Small Business Blog

Make your business more appealing by getting involved with other businesses

2009-06-25T13:18:00.003-05:00

Why not give yourself another competitive edge by associating your small business with something that catches people’s interest? Establishing a relationship with another company or organization does a few different things for you and your business. First, it puts your company name in front of more potential customers. It can also help to establish your company’s credibility. Thirdly, and perhaps the most important reasons to associate with something interesting – is that it’s fun. You should be involved with a business that you have fun running, and shouldn’t be doing it if it isn’t fun.

Focus on having fun and the outcome (money) is more likely to be what you have hoped for. Subsequently, you can pick and choose the types of companies and organizations that you might want to be connected with. If you haven’t already developed unique relationships that separate you from your competitors, start brainstorming about who you might want to deal with immediately. Your first step might come with looking at some popular websites that generate a lot of traffic, and evaluate who they are associating themselves with.Some companies might partner with similar companies within the same industry. Another company may be committed to giving back to charitable organizations in their community. If you end up coming together with a charitable group, you might incent potential customers to invest in your business by donating a small percentage of their purchase toward that charity. People are very careful with their money, but are often times more willing to participate when they are standing behind a cause that gives back.

Be creative though, think about ways that your company might be able to help a company in a totally different industry. Perhaps you are a construction company that is capable of building a set for a movie. Why not find a company in the movie industry that has filming locations available, and see if you can put their logo on your website? Most companies would be happy to have the additional exposure – they might even do the same for you – and of course you might end up finding some additional jobs.If there are well respected unions or organizations that you can join, it’s another way to raise your credibility. If you become part of a particular group they might let you place their logo on your site. This will indicate to customers and potential buyers that you are an industry player and have associates in the industry.Remember to have fun, and the possibilities are limitless. In fact, there are probably hundreds of different companies and groups that will allow room for some sort of partnership. It’s just a matter of you putting in the time to think about how you can help others, while they help you.

© 2008 eMarketing 4 Business LLC

Don’t be afraid to bring back old school business tactics

2009-06-03T10:32:00.003-05:00

Over the years a number of owners have gotten away from some of the oldest business tactics in the book. Now that we are able to contact people so conveniently with cell phones and email, owners are not handing out their business cards as often as they used to. This is a fundamental lapse in business tactics, as you may be missing out on potential customers every time you are away from home or the office. The best way to do business is by doing it 365 days a year. You never know who you might run into when you are at the grocery store, a ball game or any other place that involves people.

The first way to ensure that you are doing business year round and marketing all the time is by ordering yourself some business cards in considerable bulk. It might be one business card alone that pays for this cost one hundred times over. The second way to be sure that you don’t miss lucrative business opportunities and potential deals is by making sure that you always have business cards both in your wallet and in your car. Even if you are out to dinner and realize you don’t have a card on you, you can pop out to your car and grab a few to hand out. The best way to do business is to go find the business, and not make it come to you. You never know who you will run into that might run into. Always carry business cards with you and be sure to hand them out to anyone and everyone, including family and friends.
© 2008 eMarketing 4 Business LLC

I just started my small business…now what do I do?

2009-05-20T10:52:00.002-05:00

First of all, congratulations! You’ve got your business all set and ready to go - now it’s time to make some money! That’s the challenge for all small business owners, so although there isn’t a silver bullet, there are some things you can put in place right now to be successful.

The first thing you need to start doing is marketing. Do all of your friends and family know about your business? If not, tell them. Tell everyone you know about your business. Do you have business cards to hand out to anyone and everyone? Never leave home without some business cards. Put them in your car, in your wallet, everywhere. You never know when you’ll be somewhere and meet a potential new customer. Do you have a website? If not, get one. 70% of all searches for services begin online now rather than through Google and Yahoo!. A website will give you credibility, and chances are people will remember your company name rather than your phone number, so they’ll search for you online by your name when looking for a phone number. Do you have flyers for your small business? If not, buy them. Flyers are great for handing out in mass quantities, whether it’s at a picnic or a community event. They’re easy to hold on to and easy for potential customers to read.

The second thing you need to start doing is developing your service model. You will want to do what you tell your customers you’re going to do and do it with the highest level of customer service. You want your customers to know you are the number one specialist in your industry. Let them know you are committed to doing whatever it takes to ensure quality. From the first time you meet a potential customer to each time you do business, you will want to build your service so that the customer knows what to expect from you and that they can depend on you. The key here is to make sure you treat everyone the same and treat them the way you would want to be treated. You never know who your customers know.

The last thing you want to do is develop some type of referral program. Once you’ve found new customers and service them with the highest level of care, you can start asking for referrals. If you have fulfilled your customers’ needs and provided a great service, you have earned the right to ask them who they know – and if you have done what you say you are going to do – they will be happy to refer their friends. When asking for the referral, confirm with the customer that you have exceeded their expectations. Then say that in order to grow your business, you are looking to meet other people that they know that may also need your services. Use open-ended questions like, “Who else do you know in the neighborhood?” or “Who else in your family might need help getting started?”, and make the questions specific to a group. You can offer customers who provide referrals a free service or money off their next purchase.

Good luck!
© 2008 eMarketing 4 Business LLC

Do I need Letterhead and Envelopes for my business?

2009-05-11T10:31:00.001-05:00

Most businesses don’t really have a need for letterhead and envelopes. People used to think you were a “real business” if you had letterhead and envelopes and now people tend to want to look a business up online and see if they have a web site or any kind of internet presence for validation. For sure you still need to have business cards to be able to pass out to people but if you have a web site, letterhead and envelopes aren’t as necessary any more.

Not to mention so much of today’s business is done by email. If you do need to send someone something by “snail mail” then you can easily type your company name, address and phone number in the upper middle portion of your letter and generate the printed envelope from your printer and then provide your email and your domain name for your web site in the letter for additional validation.

If you still feel like you need to have letterhead made, than have someone create letterhead for you in a word document, then all you need to do is put nice paper in your printer and print it out in color instead of buying a bunch of letterhead and envelopes that you’ll probably never use.

© 2008 eMarketing 4 Business LLC

Do you have your business cards with you?

2009-04-28T09:29:00.001-05:00

You know how it goes; you meet someone, have an interesting conversation with them, and begin to believe this person has great potential to work with you or as a referral and so you ask, “Do you have a business card?”

Many people respond saying “I’m really sorry, but I just gave my last one out” and then just like that, a missed opportunity. It’s hard to determine how many opportunities people let slip away by not carrying their business cards, but by losing the ability to follow up you are losing FREE business clear of any marketing costs.

So take a minute to think, are you the person without the business cards? Or, has this ever happened to you? If so, shame on you! Luckily, opportunity is all about chance and you can still benefit from these chance meetings, but you must have your business cards. No matter what you are doing, it’s always a great idea to keep some cards handy. Working out? Tuck a few business cards in with your health club card. Out to dinner? Be nice to your server and drop a card in with your paid bill. On vacation? Put some cards in your towel bag to take down to the pool.

Ensuring you are carrying company business cards will allow your business to profit and will reflect a higher level of personal organization and professional.

For a great online source to get your business cards and easily reorder so you never run out, click here. Be ready to meet people and do business wherever you go! Make it happen!

© 2008 eMarketing 4 Business LLC

Is Text messaging on a cell phone the same as getting an email feature on your PDA?

2009-04-14T16:31:00.001-05:00

No, they are not the same. Text messaging is a quick way of communicating with people you know by using your phone keypad and typing (texting) a short message to them versus calling them. Texting works well for people that don't have time to carry on a full-fledged discussion, but there is a limited amount of space in which to write, so choose your words wisely.

Texting is a casual form of communication and should be used primarily with people you already know and have a relationship with. Texting people that you do not have a solid previous relationship with may be viewed as cold or unprofessional. ALWAYS make the extra effort to email contacts in which you are interested in doing business with. Remember, you get only one chance to make a first impression.

So now you want text messaging capabilities, how do you go about getting them? Most cell phones are capable of texting already and it’s only a matter of putting a plan together. Be careful because many providers charge extra for texting, so find a cell phone plan including text messaging before you start texting everyone you know.

For information about cell phones that receive email read our article titled Do I need a phone that has email on it for my business?.

© 2009 eMarketing 4 Business LLC

How often should I check email each day?

2009-04-07T17:12:00.001-05:00

This is a great question that we each wrestle with on a daily basis. The answer is: as often as you absolutely need to. That means a different amount for each person. If your business is one that you are getting lots of email inquiries from your web site or online leads, than you should probably check your emails more frequently throughout the day or even consider getting a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) type of phone so you can receive your emails where ever you are at.

If the majority of your inquiries to your business come to you by phone, then you should check your email at least 3 times per day, morning, noon and afternoon. If you do not get many emails than you might consider checking them twice a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon.

Another good idea for you is to forward your phone calls from your office phone to your cell phone when you are out and about, especially if your inquiry’s are time sensitive.

Remember, to build your small business you need to be in front of prospects and customers. Prospects to get more new business and customers to get repeat business and to ask for referrals! Stay closest to where the sales come from!

© 2009 eMarketing 4 Business LLC

# 1 Tip for 2008 Goal Setting

2009-03-30T17:09:00.000-05:00

Think about what you want, not what you don’t want. This is an area that haunts most people in their life and they don’t even know it. Ask someone you know “What is most important to you about…” and fill in the blank. Put family, friends, business associates, vacations or job and see what the people say. Do they tell you what they want or what they don’t want?

If they tell you what they want, chances are they are a person who gets what they want or gets closer to what they want than most people do. If they are a person who tells you what they don’t want, even though you asked them what is important to them, chances are they are getting what they focus on…..which is what they don’t want.

Hopefully this is not too confusing for you. If it is, read it over again and you’ll get the hang of it. Set goals, focus on what you want and don’t let negative thoughts of what you don’t want, slip in.

You are what you think about, make it happen in 2008!

© 2009 eMarketing 4 Business LLC

Are you really focused on Success?

2009-03-17T16:40:00.000-05:00

A couple weeks ago, I spoke to a home inspector who spent a great deal of time telling me how bad he thought the market was. After asking him why he felt this way, he proceeded to explain how bad new housing was and that the mortgage crisis was affecting everything. It really didn’t matter what kind of “business building” suggestions I made to him. He opposed every single one of my ideas. No matter what I suggested, he was not willing to adjust his viewpoint that everything was “terrible”.

I decided to research other home inspectors businesses. I approached employees of AHIT, American Home Inspectors Training Institute, a company which has trained thousands of home inspectors across the country and asked them what the general feeling and feedback was the inspectors who called their customer service and technical support. Overall these were the comments: “I’m not growing as much this year as last year, but things are still plugging along” or “I stepped up my marketing efforts because my business is a little flat this year, but I feel like I’m going to be up a little over last year when it’s all said and done”. In general, the people who remain positive and focused on building their businesses are doing better than the negative ones.

This is true of people in any business. If you only focus on what the media is saying, whether bad or good, your business will probably flow with the “headlines.” The reason for this is because what you believe and get emotional about, you bring about. If you’ve built your business on sound business principles and you focus on the positive, you have very good chance of doing better and more customers will want to work with, or refer you. It’s much more enjoyable to talk and be around positive people than negative ones.

Take a close, objective look at your attitude and make sure you’re staying positive about your business and your industry. If you’re staying positive, good for you! If your attitude has been negative, change it. Every industry has cycles and your attitude has a lot to do with how your business will weather it. Focus on how you want your business to be, focus on the good benefits you provide your customers, and focus on being positive. Do this and you’ll have a better outcome with your business.

Make it happen!

© 2009 eMarketing 4 Business LLC

Why “Doing It Now” is a good thing.

2009-03-02T16:56:00.000-06:00

Why do people procrastinate? Typically there are two main causes that result in procrastination; either the task at hand is OVERWHELMING or the task at hand is UNPLEASANT. Procrastination sucks the energy out of you and causes unnecessary stress. When a person procrastinates they are overloading their mind with too many tasks to manage causing anxiety and nervous tension, all which is avoidable. People spend too much time following up on their follow up instead of using a “Do It Now” frame of mind.

It is much easier to complete the follow up now, instead of putting it off. Try doing this with the things that make sense to do it with. As an example, if you tell someone you’ll call them back in two days; call them back in two days. Really, could you have dealt with the issue present day rather than calling them back in two days? By telling yourself you are going to do less procrastinating and less follow up, you will complete more tasks NOW!

Procrastination can lead to undesirable results. For instance, if you’re not in the habit of making regular backups of your computer files, the first time your hard drive crashes you’ll discover how detrimental procrastination can be. So how can you tell if you are a procrastinator? There are a number of ways, but here are some just a few tell tale signs:

• You allow piles of paper to grow in your home or office
• More often than not you don’t respond to e-mails and letters in a reasonable amount of time
• You have a tendency to delay important projects for more easily accomplished tasks.

Have you identified yourself in this list? No problem, there is still hope for you! To beat procrastinating you must change your mind set and deal with the task immediately, meeting it head on. If the task is quite large, break the task up into various stages, setting goals, and rewarding you for completing the tasks on time. Most importantly ask yourself, “What will be the price of procrastinating and am I willing to pay it?” Eventually you will have to do the task anyways, so you might as well get it over and done with.

By using a “Doing it NOW” frame of mind, you will create more time for yourself and add a new level of efficiency to everything you do.

© 2009 eMarketing 4 Business LLC

Do my business taxes need to be filed by April 15th?

2009-02-16T14:58:00.000-06:00

If you are on a calendar year-end reporting with your company, the answer is most likely yes. The only exception to that would be if you incorporated your business, in which case the company’s taxes are due March 15! You will at least have to pay any taxes you owe by that time. If you would like to file an extension for some reason you can do so, but the extension only gives you more time to file your taxes, not to pay your taxes. It’s always best to file by the original due date to get it out of the way. This way you can focus on building your business the rest of the year instead of having to be concerned about meeting your extension deadline.

Keep in mind that with your small business you will most likely have to complete your business taxes either before or at the same time you file your personal taxes. Since today is New Year’s Eve, it’s a good time to make your list of things to do in 2008 and completing your taxes on time is a great one to add to the list!

© 2009 eMarketing 4 Business LLC

Should I get a company credit card?

2009-01-27T15:32:00.000-06:00

If you have good credit and you manage your finances well, you really don’t need a company credit card. All you need to do is keep your business expense separate and write the business reason on the back of the receipt. You’ll want to keep a running total of your business expenses for your taxes.

If you have a spouse or other people in your family using the same credit card, it is probably a good idea to get a credit card with your company’s name on it and only put your business expenses on that card. Typically you will be guaranteeing the credit card personally but the credit card company will put your business name on the card.

Here are a couple of good options for you if you are ready to get a company credit card. Click Here to view some credit card provider links.

See a related article titled: Should I add employees to my company credit card?

© 2009 eMarketing 4 Business LLC

My business needs money, should I get it from my home equity line if credit?

2009-01-18T12:12:00.000-06:00

That is a tough question. First off, can you accelerate some of your accounts receivable accounts to get more cash flowing? If not, you can also try to send out your invoices faster and try reducing the timeframe for paying them to 15 days from 30.

Also, if you have some jobs pending out there you might tell the prospects you have an opening now and you may be able to reduce your bid to start a little sooner.

If all these suggestions still leave you tight on cash and you need a loan, taking it from your homes line of credit is certainly the easiest way to go but be careful…. If you’re planning on selling your house any time soon make sure the market hasn’t changed in your area and be sure you could sell the house with your current equity position, especially after you take the loan.

If you’re not sure on this one it might be a good idea to get a loan from your banker or a credit union. Credit unions usually have more less strict qualification guidelines and they may also have a lower interest rate than your bank.

If all else fails and you need the dough, your credit line may be the only alternative. Be careful and don’t take more than you need. Turn up your marketing efforts and try to get more business in the door!

© 2009 eMarketing 4 Business LLC

Pick up the phone every now and then!

2009-01-03T16:35:00.000-06:00

Email is just too easy sometimes. It’s good to pick up the phone every now and then and have a real conversation with people. Not just friends but customers too. We get too good at email and text communication. If they’re in town, set up a lunch and get face to face. If they’re out of town then spend a few extra minutes and have a phone call with them.

Take a minute or two before you get on the call and jot down a few things to talk to them about. Ask how they are doing, the family and then after a little small talk you can transition to some business. You may find some other business you can do with them or a project for someone you know. Each time you give out a referral you should expect at least one back.

I know you’ll be on the phone longer with a real call than you will with a text or email but sometimes you just need to “put a voice” with the text....

© 2009 eMarketing 4 Business LLC

How do I know when its time to sell my company?

2008-12-21T19:03:00.000-06:00

If you start spending a lot of time thinking about doing things other than running your business, if you’re oversleeping a lot and you dread the thought of having to keep going to work every day and if you’re day dreaming about what you would do if you didn’t go to work anymore….it might be getting time to sell.

Keep in mind there are lots of people who could never see themselves starting a new business but they can see themselves buying a business that’s already up and running and making money.

There are plenty of people that really enjoy the excitement and passion of starting a company and growing it but they get bored with the day to day of running of it. If you are the type of person who has built a successful business but you don’t enjoy managing and running a company on a day to day basis, it may be time for you to sell your company.

© 2008 eMarketing 4 Business LLC

What are the top 3 financial questions you must be able to answer about your company?

2008-12-11T15:27:00.000-06:00

1) Are you making money?

In many new businesses, the owner is putting so many of the companies expenses on credit cards that answering this question is more difficult than just looking at the business check book balance. They never spend the time to create a profit and loss statement to figure out if they are REALLY making money! Whether you are or not, the profit and loss statement should give ideas of where to focus your time. That may mean watching expenses or increasing sales of more profitable items.

2) How much does a new sale cost you?

I am always surprised at how many business owners can not answer this question. To get the answer, you need to add up all of your expenses associated with a sale. Many people want to just include the price of the lead, but don’t forget to include items such as: costs of leads that didn’t close, other advertising you do, salaries/commissions for sales staff, cost of item sold (product or service). It is best to know these costs per product/service line. This helps you know if the selling expenses associated with a particular product/service is eating up all your profit margins for that product/service.

3) What is the future value, in terms of revenue, of each of your customers?

This means how much business can you plan on getting from each of your new customers in the future? If you have consumable products, how often can you expect each customer to reorder? If you provide a service, when can you expect to do more work for each customer? Knowing the amount and frequency of repeat business allows you to better plan your company’s growth with each new customer won!

Having the answers to each of these questions will help keep you on top of the financial well being of your company.

© 2008 eMarketing 4 Business LLC

Do people really call from vehicle signage?

2008-11-13T15:02:00.005-06:00

If they can find you! I was driving the other day and I saw a truck that said "Reliable Painting" and it had a phone number on it. By the time I realized what they did, they were too far away from me in traffic and I couldn’t see their phone number. I saw the area code and it was local so when I got home I Googled them but nothing came up by that name. I called them because their truck was clean and the ladders, lettering and everything I saw led me to believe they “looked credible.”

The sad thing was I couldn’t find them when I looked them up online. Nothing about their business came up and they did not have a website, at least not one I could find.

The moral of the story? Make sure your business is findable online. Make it happen!

For more information on why your business may or may not be findable online, read this article too.

© 2008 eMarketing 4 Business LLC

Should I exhibit at a trade show or just attend?

2008-11-01T12:30:00.001-05:00

This is a question that every business owner asks themselves at one time or another. If you have never been to the type of trade show you thinking about exhibiting, then take the time to attend the show you find out the real value in showing. Why? Tradeshows can be an expensive means to advertise and you may be able to attend a show, spend minimal costs to obtain the same amount of exposure. Also, it may be tough to determine your return on investment at first glance.

If the trade show is not local you can safely assume your company will incur these costs:
Travel costs (i.e. Airfare, Car Rental, Gasoline, etc.)
Hotel Expenses
Meals
Parking
Tips
Exhibiting fees including but not limited to:
Booth costs (average 10 x 10 $1,000 or more)
Internet fees
Shipping and freight fees
Electricity
Higher food costs at the event and
Personnel cost because you will need more than one person to staff the booth for breaks, etc.

By attending an event you will meet other attendees who would have been potential visitors to your booth and can interact with them by exchanging business cards and telling them about your business all the while, test the waters in terms of interest.

Typically, there is a designated area to for breaks, take several coffee or soda breaks and sit at tables where people are congregating. Talk with them; ask them how they like the event and what they do. They will undoubtedly ask you what you do and you can test out your product’s offering by discussing it with the groups. Take their input and generate from there solutions to best reach your target audience. Spend as much time as you can meeting and talking to people at this show and stay at a hotel where attendees or exhibitors are and network with as many people as possible.

Lastly, while at the show, talk to exhibitors with similar type products/ services that you offer. Before you tell them that you are contemplating getting a booth next time, casually ask if they are having good luck at the show and if it is prompting sales.

By taking all these steps you can decide if you want to exhibit the next time around with “eyes wide open” to all of the costs and the potential benefits.

Tell us how your visit to the next show goes!

© 2008 eMarketing 4 Business LLC

Marketing 101: Don’t blow your shot!

2008-10-11T17:29:00.000-05:00

Who doesn't love a good massage? I feel very fortunate I am able to get one of these stress relieving, knot reducing, self indulging acts on a regular basis to ease the pain from all this typing! When you think of massages, marketing typically doesn’t pop into your mind but for many masseuses marketing is a key tool for obtaining a full clientele base.

I have used the same masseuse for many years now, not only out of loyalty but because their services were bar none. More recently, I was approached by a new therapist who heard about my frequent massages. She attempted to sell us on her services raving how her techniques for deep tissue massage were second to none and that is was absolutely necessary we give her a try. Since deep massages are my forte and this therapist seemed to really understand the concept to giving deep sports type massage I thought I would be willing to try out her services.

As the new therapist's luck with have it, my current masseuse needed to change my schedule around, which did not work out for me and so I decided to contact the new therapist. I made several attempts to contact her via phone and email a couple days ago and I still have NOT HEARD FROM HER!

This brings up a very serious question. Why would the new therapist spend an intense amount of time trying to obtain my business and when the opportunity presented itself she completely dropped the ball? The answer remains a mystery but because of her lack of dependability, she blew it. If this is how she is treating me as a potential customer, how will I be treated once she gains my business when she no longer has to work for it? Unfortunately, she will never get the opportunity.

Not only do you never get a second chance to make a first impression, with some customers you'll never get another chance period. Keep this mind when marketing you services and products. Don’t spend the time to obtain potential customers if you don't plan on staying consistent with your business etiquette.

© 2008 eMarketing 4 Business LLC

What is a PEO?

2008-09-08T13:55:00.000-05:00

A PEO is a Professional Employer Organization. Companies who do not want to manage all of the employee related human resource aspects of running a company, often align themselves with one of these types of companies. A PEO provides a cost-effective alternative to outsource the management of HR, employee benefits, payroll and workers compensation which allows the business owner to focus on their core competencies of running and building their company.

By aligning yourself with a PEO you become a Co-Employer with them. For the most part everything stays the same with this arrangement, you still run the day-to-day management of the company and your people, but your PEO Company makes sure you do it within all of the State and Federal guidelines. They in essence become your in-house consulting firm to consult with to make sure you do everything right with your compliance, administration, procedures and interaction as it relates to your employees.

Another big benefit to aligning yourself with one of these PEO’s is that you can typically offer big Company benefits even though you are a smaller company. How? Because PEO’s usually have hundreds if not thousands of people in their Co-Employment relationships you are able to leverage these big numbers of employees to provide your employees more comprehensive benefits at what are usually lower prices than you could get on your own.

The fees for a PEO are usually a percentage of your payroll. The fees you pay them can sometimes be offset by the savings you might have with workers compensation, payroll administration and benefits cost reductions. Often times companies can compete better for new recruits with more comprehensive benefits and a more coordinated HR process.

© 2008 eMarketing 4 Business LLC

What is the difference between an email address and a domain name?

2008-08-15T16:02:00.000-05:00

A domain name is the address where a web site typically resides. For example: http://blog.em4b.com is our domain name. If we want to have an email address associated with our domain name we could use questions@blog.em4b.com.

It’s kind of like your physical home address where you live. Your home address is 123 Main Street (Domain name) and your address for mail at your home is John Doe @ 123 Main Street (email address).

Hopefully this is making sense to you. If someone gives you their email address and its: billsmith@smallenginerepair.com most people that want to know about your company will go to their web browser and put in your domain name of www.smallenginerepair.com to see more information about your company. If they want to contact you directly they will use your email address at: billsmith@smallenginerepair.com.

Hopefully all this is starting to make sense to you now. The other most commonly used terms for domain names are: URL, Web Address or Web site address.

It’s best to try and keep your domain name as short as you can and as easy to remember as possible.

© 2008 eMarketing 4 Business LLC

What should I look out for when turning in a leased vehicle?

2008-07-31T11:27:00.001-05:00

Fees for Termination, Wear and Tear, and Mileage are the biggest things to look for. There are many horror stories of people turning in leased vehicles and the leasing companies, banks or dealerships charging them thousands of dollars for these fees. It seems the definition of “Wear and Tear” is typically not defined until you turn in the vehicle. When you lease a vehicle, you need to have all fees CLEARLY laid out for you IN WRITING before you sign the lease.

Here are some examples of fees to watch out for:

Lease termination fee - This is a fee the leasing company is charging you to “turn in” your vehicle to them. This can range from $250 - $500.

Wear and Tear fee - This is a fee the leasing company can charge for something that is typically not defined when you lease the car. When you prepare to turn it in they will come up with charges for excessive paint chips, dings, scratches, tire tread depth, gouges, worn carpeting, wear in seats and the list goes on! This can get really high, from $500 to over $1,000.

Investigation fees – These are fees they try to charge you to further investigate things like engine components, pulleys, belts, drive train, etc. Often the leasing company will try to charge you a flat fee to “check” these items and waive any additional fees if they find things. This fee is usually $250 - $500. Or they may try to “investigate further” to find other things. Refer to what you signed in your lease contract.

Mileage fees - These fees are assessed when you exceed the mileage you have contracted for. If you have an allowance of 12,000 miles per year and you have a 3-year lease, you have 36,000 miles. If you turn the vehicle in with 50,000 miles, you will be charged typically between .10 and .25 cents per additional mile. If you went over by 14,000 miles, this fee would be from $1,400 - $3,500 depending on the per mile charge.

Gap fees – This is the gap (the difference) between what your insurance company will pay if your vehicle gets stolen or totaled in an accident and what you still owe on the lease at the time of the loss. For example: If your vehicle is stolen half way through your lease and the insurance company will only pay $18,000.00 and your lease payoff amount in your contract is $22,500.00, you would have to pay the difference between what the insurance company will pay and what you pay the leasing company. This is the Gap fee.

How can you minimize these charges?

1) Clean up the vehicle before you turn it in.
2) Typically the leasing company will call you for a vehicle inspection before you turn it in. Get everything in writing.
3) Pull out the paperwork you signed when you took out the lease. Were you told any of this before you signed the papers? Did they give you examples of what the charges might be and did they go into this level of detail when you signed the paperwork? If not, why are they doing it now, after the fact? You will need to ask them to justify, from your contract, whatever items they are trying to get you to pay for now.

Be careful when leasing cars. Contracts are changing and leasing companies are looking for opportunities to charge fees on the back end of your contract. What seemed like lower payments during your lease term can end up haunting you when you turn the vehicle in, so be careful! If possible and if it makes fiscal sense (especially given all the fees above), purchasing your next vehicle might be the better way to go.

© 2008 eMarketing 4 Business LLC

How much money should I spend on office supplies to set up my home office?

2008-06-09T17:24:00.002-05:00

As little as possible! Too many people go crazy trying to set up their home office to be perfect, to have all the gadgets, new furniture, computers and all kinds of other things. Get what you need to function to start and AFTER you start making money you can think about getting more. Get focused on marketing your new business, tell everyone you know about your new company and try to get referrals. Get your business cards out to people and keep your website up to date.

Start making money with your new business before you start making additional investments in office equipment you don't need yet. Make it happen!

© 2008 eMarketing 4 Business LLC

How do I get on a No Call list?

2008-05-28T16:17:00.002-05:00

The National Do Not Call Registry gives you a choice about whether to receive telemarketing calls at home. Most telemarketers should not call your number once it has been on the registry for 31 days. If they do, you can file a complaint on the Do Not Call Website. You can register your home or mobile phone for free. Here is the link: https://www.donotcall.gov/

© 2008 eMarketing 4 Business LLC

Adding up other people’s money…

2008-05-20T13:58:00.000-05:00

Everybody does it. You know what I’m talking about…..You’re sitting in a restaurant and you start adding up how much your bill will be and then you divide it by the number of people in your party and then you multiply by the number of people in the room. But you’re not done yet, now you figure out how many “turns” of the tables there will be that night, maybe 2 or 3 and then you’ve figured it all out, you know how much the owners made. There is some small talk and then everyone at your table thinks about how glamorous it would be to open your own restaurant and make all that money. Don’t take that thought too far!

You did figure out what the restaurant brought in (gross), but not what they made (net). There is a big difference between the two.

Look at your own small business, what percentage of your gross is going to pay your expenses? If you look at restaurants more than 50% of their cost is typically food and drink and put in another 40% or so for employees and when you add rent, utilities plus some other expenses you don’t have a whole lot left over.

The grass isn’t always as green as your quick calculations would have you think! It’s fun to play with numbers but make sure you focus on growing your revenues and keeping your expenses under control while calculating how much YOUR business makes. Make it happen!
© 2008 eMarketing 4 Business LLC