This post by guest blogger Dawn Wentzell appears in our series Small Business 500.

Over the last year, mobile has become the hottest topic in marketing. Mobile payments, mobile ads, location-based marketing, QR codes, mobile websites … And you don’t have a mobile site yet? Here are 5 reasons you should:

1. Your users are mobile

With about 82 million smartphone users in the US, and another 8 million in Canada – chances are at least one of your customers has tried to access your website from a mobile device. You can check your website analytics to see how many mobile visitors you’re currently getting, but expect that number to increase as smartphone adoption increases.

2. No flash support

Flash is widely used on websites for animations, videos and effects. However, mobile devices have limited support for the technology. Apple has refused to support Flash on iOS devices, and the browsers on BlackBerrys and Windows Phones don’t support it either. In fact, Adobe, the creator of Flash, has decided to stop development of mobile Flash. If you use Flash for anything important on your company’s website, mobile users won’t be able to see that information. By creating a mobile-optimized website without flash, you’ll open the door to a whole new marketplace.

3. Mobile users have different expectations

Mobile users are frequently looking to get information quickly. They’re late for an appointment with you and need to find your phone number. They’re heading to the airport and need to check the status of their flight. Mobile websites should focus on the information that mobile users need to access immediately, and reduce or remove extraneous information.

4. Mobile users are unfaithful

Mobile users expect a comparable experience to viewing desktop websites. That’s not to say they want the same website, but they do expect sites to load quickly and give them the information they’re looking for. If your site doesn’t provide that, one third of users will go to your competitor instead. Serving your desktop website to mobile users won’t cut it.

5. Integrate with your offline marketing

Mobile is a great bridge between online and offline marketing. Seventy-one percent of smartphone users search for a product after seeing an ad for it, and usually immediately after seeing the ad. You no longer have to hope that person who saw your ad on the bus remembers it until they get access to a computer. Information retrieval is instant, so be sure you’re keeping up.

Fortunately, getting a mobile website doesn’t have to be difficult. There are agencies that specialize in mobile website design, or your current website provider may be able to help you out. Sites built on popular frameworks like WordPress or Drupal can download plugins and templates that will make them accessible to mobile users.

— Dawn Wentzell is a project manager at SpeakFeel Corporation. SpeakFeel is a Toronto-based agency that specializes in mobile app development for BlackBerry, iPhone and Android, as well as mobile marketing and website design.

speakfeel.ca
@SpeakFeel
facebook.com/SpeakFeel

It’s that time of year again when self-employed small business owners (sole proprietors) do their year-end.

A Sole Proprietor is a type of business entity that is owned by one individual, where there is no legal distinction between the owner and the business. In this type of business the owner receives all of the profits and is responsible for all of the debts. The year-end profits of the business are combined with all other income that an individual might have and taxes are paid at the current personal tax rate.

Sole proprietors often feel overwhelmed, confused and nervous about preparing for their yearly tax filing — especially those new entrepreneurs who do not have a business or accounting background.

Your business year ends on December 31st and steps need to be taken to ensure you are not overpaying or underpaying the taxman. It starts with making sure your bookkeeping is done and up to date. Here is a checklist of tasks that should be completed every year.

End of Year Bookkeeping Checklist:

• Reconcile your bank account
  This will make sure that an expense or deposit (sale) is not missing. Don’t forget about those monthly bank fees.
• Catch up on invoices
  Do you have services or products you have delivered but not yet sent invoices for?
• Record transactions
  Have you imported or posted all transactions from your bank accounts, PayPal accounts, and credit card accounts into your accounting system? Search your pockets for any missing receipts.
• Personal expenses
  Are you missing any income or expense transactions related to your business that were deposited into or paid from your personal bank account?
• Categorize transactions
  Make sure all of your income and expenses have been properly categorized to the correct account.
• Don’t forget mileage
  Have you recorded all the time spent in the car? Your daily commute doesn’t count.
• Don’t forget home office expense allowances
  If you are operating your business from your home you may be entitled to expense a portion of your mortgage interest and utilities. Check with your accounting professional.
• Pay your estimated taxes
  To avoid penalties when taxes are due on April 30 (April 17 in the US), be sure you’ve paid enough in estimated taxes for the year. If you need to make an additional installment do it now.
• Check your income statement
  Compare it to prior years. Look for posting errors in any amounts that have increased or decreased significantly.
• Don’t forget to reverse stale-dated checks!
  Do this 6 months from date of issue.
• Record any year-end accrual entries and depreciation if applicable
• Check accounts receivable and accounts payable for accuracy
• Write off bad debts, if any
  (Hopefully there aren’t!)
• Prepare a budget for this year
  To start creating a new budget take your profit and loss statement in your accounting software from last year and export it to a spreadsheet. Then you can easily add formulas to increase revenue next year by a percentage or reduce some of your expenses.

Armed with this checklist and the help of your accounting professional your year-end will go much smoother. Your business books will be error free and your tax return will be accurate.

– Dianne Mueller CPB  – Certified Professional Bookkeeper
Soma Small Business Solutions

simplysoma.com
@Simply_Soma
facebook.com/SomaSolutions
linkedin.com/simplysoma

Need more help?
If you want more assistance, or if you prefer to let someone else do the work, we can put you in touch with accountants and bookkeepers from the Wave Pro Network. Find a Wave Pro.

Are you still using a shoebox for your accounting? Or a clunky, expensive accounting application? Make your next tax year as pain-free as possible: Sign up for free online accounting
for small businesses from Wave.

PPC guru Andrew Goodman guest blogs on the PPC vs SEO debate. We recommend his post PPC for Small Businesses as essential reading to understand the PPC vs SEO debate.

PPC, or Pay Per Click, refers to Internet advertising where plain-text ads are generally displayed at the top or sides of a search page. The most common example, of course, are the ads on a Google results page. Though often overlooked in favor of SEO (search engine optimization), PPC is a great model to consider for getting noticed and selling product online. PPC isn’t a poor cousin to SEO: It often beats SEO hands down as a marketing channel. Here’s why:

1. With PPC, you have a lot more control

With SEO, Google is the boss, and you have a limited ability to guide the user’s experience. But when it comes to PPC, you call the shots. PPC provides you with control over your ad copy (so that you can test it to maximize performance); control over the choice of landing page; control over which keywords you show up on, how visibly, etc. That should lead to better results and fewer excuses.

2. Tighter feedback loops

With SEO, you mainly work on building reputation externally and creating content elements on your website. It takes months to find out whether these experiments and work projects impact ranking and revenues. Before long, another year has passed. With PPC, you’re constantly finding out what works so you can get results and learn from them immediately.

3. Better appreciation of cause and effect

As a result of the above two factors, your tests provide meaningful and often indisputable conclusions about which keywords work at what price; what landing page format converts; which ads do a better job of filtering out the wrong searchers, etc.

4. Better service

If you’re an advertiser, Google and other publishers have an obligation to help. On the SEO side, they owe you nothing. It’s true that on the SEO side there are some tools and resources nowadays, but on the paid search side you can call the support line anytime. Larger accounts and agencies have teams of specialists at their disposal, and there are also special private education events and more.

5. Fewer algorithm changes

SEO is determined by algorithms — complex formulas that calculate which site should rank first for what searches. The problem: Algorithms change. One day you can be riding high, convinced that your tactics are aligned with Google’s view of “great content.” The next day, your traffic drops by 50 or even or 80% because Google is sweeping through the content universe trying to weed out spam and discounting commonly used SEO tactics … and you’re caught in the net. 
This type of business risk is not as acute with PPC, because search engines have much less spam to worry about in the paid search universe. Though there is a Google Quality Score algorithm on the paid search side that rewards advertisers for relevance, the changes here are typically smaller and less devastating. Google deals more respectfully with a finite universe of known advertisers with credit cards who pay for each click.

–Andrew Goodman is the founder and president of Page Zero Media, a full-service digital marketing agency founded in 2000, focusing on SEM and display ads. Clients include DirectEnergy, Nuts.com, and Postmedia Digital. Andrew is author of Winning Results with Google AdWords (2nd ed., 2008), writes a regular column for ClickZ, and maintains a streak of speaking at every SES conference in North America since 2002 (39 and counting).

pagezero.com

Love it or hate it, PowerPoint is the go-to technology to accompany the almost-daily brigade of presentations we engage with – new business pitching, internal briefings, quarterly meetings (the list goes on). Your eyelids are getting heavy, the tiny text starts to bleed into the background, couldn’t this have been put into a tidy memo that I could have ignored on my desk? Alas, this is not always an option, so knowing some appropriate alternatives, may be useful in avoiding the death-by-PowerPoint monotony.

1. Fly solo

No visual aid: A novel idea, I know. Often, PowerPoint is used as a crutch — a clever diversion to draw audience eyes away from the nervous presenter. Although it takes a brave soul, consider if PowerPoint slides are in fact enhancing any of your speaking points. If the information is simply being repeated on a slide, it may not be necessary. Go forth & conquer the boardroom, sans aid.

2. A dizzying array of options

SlideRocket, Google Docs, Prezi, Zoho Show, shall I go on? These are just a handful of the available presentation technologies that have emerged to offer a varied (and often more engaging) alternative to PowerPoint. Prezi is my personal favorite. It takes your audience through an animated road map that allows for as much, or as little content as desired. Prezi is a free, simple to use and still fairly untapped presentation resource. The element of surprise is always a refreshing treat for those waiting to hear yet another riveting Q3 update.

3. Old faithful

PowerPoint is the office standard, and sometimes it’s your only choice for a presentation aid. Deep breath … this is okay, you will make it out alive. Just remember the time-old advice: Limit your text, do not simply repeat your speaking points, and for goodness sake only create slides that enhance the content of your presentation. Most importantly, factor in the audience, nature of content, length, etc. It’s not rocket science people, it’s just a PowerPoint (but, please, try and make it interesting).

4. Real time

Never underestimate the power of a white board, chart paper, even a piece of chalk. It is completely acceptable to use your surroundings, and often refreshing. It can be interesting for audiences to see you jot down a key word, or interesting point as you go. Think about the classic movie scene where the new teacher introduces herself to the class, writing her name on the chalkboard (often underlined for dramatic flare). You can picture it clearly in your mind, right? That’s the proof of how effective this approach can be.

5. Master the presentation itself

This may seem like a displaced alternative, but above all else, a presentational aid is only as good as the presenter. Be sure to take advantage of any professional resources made available to you. Join Toastmasters, propose presentation skills training at work, or contact a vocal coach. And practice, practice, practice. These days, it is common to present via Skype or intraweb videoconference, and raw presentation skills are the only thing transmitted through a webcam.

Laura works in marketing communications at NATIONAL Public Relations, specializing in consumer goods, event planning and media relations. Working with some of Canada’s more successful and emerging brands, Laura helps to build brand equity, drive sales, and give a presentation whenever the opportunity arises.

lauratulley.com
@lauratulley
linkedin.com/lauratulley

This post was written for Wave by guest blogger Dr. Ava Cross.

All professionals deliver presentations — to groups of 5 or 6 and to audiences of 100 or more. Presentations not only provide opportunities to sell your products and services, but also to make a personal impact on people and cement your firm’s overall image and reputation. Here are 5 tips that will help you present with confidence and ease.

1. Know your audience

Learning about your audience — their backgrounds, age group, general interests, and attitudes — will help you determine how to select, shape, and deliver your information. Some audiences will be familiar with your company, and some won’t. Some audiences will be subject matter experts and others won’t even know the basic terms. Some audiences may be resistant to your message, and others will welcome it. Knowing your audience will help you pitch your information so that they can act on your objective.

2. Determine your purpose

What is the point of your presentation? What information should your audience take away? Do you want your audience to consider using a specific service or product? Or do you only want to raise your company profile? Think about the end point of your talk, and work toward that goal.

3. Organize your information

Prepare your talk with a clear introduction, middle, and conclusion. Use your intro to state your credentials, reveal your purpose, and preview the main topics you will cover. Then deliver the substance of your talk, being sure to have a clear strategy – for example, you may need to start with simple information and then move to the more complex. In your conclusion, recap your key ideas and your main objective. And remember to use transitions that guide your audience through each part of your speech, so they can follow your talk easily.

4. Prepare visual support

Visual support will reinforce key ideas and communicate complicated information, such as company growth. Keep it simple: Be sure your visuals enhance the spoken message, not hijack it with text-heavy slides or complex charts. Remember to prepare a title slide with your name, contact information, and speech title and date. You might also want to prepare handout slides so audience members have a take-away. Finally, proofread visuals carefully — spelling errors can destroy your credibility.

5. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse

Almost everyone is nervous before delivering a presentation. We worry about making mistakes and how our audiences will view us. The best way to overcome nerves is with thorough preparation and rehearsal. Practice your presentation several times a day before delivery. You might want an audience of colleagues or to record yourself, so you can monitor your pace, eye contact, and mannerisms. While practicing remember to control your pace by breathing and pausing, and use eye contact to roam the room, so people feel you are speaking to them individually. Maintain good posture, but avoid stiffness – your audience wants to see a professional, but also someone they can relate to.

Originally from New York, Ava Cross teaches in the School of Professional Communication at Ryerson University. She is the author of Talking Business: Strategies for Successful Presentations and the Canadian author of Excellence in Business Communication, both published by Pearson Education Canada.

This post by guest blogger Adam Brind appears in our series for the Small Business 500

I am always amazed when I walk into a real estate office and it looks as if it was pieced together with random garage sale items from the early 90s (especially the artwork). For a company trying to sell or lease properties, you would think that they could invest a little into their work environment, right? I mean, these are the same folks that are supposed to be the experts and advising you on space?

The point is, your office is far more than a place to hang your hat — so it requires some attention from every angle. Don’t ever forget the old adage about the importance of first impressions. With so much competition out there, your space can make or break the next big deal you want to land.

With that in mind, here are five key elements to consider when choosing new office space.

1) Character matters

Let’s make something very clear here: Your office is an extension of your business. If your office looks disheveled, your business looks disheveled. Take the time to find a space that suits your business goals and put some thought into the decorations. If decor isn’t really your thing, spend a few extra bucks and hire a professional.

2) Don’t forget insurance

With so many horror stories out there, don’t underestimate the importance of comprehensive tenant insurance. Always remember that under no circumstance does the landlord’s insurance cover your contents. This one little misstep has the ability to flatten your dreams.

3) Beware of extra costs

Searching for an office is never easy, but here is a piece of advice that seems like common sense: Be extra careful of the added expenses related to leasing. Generally, commercial lease prices are “net” of the total costs. This means that your “gross” lease expenses will include additional items such as hydro, or in some retail circumstances, a percentage of sales.

4) Setting the mood

You know how great that crisp new outfit feels? Well, guess what – your space has the same impact on mood and, potentially, productivity. Real estate is emotional and your office space should feel right — you can always change the paint, but you can’t add windows and natural light.

5) Creating culture

I’ll never forget walking into one of Canada’s largest asset management companies only to find that the entire staff sat in the same room, including the CEO and CFO; no offices, no hierarchy - it was beautiful! When I inquired about it, they said it made communicating easier and more productive. So, sit back and really think about the culture that you want to create with your organization. Do you really need individual offices?

- Adam Brind is the co-founder of Core Assets Inc. and a registered realtor based out of Toronto, Ontario. The Core Assets team works with both residential and commercial clients helping to build and define their real estate goals and portfolios.

This post by guest blogger Charles Crosbie appears in our series Small Business 500

Entrepreneurs who are fresh out of the gate with their business idea frequently ask my firm for advice about their branding: their corporate identity, logo and, of course, what to call their new venture.

Many of the considerations and concerns are universal, so here are a few of the basic facets that we convey (and addressed ourselves in naming our own shop, Clout) when the time comes to name your venture.

1. Shut up and say something

First and foremost, keep in mind that you are naming a business: This is a company and not your baby. As you begin to list out possible names, you must start by taking your train of thought forwards and backwards through their meaning. Ask “I want my name to say Y about my company,” and “Y would have these connotations.”

Test them out among those around you, anonymously online, with street-level strangers (as the founders of govWorks Isaza Tuzman and Tom Herman were seen doing in the documentary Startup.com). The world is your focus group.

When all else fails, hit them over the head with wording that is to the point and easy for your market to find you with. At some point, you have to stop deliberating and just be out with it.

2. Be unique but not esoteric

When being creative, decide how committed you are to using your surname (i.e. “Eastman”) versus a coined word (i.e. “Kodak”) versus existing words (i.e. “Film Company”) or a combination of all three. In all cases, it must be easy for everyone to identify, remember, pronounce and verbally convey.

When George Eastman and his mother coined “Kodak” as a brand name, they did so because (beyond his appreciation of it’s timbre) it achieved three of his most important criteria: it was short; it was almost impossible to mispronounce; and, it was something that he could have absolute ownership of.

When coining a word, always keep word of mouth in mind: How will your name be conveyed on the radio? (Google is a coined, phonetic interpretation of “googol” that people obviously took to with ease).

Avoid obscurity and being pedantic: If using a motif that’s particular to your industry, avoid using terms and jargon that would be foreign to outsiders (unless you are operating strictly business-to-business in an esoteric field).

3. Own it

Beyond knowing if you can legally proceed with your business name (in your given industry and/or jurisdiction), you need to determine if you can have “ownership” of it in your market. How tough a war will you have to wage in search engines to rank first for your business name? How hard will you need to fight for word of mouth and the like?

If you’re confident that you can use a business name to stake your ground, and to become a recognizable business (and that you are not flagrantly infringing on anyone or copying a competitor), add the name to your shortlist.

Avoid treading on an existing business name: Even if your product or service is geared to bolster or involve an existing brand, you may seem like you are riding coat-tails and could open yourself up to litigation. Think about how your company name will be used when it hits the streets: Will your market refer to you by part of or all of the company name? Will they use an acronym? What kind of nicknames, positive or otherwise, might emerge?

4. Scalability

We often tell new entrepreneurs not to neglect thinking of the scalability of their new company name (both literally and figuratively when it comes time to see it print, on swag, etc.). When choosing your new business name, you have to envision it in the present and future and in all of its forms: short, long, colloquial and the like alongside changes in the industry.

Will adding a noun to your business name really help you now (or hinder you later if you can’t easily change it or rebrand)? What happens when you expand markets, products, and territories? There’s a bit of an art and science here in not limiting yourself to one area if you foresee growth. For example, would Apple have chosen “Apple Computer” as their name had they foreseen becoming a large consumer and telephony electronics manufacturer?

5. Timelessness vs. Trendiness

It is very tempting for start-ups to hone in on buzzwords and memes. However, buzzwords can become passé as quickly as they become popular and using them can backfire painfully fast. What you think of as hip could quickly turn cheesy with your market if you’re trying too hard.

As Joselynn Maas aptly put it in her post about creating a logo for a small business, the best brands are those that can stand the test of time. Her example of Coca-Cola is perfect: great evidence of this is in seeing the consistency of their trademarks on the sides of stores in photos taken during the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries.

And, while it’s also in vogue to misspell words (especially to exploit web domains such as “.ie,” “.ly” or “.ee,”), doing so increases your risk of losing prospects in their search for you. If you go this route, be prepared to commit to concerted marketing and web efforts to detour your audience to your website, phonebook listing or the like.

—Charles Crosbie is the President and CEO of Clout, a boutique agency specializing in marketing, advertising and promotions in emerging media spaces. Charles is from Toronto, Ontario, where he formerly worked with Rogers Communications and Young & Rubicam Advertising.

CloutMarketing.ca
linkedin.com/company/clout-marketing-co
@cloutmarketing
facebook.com/CloutMarketing

That being said, we know that small business never sleeps, so we’ll still be available. You may experience longer-than-usual response times from support between December 24 and January 3, and then we’ll be back in full-swing, ready to implement more of the fun new features we have planned for the new year.

From the entire Wave team, however you’ll be celebrating the holidays this year, enjoy! We’re looking forward to working with you next year, and continuing to find ways to make your small business accounting even easier.

It’s a super simple, easy-to-use tax resource, made just for small business owners.  Whatever shape your accounting information is in right now, we have step-by-step instructions on how to get organized and ready for tax season.

Ready to see how easy taxes can be? Check out our Year-End Survival Kit!

“My bank statement is my best source of transaction records”

1. First, you’ll need to determine the period for which you need a bank statement. The goal is to fill any gaps that exist in the data record in Wave. For example, assuming your fiscal year is January 1 to December 31, let’s imagine that you signed up for Wave on September 1 and have all your information up to date from them on. In that case, you’ll want to access your online banking records from January 1 to August 31.
Of course, if you need the entire year’s worth of data, see if you can download the whole thing.

2. Now you need to determine how far back your bank will allow you to export an electronic statement. If your bank allows you to export data for the entire period you identified in Step 1, you’re set. If you can only get a part of that period, you’ll have to deal with the remaining time by using your Quick Entry instructions.