Tag Archives: Business Advisor

Business Development, Business Strategy, FAQ, Sales & Marketing, Start-ups

What Comes First: Business Strategy or Tax Strategy?

Any business advisor will tell you the answer, but what’s happening in the real world?

Here are a few examples:

VAT

When Jeanne started her exercise class business, she decided after taking advice that she wouldn’t register for VAT. It makes sense. If you want to compete with everyone else then you can’t charge 20% higher prices to include VAT. But now she’s stuck. She can’t grow the business beyond the VAT threshold because she would have to increase her prices or take a significant reduction in margin. Now she’s contemplating setting up separate businesses to boost her earnings. It’s quickly going to get complicated – she can do without all the distraction of doubling the admin work. Continue reading →

Business Development, Business Strategy, FAQ, Sales & Marketing, Start-ups

10 Survival Tips for Small Business Owners

The reality for many small business owners is that they were forced into starting something of their own. Perhaps they were retrenched, fired or unable to find a job.

What this means is that often small business owners really haven’t even had time to obtain some training in basic small business practices such as finance, human resources management and marketing.

The other real danger is that the small business owner works so hard in the business, trying to push for more sales, handling negotiations with suppliers, making month-end payroll and trying to get big customers to pay on time that they don’t catch major problems in their business before they become a threat to their businesses survival.

Continue reading →