Small Business: Canada

By Susan Ward, About.com Guide

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Advice for Young Entrepreneurs - & Old Ones, Too

Friday February 17, 2012

Dan Boudreau of Business Plan Oasis has owned and operated small businesses in northern BC for more than 30 years and served entrepreneurs as coach, mentor and trainer for 20 of those years, so he's very knowledgeable about what it takes to be an entrepreneur.

His Advice for Young Entrepreneurs is exactly the kind of practical, down-to-earth advice that anyone interested in starting a business should read, no matter how old they are.

Two themes run through his advice, being cautious and learning how to manage money.

One of his pieces of advice that particularly resonates with me:

"Start small and learn all you can while your business is tiny. The inexpensive lessons learned during the early stages will serve you well once your enterprise starts to grow."

Just one more thing I wish I had known before I started my own business!

What one thing do you wish you had known before you started? Comment below or add your advice to this article: What One Piece of Advice Would You Give Anyone Starting a Business?

More starting a business advice

Image (c) Photolink / Getty Images

On How to Make Money Online With a Blog

Thursday February 16, 2012

One of the webinars I attended this week at the Small Biz Success Summit 2012 was a panel discussion on Building Your Small Business with Blogs with Brain Clark of Copyblogger.com, Lee Odden of toprankblog.com, Joe Pulizzi of the Content Marketing Institute and Mike Stelzner of Social Media Examiner.

All four of these gentlemen run successful multimillion businesses. All four of them started these businesses with a blog.

To collectively paraphrase what they had to say about how to make money with a blog: Realize that the core of content marketing is that you don't get paid directly through the content; you make your money by building an audience and then selling your other products or services to them.

What I found really fascinating is that several of these bloggers didn't know what they were going to sell when they started their blogs; the whole key to their business model was building the audience and then figuring out what that audience wanted; the particular products and services evolved over the years.

When you visit the home page of Copyblogger.com, for instance, you'll see the site sells "Design, Traffic, and Conversion Solutions for WordPress", solutions that were developed from input Brian Clark received through his blog.

Others on the panel make their money in different ways; Joe and Lee both mentioned the many speaking opportunities they've profited from while Mike's main source of revenue is the events Social Media Examiner offers, such as the Small Business Success Summit.

So the business model is: build big audience first; figure out what that audience wants or needs; sell it to them.

I've dwelt on this at length because of a statistic one of the panelists mentioned at one point: The average blogger makes $24,000 a year, a stat I found quite depressing because it's not enough to feed the spouse and kids, is it?

So obviously, if you're trying to make money from blogging, you have to do/have more than the writing. Think about the business model I've presented here and about what you could be doing to increase your revenue streams.

More on Making Money From a Blog

7 Ways to Make Money From a Blog
How to Add AdSense to Blogger and Make Money from Your Blog (About.com Google)
How to Make Money from Your Blog (About.com Blogging)
How to Make Money from Your Blog (Other Than Using Ads) (About.com Blogging)

RRSPs Are the Best Bet for Many Business Owners

Wednesday February 15, 2012

What's your retirement plan?

Many small business owners view their small business as their retirement vehicle, figuring that when the time comes, they'll sell the business and use the proceeds to fund a comfortable retirement.

Unfortunately, for many, that's just not the way it works. When the time comes, the business either can't be sold at all or can't be sold at anywhere near the price the small business owner needs to fund the kind of retirement he or she was hoping for.

To me, this kind of gamble is incomprehensible. Instead of putting all the eggs in one basket, why not take advantage of the tax shelter RRSPs provide now and do something that will help ensure the comfortable retirement we're all hoping for?

In fact, I think that RRSPs are such an important part of tax planning and preparing for retirement that I call them The Best Income Tax Deduction for Canadian Small Businesses. My linked article provides details on RRSP contribution limits and dates for the current tax year.

More on Retirement for Small Business Owners

Don't Do What You Love When Starting a Small Business

Tuesday February 14, 2012

One of the most common pieces of advice to people thinking of starting a small business is to do what they love.

Starting a small business advice: Don't do what you love.

I've even given this advice myself. (Have a look at Top 10 Tips for Starting a Small Business That Will Succeed, for instance.)

But years of advising people who want to start their own businesses and watching them go through the start up process has taught me that I was wrong.

Here's why doing what you love is a bad idea if you're starting a small business - and what you should do instead.

More on Starting a Small Business

Image (c) Fototeca Storica Nazionale / Getty Images

About Small Business Canada: Weekly Roundup Feb 6 to Feb 12

Monday February 13, 2012

Think you may have missed something? Here's your round-up of everything I've done in the past week at About Small Business Canada so you can catch up with all the new content, blog posts, updates to older articles, and new reader submissions!

New Articles and Features

What Is Work-Life Balance?

Blog Posts

Maximize Your Business Income Tax Deductions

7 Ways to Get Out of That Rut

Get Funding to hire: Canada Summer Jobs 2012

Before You Start a Home-Based Business

Wave Accounting Now Does Payroll Too

7 Reasons You Still Need Business Cards

About Small Business Canada: Weekly Roundup Jan 30 to Feb 5

Updated Articles

7 Inexpensive Business Ideas

RRSPs - The Best Income Tax Deduction for Canadian Small Businesses

Don't Miss Out on the SR&ED Tax Credit Program

Information Technology Makeover for Your Small Business

Top Business Tools

New Reader Submissions

Sample Mission Statements

Maximize Your Business Income Tax Deductions

Sunday February 12, 2012

One of the reasons I like using Canadian tax software is that it can help you be certain you're claiming every income tax deduction possible.

How to maximize your Canadian business income tax deductions.

But even if you are using it or having someone else do your income tax, it's good to know what the income tax deduction rules are so you can do some tax planning and know what to expect.

These articles provide information on the rules for claiming various business expenses:

Maximize Your Business Income Tax Deductions - Keeping track of your receipts, small business tax deductions related to the cost of doing business, and deductions for home-based businesses.

More Ways to Maximize Your Business Income Tax Deductions - Vehicle business expenses, travel-related expenses, employing your child or spouse, advertising expenses, and the kind of business expenses that fall into the Canada Revenue Agency's 'other' category.

There's more information about business expenses, the home business tax deduction, Capital Cost Allowance, and income tax strategies in the Small Business Income Tax Deductions section of this website.

I also have a series of "everything-about-Canadian-income-tax" Guides that you may find useful:

Canadian Income Tax and Your Small Business

Canadian Income Tax FAQs for Small Businesses

Corporate Tax Canada Guide

Image (c) Ryan McVay / Getty Images

7 Ways to Get Out of That Rut

Saturday February 11, 2012

The post-holiday season can be a real let down leaving you feeling that you just can't get on with what you want or need to do.

This man's motivation is low. How is yours?

But just because you've lost your motivation doesn't mean you have to waste days (or even weeks!) waiting for it to come back so you can get on with things.

Get out of that rut and back to business with one of more of these rut-busting techniques.

More: Maintaining Your Motivation - Kelley Robertson tells how to put together a personal motivation plan.

Image (c) Tom Grill / Getty Images

Get Funding to Hire: Canada Summer Jobs 2012

Friday February 10, 2012

Here's a way your small business can cut the costs of hiring new employees and give young people some work experience - Canada Summer Jobs "provides funding for not-for-profit organizations, public-sector employers and small businesses with 50 or fewer employees to create summer job opportunities for students between the ages of 15 and 30."

Important Details

The application deadline is February 29th.
The program focuses on jobs that support local priorities; you can see the list of local priorities on the Service Canada website.
These are intended to be summer jobs; the earliest project start date is May 7, 2012 and the latest project end date is September 1, 2012.

Read more about Canada Summer Jobs 2012 on the Service Canada website.

More Canadian Programs to Help Small Business

Before You Start a Home-Based Business

Thursday February 9, 2012

Many people dream of starting a home-based business. They feel running a home-based business can offer them the best of all possible worlds: a comfortable working environment, more time to spend with their family and less business overhead.

From my personal experience, this is true; running a home-based business can give all those things to the right person in the right place.

But will a home-based business work for you? Find out with Before You Start a Home-Based Business.

More on Starting a Home-Based Business

Image (c) Pamela Adam

Wave Accounting Now Does Payroll Too

Wednesday February 8, 2012

Wave, the people that brought out Wave Accounting (read my original review) have just released Wave Payroll, another great tool for Canadian small businesses.

Available for all Canadian small businesses except Quebec, (which is coming soon), Wave Payroll is designed to meet all the payroll needs of any small business, including tax calculations and deductions, Records of Employment, overtime and vacation pay and direct deposit.

Wave Payroll, like Wave Accounting, is a cloud app, so all you need to use Wave Payroll is an Internet connection and a standard browser.

(Read about the advantages of cloud computing.)

With T4 time coming right up (the end of February) this is a very serendipitous launch; if you have employees, you should definitely check out Wave Payroll.

More on Canadian Payroll

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