Faol-Inc.Com - Education Guide

Ultimately, success is a result of differentiation and emphasizing your unique value.

While conformity lubricates the gears of society, the world is pushed forward by contrarians. The advancements we know and love - new technology, medical breakthroughs, artistic achievements - are made by passionate people with bold and often unpopular ideas (this is not a new realization, Apple captured this quite well with their “Think Different” campaign. These creative geniuses also had the guts to endure unchartered territory. Strange that so many people preach a “traditional path to success.” After all, the catalyst for making a meaningful impact is doing something different.

Society is a bit hypocritical. We shun college drop-outs and “wayward creatives” with skepticism. Yet we celebrate the successes of the emerging artists, bold entrepreneurs, and trailblazing musicians that enrich every aspect of our lives. Society celebrates what society shuns?

All too often, we consider creative successes as one-offs rather then the logical outcome of doing something different and taking enough initiative to make it happen. What one views as a tremendous risk may appear to others as an obvious and compelling opportunity. A passionate person that is willing to challenge a conventional approach will, in fact, stake claim in unchartered territory. Whether or not this advancement becomes something meaningful and significant is dependent on leadership and hard work. Totally doable.

When it comes to hiring new people, keep this in mind as you look through resumes. When we look for the popular attributes to fill a certain mold, we risk overlooking brilliance.

Gain confidence from the unexpected path. Nothing extraordinary is ever achieved through ordinary means.

Behance articles and tips are adapted from the writing and research of Scott Belsky and the Behance team. Behance runs the Behance Creative Network and develops knowledge, products, and services that help creative professionals make ideas happen.

All Information (c) Scott Belsky, Behance LLC

Share This

Source: Scott Belsky of Behance

If you are an Internet entrepreneur or small business offering an affiliate program, New York’s Governor Eliot Spitzer wants to wrap you up in regulation and bureaucracy. Even if you run your business from Ohio or California or Hawaii.

If your business sells more than $10,000 to those in New York locations and you have an affiliate based in New York, you would be required to collect and remit taxes to New York authorities. For small businesses and entrepreneurs who sell through affiliate programs, this could be bad news.

Janet Attard of BusinessKnowHow.com writes that this plan, if it becomes law, would burden small businesses with extra expense and paperwork:

“I think the Governor’s proposal, should it be passed, will set a precedent that will unreasonably burden and harm New York small businesses and small businesses across the county.The burden comes in the form of extra costs to buy tax databases and to find and set up an online shopping cart to properly collect sales taxes. There’s also a huge time component (huge for the typical small business) associated with reporting and remitting the taxes.

New York’s tax system - and some in other states as well- is particularly cumbersome for small businesses because of the requirement to collect and remit taxes at the rate in effect in the taxing jurisdiction (usually the country or city) where you ship the product in the state. There are over 75 such taxing jurisdictions in effect in NY. Furthermore, there is no one tax rate that applies to all the taxing jurisdictions. * * *

If that all sounds like a huge nightmare, it is. Even though I’ve been able to get much of the process automated at this point, it still takes me or whoever I assign to the task at least half a day to fill out the quarterly tax report for New York. Imagine the time and effort that would be involved if all 50 states decided to put through proposals such as Governor Spitzer’s.”

And therein lies the point. What if all 50 states decided to do the same thing? Instead of leveling the playing field, it would further tip the scales in favor of big businesses that can afford to buy the databases and have in-house accounting departments to handle this.”

Oh, but wait,” you say. “Shouldn’t everyone pay sales tax?” Well, of course I am not suggesting that those obligated to pay sales or use taxes should refuse to pay.

The issue here is whether a seller that sells across state lines can be required to be the sales tax collection arm and remit it to each and every taxing authority. A U.S. Supreme Court case called Quill Corp. vs. North Dakota provides protection for interstate commerce, on the grounds that to require an out-of-state seller to comply with every tax jurisdiction in every state would be a crushing burden on interstate commerce.

According to the Tax Foundation, the Supreme Court said that a seller “must have a physical presence in a state in order to require collection of sales or use tax for purchases made by in-state customers. Physical presence means offices, branches, warehouses, employees, etc. The existence of customers alone” was not enough.

That case, applied routinely to mail order companies, encourages interstate commerce by stating that out-of-state sellers do not have the burden of complying with each and every taxing authority, unless they also have a significant presence in the state. Unfortunately, Governor Spitzer’s measure has been craftily cast in terms of Amazon.com versus in-state brick and mortar retailers. A recent New York Times blog post shows the lack of understanding of what this would mean for small online businesses. People are ganging up on Amazon, pointing out how easy it would be for Amazon to collect and remit taxes. The plight of smaller online businesses — especially microbusinesses — is getting lost in the shuffle.

The oh-so-informed Dawn Rivers Baker, Editor of the MicroEnterprise Journal, said to me in an email discussion, “I hope Governor Spitzer is open to feedback on this proposal from the state’s small business community. Everybody’s eyes are on Amazon with these proposals. In terms of fairness, nobody seems to consider it unfair for remote sellers to have to remit to a nationwide tally of over 7500 taxing jurisdictions, compared to only one for Main Street businesses!”

And if we think that somehow by adding sales tax collection it will stop people from buying online and drive them to buy from local retailers, think again. That’s contrary to human nature. Nothing is going to turn back the tide of online shopping. All shopping online is not about price — often it’s about getting a wider selection. Often it’s purely about convenience — of being able to shop from your home or office without having to run all over town. To assume that everything boils down to price and that requiring sales tax to be collected will somehow cause people to shop less online, is naïve — and years too late.

Share This

Source: Anita Campbell of Small Business Trends

When something is urgent, you rush to do it. When something is important, you prioritize it. In our everyday lives, we are forced to manage urgency and importance simultaneously. Especially in the buzzing environment of a small business, important projects require time and mental loyalty. The “urgent” matters that arise with everyday projects can interfere with our long-term objectives. Without a discerning effort to focus on long-term initiatives, your progress will stall.

You have goals that are important to you, and you have day-to-day problems that require urgent solutions. All too often, our tendency is to focus on fixing. “If it’s urgent, I’m on it,” you might proclaim. But how do we stay focused on our long-term goals? Can we really let everything that is merely “important” suffer at the mercy of urgent tasks? Especially for those of us that have families or passions of the utmost importance, how can we protect them? If you let urgent matters consume your time, you’ll never make progress on anything important.

Especially productive leaders are able to multi-manage importance and urgency.

Here are a few best practices to consider:

(1) Prioritize and recognize what doesn’t make the cut. Recognize that compromise is a necessity. Some people narrow their list of important items to just five specific things. Family is often one of the five, along with a few other specific projects or passions that require everyday attention. The most important use of this list is to recognize what’s NOT on it. When urgent matters come up, the “important” stuff you are working on that didn’t make the list should be dropped. You will be surprised to see how much energy is spent on off-list items…

(2) Compartmentalize urgent matters as soon as they arise. As fearsome humans, we tend to dwell on problems and conflicts. Dwelling takes time and distracts us from resolving the urgent items and returning to the important stuff. When it come to urgency, strive for a bias-to-action.

(3) Don’t hoard urgent items. Despite how medial an urgent item might be, we have a desire to handle it ourselves. You might think, “Oh this thing is a quick fix, I’ll just do it myself.” Challenge yourself to delegate urgent items to others. Urgent does not mean complex.

(4) Take advantage of “windows of non-stimulation.” Late nights and early mornings are precious opportunities to make progress on important items with little risk of urgent matters popping up.

Ultimately, a balance between “urgent” and “important” is ideal. However, be sure not to empower all urgent matters at the expense of the great achievements that ultimately move the ball forward.

Behance articles and tips are adapted from the writing and research of Scott Belsky and the Behance team. Behance runs the Behance Creative Network and develops knowledge, products, and services that help creative professionals make ideas happen.

Share This

Source: Scott Belsky of Behance

An age-old chestnut in business centers on the railroads during the rise of the automobile: Even as roads, cars, and 18-wheelers undercut rail’s dominance of the transportation industry, railroad executives comforted themselves by claiming dominance of the “trains business.” Goodyear, Ford, Mack – these new companies weren’t competitors. Instead, they were a new industry, similar perhaps, but heck, none of them made trains.Had the barons of rail seen themselves in the transportation industry, rather than the train industry, the great rail companies of the 19th century would still be household names. (Quick, can you name one now? Yeah, me either…)

So what does this have to do with your business? Well, we’re in the midst of a similar shift, but with a major twist. Today, I’ll assert, no matter what business you think you’re in – be it making widgets or providing a service, you’re now in the media business, plain and simple. Those that recognize this shift will succeed, those that ignore it will atrophy and eventually become irrelevant.

Now, what do I mean by the media business? Well, let’s start where all good businesses start: with the customer. Your customer’s media habits have changed dramatically in the past ten years. More likely than not, your customers spend nearly 15 hours a week online – it’s where they play, communicate, interact with services, and shop and research major purchases. In short, your customer has developed a major new media habit. The question is: Has your business?

Sure, you have a website. And perhaps, you’ve engaged in some search engine marketing, online yellow pages listings, perhaps even some banner ads. Perhaps these campaigns have worked for you, or perhaps they’ve seemed like a waste of time - too much work for the return.But maybe the problem isn’t the channels you’re using for marketing. Perhaps, instead, it’s the approach you are taking to the market. What might happen if you reframe your go to market thinking from that of a “small- to medium-sized business” to one of “a media producer”? What might happen then?

I’m not suggesting that you sell your business and get into journalism or entertainment, of course. But the point is this: your customers are ten or more years into the habit of interacting with the Web. They’ve grown sophisticated, and they are more than willing to conduct their banking, purchase their movie tickets, even buy life insurance online. To do so, they are increasingly interacting with sites that understand who they are – from smart search engines like Google to one-stop shopping services like Amazon and eBay. These sites are setting the standard for interaction on the increasingly sophisticated medium that is the web.

Does your site measure up? The web provides a mediated experience between your business and your customer. If your offering on the web is satisfying your customer’s needs (even those your customers don’t know they had), it’s time to consider a major investment in the web media business. The Web already is - or will soon become - your most important customer satisfaction and service (and perhaps even sales) channel. You may be in the “making widgets business” now, but no matter what you do next, you’re going to be in the media business. All aboard!

In my next post, I’ll go into some basic tenets of media, and drill down on two concepts: Search as the driver of customer intent, and your site as the platform for joining the “Conversation Economy.”

Share This

Source: John Battelle of SearchBlog

Factoring receivables is one of the forms of financing that sometimes gets the Rodney Dangerfield treatment – you know, “don’t get no respect.”

Factoring accounts receivables, also known as invoice factoring, is an established way of providing working funds for a business. But in my experience it’s also little known, and even flat-out misunderstood.

What Factoring Is

In its simplest form, factoring is when you sell your invoices (or accounts receivables) to a financing company called a factor. The factor advances a large chunk of the invoice amount, say 80%, immediately. The factor takes responsibility for collecting the invoice. When it is collected, they pay you the rest, less a factoring fee. Factoring fees may range from 2% to 15% of the invoice amount.

There’s usually less paperwork than in a bank loan. Turn-around times are much faster, too. Factors sometimes pay the initial sum within 48 hours.

For the right kind of business, factoring can be an excellent way to increase cash flow – the lifeline of any small business. It can even allow you to offload some of the headaches of collecting your receivables. Many factoring companies will handle  collections.

Difference between factoring and a loan

With a bank loan or credit cards, the bank or financial institution will make a decision based on your creditworthiness and your debt ratio (meaning your company’s and in many cases of small businesses, yours personally).

But in factoring, yours and your company’s creditworthiness are not the main issue. Rather, what the factoring company looks at is the party that owes you the receivable. It’s really your customer’s likelihood of paying that matters most to the factor.

Let’s say hypothetically that you are not able to qualify for a bank loan. Factoring could still be a viable option in that situation because your credit situation is not the main issue to the factor.

Wikipedia has a good discussion of the key differences between a bank loan and factoring receivables:

But is Factoring Right for Every Business?

The answer is a big “NO.”

Look, there are so many different forms of financing available to small businesses today, that no single type of financing is right for every business.

In fact, many if not most small businesses “layer” different types of financing. Think about it. You probably use some combination of credit cards, traditional loans, equipment leasing, working line of credit, factoring and/or whatever other financing forms give your business the necessary cash flow to operate and the most leverage to expand.

When is factoring right for your business?
A recent Kansas City Star article pointed out several advantages to accounts receivable factoring (sorry, link no longer available). The article pointed out that factoring can be helpful for businesses in the following five situations. My explanations and caveats are in parentheses next to each point:

• Business-to-business companies — (You must have sizeable invoices to assign to make it worthwhile for a factor to get involved, and that means invoices owed to you from other businesses. B-to-C companies will not have sizeable invoices.)

• Startups with strong accounts receivable — (Startups is a bit of a misnomer – remember, we’re not talking a 6-month old company here. Most raw startups simply don’t have enough receivables at first to assign to a factor. Think “young company” instead.)

• Accounts that take 30 or more days to pay — (The essence of factoring is that it speeds up the time in which you receive payment. If an account already pays you within 15 days, why would you want to assign that to a factoring company and have to pay factoring fees?)

• A special job or project where payment will be delayed – (A big project or possibly a government contract, where you do not get paid for months, could be crushing to your cash flow. If you anticipate these situations in advance you might try to up your pricing, just so you have enough cushion to later take advantage of factoring. In a way, it’s not that much different than giving a discount for early payment.)

• Cash-strapped businesses needing to meet a payroll or take advantage of a supplier’s cash discounts – (Hands down, factoring is one of the fastest sources of financing. Some factoring companies promise 24- to 48-hour turn around.)

Why Factoring Doesn’t Get No Respect

I think that factoring has developed a bad rap as being a financing source of “desperation.” In some cases that undoubtedly is true, especially because factoring is such a fast source of cash. But “desperate” businesses are hardly the only ones to use factoring.

Some businesses use factoring as a long-term strategy to manage cash flow, saving the traditional forms of credit for growth expansion and other needs. They bake in the costs of factoring fees into their pricing in advance, so that the fees don’t gobble profit margins.

Don’t let the bad rap stop you from investigating factoring to see if it is right for your business. But I would suggest that if you are going to use factoring, let it be because you’ve made a strategic decision after running the numbers, and decided that it’s your best source of cash flow. Don’t turn to factoring out of desperation.

Oh, and how to find a factoring company? Just search in Google – there are gazillions of them.

* * * * *
Anita Campbell is a writer, speaker and radio talk show host who closely follows trends in the small business market at her site, Small Business Trends.

Share This

Source: Anita Campbell of Small Business Trends

The philosophy to “share ideas liberally” defies the age-old instinct to keep ideas secret. However, emerging businesses are likely to benefit more from sharing ideas than from withholding them. For starters, new ideas are likely to die in isolation unless they gain traction among employees and partners. Ideas are also liable to alienate your partners and customers unless they are “tested.” Of course, ideas area also likely to succeed when refined. Business leaders flush with ideas should take every opportunity to communicate new ideas broadly, seek feedback, and develop a sense of accountability.

Share your ideas liberally. The benefits from accountability and feedback outweigh the risk that someone steals your idea! Many entrepreneurs claim that they become more committed to their ideas after telling people about them! The fact is that great ideas are plentiful, and very few people have the discipline and resources to make them happen. When you are accountable to others, you are more likely to stay focused.

Broadcast your idea to generate valuable feedback. Great ideas don’t develop in isolation. You may become “drunk” on your own kool-aid without any candid feedback from others. A critical component of pushing ideas forward is gathering feedback to refine the idea.

Engage a few “partners” in every project as a source of accountability. The more people you work with, the more pressure you will feel to provide further updates (and have some progress to report)! Why do publishers insist on offering advances to authors even when the author prefers to put off the advance in favor of a more lenient time schedule? The importance of deadlines has been a common theme across Behance’s research of productive creative professionals. It is no surprise that novels are less likely to end up in a drawer, half-written, when there is an advance cashed and a deadline looming. Use other people and externally-generated deadlines as a way to boost your accountability!

And, if you are extremely concerned about someone easily “stealing” your idea, then it may not be a great idea to begin with! Unless you have a truly brilliant patentable innovation, any easy-to-reproduce idea will ultimately be quickly cloned if successful. If you are keeping your insights closely guarded, question whether or not you have a “sustainable competitive advantage” to begin with!

Behance articles and tips are adapted from the writing and research of Scott Belsky and the Behance team. Behance runs the premier online creative network and develops knowledge, products, and services that help creative professionals make ideas happen.

Comments

Share This

Source: Scott Belsky of Behance