Moving Ahead in the New Year!

The new year has arrived and the first official Monday is tomorrow! Are you ready to make a difference in your life and business this year? Not that you have not made a difference every year but a new bigger difference this year!

The roll over of the annual calendar allows us all to make changes, updates, new commitments and face the past challenges head on.

This is the time to find ways to Move Past and Move Ahead of it all. If you have not sat down and made a list of what worked last year, what did not work last year, what changes you would like to see happen this year, what people you would like to connect with this year - it is not too late!

Take a moment to review your logo, your website message (your tag line and the direction the message is being delivered), your meta tags, your keywords - be sure your branding is in line with where you want your business to be going! Sometimes we start out with our branding in once place and after a few years (or maybe even a few months) the direction or mission has slightly changed but your branding has not been updated. Updating your branding to be sure the most current direction of your company is being relayed is vital to your growth! You want to continually connect with your target market right? Stay up to date!

There are several Virtual Assistants that specialize in niches like this - they can assist business owners who might not have enough time to go through all of the changes. There are VA’s that assist in keeping your SEO up to date and continually adding to your key words and meta tags so you stay on top! Last but not least there are Marketing Strategists that can help you from point A to point Z in putting it all together!

Remember there are Virtual Assistants and Strategists out here to help you… if you are interested in getting a couple of referrals, please contact me and I would be happy to make a connection!

Tax Time is Around the Corner – Don’t get stressed!

Small business owners are notorious for gathering stacks of business cards and never having the time to build that follow up database.  I discussed ways a VA can help in this situation.  There is another “stack” that small business owners are notorious for collecting… is it the dreaded stack of receipts!  Receipts for meals, office supplies, invoices and so on…. When it is getting closer to the end of the year we all start dreading dealing with the “stack”!  Here are a couple of simple tips for  organizing (well they might not help this year but if you implement it now you will be on track for next year) Tip #1 - keep a pen with you everywhere and when you get a receipt for anything jot a note on it - for example if it is a meal receipt, who did you meet with? a small note on what was discussed, just enough to jog your memory. Tip #2 -  get an accordion file keeper and label the sections “meals”, “office supplies”, “business expenses”, “events”, “advertising *& marketing” and so on (you can get some suggestions from your accountant of sections they would like to see)  THEN here is the hard part…put the receipt in the file keeper in the right section!  A VA can help create a nice excel report for your tax accountant and your files listing all of the receipts along with the notes so “gosh for bid” you ever got audited you had ledgable notes and are organized!  I work a lot with my own records like this creating a chart by category and sorted by dates with all of the info - when, where, who and why on my excel!  My tax accountants Gail Hargrove in Granada Hills loves my system and wishes I would teach a class on it… well little did she know! And Bill Friedman Santa Clarita likes the organization and the fact I can just hand him my totals.