Jeff Cornwall writes about how the IRS is making life difficult for small business in the US. Well what is new about government “helping” us all along in one direction or the other. Anyway the opening sentences got me thinking:

The best sources of ideas for businesses comes from your experiences and interests. Many great businesses have been built out of hobbies and other passions. Often these businesses start very small, as what some call “lifestyle” businesses that eventually create a little income. Over time, the entrepreneur is able to transition from a few evenings and weekends to a full-time business.

This is so true, but what is being done to help this transition, pretty little. The usual stuff of, you should be an accountant, lawyer and everything else before you start - oh and apparently, you will need a loan from a bank - maybe you even need a degree to go into business? Think again.

If one thing is clear from Jeff’s lines, it is that there is another way, the slow and low risk way of getting into business. Start your business as a hobby, but be professional and very low cost about it. See where it takes you before you commit your and your families future to it.

Talk to a Business Advisor about your idea, plan your business venture and have fun with the opportunity of a different and more rewarding work-life. Maybe, just maybe, one day you would enjoy learning more about the “technical” aspects of running a business successfully, do some courses or even a degree.

What we really do not need is the lifestyle business prevention measures from the likes of the IRS and others. But then who ever said that “civil servants” or politicians know what is good for you or the country?

Tags: Business Development, Business Idea, Business Infrastructure, Business Mentoring, Business Start Up, Cash-Flow, CPAs, Entrepreneur, Home Business, Homesourcing, Institute of Business Advisors, Lifestyle Business, Micro Business, On-demand, OnlineOffice, Outsourcing, IRS, SaaS, SBI, Selfemployed, Small Business Infrastructure, smb, sme, sme-blog, Software as a Service, SOHO, Teleworking, Very Small Business, Virtual Assitants, VirtualOffice, VSB, Web Technology, WebOffice, WebWare, WinWeb AccountsOffice

What is it your business really needs an accountant or a business advisor, let’s look at it!

Your accountant will help you to prepare your annual income statement with which you will have a past look at your business. You will need this information to fill your tax statement, find out if your business is worth running - if you made or lost money. Maybe you decide to grow or close your business. Your accountant can also help you to prepare documentation to give to your bank to get a loan for your business.

But is that really what your business needs? Does your accountant take the time to find out if you really need that loan, or if you really need to close your business or just make some changes to the way you run your business, like outsource some of your non-essential business processes, let your employees work from home and with that reduce the fixed cost in your business. Have someone play the devil’s advocate with your business plan.

Your business needs a future before you need to worry about the past.

Unfortunately most accountants don’t “deal” in the future, they only look at the past performance of your business. This is where Business Advisors or Business Mentors come in. They are all about the future and the planning there of - that is what your business needs.

Importantly you need someone to give you good advice based on facts when you need it, not after you sent your papers or data-disk. By then your problem could be out of control or the opportunity gone. The only way to do that is by using an on-demand online system.

If your accountants starts talking to you about balance sheet and P & L, before he/she talks about cash-flow, do yourself and your business a favor - get up and leave and find a new advisor. The truth is most accountants have the same problems running their business as you have with your own.

But if you’re really lucky you could find a Business Advisor Accountant, then you would have found the best possible partner for success in your business adventure for the future and the past.

Tags: Accountants, Business Development, Business Mentoring, Business Start Up, CPAs, Entrepreneur, Holden Associates, Institute of Business Advisors, Micro Business, Office/IT, On-demand, Outsourcing, Cash-Flow, SaaS, SBI, Selfemployed, Small Business Infrastructure, smb, sme, sme-blog, Software as a Service, SOHO, Teleworking, VAs, Very Small Business, Virtual Assitants, VSB, Web Technology, WebOffice, WinWeb, WinWeb AccountsOffice , WinWeb CashBook, WinWeb OnlineOffice

Isn’t it funny how much we talk about global warming these days. It entered our daily consciousness with a vengeance, that is the “normal” people in the street. Even our politicians woken up to the fact that “something” - I’m not sure they know what - is going on.

While most businesses still wonder what it all means, small business can really generate hard cash benefits from going green. Just letting your employees work from home and outsource some non essential business processes, your business, your employees and the environment win.

It is not only that more employees would like more flexible working hours to spend more quality time with their kids and family, but they would save a lot of money and time by not commuting to the office every day. Your business also benefits by lower overheads (office rent, insurance, heating, capital investments, etc.), which will improve your bottom line no end.

The same effect it true when you outsource, it allows you to tap into the VA - Virtual Assistant market of highly trained and professional people working from home. Your business will receive a high level of expertise if and when you need it, at a fraction of the cost. This will get you better results at a fraction of the cost, variable cost not fixed cost, again giving your business a better bottom line performance (profit).

Last but not least, we all win with these strategies, less cars on the road, less congestion, less carbon emissions, less global warming.

SaaS, webware - call it what you want - can help to achieve these goals with ease. It will also get your business a lot of good will with your clients, since at least the consumer is now environmentally aware.

When is your business going green, start saving the planet and increase your bottom line - it’s easy!

Tags: Business Mentoring, Entrepreneur, Global Warming, Green IT, Home Business, Homesourcing, IT, On-demand, OnlineOffice, Outsourcing, Eco-Friendly, SaaS, SBI, Selfemployed, Small Business Infrastructure, smb, sme, sme-blog, Software as a Service, SOHO, Teleworking, VAs, Very Small Business, Virtual Assitants, VirtualOffice, VSB, Web Technology, WebOffice, WebWare, WinWeb, WinWeb OnlineOffice

Dennis wrote a post ” You’ve been outsourced“, and asked the question what our end game would be. Well after two years of trying to get trough to the accounting profession that they need to evolve and become more than accountants for small business, I have to admit defeat, it is very hard work.

In the last few weeks and months I have had discussions with my Gold Partners and other business partners to determine our way forward.

The result is simple: We will outsource some of our client’s service needs to our new service centre. This will have a profound impact on the pricing structure of our Live! services.

It is my aim to offer OnlineOffice, Call Handling, Fax-number, Bookkeeping, Website Maintenance, Debt Control, Business Address and Mail Handling from less than GBP 80 (USD 160) per month for a five user license.

I will try and talk to all of our accountant partners in the next few months and determine our relationship with each of our existing and new accounting partners based on their ability to be an active and effective part of our Small Business Infrastructure and help to reduce small business mortality.

I am unhappy about the number of businesses going out of business within the first year of business. Some accountants and most surprisingly banks seem to think this is a “God given fact”!

Well, I beg to differ!

Tags: AccMan Pro, Accountants, AccountsOffice, Bookkeeping, Business Development, Business Infrastructure, Business Start Up, Business Tool, Cash-Flow, Client Relations, CPA, CPAs, Entrepreneur, FREE Business Tool, Home Business, Homesourcing, IT, Micro Business, On-demand, OnlineOffice, Outsourcing, SaaS, SBI, Selfemployed, Small Business, Small Business Infrastructure, smb, sme, Software as a Service, SOHO, United Kingdom, VAs, Very Small Business, Virtual Assitants, VirtualOffice, VSB, WebOffice, WebWare, WinWeb, WinWeb AccountsOffice , WinWeb CashBook, WinWeb OnlineOffice

I have been asked to be a speaker at the first SIIA OnDemand Conference in Amsterdam from May 30th to June 1st. The event is hosted by The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA).

SIIA OnDemand Europe is the European software industry’s first comprehensive conference for enabling and delivering Software as a Service. Delegates represent the complete SaaS ecosystem, including ISVs, platform vendors, systems integrators, venture capitalists and other influencers.

I will be a panelist on the “Pricing and Sales Compensation Strategies” hosted by Phil Wainewright. I’m sure that is going to be an interesting discussion, since I believe the value of software is very limited, certainly in my market segment of small business. To be successful in this area you will need more than software.

The following day I will give a small preview of our Small Business Infrastructure and the implications for small business.

I would be delighted to meet with anyone of my readers at this event, please come and see me.

Tags: On-Demand Europe ‘07, Phil Wainewright, WebWare, SIIA, Small Business, Small Business Infrastructure, smb, sme, sme-blog, Software as a Service, SOHO, VSB, WinWeb

Things must be getting pretty painful for the traditional media judging by the latest onslaught on bloggers and mobile phone journalists. It is asserted by a growing number of “professional” journalists and photographers, that these amateurs do not produce work of a high enough technical standard to be taken seriously.

Furthermore their training has not been adequate, many of the “amateur” photographers do not know which pictures are worth taking and bloggers can not produce original, unbiased and objective work.

IMO bloggers in many instances are better informed and educated about the subject matter of their blogs and pictures taken by mobile phones, however technical inferior, are more relevant to a news story.

What really gets me going is these people who live off the freedom of speech, now try to curtail the new online media, with these infantile arguments.

Here it is, these bloggers make up about 70% of the information sources I use and they are here to stay. The traditional media has a lot of work to do to gain my trust again and this unprovoked onslaught is not helpful. Bloggers may be biased and have an agenda, but at least they know what they are talking about.

Tags: Blogging, Jurnalists, Media