So, with just a few weeks remaining until Christmas, there’s just enough time to make sure your business digital marketing initiatives are prepared for the Christmas season.

Regardless of whether your business sells gifts, professional services or trades, here are some digital marketing tips that can be useful in the final weeks before Christmas.

For Social media campaigns
There are more posts, shares, and comments during the Christmas holidays than any other time of year and each passing year more people are using mobile devices to shop online, access websites and find deals and gift ideas.

If your business sells products or services that can be bought as gifts, make a social media schedule, and prepare Christmas themed social media images and advertising. This will include special Christmas deals, season countdowns, and feel-good festive stories.

Queuing your social media posts in advance is a great option for decreasing your stress. Social media platforms offer the option of future queuing your posts. This will help you keep in touch with your customers throughout the crazy season without manually posting each time. You may want to continue it into the New Year so that you aren’t working over Christmas.

If your business will be closed for a period, you can set an auto-reply in Facebook Messenger to inform people when they send a Facebook message to your business.

For AdWords campaigns
If your business will be closed over the Christmas break, or running on skeleton staff, remember to turn off your Adwords ads or scale them down during that time. However, if you do have staff available, AdWords campaigns can be highly profitable during that time, as many businesses turn off their campaigns. This means you can often gain cheaper and more profitable leads during that time.

If your business sells gifts, you should consider adjusting your AdWords budget to match increased search queries before Christmas. Search growth peaks in this season for products and services. Evaluate your historical performances in Google AdWords & Analytics from last year and accordingly adjust the budget to build on your best-seller campaigns.

Adapt text ad content to advertise Christmas promotions. Ensure remarketing tags are active and conversion tracking is all working in the place for Christmas campaigns. Also, make sure you measure ROI so that you can analyse what worked, what didn’t and do more of whatever worked!

If you need to allow for shipping times, it’s a good idea to promote strongly near the start of December – don’t wait until it’s too late. Shipping timeframes become a major concern for almost every online customer leading up to Christmas, so advertise early to get those sales.

For email campaigns
People are looking for last-minute bargains around this time and emails can be effective to attract your subscribers/listed customers. According to McKinsey & Company, email marketing is three times more effective than social media, and the average customer order is 17 percent higher.

If you’re selling products or services that can be gifts, then send at least two emails during December (preferably more) to promote the products or services you’re featuring over the Christmas season and spread the word. Have a look at what other businesses in your field are doing. Sign up for mailing lists of your competitors and visit websites.

This season is competitive time for email marketers. Customers in boxes will be full of offers and updates, so you will have to be prepared to compete for attention. Look at your data and see what tactics yielded the best open and clickthrough rates last year. The subject line is a key factor in whether a recipient will even open your email, so make it punchy and intriguing enough to get those opens.

And if you’ll be closed over the Christmas holidays, make sure you send an email to your customers to let them know what dates you’ll be closed, and emergency contact details if needed.

Google My Business hours and posts
If your business is listed on Google Maps (and it should be!) then you’ll have a Google My Business listing.

If you have special opening hours leading up to Christmas, or have dates that you’ll be closed over the Christmas break, make sure you enter these details into your listing. When you login to Google My Business just enter these different times in the “Special Hours” section.

There is also a little-known feature that Google realised earlier this year that is perfect for highlighting announcements. It’s called Google My Business Posts.

Google My Business posts last for a week, making it perfect for events, guides, products and more. Small businesses can use these posts to announce new daily promotions, highlight newest products or best-sellers and even holiday closing periods. These posts can have up to 300 words of text, an image, a title and a range of call to action buttons. These posts show up on Google search as well as Google Maps, depending on the nature of the query and the nature of the post.

So, if you have special promotions or events leading up to Christmas, you should use this feature. It’s free – just log into Google My Business and click on dashboard to make a post.

Embrace digital marketing in the festive season
Christmas is an important time for small businesses. If you’re selling gifts, then be sure to apply these tips to get the most out of your digital channels to increase sales and revenue during this season. If you’re not selling gifts, these tips can still help you keep strong relationships with your customers.

Embrace the festive season and its spirit, and keep winning customers with well-planned digital marketing…

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Reference http://wbn.co.nz/2017/11/27/digital-marketing-tips-christmas/

Ever wondered what good governance looks like?

Think about governance in the same light you would about bringing a good rugby team together and getting them to win.  Both involve dedication, preparation and outcome focused selection to put the right players in the right positions.

For every rugby team, there are different things that need to come together on the day of a match if the team wants to play its best and win.

But, before the big match, the team also needs to practice hard, develop its skills and fitness, know the rules of the game, and learn to work together on the field. It’s more than a game of two halves. It needs a strategic coach, and a skilled captain who knows how to put the coach’s game plan into operation. If all of these things come together, then the team has a good chance of playing well and winning the game.

The team also needs to maintain its performance over the whole year, not just for one game. The players have to keep working on their skills, and if something goes wrong during a match, the coach, captain and team have to work together to fix the problem so they can get back to their best form for the next match.

There are a lot of parallels between the way a rugby team works and the way governance works in your organisation.

1. Strategic Coach

Rugby Coach sets the strategy, objectives, timing and direction.  They know what game to prepare for the most, who needs to improve their performance and what needs to happen to succeed.

The Coach has one eye on the conditions and one eye on the scoreboard.  Their job is to look at how they can learn from the past to put into practice strategies and actions to improve future results.  They need to have a firm grasp of the laws of the game and work within certain constraints but also make the most of every opportunity.  For good governance you need a good Board/ Directors to set great strategy to drive business growth and monitor performance regularly.

2. Richie Can Teach Us a Lot

Take a look at one of the best captains the All Blacks have ever had – Richie McCaw.  This guy knows about vision, values and about keeping his team focused and motivated.  He doesn’t say much, but he demands respect because he “walks the talk”.

He doesn’t try and do everyone’s job thinking he’s the best at everything, basically because he doesn’t have an ego.  He proudly excels at this role, implements strategy, gets team buyin and leads the way.  Do you have a captain on your team who does the opposite?  Do they think they’re experts at everything constantly changing organisational structures (or the team plan) regularly?  If you do, it’s time to replace him with a Richie or help him or her to become one!

3. Creating A Game Plan

The most essential component to any team, be it rugby or good governance, is that everyone has an understanding of where they stand.  This includes clarity around every role and where each individual’s responsibilities lie.  This allows you to move swiftly “past a knock on” or a “forward pass”.  It means your defensive and offensive systems and processes are in place to drive growth and success.  The strategy lies with the team but the success of the strategy relies on the whole team playing their part and putting in the hard yards.

Better still, at selection phase, ensure each team member hits your criteria and you know exactly where to place them when it comes to game day.

4. Teamwork

Last but not least, is understanding that teamwork is what will drive good governance.  You have to know your strengths and weaknesses, threats and opportunities.  You’re not going to put a hooker in as a fly half in your rugby team, why would you do any differently when it comes to running a successful business?

You can’t afford to carry anyone.  Play to each individual’s strengths and drive it home.  Lay down the ground rules and the laws of the land but remain flexible enough to switch out players if you need to.

If you’re the coach, do you have a “strong forward pack to win the scrum”?  Are your team reliable in the “lineout to win the ball”?  Appraisals and reviews are there for a reason. They’re critical observations to be done regularly so you’re focused on what your players can and cannot do.  It’s up to you to take advantage of your team’s talents and minimize their weaknesses.

Good governance relies on the same thing a good rugby team does when it comes to winning. You need a strong team, clear vision and values, rules and laws, assigned positions and tactical strategy.

With Accounting One whether you want to win the World Cup or the local league we’ll keep you firmly on track to take home the final prize.

Better budgeting in any business pays off.  It allows you to plan ahead, save for the future and make better business decisions which in the end is invaluable to how successful your business will be.  Clever budgeting and cashflow forecasting helps you understand your actuals versus your estimates so you can reap those financial rewards you work hard for.

Why is budgeting so important? – Tip 1

Budgeting and cashflow forecasting is similar to strategic planning. It gives you beneficial insights into what is really going on in your business; rather than guessing or estimating.  Your accountant is the one who can help you identify serious overspending or unnecessary spending and help you put a realistic budget together.

Being able to understand if you have enough money coming in to expand, recruit another staff member or invest in marketing means you have to have a budget and a forecast so you can make smarter decisions on when to move and when to stick.  It’s having the ability to plan ahead and know when to take action.

How do I budget? – Tip 2

There are many ways to set up a budgeting system but with clever software this job has now become a lot easier for many business owners.  Smart online software has become almost intuitive because the better information you put into it; the better information you can extract.

Being able to read all the numbers can take a bit of preparation and help from your helpful accountant but once you’ve got a hang of it, we think you’ll actually start enjoying running off monthly or daily reports that help you keep a sharp eye on things. It’s a good idea to have a regular day of the month or week to run off all your reports and if anything scary jumps out at you then your accountant is only a phone call away to help get it sorted, and usually very quickly.

Even a simple spreadsheet with ins and outs at the beginning of your start up is better than nothing because you really do need to get your head around the numbers if you want to keep your head above water.

Revenue versus Expenses = Profit – Tip 3

At start up phase it’s harder to predict what your profit will be but never be afraid to ask the experts because it’s highly likely they’ve worked with a similar business before.  The key to any business is to make it as highly profitable as you possible can and that’s why budgeting and forecasting are so important.

You need to know what’s coming in but also what’s going out to reach that profit number.  If you’re spend is bigger than your revenue, then that is a sign things need to change.  Once again expert advice will help you “see the woods for the trees” and is always a great investment for your business success.  If you’re unsure of your market and how it acts during different seasons or months of the year do as much research as you possibly can and talk to those in the know. For some, school holidays are when it starts to quieten down whereas for others it may be boom time.  It’s not about gazing (or dreaming) into a crystal ball, it’s about getting those cold hard facts together.

Review, Review, Review – Tip 4

Some businesses review once a year whilst others review every month.  It’s a good idea to review on a more regular basis, especially for small businesses because business can be volatile and unexpected, large costs can throw out that balance sheet by quite a lot.

If you are caught out by a nasty surprise work on a plan to increase your revenue and/or cut back your costs.  Because you have a budget and forecast you have all the information on hand to act faster.

One way to cut back costs is to review your suppliers and see where you can get even better value for your money.  This procurement process is very helpful and it allows you to seek beneficial opportunities with key suppliers who are normally more than happy to negotiate a lower price so you become a long-term customer.  What you’re looking for is the best deal in town.

To increase revenue, review your prices or rates to see if you’re charging enough or if you can, go back and do some remarketing with your loyal customers.  There are many ways to use a review and all of them require clever budgets and forecast reporting as a starting point.

Ask for Help – Tip 5

We’re always surprised when people say they would have come and seen us earlier to help with their business budgeting or forecasting only they were too embarrassed.  We would much rather help businesses out at the beginning only because it makes your life easier.  It is hard work running a business and you can’t be expected to be the expert at everything.  It’s impossible.

Over time you will gain confidence with your numbers and knowing who is the best person to help out where but only if you ask.  In New Zealand we’re a bit too proud and sometimes stubborn, but once you find a great accounting team, they’re like your personal financial help heroes saving you precious time and money.

At Accounting One we’re a very passionate team who want to help you get your head around budgets and forecasting because we are driven to help you succeed.  To get started book in for your one-hour consultation and we’ll help you boost profits and maximise your growth potential.

Staff parties

Throwing a staff party can be a great way to see out the year and celebrate successes, but there are tax considerations to think about.

You can claim some costs of a party or staff gifts, but they may be subject to fringe benefit tax. This is paid on benefits workers get as a result of their employment.

Half your holiday party expenses may be claimed in your GST and income tax returns if the expenses relate to your business. Expenses can include:

• food and drink
• entertainment
• venue hire.

Business Gifts and Entertainment

Generally, you can claim the costs of gifts as a business expense, eg hampers or gift vouchers. But you may need to pay fringe benefit tax on these gifts.

A meal out provided by the business is an entertainment expense and you can claim 50% as a business expense.

Giving to charity

You can deduct 100% of the cost of entertainment you provide to members of the public for charitable purposes. For example, if your business donates food to a party at a hospital.

Source: IRD

Kelly has joined the Team at Accounting One and is looking forward to her role as Practice Manager.

Kelly’s previous role before starting at Accounting One was at Bennetts Proactive as a Client Service Co-ordinator. She was responsible for the administration for a team of accounting specialists. Responsibilities included workflow management to ensure the team had enough client records to keep them busy, having all necessary files ready when the team needed them and obtaining records from clients in a timely manner. She has an excellent attention to detail.

Kelly is looking forward to supporting Dale and Sonja. She is the glue that holds everything together within the firm so that Dale and Sonja can spend more time with our clients.

She also helps manage the family business which is a busy boarding kennels in Paengaroa. Kelly has a passion for dogs and their wellbeing and enjoys being amongst both her own dogs and the boarding guests when not assisting at Accounting One.

What constitutes a ‘Classy Client’ in your mind? Do you have a framework to decipher such clients? How does your business attract such ‘Classy Clients’?

Beyond this, once you have these ‘Classy Clients’ onboard what are you doing to give them the WOW experience that differentiates your business from your competition?

Your Classy Clients

We all want them right? Clients that we get on with, that take on board our advice and clients who pay on time (or in advance).

Get really clear on who it is you want to work with as ‘Classy Clients’. Write it out and communicate this to your team. Have a standard as to who you will take on as a client. We know to often many businesses just take on anyone who comes knocking. Uphold your standards, remembering quality not quantity.

Beyond this, once you know what your ‘Classy Clients’ look like, you are able to design targeted campaigns that attract them. At which point you are able to illustrate synergies, expertise that align to their needs and wants, then you can move them through your smooth engagement process.

Your Wow Experience

Once you have attracted your ‘Classy Clients’ you need to wow them…. What wow experience are you giving your clients? Some businesses pride themselves on regular communication and meetings with their clients. Sending personalise notes and cards for Birthdays, business milestones or invites to special events. Other businesses have a drinks menu in reception as clients arrive. Most importantly the wow factor comes through servicing these clients to the fullest. Businesses that have the wow experience in place, make it part of their culture, and have processes that are detailed in their service standards.

Communication

Regular communication with your ‘Classy Clients’ is vital. Having a structure around this is imperative. Such as…

• Regular scheduled meetings
• Educational events, whitepapers, blogs and newsletters
• Phone calls and personal contact
• Regular analysis of your communication

This all adds to and enhances your relationship with your clients. Which leads to identifying more opportunities to help your clients.

Start this process today! Make this a priority for you, your business and your clients. Be the best you can be.

Jerry Seinfeld is one of the most successful comedians of all-time.

He is regarded as one of the “Top 100 Comedians of All-Time” by Comedy Central. He was also the co-creator and co-writer of Seinfeld, the long-running sitcom which has received numerous awards and was claimed to have the “Top TV Episode of All-Time” as rated by TV Guide.

Seinfeld reached his peak in earnings when he made $267 million dollars in 1998. (Yes, that was in one year. No, that’s not a typo.) A full 10 years later, in 2008, Seinfeld was still pulling in a cool $85 million per year.

By almost any measure of wealth, popularity, and critical acclaim, Jerry Seinfeld is among the most successful comedians, writers, and actors of his generation.

However, what is most impressive about Seinfeld’s career isn’t the awards, the earnings, or the special moments — it’s the remarkable consistency of it all. Show after show, year after year, he performs, creates, and entertains at an incredibly high standard. Jerry Seinfeld produces with a level of consistency that most of us wish we could bring to our daily work.

Compare his results to where you and I often find ourselves. We want to create, but struggle to do so. We want to exercise, but fail to find motivation. Wanting to achieve our goals, but — for some reason or another — we still procrastinate on them.

What’s the difference? What strategies does Jerry Seinfeld use to beat procrastination and consistently produce quality work? What does he do each day that most people don’t?

I’m not sure about all of his strategies, but I recently discovered a story that revealed one of the secrets behind Seinfeld’s incredible productivity, performance, and consistency.

Let’s talk about that what he does and how you can use the “Seinfeld Strategy” to eliminate procrastination and actually achieve your goals.

The “Seinfeld Strategy”

Brad Isaac was a young comedian starting out on the comedy circuit. One fateful night, he found himself in a club where Jerry Seinfeld was performing. In an interview on Lifehacker, Isaac shared what happened when he caught Seinfeld backstage and asked if he had “any tips for a young comic.”

Here’s how Isaac described the interaction with Seinfeld…

He said the way to be a better comic was to create better jokes and the way to create better jokes was to write every day.

He told me to get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red magic marker. He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day.

“After a few days you’ll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You’ll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job is to not break the chain.”

You’ll notice that Seinfeld didn’t say a single thing about results.

It didn’t matter if he was motivated or not. It didn’t matter if he was writing great jokes or not. It didn’t matter if what he was working on would ever make it into a show. All that mattered was “not breaking the chain.”

And that’s one of the simple secrets behind Seinfeld’s remarkable productivity and consistency. For years, the comedian simply focused on “not breaking the chain.”

Let’s talk about how you can use the Seinfeld Strategy in your life…

How to Stop Procrastinating

Top performers in every field — athletes, musicians, CEOs, artists — they are all more consistent than their peers. They show up and deliver day after day while everyone else gets bogged down with the urgencies of daily life and fights a constant battle between procrastination and motivation.

While most people get demotivated and off-track after a bad performance, a bad workout, or simply a bad day at work, top performers settle right back into their pattern the next day.

The Seinfeld Strategy works because it helps to take the focus off of each individual performance and puts the emphasis on the process instead. It’s not about how you feel, how inspired you are, or how brilliant your work is that day. Instead, it’s just about “not breaking the chain.”

All you have to do to apply this strategy to your own life is pick up a calendar (here’s an inexpensive one ) and start your chain.

A Word of Warning

There is one caveat with the Seinfeld Strategy. You need to pick a task that is meaningful enough to make a difference, but simple enough that you can get it done.

It would be wonderful if you could write 10 pages a day for your book, but that’s not a sustainable chain to build. Similarly, it sounds great in theory to be able to deadlift like a maniac every day, but in practice you’ll probably be overtrained and burnt out.

So step one is to choose a task that is simple enough to be sustainable. At the same time, you have to make sure that your actions are meaningful enough to matter.

For example, researching good jokes each day is simple, but you’re never going to write a joke by merely researching. That’s why the process of writing is a better choice. Writing can actually produce a meaningful result, even when it’s done in small doses.

Similarly, doing 10 pushups per day could be simple and meaningful depending on your level of fitness. It will actually make you stronger. Meanwhile, reading a fitness book each day is simple, but it won’t actually get you in better shape.

Choose tasks that are simple to maintain and capable of producing the outcome you want.

Mastery Follows Consistency

The central question that ties our community together — and what I try to write about every Monday and Thursday — is “how do you live a healthy life?” This includes not merely nutrition and exercise, but also exploration and adventure, art and creativity, and connection and community.

But no matter what topic we’re talking about, they all require consistency. No matter what your definition is of a “healthy life,” you’ll have to battle procrastination to make it a reality. Hopefully, the Seinfeld Strategy helps to put that battle in perspective.

Don’t break the chain on your workouts and you’ll find that you get fit rather quickly.

Don’t break the chain in your business and you’ll find that results come much faster.

Don’t break the chain in your artistic pursuits and you’ll find that you will produce creative work on a regular basis.

So often, we assume that excellence requires a monumental effort and that our lofty goals demand incredible doses of willpower and motivation. But really, all we need is dedication to small, manageable tasks. Mastery follows consistency.

Source www.entrepreneur.com

Tax planning is designed to review the best tax strategies for you and whether you’re structured in the most effective way.  Essentially seeing things through a new set of eyes, allowing you to hold on to more of your money and develop your tax plan now.

Tax can be complicated and you want to make sure your obligations are covered. With you business tax planning service, you can be confident that your tax position is maximised!

Tax Strategies

Whether it’s deferring income to manage a tax burden or bringing forward deduction to the current year to prepay services where applicable, the right tax strategies will ensure you’re using your funds in the most tax effective way for your circumstances.

4 Steps To The Perfect Tax Plan

1. We’ll work with you to assess the most effective business structure for you
2. Together we’ll make sure all your records are up to date and accurate
3. We’ll work out a tax effective plan to manage all your taxes and obligations
4. We’ll work with you to ensure all your tax strategies are working effectively for you

What We Do

When it comes to your business tax planning we start by making sure you have the right foundation first. We review your business structure and make sure it’s the most appropriate one for you.

From there, we’ll work with you to deal with a range of taxes as well as any tax reforms and measures that might be relevant. We’ll help you implement the right strategies to maximise your tax effectiveness and make sure your money is working hard for you.

Questions

Tax planning is important to make sure you get the most out of your business performance! Take a moment to ask yourself the following questions.

1. Is your current business structure suitable?
2. Have you acquired or disposed of any taxable assets this year?
3. Are your records up to date for all expenditure so that all possible deductions can be claimed?
4. Are you investing any excess cash in a tax effective way?
5. Are you aware of all the relevant tax reforms and measures applicable to your business?

Speak to Accounting One about your business tax plan today!

You may have noticed that Inland Revenue (IR) has been featuring in the media quite a bit lately. Reported to have received additional funding, it has resulted in a sharp increase in audit activity and now, more than ever before, individuals and businesses are at risk of being selected for a random audit, enquiry, investigation or review.

If your business or individual return is subjected to a random audit, enquiry, investigation or review you are responsible for the professional fees involved in us providing the required information. Even the simplest enquiry can require hours of work. In some cases, when there are complex environments, unusual circumstances, multiple years or multiple companies and trusts, thousands of dollars in accounting and legal fees can be incurred.

We have responded to this growing threat by finding you the most comprehensive tax audit insurance available and are pleased to offer to you and your business our Audit Shield Master Policy. The Audit Shield Master Policy is fully tax deductable for businesses and self-employed providing you with peace of mind in relation to audit, enquiry, investigation and review associated costs. The features of this are:

• Our accounting fees in responding to audits, enquiries, investigations and reviews of your lodged returns, including those from previous years are covered.
• Specialist’s professional fees if we need to engage a tax expert or lawyer for an opinion or defence are covered.
• Cover commences from as little as $215pa (inc GST) for a sole trader or partnership.

You will soon be receiving a letter from us explaining the policy and inviting you to participate under our Audit Shield Master Policy. Should you have any queries in relation to the offer we encourage you to contact our office upon receipt of the letter.