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About Small Business: Canada

Small Business: Canada

5 Quick Ways to Organize Your Home Office — March 10th, 2010

Is a messy, cluttered home office slowing you down?

If you're not quite ready for a full makeover but desperately need more home office organization, here are 5 Quick Ways to Organize Your Home Office.

More Home Office Organization Help

Image (c) Alan Levine

5 Quick Ways to Organize Your Home Office originally appeared on About.com Small Business: Canada on Wednesday, March 10th, 2010 at 08:08:51.

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Want More Clients? Just Do These Two Things — March 9th, 2010

"How do I get more clients?" is one of the most common questions I get asked. It figures; getting new clients can be one of the biggest problems for consultants and other professionals who are self-employed, especially when they're just starting out.

Assuming that you provide a quality service coupled with good customer service, the solution to the problem isn't that difficult. To get more clients, you only have to do two things:

1) Get known.

People are always reluctant to hire an unknown entity. The sooner you get your name out there and start to become a known brand that thy can trust with their business, the more clients you'll attract. PAK Your Business Image, Build and Use a Promotion Kit and learn how to Blow Your Own Horn.

Then start working on putting these Top 10 Ways to Get Known into action. Pick one and start working on it.

2) Ask for referrals.

Many business people seem to find this incredibly difficult, but it's the number one way to build your business and get more clients. Whenever you satisfactorily complete a job, ask the client if she or he knows of anyone else who might be interested in your services. If the client is reluctant to pass names along with you, give him or her extra business cards and/or brochures to pass along to potentially interested people.

Also, ask the client for a written testimonial and permission to use it (in your marketing materials, such as your brochures and website). Remember, the worst thing that can happen is that the client will say "No!"

Still uncomfortable? How to Ask for Referrals and Get More Clients provides tips and several referral scripts that you can use to ask clients to give you a referral.

You may also want to try using the system C.J. Hayden explains in Wanted: 100 Referral Partners.

Do these two things, and you'll get more clients guaranteed. But be warned; it's not an overnight process, so the sooner you get started, the better.

And if you're starting from square one, just starting out and starting to work on getting known with no or very few clients that you can ask for referrals from, the two fastest ways to jumpstart your client list are joining local business organizations and cold calling. Use my 10 Cold Calling Tips to make cold calling a more successful experience.

Want More Clients? Just Do These Two Things originally appeared on About.com Small Business: Canada on Tuesday, March 9th, 2010 at 08:12:01.

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Celebrate Women in Business on International Women's Day — March 8th, 2010

March 8th, International Women's Day, is a great time to reflect on women in business.

Here in Canada, more women are joining the ranks of the self-employed all the time; In 2007, women made up 35 per cent of all self-employed individuals. By 2010, CIBC predicts that one million Canadian women will own a small business. And the number of female-run businesses is rising 60 percent faster than the number of those run by men (Women Entrepreneurs: Leading the Charge, CIBC).

Women in Business a Growing Wave presents the statistics of the astonishing growth in women-owned businesses in this country.

For more on what the "typical" Canadian woman in business is like, see The Face of Canadian Business Women.

And if you are a Canadian woman starting or running a small business who is looking for funding, check out Small Business Loans for Women in Canada: For Women Only.

International Women's Day is also a great day to celebrate the triumphs and accomplishments of women everywhere, to reflect on what improvements to women's lives are yet to be achieved, and to do our own part to "ensure that the future for girls is bright, equal, safe and rewarding". Canada's theme for this year's International Women's Day is Strong Women. Strong Canada. Strong World..

To find International Women's Day events near you, visit this page of the International Women's Day website.

More on International Women's Day:

Logo courtesy of Status of Women Canada

Celebrate Women in Business on International Women's Day originally appeared on About.com Small Business: Canada on Monday, March 8th, 2010 at 08:03:32.

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Cool Tool of the Week: Promotions for Facebook Fan Pages — March 7th, 2010

Promotions for Facebook Fan Pages is an application that lets you "create and launch interactive promotions and marketing campaigns on Facebook Fan Pages within minutes." I like that you can create promotions with different formats such as contests, coupons and giveaways, giving your Facebook Fan Page visitors a better chance of engaging with your page.

The cost is reasonable;$5.00 per campaign for a Basic account and $25 per campaign for a Standard account. There are also Premium and White Label accounts available.

More on Facebook Fan Pages

Cool Tool of the Week: Promotions for Facebook Fan Pages originally appeared on About.com Small Business: Canada on Sunday, March 7th, 2010 at 08:33:46.

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Hiring Your Spouse as a Contractor or an Employee — March 6th, 2010

"Throughout 2009, I paid my spouse on several occasions for "bookkeeping and administration" work. Based on a response Susan Ward gave to another person's question, I was not treating my spouse as an "employee" (and hence wasn't deducting EI, CPP, or taxes), and was not going to issue a T4 (and haven't registered as an employer). Instead I was doing what Susan Ward suggested and have been contracting out this work to my spouse, and then my wife will treat it as business income on her tax return." Is it really okay to hire your spouse as a contractor? BzKzGz asks.

Follow the link above to see how others have answered this question in the Small Business Canada Forum.

Articles Related to This Question:

More on the Small Business Canada Forum

Other questions and discussions in the the Small Business Canada Forum right now are:

Hiring Your Spouse as a Contractor or an Employee originally appeared on About.com Small Business: Canada on Saturday, March 6th, 2010 at 08:33:18.

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