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As business owners, we always want to maximize our profit. Most of us think about it quite a lot. Always thinking how can we be better, faster, more knowledgeable, create more value for our clients, and grab market share.
This pursuit to sharpen our business skills increasingly includes the use of apps. One we have recently heard of and started using is called Loom. Loom is an app that allows a user to create videos of any length and share them with their team or their clients. In the service industry, we know several businesses who are consistently using Loom to make videos that support their teams in the field. For instance, a service manager of a Plumbing company may make a video that explains the best use of a Ridgid Pro Press. A Pro Press is a relatively new tool that a lot of plumbers are starting to use instead of soldering joints. Having the ability to make detailed videos on new tools that team members may not be totally comfortable with saves time, saves money, and increases profit. Some companies are even taking the step of creating a private page on their website to store Loom videos for their teams to use whenever they need them. They feel this is a smart strategy to stay ahead of the competition. The pursuit of profit never ends and business owners will use any advantage they can to get and stay ahead. The Loom app helps tremendously in that pursuit. We suggest you too start using this app as part of your business. Available for download on the Apple App store as well as Google Play. Thank you, Robert Flynn President The Service Business Bookkeeper, LLC
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Almost all new small businesses are set up as LLC's, S Corps, or C Corps. These legal entities provide a business owner protection by creating a "Corporate Veil". According to the Business Dictionary , the corporate veil is “a legal concept that separates the personality of a corporation from the personalities of its shareholders, and protects them from being personally liable for the company’s debts and other obligations. This protection is not ironclad or impenetrable.” This veil is great protection for a new business owner but as the definition says "this protection is not ironclad or impenetrable. When a business owner loses this protection, it is called "Piercing the Corporate Veil". This loss of protection stems from certain actions a business owner may take . Two of those actions are:
A business owner can legally take money out of their business, but it must be done according to established practices. For example, never pay your mortgage and personal car payment from your business accounts. Instead, write yourself a check or transfer money into your PERSONAL account, and pay your mortgage and personal car payment from there. In summary, keep your company and personal finances separate to avoid many potential problems. Its just common sense. Thank you, Robert Flynn The Service Business Bookkeeper, LLC *This article is intended to provide insight on how business books should be kept. I am not an attorney, and this post is not in any way legal advice. * Thanks to Nolo.com and startgrowmanagae.com for providing great content on this subject. Portions of this blog are a direct copy and paste from their websites. https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/personal-liability-piercing-corporate-veil-33006.html https://startgrowmanage.com/how-to-withdraw-from-business-personal-use/  On occasion and when time permits, I enjoy getting out in the field with our local clients to see them in action and get a close up look at how their business operates.
Our most recent field trip involved seeing GS Mechanical* install a high efficiency tankless boiler and hot water combination for a grateful homeowner. GS Mechanical, led by owner George Stracuzzi, is quickly developing a solid reputation in South Jersey as a company that delivers outstanding value and service. I feel strongly that seeing a client we service in action helps us better serve them. Only good things can come from understanding a business and learning as much as you can about their industry. I am grateful every time I'm afforded this opportunity. Congratulations to George and his staff on another job well done. We are honored to handle their bookkeeping needs and help facilitate their growth. Thank you, Robert Flynn The Service Business Bookkeeper, LLC * The Service Business Bookeeper, LLC adheres to strict internal confidentiality rules regarding their clients. This post was given full consent by GS Mechanical prior to publication. Of all the bookkeeping accounts that affect your business, the one that is most deceiving is your accounts receivable.
In business we are always thinking more. Sales up, profit higher, more clients, checking account balance higher. Good, Good, Good. Accounts receivable up, good too right? Not exactly. It's natural as a business owner to look at a growing accounts receivable balance, see that you are owed a decent amount of money, and feel like it's money in the bank. However, the thing to remember is accounts receivable balance is money OWED, not money you HAVE. And there is a huge difference. Some service businesses, and especially seasonal service businesses, will look at a big accounts receivable balance as a nice payday they will collect at the end of the season or when business gets a little slow. The problem with this thinking is that the longer you let a client go without paying, the less likely you are to collect your money. Another thing that service business owners sometimes do is become uncomfortable asking for their own money when it is late. They think that if they call a client and ask for their payment, they may lose or anger that client. You cannot be worried about that. If your company provided a service the money owed to you is a legitimate debt and you should not feel one shred of apprehension attempting to collect it. So if your company is growing and you see your accounts receivable balance going up, congratulations. However, don't look at that balance as money in the bank and always make an effort to convert that money from OWED to PAID. And never hesitate to ask for money when it is late. Thank you, Robert Flynn The Service Business Bookkeeper, LLC Does this sound familiar? You've been running your business all year, not paying much attention to the books. But it's now October and you get that creeping feeling that your books need attention. It feels uncomfortable, so you decide to try and clean them up enough so your accountant doesn't drop you come April.
You start to go back looking if you paid any money so far on your anticipated tax bill and hoping the sales tax you did pay is in the range of where it should be. Then your day gets even better as you sit staring at a credit card charge you made in March and think "what was that for again?". Not the makings of a pleasant afternoon. By this time you can probably guess that I am advocating out-sourcing your bookkeeping needs to someone like us. I absolutely am. But for good reason. Nothing good ever comes from putting something important off and then trying to play catch up and hoping for the best. Your books should be an ongoing concern, not just a once a year headache. Good books make for better decisions. And better decisions make for more of that six letter word we love, PROFIT, PROFIT, PROFIT. Give us a call so you can avoid the October Creep next year. Robert Flynn The Service Business Bookkeeper, LLC The HVAC business will be seeing some major changes in 2023. These changes primarily have to do with minimum efficiency regulations on all new equipment. Like all changes in business, this will bring both challenges and opportunity. I say embrace both and use the latter part of 2022 to get ahead of your competition by acquiring all the knowledge you can on these changes. Then use that data to develop a strategy that will help you profit from these changes while your competitors are still wondering what's going on. No one ever said "I wish a wasn't so prepared".
Below is a link to a great article from contractingbusiness.com that goes into pretty good detail on this issue. https://tinyurl.com/2p9cr8re Thank you, Robert Flynn The Service Business Bookkeeper, LLC Received an interesting email today from Katelyn Bourgoin. Katelyn is the CEO and Lead Trainer of Customer Camp. Katelyn at Customer Camp CustomerCamp.co
Her email was sent to me as a subscriber to her newsletter. The newsletter deals with issues such as why we buy, the psychology of loss aversion, getting inside your buyers mind, and how to apply certain techniques to sell more. The Service Business Bookkeeper has no affiliation with Customer Camp, nor have I ever met or spoke with Ms. Bourgoin. I am sharing the newsletter with you though because I found it very interesting and think you may too. Enjoy! Robert Flynn, The Service Business Bookkeeper, LLC BELOW IS A DIRECT COPY AND PASTE FROM MY EMAIL In partnership with Ahrefs Pre. S. Wanna smash your growth goals in Q4? For the next 36 hours, I'm offering 25% off my most popular online training products. See P.S. below for details. -- Imagine this… It’s the start of the month, so it’s time to catch up on finances. As usual, you’re looking through your spending to stay on track. Your eyes get a little bigger when you see your credit card bill. You spent more than you’d hoped. As you cruise through the list of transactions, you start noticing a lot of subscription charges. You count a total of TEN subscriptions. That’s *way* too many, you decide. In a moment of unattachment, you decide to cut out 3: including your Amazon Prime Membership. Now is a better time than ever, right? You navigate to Amazon and find the cancellation button. You still feel confident and excited to get rid of these monthly charges. Practically in robot mode (and partly thinking about what you want for dinner), you go through the cancellation process. Click, click, click, and then a pause. Amazon calculated how much you would have spent on delivery fees in the past year — $350. Thanks to your Prime account, you didn’t have to spend any of that. Do you still cancel your membership? In today’s edition of Why We Buy, we’re taking a look at Loss Aversion – why we prioritize avoiding loss over creating gains. Let's get into it… Today's newsletter is generously sponsored by Ahrefs Learn how to grow your blog past 100k monthly visitors and turn thousands of your readers into paying customers in their Blogging for Business Academy. The Psychology of Loss AversionPsychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman realized that people are innately risk averse. When people find $20 on the ground, they feel pleasure. When people lose $20, they feel the loss with an emotion that’s 2x more powerful than that of pleasure! SOURCEOur brains prioritize avoiding loss. Unsurprisingly, Loss Aversion really kicks in when it comes to finances. We’ve all experienced this over the past few years… seeing our investments balloon higher than we’ve ever seen before. And…watching them catapult back down. Which emotion stuck with you the longest — the pleasure of seeing your investments skyrocket or the pain of losing money? That’s Loss Aversion at work. Inside Your Buyer's MindAs your buyer assesses your offer, their mind is hard at work piecing together what’s at stake. Even if your product is 100% guaranteed to give your customer the desired outcome, the power of Loss Aversion might keep them from making a rational decision. This is why it’s up to you to eliminate any perception of losing money associated with your products (even if it means giving them away for free… for a little while). The ultimate Loss Aversion industry is estimated to hit $7 trillion in 2022. This industry is so big that I’m 100% certain you’re paying into it. Have you guessed it yet? Insurance is the greatest example of Loss Aversion in action. The entire value proposition of insurance is to ensure that you don’t lose what you already have. Customers will pay tens of thousands of dollars in insurance over a lifetime, hoping they never need to use it. That’s how powerful Loss Aversion is. How To Apply ThisAlright, so how can we apply this right now to sell more? Let your customer test-drive Free trials and demos are a terrific way to de-risk the decision for your customer. Making the decision to buy a product is a lot easier when there isn’t a loss tied to the choice. Better yet, free trials show your buyers how great life is with your product and makes it harder for them to want to remove it from their lives. Free trials are common in the software world but trials have proved very helpful in other realms too. For instance, DTC mattress company Endy recognized that many people were nervous to buy a mattress online. They mitigated this fear by offering a 100 night free trial. Now buyers can try an Endy mattress with nothing to lose. And once they become accustomed to sleeping on their new mattress, they won’t want to lose those benefits. Highlight specifically what’s at stake People hate feeling like they could be losing money. They hate it even more when you can show them how much they could personally lose. If you want to avoid losing customers, show them what’s at stake.. Amazon uses personalized Loss Aversion messaging to discourage people from canceling their Prime memberships. Phil Agnew shows the difference between the two messages. One is drastically more powerful than the other. SOURCE Give your customer incentives to act Loss Aversion is just as much about de-risking your offer as it is showing your buyers what they’re losing by not having your product or using your services. Make it clear what they’re missing out on and then make it sludge-less for them to opt-in. Give your customers early bird access or offer limited quantities to reward those ready and eager to take action. The Short of ItOffer trials, pain-free refunds, and early access so your customer feels there is no way for them to lose. Ensure that the downsides are eliminated and the upsides are continually enforced. When possible, make all decisions reversible (especially ones involving their hard-earned money). Until next time, happy selling. Katelyn Katelyn BourgoinCEO & Lead Trainer Customer Camp CustomerCamp.co Thanks again to our featured sponsors: Ahrefs is the internet’s fav SEO tool. We'll rely on their free SEO tool to ensure our sexy new Why We Buy blog gets oodles of traffic The Juice is the only content curation platform for B2B marketers and salespeople. Find personalized, relevant resources that are tailored to your role. Save time and stay ahead of what's next. It's free to join. We recently collaborated on a free resource: The Ultimate Guide to Buying Triggers: How Marketers Can Use Trigger Events to Reduce Costs and Drive Sales. P.S. Wanna smash your growth goals in Q4? For the next 36 hours, I'm offering 25% off my most popular online training products:
If you don’t think they’re awesome, you can request a refund—no questions asked ← See? I drink my own Kool-Aid. You received this email because you subscribed or bought one of our products. Unsubscribe | Update your profile | 45 Melrose Ave, Halifax, NS B3N2E5 87,000 New IRS Agents.
Most small business owners have heard of the recent provision included in the Deficit Reduction Act of 2022 where the IRS is getting an 80 Billion dollar cash infusion and will be hiring 87,000 new IRS agents. So of course the question everyone has is, how will this effect me as a business owner? I went looking around the internet and found a good article by Bloomberg on the subject. Hopefully this gives us all a clearer picture on our future. Enjoy Robert Flynn The Service Business Bookkeeper, LLC https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-22/the-irs-getting-87-000-agents-won-t-mean-more-audits-now |
AuthorRobert Flynn, Co-Founder of the Service Business Bookkeeper. "I try to find and share subects and articles that are of value to our clients and all service business owners." Archives
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