5 Inexpensive Ways to Recharge Your Business

It’s the beginning of a new year; time to invigorate your business and get started on the right foot. Don’t worry – you don’t have to make monumental changes or spend a lot of money. But there are 5 little things that you could start doing today that will recharge your business.

1. Clean your office.
Clutter on the desk sometimes creates clutter in the mind. While your office may not require a visit from the health department, if it’s interfering in your productivity it needs to be cleaned up and organized. Sometimes a couple hours are all it takes to sort out your office and give you peace of mind. Perhaps your office is in need of a work-friendly change. Don’t shy away from rearranging furniture or bringing in filing cabinets and shelving to help you better manage client information. Sometimes you need to physically change your surroundings in order to achieve a fresh outlook on your business.

2. Wish your clients a Happy New Year.
Take the time to send a card or email to your clients, wishing them a Happy New Year. Not only is it a great gesture, but it gives you the chance to provide tax preparation tips as well. You will be filing their taxes soon and they need to gather information that will make their return as profitable and complete as possible. Perhaps you need to inform clients of deadlines in order to ensure timely filing and prevent the necessity of extensions.

3. Give small businesses a gift.
Take a walk down the main street of your town or stroll through the local strip mall and give small business a wall calendar or calendar magnet with your contact information. Also include your business card. You don’t have to be pushy; just explain that you prepare individual and business taxes and would be happy to help them with their returns. And because your contact information is attached to something they’ll likely find useful, they’ll always be able to reach you when they need tax help. This is a great way to get new clients.

4. Offer a New Year’s promotion.
Holiday promotions are great, and because people recognize that tax season is just around the corner, they’ll be more likely to respond to a New Year’s promotion. Offer one free hour of tax consultation or provide a discount on filings. Whatever you choose, make it appealing enough for potential clients to respond without threatening your profitability. And remember that sometimes getting new clients will profit you more in the long-run than you’ll loose in a one-time promotional deal.

5. Send out a newsletter.
Newsletters are a great promotional tool. But if you’ve been weary of a year-round newsletter, now’s the time to test-run a newsletter without being obligated to continue it week after week, or month after month. A New Year’s newsletter can be a one-time thing, with free tax advice, information on your promotions, and of course, your contact information. You can send this newsletter to friends, family, neighbors, contacts, local businesses, etc. In turn, it could send lots of people your way come tax time.

Recharging your business doesn’t require a loan, or a major withdrawal from your savings account. With less than $100 and a little motivation you can get your business on the right track this year.

Don’t Play Hide and Seek - Be Where Your Clients Can Easily Find You

Know What Your Potential Clients Read and Where to Find Them and You’ll Be On Your Way to Finding and Keeping More of Them

Let’s take a short quiz. In what magazines will you find advertising for the following three products?

1. Olive Oil
2. The New U2 Album
3. A Wide screen TV

Do you know the answers? Let’s take a look.

1. Olive Oil - Food & Wine
2. The New U2 Album - Rolling Stone
3. A Wide screen TV - Consumer Reports

How did you know the answers so quickly? This may be an oversimplification, but big-time advertisers laser target their marketing to their specific audience. You should too. You want your advertising to land in the publications that your clients read. And fortunately, you don’t have to spend the money U2 does to publicize their new album.

As a small firm, you can get free publicity and get your article or ad published, (or at least get mentioned), in something your target audience reads at no cost to you.

Read What Accountants Read. Just Don’t Expect Your Clients to Find You There

It’s important to keep up with your industry. It might even make sense to get published in an industry journal, but if you’re expecting to find clients there, you might be barking up the wrong tree.

If you want to reach your clients and potential clients, you must put your message where it will do the most good. You need to appear in the magazines, newsletters and other publications they read. For example, if you want to reach banking executives, you probably already know that they read banking publications. Photographers read photography publications and bicycle shop owners read publications about bicycles and bike shops. They don’t read about accounting. No surprise there.

How Do I Find Out What My Clients Are Reading?

The best place to start is to simply ask. Ask your clients what publications they read to keep a finger on the pulse of their industry. Another simple way to find out what they are reading is to take inventory of the publications in their waiting room. You can also look at media directories available in the library.

Don’t Ignore Trade Associations

National Trade Associations typically have a magazine or other publication that you can advertise in. However, the local affiliate organizations also publish newsletters that could prove to be a great places to advertise. It’s targeted to your local market and it’s cheap. For as little as $50 you can advertise in a local trade publication and enjoy a better response than the national publication. As a matter of fact, many newsletters will welcome your advertising in them to help offset the cost of publishing.

Start your research. Find out what your clients are reading and put your advertising message there.

Reaching Your Potential Clients is Easy and the Professional Tax Preparer Certification Will Show You How

At Universal Accounting we’ve taught small business bookkeeping and tax for over 25 years. The Professional Tax Preparer program will not only teach you everything you’ll need to know about preparing and filing personal and business tax returns, we’ll teach you how to build and run a fun and profitable business.

Starting your own tax preparation practice is simple, when you have the right skills. The Professional Tax Preparer program will teach you mastery of those skills. Finding clients is essential to the health of any business. Tax preparation is no different. You can utilize the same tools that professional marketers use. You’ll learn proven and tested secrets for finding and keeping clients in the Professional Tax Preparer program. Click on the link below and learn more about how to easily and effectively market your tax practice.

Click Here to Learn How Simple Marketing Your New Tax Preparation Business Really Is

Have you got a question? Click HERE and let us help you find an answer.

Historically this time of year for the Tax Preparer profession has been known as the “down time” or in the very least, the “quiet time” of the year. This time of year, for most paid tax preparers, is also known as the lean months where cash flow into your business can be minimal at best. Have you ever wondered, “Does it have to be this way?”

The simple answer is no. If you are proactive in how you do business and how you interact with your tax season clientele, you can grow your business during the January through April months, and bring in as well a steady flow of income throughout the rest of the year. By being the utlimate Professional Tax Preparer, you can provide a valuable service to those customers in this “quiet time” that will bring in the cash. The following are some ways you can do this.

Estimated Year Round Tax Payments

Depending on the type and structure of a company (LP, LLC, S-Corp etc.) each would have a requirement of when they send in tax information, or have taxes due throughout the year. As a Professional Tax Preparer and with you filing their yearly taxes, you can know which company you are servicing needs to pay which taxes when. With your recommendations to adjust these payments now, it will help your clients avoid over or underpayment penalties at years end. For those part-time self employed, these recommendations could be very timely so they don’t end up owing money.

Saving For Company’s Retirement Program

For those companies that you service that have one sort or another of a retirement program for themselves and/or their employees it is a very good idea to take a look at them mid-year. Many changes have happened in the last few years regarding IRA’s, 401(k)’s, pensions, and profit sharing programs, that it is important to review them to see if they are still performing as they were originally intended. This is also a good time to remind your clientele that as their business grows and changes they can be looking into setting up new programs for their company, and you can assist them to gauge the “what’s” and “wherefore’s” of rolling out their programs.

Take Advantage of Deduction Groupings

Be aware and keep your client company vigilant on keeping records on their expenditures. For the small business community this may take a monthly, maybe even a weekly reminder. So the company can stay eligible for the right deductions when their yearly tax filing comes along, there may be one or two types of deductions that have a threshold to reach to be eligible, or a cap to remain eligible for the deduction. Either way, by taking care of these tax-saving details, they will be more willing to contract for more and more of your services year round.

Changes In The Company Itself

Perhaps your customer has taken their business through a drastic change of some sort since April. Deaths and switching of company partners, ownership rights, even changing company structures (from a sole proprietor to a C-Corp for example) are all things that will change the taxes and their requirements of payment to the IRS and the state in which they reside. By being there, as their tax advisor, you will be able to help them navigate through these changes and mitigate their liabilities and possibly decrease their tax obligations with tax-saving suggestions.

Help Your Small Business Client Plan For Tax Savings

Here is another area that you can prove your worth to your clientele. Develop and help them along in their own customized plan to save on taxes. Several changes have happened in recent years that allow flexibility in expense deductions, carrybacks, carryforwards, employee benefit plans etc. Some small business may even be eligible for tax credits to help them recover the costs of starting up a company retirement plan. Timing of purchases, and assets can make a big difference on a company’s tax filings and some of these need to be timed just right within the year.

Remaining proactive with your Tax Business, whether part-time or full-time, you can remain that much more profitable 12 months in the year instead of just 4. When you treat those who you do business with, the way you want to be treated, with timely advice and cost saving suggestions, you are not only providing a value-added service that grows their company but you are also able to show them you care about their company’s financial health.

For over 25 years, Universal Accounting Center has helped people like you start their own tax practices. We recognize that 85% of the accounting opportunities are with small business so our curriculum is designed to help you learn small business accounting. Think back to our recommendation to increase your income by performing new services for new clients. When you learn small business accoutning you suddenly make yourself available to new clients whil increasing the number of services you can perform.

Give yourself a raise and become a Professional Bookkeeper today.

Thousands of people just like you are creating strong and profitable professional tax preparation businesses all over the country. Like you, they see the value of advancing their education to help them create the income and lifestyle that they and their families deserve.

For over 25 years Universal Accounting has been teaching professionals like you the ins-and-outs of small business tax and accounting. We’re not called the “Small Business Experts” for nothing. Whether it’s the bike shop around the corner or the dry cleaner down the street, small businesses need what you have to offer; Universal Accounting Center will help you each and every step of the way.

The First Step - A Tax Practice

When you start a tax practice, you are well on your way to personal and professional success. Every business and individual must prepare and file taxes. It’s the law. And as you become the “tax expert” for your clients, you will find more and more opportunities to impact the profitability and health of their businesses. But why stop there? With just once more step you can enhance your services and your bottom line: offer accounting and bookkeeping services.

The Second Step - Adding Accounting Services to Your Menu

Nothing will complement your tax practice more than Professional Bookkeeping services. By increasing the number of products you offer, you’ll not only be able to provide your clients with a complete financial service package, but you will be able to create a better income for you and your family as well.

You can see that the income from a tax preparation business will peak during the first four months of the year. Many professional tax preparers bill at rates of $100 per hour or more enabling them to work 4 to 6 months per year and semi-retire the rest of the year. By adding bookkeeping and accounting services to your menu, you’ll create a stable income stream for your business that will be consistent year-round.

At Universal Accounting, we’ve discovered over the years that the average small business bookkeeping clients will generate an income of approximately $300 per month. By billing your tax clients on a monthly basis and offering bookkeeping services along with year-end tax preparation services, you can feel confident billing $100 per month for additional tax preparation services, creating a gross billing of $400 per month to clients who receive complete financial services.

Your bills and expenses continue all year long, shouldn’t your income?

This graphic demonstrates how adding bookkeeping services will positively impact your practice.

Working with a client’s books throughout the year enables you to not only offer insightful tax planning advice, but will make tax preparation even easier at tax time. In fact, it wasn’t too many years ago that most small business bookkeepers did all the tax preparation and filing.

Adding Bookkeeping Services Just Makes Sense

Most of the college and university programs out there don’t prepare their graduates for a career in small business accounting and tax preparation. Unfortunately, neither do the franchise opportunities. Believe it or not, franchises like H&R Block and Jackson Hewett charge up to $80,000 just to get started.

Unlike a typical franchise, with an education from Universal Accounting you can begin your tax and accounting practice by operating out of your home. In fact, that’s what we’d recommend. You don’t need to run an accounting or tax service out of an expensive office space. The only people who will find you in an office will be the people trying to sell you something.

When you look at starting any business, the right training and support is critical. The Professional Bookkeeper Program offers the following:

• Practical and thorough training in small business accounting
• Exposure to proven marketing strategies specific to your field
• Follow-up support six months following your completion of the course

Act now and when tax season is over you’ll continue to enjoy the profits of a thriving business. Enroll in the Professional Bookkeeper today; it’ll be the best thing you ever did for your tax practice.

Get Primed for Tax Season:

Qualifying Your Clients for Business Deductions

When Lance Armstrong won at the Tour de France he would reward himself with a week off from anything to do with cycling, just take a totally break from it. But once that week was up he would start preparing for the next year going through an extensive training regiment that would build his strength, stamina, and power for the next year.

Well, for us in the tax season our “week” is up and it’s time to start your regiment with getting your tax “strength, stamina and power” that you need for being a success with your tax practice. For any active activity, even in the business world, you are best served if you get yourself “in shape” before you are ready to run the “100 meter dash” in business. Here are a few tax calisthenics that you can start with.

Qualifying for Business Deductions
For the small business sector you may be looking to service you just may be the first tax professional they have dealt with. So to get them started on the right foot here’s the criteria to qualify an expense for a business deduction.

Your expenses must be:

• Ordinary and necessary — defined by the courts and the IRS as “reasonable and customary.”

• Paid or incurred during the taxable year.

• Connected with the conduct of a trade or business.

What is “reasonable and customary” hangs on what’s specific to your business and the local business “traditions”. So, deducting thousands for kiwi picking expenses when you live in Iowa probably won’t work. The expenses your client business incurs don’t have to necessarily be reasonable and customary to the business owner, but simply to your specific trade or industry. Even hobbies that can be related and proven that they have a profit motive can qualify as a deduction. Can anyone say the expense account for your golf game going to expand now that you can prove you do business on the green?
Focus on your profit-making motive. Remember that it’s not what your client pays in taxes that counts, but what your client keeps.

Retirement for Business 401K
In 2006, your client and their employees can contribute up to $15,000 to a 401(k) plan– $1,000 more than you could in 2005 and $2,000 more than in 2004. If they are 50 or older at the year’s end, an extra $4,000 in 2006. 401(k) accounts are funded generally by payroll deductions at the workplace.

Here are the new limits for other retirement plans:

SIMPLE Plans: The limit for SIMPLE retirement accounts, offered by smaller employers, is $10,000 since 2005. For 2006 the limit is adjusted for inflation. If the client is 50 or older by year’s end 2006, contribution to the Plan is set at an extra $2,500 limit.

Self-Employed Plans: For those classified as self-employed, the contribution limit to Keogh plans jumped to $42,000 in 2005, up $1,000 from 2004. The maximum contribution that self-employed workers can make to a Simplified Employee Pension (SEP) plan remains unchanged at the lesser of 25% of compensation or $42,000. (The 25% limit becomes 20% if you’re the owner of the business.)

Deductible IRA Limits Went Up in 2005
Starting in 2005, an individual can contribute up to $4,000 a year to an Individual Retirement Account. (If 50 or older, you can contribute an extra $500.) Whether you can deduct that contribution to the IRA depends on the individual’s income. Income levels are higher for workers seeking to make tax-deductible contributions to Individual Retirement Accounts.

If the company offers a retirement plan, a full deduction can be done if:

• The individual is single and their modified adjusted gross income is $50,000 a year or less.
• The individual is married and filing jointly and the adjusted gross income is $70,000 or less.

In 2005, the deduction is phased out between $50,000 and $60,000 for singles and between $70,000 and $80,000 for joint filers. Above those top levels, you cannot claim a deduction.

Fortunately, in 2006 the top limit for married couples filing jointly rises to $85,000.

Start getting yourself primed for the season that is just around the corner. When you prepare the right things, the right things tend to happen. The success of your business rests with you. Get all the “exercise” and training you and your employees need. Click here to get more acquainted with Universal’s Tax Certification Program.

3 Methods, One Mistake and a Few Tips

Often the most difficult thing about starting your own business is pricing your services. And just because you’re the new kid on the block doesn’t mean you have to under-price your services to get a leg up on the competition. It also doesn’t mean you should run up your prices to imply that your offer quality services worth their weight in gold. As with everything in life, the key is in finding balance. Here are a few things to consider when pricing your products and services:

3 Common Pricing Methods
There are three common methods used to price products and services. Each has its benefits; you should consider which works best for your business and the market in which you currently prepare taxes.

Cost-based pricing. With this pricing method, you determine the price of your services by calculating its cost to you (in retail this would be the wholesale cost of the item, plus overhead and distribution costs) plus the profit you hope to make. When determining the cost of your services, this simply requires you to decide how much your time is worth (in addition, of course, to your overhead and any other costs). When using cost-based pricing you want to make sure you don’t leave any of your costs out; doing so cuts will cut your profits.

Value-based pricing. In value-based pricing, price is determined by how much clients are willing to pay for a particular service, or how much your services are worth to clients. For example, you could probably charge more when clients come to you last minute, say April 10^th, to prepare their taxes; they need the service performed and it will be worth the additional charge for them to have you do it.

Market-based pricing. With this pricing method, your price is determined by how much a particular service generally runs. For example, if most tax preparers in your area charge $75 per hour, than you price your services at or around this same price. This requires just a little research and is the most common method small to mid-size businesses use to price their products and services.

One Big Pricing Mistake
The biggest mistake new business owners make is in under-pricing their products and services. Many assume they must first earn their place in the market by being the cheap guy on the block. Trust that your services are valuable and the market can sustain you charging just what you’re worth.

Pricing Tips
And here are some things you can do to make your services more appealing.

Offer exclusive services. When you offer exclusive services, you become even more valuable to current and potential clients because they’ll have a hard time finding those services anywhere else. And chances are, if a client comes to you for your exclusive services, they’ll come to you for your nonexclusive services as well.

Look for ways to add value to current services. There are ways you can enhance your current services to make them more appealing to clients. For example, offering free electronic tax submission could be the way to earn a client’s loyalty and life-long patronage.

Brand your business. Just yesterday I called a plumber blind, simply because his advertisements were family-friendly and boasted of honest, trust-worthy service. When your costumers recognize your brand, and that brand appeals to their wants and needs, you’ll find that simple marketing promoting that brand will bring more costumers to your door.

Offer perks to returning clients. When you have a loyal costumer you can offer incentives for them to remain loyal. Consider providing returning clients a discount or a free peripheral service, like 6 months worth of complimentary QuickBooks consultation.

The important thing about pricing is that it be both thoughtful and purposeful. Once you set your prices don’t be apologetic or tentative about them; remember, you offer a valuable service and deserve to be paid respectively. And when your clients see just how priceless your service is, they’ll be ready to refer you to their friends and family.

Are You Ready For The Next Step?
Be in business for yourself, but not by yourself getting paid what you’re worth! Are you tired of thinking, “Why not me?” You have gotten this far in your search to do what you want to in your chosen career, take the next step. The time is now to be able to get the training and the change you desire in your professional life. Click here to find out if Professional Tax Preparation Certification is a fit for you.

It’s coming up fast and seems to be moving faster. What is it that I’m talking about? Is it Christmas? or New Years? No, I’m talking about the 2006-2007 tax season. As your client’s accountant and bookkeeper you are in the unique position to be able to assist those you are doing business with. Doing their taxes? Not so much (if you are considering adding to your service menu tax preparation click here) but in the very least you can steer them in the right direction.

The following are three ways you can be of service to your clients this tax season:

1. Tax Forms - Business and Employee
Depending on the type of business your client is running you can send him/her in the direction he/she needs to go to get all their tax forms for filing their taxes. You can also, because you are intimately familiar with the company’s financials, be able to guide (for an additional fee of course) to the IRS required tax forms This IRS Link takes you right into the IRS Web site that hosts all the general tax forms for small businesses. It is also a fantastic resource for you!

2. Tax Breaks / Deductions
As the Profit & Growth Expert you are trying to become for your clients, and with your knowledge of what they have done during their fiscal year, you can steer them in the right direction with their company’s tax preparer. For instance, you could suggest the following depending on your client company: the tracking of the company’s petty cash expenses; the employment of their children in the business; if they’re a homebased business give them the financial information that they can use to gain the deductions the IRS allows in rent, or mortgage interest, utilities etc.; The ever important deductions possible for travel and meetings expenses as well. All the receipts you have them save, so that you can track the expenses of the company can also be a source for deductions, keep that in mind.

3. Bookkeeping “P’s and Q’s”
You also need to take into consideration, again depending on your client company, on what they could be expected to bring to their own tax preparer. Things like Payroll deductions with it’s various tangents of federal state and local income taxes. Deductions taken out of employees paychecks for Social Security and Medicare, as well as possible garnishments. Let’s not forget the federal unemployemnt insurance as well as the state’s unemployement programs. Things get even more complex if your client business operates in more than one state or if some of your employees live in one state and work in another. Help them better prepare to go see the “tax man”.

Hopefully this article jars some ideas for you to be able to provide to your clients to get their business taxes taken care of. When you are looking after their best interests, they will be more inclined to take care of you both in work and in compensation. All of these examples are just a place to start when you are preparing your client company for the filing of their business taxes, please refer to the Universal training materials and for those who still have it available to them, Universal’s very own Support Coach. If you are considering adding to the services you want to provide Tax Preparation click here to get more information about what’s all involved with Universal’s Professional Tax Preparation Certification.

Would you be interested in a way through which you could acquire as many as 10 qualified clients each month by investing just a few hours of your time? Most people small business owners would! This can be accomplished by holding valuable educational seminars for prospective clients.

The Value of the Seminar

As a leveraged marketing strategy, seminars are extremely effective in getting lots of marketing done in a brief period of time. With an average attendance of 20 to 25 people, it would take you weeks to accomplish the same presentation with each attendee individually. With seminars, it takes you approximately two hours of presentation time, a few hours of preparation and clean-up, and a couple hours to arrange the marketing for each seminar. In less than 8 hours you are able to accomplish what otherwise would take you weeks. Not to mention, you also start to see an increased income from those new clients much sooner.

Seminars can increase the effectiveness of your telemarketing and face-to-face introductory presentations by enhancing the prospective relationship; our experience shows that it takes nearly twice as long to set an appointment as it takes to have someone accept your invitation to a seminar.

There is also a tremendous dynamic of peer influence at a seminar that you can’t duplicate in a face-to-face appointment. Many times the strongest influence to take action comes from fellow attendees. In a seminar attendees are left to think more freely without the direct and focused pressure they may feel in a face-to-face appointment. This often results in a more positive reaction to you and your services which can be contagious in a group setting.

Inexpensive and Effective

Though they can be effective, they can also be expensive. Over the years, Universal Accounting Center has invested thousands of hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars into this strategy. We have experimented, tested, innovated, validated and finally eliminated our failures and duplicated our successes.

Seminars can work for you too in securing new clients for your practice. We have encapsulated all our wisdom and development into the Universal Practice Builder Program so you can begin with our accumulated expertise and move on from there, without the expense and time-consuming experimentation we have conducted. We include three complete seminars that you can conduct, complete with seminar guides and PowerPoint presentations.

Students who have implemented our seminar marketing strategies as outlined in our Universal Practice Builder program obtain an average of 4 to 5 new clients from each seminar; in fact, some have acquired as many as 10! At an average of $400 per month per client, that’s as much as $50,000 in annualized billings from one single event.

Here are some things you will learn from the Universal Practice Builder as you plan and implement your seminar:

• What are the best ways to advertise and market the seminar?
• What content will best attract qualified prospects?
• How do I conduct a successful seminar that meets the expectations of the attendees?
• How do I use the seminar to prepare the attendees to become my clients?
• How do I follow up with attendees to convert them to paying clients?
• How do I duplicate my success and make my seminars part of my on-going marketing process?

All of these questions are answered in the Universal Practice Builder Program. As someone who has developed many different seminars, produced thousands and conducted hundreds myself, there are few market strategies that can be more fun or effective in leveraging your time and money and accelerating your growth. This alone would justify enrollment in the Universal Practice Builder.

Fortunately this program offers much, much more. The UPB program will help you understand yourself, and the kind of practice that works best for you. It will help you plan your practice and take you through the process of developing and implementing an overall marketing plan. It will teach you 20 different strategies to help attract the right prospects. It will teach you how to manage the science of marketing and develop your marketing into an art form where it is fun and easy, even automatic.

Put the power of seminars to work for you. Work smart and gain access to an approach that is tried and proven. Or experiment for yourself. As a seminar expert, I know it will cost you more than the UPB course to try to learn how to do seminars effectively and economically. This course provides you with our expertise and experience all designed to work for financial professionals just like you. Enroll in the Universal Practice Builder today and gain access to all this, including superb coaching support, which will put your practice on the fast-track to growth.

You can resolve most client issues over the phone or via email, and should when possible, but every now and then you need to meet face-to-face in order to talk about key issues and ensure that both you and your client are on the same page. And when you do meet, you want to make the most of your time with a client. Here are eight tips on planning an effective meeting.

1. Don’t schedule meetings unless they’re absolutely necessary.

Remember that your client hired you so they don’t have to worry about tax issues. If you over-schedule meetings with a client they will quickly tire of you and wonder why they don’t manage their taxes themselves. You shouldn’t schedule meetings to provide informational updates, generate client-loyalty and enthusiasm, or chastise clients for not getting you the information you need. If there are problems or issues that can’t be resolved through other means, you schedule a meeting in order to generate a two-way conversation.

2. Write up your agenda and sent it to attendees before the meeting.

Let your client know the topics you plan to cover before you meet. And remember number eight when creating your agenda; the meeting should be brief which means your agenda shouldn’t run long on items.

3. Determine the appropriate location for your meeting.

Perhaps you feel it important to meet in either your office or your client’s office in order to remain focused and maintain that professional environment. But consider a lunch appointment or a meeting at a café or coffee shop. Sometimes the ambiance of the location can enhance the tone of your meeting.

4. Stay on task.

While it’s nice to generate positive and friendly conversation, remember that it’s also important to stay on task so you can accomplish your meeting objectives.

5. Take notes.

We don’t advice that you bury your head in a notebook throughout the meeting, but you should take notes occasionally in order to remember key discussion points. Also, don’t be afraid to draw diagrams or illustrations if they help your client better understand you.

6. Invite discussion.

There’s no reason to schedule a meeting if you do all the talking. You should encourage open discussion when appropriate and get client feedback when possible. You may be surprised at the valuable suggestions your clients offer. Either way, when you encourage discussion you let your client know that you value their perspective.

7. Make it brief.

Turning a one-hour meeting into a two-hour meeting, even if you feel it necessary, is literally risky business. Remember that your client’s time is valuable. Don’t let your meeting run long, and don’t become long-winded.

8. End with an action plan.

You should summarize what you’ve covered in the meeting and end with a plan of action. Tell your client what you intend to do with the information gleaned from this meeting and when the client can expect to see the results.

When scheduling meetings with clients remember that everything you do, including the manner in which you run meetings, generates client loyalty and trust. Treat their time with utmost respect and ensure that all your communications evidence your desire to make their lives more profitable.

(Part One of a Three-Part Series)

Minding Your Landline Manners

As a business owner you know that communication is vital. Whether that communication takes place electronically, face-to-face or over the phone makes no difference; you want all your correspondence to be clear and effective. Communication via phone can be extremely efficient because it’s much like a face-to-face meeting where you’re able to manage issues in real time. However, it also poses some significant challenges; for instance, you can be easily distracted by something completely unrelated to your phone conversation.

In addition to enabling you to communicate effectively, phone conversations also enable you to build a stronger relationship with clients; what you do on the phone can make or break your professional image. In order to sustain a positive reputation as a tax preparer you need to practice good phone etiquette. Here are some things to remember when making and taking calls:

Making a Call

There are a few things to remember when making a call. Sometimes you won’t get through to the person you intended to reach, but you’re still required to make those interactions as purposeful and polite as possible. Here are four things to remember:

1. Remove all distraction. As discussed above it’s important that your listener feel that you’re focused on the conversation at hand. This means you shouldn’t work while talking. You should also ensure that other family members won’t be interrupting you while in the midst of your phone call.

2. Speak slowly and clearly. In order to be successful you must be understood. Whether you have a natural inclination to rush through presentations or you become nervous and speak quickly, you must practice achieving a good pace, one that enables you to annunciate your words well enough that your party doesn’t have to work at understanding you. Also remember that you must warm up your vocals before you make that first call of the day. Even though you may have been awake for a few hours, if your throat hasn’t gotten that wake up call with a little speaking practice you may end up sounding like you’re making the call from your bed.

3. Identify yourself, your business and the purpose of your call. Nothing is more disconcerting than getting a business call from someone who doesn’t identify themselves, their business and the purpose of their call. You must remember that every call should have a purpose, and if you’re unable to communicate that purpose effectively than you’re wasting time. Whether you’re talking to a receptionist or the intended party, you want your communication to be clear and effective, and that requires you to identify yourself and your purpose upfront.

4. Estimate the length of your business. You should prepare the listener for the length of your business. Don’t tell your party it will only take a minute if it really requires 20. That will end up frustrating your business associate, making it more difficult for you to accomplish your purpose. Be honest, and if necessary, reschedule a time that will better accommodate your schedules and your objectives.

It’s important that you remember that all correspondence contributes to your professional image, and that includes each and every phone call you make. By attending to a few simple rules of phone etiquette you’ll be able to maintain that professional image you’ve built your business upon.

Come back next week when we’ll talk about using proper phone etiquette when answering a call and using voicemail.