Twitter Chat #SmBizEdge: Startup Tips That Make the Difference in Success

It’s Small Business Week in the United States, and in honor of that we invite you to participate in a live Twitter chat on Tuesday, June 18, 2013 at 8 p.m. EST, presented by FedEx Office. The topic is:  Startup Tips That Make the Difference in Success. We’ll be discussing what it takes to be successful when starting a business and growing it. We hope you’ll join in and pose any questions you may have.  Or if you have any tips to offer other small business owners about startup success, we invite you to share them.  Be sure to follow @FedExOffice too. Join The Twitter Chat: Follow #SmBizEdge Be sure to join us for this live Twitter chat event: TOPIC: Startup Tips That Make the Difference in Success DATE: Tuesday, June 18, 2013 TIME: 8 pm EST (New York time) LOCATION: Twitter.com: Just follow the hashtag #SmBizEdge to participate. Be sure to follow me, Anita Campbell, at @SmallBizTrends too. If you’ve never taken part in a Twitter chat before and you need some pointers, be sure to read “How to Participate in a Twitter Chat.” Disclosure: FedEx Office compensated me to participate as a small business expert during the FedEx Office Tweet Chat program and write this post. The ideas in this blog post are mine and not ideas or advice from FedEx Office. The post Twitter Chat #SmBizEdge: Startup Tips That Make the Difference in Success appeared first on Small Business Trends.

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Mobile Marketing Will Generate $400 Billion in Sales by 2015

If you sell directly to U.S. customers or provide marketing services to clients who do, pay attention. A recent report says a growing mobile market is already generating billions in U.S. sales. And businesses are also spending billions to market to customers via mobile channels. The Mobile Marketing Association, a global trade association for the mobile marketing industry, says those numbers are only going to increase. Consider that last year mobile marketing generated an estimated $139 billion in U.S. sales. This figure takes into account both business to business and business to consumer sales. The association claims the “MMA Mobile Marketing Economic Impact Study” released last month, is the first comprehensive study of U.S. economic performance across the mobile marketing industry. Huge Growth Projected Most impressive is that this amount is expected to grow by more than half during the next two years. The report says sales generated through mobile marketing will top $400 billion by 2015, an amazing 52 percent rise. But it’s not just sales that are increasing. The MMA study suggests the amount U.S. companies are willing to spend on mobile marketing is increasing too. For example, in 2012 the study estimates retailers and marketers spent $6.7 billion to reach customers via mobile channels. That’s considerably less than the amount generated by mobile sales, but still represents a huge opportunity for businesses providing mobile marketing services. The study projected that amount would also increase, reaching $19.8 billion by 2015. Mobile advertising, mobile direct response or enhanced traditional media and mobile customer relationship management were all considered in that expenditure. What it Means to You While the MMA study was aimed at demonstrating the economic stimulus and job creation potential of mobile marketing, there is a clear message here for small businesses and entrepreneurs as well. USA Today reported recently on how small businesses are already putting mobile marketing to work to generate additional sales. We’ve reported previously on the importance of mobile technology to small business operations. But the MMA study demonstrates the importance of mobile technology for growing your business too. For many small businesses, this could include focusing on making sure you have a mobile friendly presence. It could also include focusing more attention on social media marketing, much of which is accessed via mobile devices by your customers. You could also focus on developing mobile apps for your business. And, of course, if you provide marketing services to other business clients, it also means you should consider including mobile marketing services among your other offerings. How is your business using mobile marketing to reach customers? Mobile Photo via Shutterstock The post Mobile Marketing Will Generate $400 Billion in Sales by 2015 appeared first on Small Business Trends.

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Which Sole Proprietors Cheat on Their Taxes (According to the IRS)?

If you are non-native-English-speaking man who runs a construction or real estate rental business, hires a tax preparer rather than doing his own taxes, and thinks that making money enhances social status, beware. Research by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) indicates that you are among the sole proprietors most likely to cheat on your personal income taxes. Running your own business is one of the best ways to pay less in taxes than you owe, a recent New York Times article explained. The IRS knows this, of course, reporting that sole proprietors disclose only 43 percent of their income on their returns. To figure out which taxpayers might be underpaying their taxes and be worthy of a second look from its auditors, the IRS’s computers assign a Discriminant Function System score (DIF) to each tax return filed. These scores use information from the IRS’s database of past tax filings to predict whether a taxpayer is likely to have under reported income. Determining which sole proprietors might be underreporting income isn’t easy. Most business pay all that they owe. Even if the IRS reassigned everyone currently responsible for evaluating non-profit status applications for all politically conservative organizations (a little topical humor here), the agency would still lack the resources needed to audit all sole proprietors. For returns filed in 2011, the tax authority “only” audited 1.6 percent of individual returns with business income. That’s why the IRS contracted with Russell Research to conduct a survey of sole proprietors in the first quarter of 2012. The investigators divided a representative sample of sole proprietors into the most and least “compliant” (IRS-speak for willing to pay all of the taxes they owe) on their DIF scores for their 2009 tax returns. They then compared the most and least compliant fifths on the basis of their answers to a range of survey questions. The results, which were published in a study released earlier this year, provide insight into which sole proprietors are most likely to be tax cheats: Men were less likely than women to be “compliant.” While males made up 59 percent of the more compliant taxpayers, they composed 65 percent of the less compliant ones. Twice the fraction of sole proprietors who speak a language other than English at home were less compliant in paying taxes (14 percent versus 7 percent). Owners of companies with more employees were less compliant (average employment of 6.6 versus 3.6). Owners of professional, scientific and technical service businesses, health care and social assistance, and arts, entertainment and recreation businesses were more likely to be compliant than owners of construction, and real estate and rental and leasing businesses. Owners of businesses with lower sales tended to be more compliant (average sales of $47,000 versus $87,000). Owners of businesses with lower expenses tended to be more compliant (average expenses of $12,000 versus $50,000). Owners who complete their own tax returns tended to be more compliant (32 percent of the more compliant sole proprietors do their own taxes versus only 21 percent of the less compliant ones). People who indicated that they were more willing to take financial risks, and those who reported that overall status depends on finances, tended to be less compliant. People who were more cynical about the tax system, those who had more negative attitudes about the IRS, and those who were more skeptical about the value of government activity, tended to be less compliant. Note to those of you at the IRS who read my posts: I abhor risk; am very positive about the government and the tax system; and think you are doing a fine job, despite recent news reports. Just thought you’d want to know. taxes Photo via Shutterstock The post Which Sole Proprietors Cheat on Their Taxes (According to the IRS)? appeared first on Small Business Trends.

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Effective Political Advertising

Politicians and consultants have traditionally relied on their instincts and election night results to judge if their campaign advertising was effective. But in the 2012 election cycle, spending on television ads for national and state races hit the $3 billion mark. With so much money on line, campaigns are paying closer attention to research from psychologists, political scientists and marketing experts who study how and why political advertising is effective.

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Fun Ideas for Corporate Meetings

Corporate meetings can be dull affairs; get everyone’s energy flowing and ideas generating by incorporating a few fun ideas. Encourage employees to come prepared for serious business discussion as well as a bit of lightheartedness to break up the tension and doldrums. Make sure to schedule enough time so you can have some fun while still addressing all of your agenda items.

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Pick up a SIM-free Nokia Lumia 820 for only $301

The Nokia Lumia 820 launched last autumn with the debut of Windows Phone 8 and the middle tier device had a lot to offer...

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Ting to add a couple Windows Phone 8 devices next month

The MVNO known as Ting, and operated by Tucows announced that it was planning on bringing two...

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How tweet it is: Tweet added to Oxford English Dictionary

The Chief Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, John Simpson, announced that "tweet" has been added to the dictionary as both a verb and a noun; normally, a word has to be around for ten years before it is considered for inclusion in the OED. Simpson, though, said that use of the word to denote a message sent via Twitter "seems to be catching on"...

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Windows Winset

Windows Winset is a comprehensive suite of utilities to that powers up Windows XP/Vista/Windows7 do more and do it better. Windows Winset is an all-in-one system utility to optimize,clean up,maintain and speed up your PC.make your computer always perform like new.It also gathers detailed and...

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Movie Outline

Movie Outline is an innovative Screenplay Outlining Application for both the Amateur and Professional Screenwriter, allowing for simple cinematic story planning from scene to scene with flexible reorganization of scene order and simultaneous reference to successful movies of all genres.By...

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