When you’re an entrepreneur, you’re ultimately responsible for a lot -- particularly when your business is young

and you haven’t yet built a strong team. You’re likely too busy working in your business that you feel you have little time to work on it. Tasks like strategizing and marketing might seem like luxuries you can’t afford.

On the contrary, you can’t afford not to allot time to marketing and growth-related activities. But where are those hours coming from?

By utilizing a few basic time management techniques, you can discover up to an extra ten hours per week. However, you’ll have to push past several obstacles in your thinking and behavior. How you prioritize and delegate is probably the most difficult area of change, so let’s tackle that first.

Delegate to Elevate Do you find it hard to delegate work to others? You’re not alone. It’s a common problem for many entrepreneurs. For some reason, we get it into our heads that it’s faster to do the job ourselves than to take time to explain it to a team member.

Maybe you need to go back and look at your hiring practices and figure out why you’re hiring people you don’t trust to do the work the right way. But, if we assume for a moment that’s not the problem, there’s still no reason you should be performing tasks that almost anyone else can do.

Great advice if you have a team, right? OK, what about the one- or two-person shop? In that case, you can get a better grip on managing your time by learning how to prioritize what’s on your plate.

Learn to Prioritize If it feels like everything you do is both urgent and important, you need to take a look to see if that’s actually true. You might be jumping on tasks that can actually be done later as if

Time Management Techniques That Will Give You An Extra 10 Hours a Week to Work on Your Business they were urgent. That will consume your time quickly.

Obviously, do what needs to be done and get it done the right way. But work on reducing the number of fires you have to put out by being proactive. Then you can spend the majority of your time doing what’s important, but not urgent.

Some tasks appear urgent, because they’re time sensitive, or maybe because someone’s complaining. But

if they’re not particularly important, delegate as much as you can. Whatever you identify as neither urgent nor important,

push that to another time, or better yet, delegate it.

Effi ciency for All If you’re the owner of a business with employees, you must help your entire team become more time efficient. Do you have salespeople working for you who are mired in administrative work? The more tasks that can be delegated to an administrative assistant, the more you can depend on your sales staff to get out there and sell.

Master Your Relationship with Your Phone and Email If not managed properly, phone calls and emails can be parasites siphoning your attention and ability to concentrate. When you’re in the zone, working on an idea for a promotional event or comparing advertising opportunities, you simply cannot pick up the phone or check your email every five minutes and expect to be productive.

Ignore the anxious voice in your head that’s telling you that if you don’t attend to that call or email right now, your customers will bolt and your prospects will disappear. Of course there may be times when customers need to talk to you personally. You can handle that by blocking specific times each day for making and returning phone calls. If you have an administrative staff, you can train them to respond to customers’ needs and route calls and emails appropriately.

Obviously, do what needs to be done and get it done the

if they’re not particularly important, delegate as much as

Robert Goodman’s STRAIGHT TALK ABOUT SMALL BUSINESSTM Newsletter • October 2016 • Page 1

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

October 2016

The newsletter designed to keep you on course to build a successful small business

Continued on page 2

Welcome to the October 2016 edition of the Straight Talk Newsletter. Fall is in the air and leaves have begun to change to a beautiful array of yellows, oranges, and reds. It truly is my favorite time of year.

Starting off this month’s edition is the article, Time Management Techniques That Will Give You An Extra 10 Hours a Week to Work on Your Business. In this article, we’ll address several techniques that will generate more free time for you to focus on working on your business as opposed to working in it. Many times as a business owner we find ourselves bogged down with busy day to day tasks, which suffocates us from working on the bigger items and tasks designed to take your business to the next level.

Also in this months issue, is an article titled Revamp Your Finances To Save More Money. This article points out 4 areas, that are often overlooked, which can help you reduce spending, and generate $65k over 20 years.

Until Next Month,

Fall is in the air and leaves have begun to change to

Time Management Techniques That Will Give You An Extra 10 Hours a Week In this article, we’ll address several techniques that will generate more free time for you to focus on

working on your business as opposed to working in it. Many times as a business owner we find ourselves bogged down with busy day to day tasks, which suffocates us from working on the bigger items and tasks designed to take your business to the next level.

. This article points out 4 areas, that are

Robert Goodman, CPA, MBA

Rober t Goodman, CPA, MBA

Do You Have A Tough Accounting /Tax Question You Want Answered?

I love hearing from my small business clients and friends who enjoy reading my monthly newsletter. I’m always looking to answer

pressing questions you might have relating to small business. If you have a question, tip or idea, please call me at (617) 964-4766 or email me at bob@rgcpa. Perhaps I’ll feature you in a future issue!

Are You In Need ofa Qualifi ed Tax Pro?

If you are not my client and would like to explore whether we might be a good fi t, please

contact me. As a qualifi ed tax professional, I not only know all the rules, but can also help you deal with the IRS and help you decide how far to push a dispute.

I pressing questions you might have relating to small business.

f you are not my client and would like to explore whether we might be a good fi t, please

contact me. As a qualifi ed tax professional, I not

If you’re on your own, you may have to check your voicemail more frequently, always letting your clients know ahead of time that they are guaranteed to reach you during certain

dedicated times.

The same principle holds true with your email. Resolve yourself to checking it a maximum of three times

per day: once in the morning, once in the afternoon and once at the end of the day. By handling them in batches, you may find multiple emails on a similar subject can be answered more efficiently, as opposed to handling everything piecemeal as it comes in.

Create Shorter and More Focused To-Do Lists Making a to-do list might seem old-fashioned or too obvious, but don’t overlook it. It can be especially powerful when you split it into three separate lists.

The first list reflects your long-term goals for the year. This will help keep you focused on the big picture.

The second list is a weekly list you prepare on Sunday night. Then, each day before you leave the work, use this list as a guidepost for what you’ll accomplish the following day, and create a third daily list.

By breaking down the larger goals for your business into manageable tasks, you always have your grander vision in the background, which keeps you from using your daily agenda as a laundry list for items that should be delegated or eliminated entirely.

Schedule Your Appointments in Clusters Similar to how you’ll block off time for phone calls and email, you should also block off batches of time for scheduling appointments.

Whether it’s a staff meeting or an appointment with a client or prospect, clustering the time that you’re accessible to others will save you time and give you the freedom you need to focus for uninterrupted stretches of time.

Use Your Drive Time Wisely If you drive yourself to work, use that time to invest in yourself and your business. There is a wide array of podcasts on topics that will expand your mind.

Limit Your Internet Become more mindful of the time you spend on the Internet. Browsing websites or social media to get a handle on what’s happening in the world may make you a better conversationalist, but unless your knowledge of what’s trending on Twitter is bringing money in the door, it’s a colossal waste of your time. If you find this is a problem for you, there are website blocking apps that can help curb even the strongest browsing addictions.

By utilizing these tips, you can uncover hours of hidden time that you can use for working on your business, planning a growth strategy, for executing marketing initiatives, for learning and personal enrichment, even working with a coach or mentor. If you think you don’t have time, look again. You might be surprised by what you find. g

dedicated times.

The same principle holds true with your email.

Robert Goodman’s STRAIGHT TALK ABOUT SMALL BUSINESSTM Newsletter • October 2016 • Page 2

Continued from page 1

Revamp your fi nances to save more money

If you can figure out how to save just $125 per month, then set up an automatic savings to a mutual fund

that yields an average of 7 percent, in five years you will have almost $9,000.

In 20 years, that amount will have grown to $65,000! Here are four suggestions for coming up with that $125 per month:

• Look at your cable TV bill. Do you need all those channels? You can roll your bill back by getting rid of premium channels or subscribing to a smaller, cheaper package.

• Stop picking up magazines from the supermarket or newsstand. Save yourself some money by reading online or subscribing to your favorite magazine instead. And if you’re subscribing to anything you don’t read, cancel it.

• Change your cell service. Shopping around can get you a better deal that will save you bucks. Just make sure you won’t be penalized for breaking a contract early.

• Call your credit card company. You may be able to get a lower interest rate just by asking.

Bring Innovation To Your BusinessYou can’t simply order your

team to become creative. If you want more imagination and innovation in your workplace, follow these guidelines:

• Give people space. Not just physical space in which to work uninterrupted, but creative space to develop and test ideas without interference.

• Boundaries. At the same time, set clear expectations for innovation. Talk about the kind of ideas you want to see, and what you don’t. Clarify deadlines and requirements for everyone.

• Challenge. Stretch people’s skills and imagination by challenging them to excel. Give them a jolt from time to time — a tough problem or a tight deadline that forces them to think differently.

• Diversity. Bring a wide mixture of personalities and skills to your team. The more exposure to new ways of thinking people have, the better their ideas will be.

f you can figure out how to save just $125 per month, f you can figure out how to save just $125 per month, then set up an automatic savings to a mutual fund then set up an automatic savings to a mutual fund

that yields an average of 7 percent, in five years that yields an average of 7 percent, in five years

In 20 years, that amount will have In 20 years, that amount will have grown to $65,000! Here are four grown to $65,000! Here are four

• Look at your cable TV bill.Do you need all those channels? Do you need all those channels? You can roll your bill back by getting rid You can roll your bill back by getting rid

IRS Advice for Hurricane Season and Natural Disasters

Hurricanes and tropical storms affect many of us, and no one

is immune to natural disasters in general, from flooding to historic snowfalls. The Internal Revenue Service offers the following advice to help you be prepared:

Go ElectronicYou may have access to bank and other financial statements online. If so, your statements are already securely stored there. You can also keep an additional set of records electronically. One way is to scan tax records and insurance policies onto an electronic format such as PDF. You may want to download important records to an external hard drive, USB flash drive or burn them onto a CD or DVD. Be sure you keep duplicates of your records in a safe place. For example, store them in a waterproof container away from the originals. If a disaster strikes your home, it may also affect a wide area. If that happens, you may not be able to retrieve the records that are stored in that area.

Document Your ValuablesTake photos or videos of the contents of your home or business. These visual records can help you prove the value of your lost items. They may help with insurance claims or casualty loss deductions on your tax return. You should also store these in a safe place. For example, you might store them with a friend or relative who lives out of the area.

Get Copies of Prior Year Tax RecordsIf you need a copy of your tax return, you should file Form 4506, Request for Copy of Tax Return. The usual fee per copy is $50. However, the IRS will waive this fee if you are a victim of a federally declared disaster. If you just need information that shows most line items from your tax return, you can request a free transcript by calling 1-800-908-9946. Two other options are to file Form 4506T-EZ, Short Form Request for Individual Tax Return Transcript, or Form 4506-T, Request for Transcript of Tax Return.

You can also obtain IRS tax forms and publications online any time at IRS.gov/forms.

IRS Disaster HotlineIf you fall victim to a disaster, know that the IRS stands ready to help. You can call the IRS disaster hotline at 866-562-5227 for special help with disaster-related tax issues.

Robert Goodman’s STRAIGHT TALK ABOUT SMALL BUSINESSTM Newsletter • October 2016 • Page 3

Great leaders catch and correct problems while they’re still small and able to be managed without a lot of hassle. — Beth Ramsay

We may encounter many defeats, but we must not be defeated. — Maya Angelou

Passion is the driving element of purpose. When one is possessed with it, labor is not perceived as

toil — it is revealed as love. — T.F. Hodge

If you are working on something that you really care about, you don’t have to be pushed. The vision

pulls you. — Steve Jobs

People need to feel safe to be who they are — to speak up when they have an idea, or to

speak out when they feel something isn’t right. — Eunice Parisi-Carew

Can Employees Trust Your Promises?

Your employees’ trust in you diminishes every time you make a “pretend commitment.”

That’s when you say “yes” but you really mean “maybe.” Are you guilty of making pretend commitments? Follow this action plan to rebuild your team’s trust in you:

• Make a list of any pretend or “soft” commitments you’ve made. Be honest with yourself and include as many items as appropriate.

• Select one to concentrate on. Choose an important commitment that people may be counting on.

• Ask questions. Why did you make this commitment? How did you justify it to yourself? Be as truthful and thorough as you can.

• Look at your other pretend commitments. Did you use the same justification or rationalization for making them? What has happened as a result of your soft commitments? This might include productivity problems, interpersonal issues, team performance, and more.

• What can you do to resolve the situation? Maybe you could delegate the commitment to a willing volunteer. Or perhaps you can come up with the will power to commit yourself fully.

• Think about communication. Whatever you do, you’ll have to communicate it to your team. Think of the words you’ll use and how they might affect your people.

• Make a new list. On this list, detail your commitments and how you plan to resolve them. Give yourself a deadline for dealing with each one. Then go out and do it.

our employees’ trust in you diminishes every

commitments? Follow this action plan to rebuild

yourself and include as many items as appropriate.

commitment? How did you justify it to yourself? Be

See What’s Inside...Time Management Techniques That Will

Give You An Extra 10 Hours a Weekto Work on Your Business

Bring Innovation To Your Business

Revamp Your Finances To Save More Money

IRS Advice for Hurricane Season and Natural Disasters

Can Employees Trust Your Promises?

Keep Your Kids — And Yourself —Safe This Halloween

Robert Goodman’s STRAIGHT TALK ABOUT SMALL BUSINESSTM Newsletter • October 2016 • Page 4

Halloween is one of the most popular holidays of the year. Most people love dressing up and

getting candy and other treats. You and your family have to be cautious, though. Follow these tips for a happy and safe Halloween:

Children• Bring a flashlight.

• Use sidewalks; if no sidewalk is available, walk on the left side of the road, facing traffic.

• Don’t go into unfamiliar neighborhoods; approach only houses that are lit.

• Bring a watch you can read in the dark.

• Don’t wear masks that interfere with your vision.

• Wear reflective markings or tape on costumes so motorists can see you.

• Carry a cell phone to call home in an emergency.

Parents• Provide dinner before trick-or-treating.

• Accompany young children.

• Look for flame-retardant costumes.

• Know where older children are trick-or-treating.

• Inspect candy for tampering; discard anything suspicious.

Homeowners• Remove from your yard any ladders, hoses, dog leashes, flowerpots, or other items that children could trip on.

• Keep pets inside; they may bite if frightened by the noise and commotion.

• If using real candles in a jack-o’-lantern, place your pumpkin away from where trick-or-treaters may stand.

• Keep paper or cloth decorations away from any candle flame.

• Provide healthy alternatives to candy, like fruit rolls, mini-boxes of raisins, or popcorn.

• Consider offering nonfood treats like pencils, stickers, coins, or erasers.

• Keep paper or cloth decorations away from

raisins, or popcorn.

• Consider offering

pencils, stickers, coins,

Keep Your Kids — And Yourself — Safe This Halloween

“Delivering Value”1340 Centre Street, Suite 200Newton Center, MA, 02459Ph: (617) 964-4766 • Fax: (617)904-1141 Website: rg-cpa.com • Email: bob@rgcpa.comMember: AICPA, Mass Society of CPAs, Panalitix, 20/20 Group

“Successful Business”Check out Successful Business for great ideas to grow your business.

Tip #13 – Resolve ComplaintsFor more great ideas on how to grow your business, call or email us for your free copy of Successful Business.