The Official BizUnite Blog

What SBS clients are saying about ADP

The VERY Factor in action …  

• “Everyone is always very helpful and the service is very easy” 

• “ADP RUN is easy to use and customer service is very helpful.”

• “Customer service people are AWESOME!”

• “Extremely friendly, helpful customer service.”

• “The staff is very knowledgeable and friendly! I know my questions will be answered correctly the first time I call.”

• “Very helpful and knowledgeable staff.”

• “ADP is fantastic. Everyone has gone over and beyond to help with any questions I have.”

TOP 10 reasons why our clients say they are Promoters …

• “As a small business owner having ADP has enabled me to focus on other aspects of my company without worry. That's a huge helping hand for the little guy.”

• “Everything is great.  Best thing I have done for my business”

• “The customer service is fantastic- if I ever have a questions or need assistance all I have to do is place a call and immediately I have an answer which allows me to focus my time and energy on other aspects of my business.”

• “I am a very small business but you have always treated my account as if I have  a hundred employees”

• “We signed up for the HR411 and I am really glad we did, it has helped me tremendously.”

• “24-hour services, since I work crazy hours”

• “Love the hours!”

• “24/7 hours and excellent service.  The addition to 24/7 has made it even superior”

• “The website is fabulous. This is more user friendly and comprehensive than your competitor's sites.”

• “Not having to fuss over the IRS changes is priceless!!!”

Small Business Saturday is November 24th

Sponsored by American Express, Small Business Saturday is held each year on the Saturday that falls between Black Friday and Cyber Monday. This year that Saturday is November 24th. While it may seem like you have plenty of time left, it’s important to start preparing your website for the big day.

Each year, American Express seeks to help small businesses by encouraging patronage of small businesses. Customers who register their American Express cards to shop at small businesses on November 24 will be given a $25 credit for each registered cardholder. Customers need only register their cards ahead of time to qualify for the refund.

Today

• ‘Like’ the official Small Business Saturday Facebook page. This will not only sign you up for ongoing updates and reminders about Small Business Saturday, it will also provide information about participating in special contests hosted for small businesses.
• Sign up for ShopSmall to receive ongoing communications about Small Business Saturday, including advice on how your small business can participate.
• Evaluate your small business’s online presence, taking into account local customers who might be searching for you for the first time through sites like Yelp and Angie’s List. Make sure it’s easy for those customers to find  you.

October

• Utilize the many ad tools available in the Small Business Saturday Toolkit. These include signs and tutorials on small business marketing activities like creating a Facebook presence and uploading a YouTube video.
• Work with your web designer to make sure your website is ready for the influx of traffic. Decide which specials you’d like to offer and create banners and signage. The toolkit can help with this.
• Promote the $25 American Express credit and let customers know you are participating in Small Business Saturday. You’ll be amazed how many customers hold American Express cards and will be willing to shop if they know they’re getting a $25 credit.
• Create a way to capture customer information to a database. As you receive a larger-than-usual influx of customers on Small Business Saturday, take advantage of the opportunity to get information on those customers that you can use for future mailings.

November

• Finalize website testing and optimization.
• Hang Small Business Saturday signage prominently in your store’s window and/or near the cash register.
• Promote your Small Business Saturday special offers on your company’s social media sites.
• Don’t forget your current customers. Contact them to let them know about the special offers you’ll have for Small Business Saturday.

When it comes to promotion, it’s never too early to start preparing. Thanksgiving weekend will be here before we know it and with so much competition for attention, small businesses are more challenged than ever to make an impact on Small Business Saturday.

http://www.smallbiztechnology.com/archive/2012/09/countdown-to-small-business-saturday-time-to-start-preparing.html/

Happy Earth Day!

Earth Day is fast approaching –April 22^nd- and with it comes the awareness of how we can run our business efficiently while helping the environment. There are many ways to reduce our carbon footprint and be more ‘green’ minded. One way of reducing energy and lowing energy costs is simply turning off our computer at night, unplugging powercords, and switching electronics to energy-saving settings. Replacing cleaning supplies is another way to do your part by making environmentally proffered choices like Clorox GreenWorks, CLR, and Seventh Generation. Not only do these products help get your workspace clean but they are also composed of earth friendly options and less packaging than competition. Lastly, make sure you are taking all steps to recycle. Setting up recycling containers in all departments of your office allow encouragement for employees to recycle as well. Ink cartridges, printer paper, water bottles, etc. are all easy to recycle and really help Mother Nature. Not only does BizUnite follow these procesures but we urge you to do the same. We even made it simple for you to do with our cost saving Office Max program!

 

Happy Earth Day!

Video Series

Castle Wealth Advisors. Gary Pittsford is an expert on business valuation and succession planning. He has produced a video series that is detailed below.

Introduction:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_2zGB39KjA

1. “Two Year Window”

This video is intended to give you a few ideas to think about pertaining to selling your business in the next one or two years while we are sure what the tax rates will be. In this short video we will briefly touch upon long term capital gains, ordinary income, tax ideas that would be good for the seller, and tax ideas that would be good for the buyer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJ1QEOdsOMs

 

2. “Transferring within the Family”

This video discusses a few ideas about possibly selling your company to children or perhaps key employees. If you are an owner who is thinking about retiring and selling your business in the next three to five years then perhaps you may find the ideas in this video helpful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSj1QoU_6DA

 

3.  “Valuing Your Business”

This video briefly reviews a couple of different valuation techniques for closely held family businesses. Valuations are very important if you are planning on selling the business to family members, key employees, or another coop member.  This video may be helpful if you are planning on retiring and selling the business in the next three to five years.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71OhORQkPCo 

 

4.  “Protecting Stock and Stockholders”

This short video will cover briefly ideas that are very important to business owners when children, in-laws, or key employees become stockholders. In this video we will cover the idea of proper Wills and Revocable Living Trust for business owners, and also buy-sell agreements which are very important. These documents help protect the company and keep the stock within the family. The provisions within these documents are very important to maintain control of a privately held family business.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3EV1kfU1Q4

 

 5.  “Retirement Income Ideas”

When current business owners think about selling the company their future retirement income becomes very important. There are many ways that owners can design the sale of a company in order to retain future income. This video will touch upon selling stock, selling goodwill, deferred compensation, consulting fees, board of director’s fees, and several other ideas for you to consider.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=td3zS6fwlPg

 

 6.  “Reducing Taxes”

When it comes time to sell your company saving income taxes becomes very important. There are many different ways to sell a company, but the best plan must combine good ideas for the seller and the buyer. There is only so much useable cash flow that the owner of a business has to work with and the plan that you choose must successfully reduce taxes and have enough cash flow so that the buyer can make all of the necessary payments to the retiring owner and still have plenty of cash flow for the buyer to live on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKer1gsohjk

 

7. “Types of Businesses”

There are several different types of businesses that you can use. For example, C Corporations, S Corporations, Limited Liability Companies, Family Limited Partnerships, and others. If you are planning on selling the company in a few years you want to make sure that the entity that you are using currently for your business will give you the least amount of tax obligation when it is time to sell. During the years that you have owned the company has your basis in the stock increased? When you sell your company will you and the company both pay taxes on the sale? This video will cover briefly a few ideas about corporations and give you ideas to think about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H0wmexkGWY

 

 

Visit BizUnite's YouTube Channel Today

If you want to get your business two steps ahead of your competition, you should include online video marketing as a tactic in their marketing plans. Doing so will expand the conversion rates and success of any advertising, marketing, or social campaign investment.
 
The reasons for using online video fall back to video being the best way to build business value at every stage of the customer life cycle.  Here are few ways that online video content marketing helps businesses:
 

• Bringing products and brands to life
• Converting browsers into buyers
• Improving customer service efficiency
• Building trust and authenticity
• Increasing traffic and time on site
• Expanding audience and building brands
• Improving internal communications with stakeholders

 
Because the use of corporate online video marketing is relatively new to the field of digital marketing, too few organizations use video content marketing effectively. Most are using traditional advertising and TV newscasts as their main web video productions. While most are posting these web videos on YouTube, some are just posting video content in a static video player that has no social sharing functionality or takes a long time to load.

Check out BizUnite's YouTube Channel Today! http://www.youtube.com/user/bizunitecom

Choose A Co-op

We are excited to share with you an exciting initiative that we have started at BizUnite through our parent company CCA Global Partners. As you may have heard, 2012 will be the international year of the co-op. Our hope is to use the International Year of the Co-op as a springboard to an ongoing movement to educate consumers on the value of co-ops in helping our communities thrive. To start this movement – Choose A Co-op – we have created a powerful video and social media sites to begin spreading the word about cooperatives.

We need your help in spreading the word and really getting the conversation started. After you watch, the Choose A Co-op video at www.Youtube.com/ChooseACoop forward it on to your family, friends, and employees. You can send them the link above or use the “Share” feature on YouTube. You can also use this feature to share the video on Facebook and other social channels. If you are active on Facebook, find Choose A Co-op on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ChooseACoop and “Like” it. You can also add Choose A Co-op as a “like” on your business page if you have one. Choose A Co-op is also on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ChooseACoop.

Please help us in spreading the word about how cooperatives can help build a better world.