Payroll Services in Small Business

When it comes to payroll services in small businesses, these companies can often provide excellent aid. A small business owner will spend a great deal of time and money on managing the payment to employees in many instances. However, the amount of time invested is not always worth it. The problem is, tax codes are complex. The requirements to meet specific filing methods and timeframes can hinder a business owner from working to earn the money to pay the employee. In other words, getting a third party involved can reduce your risks overall.
What Options to Consider
When it comes to finding payroll services in your area, there is plenty of help available. Most companies offer a range of options you can select from or choose to obtain. In other words, it is possible to customize the service that you need and not pay for anything you do not need. Take a few minutes to consider how well these processes can add to your business's management and organization.
The company is likely to handle cutting checks, making direct deposits and handling debit card options. The company may handle the current and year-to-date register for payrolls. When it comes to taxation and income reporting, the company may be able to help with the remittal of federal and state tax withholdings as well as unemployment taxes. They may be able to handle a tax liability and deduction register. They can make new hires far easier to manage in terms of payment. They can even handle the preparation of many of the quarterly forms you need to file.
Making It Easy to Manage
Another key way that these companies can service businesses is through making taxes and reporting easy to access. For example, if you want to know how much you are spending on payrolls for a specific period, they can make it easy for you to access this information using web-based systems. You can count on the company to make processing W-2s, W-3s, and other tax requirements easy to do and within your fingertips. As a small business owner, this means you do not have to worry about complex tax forms and calculations. The company does the work for you instead.
Though a one- or two- person business may not require the use of these companies, most other small businesses will benefit from it. Payroll services in your business could mean the difference of paying fines for mistakes and not having to do so. It also means ensuring your employees get the funds they need right away. That makes you a better employer and makes your business more profitable.

The Magic of Niches

Finding Your Niche
First, take a look at what the competition in your area is doing. Consider what you might have to offer that is different. For example, do you prefer working with a particlar type of dogs, such as puppies or small dogs? Is there a training issue you're particularly good at handling? Who are your ideal clients? Do you have skills from a former career or hobby that might serve as a useful complement to your training? A former school teacher might be especially adept at working with families with children. Experience in the corporate world could open doors to lunchtime or other workplace training programs. Also consider services not currently being offered that could be of use to dog owners in your area. Is there a need for specialty classes such as tricks or behavior workshops focusing on a tough behaviors like recall or loose leash walking? Does anyone offer board and train or owner-absent training options? What about boarding in your home or walking clients' dogs?
How a Niche Works
Marketing a niche gives a subsection of potential clients a reason to call you over every other service provider in your area. These clients then tell their friends and family and co-workers about you, and you begin to build your business. And you can absolutely be a generalist, too. Say you specialize in treating separation anxiety, and your marketing efforts predictably bring you clients with sep anx problems. If you help solve those problems, likelihood is the client will refer you to friends and family for any training needs they have. Even with a narrow niche focus you can expect a good half of your cases to fall outside your specialty.
Start Today
Successful dog pros find a way to make themselves stand out-what could yours be? If you're generalizing now and don't hear the phone ringing as often as you'd like, it's time to find your niche. Start brainstorming today, and seek input from friends, family, and past clients on what you do best or what is needed in your community. Once you've made a decision about your direction, amend your cards, brochures, and website, to reflect your new specialization. (If you still have a lot of good brochures, you can add a nicely printed paper insert instead of throwing them out.) Rework advertisements and fliers. And tell your colleagues, clients, and anyone you network with-vets, groomers, shelters, pet supply stores, day cares, and other businesses and contacts-about the exciting new service you're offering.
CASE STUDIES
Back in the suburbs, Tina owned a successful home-based dog training and boarding business. After getting married and moving to a small place in a big city, Tina wondered how she would make board and train work. Then she noticed how many small dogs were out and about town-in bicycle baskets, in purses, at the mall, enjoying sidewalk cafes. Tina built her new business around train-&-board services for small dogs only. Her marketing plan included networking with local small dog rescue groups, groomers, and high-end doggie boutique stores. Her message of special care for the smalls hit home with small dog owners and she now maintains a wait list for her services.
Miranda was scraping by in an urban market saturated with dog trainers. Though she marketed herself as working with all kinds of obedience and problem behaviors, she found that the cases she most enjoyed were dog-dog aggression issues. She began marketing a specialty working with dog aggression and has found her schedule filling up. For one thing she's given a segment of dog owners a reason to call her over the many other trainers in her area. She also enjoys the referrals of her fellow dog trainers who do not take dog aggression cases.
Cindy burned out working as a vet tech in a high-pressure vet hospital, and decided to start her own pet sitting business. The number of people already pet sitting in her area intimidated her, but her vet tech expertise made her worries unnecessary. She directed her business at owners with older and ill pets, explaining that she would be able to care both for their emotional and physical well being, including administering medicines, IVs, and other home medical care required. She networked with veterinary offices and other pet sitters and was soon overwhelmed with referrals for clients needing special care for their elderly or infirm animals while away.
Gina found her dog training skills very useful both while preparing her young dog for the arrival of her first baby and after she brought the baby home. She noticed several of the women in her new moms' group struggled with their dogs and babies, and a niche was born. Gina changed the name of her business to Tails & Tots and began marketing to expectant and new moms through groups, pediatricians, and parenting classes at her two local hospitals. She also developed curricula for two public dog training classes, one for expectant parents and one for new parents.

Creativity, Not Cash

Prepare
First, sit down with a pen and paper and construct two lists. The first will be a list of your strongest skills. What do you do well and enjoy? Are you a good public speaker? A talented small group or one-on-one teacher? How's your writing? What about your planning skills?
For your second list, note all the potential networking resources in your area. Consider your environment. What other dog-related businesses are around? Vets, groomers, supply stores and boutiques, shelters and rescue groups? Oh-and don't forget other trainers, walkers, and sitters, too! They can be a terrific networking resource. What about local activities? Are there dog parks or festivals, adult education or community classes? And what are people reading-any local dailies or weeklies or monthlies? In short, what's going on in your neighborhood?
Get Creative
As you scan your two lists, you're looking for good potential match ups between your skill sets on the one side and the resources or potential networking opportunities on the other. If you enjoy writing, perhaps the local neighborhood monthly would like to run a regular "Ask the Trainer" column? Terrific exposure, at no cost! And so much more effective than running an ad, where you're attempting to sell yourself. A column, on the other hand, establishes your expertise and credibility. You become the sought-after local expert. Or, if you specialize in helping people with puppies and new dogs, wouldn't it be great if the local shelter recommended you to all of their adopters?
Give, Don't Ask
Writing a local column and getting shelter referrals are great marketing goals-but how do you make these things happen?
The trick is to give instead of asking. The typical dog training business marketing plan includes drawing up business cards to post around other dog-oriented establishments. Often we ask the owners if we can put our cards on their bulletin boards or in a holder on their counters. If brave enough we might even introduce ourselves, talk a little about what we do, and ask for their referrals.
But why should they refer people to you? They don't know you or your abilities, they're busy, and you've given them no reason to want to help you. So rather than asking for help, consider what you might have to offer.
If you'd like to write a regular column in the neighborhood paper, first try offering one article, already written, on a dog topic of broad interest. If you would like the shelter to refer their new adopters to you, put together a free adopter's package of articles or tip handouts the shelter can give to its adopters. (Make sure your name and business information are on all the handouts, and include any of your other marketing material as well!) And maybe they would appreciate some training for their staff-a small series of talks or hands-on seminars. These offerings allow the shelter to get to know you, to come to see you as an expert, and to build loyalty to you. Sure, you can leave your cards on the front counter and hope people pick them up and call, but you'll no doubt receive many more phone calls if the shelter staff is actively and enthusiastically sending adopters your way.
Be Active, Not Passive
One reason these kinds of approaches are much more powerful marketing tools than simply placing materials around town are that they are examples of active marketing-opportunities for clients to interact with your business rather than just seeing it advertised. Instead of picking up a business card, a shelter staff person hands your materials to potential clients while telling them, "You have to call this trainer. She is amazing and can help you fix this problem." If you post a flier on a bulletin board, there is no potential for active interaction between your business and your hoped-for clients. If instead you disseminate a quarterly newsletter to the same places, the people who pick it up have a more interactive experience with your business. Rather than a flier that lists "problem behavior solving" as one of your services, an article in each newsletter can highlight an issue and tell the story of one or more dogs and clients whose lives were changed by training. In that narrative they get to "see" an example of the benefits of training and imagine themselves getting similar help, rather than just reading a bullet point.
Get Started Today
Most marketing takes time to be effective-plan to give your efforts a good six months to determine their usefulness-so make your lists right now and see how many great ideas you can create. Start marketing your business today to generate the clients who will help you spread the word tomorrow.
CASE STUDIES
Hilary had been trying for some time to network with her local shelter. The shelter had good standing in the community and was viewed as a source of training and veterinary knowledge, but they did not provide private training services. She knew they were short staffed and thought both she and they could benefit from a referral service. But although the front desk staff had her cards on the counter, it seemed they were rarely given out, and she hardly ever received referrals. Then she offered to help answer the shelter behavior hotline. Together with the behavior manager, she set up a triage system for incoming calls to take pressure off the shelter staff. They determined which calls the staff could easily handle and forwarded the more difficult calls to Hilary. Hilary was careful to limit the time of each call, providing some immediately applicable management advice, then scheduling a consult with anyone interested. The hotline is now Hilary's number one source of clients.
Debbie couldn't help notice as she walked her pack of client dogs every day how messy the dog park had gotten-trash, untended piles of feces-it was unsightly and, she felt, gave dogs, dog owners, and dog professionals a bad name. Seeing an opportunity to do something for her community and her dog walking business, she worked with the parks department to co-sponsor, organize, and promote a Dog Park Clean Up Day. The park got cleaned up, her business got lots of free press, including an article in the local paper and a short spot on the local evening news, and Debbie got several new clients.
Suzanne believed that an ounce of prevention was worth a pound of cure, especially when it comes to puppies and newly adopted dogs. She wanted to focus her business on getting people and dogs off on the right paw, but how to get the word out? The local shelter did a brisk adoption business, and Suzanne decided to start there. She offered to teach a free adopter's class at the shelter, at no cost to them. She gave the two-hour talk one evening each week, and the shelter scheduled that weeks' adopters into the lecture. Suzanne's talk covered the basics of setting up a home for a new dog, house training, and prevention of common behavior problems, and she always made sure to talk about her private training services as well. Her business grew steadily as she signed up occasional clients at the talks, and found that over time people who had attended her class called as they developed training problems, and often referred her to friends and family as well.