Category Archives: CBS-CBS.com

Cut Costs Not Corners

Posted on by

At some point, you’re sure to need to cut costs in your business. Finding a way to maximize your profits is essential if you want your organization to be successful, and following through with your business plan is impossible if you’re weighed down with obsolete expenditures and wasteful spending.

Cutting costs is one thing, but you certainly don’t want to reduce the value you provide to clients and customers. Your business needs to stay effective, and so you need to take the right approach to cost-cutting. You need to find a way to maximize what you can get using the resources you have rather than trying to find a way to manage without the essentials. With this in mind, here are some strategies which could prove helpful.

Focus On Keeping It Simple

One problem that many businesses face is overextending themselves and putting out products that lack demand. Experts recommend that you list each product and process in place and ask whether they are contributing to the company’s primary goals. Focusing on what clients and customers want will help to improve your business’ main focus and make it more profitable.

Plan Ahead

It’s possible to get some excellent deals for your business when you plan ahead. Signing up ahead for services or purchasing in bulk can help to save money while also guarding against logistical errors which would mean paying extra for an urgent service.

Use Time-Saving Technology

The latest technology helps us to save money and time, so automation can often be well worth making an additional financial investment. For example, investing in online management systems and services can help to reduce the amount of time spent on endless paperwork.

Could Freelancers Be the Answer?

The remote and freelance economies are booming, so if you don’t actually need someone to be physically present in the office to carry out certain tasks, you may be better off finding an affordable freelance worker online. This could help you to get better value for money from your hire. It’ll also help you to reduce costs by only employing additional help when it’s actually required and for the precise number of hours necessary rather than having somebody constantly on staff.

Use Expert Advisors

One way to ensure that you are maximizing your business potential and cutting costs without cutting corners is to bring in professional business analysts and consultants who can help you to pinpoint savings opportunities while also enabling you to get maximum profit from your company. Check out Corporate Business Solutions reviews to find out more about how we can help you.

Our expert team can work with you to identify potential pressure points and determine ways to circumvent them so your business can stay profitable while shaving off unnecessary expenditures. Since every one of them has extensive experience in the world of business so you can rest assured that they’ll be well-placed to ensure the best possible outcomes for your organization, whatever its nature or size.

Can Marketing Strategies Impact On Your Exit Strategy?

Posted on by

As a business owner, you’ve probably never put the terms “exit strategy” and “marketing plans” together before. Yet when you combine both of these things, the results can be especially impressive. If you implement one properly, the benefits to the other are significant. For example, marketing strategies have a key role to play in determining the value of your business once you’ve executed your exit strategy. Conversely, having an exit strategy that is well-defined can make it much easier to market and grow your business.

While both require their own unique approach, it’s possible to think about and implement both together. Marketers are able to take an appropriate approach to help the business grow if they already have their exit strategy firmly in mind. Also, strategists and exit planners are able to guide the marketing team with their exit plan in mind.

Therefore, if a business is to be truly successful, both concepts have to co-exist.

The Importance Of Marketing Strategies

Marketing strategies are the tactical blueprints which you’ll follow and which perfectly align with your business goals. The best marketing strategies are simple to implement but are also very diverse, using a wide variety of marketing platforms. Every marketing plan goal should be to put the business and brand in the most positive light so leads can be converted into new customers and profitable sales.

The Importance Of An Exit Strategy

All business owners build their business thinking that one day they may sell it onto an investor. Therefore, having an ultimate exit strategy in mind is important for the business to be successful. Focusing on gaining more new clients, increasing sales volumes and growing its bottom line is key. When investors start to look into the business, those figures translate into higher valuations and allow business owners to exit for the greatest possible price.

Planning A Marketing For Exit Strategy

Marketing for an exit strategy must be defined clearly so that the team knows what must happen at every stage. This means that clear goals must be put in place with specific numbers linked to every goal.

There are several questions that must be defined to put together an effective strategy. Who are your business’ ultimate customers? Which services and products do you sell that interest those customers? Why are they interested in those services and products? Are they ready to buy straight away?

The strategy you adopt needs to be tied closely to each lead that enters the sales funnel, and to every qualified lead that is pushed to the sales team. You could even ensure your marketing strategies are tied into your monthly sales figures and ROI. Above all, your team must know which of the goals are most vital and which are destined to have the largest impact on the final goal – executing your exit strategy.

Seeking Professional Advice

If you’re planning an exit strategy for your business, seeking professional advice is always wise. Corporate Business Solutions Consultants are available to offer you the help you seek, and as a team of experts in the field of business, you can depend on us to point you in the right direction for maximum profit.

Are You Focusing On The Wrong Numbers For Your Business?

Posted on by

If you’re considering how much your business is worth, it’s possible that you’re focusing on completely the wrong numbers. It’s true that a business’ value all boils down to one equation: the multiple of the profits that the acquirer would be willing to spend to buy your company. However, most business owners make the mistake of believing that the most effective way of improving their company’s value is to increase their profits. For this reason, they work on finding ways to increase the amount that they sell and, as they’re experts within their field, it’s only natural that clients and customers are keen to engage personally with them. That means spending a lot more time meeting clients face to face, speaking on the phone and traveling to increase their sales.

When a business owner adopts this model, it’s true that their company can grow slightly, Yet, the owner’s own life becomes considerably more challenging. Clients demand a lot more service and time. The business’ employees start to burn out. Soon, it begins to feel as if there aren’t sufficient hours in a day. Health starts to suffer, relationships become strained and revenue flatlines. All of this comes from working too hard and too much.

If this feels all-too-familiar, it’s time to look at which numbers really matter for your business.

Which Numbers Matter?

When you spend too much effort and time on increasing profits, the company’s overall value can actually diminish. So, what’s the solution? Remember that we said above that the important equation is a multiple of the profits that your business’ acquirer would be willing to spend to buy your company? You need to instead focus your efforts on driving that multiple. By doing this, your company’s value can actually grow, improving your profits and redeeming your freedom.

So, what is driving your multiple? Here, we take a closer look at some of the key factors that you should be concentrating on.

Your Differentiated Market Position

Buyers only purchase what they can’t easily create for themselves. Therefore, you can expect your business to be worth more to a potential purchaser if you’ve got a monopoly over what you’re selling, or you’re one of just a handful of companies with a license to supply the specific service or product within your market.

Plenty Of Runways

Although most business owners think that having a larger market share is something they should be striving towards, in the eyes of business acquirers, this may actually reduce the company’s value since most opportunities have already been stopped up.

Recurring Revenue

Buyers will need to know how well the business will cope if you leave. If there is plenty of recurring revenue, this will assure them that even when you’ve left the company the business will continue to thrive.

Well-Kept Financials

The profitability and size of your business matters to potential investors and the quality of bookkeeping is something that will be extremely significant to anyone who wants to buy your company.

Seeking Professional Advice

If you’re seeking an effective exit strategy to leave your business, it’s important to get help from a team of professional consultants. Visit CBS-CBS.com to find out more about how our expert team can give you the help and advice you need.

Tax Planning Trends Your Business Needs to Be Aware Of

Posted on by

Over the past few years, we’ve seen some major changes in the tax legislation landscape. The complexity and frequency of those changes have meant that businesses have had an increasing need to focus more resources on staying compliant. Worldwide, more than 40 governments have changed hands in a short space of time, and tax legislation has been harnessed in numerous ways by those new leaders. There seems to be no sign of a slow-down any time soon, and it’s becoming clear that tax enforcement will probably just get stronger in the months and years to come. It couldn’t be more important to be aware of the key trends which are currently at the top of global tax authorities’ agendas, so here, we’ll take a closer look at four of them.

Digital Tax

Globally, there has been an ongoing attempt to switch to more digital forms in order to report taxes. This is already having an effect on companies around the world. Not only is there a new format to consider but the level of detail which is required is also more extensive. Increased scrutiny through auditing is also becoming more widespread. This means that businesses are increasingly required to invest more money into expertise and new technology. You need to ensure that you’ve planned your annual budget accordingly to take into account this extra investment and taken the time to source suitably experienced professionals to help you with your strategic tax planning needs such as Corporate Business Solutions Consultants.

Changes in Rates and Rules

In the USA as well as in other parts of the world, tax reforms are well underway. Companies that trade across international borders are going to increasingly need to assess what impact this is going to have on their operations. GST and VAT laws are in the process of being amended around the globe to ensure overseas digital suppliers have liability for their remittance and collection, and many jurisdictions and countries are planning to expand their GST and VAT to digital services across borders.

Greater Transparency

Tax authorities around the world are now focusing on TP (transfer pricing) thanks to political and public pressure, as well as the transparency that is afforded by CbCR (country by country reporting). As transfer pricing is moving from a location-dependent model into the digital environment, businesses that deploy it must generate new strategies, especially as detected of transfer pricing risk is going to be facilitated by technology.

Tax Incentives

Although the goal is to provide businesses with a level playing field, tax incentives remain a mainstay since governments must attract overseas investors to certain sectors. In recent times, tax breaks have focused on R&D on both a corporate and personal tax level. However, there are signs which suggest this trend could be reversing since the figures internationally year on year is down.

With these four key tax planning trends in mind, it’s important to ensure that you have taken appropriate advice from experts in the field. Tax legislation can be a minefield, and you need to ensure that you’ve maximized your opportunities to benefit and mitigated your potential for risk.

2019’s Coming to An End – It’s Time for Your Business Annual Review

Posted on by

Often, people plan their business goals for the year ahead, however, not everybody takes the time to review what’s happened for their business over the past year. There’s a lot to learn about business through research, attending courses and talking to leaders in your field. Yet it’s your own experiences that teach you about the challenges your business is likely to face and how you can best overcome them. An annual business review helps you to determine how well the year went for your company so you can use that knowledge to plan for the year to come.

How Do I Carry Out My Annual Business Review?

It’s isn’t as difficult as you might imagine reviewing your company’s progress during the year. There are just a few questions to answer that allow you to reflect on your challenges and progress:

Did your business make as much progress as you expected this year?

Were your business goals for this year met?

What did your business achieve?  It’s important to note all achievements, large or small. Something as impressive as having exceeded revenue targets, or something as apparently insignificant as keeping the website up to date.

How were those things achieved? You should think about all the strategies that you used. This will help you to learn what works well for you so you can use those strategies again in the future.

What did you fail to achieve? Did you set yourself goals at the beginning of the year that remain unmet? Why is that the case? When you know what has prevented you from meeting your goals you can learn how to avoid making those mistakes in the future.

What was your company’s greatest success this year? How did it achieve this success? What can you learn from this that can be applied to projects in the future?

Which were the biggest frustrations you faced? What went wrong for the business this year? How can those issues be avoided or mitigated next year? You may need some extra help with the elements of running your business and Corporate Business Solutions can assist with this.

Noting the Key Business Information for The Year

Once you’ve answered the questions above, it’s time to note the following key information for your business this year. When you have metrics that you compare year after year, you can quantify the impact that your hard work is having on your company’s overall success. Some of the metrics you should be recorded on an annual basis include:

  • How many customers did you have this year?
  • How many people visited your website?
  • How many people subscribed to your email?
  • How many new followers do you have on social media this year?
  • What was your company’s total revenue for the year?
  • What were your business’ total costs?
  • What were your profits this year?

Once you start noting this information down every year, you will be able to determine the differences between one year and the next. You’ll also be able to correlate your successes and failures with your differing business strategies. This will inform your business planning for the year to come.

A Guide to Business Planning for The Year to Come

Posted on by

2019 is almost at an end, and it’s time for business owners to start planning for their next calendar year. There’s no better opportunity to review your progress and your strategies to see how they can be honed and improved over the twelve months to come. This expert guide will help you to ensure you get the most out of your 2020 business planning.

Setting the Scene

The first step to effective annual business planning is to know what your company’s long-term goals are. Not just for the next few months or even years, but for the next decade and beyond. When you begin with your longer-term plans, you’ll be able to better connect the work you’re carrying out today with the impact that it will have on your business’ future, keeping you inspired and focused over the months to come. What must you achieve over the following year to move a step closer to those long-term goals? Break those goals down into smaller steps and start following them over the course of the next year.

Start Planning for Next Year

Once you know your overall business landscape you can begin to plan what you’re planning to achieve this year. It’s vital to decide what the focus of your operations will be in the short-term so you’ll be able to bring a few key projects to fruition rather than dividing your attention between countless half-finished projects. Once you’ve established annual goals, they need to be broken down into sections that can be reviewed on a quarterly basis. Knowing what you need to achieve in each quarter helps to give you sufficient time to keep momentum, make meaningful progress and adapt to changing situations.

Your Quarterly Business Plans

For each quarter, there are three areas that you need to consider to ensure that you set relevant milestones that will help you to move one step closer to your overall long-term goals.

  • Focus – what must you achieve by the quarter’s end? What research must be carried out and what must be learned to achieve this? Who can assist you with this? Could you benefit from using professional business analysis and consulting services such as those provided by CBS-CBS.com?
  • Revenue – what are your revenue targets over this quarter? Where will you gain this revenue from? How many customers are you going to need? Do you need to remove or add any revenue streams?
  • Marketing – what’s your marketing strategy for the next quarter? What is your target audience? Which platforms are you planning to use? How much of your time will you be devoted to this? Draw up your quarter-long marketing plan, divided into weeks and months. Make sure you’ve included all of the techniques and strategies that you’ve found helpful over the past year, and pre-empt anything which prevented you from achieving any of your goals over the last year.

Most of all, you need to believe in yourself. You can reach the goals that you set for yourself!

Why Business Taxes Do Not Need to be Taxing

Posted on by

Taxes cause nightmares for many business owners. This is because they can be so complicated to understand. Completing taxes is also frustrating for many small business owners because it involves time spent away from other business-related activities.

If you are a small business owner who recognizes this situation, you may want to take a look at Corporate Business Solutions Reviews and find a professional who can help with your taxes. You may also want to take some time to get a better understanding of taxes yourself. Here is some basic information to get you started, and to help make completing your taxes less taxing.

Understanding business tax

Corporate or business tax is charged on the profits that a company makes. These taxes are due at different times of the year, depending on which type of tax is due. For instance, partnerships and S-corporations pay federal taxes which are due on March 15. In the case of Individual taxes and C-corporation taxes, they are due to be paid on April 15.

It’s possible to get a 6-month grace period which extends the deadline for these taxes. It’s also possible for taxes to be paid in installments, with an amount due every quarter.

Paying tax as a small business

It’s important to know that most small business owners pay tax at the personal tax rate, both personally and for the business. This is because around three-quarters of small businesses in the US are not corporations.

Another piece of information that small business owners should know is that they are entitled to a Qualified Business Income Deduction. This means that they are entitled to a 20% deduction of QBI which is the net amount of items of income, gain, deduction and loss that qualify.

Other taxes that a business needs to pay

There are other taxes that a business is responsible for paying. One of the main taxes is payroll tax which amounts to 7.65% of the gross payroll of a business. Other applicable taxes include:

  • Capital gains tax which is payable on business investments and the sale of assets.
  • Property tax which relates to buildings that are owned by the business.
  • Tax on dividends from business investments.

You can see that there are several different tax considerations that business owners need to be aware of.

The benefits of getting help with taxes

While getting a better understanding of taxes, is good for any business owner, it may still be a good idea to get help with taxes. This is because completing tax returns can take time away from other business activities.

It’s also worth remembering that accountants and tax professionals have high levels of experience and expertise. This means they can ensure that a business gets the benefits of any potential tax advantages.

If you are a small business owner, you should be able to see the advantage of this. You should also remember that the best way of making tax less taxing is to get an expert to help you with it.

What Do You Want, Do You Really, Really Want?

Posted on by

As the owner of a small to medium business, it can be tempting to try and do everything in -house. In fact, many small business owners take it one step further and try to complete many tasks themselves.

The problem with this is that no-one can be an expert in every aspect of running a business. There is also a chance that tasks will not be completed effectively when a business tries to do everything itself. This is why it often makes sense to seek professional help with

CBS-CBS.com. Doing so can help a business get the expert assistance it needs when dealing with complex issues such as analytics or tax issues.

Knowing what help you want

If you are running a business, and decide that seeking professional assistance is a good idea, you need to understand what help you want. In order to get this understanding, you need to examine your current business structure. This helps you to determine what expertise you have in-house.

You also need to be critical about which areas of the business are not being addressed as they should. For instance, you may not be making the most of tax opportunities. You may also be missing out on marketing opportunities because you are not paying enough attention to your analytics. There are many areas where seeking professional expertise can be useful for a business. Here are three of them.

Tax and accountancy

Tax rules can be complicated for business owners to understand. This means that they serve as a distraction from other business-related tasks such as creating a marketing strategy.

Likewise, business finance decisions can also be complicated and difficult to negotiate. This is why working with a partner that can provide accountancy services is a good way of optimizing your tax position and ensuring that your business finances are managed efficiently.

Analytics

No business can operate to its full potential, without measuring its performance. There is usually an array of data that businesses can use to inform their operational decisions. The problem is that not all businesses have personnel who have the time and/or knowledge to use analytics effectively.

If this applies to your business, it’s a good idea to work with professionals who can provide you with analytics solutions. This is because you get accurate and transparent information that you need in order to make the best decisions for your business.

Human resources

This is actually one of the most important aspects of running a business. However, it’s also one that is often neglected. This is because business owners and managers tend to concentrate their efforts on the numbers when it comes to productivity and profits.

However, without a good HR system in place, it’s impossible to manage one of the most important resources of a business; its workforce. This is why many businesses work with professional partners in order to get the HR solution that they need.

You can see why you should stop and think about what assistance you need to make your business run more efficiently. Then you need to find a reliable and reputable partner to provide this assistance.

Improving the Fortunes of Your Business – What You Should Know

Posted on by

Any business owner wants to optimize the fortunes of its operations. In order to do this, they need to monitor different aspects of the business and ensure that they are working to their full potential.

It’s important that this is done effectively as many businesses fail because analysis and improvements are not carried out. Around 50% of small businesses in the US fail within the first 5-years. Many business owners choose to enlist help from Corporate Business Solutions, in order to ensure that their business performance is optimized. There are three main areas where this help can be useful.

Focusing on people

People are the most important asset of any business. The people who work for business help to determine the level of customer satisfaction. They are also responsible for the productivity of a business.

If there is a disconnect between the goals of the business and the actions of employees, this can have an adverse effect on the overall performance of the business. It’s important to reduce the risk of this happening by ensuring that employees are motivated and onboard with the aims of the business.

Examining the brand

Businesses build a brand in order to attract custom and improve sales and profits. This brand should obviously have positive connotations and should reflect the aims and services of the business. However, creating a brand is not the end of the story.

A business brand can start to fail if it’s not analyzed and monitored efficiently. For instance, the attraction of the brand may wane. There could also be an issue with production being able to meet the demands of the brand. These are issues that need to be identified and addressed as soon as possible, in order to improve the fortunes of the business.

Analyzing the performance of operations

If the wheels of a business are not working as well as they should, the fortunes of a business cannot be improved. This is why operational excellence is so important to the overall success of a business.

In order to achieve operational excellence, businesses need to analyze how their processes are performing on an ongoing basis. They then need to use the information that is gathered in order to make beneficial operational improvements.

In summary

No business owner can afford to allow their business to become stagnant. If this happens, the business begins to fail and profits fall. In order to stop this from happening, it’s important to take action to improve the fortunes of a business.

Business owners can enlist professional help in order to do this. Doing so means that they can analyze the effectiveness of vital features of the business such as people, the brand and operational performance. They can then use the information that they gain to make necessary improvements. These improvements can have a positive effect on the fortunes of a business. This gives it a better chance of surviving and thriving.

Why Good Succession Planning is Essential for Your Business

Posted on by

In order for a business to continue being successful, it needs to be prepared for any future gaps in personnel. This applies from ground level to senior management. To have this level of preparation, effective succession planning needs to take place.

This planning helps a business to establish vacancies that may occur. They can then make decisions about how to fill these vacancies. This involves planning aspects such as identifying internal skills and potential, training and external recruitment requirements. Businesses can make use of Corporate Business Solutions Consultants to help with this planning, which provides several vital benefits.

Identifying potential within the business

Succession planning enables a business to identify potential talent within. It helps a business to determine who are the future leaders within the workforce. These people can then be developed with a view to filling gaps that are likely to occur, higher up the ladder.

Making important savings

It’s a lot more expensive to recruit externally than it is to train and support gifted people that are already employed within the business. This means that succession planning helps to save money which the business can allocate to meet other essential expenses.

Identifying potential future weaknesses

While succession planning is a useful tool for identifying potential talent and training requirements; it also has another important role in business planning. It can help to identify future potential weaknesses in the business.

It does this by predicting the loss of essential personnel. For instance, the head of sales could be looking to move on. If this happened, and there was a delay in filling the role, there could be a negative impact on sales. Having this information in advance enables a business to mitigate the potential risks. This helps to preserve the performance and profits of a business.

Establishing if there is a competency gap

Succession planning is not just about filling gaps that may be created by vacancies. It’s also about establishing if there is a gap in competencies required for the current and ongoing success of the business.

For instance, there may be a lack of knowledge at ground level that will enable people to progress to a higher level in the business. There may also be a lack of awareness of skills and expertise that will be needed to meet technical or industry developments.

Identifying these competency gaps means that a business can act accordingly. It can ensure that the gaps are addressed so that the business continues to operate successfully.

In summary

Effective succession planning is a vital tool for any business that wants to maintain its level of success. It enables the business to ensure that any potential personnel or skills gaps are identified and addressed.

This type of planning can help a business to save money by ensuring that it makes the best use of its current workforce. Members of this workforce can be trained and developed so that the business becomes self-sufficient in filling vacancies and does not have the expense of external recruitment.