Guest Post: "What Does Marketing Strategy Have to do with Bookkeeping?" by Haley Lynn Gray
I have run across more than a few small business owners - some doing okay for themselves, others not - who take the shotgun approach when it comes to marketing their business. The first key is when they tell me that they have “The Facebook”, and they’re doing “ads”, and they are doing a bit of this and a bit of that.
I know that they are likely trying everything they come across, with little regard for the strategy and overall marketing plan. It’s not that I don’t believe in being spontaneous, or even getting creative with part of your marketing. But the reality is that nearly every piece of your marketing should come together; it should all work together, sort of like an orchestra.
If you start running Facebook ads without a solid presence and good organic reach, the cost of your ads is going to be significantly higher, and the cost per client for acquisition is going to be dramatically higher. In some cases, I’ve seen the cost of a lead being 5-10 times the cost that it would be with a good organic strategy.
The same concept applies to Google Adwords. The lower your SEO ranking, and the less high quality content you have on your website, the higher your cost will be to advertise with Google Adwords.
I see people who toss up a landing page using Web.com, YP.com or others. Unfortunately, if you take this approach, you might be building links to a website that isn’t your own. It won’t help you get that organic reach for your website and you’re losing control of the process. You’ll also end up spending more money for fewer leads, and thus end up with fewer results.
It’s important to have a strategy with all the pieces coming together. Sometimes the tweaks can be tiny, like adding a clear call to action on every blog post, or making a point of collecting email addresses so that you can stay in touch with people via email campaigns. It takes strategy and planning to collect those email addresses and to execute a well thought-out marketing campaign. By thinking through how all of the pieces should work, and with help from a strategist if you need one, you can end up saving a lot of money.
Every business needs a strategy and a budget. So does a marketing plan. Everything should be measured, and data should be collected on how your system is performing so that it can be tweaked and improved. Do these steps for every aspect of your business and you will see savings and a healthier bottom line.
Haley Lynn Gray is CEO and Founder of Leadership Girl, a digital marketing agency, where she uses her skills as a sales and marketing strategist and social media expert to help small business owners grow their business.She combines her years of real-life and business experiences with her MBA from Duke’s Fuqua School of Business to benefit her clients. Haley works with them closely to set goals and put processes in place so they can achieve and exceed their goals.
Haley, along with her team, can also help with social media management, website updates, drip campaign management, and all aspects of business marketing.
In addition to running her business, Haley is a mom of four, a Girl Scout Leader and an author of two best-selling books. Haley is truly passionate about helping entrepreneurs achieve their potential, and empowers them to overcome obstacles in entrepreneurial ventures. www.leadershipgirl.com
5 Things Business Owners Don't Realize They Need
We've all heard, "You don't know what you don't know." This is particularly true in business, where it can be easy to develop tunnel vision and focus on your own expertise at the expense of the company.
Accepting the premise that you don't know what you don't know, we can extrapolate that you can't get what you don't realize you need. Everyone knows they need sales avenues, customers, etc. But there are other business essentials which, though not as well-known, are utterly necessary. Here are five things businesses need (which you might not have thought of yet).
1. General Liability Insurance
It's no wonder that no one likes to think about getting insurance for their business. Buying personal insurance, for your house, car, or health is enough of a hassle. Getting quotes and comparing premiums and benefits for your business? That's just piling on.
However, general liability insurance for your business is an absolute essential. You can hope to never need it (I'm sure you're never planning to get sued) but, in the eventuality that you do, you will be grateful for it. Depending on the nature of your business, Commercial Property Insurance might be a recommendation, as well.
2. Workers' Compensation Coverage
Even more insurance! Laws vary by state but, in North Carolina, you are required to carry Workers' Comp if you have three or more employees, or if you have at least one employee and your business works with radiation. (If your business works with radiation, you'll definitely want those general liability and commercial property insurance policies, as well.)
Many employers try to avoid purchasing workers' compensation policies, but it is not a wise choice. Not carrying coverage opens you up to charges of fraud, huge fines and, in some cases, even jail time.
Now let's move away from insurance and segue into something else that can protect you from being sued by employees or the government...
3. A Good Payroll Provider
Unless your business is large enough for an in-house full-scale accounting department (in which case, we're flattered you're reading our blog), you need to be outsourcing your payroll. Running payroll manually is intensely time-consuming, and very risky. If you do not have a payroll expert on your staff, you are taking a big gamble with your tax withholdings and filings. According to the IRS, 40% or small businesses pay an average of $845 per year for late or incorrect filings or payments. (That's over a third of small businesses.)
Furthermore, outsourced payroll services have become ridiculously inexpensive and painless. We at The Bookkeeper are huge fans of Gusto Payroll, and frequently recommend them to clients. Their customer service is excellent, the interface is user-friendly (even for avowed Luddites), and packages start at less than $40 a month. And Gusto is one of many simple, affordable payroll solutions.
Please, do not take on the headache and risk of penalities associated with payroll, without researching your provider options first.
And while we're on the subject of taxes...
4. Sales & Use Tax
Who has to file sales and use tax? According to the North Carolina Department of Revenue, "Every person engaged in the business of selling tangible personal property at retail, selling certain digital property at retail, renting or leasing taxable tangible personal property in this State, operating a laundry, dry cleaning plant or similar business, or operating a hotel, motel or similar business in this State must register with the Department and obtain a Certificate of Registration. This includes a person who sells tangible personal property and certain digital property, or provides a taxable service at a specialty market, flea market, fair, festival, sporting event, or another event or function."
Needless to say, there are many, many people who should be paying sales tax who aren't. So if you are selling a tangible good, even if it's just from a booth at the fairgrounds on Saturdays, you should be filing sales and use tax. And if you do not know to do so, contact someone who does. If you are caught not paying sales tax, you may be assessed penaltyand interest. The risk is simply not worth it.
Now that we've bummed everyone else by talking about insurance and taxes for four entries, let's move on to what's surely going to be the most controversial item on this list...
5. A Website
In 2016, in order to maintain credibility, your business needs a website. (No, a Facebook page doesn't count, though it's better than no web presence at all.) A website (preferably with a unique, personally-owned URL, and not through a "freebie" site-building service) shows your customers and potential customers that you a legitimate, solid company. Your website is the first place people will go to look for information about your business. Not having any sort of web presence at all can read as very suspicious.
Furthermore, you are doing yourself a huge marketing disservice by not having a website. Web marketing provides the absolute most "bang for your buck" out of any form of advertising. Even if you have a successful business without a website, you could be reaching so many more potential customers and be more available to current customers.
Are there any other little-known business essentials you would add to this list? Let us know, and we'll amend accordingly.
How much are you paying for your free lunch?
"There's no such thing as a free lunch." Anyone who has taken even the most basic economics course has heard it. But what does it mean, exactly?
The "free lunch" idiom is frequently used to simplify the concept of opportunity cost, in that, even as you accept a free lunch, you miss out on other opportunities during that period of time. Investopedia defines opportunity cost as, "The cost of an alternative that must be forgone in order to pursue a certain action. Put another way, the benefits you could have received by taking an alternative action."
It's a fairly basic definition and it's one that most business owners understand...in theory. However, for many entrepreneurs, the desire to keep costs low can cycle into a "do-everything-yourself" mentality, which, in turn, lends to missed opportunities.
To better illustrate this issue, consider Janice, professional photographer (and fictional entrepreneur we created for this example).
After experiencing a great deal of amateur success, Janice has decided to become a professional photographer full-time, and open her own studio. She determines that her new business needs the following things:
- A photographer
- Photo editing
- Someone to answer the phone and schedule appointments
- A website
- Bookkeeping
None of this looks too hard to start with, and Janice figures she can handle most of it. She's got the photography and photo editing skills already and, until she can afford to hire a receptionist, she can just take business calls on her cell. There are plenty of places online where anyone can build a free website, and she can keep track of her own business financials throughout the year and figure it all out with TurboTax in April. For a great photographer and hard worker, this shouldn't be any problem.
Of course, things don't go as simply as Janice has predicted. Her phone rings with appointment requests while she's in the middle of sessions and, by the time she calls the prospective customer back, they have already booked with someone else. Her shoots run long because she has to change backdrops, arrange props, etc. by herself. Her days are so busy she has to stay up late working on photo editing. The website she built is...okay, but comes across as generic and slightly amateurish. She's not entirely sure how her bookkeeping as going because, with everything else going on, it's been the last thing on her mind.
On top of all that, she's started to notice that her business needs some things she hadn't planned for, including:
- Photographer's assistant
- Studio cleaning
- Basic legal documents
For the sake of comparison, let's assume Janice continues to do all of this herself. Let's look at how much money she is saving.
Receptionist - $9/hour
Website - $500
Bookkeeping - $500/month
Photographer's Assistant - $12/hour
Cleaning - $8/hour
Basic legal documents - $300
It looks like Janice has saved her business a lot of money through her strenuous efforts and "can-do" attitude. However, we have to factor in the opportunity costs.
Let's take a look at what each of these things Janice is doing herself, each "free lunch", cost:
Receptionist - Missed income from lost appointments; positive word-of-mouth; professional image
Website - Lack of professional image; loss of referrals; missed income
Bookkeeping - Missed deductions; increased risk of audit
Photographer's Assistant - Shoots take longer so fewer of them can be scheduled, leading to missed income
Cleaning - Time and energy diverted away from more profitable activities, such as photo editing and networking
Basic legal documents - Increased legal vulnerability; loss of time
So, when you weigh all the opportunities to genuinely build her business which Janice has lost while she was busy doing everything else, how much money did she really save?
Now, this isn't to say that you should farm out every task you dislike (particularly early on, when small businesses are susceptible to cash flow woes). However, it is key that, before committing yourself to something outside of your wheelhouse, you measure the benefits of DIY versus outsourcing. In many cases, the opportunity costs will be greater than you think.