Cutting Costly Clients Without Costing You With a Load Of Grief

Hopefully, at some point, your business will grow where you have bigger fish to work with. Some clients that drain your profits, but were once needed may need to be purged. Whether clients are not worth the hassle to the bottom line, or you find that you have a few problem clients that like to abuse your policies, it may be time to cut them loose.

How do you get rid of them without causing your company a lot of heartache and bad karma? You certainly want to make this as painless as possible for both you, and the client. LAst thing you need is to stress yourself out so much you are packing an array of the best acne products in your briefcase to fix the sweat. While it can't always be a happy divorce, here are some tips for purging your least valuable clients and customers so you can focus on the ones that make you the most money.

How Can Charity Boost Business?

Most companies spend at least some part of the revenues on charitable endeavors. AT least if they don't they have thought about it. Certainly there is an argument that helping the community can indeed hlep your bottom line even if it costs you a little bit at the same time. Good will goes a long ways for a lot of businesses. That is unless you are a tobacco, or a gasoline company most likely, or running some sort of acai berry diet scam.

Serving charitable causes in your community is not only good for your spirit, it can also become a deciding factor when customers choose where to spend their dollars. With consumers demanding higher levels of social responsibility from businesses, it's never been more important to focus your corporate giving into a cause-marketing campaign that motivates your target customer base. And when you create an ongoing strategy for giving, everyone wins -- the charitable cause you support, your customers and, ultimately, your business.

But the first step is to find the right cause-marketing strategy. Here are four ways you can share your corporate altruism with your customers.

Mompreneurs Is a Word

I think it is pretty self explanatory what a Mompreneur is. Well maybe not. You may just think it is a mom that happens to be an entrepreneur. Partially true, but it describes one that is in the business of "Mommy" and making it a successful venture financially. They don't spend their time worrying about a weight loss diet. Well...maybe some do.

Moms start businesses for a variety of reasons. Some want the flexibility of spending more time with their kids. Others uncover a need -- often inspired by motherhood -- that no one else is filling. Whatever the incentive, the growth of women-owned businesses has soared in recent years. In fact, women entrepreneurs are expected to create up to 5.5 million new jobs nationwide by 2018, according to the Guardian Life Small Business Research Institute. Here, a look at nine successful mompreneurs and their homegrown inspirations.

Return Policies and Your Business

As consumers we've seen many, many variations of return policies. From "no questions asked" to "if you open it you own it for good". Small businesses are hit a little bit harder with a lot of returns compared to big corporate accounts, so they need to be a little more careful on how they manage them.

While not every week is Black Friday with your business shipping and selling more than every other week, the problems you see are the same at any time of year. The same mistakes are made by many, but these 3 guys want to share their most common mistakes and what they did about them.

Some Small Business Tax Changes For 2011

As with any client I've ever had when discussing taxes I always need to preface the conversation when they ask about stuff they can "look back" on and write off and say that after this time you have to think a head. There is no reason a small business owner isn't up to date with upcoming tax changes that could help them, or at least their tax man better be and let them know about it in January instead of waiting until next January. Sure they may be jerks and want to look like they pulled a genius idea out of their butt, but they aren't doing you many favors. It doesn't do you much good to plan backwards does it? Of course not. PLAN A HEAD. I don't care if you run a vending machine business, or a lemonade stand.

Even as you prepare your 2010 taxes, consider also looking ahead to make investments in equipment or other fixed assets before Dec. 31, 2011. The Small Business Jobs Act enacted in September doubles the Section 179 expense limitation to $500,000 for fully writing off fixed assets the year they were acquired. This specific tax break is applicable to 2010 and 2011 tax returns. Eligible investments include office furniture and equipment, machinery and computer software. Another provision from the same law allows 100 percent writeoffs of up to $250,000 of qualified real property such as leasehold improvements and some restaurant and retail improvements. more

Oh Captain My Captain: Motivating Your Team

You may have a lot of stars at your office, but are they really motivated to do their best job? What helps motivate your workers? Are there some things that all employers can work on to give their employees more motivation? Of course there are. Give them a bunch of samsung lcd tvs and a PS3 to play games with instead of work? Nah...

In a recent study by TowersWatson, an international HR consulting firm, fewer than 21 percent of employees surveyed described themselves as "highly engaged," down from 31 percent in 2009. 8 percent admitted to being fully disengaged.

Having only one-fifth of your employees highly engaged is not the hallmark of a "Winning Business." Other studies show that employee engagement derives from three important factors:

-Alignment of the employee with the goals and vision of the company.
-Faith of the employee in the competence of management and their commitment to realize the goals and vision.
-Trust in their direct supervisor that he or she will support his or her people and help them to succeed.

14 ways to motivate them all

There Are Niches Everywhere

Do you think there is anything else left in the matchmaking industry to try and make money off of? At least something where you don't have to beat the competition to death, or at least just try and share a piece of a piece of the pie with every other low rent website out there matching people up?

Apparently someone found a niche and is doing it up right. I'm not exactly saying this was brilliant, as I'm shocked that someone actually could make this work, or was the first to really bring it all together.

It took two years of Internet dating for Jasbina Ahluwalia to find a husband--yes, online--but she found a business idea, too: A matchmaking service for South Asians in the U.S. that combines the personal elements of Indian matchmaking with online technology and social networking. Everything but a side business of document management. Sparks flew.

Just goes to show that the right person coming a crossed the right business, at the right time can be extremely profitable. You still ahve to get it right, but there are niches everywhere if you keep your eyes peeled.

Social Media Trends For 2011

Social media is one of the most important aspects of advertising and marketing in the technology age so following the trends fr the upcoming year is pretty much something we all should look at.

After a year of high profits sit back and enjoy a couple arturo fuente cigars and see what the year has in store a head.

You think you have Twitter, Facebook, and everything else down to a science? What is next in the upcoming year? What trends are you going to have to get used to? Here are 10 Social Media Trends of 2011 to watch out for.

Entrepreneur's 32nd Annual Franchise 500

Entrepreneur magazine is one of the most read small business and entrepreneurial magazines in the U.S. With the internet they are one of the best websites out there on the subject. Entrepreneur's Franchise 500 is the world's first, best and most comprehensive franchise ranking based on objective, quantifiable measures of success. There's no better place to start a franchise search.

Their top 10 this year is:

1. Hampton Hotels
2. ambm (gas stations)
3. McDonald's
4. 7-Eleven (surprising to me as most in my area have closed)
5. Supercuts (lean times, cheap haircuts...lol)
6. Day's Inn
7. Vanguard Cleaning Systems (Commercial cleaning)
8. Servpro (insurance disaster cleaning)
9. Subway
10. Denny's Restaurant

While none of these places will need much in the help of getting a website directory submission due to how big they are it is an interesting list at the top. Two cleaning companies. One for normal commercial cleaning and one for disaster such as fire in Servpro. 7-Eleven and Denny's are a bit of a surprise to me as both franchises have pretty much closed out in my area of West Michigan. 7-11 is almost completely gone. At least half of them are. Denny's has closed twice in my town only to re-open again recently.

Holliday Gift Season For Employees

While a lot of employers give out gifts to their employees around Christmas, does anyone actually give gifts that people want?

I've always found that getting a bonus check of even $50 was the best gift. Cash always wins. If not I always liked getting a gift card. Not a specific store card, but just an overall Visa card, or something similar. Again, being able to do with it what I want.

I've worked at some places that are a bit creative, but most tend to just give something like a free turkey, or ham around Christmas. While not a bad thing, when 4-5 other people in your family get the same thing at their jobs it is a bit much to have that many in the freezer.

With the gift cards you can get anything. If it fits into the accounting books I always like the idea. Women can pick up some nice women's sweaters, buy some stuff for the kids, or you can even use it for something you have to have like groceries. Most people that work and get small gift cards could use an extra 50 bucks just to pay their bills, but it also helps for buying gifts.