A new year has come. With a new year comes new opportunities. If you’re running a business in Cache Valley, now is an opportunity to focus on the year ahead and prepare for success. What should your business focus on, though?
1. Taxes & Strategy
The start of every new year is always the time to focus on preparing your taxes. Tax day may still be a couple of months off, but it will come faster than you think. Stapley Advisory and Accounting Services, who manage accounting services in Logan, always recommends starting your prep early in the year. Doing so allows you to get it done early, which will save you a lot of stress later and help you avoid mistakes.
With a new administration in office, we can also expect changes to the tax codes. While prepping your taxes, it would be good to familiarize yourself with the new changes that will take effect this year and keep an eye out for other changes that come out as the year progresses. This will help you plan your business expenses for the year to best take advantage of the tax codes.
In addition to planning for Taxes, Stapley recommends looking at your overall financial strategy for both business and personal growth. Financial planning is only a piece to a much larger outlook when it comes to planning for a business. It can include key employee insurance, exit/retirement strategies, leveraging other assets and depreciation for business portfolios. If you’ve grown beyond the 500K mark, there are a lot more questions that a financial advisor would recommend.
2. Simplify Marketing Management
Marketing is central to a business’s growth, but many recent changes in technology are adding new challenges and complications. Many businesses are struggling to keep up with managing all the new avenues of communication. New channels such as voice search, and AI results to go along with social media, local ads, and other marketing can be overwhelming. With so many things to keep track of, expenses can add up. Consider how many software subscriptions your company has. If you’ve tried to keep up, it can be a lot.
Did you know it’s common for most small businesses to need as many as 20 different software apps to manage their business? Multichannel communication management can make your practices overly complex, resulting in loss of leads, clients, and negative reviews. This can cost you thousands of dollars in new sales. What’s the best way to stop leads from running to your competitors?
Atlas Internet Marketing suggests simplifying the process. By examining what subscriptions are bringing in the most value to your business, you can cut down on what services you pay for. There are so many automations available with the AI boom, but that doesn’t mean the cost is justified. Many software services have overlap, allowing you to cut out smaller programs without sacrificing the advantages they provide. By tracking what’s working and managing proper integrations, you can make it easier to keep your team all on the same page. This will cut down on expenses while allowing your company to focus more on its most successful strategies.
Having a main marketing software that can integrate communication with project management and bookkeeping can help reduce the need for excess data entry and save hundreds of operational hours. Less data entry means less chance for error, preventing time-consuming accidents that will leave your customers unhappy.
3. Event Management
Online marketing isn’t the only strategy. Many businesses around Cache Valley are finding great benefits in holding or participating special events according to a local Cache Valley DJ. Fun events with games, music, and free food can do wonders for hiring and employee retention. You can set a mood that excites people and helps employees get to know each other and their managers.
If opened to the public, these events can also be good for spreading word of what your company is doing. They’re great opportunities to find leads and bring new customers on board. They’re also great for attracting new hires. If you team up with other local businesses, you can build networks for reasonable costs that potentially offer major returns on the investment.
Photo and Featured Image by Christina Morillo
Start Planning Now
As we come to the end of winter, people are going to start being more active. Now’s the time to get ready to take advantage of the upcoming spring activity. Get necessary activities like tax prep out of the way now, so you have more time and energy to focus on your business. Simplify your business strategies and tools to save money and make it easier for your employees to get things done. Use events to engage both employees and customers for better business results. Getting a head start will make things run more smoothly as the year progresses, so don’t wait!
