Asking the right questions can be the key to unlocking talent, opportunity, money, even second dates. Recently, Kristen Senz, a social media creator for Harvard Business School’s Working Knowledge, compiled this list of research findings related to the business benefits of asking better questions.

Asking Questions Can Get You a Better Job or a Second Date
Asking follow-up questions can improve your life and increase emotional intelligence.

Looking in the Mirror: Questions Every Leader Must Ask
These seven questions can help managers and leaders address almost any challenge.

Four Questions Fundraisers Must be Prepared to Answer
Fundraisers and entrepreneurs must be prepared to answer these four questions.

Resolve Your Toughest Work Problems with 5 Questions
Ask yourself these five questions to find the best decision.

Seven Strategy Questions: A Simple Approach for Better Execution
Successful business strategy lies in asking the right questions, not having the right answers.

Teaching The Deal
Showing emotion, asking questions, and understanding your own strengths and weaknesses can be the keys to a successful agreement.

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26% | Percentage of business owners who have gone two to six months without paying themselves
25% | Have gone over six months without a paycheck.

The stress and strain of cash flow concerns

63% | Percentage of owners who regularly stressed or have anxiety due to cash flow concerns
35% | Often lose sleep or have difficulty sleeping
42% | Have sacrificed much of their social life and personal hobbies
32% | Say their family life suffers
91% | Spend as much as 20 hours per week on cash flow management (payroll, invoicing and purchasing inventory).

What would small business owners do if all cash-flow tasks were eliminated?

51% | Invest more time in sales and marketing to drive new business
35% | Further develop their products and services, saying they have new ideas but no time to focus on them.
32% | Spend more time with family, friends and community
30% | Focus more time on customer service
22% | Use the time on hiring and mentoring their employees
22% | Investigate new technologies and business systems to make their company more efficient

Source: Kabbage, Inc.

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Amara’s Law was later illustrated by a line chart from the research company, Gartner, that calls it “the hype cycle.”

Note: When it comes to issues related to taxes and the law, you should always consult your company’s legal and financial advisors before making a decision.

In many cases, it’s easy to know that a service provider is an independent contractor: You hire a freelancer to write copy for a brochure, you pay a bookkeeper to spend a few hours each month to assist on an accounting need, you hire a painter to repaint a room in your building. In those examples, it is easy to classify the service providers as independent contractors.

However, there are many situations in which determining the difference in employee and independent contractor status can become more confusing, and in some cases, contentious.

Why it’s critical to correctly determine whether a service provider is an employee or an independent contractor

Whether or not someone is an employee can have an impact on a wide array of federal, state and local regulations and taxes. Everything from tax withholding to employee benefits to wage and hour guidelines (minimum wage and overtime issues) are determined by the status of the relationship between the company and service provider. State and federal agencies have joined together to, in the words of the Department of Labor, “combat (the) pervasive issue” of employees misidentifying employees as independent contractors. Use of the word “combat” indicates that the Department of Labor views finding businesses misidentifying employees as a war. In such a war, it is important for a company to clearly determine its relationship to all those providing it services that may fall into a gray-zone.

Common law rules for determining the difference in an employee or an independent contractor

In general, there are three areas (or, “common law” rules) that determine if someone providing your company a service is an employee. All are related to how much control the business has over the provider.:

Behavioral factors: These factors relate to how much control the company has over what the worker does and how the worker does his or her job. For example, if the business hires a free lancer to provide a certain number of articles for a newsletter, that would be an independent contractor. If, on the other hand, the company required the freelancer to write those articles between 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at a specific office using the company’s computer, the designation of independent contractor would be harder to defend.

Financial factors: Are the business aspects of the worker’s job controlled by the payer? These include things like how worker is paid, whether and how expenses are reimbursed, who provides tools/supplies, etc.

Relationship factors: Are there written contracts or employee type benefits (i.e. pension plan, insurance, vacation pay, etc.)? Will the relationship continue and is the work being performed a key aspect of the business? If it is, the relationship will more likely be judged a business-employee one.

According to the IRS, there is no “magic” or set number of factors that “makes” the worker an employee or an independent contractor, and no one factor stands alone in making this determination. Also, factors relevant in one situation may not be relevant in another. The keys are looking at the entire relationship, considering the degree or extent of the right to direct and control, and finally, documenting each of the factors used in coming up with the determination.

When in doubt, you can request a determination from the IRS

As noted above, you should never make decisions related to taxes or regulations without consultation with your legal and financial advisors. However, the IRS does provide the option to businesses to seek a ruling on an employee’s status by filing a Form SS-8 (PDF), “Determination of Worker Status for Purposes of Federal Employment Taxes and Income Tax Withholding.” The form may be filed by either the business or the worker. The IRS will review the facts and circumstances and officially determine the worker’s status.

Be aware that it can take at least six months to get a determination. And once a determination is made (whether by the business or by the IRS), the next step is filing the appropriate forms and paying any associated taxes the ruling may require.

Did we mention that you should seek guidance from your legal and financial advisors when doing this? Even if we did, it’s worth repeating.

Resources related to this topic:

• IRS.gov: “Independent Contractor (Self-Employed) or Employee?”
• Department of Labor (DOL.gov): Employee Misclassification as Independent Contractors

A new study of small businesses in 11 nations released today (September 12, 2017) suggests that time spent on administrative costs at a small business can represent up to 17% of total labor costs. The research was conducted by the consulting company Plum and commissioned by the accounting and financial software company, Sage. One reason for the high cost of administrative tasks is likely that 50% of small businesses do not use technology-based accounting and financial solutions.

Key Findings

5% | A 5% increase in small business productivity in the U.S. could lead to an increase of close to $325 billion in GDP.

17% | The percentage of manpower (time) spent by a small business on administrative tasks each year.

20% | Percentage of administrative time spent on accounting, the top administrative cost.

30% | Percentage of small businesses that manage their accounting digitally.

50% | Percentage of small businesses that have no accounting software solution in place at all.

When asked why they had not adopted technology-based tools to streamline their administrative tasks, the most common answers from small businesses were “nothing,” followed by “time-consuming,” and “implementation costs.”

Using technology to streamline administrative tasks
could have a significant, positive impact on an entire country’s GDP.

Source: Sweating the Small Stuff: the impact of the bureaucracy burden

]]> https://smallbusiness.com/manage/small-business-less-from-football/ Thu, 07 Sep 2017 17:42:10 +0000 https://smallbusiness.com/?p=29049

College football kicked off last weekend. While it may be a challenge to predict who will win the Division I Championship in January, it’s a bit easier to predict what team will win–or come close to winning–the NCAA Division II championship: The Northwest Missouri State Bearcats. 

The Championship Factory

The key to being a champion: “Non-cognitive skills”

To understand the consistency of the success of Northwest Missouri State’s football team, Brian Davidson, founder of the Intrinsic Institute, conducted a wide-ranging set of tests on the team and its coaches. He focused primarily on “noncognitive skills” such as grit, resilience, self-control, hope, and conscientiousness.

The tests revealed the coaches displayed especially high levels of self-discipline, self-control, self-awareness, adaptability, grit, and resilience.”The data suggested these coaches possess the ability to persevere, be disciplined in their work and delay gratification, know their strengths and weaknesses, adjust well to change, and bounce back when faced with tremendous adversity,” says Davidson.

High moral character

When the researchers worked with the coaches to determine the dominant noncognitive trait a player needs to possess in order to succeed in the Northwest Missouri State football program, it was a “high moral character.” Players who received the highest intangible scores from the coaches were those who can:

• Resist negative temptations
• Think through possible consequences of their actions before making a decision
• Control their emotions

Leadership is crucial

According to Davidson’s interpretation of the research, the success of Northwest Missouri State can be attributed to coaching staff composed of highly motivated, very disciplined, and perseverant individuals who can adjust when needed and bounce back when they get knocked down. But the coaches take it one step more: They create a culture of excellence, year in and year out, by seeking players with the type of leadership necessary to help them reinforce a culture of excellence throughout the team.

Mental edge

When comparing the Bearcat team to a lower-performing collegiate team, the Bearcats have an edge in such areas as self-discipline, grit, and self-awareness. Above athletic ability, Davidson says the Northwest Missouri State football program is consistently good because its entire program, coaches, and players, are focused on:

• The desire to excel
• A willingness to do the hard things very few people will actually see
• A strong commitment to continuous improvement

Apply the Bearcats approach to your small business

Change the setting from football to starting and running a small business, and you’ll quickly realize that companies that succeed exhibit the traits of the Bearcats. It starts and the top, but requires the creation of a culture where everyone exhibits the desire to excel, a willingness to do the hard (and often unseen) things, and a commitment to continuous improvement.

VIA | CreativityPost.com

Photos: Northwest Missouri State

You may think that social marketing is all about platforms and tools and photos and likes — and networks. But according to the chairman of the world’s largest networking company, John Chambers of Cisco Systems, “social marketing” is about customer experience; about having a business culture that has a core-level emphasis on providing the best customer experience possible. And what is the key to such a culture? It must start and the top with the owner or CEO.

Last week, I had the opportunity to hear Cisco Chairman and former CEO John Chambers speak to 700 social marketers attending the Sprinklr Summit. The audience was filled with men and women who run the social marketing efforts at many of the nation’s best-known and successful brands. However, after hearing Chambers, there was a lot of hallway chatter among the all-star marketers about how far their companies need to go to truly embrace a culture that can transform their relationships with customers.

According to Chambers, the companies that thrive in this new order will be those that don’t see technology as mere tools for gaining likes or generating leads. The companies that thrive will be those with a top-down belief that their companies’ entire reason for being is to ensure customers have an unmatchable good customer experience with their company.

Cisco Chairman John Chambers | (Photo: SmallBusiness.com)

Chambers stressed that small businesses are so close to their customers that providing the best experience to customers should come naturally. And if you look out over the next couple of decades, “small businesses are going to be the primary creators of net new jobs,” Chambers said. The small businesses who grow will be those that embrace the belief that nothing about their business is more important than them providing their customers with an unmatched experience, he said.

Chambers said social marketing and customer care should not be thought of as separate functions. They are the same thing and are at the core of the company’s culture. The technology that enables social media is in its infancy; often frustrating and disconnected. But with the right type of business leadership that is dedicated to providing an unmatched customer experience, you can change your company’s culture today, he said.

And what is the “return on investment” for fully focusing your company on building longterm, deep relationships with customers? According to Chambers, a 5 percent rate of customer retention will translate into 75 percent increase in profitability.

Another metric to consider, said Chambers, is that 80 percent of your future income will be generated by 20 percent of your current customers.

Rex Hammock is the founder of SmallBusiness.com
A version of this article appeared on Idea Blog.

Photos: istock, SmallBusiness.com

Writing for SBA.gov, business planner extraordinaire Tim Berry suggests that following five simple “business refresh” ideas will help you manage your business goals, growth, and execution. These are condensed versions of his insightful suggestions.

1 | Refresh Your Strategy Framework

Step back from the day-to-day details and look at the long-term strategy of your business.

• Think about your identity as a business. That’s what makes it unique. It’s strengths and weaknesses, core competence, history, and long-term branding.
• Think about your target market. Think about an ideal customer. Remind yourself who isn’t a customer, and why. Don’t try to please everybody. Try to please your specific target buyers.
• Think about your business offering. That’s what you do, as a business; what you sell. Relate that to your identity. Relate that to your target market.

2 | Refresh Your Tactics

Tactics are how you execute strategy in everyday business. They are decisions you make and follow about business basics including pricing, delivery, channels, promotion, personnel, policies, and so forth.

3 | Refresh the Key Metrics

Managing by key metrics gives you something to shoot for that is objective and measurable. You can track progress over time. And you make good and bad results visible, and actionable.

4 | Refresh Your Milestones

Milestones are events, achievements, and accomplishments that a business can work towards. Setting milestones helps people work better towards reachable, manageable goals rather than just vague ideas about the future.

5 | Refresh Your Forecasts

All business owners benefit from a simple forecast. It’s about getting your assumptions into an organized form, understanding the drivers, and setting up something you can track monthly with plan vs. actual analysis that leads to revising and refreshing often.

VIA | SBA.gov “Five Ways to Give Your Business A Strategic Refresh” by Tim Berry

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If you have a knack for stats and know your way around creating charts from spreadsheets, Google has a new deal for you: Free use of  Google Data Studio, a dashboarding and reporting tool it launched last year. In the world of statistics, a dashboard refers to a web page that aggregates and displays data, typically being pulled in real-time from various online sources. In this case, Google Data Studio is pulling in data from Google sources, such as Google Analytics, Google AdWords, and Google Sheets.

Google released Data Studio last May as part of its Analytics 360 suite. While Google described the tool as “free” then, the earlier release limited users to five reports. The announcement today removed the five report limit. Data Studio is somewhat late to the party, but again, it’s free. Current visualization analytics platforms include Tableau, QlikView and Microsoft’s Power BI.

Va-room

As one picture of a data visualizing tool is worth 999.9 words, here’s a video explanation from Google about what Data Studio provides.