Guest Post, Author at Business Partner Magazine

Renting Vs. Buying a Commercial Space

April 21, 2018 by Guest Post Leave a Comment

If you own a company, it can be tempting to want to control every aspect of its operation. This could mean having the urge to buy the space in which the business operates. However, it may not be wise or even necessary to buy a building to exercise such control. Here are some items worth thinking about when choosing whether to buy or rent a commercial space to run a company.

Leases Are Negotiable

You may believe that you have to buy an office building to have meaningful control over how the space is used. However, landlords are often willing to negotiate the terms of a commercial lease. This may allow you to choose how common areas are used or gain access to the entire building as opposed to just one or two floors. Custom lease terms can also make it easier to use your brand’s logo and colors on the front of the building or in other strategic locations.

Renting Will Not Decrease Your Liability

If you rent a building, you are just as liable for anything that happens on the premises as if the building was purchased outright. Generally, the best way to protect against any liability issues is to buy an insurance policy. In most states, a corporate tenant who operates in a given space is responsible for providing a safe environment for everyone on the premises.

The only way a landlord would be responsible for damages is if there was a dangerous condition that was not disclosed to the business that leased the space. Therefore, liability concerns shouldn’t dissuade you from buying a building outright if that is what you want to do.

How Long Will the Company Occupy the Space?

Buying a building can be a good idea if a company is looking to stay in one spot for several years. Even if the company goes under, the building and land that it sits on can be used to offset any losses the owners incur. In some cases, the building and land can be used as collateral for a loan that can be used to fill a large order or otherwise expand the business. However, if the business isn’t planning to stay in one spot for more than a couple of years, it may be better to rent as it provides more flexibility.

How Much Space Does the Company Need?

If a business doesn’t need more than 500 square feet to operate effectively, it probably isn’t a good idea to buy an entire office building. Instead, it is likely a better decision to rent space or share it with another company. Depending on the needs of a company, it could be worthwhile to convert an attic or basement into a home office.

Can a Building Be Used for Multiple Purposes?

Buildings can be built to meet both commercial and residential needs. If you are looking for a long-term investment opportunity, buying a building that is zoned for business and residential use can increase the odds of seeing a return on the investment. Depending on your needs, you could also choose to rent such a space and provide a more consistent living situation for yourself and your family.

Buying a Building Could Require More Upfront Capital

Typically, buying a building means having enough money for a down payment as well as insurance and other closing costs. It may be possible to get cheap insurance quotes and affordable mortgage quotes online. Furthermore, you or your business will need good enough credit to get a loan to finance the purchase. If you don’t have enough money to invest in a new building, your only option could be to rent.

There are many variables that go into whether or not you should rent or buy a commercial building. Ideally, any decision that is made will take into account your financial and other needs both now and into the future. Consulting with an accountant can make it easier to make the best decision for your company.

About the Author

Dawn is a loving wife and mother of three and an up-and-coming entrepreneur. She has spent the last couple years trying to get her business off the ground. In her journey, from working for a big CPG company and a pretty popular tech company to starting her own business, she has learned a lot about the difficulties of running a business and how to be successful. With all she has learned about business, she has decided she wants to help other businesses avoid the mistakes she has made and help them succeed even when she is still searching for that very thing for herself. First and foremost is her family. Second is her business and helping others with theirs.

Make Money In Your Sleep With These Passive Income Generation Ideas

April 17, 2018 by Guest Post Leave a Comment

Close your eyes and imagine this. You’re in Hawaii enjoying the sea. The sun is up and your bank account has started filling up. How? Because you have created a system, in fact, a couple of systems in place that is making you rich with each passing day.

How is it possible? Well, if you haven’t heard of passive income. Now is the time to read about it and do something about it. The future is near, and there is no room for robots that are just working 9-5 and catering things that are important for their boss.

It is now time to move forward with passive income. A stream of income that can help you make money even in your sleep. If you Google Passive income generation ideas, you’ll be bombarded with lots and lots of results and each result will sound like it is for you.

But, don’t make the mistake of doing whatever feels like good for you without doing some research on it. There are tons of ways in which you can make passive income, and if you are able to be successful in one way, you can try out other ways too.

Before that, you need to gauge the ways in which you can make most of the money. The ways in which you can make a maximum profit without the expense of your energy. Here, Branex – a digital agency from Toronto came up with an exciting infographic that can help you decide which method is the right fit for you.

It is not just about using any one method to earn money. The goal is to choose more than one method and make as much money as you can. Because in the end, it is all about how smart you can be in making the most amount of money with the limited resources you have.

About the Author

Muhammad Osama is a SEO specialist at Branex Canada.

What Is a Sales Opportunity?

April 16, 2018 by Guest Post Leave a Comment

“To succeed, jump as quickly at opportunities as you do at conclusions.” — Benjamin Franklin

Of course, before you put your gym shoes on, you need to step back and look at your sales process. Does your sales team know what distinguishes sales opportunities from leads? Are they prioritizing their time and channeling their efforts where they get the most returns?

It is important to define what a sales opportunity is. As basic as this sounds, your definition becomes the qualifiers that move people from lead to opportunity. It gives your sales reps guidelines to follow so they can manage their leads consistently with the rest of the team. And, in turn, you get forecasting accuracy and a true picture of where people and accounts are in your sales pipeline.

Leads VS. Sales Opportunities

Simply put, sales opportunities are people or accounts that have been qualified. You’ve called these contacts and talked about their needs. You’ve assessed their fit. They’re in your pipeline and are in touch with you. You feel good about the possibility of closing the deal.

Contrast this with leads. A lead is just a contact that you have minimal information about. It could be a marketing-generated lead, which is inbound and top-of-the-funnel. The contact might have downloaded content or filled out a form. Or, it could be a sales-generated lead, gathered through efforts of your outbound sales team or SDRs.

Communication lies in between. You need to talk to your leads and gather enough information to help you qualify them. Do they share the top characteristics typical of your sales opportunities? Can you justify devoting more of your time and effort to nurturing these leads?

Top Characteristics of Sales Opportunities

“Find your trigger. Find the qualities that make a lead more likely to convert, and focus on those leads.” – Brian Kardon, CMO at Lattice Engines, a B2B cloud applications company.

In time, you will notice similar characteristics that are shared by leads who convert to sales opportunities. Take note of the top three: need, interest, and fit. These characteristics help you come up with an accurate profile of your ideal customer. You can then focus your efforts on nurturing leads that more or less fit into this mold.

Need: This pertains to the common pain points shared by your ideal customers. Your qualified sales opportunities experience a similar problem. The primary motivation to buy is to fix this problem and lessen the pain. Your sales rep’s job is to help identify the pain and frame your product as the best-fit salve.

Interest: Having a need for your product – or a pain point that has to be resolved – is just the start. Need does not always translate to interest. For instance, a start-up might need a CRM software. But, if they’re set on using MS Excel for their client management needs, a CRM system is going to be difficult to sell.

Fit: Here, you need to consider your product and how it fits into your lead’s current business and its capacity. Because, as much as you are able to lessen pain points, a SMB is not a good fit if your product is enterprise-scale. A business with a few hundred bucks to spare will not be able to buy your million dollar solution.

How to Manage Your Sales Opportunities

“It’s not about having the right opportunities. It’s about handling the opportunities right.” – Mark Hunter, author, speaker and lead expert at The Sales Hunter

In a lot of ways, the line between closed deals and lost sales depends on how you manage sales opportunities. Here are some things to consider:

Accurately qualify your leads: There may be cases wherein you promote your leads to sales opportunities prematurely. It could be that the lead needs further nurturing, and is not yet sales-ready. When you inaccurately qualify your leads, you end up devoting your efforts on opportunities that take longer to close.

Know your buyer: It takes trust and rapport when you want to develop business relationships with your sales opportunities. To get to this point, you need to know your prospective buyer like the back of your hand. So, do the groundwork and understand your prospect’s business, their buying processes, needs/ motivations and the decision-making team, among other aspects.

Know your prospect’s obstacles to buying: There are always perceived risks when buying a product or solution. Understand what might keep a prospect from making a purchase and address these issues.

Track the deal’s progress: Once a lead becomes an opportunity, it becomes more important to track deal milestones, instead of monitoring activity levels. A prospect’s time on your website, their downloads and all that are still good indicators of interest. However, you need to focus more on where they are in the decision-making process and their requirements to move this process along.

Don’t be afraid to disqualify: Not all sales opportunities move to the next stage. Some of them become lost opportunities due to something that you discover as you engage with them. When this happens, don’t be afraid to disqualify. This is ultimately better than devoting your time to opportunities you can’t close.

This article first appeared on Tenfold

Other articles you might like:

6 Sales and Marketing Tips & Ideas to Grow Your Business

7 Useful Tips for Developing Your Sales and Marketing Strategy

What Is the Meaning Of Pipeline in Sales and Marketing

Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) FAQs

April 14, 2018 by Guest Post Leave a Comment

What is EIS?

The Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) was introduced in 1994 to help smaller, higher-risk unquoted companies raise finance by offering a series of tax reliefs to new investors, thereby helping lessen the amount of investor capital at risk. At its core, EIS is one of the most generous tax relief schemes in existence.

EIS lets you invest up to £1m – now £2m if in knowledge-intensive businesses (see later) – in any tax year and receive 30% tax relief on your initial investment. It offers additional loss relief, while allowing investors to roll over existing capital gains tax and give wealthier investors the chance to delay or even avoid inheritance tax.

How do I claim EIS relief?

If you’ve done your preparation and have access to your EIS3 forms, claiming relief on your taxes is a fairly straightforward process.Go to the section of your tax return titled ‘Additional information’

In box Number 2 on Page 2, you will need to enter the total amount you invested into EIS companies for which you will make a tax relief claim.
Go to Page 4 and in the large box, where it asks ‘Please give any other information in this space’, you will need to enter the information stated in the bullet points below.
You do not need to complete Pages 3 and 4 of the EIS certificate and you do not need to send the EIS certificate to HMRC along with your return. However, as mentioned above, HMRC may request to see it to support your claim so do keep it in a safe place.

The names of the companies you’ve invested into
The amounts, per company, for which you’re claiming relief
The date the shares were issued (often not the day you invested)
The HMRC office authorising the issue of the EIS3 certificate, and their reference (as shown on the certificate)

What happens if an EIS investment fails?

By their nature, EIS investments are risky. Accordingly, as well as giving an exemption from capital gains tax, any loss suffered (net of income tax relief) can be claimed as a capital loss to set against capital gains of the same year, or to be carried forward to set against gains in future years. Alternatively, a generally more attractive choice is to elect for the loss to be set against income of the current or prior year under ITA 2007, section 131. Below is an example.

Initial investment £10,000; company goes bust and nothing received on liquidation.

Please note that the rate at which you receive loss relief depends on the tax band you’re in, i.e. you’ll get 45% of your capital at risk back if you’re in the 45% tax band. Assuming the investor has income taxed at 45%

EIS investment: £10,000

Income tax relief at 30%: £3,000

Net cost to investor: £7,000

Loss relief £7,000 x 45%: £3,150

Cost to the investor after tax: £3,850

How can I obtain EIS certificates?

Once the funding round is successfully completed and shares are issued, the investment platform sends an application to HMRC (referred to as an EIS1) asking to grant investors EIS tax relief. It usually takes HMRC around three months to process this application.
HMRC then sends the company blank EIS3 forms (the certificate that investors receive), which the company typically completes and returns to you, the investor. You can then attach them to your tax return to claim relief if you are eligible to do so.

Please note that the full process of obtaining an EIS certificate for an investment can take a few months.

Can I carry back EIS relief?

Yes. Income tax relief can be claimed in the year of investment, or the previous year. This means that if you have a tax liability for the previous tax year, you can mitigate this by making an EIS investment in the current tax year and carrying it back.

There are complex rules around what type of company qualifies for EIS investment, so you should always check that the company has an ‘advance assurance’ from HMRC.

What is the maximum EIS investment?

The maximum annual investment limit into EIS-eligible companies is £1m, except for ‘knowledge-intensive’ companies, for which this limit is £2m, as outlined in the 2017 Autumn Budget by Chancellor Philip Hammond.

Risk warning: Tax relief depends on an individual’s circumstances and may change in the future. In addition, the availability of tax relief depends on the company invested in maintaining its qualifying status.

How to Identify a Gap in your Market

April 12, 2018 by Guest Post Leave a Comment

Spotting a gap in the market gives budding entrepreneurs the opportunity to be innovative, which is necessary for business success and growth. Unfortunately, one great business idea isn’t enough to rival the competition, and so companies are forced to continue innovating to adapt in fast-paced industries.

When identifying a potential business idea, it’s beneficial to explore foreign markets to see what types of business models are thriving overseas. Looking beyond your own surroundings and learning about alternative industries, that perhaps haven’t emerged in your area yet can spark inspiration and creativity. A great example of how manipulating external markets can fuel a great business idea is price comparison website Compare and Choose.

The company’s founder, Alan Lynch, launched the website whilst living in Australia, after noticing an uplift in comparison sites in the UK. He tells us:

“Whilst the comparison market was not mature in Australia when I set up Compare & Choose, I was initially planning on focusing on car hire, however, I knew that this industry was saturated. Identifying this, I realised that confining the company to one niche would limit the market, so I set out to compare everything from campervan hire prices, to insurance policies. Since the launch of Compare and Choose 4 years ago, it has grown to operate on a global scale. 12 months ago, we set up the UK site which is already impacting the market.”

Launching the site in a less-competitive market and gradually expanding into populated locations, like the UK, has ensured continuous growth. Whilst Compare and Choose doesn’t operate with an entirely unique business model, by placing a slight tweak on an already strong market, the company’s founder has successfully answered the demand for a ‘one stop shop’ comparison site. Whilst Compare and Choose is still in its infancy, the business is seeing consistent growth and continues to break into new industries, having most recently added a hotel comparison to their rising bank of tools.

Many companies respond to what’s trending to fuel new ventures, as keeping an eye on what’s relevant is key to innovation. If you approach a new market, whilst it’s fresh, you have potential to reach-out to customers at the right time, which is likely to improve engagement and brand loyalty – a critical part of business growth.

Answering to the demand of the market is something that young entrepreneur Stuart Bramley knows all too well. When working in a gym, whilst studying, Stu noticed an overwhelming lack of style amongst members. With a goal to bridge the gap between workout-wear and leisure-wear, UP Clothing was born. Stuart says:

“When I first set-up UP Clothing, I designed contemporary ‘street style’ clothing at a lower price point. However, after receiving customer reviews, it was apparent that this was not in keeping with our consumer values. Taking this on board, we rebranded the company to reflect the ideals of the market. We now offer contemporary designs using high quality materials and put performance at the forefront.”

UP Clothing offers a perfect example of how companies must continue to adapt to the needs of the consumer, even after pin-pointing a first-class business idea. Listening to customer feedback can help you to better your product, or service offering. And what’s more this feedback can often help you to develop new business ideas, to expand your company. Regardless of whether you are looking to launch a new business, or to grow your current venture, identifying a gap in the market is essential to ensure success.