Sales, Orders, and Tax Organization for 2009

It's done. It has been procrastinated since the last week in December, but it is done. I pay my business taxes on a quarterly basis, but some pay annually or biannually and it depends upon how your business is setup.

I have a simple tax certificate that allows me to purchase raw materials without paying taxes on them at that time. This is because I will be collecting taxes from the customer on those raw materials once they are used in finished products and sold to a customer. More about that around April 15.

Today, I finished my quarterly sales taxes on orders I received and sent out in Q4 of 2008. My state has a state tax plus a county usage tax and each county can be a different percent, therefore, I had to do a bit of sorting, calculating, and merging to fill out the form.

I wanted to share with you GalleriaLinda's Sales, Orders, and Tax spreadsheet that I set up. It may help you and it may not. I have found that looking at and trying out a few of these kind of things can help you to identify what your custom needs are regarding your sales information. A call to your local tax office or accountant (even if it is hubby in the next room) will help you to understand what you will need to document.

Now is the time to get your documentation procedures in place so you are not left in a mess at the end of the year!

Disclaimer about the spreadsheet: I am not an expert at Excel. I do not know your state's tax requirements. I am not an accountant. I can barely add 2+2. SO, this is shared as a resource in concept for you to take and make your own.

I have formulated the calculating cells for what I have in this spreadsheet. If you change or tweak this sheet, they may not work for you. I suggest you find a person proficient in Excel to be sure your calculations work well when you finish making it your own.

Blogging is an Art - What Do I Write About in My Blog?

The series "Blogging is an Art" continues!

• Should I start a blog?
• Will a blog help sales?
• What do I write about in my blog?
• Who will read it and do I need to promote it?
• Where do I go to create a blog?

Q. I am an Indie CEO. What do I write about in a blog?

This question often freezes up new bloggers. New bloggers know they want to blog, but when the blog is setup, writer's block sets in.

If you are new to writing especially, this is quite normal. Be encouraged, though, that the more you write, the easier it becomes, and the more you will enjoy it.

Keep your audience engaged with your content by keeping your topics focused. This goes back to your decision about your target audience and why you want to blog in the first place. What do you have to say? We discussed this in the first part of this series, "Should I Start a Blog?"

There is nothing wrong with wanting to write about everything! In fact, I encourage you to have several blogs that you can strategically use to cross-promote, thereby sustaining traffic on each (more about promoting in the next part of the series). I have this IndieCEO blog, plus my jewelry blog, GalleriaLindaShowcase.

Often, I think of topics and content at the oddest times, so I keep crazy notes about topics with a few little bullet points. These notes get me started on a short post when I have time to sit down and write. Remember that a post should be short. It is not an article.

Think about writing a shop/product/business blog, a crafty technical blog, and a personal blog and target specific content to each. If you decide upon a business blog, you might be inspired by the topics list below. (This is the abbreviated article and list. Download more ideas in the entire “Blogging is an Art – What Should I Write on My Blog?” article here).

Potential Blog Topics

• About you, your background, how you got into your business
• Your expertise as an artist, designer, creative
• Where you learned your expertise
• How you happened to become passionate about your craft
• What media or processes you have worked with, antics, experiences - could be fun!
• Your works in progress - include background and interesting facts that are not found elsewhere - this could be at least 50% of your posts if it is a promoting blog
• Tutorials are very popular for keeping readers and bringing traffic
• What you do locally relative to your business, such as shows, exhibits, etc...
• Interesting facts, such as a favorite cause you support through your business
• Where you are found or featured online

(Eleven more topic suggestions are found in the entire “Blogging is an Art – What Should I Write on My Blog?” article here).

Nimble Businesses Will Win in 2009

It is the first week in January 2009 and already I hear of friends being laid off of their jobs or salaries cut. When times are tough, the tough get going. Are you tough?

You are in control of your own universe. Make choices everyday focusing on those things that you can control and not those things that you cannot control. That makes a lot of sense, especially in these economic times.

As we gently dip our toe in the water of the year 2009, we realize that we are all in this together and are affected by the downturn in the economy. Many of our customers are spending much less, eliminating luxury items from their purchases, are anxious about their job security, and are facing losses in retirement programs.

I do marketing communications consulting work for a large real estate land office and you can only guess the challenges there. I appreciate so much the real estate broker I work with, as he is a staunch supporter of the marketing effort. His mantra is not to cut spending but to rev up marketing efforts in this sluggish market in order to be seen above the clutter. He will have the company well positioned at the time the economy improves and will win business in the meantime by being responsive to clients and their situations.

Realize that it is time for different business strategies.

Rigid business practices will not work anymore. Nimble business practices will win the business of 2009. What can your Indie Business do to review, rethink, and retool?

• Position your company to be above the clutter
• Position your products to be needed - take them from an impulse buy to a need buy
• Position you, as the Indie CEO, to be helpful, flexible, understanding, and supportive of your customers and their situations

Three pages of strategies are available to you by Indie CEO and GalleriaLinda's resource page, or directly Download this 3-page report on how nimble businesses can win in 2009. You can do it!

Painless New Year's Planning for Your Indie Business

It is time! The celebrations have given way to new days for our indie businesses. Away with the old and in with the new!

Has anyone ever asked, encouraged, cajoled, or otherwise arm-twisted you into writing a business plan for you business? Ah....I though not. My famous line is,"If you don't know where you are going, you will never get there." And, I could add, "If you don't know where you have been, you will repeat the same old results."

*Puts on marketing hat.*

Business plans are like math, even to me. They are boring, stodgy, stiff, suck-your-brains-out exercises that are supposed to help you direct your business strategy. Heck! A lot of us did not start this to be a business, anyway...right? GalleriaLinda was born out of encouragement from friends to sell. If you are selling anything, you are in business and you need to listen to this.

I have a fun, painless informal business plan for you. Just answer the questions and you will be surprised at what you see on paper as your business. It is created to identify where you are now, where you want to go, and if you need to change anything. It is not a formal plan but valuable marketing tool for you. Pretend it is a fun quiz! I am calling it a "Think-it-Through list because that is what it is.

If you want to get fancy, you can go to SCORE.org to download great business templates for business plans and other business documents. After this exercise, maybe you will want to do a formal business plan.

Get your GalleriaLinda Painless Business Plan "Think-it-Through" handout today!

Selling Venues Galore!

It wasn't but a little over two years ago that I was looking for a way to post products online for GalleriaLinda without doing the auction thing. I really dislike the auction process, although many sellers love it.

A friend of mine in another state who does not even make crafts, told me about Etsy.com. A friend of hers discovered Etsy and was setting up shop, and told her, and she told me. That is how we find out a lot of information! At that time, there were very few venues online that I found, other than Ebay, which was not an option for me.

Since then, and since Etsy has been a successful pioneer and benchmark in targeted handcraft selling, a lot of venues have popped up. Now, there are a variety of venues to select and the decision can be overwhelming. I personally found and documented almost 50 selling venues...not including auction sites.

You might be interested in the post on the INDIE CEO blog called "Selecting the Right Online Selling Venue" that will give you a few pointers on where to start when thinking about the best selling venues for your products and customers.

For traffic ranking on many of these selling sites, GalleriaLinda found Shiny Adornment's blog post here.

For your use, here is GalleriaLinda's List of 47 Selling Venues. At this writing, this list is just a list. It does NOT include auction sites and there are likely a few more to add.

The venues listed can be categorized into what can be sold, US sites, sites from other countries, those that bring in traffic, those that don't, and various other categories.

There are so many other things we can research on each, such as traffic to each as Shiny Adornments posted, as well as demographics, fees, listing limits, payment vendors, and much more.

Why do I care about all of this? Simply, to keep up with competitive research and to see where my target customer shops.

I have a feeling that many readers have blog posts that may present some of these. If so, please leave a comment with your blog post URL.

As you work your way through this list, I would love for you to comment back about your impressions of the venues that you like or dislike.

If you currently sell on venues on this list, please let me know about your experience in the comment section!