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7 Things Tax-Savvy Business Owners Should Do Before Year-End

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Finances ArticleIt’s not too late for you to take steps to minimize your 2018 business taxes!

At the end of the year, many small business owners start looking for ways to lower their business taxes using a TFSA calculator. Although the best tax plans are usually implemented year-round, it’s not too late for you to save in 2018 while you begin to plan for next year.

Here are just a few of the many tax-saving strategies we recommend to our business clients at year-end:

1. Time your income and expenses

Although it is difficult to predict how your business will fare next year, we can review your books and business plan to see whether receipt of income and payment of expenses would benefit you more this year or next. If you have had a great year, you may wish to decrease your revenue by delaying some of your December billings until early January. If you have the cash available, you can also increase your deductions this year by (1) purchasing equipment that you were planning to buy in the near future; (2) stocking up on office supplies and other items that you utilize on a regular basis; and (3) pre-paying your business mortgage, rent, insurance and/or professional subscriptions.

2. Depreciate your new equipment

The Section 179 deduction has been expanded – business are now permitted to take a first year deduction of up to $1 million on purchases of qualified equipment. Above this amount, the deduction is reduced dollar for dollar until it completely phases out at $2.5 million. For equipment expenditures that either don’t qualify under or exceed the limits of Section 179, you can take an immediate first-year deduction of 100% of the adjusted basis of the property under the new bonus depreciation rules. The new law also allows you to take this depreciation allowance for equipment that you purchased second hand – just make sure to put it in service before the end of the year. (Well, if you want to estimate how fast the value of an asset decreases over time, then simple try this smart depreciation calculator that helps to calculate depreciation by using four different methods. This depreciation rate calculator allows you to determine simple, auto, and property depreciation instantly.)

3. Set up a 401(k) plan

You are entitled to a tax credit of up to $500 per year towards the setup and the first three years of administering a company 401(k) plan. You also receive a deduction for all amounts put into the plan, which are tax-deferred until you or your employees withdraw funds.

4. Give bonuses to your staff

You can lower your business taxes and make your employees happy with gifts or bonuses at year-end. Keep in mind that while S Corporations can deduct the full amount, C Corporations can only deduct bonuses to shareholders with a 50% or greater interest in the company. These deductions are not available at all to LCCs, partnerships and sole proprietors.

5. Take all available deductions and write-offs

Remember that pass-through entities such as S Corporations and Partnerships are now able to take a 20% off qualified purchases under Section 199A of the new tax code. Also, don’t forget to take a deduction for business loan interest and to write off bad debts and obsolete equipment!

6. Buy energy-efficient business property

Be good to the environment and yourself (through tax deductions and credits) by purchasing energy-efficient business property, vehicles and equipment.

7. Meet with your tax professional now!

“It is vital that you plan your taxes before the end of the year in order to utilize as many new benefits of the new tax law as you can,” says Moskowitz, “otherwise, you may regret missing a tremendous benefit because you only found out about it after December 31st.”

So before you go any further, check out Simplex Group and find all the tax permits and services that could benefit your business.

About the Author

StrategyDriven Managing Your Finances ArticleSteve Moskowitz founded the full-service tax law firm of Moskowitz, LLP with the firm belief that everyone with the drive and commitment to start and operate a profitable business should not be held back by fear or ignorance of the tax code. In fact, one of the core principles of our firm is that individuals and businesses should learn how to benefit from it.

About Moskwitz, LLP

The tax lawyers and other financial professionals at Moskowitz, LLP offer comprehensive assistance to businesses large and small, including year-end business tax planning services. Located in the heart of the financial district of San Francisco, Moskowitz LLP works with businesses of all sizes. To learn more about Moskowitz, LLP and how we can help you legally save taxes, visit our website at: https://moskowitzllp.com/ or call toll-free at: (888) 829-3325.

9 Team Building Activities Your Entire Staff Can Enjoy

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article | 9 Team Building Activities Your Entire Staff Can EnjoyIn theory, organizing team building activities is a perfect way to get your team to get to know each other outside the office and form a stronger bond within the office as a result. However, finding the right activity for everyone if you are running a company that has multiple departments can be a real challenge.If your workforce is very diverse, there’s a good chance that preferences are going to vary – especially if you have a workforce in which there are employees who are not all the same relative age. This is why you need to find a way to celebrate these differences by choose activities everyone feels comfortable participating in.

Here’s a list of fun team building exercises everyone can participate in and enjoy.

Scavenger Hunt

Purpose: Teamwork

A scavenger hunt is a classic team collaboration game. The rules are easy:

Split your team into equal sized groups and send them out with a list of fun things to find. You can choose whether you want to do this in the office or outside the office. Set a time limit for all groups and put together some fun clues or even riddles that will force your teams to get creative and use not just their eyes but their brains as well! Whichever team comes back with the most items once time has run out is the winner.

Minefield

Purpose: Communication and problem solving

For this indoor game, you will need an empty room or hallway and a bunch of random office items. You can use office chairs, paper, boxes, anything you have around the office that isn’t too delicate or expensive to create obstacles in the empty space or “minefield.” Divide teams into pairs in which one of them must be blindfolded.

The other one must guide that person from start to finish without setting off any mines. That means they cannot step on any obstacles or venture outside the given boundaries. Their only guidance is the voice of their partner. You can change the number of pairs and obstacles depending on how difficult you want this game to be.

Three Truths and a Lie

Purpose: Getting to know each other

This is a really easy game. Before starting, give each team member four slips of paper where each of them can secretly write down three truths and one lie about themselves. It’s very important that the lie is believable. Instruct them not to reveal to anyone what they wrote down!

Then allow 15 minutes for conversation between the team members. This is the time when everyone should go around the room and talk about their written talking points in random order. The goal here is to convince others that your lie is a truth while you try to guess other people’s lies by asking them different questions. Remember- you should not reveal your truths or lies to other team members, even if everyone else has already guessed everything!

Say My Name

Purpose: Breaking stereotypes

Everyone should write down names (e.g. someone famous) or types of people (e.g. professor, doctor, wealthy, athletic) on name tags. Then put those tags on each team member’s back or forehead so they cannot see who they are but everyone else can.

Give people a few minutes to talk to each other and ask questions. The point is to treat everyone according to stereotypes related to the name on their tag. After each team member figures out who they are, they should exit the game and leave the rest of the people to continue playing. This game allows your employees to have fun and engage in conversation while confronting stereotypes at the same time.

StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article | 9 Team Building Activities Your Entire Staff Can Enjoy
Office Trivia

Purpose: Bonding

This is one of the easiest team building games to put together! All you have to do is come up with a series of questions about your office and then test your team’s knowledge. You can ask a variety of questions such as: “What brand of computer does a certain employee use?” “How many people are in the finance department” or “How many windows are there in the office?” or “Who takes their coffee with cream and sugar?”

Besides bonding people through conversation, this fun and easy team building activity is great for testing how observant people are and how much they know about their office, company and colleagues.

Community Service

Purpose: Enhance teamwork and collaboration

Find an activity that reflects your company values, get out of the office for a day and do something good for your community. This team building activity is not only excellent for getting your employees together and bonding through something that’s incredible positive, it’s also great for the overall image of your company in terms of local marketing.

When businesses go out into their communities and help people in need, the members of the community take notice and reward those businesses with loyalty.

Mural Painting

Purpose: Enhancing creativity

For this fun and creative team building activity you will need paint, brushes and something to paint on. It can be a canvas or a wall of your building/office. The point is to give each member of the team complete freedom to paint whatever they want. Give them a general theme and then let everyone create their own colorful masterpieces.

If you are giving an individual canvas to each employee, put them together and display them in your office as a mural once they are dry. Some people might refuse to paint at first because they don’t think they are talented, so make sure you explain to everyone that this is not a contest. This game’s purpose is to show that everyone has a creative side once they overcome their fears of showing it.

StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article | 9 Team Building Activities Your Entire Staff Can Enjoy
Make Your Logo

Purpose: Problem solving

Start by asking everyone to empty their pockets, purses and wallets and gather all the coins you can find and then place the coins on a table in front of you. Each team member should create their own logo for the company or team using the coins in front of them in one minute.

You may also use pens, notebooks, paper and anything you else you have around the office to create the logo. The logo can represent the team members individually or you can work together to create a logo for the department or even the entire organization. It’s a fun and creative game that encourages resourcefulness.

Peanut Butter and Jelly

Purpose: Communication skills

For this team building activity, you will need a small piece of paper for each employee and a list of well-known “couples” such as peanut butter and jelly, Romeo and Juliet, salt and pepper, and so on. Each team member should wear the name of one half of each pair on their backs.

Have everyone mingle and try to figure out the word on their backs while only asking each other “Yes or No” questions. Once they figure out their word, they have to find the other half of their pair. As they find each other, have them sit down while the rest of the team continues until everyone has connected with their pair.

About the Author

Tamara Luzajic is a web content writer and editor, currently working as a copywriter at Humanity, employee scheduling and workforce management software.

Now is The Time to Monetize Yourself with a Vlog!

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article, Now is The Time to Monetize Yourself with a Vlog!

Don’t sit around waiting to be told by the TV when the covid lockdown ends so you can return to your nine-to-five grind or that horrendous night shift job you’ve wanted to leave for years. Now is your chance to capitalize on yourself – your talents, whatever they are, by building an online presence on video platforms and monetizing your web traffic.

Where to start?

Start with your passion!

If you’re not doing what you love to make a living, I’m sorry but you’re doing it all wrong.

Whatever your passion in life, you have gained knowledge and experience which could have immense value to others.

To monetize that passion, all you have to do is let other like-minded people know you exist. One of the easiest ways to do that is by making and uploading videos. Here are some strategic ideas to build an online audience and turn visitors into cash.

Monetizing Video Content

You can monetize your passion with vlogs. Photo by Alexander Mils from Pexels.

Video platforms offer a variety of monetization options. The highest paid YouTubers in 2019 were worth between US$11 and 26 million, according to Forbes. Their videos go viral for various reasons and they become sought after influencers, for a while.

Nevertheless, tens of thousands of individuals earn a regular income from YouTube and other monetized video platforms simply for sharing their experiences, ideas, beliefs and projects in video logs or video blogs (vlogs).

With a few thousand subscribers, you can regularly earn a few hundred dollars just for speaking your mind.

Youtubers generally monetize their content in these four ways:

  1. Revenue earned from ads displayed before, during or after their videos through Google Adsense.
  2. Product placement or recommendations in videos for affiliate marketing partners
  3. Directly advertising your own product or services
  4. Accepting donations such as superchat during live streams and support from Patrons through Patreon or a similar account.

There are many alternative platforms to YouTube, where you can create your own channel, post videos free of charge and monetize your content. Here are just a few of them:

  • Patreon – a membership platform that makes it easy for artists and creators to get paid
  • Vimeo – grow your business with video creation, hosting, and marketing tools
  • Dailymotion – News, entertainment, music and sports
  • Instagram TV (IGTV) – Videos for Instagram
  • Twitch – Live streaming platform for gamers

Clearly define your niche and target market

Do this first! It’s really important to narrow down the definition of the one single thing you do really well, or the one single “product” you have to sell.

Selling your product(s) isn’t always a straight forward transaction. There are tangible and intangible products. Your particular product can be anything of value to others such as knowledge, advice, a video, a piece of music, how-to instructions, a whiteboard presentation… Anything which gives your online audience something to take away after watching one of your videos.

Even your personality can be a product. Maybe there’s a million-dollar YouTuber in you bursting to get out. You might have a unique and engaging presentation style that appeals to a particular demographic.

That demographic sliver of the world’s web traffic is your target market. You must aim your marketing directly at them; just as a sniper uses a rifle, not a shotgun.

When you are on target, your audience grows organically and you see improvements in the ratio of conversions in your visitor numbers.

How to Encourage your visitors to perform an action (convert)

A conversion can be anything that has engaged your visitor and prompted them to do something. It could be one of the following:

  • Watch a video
  • Download a file
  • Click on an affiliate link
  • Subscribing for news and updates
  • Make a comment
  • Buy something
  • Click through your web pages
  • Read through a blog post or two

All these actions or conversions can be monetized. The direct sale of a tangible product is obviously a simple financial transaction which directly translates into money.

Downloadable digital products such as books, manuals and music are more profitable, because you only have to make one but can sell it over and over again.

Offering cheap digital products gives you a better chance of improving your conversion rate.

Buy Web Traffic to Boost Video Views

Once you have your video channel up and running, you need views and subscribers to monetize your content.

Most video hosting platforms provide built-in marketing tools to help you increase the size of your audience but you need to bring viewers in from outside too.

If you don’t have one already, get a website to direct web traffic to your videos and centralize your marketing efforts.

Embedding your videos in your website’s landing page is an effective way to boost video views and subscribers. A website visitor watching one of your videos on your web page counts as a conversion.

Gaining popularity organically through search results alone takes a long time. You could be pounding away on social media for years before benefitting from any serious monetization

One of the quickest and cheapest marketing strategies to kick-start video monetization is to buy targeted traffic directly to the web page featuring your video content.

When you buy targeted web traffic from a reputable vendor you can reach real people interested in your niche or based in a specified geographic location. If visitors find your videos interesting and watch them all the way through, you have converted those visitors and will benefit from the video monetization methods mentioned earlier.

The cost of web traffic varies, depending on the number of visitors you want in a specified time period, as well as the variety of niches available to you. Web traffic vendor MaxVisits has a cheap traffic wizard which gives you a variety of transparent options, letting you tweak and fine-tune your web traffic plan to suit your budget and niche audience.

Free & Cheap Video Production Tools

Almost anyone can make and upload videos with a few basic essentials. A standalone video camera is worth investing in if you want to make solid productions with different angles, zoom and other handy features not available on phones and webcams. Most smartphones and webcams will suffice though, if your face or the screen is always the focus of attention.

Free Video Recording & Editing Software

You can produce professional videos without paying a penny by downloading free recording and editing tools. OBS Studio is popular among gamers for live streaming on YouTube and Twitch while playing the latest shoot-em-up. As you can record and stream your own screen with OBS, it’s also handy if you want to make a slideshow or Powerpoint presentation.

Shotcut is a free open source cross-platform specifically for video editing available for FreeBSD, Linux, macOS and Windows. You can use it to convert your OBS recordings to Mp4 format to upload to video hosting platforms such as YouTube. You won’t need any more than that, unless you are doing advanced special effects.

Cheap Audio & Video Hardware

If you have a good PC, laptop or mobile phone, you should already have enough internal hardware power to produce videos that are good enough to view on mobile devices. However, to make sure you can produce high quality videos with good sound it’s worth investing in a few essential pieces of hardware.

Good Audio is Essential

The audio quality of a video makes the difference between and a mature and professional production. Bad quality audio with wind, hiss, pops and crackles or low volume is an instant turn off. If there’s one thing you should invest in for your vlogs, it’s a good microphone. Webcam mics just don’t cut the mustard.

There’s a good selection of professional Rode and Cannon brand microphones available at discount rates this April and May with a Media Markt voucher.

Make sure you get a mic with a foam sock to cover it to prevent popping sounds from bursts of wind when you speak or are filming outdoors in the wind. This is one investment you’ll be pleased you made when your voice comes over like a news presenter.

It’ll Be Alright on The Night!

It’s perfectly normal to be nervous for your first vlog. Some prefer to pre-record and edit everything before uploading. Others just throw all caution to the wind and go live, warts and all.

See what works best for you. Interacting with your audience during a live stream can really help make your broadcast entertaining and engaging.

Don’t procrastinate. Get proactive and start earning a living just being you!

A Step-by-Step Guide to Improve Your Business Writing Skills

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StrategyDriven Professional Development Article | A Step-by-Step Guide to Improve Your Business Writing SkillsToday, a significant portion of business activities refer to communications, and writing is the most demanded ability, among other communication skills.

Despite its importance, many professionals lack this ability and have trouble writing business materials.

An excellent approach to deal with this problem is to hire a pro essay writing service to compensate for your shortcomings. If you are constrained on money, however, here’s everything you need to compose an acceptable business document:

Have a Plan for Your Writing

While improvised writing deviates you from important issues, having a mental plan helps you to address intended writing objectives. Whether it’s a memo, a proposal, or a report, you should consider the following questions and, accordingly, have a systematic plan of what you are going to write.

  • What do I intend to tell?
  • What should the audience do after reading my piece of writing?
  • What evidence, statistics, and documents do I need to attach?
  • Who is my audience, and which style should I follow in this writing?

Do Not Postpone Your Message

In today’s fast-paced world, business people are not willing to read lengthy introductory paragraphs. They want you to get right to the point and don’t have extra time for unnecessary sentences.

Unlike what you learned at school, in business papers, you’re not going to write a catchy introduction, three body paragraphs, and a perfect conclusion for every email you send to your colleagues.

All you need is to present your message right at the start, be clear, and do not make your readers look for the required information.

Make It Easy to Read

When reading a business writing, people take a quick skim to see what it aims to describe and decide whether or not they should read it. Here are a few tips you can use to make it simple for your readers:

  • Include subheadings for each particular message/call to action
  • Use bullet-form lists to highlight crucial points
  • put the primary issues at the top
  • write vital pieces of information in bold or highlight them

Cut The Jargon

Every industry has its own technical or career-specific terminology. However, if you use too many buzzwords or complicated terms, your writing will create confusion for your target audience, especially when you’re writing for clients, stakeholders, or other non-experts out of the organization.

You don’t want to showcase your field expertise or have your partners check the dictionary to understand your purpose. Your main objective is to communicate a message as quickly as possible. So eliminate complicated words and make your writings more reader-friendly.

Note: In some business documents (e.g., project report), adding technical description may be unavoidable to some extent. If you’re not familiar with your field-specific terms, legitimate essay writing services can be a good help.

Keep It Professional

Avoiding jargon doesn’t mean you have to write in a completely informal manner.

When you have a close relationship with your colleagues, it’s all easy to include a joke or an office gossip in your business correspondence. However, it can pose an adverse effect on your content, harm your reputation, and probably lead to a misconception.

A great way to evaluate the level of professionalism in your business writing is to ask yourself, “Do I feel comfortable if my boss reads this email?” If the answer is no, you ought to rethink and rewrite the email.

Keep It Short

Emails and other electronic documents are more likely to be read if they are brief. If your email took more than half a page, email is probably not an ideal way to convey that information. Maybe you can call that person to talk about the issue or find another way to meet your needs.

Save Templates

As you may know, many business writings follow a similar pattern. Once you wrote a good article, letter, or email, you can save it and use it as a template for your future documents.

Another advantage of this method refers to the tight deadlines where you always rush to give in some report, post some advertisement content, or request a tender. When you are in a hurry, errors, typos and confusing phrases are more likely to appear in your pieces- an embarrassing fault that can be nearly avoided by using pre-written formats.

This is also true about professional essay writing services. Having worked with more than a thousand clients, these essay services have a rich source of pre-saved templates that can be used to construct a superior document for you.

Don’t forget to Proofread

Before pressing the ‘send’ button, take a moment to read your work. Check for potential misspellings, fill out incomplete data and omit extra ones. Put your self in readers’ shoes and see whether he/she can connect with your intentions. Always remember that even a single mistake can cause great embarrassment.

Bottom Line

In today’s information-driven world, every worker- irrespective of their role and operating field- must know how to construct business documents. The above-mentioned tips are great for improving your business writing skills, but if you are short in time, you can also write essays online by paying an urgent essay writing service.

Tips To Improve Your Business and Project Management Skills

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StrategyDriven Professional Development Article | Tips To Improve Your Business and Project Management SkillsBusinesses need managers to run successful operations at various levels and across various departments. These managers efficiently plan, manage, supervise, control and monitor business operations. Senior managers need to develop communication, motivational, and leadership skills to further the success of the company. Self-management and time management are also attributes that successful managers display.

If you want a corporate career as a business manager or a project manager, you are aware that meeting and exceeding goals and objectives are key to your success. Efficient project managers and business managers are required to have a set of unique skills that enable them to execute their tasks better and meet deadlines well within time. However, developing these skills is not matter of joke. They need dedication and time on your part and a focused guidance to help you achieve your career goal.

Here are some handy tips to improve your management skills:

Master the art of time management. It makes for a loss as a manager to waste time since time is a limited resource. You just have 24 hours in a day. Time management skills come helpful in optimising time to meet your project deadlines. Allocating jobs skillfully to team members is a key responsibility area of a manager. Displaying good time management is evidence that, as a manager you understand the significance of productivity.

Learn from the past. There will be time in your career when your project will be halted due to unforeseen reasons. This is the time to bring out the best in you to be able to take the right decision. While seeking the advice of your immediate seniors is the obvious choice of many, reviewing successful old projects to understand the current problem better is helpful. This helps to take valuable ideas from the reviewed projects to run the current project efficiently.

Get better at communication. Effective communication with your team member is vital to the progress your project. Talk, hold meetings and respond in time to build confidence in your team through communication. Communication also established transparency among the team and boosts the morale of the team to deliver the project in time.

Set Expectations and Monitor Deliverables

A part of effective communication is also about letting your team members know what is expected of them. It is imperative to set expectations, so that everyone is aware of his responsibility. This helps in the team to follow process and guidelines and deadlines.

While setting responsibilities and expectations, you should keep a watchful eye on the timely delivery of work from your sub-ordinates. Monitor productivity closely on a day to day basis to optimise operations.

A good manager will require to master a number of different skills to progress in his career. Many graduation courses in Business and Project Management are available that help you sharpen your skills. Your online courses with Learning Cloud will offer you a vast array of business management courses that will imbibe managerial skills in you so that you can reach your career milestones earlier than others.