The end of the year is quickly approaching and with Thanksgiving being so late you have fewer days after everyone is back from vacation to accomplish your end of the year goals. Here are the things you need to do in the last month of the year.
As always, consult a tax professional in all matters of deductions. This information is for your consideration and not to be considered tax advice for your business. We’re promotional marketing pros, not tax gurus.
11 Things to do in Your Business Before the End of the Year
- Review your income/increase deductions
If it’s higher than normal you may want to consider invoicing clients for December services in January. Next, take a look at things you may need to purchase that could reduce your taxable income. For instance, is there any new equipment you could purchase now instead of 2020?
2. Check your retirement contributions
There’s still time to reduce your income through retirement contributions. Check whether you’ve maxed out for the year and if not, consider a one-time contribution. Or open up that Roth IRA if you haven’t already. They increased the max contributions this year from $5,500 in the past to $6,000. If you’re over 50 you can contribute up to $7,000 this year.
3. Pay vendors now
If you have extra cash on hand, pay your vendors and contractors now even if their invoices aren’t due until 2020. Now only will you start off 2020 with fewer concern overpayments, you will have more to deduct in this year.
4. Back up your data and consider cybersecurity
This is good advice no matter what the time of year. Where is your data and what’s the risk? If your data is in the cloud, how is it backed up? Sometimes 4th quarter is slower and you can use that time to think about security and talk to people who can make sure your operation is less at risk.
5. Analyze how much time it takes people to make a buying decision
If you don’t already know this begin analyzing your purchasing data to figure out how long it takes people to buy from you. Do you have a long sales cycle or a short one? What steps do customers go through when trying to buy? Are there any hiccups or sticking points along the way that could be smoothed out to help people buy from you sooner? Are there promotions or incentives you could use to make that final decision quicker?
6. Analyze your seasons
Since you’re already trying to get in the minds of your customers and see how you could get them to buy quicker, take that a step further and look at your busy and slow times. Can those be ironed out through incentives or are they simply cyclical? Are there discounts, incentives, or promotions that can help even things out?
7. Analyze your marketing
What did you do this year with your marketing? Did you run any major campaigns? Did you dive into producing more helpful content as a resource for people coming to your website? How did you work on getting reviews or did you offer incentives for referrals?
After you list all of the ways you marketed your product or service, calculate the return on investment for each, and remember, time is an investment and has a cost to it. So even if your marketing was done through free social media. It’s not free when you factor in your time.
8. Analyze where your customers come from
How do most of your customers find you? If you don’t know, it’s time to ask. Do they find you online or by foot traffic. Understanding how they find you will help you know how to invest additional marketing and sales resources in the future.
9. Sit down with a tax planner
It’s important as your business changes, to sit down with a professional tax planner. Even if you do your own taxes, paying a consultant to review areas for saving and growth can help immensely. It’s also a good time to ask what you should be keeping track of. Tax laws change. What wasn’t valuable to you last year may become more valuable this one and vice versa. Knowing what receipts will save you paying higher taxes is important. Have a periodic review every two years or when things have changed in your business such as a good revenue year.
10. Look for opportunity
Consider market saturation. Has your product or service reached everyone you can possibly sell to? For some industries, that never happens because there is a need for repeat business. A grocery store, for instance, has a recurring customer stream so it rarely feels market saturation. People are either buying from you or your competition and since they need to do so often, you don’t need to worry about saturation. Competition is more of a factor in these sales situations.
Assuming you sell something that reaches a point where you have sold to most of the available people or businesses in the community, you may need to expand your markets or product/service offerings.
Ask yourself who might be a good fit for what you offer, someone you’re not currently serving. Can changing your product, service, or marketing strategy help you reach a demographic you don’t currently appeal to?
11. Take a day off and plan
This time of year people are used to things moving a little slower. It’s not uncommon for people to be out of the office. Assuming your industry or business allows for it, schedule a planning day for December. Use that day to review how 2019 went. Analyze and review:
- your obstacles and struggles.
- your successes.
- what you’d do differently with today’s information.
- review the efficiency and efficacy of your team.
- analyze your group for its weakest links.
- what competition was new to the landscape this year? Remember, competition is not always direct. It might not even be a business. If you run a movie theater, for example, your competition may be people staying home and watching their owned media.
And do all of this in a relaxing location. If you’re somewhere warm, sit poolside while you do it. If not, camp out at your favorite coffee shop by the fire. This review and goal-planning session should not be a chore. It should be an enjoyable review and get you excited for the year ahead.
Once you’ve had time to digest this analysis, be ready in 2020 to share it (or parts of it) with your team. It’s extremely important your team understands what it’s working toward in 2020.
But don’t just share financial goals. They can wash right over your employees. Instead, give them something to strive for. Put it in words they can get excited about. Let them know:
- what’s in it for them
- how what they do is important to the lives of your customers and the greater community
- what you’ll be doing differently in the new year
While finances are important to keep the doors open, your employees won’t get excited about that (unless their compensation is tied into it like the sales department). Instead, you have to give them more than money to light their interest about the direction your organization is going in the new year.
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