Social Media Tips for the New Year

Global Resources is a full-service business development group and general management consulting firm focused on small and medium-size privately-held companies in North America. We help business owners access the information that is often critical for growth.  

Social media is a tremendous outlet for business owners today. With the approaching New Year, it’s important to consider factors in social media:

• Maintain a Consistent Brand Message – Review your brand mission and vision. Online customers are becoming more discerning when it comes to messaging, so you must ensure that your entire team is aligned when it comes to the company mission. Once this is settled, solidify your company voice since it is the focal point of your social media and customer engagement strategy. 
• Track Your Online Visits and Sales- If your audience is growing, so are your segments and this will affect how you approach your social media strategy. User personas will change. How people interact with your brand may have changed. All of this is pure speculation though if you are not tracking your traffic and conversion with analytics tools such as Google Analytics, Facebook Insights, Hootsuite, etc. It’s not good enough to see growth. You need to know why and how your business has grown to make a robust roadmap for 2017.
• Budget for More Resources- If you want to keep your marketing budget realistic, you’ll need to research where online trends are heading. Social media has become a cost-effective channel which deserves a team of its own. How do you approach this in your forecast? Make sure you allot enough resources to focus on upcoming trends which will take a bit more time than you may expect. Real-time engagement is becoming a norm on social media now, so a dedicated resource is vital to making this work for your small business.

To learn more about us and / or to schedule your complimentary appointment with the business consultants at Global Resources LLC, call us at 855-338-0266. 

Tips to eliminate Workplace Holiday Stress

The business consultants at Global Resources have the expertise to help small and medium – size businesses achieve success.  During the busy holiday season, we know that the office may become a battleground of stress.   Here are 5 tips to help some eliminate some workplace stress, for both owners and employees:

1. Breathe: We often need reminders, especially around the busy holiday season. Put a Post-it with the word “Breathe” on your computer screen, or set an alarm for the top of the hour, when it strikes, and take three deep breathes, releasing slowly. Then hold out the last breath for a few seconds. You’ll be surprised how energizing it can be, while calming your nerves. 

2. Determine what can wait: We tend to overextend ourselves during the holidays. Often there’s a desire to do that last minute report, answer those last few e-mails or squeeze one more meeting into the afternoon. Ask yourself, “can it wait?” Now sometimes it can’t, especially if you want to hold onto your job. That’s not a light matter. But in some cases, depending on the urgency, have a plan in place to execute within a reasonable amount of time.

3. Respond with kindness and compassion: It’s so easy to write those words; a heck of a lot more difficult to practice them. Rule of thumb is to give people the benefit of the doubt. At least during the holidays! It’s really about you and how you choose to respond to conflict in the workplace. We should never allow ourselves to be stepped on, but sometimes walking away from conflict speaks volumes. This is a good time to set aside differences at work.

4. Recharge your battery: There’s a lot of excess running around and stress related tension in the simple daily activity in the office. The holidays can send you right over the top. Whether it’s meditation or exercise – figure out a way to wind down, such as taking a walk away from your desk. 

To learn more about us and / or to schedule your complimentary appointment with the business consultants at Global Resources LLC, call us at 855-338-0266. 

4 End-of-Year Accounting Tips for Small Business Owners

At Global Resources, we specialize in many areas of business, including accounting systems and information systems that help predict cash flow. We also realize that this is the time of year that small business owners must pay special attention to accounting. Managing your financial records is critical throughout the year, but even more so in December. By maintaining excellent records and keeping them in order, you’ll help yourself when tax time rolls around. This also sets you up for starting off the next year on the right foot.

Here are four tips for business owners to help keep on track with accounting tasks: 

1. Run a Few Standard Reports - Take time to assess where you stand financially and how that compares to previous years. Using your accounting software or looking through spreadsheets or other records you keep, you want to generate a complete financial report, which typically consists of a profit and loss statement, a balance sheet and your cash flow statement. Your profit and loss report is one of the keys. However, a business owner also has to develop key performance indicators that will help him manage the business by identifying the critical variables which will determine the financial performance of the business.  These key performance indicators and critical variables are the key to both operational and financial performance for the next year. 

2. Analyze Your Cash Flow Statements - Cash flow is the best way to tell how your money was spent throughout the year. You’ll want to take a look at three specific aspects of your business’ cash flow:

• Cash flow from operating activities (i.e. revenue and expenses)
• Cash flow from investing activities (i.e. assets purchased and assets sold)
• Cash flow from financial activities (i.e. loans and repayments)

3. Reconcile Accounts Receivable - You should have a running list of what invoices are still unpaid or which clients still owe you money for work already completed. If possible, chase these outstanding bills and try to collect before the end of the year. This will help with cash flow and give you a clean start for the upcoming year.

4. Double-Check Your Payroll and Benefits - It’s better to stay on top of any issues or corrections that need to be made to your payroll before year’s end. Ensure that taxable fringe benefits, such as third-party sick pay or a company car are accounted for. Other benefits that are easy to forget include educational reimbursement, health and life insurance, and transportation subsidies.

To learn more about us and / or to schedule your complimentary appointment with the business experts at Global Resources LLC, call us at 855-338-0266.