2017 Financial Goals for Small Business Owners

If you are a small business owner, you should be setting goals as early as possible so that you are not caught behind the eight ball as the year goes by. Sweeping changes are expected in 2017, and you’ll need to be ready. For example, it’s predicted that 2017 will be the year that video finally overtakes text as the No. 1 form of communication on the internet. 2017 will also mark the rise of the independent mobile commerce culture, and, of course, virtual reality is on the immediate horizon.

Here’s how to prepare for the changes ahead.

Target Your Niche Even More Precisely

In order to grow your business, shrink your marketing. The major search engines, like Google and Bing, continue to reward localization and punish wide-net marketing strategies. There is also more competition in 2017 than ever before, including premium prices on the best keywords. You will need to stretch out your long-tail keywords even further and delve more deeply into a local or niche culture in order to get that organic traffic that drives the highest conversion rates.

Bother People

Many small business owners believe that the advent of new communications technologies means an automatic influx of customers. Even with the hands-down best product on the market, this is never the case. More robust communications only means more noise as potential consumers are bombarded with a deluge of advertisements and indirect marketing. In order to stand out, you have to personalize your messages – even going customer by customer. You cannot be afraid to bother people, and rejection cannot bother you.

What Every Small Business Should Know About 1099s

Every year when tax time rolls around, I field questions from business owners about whether or not they need to send 1099s to their vendors. As common as 1099 forms are, they remain one of the most misunderstood Internal Revenue Service (IRS) requirements.

To make sure you understand the circumstances under which the IRS requires issuing 1099-MISC forms to vendors, I’m going to provide some basic “must-know” information here.

What Is A Form 1099-MISC?

You must issue an IRS Form 1099-MISC to each person you’ve paid $600 or more in services (including parts and materials), prizes and awards, rents or other income payments. The 1099-MISC only applies to payments you made in doing business; it does not apply to payments made for personal purposes.

To Whom Do You Need To Send A Form 1099-MISC?

If your business paid more than $600 to a vendor or sub-contractor [individual, partnership, Limited Liability Company (LLC), Limited Partnership (LP), or estate], you are required to send a Form 1099-MISC to document what you paid them throughout the year. In general, anyone who worked for you—other than your employees—will need a 1099 from you.

Five Steps To Becoming An Empowered Woman (Or Man) Business Owner

As a woman business owner, I’ve found that empowerment comes to us in two ways:

1. Access to external sources of inspiration and knowledge

2. Self-respect and self-confidence

You can sit around and wait for someone to empower you, or you can take the bull by the horns and take action to empower yourself. I will always vote for the latter of the two because it gives you more control over your entrepreneurial destiny.

Although women own nearly 30 percent of U.S. small businesses (according to the Status of Women in the United States website), I find that many of us still struggle with accepting it’s OK to seek empowerment on our own. We often think of it as something that is handed to us. That doesn’t seem very empowering to me!

So, what can women entrepreneurs (and men, too) do to boost our level of empowerment and reach our personal and professional potential?