10 New Year's Resolutions for 2008, Part 1

When you stop to think about it, New Year's resolutions are all about habits; breaking some bad ones (smoking, drinking excessively, binging on fast food when you've had a bad day) and starting new ones (working out, eating more brussels sprouts).

Businesses, like individuals, develop bad habits over time that need correction, while success in business over the long run usually means adopting good management habits and sticking with them year after year.

So without further ado, here are my 2008 New Year's resolutions for business owners.

DO AN ANNUAL "LEGAL REVIEW." It isn't enough to hire a good lawyer and pray you don't get sued. Every business has laws and regulations you need to know about, and it's your responsibility to learn about them so you can prevent lawsuits before they happen. Take your lawyer to lunch sometime in January. Tell him everything your business did last year and is planning to do this year, and get some education on how to do things better. If you are a corporation or limited liability company, have your attorney draft some resolutions for you and your partners to "ratify" the big decisions you made last year. These will save you a lot of heartache if you are ever sued or audited by a government agency.

SIGN 'EM UP; NAIL 'EM DOWN. You've got a part-time sales associate or administrative assistant working in your business one or two days a week. While he is there, you tell him what to do, when to do it and how to do it. You believe this person is an independent contractor, so you don't withhold money from his paycheck each week. Bad idea! The Internal Revenue Service very likely will look at this person as a part-time employee, and they will come down on you like Thor's hammer if they find out. Now's the time to have this person sign a one-page employment agreement "effective January 1, 2008," (your attorney can draft this for a few hundred dollars) and add him to your payroll.

What should the agreement say? At the very least, it should state clearly that the employee serves "at will" and can be terminated at any time, with or without a reason; that the employee cannot work for a competing company while he's on your payroll; and that the employee will not hire your employees or solicit business from your customers for one year after the employment relationship is terminated for any reason.

If the part-timer is your first employee, don't forget to have your accountant sign you up for payroll taxes (IRS forms 940 and 941) and for your state's unemployment compensation system. You also may have to look into workers' compensation insurance; your insurance agent can help you with that.

LOOSEN UP YOUR VOCAL CORDS. One of the best ways to distinguish yourself from your competition, especially if you are a consultant, is to become the local expert in your field. Volunteer to speak at local business luncheon meetings. Teach a course at your local community college. If you run a butcher shop, call your local cable TV news show and volunteer to do a segment on how to carve your holiday turkey. People love that stuff, and news reporters love it when you make their lives easier by suggesting story ideas. However you do it, get out in front of your marketplace, and let them see you. Not only will you build your self-confidence as a public speaker, you will get tons of free publicity for your business.

Finally, have a local musician record your presentation, break it down into segments by topic and put them on your Web site as downloadable podcasts.

UPDATE YOUR WEB PRESENCE. Look at your business's Web site, and make at least five changes that will make it more attractive, fun and "cool" to prospective customers. Post some content-rich articles answering commonly asked questions about what you do. Put some videos on your Web site (and post the videos on YouTube) that demonstrate in an entertaining way how to do (or not to do) something. Start a blog where your customers can talk to each other about the stuff you do, with you as the all-knowing moderator. Most importantly, hire a search engine optimization consultant and learn what you can do to get your Web site higher in the Google search rankings.

At the same time, delete things from your Web site that are boring, difficult to access or that do nothing to address your customers' fears and passions. If you are a lawyer or accountant, nobody cares what you look like or where you went to school, so get rid of the Web site photo and biography. Put up your fee schedule instead because clients DO care about how much you are going to charge them for your services!

More next week. ?

Cliff Ennico ([e-mail]) is a syndicated columnist, author and host of the PBS television series "Money Hunt." His latest books are "Small Business Survival Guide" (Adams Media, $12.95) and "The eBay Seller's Tax and Legal Answer Book" (AMACOM, $19.95). This column is no substitute for legal, tax or financial advice, which can be furnished only by a qualified professional licensed in your state. To find out more about Cliff Ennico and other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit our Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2007 CLIFFORD R. ENNICO

DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.