Tag Archives: owner

The Busy Business Owner: Get Back 15 Minutes a Day

Meetings, phone calls, emails, text messages, and water cooler conversations with your employees constantly bombard you as a business owner. Freeing up even just another 15 minutes a day could dramatically improve both your workflow and peace of mind.

Here are some suggestions for getting back 15 minutes every day:

  • Use your phone. Whenever possible, use your phone instead of an email. Oftentimes talking with someone directly is more efficient than spending the time to compose an email. Plus, email chains can fill your inbox and require precious minutes to read and decipher. Using the phone can also help avoid potential misunderstandings, as a person’s tone of voice conveys information that may be lost or misinterpreted when shared via a written message.
  • Be brief with emails. Tech entrepreneurs Mark Cuban and Jeff Bezos are known for their brief emails that consist of only a couple words. In situations where you do use email, consider crafting a response that is only several words in length. And remember the golden rule of emails: send fewer emails to receive fewer emails.
  • Plan your meetings. Face-to-face time with colleagues, vendors, and customers is often productive and essential for growing a business. On the other hand, meetings can be a huge waste of time if not properly planned. Establish clear goals for a meeting in advance so your team can focus on priorities and get back to work.
  • Minimize distractions. Business owners enjoy developing a rapport with their employees. These personal conversations, however, need to have boundaries so that both you and your employee can stay on task. Tell your team if there’s a day you don’t have time for small talk. Consider putting an old-fashioned Do Not Disturb sign on your door when you need to get things done.
  • Delegate when possible. If you’re a small business owner who built a company from scratch, you may be reluctant to relinquish control over day-to-day operations. But failure to delegate can sap time from more important tasks like planning, building relationships with key vendors, and growing your customer base. So, develop a plan to train your employees to assume more responsibility over time.

Fifteen minutes may not seem like much, but a busy business owner can work wonders with just a little more time every day.

Get Your Contractor or Employee Classification Right!

Tax challenges can be VERY expensive

As a small business owner, you may face the issue of whether to classify workers as employees or as independent contractors.

Classifying your workers as independent contractors generally saves you money. That’s because you avoid paying employment taxes and benefits on their behalf.

If the IRS determines that you misclassified your employees as contractors, you could end up paying all of the employment taxes and benefits that would have been paid over the years. Depending on the size of your work force, the cost to your business could be substantial.

In determining whether the person providing a service is an employee or an independent contractor, all information that provides evidence of the degree of control and independence must be considered. There are three primary categories of control and independence that the IRS considers when determining if a worker is a contractor or an employee:

  • Behavioral. Does the company control or have the right to control what the worker does and how the worker does his or her job? If yes, the worker is an employee.
  • Financial. Are the business aspects of the worker’s job controlled by the payer? This includes things like how the worker is paid, whether expenses are reimbursed and whether the employer provides tools and supplies. If yes, the worker is an employee.
  • Type of relationship. Are there written contracts or employee-type benefits? If contracts are involved, the worker may be a contractor. If benefits such as a pension plan, insurance and vacation pay are made available, the worker most likely is an employee.

Deciding whether a worker is a contractor or employee can get complicated. And remember that there are significant financial consequences for incorrectly classifying a worker.