Posts Tagged ‘Business’

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Business Advice – Toll Free Numbers

Monday, February 14th, 2011

It is of little surprise that marketing campaigns that advertise toll free numbers for people to phone are much more successful than marketing campaigns that require people to pay for the cost of making the call. Of course, the fact that it does not cost people any money to get in contact is a major factor in this, as nobody likes to spend money unnecessarily, but there is a big psychological factor too. By paying for the call, you are saying that you really, really want people to contact you, and that can be enough to turn borderline customers into actual customers. Companies also like toll free numbers because they are portable and have additional reporting and routing capabilities. Additionally, if a company has just a local phone number, and they want to run a national marketing campaign, or even just one in a nearby city, then people will be more reluctant to phone them. For some reason, customers have no problems with dealing with a local or national company, but do have issues dealing with companies that are based solely in a town or city that is different from their own. Using a toll free number allows you to hide that fact. Getting a toll free number does not require you to buy any extra equipment or to have an extra phone line installed. Once you choose your number the company that you buy it from can set it up to ring through to any phone that you choose, such as your cell phone or your office phone. As for the process of choosing a number, they are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. In the U.S. they commonly begin with 800, 888 or 877, and in the UK they commonly begin with 0800, 0845 or 0844. Each country will have a slightly different format for their toll free phone numbers.

If you liked this, try : 0800 Numbers

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Tax Issues For Contractors – Advice From An Expert

Tuesday, February 8th, 2011

Issues of tax are undeniably more complicated for freelancers or contractors in the UK than they are for people who are regularly employed. Read our helpful guide for the tax issues you should consider if you’re a freelancer. One of the first things you need to do when sorting out your tax is to determine what kind of freelancer you are: this means working out whether you’re self-employed as a sole trader or whether your business means you need to register a company.

Then there’s the issue of VAT. You don’t have to worry about this too much if you’re on low to average earnings, but if you earn over £64,000 a year then you need to register for VAT. This is so you can collect and claim for Value Added Tax. It can be a complicated business as it adds an extra complication to your tax return, so if you’re worried about it you could ask an accountant to help you. It can be useful to separate the VAT when sending invoices.

National Insurance contributions are another tax issue you need to make arrangements for. Specifically, you need to make plans to pay Class 2 NI contributions, unless you have very low earnings which exempt you from paying it. Most people set up a direct debit with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to pay for it on a monthly basis. If you earn a lot, you’ll also have to pay higher rate NI contributions, which lower earners can pay on a voluntary basis.

Self-assessment tax returns are one of the big issues for UK freelancers and contractors. These are based on the previous financial (which runs from April – April) and you will be charged tax based on how much you earned in that financial year. You need to make sure to keep a record of all your earnings and all costs related to your work so you can input them into the form and help HMRC come up with an accurate figure as to how much tax you owe.

One final and important thing to think about is the arrangements for paying your tax bill. Even if the subsequent tax year is a lean one and you don’t earn much, you’ll still have to pay your tax bill for the previous year, so it can be a good idea to have a cushion of money to fall back on. It’s also a good idea to save money up throughout the year so you know you’ll have enough to pay your tax bill when it comes to it.

Continue : Contractor Tax Or Contractor Umbrella Company

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Start A Business – Ideas

Saturday, March 20th, 2010

Brian Tubbs just published a comprehensive article on how to start a web based business from your home. In it he touches on what the pitfalls are, “easy to become disoriented…” but then he goes into what all you need to do to get it going.
This is great reading and it should be one of those articles to go through and add to the pros and cons list that you are probably already compiling. It’s great advice for any wanna-be web business owner.
Read it here
Here are a few more interesting tidbits about the differences or not between an internet business and a bricks-and-mortar business:
Internet Marketing is very dependent on marketing more than anything else. Having a good product or service is secondary. You need to have the traffic or the eyes seeing your content for it to do you any good.

Starting a Business Online
Starting a business online is not much different from starting a business in real life. The process to attract walk-ins is also related to the Internet Marketing process, you must have a good marketing to be able to accomplish this. It could be as simple as a sandwich board outside your store, but it must have a compelling marketing message.

So, how do you go about starting an internet business?

There are many things that correspond to the brick-and-mortar process of starting a business.

List of For Instances on Starting a Business
For instance, you need to make sure you have a good feasibility study done. In other words, is this something that the market has an interest in and are there enough interested eyeballs, bodies, with money that will make this worth creating.

For instance, you need to decide what it will cost to have the business going, irrespective of whether or not you make sales. In other words, how much money will I need to keep the business alive if I don’t have anyone buy anything. This involves the rent, phone, utilities, salaries, taxes, and so on. Online, it would be your hosting fee, your Internet access, and so on.

For instance, you need to determine your costs if you are creating products, selling services, or retailing products. Each one has a different set of requirements. When creating products, both online and offline, you will need more upfront costs to take care of than if you are retailing a product. So, the amount of money you have available will determine which route you can go. We are not talking about having others invest in your venture here because that will also make a difference on the decision.

For instance, will you run the business on your own or will you hire out for some of the areas you aren’t equiped to handle. Will you hire personnel or will you outsource it.
For instance, what type of business entity will you have. This has to do with the type of liability you want to protect yourself for. Corporations and non-corporations are pretty much it. Then you also need to decide what amount of leadership are you willing to share if any. Some corporations will allow one single owner, partnerships will always involve someone else, and “doing-business-as” (dba) will always be the least safe of all business entities.

These are just a few of the items that come to mind.
Let me know if you have other questions that still bug you and we’ll try and get you the answers.
To your success

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