something did recently happen to me with a relationship with one of my vendors which left me wondering “What ever happened to customer service????”. Needless to say, I’ve switched vendors and I’ll never do business with that particular company again.

C corporations are taxed at both the corporate and individual level. That is, the corporation itself pays tax on business profits, and shareholders (owners included) pay additional income tax for any money they draw from the corporation, including salary, dividends, or bonuses.

S corporations elect a special tax status with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Rather than being treated as a separate taxable entity, the S corporation’s income is viewed like that of a partnership or sole proprietorship and is “passed-through” to the shareholders, who report the income or loss on their individual tax returns. The S corporation itself pays no income tax.

Another tax advantage of S corporations is that they can distribute money as profits rather than salary to employees who are shareholders. Profits are not subject to the Social Security and Medicare taxes that salaries are. And when you sell an S corporation, the taxable gain on the sale of the business may be less than that of a C corporation.

I’d recommend speaking with a qualified CPA (and if you don’t have a CPA, I’d recommend getting one – when it comes to business ownership, you don’t want Uncle Leo doing your taxes if he isn’t familiar with business tax codes) to assist you in figuring out which type of corporation you should be filing as. You just may be surprised at the money you can save by choosing the right one. I’ve been in business as an LLC since 2001 and this year it was to my benefit (and, oddly enough, to the IRS’s benefit as well) for me to change my filing status for my corporation. Keep up to date and always ask a lot of questions. The answers may surprise you.

The Home Office Deduction

You may be thinking – yes, yes – we all know about the home office deduction! Unfortunately, most people don’t read through how the deduction actually works. Take into account that most sole proprietors work from home and you can see how trouble can brew. The home office deduction should only be taken if you use the room exclusively for business purposes. The kitchen nook that doubles as your office space is not exactly what the IRS considers an eligible office. The space must be clearly used for business purposes. Remember, only a certain percentage can actually be claimed. The other pesky issue is that all of those business deductions then have to be written on a separate form that itemizes home business expenses which can send up a red flag. On the flip side, with an S or C Corporation, you don’t have to file a separate deduction form.

Schedule C

Ultimately, the problem with a sole proprietorship is that no matter what you deduct, the Schedule C form draws attention. In 2006 alone, 4 percent of all sole proprietors filing a Schedule C were randomly audited as compared to less than 1 percent of all corporations who filed either Form 1065 or Form 1120S. Why? Well, the IRS is on the look out for those business owners who hide portions of their earnings because so many people historically attempt to overstate their expenses or downplay their actual cash earnings.

Cash Based Businesses

One of the IRS’s biggest concerns is the sole proprietor with a cash based business. Caterers, personal trainers, dog walkers, this means you. Many self-employed professionals tend to receive large amounts of cash that go undeclared. And unfortunately, the IRS is all too aware of that.

Understating Earnings

Another common mistake is “understating” your earnings by “overstating” your deductions and expenses on your Schedule C. And, well there is a difference between deducting a few business meals a month and deducting your weekends out with your spouse for the entire year. Again, entertaining business clients or paying for business meals may be part of your job but only a certain portion can be deducted and only under certain conditions.

The other thing you want to avoid is taking too much of a deduction on your automobile expenses. You can deduct the cost of your car if used for business purposes. That means you can either deduct the mileage at the rate of 44.5 cents per mile in 2006 or you can deduct the ordinary expenses you incur such as gas, oil changes, and parking fees. But, when you also start to deduct the cost of gas on your family road trips to the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone National Park, you may raise a few eyebrows.

Other No-No’s

There are a few other areas where a sole proprietor can get themselves into a bit of trouble. One of the biggest no-no’s is mingling business and personal expenses and monies in the same bank account. It makes the business look like a hobby more than a business and it makes bookkeeping infinitely more difficult.

Oh, and estimates might get you into a bit of heat as well. It is rare that you will get your meals or other deductions to equal a perfectly round number so jotting them down on a Schedule C that way can easily send up a red flag.

The Benefits of a Corporation

With a Corporation, your expenses are entirely separate from the expenses of the business. It is likely you will have a separate credit card and banking accounts where you can track business meals, gas for business, and other issues. Also, the IRS forms are consolidated and filed separately from your personal expenses because the business is a separate legal entity.