How to Ruin Relationships in 2013

Here are some phrases guaranteed to help you win friends and influence people in 2013, with my apologies to Dale Carnegie for ripping him off.  He shouldn't care much.  He's dead.  So my relationship with him will remain intact.  I do like his deli sandwiches.

"Don't take this the wrong way, but..."
"I just thought you should know..."
"I probably shouldn't tell you this, but..."
"You aren't going to like this, but ..."

What happens to your blood pressure when you hear one of these phrases?  These phrases all include the unspoken "Don't blame me." attitude of those who don't really have your interests at heart.  Competent business owners don't use these phrases with  customers, employees, or family members for that matter.  These phrases guarantee and deliver unnecessary drama.

I have written posts about why you should shoot the messengers, who regularly deliver bad news.   These minions of glad tidings use the phrases above.  That's how you know they aren't on your side, and how you know they likely create a substantial portion of their urgently delivered misery.

My objective isn't to teach you to lead them a little more and allow for the wind before you pull the trigger on your soon to be outlawed assault rifle.  My objective is to keep you from getting shot or from standing next to someone about to get shot.  Step one, don't use the above phrases.  Step two, wear a bullet proof vest...

Nike is correct.  When you have bad news to deliver, just do it.  Avoid all the weasel words.  When the boat is sinking, no one has time for elegant prose and witty turns of phrase.

One great way to avoid crossfire when you deliver bad news is to deliver a bonus gift, a solution or path to mitigate the effects of the news.  When the boat is sinking, the sooner the bailing starts and the more hands involved the better.  In a sinking boat, no one shoots the guys doing the bailing.  They shoot the vermin scampering into the life rafts.

Poorly worded commands also kill relationships for business owners.  Do you ever use the following approach when you want something done?

"Do you mind getting me the financial results for last month?"

Don't ask a question when you don't care about the answer.  You don't really care if she minds, do you?  You just want the damn financial results.  The following is better and reinforces that you are the boss, not some poor supplicant asking the headmaster for a little more porridge.

"Please get me the financial results for last month."

I was a major offender in asking questions instead of issuing orders.  Then one day I realized that I'm not a nice person.  My ex-wife would regularly ask our kids if they minded doing their chores.  Surprise, surprise, sometimes they did mind.  Maintaining good relationships requires clearly defining the terms of those relationships.  You are in charge.  Act that way.

This Sunday the Redskins play the Dallas Cowboys in a game that will determine a spot in the NFL playoffs.  The Cowboys are misnamed.  They should be called the Dallas Narcissists.  Their star receiver, Dez Bryant, epitomizes the team's attitude and approach.  Bryant will give you a fine performance on Sunday, if he has nothing better to do, like partying.  The Cowboys so trust Bryant that they hired a full time babysitter to keep him out of the strip joints and bars.

Their owner, Jerry Jones, is no better.  The biggest danger Bryant faced leaving strip joints was running into Jones entering the parking lot.   A book a few years ago told the story of Jones competing for the affections of strippers with players like Michael Irvin.

Sunday's game is a morality play, if ever a football game could be one.  You can root for RGIII, a man who graduated from college in three years and eats humility for breakfast each morning.  Or you can root for Dez Bryant, king of the narcissists.  Do the right thing.

As always for real tax and accounting advice, please visit the main S&K web site at www.skcpas.com.  Also, please like the "How to Screw Up Your Small Business" Facebook page.  I post daily stories of small business misery as well as the occasional business tip.

Until next time, let's do it to them before they do it to us.

How the Grinch Stole Your Tax Refund

On Sunday, the Redskins backup rookie quarterback, Kirk Cousins, put up thirty-eight points on the Cleveland Browns.  Cousins was a fourth round draft pick from Michigan State, whose selection was roundly blasted by Skins fans as unnecessary and wasteful after giving up so much in draft picks to select RGIII.  Cousins has got to be singing, "How do you like me now?" after more than three hundred yards passing.

I won't say I told you so, but I told you so.  Before the beginning of the season, I posted that I was more excited about having Cousins than RGIII.  After the preseason, that seemed justified.  Yes, you might argue that I was just a little bit wrong about the importance of RGIII, but why bring up such unpleasantness at Christmas?

2012 is the strangest year for tax planning in my twenty-three years in practice.  For the first time in my memory, and my kids tell me I go back to the dinosaur era, we are advising people to pay more in taxes.  Why?  Because, the Grinch has stolen most of our tax breaks for 2013.  For this post, I will concentrate on how the Grinch is affecting your non-qualified stock options.

Non-qualified stock options are options to purchase your employer's stock at a set price for a set period of time.  I used the term, non-qualified, to refer to options that are not incentive stock options.  Yes, all options are supposed to be incentives, but the term, incentive, has a special meaning when applied to stock options.

Incentive stock options are intended to be exercised, and then you hold the resulting stock for more than one year.  Incentive options have some special tax aspects regarding alternative minimum tax and capital gains rates.  I may cover these in a future post.  The Grinch is stealing your tax benefits for these as well.

Non-qualified options are simply any options that aren't incentive options.  For instance, let's assume you have the option to buy 100 shares of your employer at $100 per share, and that you can exercise those options anytime in 2012 or 2013.  Let's also assume that the current stock price is $125 per share.  If you exercise these options and sell the stock immediately in what is known as a cashless exercise, you will have income of $25 per share or $2,500, which is the difference between the price at which you sold the stock and the exercise price.

Because the options are non-qualified, the income is considered compensation income just like any other salary and is subject to all of the normal tax withholding, including Social Security and Medicare.  The income will be recorded on your year-end W-2 tax statement as well.  If you had the choice between exercising the options in the current year or next year, normally I would advise you to choose the next year to defer taxes as long as possible.

However, 2012 is different.  The Grinch will be visiting us in 2013 and stealing many of our tax breaks we have enjoyed since 2001.  The first goodie he has stolen from under our Christmas tree is our low tax rates.  Rates are going back to 2001 levels effective January 1, 2013.  If you household income is over $200K, expect to feel some pain, maybe not gunshot wound level pain, but a dull toothache kind.

Second, the Grinch is giving us a gift we'd like to return, but he'll give us no return receipt.  There is a new .9% Medicare surcharge on earned income over $250K for married taxpayers ($200K for those smart enough to be single).  So if you exercise your non-qualified options in 2013, and your income is over the threshold either before the options income or after it, you will be subject to this new tax.

Finally, the Grinch is stealing the current alternative minimum tax (AMT) exemption, brackets, and rates.  He is replacing them with the 2001 version of the AMT.   AMT is a tax within a tax.  It takes your regular taxable income, throws out many of your deductions, and then applies a two tiered rate structure to your AMT taxable income.  You then get to pay either your regular tax or your AMT, whichever is higher.

AMT tends to afflict taxpayers making from $200K to about $500K.  It has been a pain in the ass since the late 1970's, but it didn't affect many taxpayers until around the year 2000.  Up through 2001, the tax had never been indexed for inflation.  Finally, the math caught up to six figure earners and many of us incurred substantial AMT tax balances.  Since 2001, Congress has engaged in an annual ritual temporarily indexing the AMT brackets and rates to mitigate some of the effects of inflation on the AMT.  In 2013, the party ends.  In fact, it really ended in 2012, but most Congress watchers expect one more round of indexing before year end.

So, if you have stock options, qualified or non-qualified, exercise them in 2012.  Sell your virgin daughters to pay the additional taxes if necessary.  You have eleven shopping days left before the Grinch takes your money or your daughters.

Recently, constitutional scholars discovered some e-mail messages from the 1780's that suggest the second amendment has a typo.  Tommie Jefferson thumb typed a draft of the amendment to Jimmie Madison using his iPhone 5.  When he typed, "right to bare arms," Apple's auto correct feature turned it into "right to bear arms."  So sun dresses are constitutionally protected.  Assault rifles are not.

The next time you see a woman wearing something hideous in public, remember that thousands upon thousands of American soldiers fought and died for her right to make poor fashion choices.

As always, thanks for reading.  For real tax and accounting advice, visit our main S&K web site at www.skcpas.com.  Also, please like the "How to Screw Up Your Small Business" Facebook page.  I post a screw up of the day there.

Until next time, let's do it to them before they do it to us.

Tax Gifts from Santa (Were You Naughty or Nice)

Who will be the better quarterback long term, Andrew Luck or RGIII?  As always, I bring you the definitive answer.  I definitively have no clue.  Before the season began, I would have given you 100 to 1 odds Luck would be better.  Now after thirteen games, I'm not certain the question is even relevant.  If I'm a defensive player, I can choose death by air (Luck) or death by land and air (RGIII).  Thirty plus points is the result either way.

The funniest moment from last week's Redskins vs. Ravens game was a Raven's outside linebacker chasing and tackling Alfred Morris on the other side of the field.  There was just one problem.  RGIII had the ball, charging through the hole left by the departed linebacker.  I'll bet the linebacker felt great this week in practice watching the play on video.

This year the pedophile, who hangs out at the mall dressed in red and judges us naughty or nice, brings us gifts wrapped in dollars.  He has brought us some tax planning gifts to unwrap before the end of the year.

Th key point Santa wants us to remember for 2012 is that all of our usual year end tax planning tricks are wrong.  Usually, we accelerate expenses and deductions and defer income.  Santa knows that some of you are naughty and don't unwrap and deposit checks you receive the last week from customers.  For 2012, all of that is wrong, because if there is one tax certainty for 2013, it is higher taxes.

So bribe the mailman to bring you more customer checks to deposit before year end in 2012.  Don't mail a year of rent checks to your landlord on December 31st, unless I'm your landlord.  In 2012, we want more income and less in deductions, because our taxes will be lower in 2012 than 2013.  Here is what Santa is bringing all of you naughty high income taxpayers for 2013.

 Santa considers you a high income taxpayer if you are married with more than $250K in adjusted income.  If you are wise enough to still be single, the income amount is $200K.  For 2013, Santa wants you to remember that the true meaning of Christmas is the spirit of giving - giving to Uncle Sam.

His first red wrapped goodie is a .9% Medicare surcharge on earned income above $250K (again $200K if you're too homely to marry or are otherwise single).  If you get wage or self-employment income this applies to you.  You can, however, return at least part of this gift if you keep the receipt.  You can accelerate salary from 2013 into 2012.  That means take a couple extra paychecks, that you would have received in 2013, in 2012.

The red pedophile's next goodie is a 3.8% Medicare surcharge on investment income received by taxpayers with adjusted gross income over $250K ($200K if you divorce the wife beater by 12/31/12 or are otherwise single).  The income included in this dried out fruitcake of a present is interest, dividends, capital gains, net rental, and any other investment income.  The way to minimize this joy to the world tax is to get all the income you can in 2012.  While you cannot do much about making Apple pay an extra dividend in 2012, you can sell the stock and pay taxes on the gain in 2012 instead of 2013.  Also, this isn't the year to repair the roof on your rental property.  The deduction will be worth more in 2013.

Not only is Santa bringing us some unwanted tax goodies for 2013, the fat bastard is taking away some of the gifts he (and George Bush II) gave us in the early 2000's.  First, the 15% maximum tax rate on dividends and capital gains will be gone effective January 1st.  Dividends are slated to be taxed as ordinary income, and capital gains taxed at a maximum rate of 20%.  Happy New Year!  So if you own a C corporation that normally pays you dividends, pay yourself as much extra as you can afford in 2012 to get the 15% rate.

Earlier, I mentioned taking capital gains in 2012 when possible.  There are some other implications to this.  Don't sell real estate in 2012 using a 1031 exchange.  You will be exchanging the 15% tax rate for a higher rate in a future year.  If you sold your business in 2012 and will be receiving the payments over a number of years, elect out of the installment method of reporting the income.  Report all of the profit in 2012 and pay the taxes now.  If you are still negotiating the sale, get enough cash in 2012 to pay all of the taxes.  Your wife's fur coat purchase can wait.

The alternative minimum tax (AMT) will cost most of us making more than $200K more.  The exemption and tax rates are going back to 2001 levels.  I expect this to cost me about $12K in additional taxes, if you'd like a look at my personal pain.  I'm so happy to pay for Tiny Tim's health insurance.

Finally, for really high income taxpayers, itemized deductions and personal exemptions will phase out as they did before the Bush tax cuts.  Tax rates will also rise to pre-George W levels.  Running some rough numbers for 2013, I have seen average tax rates for people making over $400K raise by 15% or more.  That is combining all of Santa's goodies that we know he is delivering for 2013 before we even know what new tax legislation he will bring after the new year.

On Thursday night I hit a deer on the way home from work.  I didn't feel at all sad. I hope it was Rudolph.  Given the tax presents the old, fat, eggnog swilling, cookie stealing, red pedophile is bringing me for Christmas this year, I feel justified.  I'll try, and you should too, to hit some more.  If we get all twelve of his antlered buddies, maybe we can stop Christmas from coming,  Yes, I am the Grinch and I approved this message.

As always, thanks for reading.  For real tax and accounting advice, please visit our main S&K web site at www.skcpas.com.  I also publish a business screwup of the day on the "How to Screw Up Your Small Business" Facebook page.  Please like the page.  All proceeds from the page go to the Center for Orphaned Reindeer.  I believe in giving back to the community.

Until next time, let's do it to them (especially reindeer) before they do it to us.

Trust Your Banker

Dear Santa, I don't need any new electronics this year.  I couldn't wait for you and Rudolph.  My iPhone 3 battery was dead.  So I got a new iPhone 5, and since I happened to be at the Verizon store already, I got an iPad as well.

This year, please just heal RGIII's knee.  And if you don't mind, please get the Redskins a head coach, who knows how to use the last four minutes of each half.  This coach  would instill a sense of urgency in his offensive players, so that they don't waste a minute of every last four mulling around aimlessly.  This coach should also comprehend the concept of calling a timeout just before the two minute warning when the other team is trying to run out the clock.  After you've accomplished those two things, then you can work on healing Tiny Tim, that little poser.

Last week, I met with a long time client in the residential construction industry for income tax planning.  Tax planning gets much easier in mid-December, since we only have to crystal ball a few weeks.  They are having a fantastic year, growing by almost a third in what is best described as a challenging year in construction.

However, they are facing the cash flow problems that come with rapid growth.  When you are growing, your receivables grow more rapidly than your payables, and you run out of cash.  So I asked about the size of their bank line of credit and how much they had used already.  They are a very well managed company with involved owners and a good internal bookkeeper.  So they had not used much of their line and had plenty of availability left.

Bringing up the topic of banking led into a discussion of their relationship with their current bank.  Actually I brought up the topic.  I work with a number of great small business banks, and I always look to match clients with banks that will serve them well.  They are happy with their current bank and should be.  However, they told me a story about how their previous bank had treated them.

A few years ago, the company had about $3 million in revenue.  They were profitable, but not wildly so.  They had a small line of credit with a bank, maybe $200K at most.  One day, without warning, the bank called the line of credit for immediate repayment.  The bank had decided to quit lending to residential construction businesses.

On an emergency basis, the company owners went bank shopping and were fortunately able to find a new bank during the worst of the recession.  For 2012, the company will exceed $9 million in revenue.  I'll bet the old bank would love to have them back now.

Your relationship with a bank might end the way Ike and Tina Turner's relationship ended, and you won't be the Ike in the relationship.  So get ready for a beating.

The way to avoid a good Ike Turner style beating from your bank is to cultivate relationships with other banks before you need them.  Emergency shopping for a bank can be a good way to go out of business.  Start networking now with community bankers.  Get to know them and the types of businesses they like.  When you find one that works well with your industry, give them a chance at your business.  Annually reviewing your bank relationship gives you alternatives if Ike gets pissed off.

Last night, I had my hair cut by a Russian spy.  Apparently, the spy business isn't so hot with the end of the Cold War.  So Natasha is working for Hair Cuttery to make ends meet.  I didn't understand a word she said, but she sounded like someone from an old James Bond movie.  I'm pretty certain she planted a bug on me.  When I turn on my car radio, all I get is a Moscow classic rock station that plays nothing but "Back in the USSR."

As always, thanks for reading.  For real tax and accounting advice, please visit our main S&K web site at www.skcpas.com.  Also, "How to Screw Up Your Small Business" is now on Facebook.  Please like the page.  I post a screw up of the day as well as various other short rants.  Once in a great while, I might post something truly educational, but don't count on it.

I'm looking for interesting blog topics.  If you have a subject you would like me to butcher, please leave a comment here or on the Facebook page.

Until next time, let's do it to them before they do it to us.

Irritate Your Customers

Last week, a Kansas City Chiefs professional football player killed his girlfriend and then himself, leaving their infant daughter an orphan.  I will not make light of this tragedy, but I will call to account the idiots using the situation for personal gain.  Tonight, driving home from work listening to the local news station, I heard a segment featuring an expert on concussion syndrome.  The hosts asked the expert to opine whether concussion syndrome had played a part in the player's behavior.

The expert expressed doubts that concussions would cause psychotic behavior resulting in an eventual murder - suicide.  Not at all deterred, the hosts continued trying to draw concussion related lessons from the incident.  Soon talking heads will blame concussion syndrome for everything from shingles to syphilis.  They need a few good head slaps themselves.

The most intelligent response to the tragedy came from Doc Walker, a former Redskin from the glory days.  Doc said that all professional football players have dark sides.  You don't become the best of the best at physically attacking 300 lb. behemoths without drawing strength from some dark place.  Expecting someone to practice and play with barely controlled rage and then become a sensitive, caring humanist is unrealistic.

Last week driving home, I turned on the radio in the mood for some classic rock instead of news.  I turned on the radio, hit the satellite button, and waited for some Who, Chicago, or Fleetwood Mac.  Instead I got silence and a subscribe to Sirius radio message on the radio console.  Of course, I was a subscriber or thought I was.  Why did I get the message that I wasn't?

The answer was simple.  My subscription had expired after two years.  But Frank, didn't you get a notice reminding you of the expiration date?  Well yes, I probably did - somewhere in the four e-mail messages a day they send me.  After a month or so as a subscriber, I flagged all Sirius messages as spam.  One of those was probably my renewal reminder.

The best way to hide information is in plain sight.  They hid the renewal message from me in an avalanche of spam just as effectively as if they had never sent it.  Of course, they didn't do this intentionally.  It was just marketing stupidity.  If you bombard your customers with junk messages, you teach them you have nothing important to say.  When you have something truly important to convey, like a service expiration date, they aren't paying attention.  If you irritate your customers enough, they'll avoid the pain you cause by ignoring you.

I subscribed to PC Magazine almost from the time I graduated from college in 1984.  I loved the publication.  It was on top of the PC revolution of the 1980's.  Sometime in the 1990's, they began sending me renewal notices almost from the day I renewed my subscription.  At first, I thought my subscription was about to expire.  Then after reading the notices closely for a couple months, I realized they were just sending me notices every month.  I could always wait until I got closer to the expiration date to renew.

Then one day I realized I hadn't received the magazine for a particular month.  The more I pondered, I realized I hadn't received the magazine for several months.  My subscription had expired, and I hadn't missed the magazine that much.  So I never bothered renewing.  The same thing happened with my INC Magazine subscription.  I recently subscribed to the online edition of INC, but I did that for professional reasons.

The marketing departments of these publications thought that more customer contact is always better contact.  It is not.  Turn the marketing volume up high enough, and your customers will turn you off.  When was the last time, you paid attention to the video ads at a gas station?  Advertising is ubiquitous.  You can't even take a leak at a Major League Baseball game without seeing ads about frequent urination posted over the urinals.  What's next, advertising on the toilet paper?

Web sites trick us into clicking on ads.  Radio and television ads tax our ear drums with piercing volume.  Newspapers intertwine advertising sections with articles, so that we have to tear the sections out to read.  We receive pounds of junk mail every week shouting "Urgent message within" on the envelopes.  Enough is more than enough.  Do you buy from companies that trick you?  Thus, advertising is as dead as Saddam Hussein.  Annoying your customers is bad business.

Effective marketing is no longer about pushing messages at potential customers.  It is about pulling in customers on their terms.  It is opt in marketing.  Offer customers something of real value and they'll listen.  Otherwise, you'll be ignored. 

You can't force someone to like your Facebook page.  You have to attract them with an offer.  Restaurants offer coupons and special events.  You need a value proposition to even get the chance to market to potential customers.  Marketing is now harder and more personal than ever.  Adapt.

Last night RGIII won a basketball game for the Washington Wizards against the defending NBA champion Miami Heat just by attending the game.  Lady Luck is his bitch lover.  After a decade, RGIII has made Redskins games bearable again.  He scores from any field position, running or passing like no other rookie quarterback in NFL history.  The Baltimore Ravens are this week's hapless victims.  Our semi-ignorant Baltimoron neighbors believe they know the secret to stopping him.  Sunday morning, they'll involuntarily attend the doctoral level course in NFL offense.  The final exam is a bitch.

Thanks for reading!  As always, please visit our main S&K web site, www.skcpas.com, for real tax and accounting advice.  Also, like us on Facebook.  We are starting a client of the week post next week.  Until next time, let's do it to them before they do it to us.

Humanize to Power Word of Mouth Marketing

Humanize your brand for word of mouth marketing

When it comes to interacting with your audience, what is it that makes them feel comfortable with you? Is it your thorough reserves of knowledge? Perhaps it could be the unique service your brand provides. What many audiences truly desire is to do business with someone they can relate to.

This isn’t always the first consideration of many brands and is often overlooked. But the true fact remains: humanizing your brand creates a unique authenticity. So, how can you humanize your brand and really develop a loyal following? 

Five (5) Ways to Humanize Your Brand

1. Be Interactive 

How interactive are you with your audience? Do you interact through social content and blog comments? What do you say to them? How you respond to your audience will ultimately determine how approachable your brand is. Does your audience feel comfortable communicating with you? More importantly, does your audience enjoy communicating with you? Engaging the audience is more than just answering their questions; it’s about getting them to ask in the first place. 

2. Develop relatable and entertaining contents

Content is the backbone of your brand. What you say and how you say things affect your brand’s authenticity and visibility. But, there is something to consider when creating content if you are going to generate relatable content. Don’t focus on making your titles search-friendly. They often sound unnatural and more like you’re appealing to a search engine rather than humans. Though it might improve Google results, readers will quickly spot this particular “strictly business” approach (and they won’t likely relate to your content).

Additionally, laughter is contagious and often most likely to be shared (even if it’s just a quote or reference). Add a little humor into your content to entice the audience to share with others who could relate to it. Just be sure to keep it appropriate and relevant to your topic.

3. Create a great “About Us” page

This is one area where brands can either define themselves as mechanical or human operated. An “about us” page has a lot to say, whether it’s said or unsaid. Take some time to really develop this portion of your social sites and website. 

The best practice is to tell your brand’s story. How did it come to be? How has it developed?

[tweet this].

Simple as it may sound, it works far more effectively than simply listing out a few features of your brand. This will give your brand character that the audience can relate to.

4. Post personalized photos 

With social networks enabling brands to show off their best qualities, make your brand relatable with authentic pictures. Avoid pictures that look more like examples of a store’s stock or merchandise. Personalize it with photos of you, preferably interacting and networking with the audience. 

5. Maintain a good reputation

Above all, always be honest. When developing the relatable aspect of your brand’s image, always keep in mind that the audience’s perception will ultimately determine how authentic you truly are. Give them a reason to believe in you and what you can do for them. 

The Noob's Zen Guide to Email Deliverability Speak

(This is a companion guide to "The Noob's Zen Guide to Email Marketing and Social Media Speak")

Are you a noob to email deliverability? Don't worry. I know experts who are noob's at being experts, which is to say that they know a lot more than you, but they are new at being experts, hence their noobishness. Make sense? No? Perfect. Lets get started.

Above the Fold:
When a man is significantly overweight, this is the part of his waistline that is above the belt. In email marketing, this is the part of an email message that is visible in the email client without scrolling down. This is different depending on what email client your subscribers open your email in. It's good to test your email in different clients like Gmail and Hotmail. It's also good to test it on different mobile devices. You should put your most valuable content above the fold, and you should tell your husband to get on the stairmaster.

Appending:
If you are performing email appending that means you have been a very bad girl. This is where you take a list of customers from your database (that has everything on it EXCEPT the customer's email address) and you use a third party company to help match an email address to that customer. Your intent is to then
start sending marketing email to that customer. Unfortunately, since the customer didn't sign up for your email in the first place, they'll mark your email as spam fast enough to get you banned from your ESP.

Authentication:
ESPs want to know if the FROM address represents where the email really came from. If it doesn't authenticate properly, that means instead of coming from you, it may have come from somewhere deep within the borders of Svatlanikanitski, near the road to Duchambe, which as everyone knows is home to spammy-McRuskiNatishamivoya, whatever that means. ISPs are trying to protect us from spammers and they use technologies like Domain Keys, DKIM, Sender ID, and SPF to authenticate email. You don't need to worry about what those are, just suffice it to say that your ESP better know what those are.

Bacn:
Bacon eaten in too high a quantity will cause you to need that stairmaster again. Email that is called Bacn is email that you subscribed to but yet you let it sit for a long time before reading because you are too busy doing needless tasks for your boss. ISPs watch to see how much email you let sit around for a long time without reading and then they label that as Bacn.

Blacklist:
Loraine in the cube next to me put me on her personal blacklist which means she is mad at me (again) and might toss her ficus tree over the cube wall at me at any time. Email blacklists are lists of emailers that are on the naughty list. Do something naughty, like hide Loraine's plant food for no particularly good reason, and you'll find your email not making it to the inbox. Or something like that. You can find if you are on a blacklist by checking at SenderScore.org.

Block:
Blocks were a set of toys with letters on the side that fascinated me for days on end when I was a wee little one. In email marketing a block is where your email has been greeted by the ISP with a warm, "Hello! Welcome. We're so glad you came! Now don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out." This is a refusal by an ISP to accept your email because of their spam filters.

Bulk Mail:
"Bulk" refers to fiber. You know, like the fiber in your "Super Colon Overblow" cereal. In email marketing it refers to when your email gets shoved into the Bulk folder, which means that your recipient probably never sees it. It's not exactly spam, but since the recipient doesn't see it, it is worthless.

Click-to-Open Rate:
You've heard of the click-through rate, but the click to open rate is where you're comparing the number of unique people to open the email to the number of links they've clicked within the email.

Not this type of whine

Complaint Rate:
Also known as the "Pouter Rate". This refers to that guy in your office that pouted and whined so much that he got the window office, whereas you are stuck in the center of cube-land. Even though this upset you, you agree that your boss made the correct decision just to shut him up. In email when a recipient hits the Spam button, that registers as a complaint. This is the ratio of pouters to the total number of emails sent. Complaints are routed back to your ESP through feedback loops. A good ESP will automatically remove that pouter from your email list to avoid future pouting.

Content Filters:
These are software filters that block email based on text, words, phrases within the email that might look spammy. When you pour coffee from your French press coffee maker it tries to filter out the coffee grounds. It generally does a good job but sometimes a few slip through. Your ESP should have a content filter that scans your email prior to launch to tell you about the coffee grounds it found.

Deliverability:
Refers to the whole subject area of tracking where your emails end up; in the inbox or elsewhere. As a child, your grandfather, on his paper route, would have said that the Monday - Saturday newspaper had high deliverability but the Sunday paper was so darn big and bulky that many times, he crashed his bike trying to haul the stupid thing.

Domain:
This is just your registered website URL name on the Internet such as ThoughtReach.com.

DNS:
Domain Name System. This is the thingy by which computers know how to look up other computers in the phone book to find them, ask them out on a date, and then get rejected by them. Story of my life (kidding).

Email Client:
This is just a fancy term that means "the thing that your recipient uses to read her email." Examples of clients are Gmail, Hotmail, AOL, Outlook, Lotus Notes (who the hell uses Lotus Notes anymore?), and Zimbra.

Email Service Provider (ESP):
These are companies like Thought Reach, Constant Contact, ExactTarget and Eloqua that have software to send mass email for people like you, their customers.

Feedback Loop (FBL):
FBLs are the thingeys that will report back to the email marketer that "Hey, some nimrod whined about your email by hitting the Spam button." ISPs monitor their users and use the FBL to report back to the marketer. Most good ESPs will automatically remove the pouter from the email list.

Hard Bounce:
This is different from Bounce Fabric Softener in that a Hard Bounce doesn't smell so pretty. If you send an email to a dead email address, you'll get a hard bounce. Thought Reach and other ESPs automatically remove hard bounces from your email list after the first bounce. Too many hard bounces and it makes you look like Ivan McSpammyPants.

Multi-part Mime:
Blessedly, this is not that obnoxious mime in Central Park with the white face paint that won't stop acting like he's trapped in an invisible box. This term refers to the two formats of email that are sent out by ESPs. Each email is sent in both HTML and plain text. Once the email is received, the email client determines which format to display. Typically you'll create both types of content prior to launching your email campaign.

Inactives:
These are the slackers on your email list. They are also called non-responders, un-engaged, or "nimbleweeds who signed up for my email, then never open it." This type of inactivity is calculated based on whether or not the recipient opens or clicks a link in your email. You should remove inactives from your list.

Internet Service Provider (ISP):
These are the companies like Google, Hotmail, and AOL who provide people like you and me with an email address and a place to receive our spam.

IP Address:
This is just the address of your computer or mobile phone. It's kind of like the street address of your house. It identifies where you are. IP addresses are also used by your ESP when they send bulk email on your behalf. The reputation of the IP address is one factor that is considered when the ISP determines if your email is spam or not.

Mr. Brusha-Brusha

List Hygiene:
This is a little more fun than dental hygiene. This is when you make sure your email list is clean, and cavity-free. Hard bounces and unsubscribes are removed. You might even remove anyone that hasn't opened or clicked on a link within your email in the last six months.

List Purchase:
If you use a purchased email list, you might just find yourself booted from your email service provider. Sending mass email to a purchased list is the quickest way to see about a million spam complaints come in from one campaign. Those recipients don't recognize you and thus they think you are spam. Don't purchase an email list.

List Rental:
This is different than purchasing a list. You pay a third party to send your email to their list. Presumably, their subscribers have agreed to this process. List rentals can be successful only when the recipients are the exact kind of people that want to read the type of dribble that you send out : ).

Open Rate:
This is the rate at which your recipients have opened your email compared to the total number sent, presuming they are opening the HTML version. The only way for your ESP to know if the subscriber opened your email is that the email has a hidden one pixel image in it. Once that image is called for by the email client, your ESP will know your subscriber has opened the email. If the subscriber only accepts text email, there is no image in it and you'll never know if they opened it or not. Dang.

Opt-in:
Opt-in email marketing means you send your dribble only to those of us who sign up to receive your dribble. Double Opt-in is where I sign up to receive your dribble, then your ESP automatically sends an email to my email address asking me to confirm that I'm sure I want your dribble.

Read Rate:
The percentage of email recipients who have marked your email as "Read" in their email client. Typically thought of as more accurate than open rate, since read rate is not dependent on image downloads like open rate is.

Receiver:
Receiver is just another term for ISP.

Re-engagement Campaign:
If you have a list of un-engaged recipients, you might want to send them a slap-in-the-face email to see if they are listening, and to ask them if they want your dribble or not. Otherwise, you'll remove them and not speak to them again. Really good email marketers send creative re-engagement campaigns. Why conduct a re-engagement campaign? Because if you have too many un-engaged recipients, ISPs view you as a spammer. Removing un-engaged recipients shows you are not a spammer.

Reputation:
Email reputation is very different from what the term "reputation" meant in high school. Sender reputation is a measure of everything related to how reputable an email marketer you are. How many complainers, hard bounces, spam trap hits, open rate, click-through rate, email volume, and consistency of email sending.

Sender:
This is you, the email marketer, or refers to your ESP.

Server:
Servers are those magical computer boxes that live in the sky somewhere. They have little blinky lights on them and secretly run the internet and control all life as we know it.

Soft Bounce:
This should have been called something like "we tried to send your email, but the guy was out of office or his email server was drunk and thus couldn't deliver the email." Often, the problem is temporary and your ESP will try to deliver it again.

Spam Traps:
Spam traps are email addresses used solely to capture spammers (also known as "honey pots" because apparently Winnie the Pooh was a spammer). Some of these email addresses were never owned by a real person, which would seem to indicate they could not have signed up for your email. Other spam traps are email addresses once used by a real person, but that person abandoned the email address sometime back when Bill Clinton was in office. If you send a marketing email to an email address being used as a spam trap your email sending reputation will look like a Smart Car that's been in a head-on collision with a freight train. Fixing that email sending reputation is not an easy task.

SpamCop:
A big list of email marketers who played badly with others and got sent to their room without a cookie. A lot of email receivers check the IP addresses of incoming email against SpamCop see if you've been arrested for armed spammery and served time in prison.

Suppression List:
A list of email addresses you specifically don't want to send email to because they unsubscribed. Sometimes you use a suppression list because your company was purchased by another company and you need to make sure you aren't sending email to the pouters that unsubscribed from their email lists too.

Throttling:
When I was little, my mother would say she would throttle me if I didn't lay down and take a nap. And knowing me, she was probably justified. This is where your ESP will send out your mass emails at a fast enough speed to get the job done, but at a slow enough speed so as to not piss-off Gmail or another receiver who doesn't want email to be sent to them too quickly.

Transactional email:
Transactional email messages are different from marketing email in that they are just things like receipts for your purchase, password resets, updates on shipping of your item, or other notices that don't involve selling.

Unknown User:
These are email bounces where the ISP just doesn't know who you are emailing.

Whitelist:
This is a list that you create which tells your ISP that you want these emails. This is where the "Add this sender to your safe sender list" comes into play. The term "white listing" is also thought of as some kind of magic way that an email marketer can send emails and they will always get to the inbox (this is associated with feedback loops). A feedback loop doesn't really create a magic way for your email to be delivered, but it does help.

Suggested: "The Noob's Zen Guide to Email Marketing and Social Media Speak"

Etiquette is Still an Important Word of Mouth Tool in Social Media

Your social etiquette for word of mouth marketing

Have you ever considered your social media marketing attitude? How do you interact with your audience? What type of content do you deliver? In what manner do you deliver that content? Etiquette is an essential ingredient to any social marketing campaign, and will determine how your audience perceives you on a professional scale. 

What does etiquette mean to your social media marketing strategy? Do you discuss matters politely with your audience? Does your content appropriately tie-in with your brand? Above all, is your content presented in a clear and understandable context?  

If you can say yes to those preceding questions, it basically affirms to your audience that your brand puts into practice the art of professionalism. The authenticity of your expertise in your field will become clear. This provides extra value for your network. 

Basics of Social Media Marketing Etiquette

Socially acceptable contents

Perhaps, one of the most effective ways to practice social media marketing etiquette is through your contents.  Try to keep your contents professional. Too often, social media marketing contents mask or even detract from the professional image you’re trying to portray.

The best place to start keeping your content professional is to focus specifically on the subject of your brand. The art of professionalism in the use of social media is easy to lose track of – especially since, now and then, we’re all inclined to share opinions that we consider important to us. While this is generally acceptable for a personal or private account, when it comes to your brand, it’s crucial that you stay focused on 100% professional topics. 

Basically, a social network is a place where you share the ethos of your brand with your audience. It’s not a place for you to vent your personal issues, beliefs, and otherwise be socially self-centered. 

No one likes to listen (read) to social whining, especially since that particular aspect is already in abundance on the net. [tweet this].

Instead, you have to present brand authenticity. 

Consider what stance on issues your brand has. All brands will and must have their own viewpoint. But, each viewpoint must be presented in such a way that it opens a door for discussion instead of discouraging views. Keep your material conversation worthy so that your audience will be open to discussion and better yet, share it by word of mouth with their own networks. 

Because social networks already contain a vast array of updates and news information, it is important to understand that it is not necessary to keep your audience constantly updated on every news-bite. Your brand must utilize news updates effectively. They are not your personal contents, so they should be used sparingly (such as when they are directly relatable to your brand’s contents). You can use news updates to make an effective point. 

Socially correct approach

Keep in mind that each social network has a unique audience, which will require a specific marketing approach. So, it is necessary to have a different etiquette for each social network. Your Twitter audience may appreciate short updates and tags while your Facebook audience would enjoy conversation and interaction. For each social platform, you must have a different approach. Basically, you are looking at this as a way of speaking effectively to your audience. 

While content may be generally the same, it’s all about your presentation. How you deliver your brand’s message will affect how your audience perceives you. Do you understand what the audience wants? You need to be able to deliver contents that they want to see in a context that they want to see it in.

Of course, context also includes the way you communicate. Everyone wants to demonstrate themselves to be experts in their field, but if no one else understands what they’re saying, that isn’t going to be an easy accomplishment. 

The main issue with this is that many professionals talk to others in the way that they would talk to themselves. Their expertise has given them detailed insight into their particular field. So, it’s easy for professionals to understand complex data and technical jargon. Unfortunately, the audience may not have this same level of knowledge. Because of this, the audience may not be able to understand the message. They may be dissuaded from reading further or even misinterpret the message. As an expert, it is essential that you speak to the audience, at THEIR level. Not only is this professional etiquette, it is the most effective way you can ensure that your message is clearly understood. 

One last issue is the fact that it is possible to become too personal with your brand. While it’s important that you develop a relationship with your audience, it should always remain professional, especially when first initiating your social media campaign.

The use of appropriate social etiquette will affect how well the audience responds to your social marketing strategies. By providing quality content in a manner that the audience will appreciate, you will ensure that your brand sets a high standard for social etiquette. 

Entrepreneurs - Avoid These Social Word of Mouth Mistakes

Social marketing tips for entrepreneurs

Social marketing can be a double-edged sword. While it is one of the most effective marketing tools in the electronic era, it will quickly become more trouble than benefit – unless it is used properly. For entrepreneurs beginning their social campaign, there are a few scenarios to beware of to avoid missing out on social’s valuable benefits.

Social Marketing Pitfalls

Diving in without looking first

Perhaps the most prominent beginner’s mistake is to believe that social presence will automatically be successful. Like any other marketing strategy, social marketing requires planning before you begin. Without goals to help focus your efforts, your presence lacks strategy which will affect everything else. 

Before you begin, outline a social marketing strategy. What does your social campaign seek to accomplish, audience awareness or better customer relations? How much time can you invest? What specific networks can be used effectively for your brand? There are a lot of questions, and you need to answer them before beginning. 

Not sharing enough about your brand

A weak profile is amongst the most underestimated faults with a social campaign. Delivering applicable content will only get you so far with audience awareness. While they may want to interact with you, if you fail to present a complete definition of your brand, your audience will be missing out on a lot of good info that could help them define exactly who you are.

Make use of all the text space available to you through the social site. Some are limited to name, profession, and hyperlinks while others present plenty of opportunity to give your audience a lot of information about your brand. Fill out every space available and use it as effectively as possible (such as linking to other social sites, websites, blogs, and brand sources). 

Posting and forgetting

This is one of the most important reasons that every entrepreneur should develop a social marketing strategy before beginning. It is easy to post content, but if you don’t have the time to keep your content up to date, it may be doing more harm than good. 

Social marketing is a 24/7 marketing tool, so it needs regular attention. However, you have to remember that you don’t have to manage it all day long. Instead, you should picture it as appointment hours for your campaign. Reserve specific times during the day to create posts, answer posts from your audience, and otherwise interact socially. 

Getting too personal

When it comes to social marketing, it’s good to get to know your audience. But, there is a balance to this particular issue. It is possible to overstep boundaries or try to become too personal with your audience too quickly. This is why it is preferable to utilize business profiles rather than personal profiles on social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn. When it comes to communications, all conversations, discussions, acknowledgments, and other interactions should be kept on a professional level. Be friendly but keep it professional.

Competing rather than working together

Social networks are saturated with brands and businesses, which can be somewhat intimidating for an entrepreneur. Needless to say, we are all competing with each other, but not necessarily when it comes to social marketing. The idea here is to help them help you. 

Social marketing is about networking, not competition. 

Become familiar with other brands and improve your visibility and awareness by sharing and interacting with them. [tweet this].

The idea here is to expand your social awareness, and the best way to do that is to network with other brands on a social level. 

One-sided conversations

A prominent mistake that many beginners make is that they only talk to the audience. 

Social marketing should be thought of as interactive, not as a speaker’s podium. [tweet this].

It’s all about discussion. You share. They share. Avoid generating posts that lack conversation initiation and even more importantly, ensure that you address audience messages – don’t ignore them. 

Be sure that you interact effectively with your audience. Do you value your audience’s feedback? Do you answer their queries? Or are your conversations all one-sided? Generate content that is worthy of conversation and word of mouth sharing to ensure that your audience can and wants to be responsive to your social campaign.

Irrelevant Content

Social content is easy to generate. There’s plenty of information to be shared, but the question is: does that content represent your brand? If you regularly provide unrelated material, you may be delivering the wrong message to your audience. 

This particular issue can only be resolved by having a clear definition of your brand’s image. What does it represent? What message do you need to deliver? Stay focused on defining your brand with your content. It is generally wise to share your original content and avoid overusing outside sources unless they affirm a point you are making. 

Social media is a powerful marketing tool, helping a new entrepreneur expand their network quickly and effectively. But, it is a tool which must be used properly before it will produce fruit for your online endeavors.      

Show the IRS Your Weenie

The mailman enters your office and delivers an ominous letter sized envelope addressed with the three most dreaded words in business English, Internal Revenue Service.  You're tempted to shred the letter, so that you can claim innocence by ignorance, but you know that won't work.

Then you get angry.  "I'm  a God-fearing, honest, taxpaying American citizen.  What in the hell do they want from me?"  Well, more taxes, dummy.

You rip open the letter.  The first page says it all, balance due $50K.  You think, "Holy hell, how can I owe that much?  I only cheated a little on my business expenses.  My girlfriend's jewelry wasn't that expensive.  It was fake."

You read further into your twelve page death notice and spot the problem.  The notice is from 2011, the year your wife learned about your girlfriend's jewelry.   You sold your marital home in the divorce receiving $500K for a house you bought for $700K.  Of course, you had to make up the $200K difference with the bank - expensive fake jewelry at that.

The good news is that you owed no taxes when you sold the house at a loss.  The bad news is that the IRS computer  doesn't know about the loss.  It only knows that you got $500K.  All you have to do is show the purchase and sale settlement statements, and the IRS will leave you alone, right?  Well maybe.  A letter of response must accompany the documentation to show that you owed no taxes on the sale.  Just sending the settlement statement will accomplish nothing.  There are three sections to an effective IRS response letter.

The first section identifies the problem.  It should look something like this.

"I am writing in response to your notice, a copy of which is attached.  The notice assesses income taxes, penalties, and interest on my 2011 individual income tax return.  The additional taxes are based on the sale of my primary residence on April 15, 2011.  I believe the notice is in error for the following reason."

There are a few things to note in this section.  First, you explain that the original IRS notice is attached to your letter.  This gives the IRS employee easy access to your case.  The notice contains internal IRS code identifying the you, the time period, and the type of issue.

Second, you very briefly identify the issue the caused the notice.  Finally, you disagree with the assessment and note that your reason for the disagreement follows.

The second section of the letter explains the issue in more detail and why you believe the notice is in error.  It should look something like this.

"On April 15, 2011, I sold my primary residence for $500,000.  Please see the attached settlement statement.  The house was purchased on June 17, 2006 for $700,000.  Please see the attached settlement statement.  I incurred a loss on the sale of $200,000, which is a nondeductible loss and nontaxable sale of a primary residence."

This second section includes the detail necessary for the IRS employee, with the misfortune of handling your case, to determine that you owe no taxes and resume surfing the internet for porn.  It also references all of the supporting documentation supporting your conclusion.

In the third and final section, you show your weenie.  Put your cell phone down.  I'm not talking about enclosing a picture of your junk.  That has never worked for me.  Paul and I coined the term, weenie, to describe the section of the letter where you tell the IRS what action you want them to take.  When one of our staff prepares an IRS letter without asking for specific IRS action, we ask, "Where's the weenie?"

A couple years ago, I met with a new client, who was having trouble getting the IRS to resolve a payroll tax problem.  She didn't owe any money, but still the IRS was hassling her.  She gave me a four page letter her previous CPA had written.

The letter had an enthralling plot, memorable characters, and the prose was riveting.  There was just one problem with the letter.  It never asked the IRS to do anything.  So they didn't.  The tax balance just continued to accrue interest and penalties, and the IRS continued trying to collect them.  I wrote a three paragraph letter, and the tax balance went away.  My weenie was the key.  In our example, the weenie section should look similar to this.

"Therefore, I ask that you remove the assessed taxes, interest, and penalties from my 2011 individual income tax return.  If you have any questions, please contact me at the address listed in your records.  Thank you in advance for your assistance."

As you can see a weenie doesn't have to be long to be effective.  Keep it short, but penetrate to the core of what you want done.

Keep the length of the letter to one page, two pages at a maximum.  The IRS employee must be able to grasp your situation and why you are correct in a minute or two.  Also, nowhere in my example do you see the terms, douche bag, asshole, moron, skank monster, or subhuman vermin.  Experience has shown these terms to be ineffective even if accurate.  You are also well advised to avoid references to assumed ancestry, suspected inbreeding, or sexual acts preferred by someone's mother.  All of these references are superfluous and need not be expressed.

Receiving an IRS letter isn't one of life's little joys, but you shouldn't lose sleep over one.  Most IRS letters result from mismatches between your tax return and information the IRS received from someone electronically.  According to taxworks.com, IRS notices increased from 30 million in 2001 to 201 million in 2009.  Those numbers will only increase in the coming years with the federal budget crisis pushing the IRS to recover more uncollected taxes.

Finally, if you don't understand an IRS notice, most are written in an indecipherable dialect of bureaucrat-ese, seek professional help.  Yes, we charge for this, but we can often save months of frustration and continued nasty notices.  I have seen most notices before, and I have prepared responses that worked for someone else.

My Thanksgiving prayer for the Redskins worked.  We were treated to a fabulous Skins flick titled, "RGIII does Dallas."  Truth, justice, and the American way prevailed.  God bless America - and the Redskins.

As always, thanks for reading.  For real tax and accounting advice, please visit our main S&K web site at www.skcpas.com.  Let's do it to them before they do it to us. HTTR.

Word of Mouth Marketing and Your Content

Word of mouth marketing and your content generation

Generating and marketing your online content isn’t as simple as posting a hot topic to your social network site or blogging regularly. It takes strategy and teamwork to develop quality material and promote it to help expand a strong network for your brand. You need to have a strong marketing team that can help you develop valuable marketing plans.

Must-Haves of a Great Marketing Team

When it comes to developing a marketing team, there are certain qualities that are needed for each aspect of your marketing design. 

1. Expert Leader

No one will understand a brand better than the one who created it. You are the initial expert leader if you are your brand’s creator. However, if you choose to entrust it to an outside marketing organization, be sure that the appointed leader has a full grasp of your brand. 

An expert marketing team leader should be able to answer the following questions. What does your marketing strategy call for? How many social networks, blogs, and assorted sites do your strategies target? What are the best marketing strategies for your brand? 

2. Meticulous Data collector

While a clear vision of subject matter is important, one of the most time consuming, but just as crucial is the area of research and development. Who can identify trending topics? Who can undertake the necessary research? This is the data expert - the person who has the facts or who can find them when needed. When it comes to generating quality content, you must be able to provide the most effective and accurate data possible, which is where this expertise is required. 

3. Effective Marketing Strategist

Though data is essential, it is still necessary to develop that data and apply it to your marketing strategy. You need to find people who know how to approach the audience and influence them effectively. They are able to identify the approaches that your audience would enjoy. This job requires a clear understanding of different online tactics and the audiences that would be influenced by or open to those tactics. 

Different social networks require different approaches and analysis. This is where word of mouth marketing will become your strategy’s most influential tactic. Your data analyzers should be able to use data and content in such a way that it influences audience recommendations, discussion, and interaction. 

Your strategist must also be an expert face to face networker.  

Social media is after all, according to Warren Whitlock “99% social and 1% media”.  We agree.  Social media is word of mouth on steroids and if your strategist can’t generate it face-to-face and they don’t have an impressive resume of networking, shaking hands and referral marketing (in person), I wouldn’t consider them.

Must-Know About Content Generation

1. Content generation covers the creation of prospective designs, ideas and data for social posts, blogs, and video content. Keep in mind that it is always necessary to develop content that you created or legally own.

2. Marketing content does not just rely on blog material, quotes, facts, or data. There is also the importance of graphic design and visual appeal. Pictures, graphs, charts, memes, and videos are amongst the most searched items online. It is vital that you are able to demonstrate your brand, and its uniqueness through visual appeal, whether it’s through creating or locating the right image to present.

3. Post your accumulated content at the right time. It is wise to assign people to important tasks. Who is in charge of posting Tweets and comments? Who should engage audience interaction? Who is assigned to do cross indexing to highlight articles through social networks and advertising? This may sound simple, but remember that the tasks are schedule-relevant (timing) and are also about responding to the audience. 

Like any team, everyone must work together and communicate effectively in order to achieve success. Each department may rely on one or multiple individuals to achieve certain goals. Some may have expertise in particular fields or subject matters. You need to be sure that team members are placed where they are most effective. With a team that works effectively to build quality content and implements it in a way that is appealing, your online marketing strategy will obtain the right reaction and will drive your audience to action. 

Are You an Entrepreneur? (The 10 Second Test)

Please click on this link, and then please return http://www.kulfoto.com/funny-pictures/22594/our-education-system .  Do you agree with the sentiment expressed in the cartoon?  If you do, don't start a business..... please.  Spare your banker, CPA, preacher, therapist, and family from following you down a rat's hole.

My sister-in-law posted this cartoon to Facebook.  Her point is that standardized tests, like the SAT, are culturally biased.  I posted, "If you're looking for tree climbers, this looks like a pretty good test."  She responded that she got my point, but disagreed nonetheless.  How does this little family spat apply to your suitability as a business owner?

I have often written that there are two types of people in the world, business owners and employees.  This cartoon illustrates the difference.  Employees are process people.  They care about the fairness of the test in the cartoon. Business owners are purpose people.  They care about accomplishing an objective.  They focus on the goal of finding tree climbers.

Why are employees, like my sister-in-law, process people?  Because their paychecks show up every Friday regardless of their accomplishments.  They care about keeping their jobs.  Thanks to decades of crazy employment legislation, keeping jobs is about subjugating purpose, in the form of accountability, to fair process.  Fearing litigation, companies can no longer fire employees just for being useless.  They have to prove some sort of malfeasance.  Process trumps purpose in the employment world.

I know all about "at will" employment.  It doesn't exist.  If litigation will cost you tens of thousands of dollars, can you really afford to fire Jane, who will hire a lawyer and accuse you of bullying her by asking her to show up on time?

Owners are purpose people, because they have to be.  The bank really doesn't care if you have a great process.  They'll bounce your checks anyway.  Process only matters to business owners to the extent it accomplishes a purpose.  Let's take a look at two situations, and I'll let you decide who should be the business owner.

Fred is married to a philandering bitch.  She smoked pot in the basement with her children, griped that Fred didn't make enough money, and hasn't made a serious attempt at holding a job in years.  A couple years ago, she moved overseas leaving Fred with four children.

Fred talks weekly with his family complaining about his spouse.  He talks about getting a lawyer and divorcing her, but wonders how the children will feel.  He works two back breaking jobs, but is near bankruptcy nonetheless.  Fred borrows money from his exasperated mother sometimes tricking her.  Now his spouse is coming back, and he can't decide whether he should allow her to live in his apartment.  He's afraid he'll anger the children.  So he does nothing.

Tim's wife gave him two days to vacate their house when she decided to end the marriage.  She counted on shock and awe to intimidate him, but instead Tim got a divorce attorney referral from some attorney friends.  He met with the attorney and did everything she told him to do.  He made a list of all the tasks necessary to end the marriage and reach a property settlement.  In four months, the divorce was settled.  A year later Tim married a blond former cheerleader cybersecurity engineer with a six figure income.

Would you rather have Fred or Tim for a business partner?  Fred is a process person.  He's caught up in the emotions of his situation.  He cares about feelings, his and others', more than he cares about getting his situation resolved.  Tim is a purpose person.  He didn't wallow in the emotions of his situation.  He set goals and took actions to accomplish them.

Normally I hide the identity of my characters.  Not in this case.  Guess which one is me, and which one is my sister-in-law.  How does her response to the cartoon look now?  Who is living the dream, and who is living the nightmare?

A week ago I requested a meeting with one of my would be, real estate mogul clients.  I requested the meeting, because he had requested some time to talk about a new business idea.  I knew if we held a phone conference, we would piss away an hour of my time that he would object to paying for.  So, I told him we really needed to meet in person, so that I could properly advise him.  I knew that either he would decline the meeting, thus saving me an hour, or he would come in for the meeting and pay for my time.  Yes, it really is all about me.

He came in and told me about five different new business ideas.  He was considering hiring a bunch of people to do things like lead generation and some other absurd tasks.  He then told me he was having trouble finding the time to develop any of these fabulous business ideas.  His wife has a job, and he is stuck taking care of the kids.  Not only that, but he doesn't have any money to hire anyone anyway.

He is a real estate agent with no sales.  As my real estate agent friends would tell you, the real estate sales biz ain't what it used to be.  In the early 2000's any moron could make a living selling houses in Northern Virginia, as my real estate mogul client had.  Now it takes some brains and a whole lot of hard work to make a decent living.  It's still possible, but not by sitting on your ass at home babysitting your ill-conceived spawn.

This guy is a classic process person.  He enjoys the process of thinking up new business ideas.  He doesn't enjoy the work of making the ideas into real businesses.  He dreams of hiring minions to do his bidding, reaping millions with his feet propped up on a mahogany desk.  In the meantime, his wife supports the family, and he wonders why he isn't successful.

In the business world, purpose always beats process.  When life hands a process person lemons, he dreams of lemonade.  When life hands a purpose person lemons, he orders a truckload and sells them to make enough money to get the hell out of the lemon business.

Here's an old joke I'm repurposing.  What's the difference between a catfish and Tony Romo, the Dallas Cowboy's quarterback?  One's a scum sucking bottom feeder.  The other's a fish.

This Thanksgiving, I'm thankful for RGIII.  He alone has made the Redskins watchable, even in defeat.  Tomorrow is his first matchup with Tony.  Wondering who Jessica "I just lost 60 lbs" Simpson is rooting for?  My Thanksgiving prayer is as follows.

"Dear <insert politically correct deity choice>, please take a break from screwing up the Middle East for one day, and focus on something important, the Redskins.  We humbly thank you for blessing us with RGIII.  We beseech you to provide sympathetic referees to protect him and gird his loins against the heathen Cowboys.  Seriously, how could you possibly like Jerry Jones, who is the Garden of Evil snake incarnate?  Ok, how could you like Dan Snyder either?  But I'm doing the praying here.  Jerry can pray on his own.  I'll bet he thinks you should pray to him.  HTTR - Amen."

As always, thanks for reading.  For actual, factual, and satisfactual  tax and accounting advice, please visit the main S&K web site at www.skcpas.com.

When it comes to the Cowboys, we must always do it to them before they do it to us.  God is on our side.

Key Word of Mouth Points for New Instagram

Word of Mouth strategies on Instagram

Instagram has slowly transitioned from a once-simple app available for smartphone use, into a web-browser-friendly networking tool that possesses a constantly growing network. This relatively simple visual-based platform is unique in its approach: being filled with pictures posted by friends, family, and even businesses that appeal specifically to its target audience.

While it may have started out as a resource for friendly sharing of images, it has become an effective marketing tool for businesses of all sizes and platforms. Through the simplicity of visuals, you can send a powerful message to your audience and help them to expand your network and hence allow you to reach a wider audience. 

Instagram: What Can You Do With It?

Move your audience to take action 

Instagram can basically be seen as an entry point for audiences to find you. It allows you to market quickly and effectively, as long as you know how to approach the audience. But first you need to identify the audience and identify their activity. What do they like to see? What do they like to do with what they see? It doesn’t always necessarily need photos to be aesthetically beautiful. It is more about generating material that motivates the audience to take action. 

Your goal is to get your audience to view not only your material, but also share it with their friends. Perhaps the most advantageous prospect Instagram offers is that it makes it easier for the audience to share your material. Through word of mouth marketing, you can establish a collective network using Instagram and make it much easier for your audience to share your brand with their own personal networks. 

Currently, the Instagram network focuses on bringing valuable pictures to the viewers so that they can comment on and share it with their own friends. This is done by targeting their specific behavior. As mobile technology becomes increasingly popular, the mobile audience is the future for online marketing. This is an ideal situation for any brand to market to – an eager audience. They want to see what you have to say, and best of all they are always available. You just have to make sure that you say the right thing at the right time. And thus, your content is still one of the most valuable aspects for marketing. 

Build new and future contacts

When constructing a profile and creating content, always be sure that your methods target your audience and target what your audience is searching for so that they will know who you are and where to find you. Keep in mind that your profile acts as a primary means by which people can locate your material. 

Your profile picture, name, and your hashtag reference are all valuable tools for enabling the audience to find you. [tweet this].

Be sure that you regularly hashtag your posted Instagram pictures so that your audience can reference your brand network with you easily. Additionally, through the photo descriptions you are able to link back to your related sites, providing a gateway to your brand network. After all, a view and a “like” aren’t what you’re really after. It is all about building new contacts and future prospects loyal to your brand. 

Boost your visibility

Be sure that you intertwine with other social networks, such as Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr to help boost visibility and expand established networks. But as with all methods of social networking, new updates and tools are constantly being added. 

Instagram has begun to utilize a “photo map,” which keeps track of where you uploaded pictures from. This is an ideal way to designate a physical business location - and better yet - allow your followers to tag the location, as well. 

As a reminder, if someone follows you, it is good practice to follow them right back. This is your opportunity to really network and communicate with prospects and open up new doors for opportunity.