- Solopreneurs: 3 Signs It's Time To Incorporate Place
- It's Time To Dance Lyrics
- It's Time Sunlife
- Solopreneurs: 3 Signs It's Time To Incorporate Business
As an entrepreneur, no one knows your brand better than you do.And, as you navigate the complex twists and turns of running your own business, you might think that explaining why you love your company and why other people should love it, too, should be a no-brainer. Aug 19, 2015 3 Signs It’s Time to Incorporate Your Small Business. Every company is different and has distinct aspects of the enterprise that need to be protected. One way to safeguard your business’s assets is to incorporate your company. This legal technique has many benefits for enterprises, but the hardest part is deciding when to bite the bullet. Jan 05, 2017 Every community decides its business rules separately, and while some rules are determined at the federal and state level, being on one side or the other of the town dividing line can make a huge difference in what taxes are owed, what is involved in starting and maintaining a business, and what opportunities the company has over time. After you incorporate or form an LLC for your business, the IRS will issue this nine-digit number to identify and track employer tax accounts. As mentioned above, it’s necessary to obtain an EIN once you incorporate or form an LLC. This is because your business is now its own legal entity.
A good LinkedIn profile has become mandatory for every working professional in the global market. It does not matter what stage of your career you are in. A strong LinkedIn profile will always open better opportunities in any field you may want to proceed.
94% of recruiters use LinkedIn to review candidates. Further, over 6.5 million in the world use LinkedIn for connectivity.
Are you too considering to build your LinkedIn profile from scratch? Or planning to upgrade your current LinkedIn profile? If so, follow this ultimate guide to create the perfect LinkedIn profile.
Visitors come across your LinkedIn profile either among the list of suggestions or see it directly on your profile page. The first impression is created by your LinkedIn profile picture and the headline below it.
An official LinkedIn blog says a profile picture can get you up to 9x more connection requests and 14x more profile views.
Post a professional photo of yourself preferably taken by a professional photographer. However, if you feel you can take a good photo by yourself in appropriate lighting, then go for it. There is no need to be serious and look angry in the photo, just remember to be calm and look approachable.
Keep the background of your LinkedIn profile picture neutral and make sure your frame covers most of the photo. While choosing your outfit for the photo, pick one that perfectly balances professionalism without going overboard and represents how you look in your workplace.
Right below your photo is your headline. Most people keep it on default and let LinkedIn write their headline for them. But, this does not create the best impression possible for you.
Therefore, there are two strategies to create a good headline depending on the type of your LinkedIn profile. The first one is bits of information separated by vertical bars. These bits of information can be a big picture description, specialization, and statement that will establish credibility. The second option is a “Call to Action” type headline that acts as a targeted sales pitch.
Once you have created an excellent first impression, visitors will move on to look at the rest of your profile. Start with updating your cover photo. You can keep your cover photo industry-related, use it for brand promotion, or simply keep it casual. LinkedIn recommends that the size of the background photo must be around 1584 x 396 pixels. And it must be a JPG, PNG, or GIF file that is under 8MB.
Add the industry you work and the location you reside in. This is important because these are the two most essential filters used by prospective employers or customers to look for nearby talent. Location makes you up to 23x more likely to be found in LinkedIn searches.
LinkedIn lets you play around with 2000 characters that constitute the summary of your profile. This is one of the great places to showcase who you are and what you do. The decision between the 3rd person and 1st person tone depends on your preference and industry norms. Try to incorporate some keywords into your summary as well. Also, add some rich media as it provides credibility to your assertions. Give links to blog posts, videos, podcasts and more that you have created or that acknowledge you work.
Another place to use keywords is your experience section. This section might be the one based on which a prospective employer or a customer might hire you. So, make repetitive use of keywords to be displayed in the top search results. Catch the company’s attention looking for great talent by describing what you do, projects you have completed, and the results you have achieved. Finally, to be picked by the hiring manager, showcase a bit of your technical and soft-skills.
Add Skills and Endorsements Defining your Professional Role.
Prospective employers, partners or customers also look for great talent based on skills. LinkedIn gives you an opportunity to list upto 50 skills. More skills you add to your LinkedIn profile, better are the chances of ranking top for varied roles. To add skills, you can start with keywords used in your industry by people searching for top talent on LinkedIn. You can then build on these keywords by referring to the search terms used by different companies or prospective customers searching for same set of skills. In addition to this, you can use LinkedIn’s skills directory to add skills to better define your professional role.
A profile with education information fetches 17x more messages from recruiters or prospective customers. Add your education details using the search bar and select your educational institution from the drop-down menu.This will add a logo of your university besides its name. Logos add credibility as well as visual appeal to your profile.
The first step in increasing your connectivity is making it easier for recruiters or prospective customers to find you. For this, you need to customize your LinkedIn URL. Default URLs contain your name followed by a set of randomly generated numbers. Edit your profile URL in the profile settings to your name accompanied by specifications that apply to you. These specifications can be your education, professional designation, or the location you work out of.
Rather than sitting back and waiting to get invites, you now need to reach out and find connections. Sync your LinkedIn account with Gmail and Facebook to convert contacts into connections. Scroll through the “People you may know” section to connect with people you may have worked with but might have forgotten. Accept only those invites which you feel might positively grow your network and aren’t just promotional or fake profiles.
One of the ways to establish your credibility and in turn, make more connections and attract more employers is by exhibiting recommendations on your profile. You can either directly request for a recommendation from a supervisor, colleague or client, or provide unsolicited recommendations to people you know in the hopes of replication on their part.
Create and Optimize Company Page and Showcase Pages
If you are building a LinkedIn profile for a company, optimize it by adding links to your website and other social media accounts. You can also create up to 10 free showcase pages allowing you to promote specific products or market to a specific buyer.
Finally, the best way to improve your profile’s searchability is optimization. Optimize your profile by sprinkling keywords in the headline, summary, experience sections, and even image titles. Do not leave any fields blank and make exhaustive use of all sections to use keywords and promote yourself.
If you want to take advantage of this, try joining groups having the same interests or affiliations as you. Look for groups in the search bar and read the About this group section to know more about them. You can even create your group for the interest or group of interests you want to focus on.
Create a public profile LinkedIn badge and post them in your website or blog. They function as a direct link for the visitors to check out your LinkedIn profile.
Stay in the know with the LinkedIn Pulse App. It delivers news related to your industry and lets you know what your colleagues are reading. You can also publish your own content on this app to share with your colleagues and groups.
Using the trending news from LinkedIn Pulse or from any other source, you can post updates matching the themes in your industry. Liking and replying to others’ updates is also an essential part of staying active in the community.
Using the trending news from LinkedIn Pulse or from any other source, you can post updates matching the themes in your industry. Liking and replying to others’ updates is also an essential part of staying active in the community.
The following excerpt is from Money-Smart Solopreneur: A Personal Finance System for Freelancers, Entrepreneurs, and Side-Hustlers, out now via Entrepreneur Press. Purchase from Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Bookshop | IndieBound.
Solopreneurs: 3 Signs It's Time To Incorporate Place
Good record keeping is just good business. How you manage data, account for financial transactions and store and retrieve your records is part of running and maintaining your company. Use the following six tips for a more successful balancing act.
1. Separate business and personal data
The line between personal and business finances can get blurry for solopreneurs. It’s important to separate the two, so you can easily monitor the progress of your business, plan for the future and create financial statements for specific periods, such as monthly or annually.
Clear business records allow you to identify sources of income, tag tax-deductible expenses and easily prepare your taxes. Without a proper record-keeping system, tracking the details of your business and complying with the law may be close to impossible. For instance, if you don’t have a system to determine which restaurant meals or vehicle miles were personal and which were for business, you might be unable to claim valid business expenses as tax deductions.
It's Time To Dance Lyrics
Related: Top Tips for Defining Your Solo Business Model
2. Use a business bank account
To keep your business and personal finances completely separate, open a dedicated business bank account. If your business is incorporated (such as an S corp or LLC), you must have separate accounts to legally distinguish your business and personal finances. Remember that the purpose of incorporating is to create an entirely separate entity from yourself. You’ll need a separate business bank account where you can deposit checks made payable to your business.
If your business name is the same as your personal name, you could likely cash business checks or deposit them into your personal account. And regardless of your business-entity type or name, you can pay business bills and expenses from a personal checking account and still claim them as a business-tax deduction. But these actions certainly muddy up your financial waters. So even if you could avoid having a business bank account, it’s still a good idea to establish one.
3. Apply for a business credit card
It's Time Sunlife
Most business checking accounts offer a variety of ways to make payments, including debit cards, online bill pay and electronic transfers. However, depending on the amount and type of purchases you need to make, you may want to apply for a business credit card. Just like with a business bank account, a business credit card makes it easy to keep your business and personal finances separate.
You don’t have to own a huge business or even incorporate to qualify for a business card — even part-time sole proprietors may be eligible. You can apply for a card even if your business is new and hasn’t started earning revenue. However, if you do have income, that’s a plus. You’ll likely need to estimate your anticipated spending on the card, which helps issuers determine the size of your credit line. If you’re not sure how much available credit you’ll need, it’s better to estimate higher rather than lower.
4. Find an accounting system suited to your needs
No matter the type, size or complexity of your business, you must find an accounting system that suits your company’s requirements. The IRS allows you to choose any record-keeping system you like, as long as it clearly shows your income and expenses. Your system could be entirely manual and written on paper. But I don’t think there’s a real substitute for an online financial tool or desktop accounting software. Just think about the advantages of being able to use a smartphone app to send an invoice, track billable time or take a photo of a receipt that gets automatically uploaded and stored in the cloud. Most small-business accounting programs are easy to use, even if you’re not an accountant. They typically allow you to upload images of receipts and documents and to automatically import data from financial institutions.
Solopreneurs: 3 Signs It's Time To Incorporate Business
5. Always get receipts for business expenses
While being self-employed means that you’re responsible for paying more taxes than a W-2 employee, the upside is that you get to claim business-tax deductions. Tax deductions are great because they reduce the amount of taxable income for your business, which in turn cuts the tax you must pay.
But the proof that your tax deduction is valid is on you. That means you must keep supporting documents, such as receipts, invoices and payments to employees. The good news is that you can store these crucial documents digitally, instead of as paper records, if you wish. You can still claim a tax deduction even if you don’t have the receipt. However, if the IRS audits any of your tax returns, you may be asked to explain exactly how you calculated the taxes you paid.
Related: Free On-Demand Video: 5 Tips for Building a Side Business
6. Go as paperless as possible
Going paperless, or as paperless as possible, saves space in your office and keeps your data and documents safe from theft, fire or water damage. Not only does a paperless system save environmental resources, but it also saves time. Try to eliminate all incoming papers, such as bills, account statements and receipts.
Note that there are some vital paper documents you will still need to keep, such as deeds, licenses or business records with original seals. You may have other records or contracts that should be retained for legal purposes. When in doubt, check with an attorney for legal requirements and statutes of limitations in your state. Continually pare down what you receive each month. Every time you open your physical mailbox and see paper inside, make a note to log on to your online account or contact the merchant and request to go paperless.
No one likes hitting the books, but it's essential if you want to stay in business.