5 Tax Time Tips for Stressed-Out Entrepreneurs

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Entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart. Being an entrepreneur requires determination, tireless devotion to your business, and being open to growing your company. And never is that dedication needed more than during tax season.

Tax time offers a great opportunity to review how your business did the previous year, but it can also bring copious amounts of stress. Here are a few tips for making the most of tax season while keeping your stress level to a minimum:

Take It One Step at a Time

A lot of prep goes into getting ready for your appointment with your accountant. So, take it one step at a time. The best course of action is to make a list and make a plan. For example, you might spend your lunch break one day organizing the year’s invoices and another calculating your mileage. Don’t be a hero.

There’s no need for you to try to figure all of this stuff out on your own. Take advantage of available tax software that will make things like prepping employee W-2s a lot easier. And if you haven’t already, download an app that will calculate your mileage for you. That will make things a lot easier come this time next year.

Aim for Good Health

If you aren’t taking care of yourself, how can you truly take care of your business? It’s easy to let things like healthy eating and exercise slide when you are busy getting your taxes ready and managing your business on a daily basis. But your health should always come first. By exercising regularly and eating healthy you not only are taking care of your body, but you are working towards cutting back on stress.

Exercise is one of the top ways to relieve stress. Besides, a lot of successful people have their best ideas when they’re working out.

Consider the Future

Preparing your taxes shows you how your business did the previous year. But it’s also a great time to see where you might make improvements for the next year. Are there credits or deductions you could be taking advantage of? Did you overspend in any areas? Could you be distributing your revenue in a more “tax-friendly” way? These are all questions to discuss with your tax preparer. Once you have your answers, put a plan in place for making profitable changes that will give your company a boost in the coming months and make tax time next year a little more painless.

Step Away

When you own your own business, it’s very difficult to step away, and that’s especially true during tax season. But time off to decompress is necessary for your health and your stress levels. Take breaks. Tax Day is still weeks away, and you’ve got time to prepare. Marathon days in your office running numbers and searching for receipts will only increase the chance that you’ll make a mistake. Plan, use your time wisely, and then, go home.

With some careful planning and by taking advantage of all available resources– including helpful software and your CPA– you can get through tax time without having a breakdown. Get started now, and you can take things at an easy pace that won’t leave you frazzled and will minimize the chances that you’ll make a costly mistake.

Author: Julie Morris

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How To Change A Facebook Page Username More Than Once

Are you trying to change your Facebook Page Username more than once?
It’s truly unfair how Facebook only allows you one Username change per page. It’s almost as if you’ve inked yourself a tattoo dedicated to an ex-lover that you’re stuck with forever. Between rebranding, changing of business plans, merging of companies, and many other scenarios, it’s certainly inconvenient.
However, we’ve recently discovered a simple and easy way of working around this. The good news is that it’s free, takes only a few minutes, and doesn’t rely on the invisible powers that be at Facebook.
Here are the steps involved:
1) Visit the Page that is Already Established.
This is the page that has your following and all of your content. It’s seemingly perfect, other than that lousy username that is burning a hole in your soul. We’ll refer to this as your Original Page.
2) Create a New Page and Make Identical to your Original Page
Be sure to title it as similarly as possible to the original page. For example: The original page is titled ABC Company so title this new one ABCCompany or something like that.
3) Request Facebook to Merge the Pages
Select to Keep the New Page.
Even if it only has you as the sole ‘Like’ this is your page’s new home.
Select the Original Page to be Merged with the new one.
*IMPORTANT NOTE: Merging the two Pages will only transfer Likes. You will lose all of the content such as posts, images and anything else. While these are great, the Likes are the valuable assets here.
4) Click Send
Facebook should send an approval (or denial) in an email. This can occur in as little as a minute after you’ve clicked Send.
5) Set Up the New Page
Now you should have a brand new page and you can alter it as you please. You should be able to change the Title as you like and as long as you have more than 25 Likes, you can change the Username FINALLY to what you prefer. It can take some time for this to be available though as it’s common for it to get stuck on the ‘Loading’ phase.
This should have you on your way to getting around one of the most frustrating aspects of doing business on social media. Facebook, you’re great and all, but sometimes you can be a real pain in the…
Feel free to leave comments below and let us know of your success (or lack thereof).

The 3 Key Ingredients for Success

NOTE: The following article was published on the personal site of Alexander H. Johnstone, Founder & CEO of The World Advisory Company.
I had the pleasure yesterday, August 9, to speak at the B2Biz Networking Expo in Annandale, Virginia. The event was organized by Lucy Brown of Red Copper Events, who is a client and business partner of mine. She did a fantastic job and really brought together an incredible crowd.

My firm, The World Advisory Company, was fortunate enough to participate as a sponsor and had an exhibitor table on display. Throughout the duration of the event, I met dozens of friendly people. Many of which were small business owners, which is the community that my company aims to help and bring together. It was great getting to hear about their projects and coordinating how we can potentially work together in the future.

One of the highlights of the day was my speaking opportunity. As Lucy was planning the event, she generously reached out to me and offered me the chance to speak. Having just hosted the Small Business Expo of Washington, D.C., I am familiar to this community and it was a perfect match.

I decided beforehand that I did not want to be too scripted as I spoke. I wanted to speak from the heart and actually believe in what I was sharing with the small business community. As I met people at the event, I realized that there were many employed professionals in addition to the business owners so I tweaked the target audience in my efforts a bit.

My goal was to share some of the lessons that I have learned throughout my time starting a successful company and helping dozens of other companies become successful. I started with an introduction of myself and my company and then I went on to enlighten the crowd on The 3 Key Ingredients for Success. I went through it in my head a few times before, but mostly created this concept on the spot speaking from my true experiences. So in a basic summary, here they are.

The 3 Key Ingredients for Success

1) Vision

In order to really accomplish anything, you have to be able to see it happening. In order to become successful, you have to see yourself successful. As far as your life, you must paint a picture of what success means to you, whether it’s on a global scale or in your local community. The more clear this picture becomes, the more it turns into tangible and achievable goals. Once they turn into goals, you now have a road map as to how to attain success. In the end, there is nobody to blame, but yourself for achieving those goals and it’s up to you to make it happen.

2) Determination

Once you have set goals and know what you’re working to accomplish, you have to do whatever it takes to make it happen. This means working harder than you ever imagined you could. You have to work as hard as you possibly can and then work ten times harder. There are no shortcuts to success and you will most certainly have to put in the time. You will find that as you work hard, it becomes very rewarding, not only in your professional aspirations, but it carries into your personal life as well. Your relationships with friends and family will improve and your overall health will improve as well. Be careful not to overwork and get burnt out though. There is a balance and you must maintain it to stay efficient.

3) Perseverance

Along your journey to success, you will need more than a clear vision and working hard. You will, without a doubt, be knocked down and discouraged. It is only natural that there are negative influences in life, unfavorable circumstances and challenging obstacles. They will get in your way and you will be tempted to give in. Every successful person is full of stories of failure. The only true way to learn is from failure and picking yourself back up. However, sometimes it’s not wise to continue a specific path if it does not have real potential. In this scenario, this doesn’t mean you have to completely start over from scratch, but rather tweak your approach. There is a saying, “Just because you have a rat problem does not mean you have to burn down the whole house.” Learn from your failures and never give up on your life long journey to success.

So that was basically what I had to share with the people of this event. It was well received and I hope that they really listened and took it to heart. I believe that with these three simple concepts, one can achieve anything in life.

This definitely has worked for me and helped me get to where I am now. I will continue to use these guidelines along my journey and will be expanding upon them as time progresses. That is all for now. I hope you enjoyed this!

For more articles and to learn more about the author, you can visit the personal site of Alexander H. Johnstone