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By Contractors For Contractors!
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| May 2003 Issue - Click here to read other issues | |
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Welcome to May 2003! Cliche I know but can you believe it is already May? I hope you enjoy your newsletter, the first item is an article about outsourcing your 'mundane' duties. A first reaction to the thought of outsourcing is usually something along the lines of "Why would I pay someone else to do what I can do (ie: payroll, etc.)?". Because my friends, the less time you spend on the mundane duties the more time you get to spend focused on the meat -n- potatoes of your business, that which puts you closer to your goals whatever they may be! In addition we've had some changes to our free QuickBooks technical support; Dun & Bradstreet has a special offer for you; and Mother's Day is coming up... Have a great day and please do feel free to write back!! Diane |
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| Outsourcing is a surprisingly practical solution | |||||||||
| Verify Payment History Before Contracting or Supplying! | |||||||||
| Learn about your equipment at SecurityCosmos.com, it's free! | |||||||||
| Free Technical Support for QuickBooks Users | |||||||||
| Administrative Professionals Week April 21-25 | |||||||||
| Website Owners, Builders & Managers | |||||||||
1. Outsourcing: A Surprisingly Practical Solution By Diane Dennis Many owners of small and/or home based businesses (and yes even some large companies) are discovering that it is both cost effective and convenient to 'outsource' certain aspects of their respective businesses. Do you pay an accountant to manage your books and/or to process your taxes? That's outsourcing! If you have a website that you pay someone else to maintain, you're outsourcing. Even General Contractors do a sort of outsourcing every time they issue a contract to a subcontractor. If you're really good at outsourcing you can actually use it to increase your company's profit margin!! Uncovering Hidden Profits What does your company do to make money? Whether you're in construction; fixing Harleys; leading white-water river rafting adventures; scooping ice cream; running your own beauty salon and so on, chances are you're doing what you're doing because you know how to do it well enough to not only make a living at it but a comfortable living at that. The river guide makes money when he's out in the boat with his customers, shooting the rapids. The guy fixing Harleys makes money when his fingers are greasily fine-tuning the bike. The roofer makes money when he's 'roofing' the jobs he's lined up and when he's lining up more. None of these folks are making money when they're punching numbers on the calculator figuring out payroll or dialing the phone numbers of delinquent payers. Every minute spent on one of these tasks can be equivalent to several minutes less spent on increasing your customer base and building your coffers. Those lost minutes are hidden profits... but each minute lost is lost forever... Growing Pains Growing your business can be painful. There are new expenses (such as wages for additional office crew) that will be due and payable before you've realized the additional income that will come from that larger work crew getting more work done. However, by using outsourcing you can actually grow your business without many of the pains that go along with traditional growth (see paragraph 1). The reason for this is that chances are the fee you pay to your service provider will be significantly less than what it would cost you to do it in-house. And the best part of all... ? You now have time and funds freed up that you can devote to growing your business! Let's face it, chances are you didn't start your business because you wanted to do prelim notices (or payroll, etc.) right? Unless of course prelims and/or payroll IS your business... ;) Focus on what you love, what your business is all about, and let others take care of the endless litany of mundane yet required responsibilities that you and every other business owner faces. Legalities, Legalities, Legalities --> Use a Contract! Be certain that the contract outlines everything you are paying for, specifically. What is expected of you and what is expected of your provider? For example, if you are outsourcing your payroll, how will the paychecks be delivered to your employees, who's bank account do the funds come out of, do they have a pool of employees you have to choose from or can you hire whoever you want? If you are outsourcing your prelim notices, what info are you required to provide and will it cost more if you don't have all that info available? Is there tracking of paperwork included in the price, etc.? -- > Contracting/Outsourcing requires due diligence Ask for references and CHECK those references carefully. Insist on full contact information, including phone numbers, mailing addresses, etc. Ask for samples of their work (if applicable, such as if you're looking for someone to build and/or manage your website for you or someone to manage your photography, etc.). -- > Confidentiality Agreements In addition you may want to consider Confidentiality Agreements (aka non-disclosure agreements). If your provider will have access to confidential information, you may want to have him/her sign a confidentiality agreement. -- > We practice what we preach... We outsource as much as we can now. It took us a while to jump on the bandwagon but once I broke it down and looked at every aspect of outsourcing I realized that it really can help to decrease your expenses while increasing your income. -- > Tell Us What You Outsource To whom and what do you outsource? Tell us and you and your provider could appear in our newsletter and/or at our website! Just click here to send me an email. :) ===============ADVERTISEMENT================ Southern California Insurance Brokerage Inc. We invite you to browse through our site and discover
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FREE !! Dun & Bradstreet's Credit eValuator Report offers an easy-to-read credit snapshot of any business, with up-to-date information and analysis including:
D&B Small Business Solutions is the Web site created specifically with the needs of small businesses in mind. D&B Small Business Solutions gives small businesses access to tools and information that they can use to check payment history of potential partners, monitor their own business credit, locate new customers and suppliers, research new markets, and collect past due receivables. Visit the Dun
& Bradstreet website soon, because they could decide to Wouldn't it be great to know before you issue (or accept) a contract whether or not the entity you'll be contracting with is a risk when it comes to them paying their bills? Subcontractors run checks on your GC's and GC's run checks on your Subcontractors. You don't necessarily have to not work with them if their report is less than pristine however you'll know in advance what to watch for. :) Suppliers, this Credit eValuator is definitely something you must to check out. How many times have you thought to yourself, "I wish I knew THEN what I know now about this customer."? Well now you CAN know beforehand. :) Check your customer's payment history now with a FREE Credit eValuator Report from D&B Small Business Solutions. Please click here! ===============ADVERTISEMENT================ Levy Von Beck & Associates, Inc. Designing legal services around client needs means accessibility, timely responses, regular case updates, and cost effective services. Limiting representation to creditors demonstrates our commitment to a specific client group and helps maintain a focus on optimal strategies for creditors. <http://www.thecontractorsgroup.com/levylaw/> Founded in June of 1984, Levy - Von Beck & Associates, P.S. is a full service law firm concentrating in the area of Construction Law. Our clients generally fall into one of three categories:
Let us help you with your preliminary notices, mechanic's liens, etc. We are here for YOU! =============END ADVERTISEMENT=============== 3. Learn about your equipment at SecurityCosmos.com, it's free! SecurityCosmos.com is the number one online resource support site for security products and furnishings. Even if you didn't purchase your items from SecurityCosmos, you can still use their online resource guide, for free! They've got a page dedicated to "Renovations and Retro-fit Applications" and another dedicated to "Maintenance Guides". If you work with security products in your business, take a look at SecurityCosmos.com. Some of their products include locks, doors, controls, fasteners and hardware. Many items are available for quick delivery. Free, yes FREE, information on retro-fitting, installation, and
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No matter which version of QuickBooks you already have or that you intend to purchase, as long as you mention our website, TheContractorsGroup.com, you'll qualify for free email support from Gita. Visit Gita's website soon!! FastTrackAccounting.com 5. Mother's Day Specials Below are a few ideas for Mom. If you see something you like go ahead and click on the link to visit the website. ** The Unbeatable Pleasure of a Day Spa SpaWish Certificates arrive elegantly packaged in a silver gift envelope, along with a nationwide directory of all participating day spas, as well as a gift card you customize. The special Mom in your life will delight in selecting any spa and services desired! Massages, facials, pedicures.... even seaweed body wraps! So, make spa wish dreams come true for the special women in your life, all across the United States. Click Here ** Flowers and Plants are always a nice gift... --> You can't go wrong with a '3-day Tribute to Mom'... DAY 1: Tulips for Mom, 20 classic assorted colored tulips ** Stock in one of her favorite companies Looking
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Gift-Wrap, and a Free gift. 6. Website Owners, Builders and Managers Over the past 3 1/2 years of building and managing our website I've read and learned (and am still reading and learning) a LOT about what to do, but even more of what NOT to do (due to 'been there done that' experiences I know a lot of what NOT to do... ;) what works, what doesn't work, etc. If you have a website or are thinking about websites and whether or not you want one, please do subscribe to my new newsletter titled 'Websites: What NOT To Do...' and I'll tell you all my mistakes so that you can avoid them. :) Follow this link to get yourself signed up and I'll send you your first bit of info shortly. :) ps: I just purchased Over 1,000+ PAGES of the Hottest, Proven Profitable Internet Business Secrets Broken Down Into An EASY-TO-DUPLICATE System. Corey Rudl is the owner of four highly successful online businesses that attract more than 6 million visitors and generate over $5.2 million each year. He is also the author of the #1 best-selling Internet Marketing course online. To check out his site that's jam-packed with THE EXACT INFORMATION YOU NEED to start, build, and grow your very own, profitable Internet business, I highly recommend visiting, you can click here... :) This guy really knows what he's talking about! We know because we've been using his system to grow our Internet businesses and believe it or not, even Curtis (my husband) is reading them and implementing ideas! BEWARE though, once you've got his information in your hands your mind is going to EXPLODE with ideas so make sure you've got pen and paper in hand. You don't want to lose a single one of your ideas and the way to assure that that doesn't happen is to write them down as they occur. The other thing you can do while you're reading Corey's info, jot down quick notes using post-it notes and then stick the post-it note to the edge of the page so that part of it is sticking out. Then when you're working on something that you read in his books you can quickly and easily refer back to what you read via the post-it notes you've stuck to the pages. :) VISIT HIS WEBSITE SOON, CLICK HERE ! :) Well, that's about it for now. Have an outstanding day!! TheContractorsGroup was created to support construction professionals
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