Business Clients Christmas Gift
Tue, 02 Feb 2010 01:18:09 +0000
Atlanta/Johns Creek/Hall Award Winning CPA on Tips to Preparing Your Business Books & Records
Accounting for Beginners: Bookkeeping 101
Providing Atlanta With Bookkeeping, Accounting Needs & Financial Statements for Decades
This is the Latest of A Financial Survivability Series of how you can look to the future by analyzing the present to help plan both short and long term for the future. Business Owners throughout Metro Atlanta will continue to be challenged as the U.S. economy strives to unlock itself from the economic frailties which still hold it down. Struggling with a Weakening Dollar, a High Jobless Rate, Limited Demand and Purchasing Power still have to overcome to get our economic steam engine back on track.
First and foremost in keeping your company legitimate is to make sure that you keep your personal expenses separate from your business expenses. To keep and maintain a clear delineation of your company from your personal affairs you should only pay business expenses out of your business/corporate account. Accordingly you will want to ensure that you only issue monies for your personal affairs out of your business and not out of your corporate account/monies.
Secondly it is prudent to have a sound basis and understanding of what is, and what is not tax deductible and how to properly record and account for your business expenses and revenue. Below is sample letter of one that might be used to give a client insight and guidance on their tax and bookkeeping issues. For convenience I have recapped my answers to the inquires in all capital letters:
Hi John,
I hope you and your family is having a great Christmas season. I am still working on the statements. Most of the work I have to do relates to figuring out the charges on my credit cards. 98% of the time my business card was only used for business expenses but I have had to go back through them to try and figure out the category of the expense. To make matters worse, I have transferred balances and opened new accounts and so forth so I have had to chase down the original transactions. Here are some questions I had.
1) Categories. I guess this is also referred to as my chart of accounts. I know you want me to put a lot of things in Office Supplies but I wanted to check on these because I wasn’t sure if Office Supplies is where you wanted them.
a) Client gifts: Christmas gifts or just sometimes purchasing them a piece of equipment or something. I also remember something about $25 being the maximum per client each year so if this is true where should the rest of it go? $25 IS THE LIMIT AND THE EXCESS WILL GO TO SHAREHOLDER DISTRIBUTIONS
b) Referral fee: If a client refers another person I write them a check for between $50 and $100. ADVERTISING
c) Internet education subscriptions: I pay a monthly fee to access articles and forums relating to fitness. I am a member of 2 of these sites which charge around $10 per month. TELEPHONE & UTILITIES
d) Water Delivery: I have bottled water for my clients to drink. TELEPHONE & UTILITIES
e) National Memberships: I have 2 certifications that I maintain annually for about $100 to $200 per certification. OFFICE SUPPLIES
2) What if I charged my credit card for some gas and then paid that credit card out of my business account but the gas was not a business expense? IF YOU PAID THE CREDIT CARD PERSONALLY THEN YOU WOULD JUST NOT LIST IT AS YOU ARE RECORDING BUSINESS EXPENES NOT YET REIMBURSED.
IF YOU PAID THESE DIRECTLY OUT OF THE BUSINESS AND WAS FOR GAS, AS YOU WILL BE DEDUCTING MILEAGE, YOU SHOULD CODE THESE TO SHAREHOLDER DISTRIBUTIONS.
IN THE FUTURE I WOULD SUGGEST PAYING ALL CAR EXPESES PERSONALLY AND THEN TURNING IN A MONTHLY EXPENSE REPORT TO GET REIMBURSED FOR ANY BUSINESS EXPENSES PAID PERSONALLY
John Dillard is a Christian Speaker/Author and Certified Public Accountant (All Rights Reserved). To See how he takes Christ along with him to work visit http://www.hiscpa.com/ (An Atlanta CPA firm) and for his latest book Overcoming Life’s 9/11’s: Job’s Journey and to learn about his ministry visit http://www.john-dillard.com/ To contact John Dillard CPA (Atlanta Christian Author/Speaker) today call 770. 814.9304 Proudly serving Duluth, GA, Gwinnett County and Beyond.
“Dare to Attempt Something so Great for the Kingdom of God that it is doomed to failure, lest Christ be in it!” What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? Romans 8:31 Why are these verses here? Learn how His CPA became a Christian Accounting firm visit http://www.hiscpa.com/christian-CPA.html
John Dillard is an Christian Speaker/Author and an Atlanta CPA. To See how he takes Christ along with him to work visit http://www.hiscpa.com/ and for his latest book Overcoming Life’s 9/11’s: Job’s Journey and a Voice of One: Nehemiah’s Prayer visit http://www.john-dillard.com/ or call John Dillard CPA today at 770.814.9304 (All Rights Reserved) Dare to Attempt Something so Great for the Kingdom of God that it is doomed to failure, lest Christ be in it!
We advise clients on: IRS representation, Offer in Compromise, Tax Problems, Incorporation in Georgia, Corporate and Personal Income Tax Returns, Part-time CFO, Virtual Controller, Business Planning, Offer in Compromise, Back Taxes, Bookkeeping.
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Would you really dare to give each client a gift of $500 this Christmas? What about something worth $2000? Or maybe $5000?
You think I'm joking right? I mean, here you are struggling with your 50 cent marketing budget and I'm giving you the key to your bankruptcy. At Christmas time, too!
Step up to the roller coaster and you'll find out how Marie beat the system with some simple, yet smart marketing tactics and how you can too. Yeah, just like that...
Marie Ain't No Santa Claus!
Nope! She's just like you and me.
She can do the Ho! Ho! Ho bit, until she's faced with the prospect of expensive client gifts.
Oh sure she wants to revel in the spirit of giving, but her bank balance is screaming for some mouth to mouth resuscitation. And that's something she can't ignore.
What's Worse Is Marie's Clients Probably Won't Even Like The Gifts!
Look at yourself. Did you really like that burgundy sweater you got last year? Or that gift basket full of calorie-ridden chocolates that made you wish you hadn't seen them at all.
Let's face it. Murphy's Law, kicks in bigger and bolder at this time of the year than any other. On average (and often because you're buying gifts in bulk) you're giving your client a gift that's so far off the mark that you might as well throw it in your own trash can and save him the trouble.
How Can Marie Play Scrooge And Santa Simultaneously?
There's one simple concept every business ignores. It's called Spare Capacity. Hotels are never totally booked, flights are never quite packed to the gills, and by golly, most businesses like yours and mine (no matter how busy) always have some free space and time.
Marie could use this factor to her advantage. If she approached my business, these are the step she would logically follow.
1-2-3, Cha, Cha, Cha (Here Are The Steps!)
Step 1: It's all in the way Marie puts it. If she simply asked me to speak to her clients, I might decline, but if she made it extremely tantalizing, I'd be only too willing.
"How would you like to meet with 20 new clients, that would be very keen to do business with you?"
That kind of question would get my curiosity wound up pretty quickly. She can then explain how she would be introducing me to 20 of her top clients. All I had to do was offer each of them an hour of my time. If I did a good job, I would get a whole bunch of new clients that would be quite eager to meet me.
Let's say I charge $500 for a consultation. Marie could qualify her clients well, and give them each a voucher to meet up with me. In this consultation, they would have the opportunity to throw me any of their marketing issues and I would have the chance to wow them with my fancy footwork.
Step 2: Once we're in agreement, she would create a voucher that she can give to her clients.
This voucher offers them the specified time at my convenience (I only need to meet them in my free time). This voucher would offer them the benefit of some radical, unusual marketing either via the net, phone or in person. To make the deal sweeter, Marie could offer me 20 hours of her time to meet my clients.
Step 3: We give these vouchers to our respective clients for Christmas. We tell them that we've bought them a gift that will help them tremendously in their business and that the gift is worth $500 or $2000, as the case may be. Any one of those solutions would be worth anything from $200 to $20,000, depending on what the client did with the idea.
How does that compare with your $20 gift right now?
Where Do You Start Looking?
There are no rules. Just because you sell product, it doesn't mean you have to do this Christmas swap with products.
If you sell products like beds, start looking at chiropractors, massage therapists, interior designers. If you look around you, you will find dozens of businesses that will be more than willing to play Christmas gift if there is something in it for them.
If you sell services...ditto. Look for services as well as products. Every one has spare capacity. Services are most highly valued because they're abstract and based on the person themselves, but you can find products that are sitting in someone's warehouse and they'd be glad for you to take them off their hands, in return for access to your top clients.
Best of all, this solves the problem of the suitability of the gift. Wouldn't a business be more excited by a highly prized service than another daily planner?
Why This Concept May Not Work For You
Marie, has got to make sure that I give solid information in the consulting session to her clients. Sales pitches are a no-no. Your swap must be a REAL gift, not some shoddily disguised sales pitch.
Pick your Christmas Partners carefully. A lot could go wrong here if all they're seeing is dollar signs.
The second reason why this may not work for you is sheer laziness. You might find it easier to step into a gift shop and blow $1000 on gifts for your clients. It's easy and it beats having to knock on doors and trudge through snow or sun (depending on where you live on the planet).
Hopefully You're Not That 'Duh!'
When you give your gift, all you're doing is trying to make your current client happy (and that's great!). With Marie's concept, you're actually getting a chance to meet another 20 new clients.
Say that quietly to yourself: Twenty new clients without you having to do any selling. You don't even have to spend any advertising or marketing moolah to get them in the door. Best of all, they will actually be grateful to have you over.
Does that send a chill down your spine? What if you could do this deal with three people just like Marie? Would 80 appointments be good enough for you?
Are You Going To Have a great NEW YEAR Or What?
No one ever told you about Santa Scrooge did they? Well, now that you know, what are you going to do about it? This rocks, my friend. Now go there and create a New Year that's really worth big bucks in your balance sheet.
If you do, the next time your banker hears Ho! Ho! Ho, he knows it's not Santa!
About the author: ©Psychotactics Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Wouldn't you love to stumble upon a secret library of small business ideas? Find simple, yet electrifying ideas, on copywriting, public speaking, sales conversion, marketing strategy,psychological tactics and branding. Head down to http://www.psychotactics.com today and judge for yourself.
