Archive for 2008
A New Practice for 2009
I am spending New Year’s Eve on beautiful Saltspring Island and as I contemplate the year that is past and the year that is to come, my mind keeps being drawn back to a project launched by Deepak Chopra that I read about this week.
Called The Vow, Deepak is calling on people to take a vow of non-violence in their thoughts, speech and actions. I think this is a very powerful tool. It got me thinking about all the ways I see my female clients and friends practice violence on themselves with their own thoughts and speech:
- They hold themselves to a state of perfectionism which is unrealistic and creates a ton of stress and anxiety within them.
- Not eating ice cream or chocolate “because it will go straight to my hips”.
- Not acknowledging their successes - instead they always focus on all the stuff they have not finished doing yet.
- Pointing out the mistakes they made, instead of taking credit for a job well done or giving all the credit to other people.
- Not taking time out to recharge, refresh or look after yourself.
All of these things are a form of self-violence. They stifle enjoyment of life, pride in one’ s accomplishments and send out a message that “you’re not quite good enough yet. Keep working harder.”
So I say enough. Go and take the vow and then loosen up on yourself in 2009. Send me your stories throughout the year and let me know how it turns out!
How to Make Your Company Blog Effective
More and more businesses are launching blogs out there. This week I read a great article by Mack Collier at MarketingProfs (the latest business resource I have on my daily read list) on the Ten Elements Every Company Blog Should Have.
My favourite two elements?
- Have a strategy for your blog. What do you want it to accomplish for your business? Don’t just throw it up there. Have a direction and focus for your postings.
- Post between 2 and 5 times per week. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are usually the best days for traffic, so schedule posts to run these days, usually around 10am-noon.
No, but thanks for asking!
I am seeing a lot of clients this month overwhelmed by the responsibility of doing all their usual stuff plus meeting all the Christmas expectations. And I found myself asking the question: Why don’t we all just say no more often?
The universe must have been listening as I just received the latest newsletter from my friend, Emma-Louise Elsey at Simplicity Life Coaching and the December topic is all about saying NO.
Here’s what she has to say:
Women seem to have a harder time saying “No” than men. I think we worry more about hurting other’s feelings and what others think of us. But when anyone says “Yes” and would rather say “No” what we’re really saying is, “Your needs are more important than mine”.
So, next time, ask yourself “Whose needs am I meeting by doing …… – mine or theirs?” Then simply say: “No, but thanks for asking.
Great advice – so my challenge to you this week? Say no to something that you really don’t want to do. And then go ahead and do something you really want to do!
Find the joy and let go of the struggle!
Web PR Gives Big Bang for Small Bucks
I just wrote an article in the latest issue of Make It Business on using Web PR to build visibility for your business. In these economic times, you want to be looking at getting a big bang for your marketing and PR dollars. I interviewed the experts at Soya Marketing so read the article to find out how you can use the web in low cost ways to drive your sales.
Equal Partners?
Have you ever felt disregarded in a business venture with a partner when dealing with a third party? Well last week my business partner and I met with a company that wants to do business with us, after the meeting they only sent him a follow up e-mail and overlooked my presence. The best reaction to this treatment is to show this company that my partner and I work as a team and make decisions jointly, but to do this is a respectful manor so not to lose any business alliances.
Did You Know?!?!?! Some Tax Tips That You May Not Know
Did you know?!??! Some tax tips that you may not know about.
1) Generally meals or other entertainment related expenses are only partially deductible for tax purposes. However, did you know that in a year, a company may deduct 100% of the expense for 6 events where all the employees of the company are invited to attend? Examples of these types of events would be Christmas parties or summer picnics.
2) If you own more than 40% of your company, and you are an employee of that company, you are likely EI exempt. This means that you do not have to make EI remittances to the government on your earnings. This is a bit of a catch-22 though. You’ll have more cash to use in your business, but if you have to close up the business, you really can’t collect EI as being “laid-off” since you weren’t paying into the EI system.
3) Life Insurance. As a business owner, you likely have life insurance. Did you know that this is not a deductible expense for your business? However, even if it isn’t a deductible expense for your business, it is still better for the company to pay for it, since you’re paying for the premiums with pre-taxed revenues, rather than out of the salary that you receive from your company which is “after-tax” dollars.
4) Back to Meals and Entertainment expenses. Did you know that since you only get to deduct 50% of the expenses for most meals and entertainment expenses, you only get to claim 50% of the Input Tax Credit for GST purposes?
Dayna Holland is a Chartered Accountant whose mission is to make numbers and taxes less intimidating to business owners. Most of her career has been working with various High-Tech and telecommunications companies to minimize their tax burden. Now running her own company, she currently works with a variety of businesses to improve their profitability and handle their taxes. Please visit her website for more information.
How Your Logo Could Build Credibility
Podcast: How to Grow Your Business
I recently sat down with Mhairi Petrovic of Out-Smarts Marketing to do a podcast discussing the key attributes of successful entrepreneurs, how to grow your business in a recession and how entreprenuers can use social media to their benefit. You can listen to it here.
Check out the Weekend Daily Edition
I recently filmed a segment on the Weekend Daily Edition with Todd Cantelon, an extremely interesting and provocative interviewer! We had a lot of fun and a few differences of opinion talking about women in the business world, gender equality and where we’re at in this age of rights and free speech. You can catch it here.
IFRS – What’s The Big Deal?
And I bet that I just lost a bunch of you at the word IFRS. Funny how many accounting acronyms are four-letters (GAAP, FIFO, etc.), which are synonymous with other nasty four-letter words – not sure why TAX isn’t spelled TAXX or something like that. I just sat through an 9 hour course on this topic. And as far as I can see, it’s going to turn the accounting world upside down.
IFRS is the new accounting standard that’s coming into effect in 2011. (Yes it seems like a long way off – but realistically that’s only 2 years away). It stands for International Financial Reporting Standards. After the hey-days of Enron, Worldcom, and other crazy companies, the financial regulating bodies in the world got together and decided that one of the ways to prevent similar financial disasters would be to come up with a way to have a single set of standards. No longer will there be one set for the US, one set for Canada, one set for the UK, one set for Japan, etc. Or at least that is the idea. Canada, and the EU are a couple of countries that are supporting this concept. The US is slowly coming to terms with it –they have yet to fully embrace the idea – but rumour has it that they’re working towards accepting this in 2014.
Basically, if your company currently is reporting under “Canadian GAAP” and you’re having an external accounting firm audit your financial statements, you’ll start hearing that things are going to have to change according to the new IFRS standards.
In short, some things won’t change, but depending on your industry, you’ll find that there will be some new ways of accounting for various transactions.
The best advice I can give you regarding these new standards and how they may impact your company is to ask your accountant. As I said in another blog entry, these are your statements. You need to understand what they have to say. And you need to be aware how these new standards are going to impact your debt covenants and other financial metrics.
Dayna Holland is a Chartered Accountant whose mission is to make numbers and taxes less intimidating to business owners. Most of her career has been working with various High-Tech and telecommunications companies to minimize their tax burden. Now running her own company, she currently works with a variety of businesses to improve their profitability and handle their taxes. Please visit her website for more information.
