Blumer & Associates, CPAs, PC - Certified Public Accountants

There is a lot of talk about how broke the states are around the US.  And South Carolina is no different.  South Carolina passed a law back in June of 2010 to raise the amount of wages which are taxed for SC unemployment purposes.  As far back as I can remember, all wages earned in SC up to $7,000 were taxed to employers for unemployment purposes.

But beginning January 1, 2011, that wage base went up to $10,000.  That means all wages earned in SC are now taxed up to $10,000 for each employee.  And this is an expense that employers have to carry.  This will not affect the employees’ paychecks.

And it’s going up more each year:

Wage base in 2010:  $7,000
Wage base in 2011:  $10,000
Wage base in 2012:  $12,000 (will remain here for a few years)
Wage base in 2015:  $14,000

So beware: your first quarter’s unemployment tax bill is going to be a doozy, since you don’t pay this unemployment tax bill until the end of the first quarter.  Get ready for it (and save some cash)!

Remember who determines your company’s value in the marketplace…

I had an interesting experience with my merchant company recently.  And it highlights how the “marketing voice” of large corporations has moved from the company itself to the users of the services and products.

Intuit’s Innovative Merchant Solutions is my merchant company, mainly because they tie directly into their QuickBooks product.  They recently held up some of my merchant deposits for almost a month and caused some problems for our company internally, our employees and our clients.  They couldn’t say why and said they would research it.  Not good.

But everyone makes mistakes, right?

So I called to remedy the situation.  I got an employee who was unable to help me because he had obviously never been trained on how to deliver the brand of Intuit on the phone, and did not even have the power to resolve my issues in the first place.  They blamed me for not checking my clients to see if they first had enough money to sufficiently allow me to draft their accounts.  Well, that was the first thing I did.  And when I told the representative this, he proceeded to tell me to “make sure you always check first that your clients have enough funds before you draft their accounts.”  So he told me it was my fault again.  Not good.

So I tweeted abut it and put it on Facebook to see if they would respond (because I’ve incurred over $200 in fees now because of their mistakes).  The did not respond after thousands of people heard what they did.  My voice dominated this conversation, and their voice was no where to be found.  Not good. (and now I’m blogging about it - please RT!).

So at this point, I’ve decided to leave this “innovative” merchant for a more innovative solution (“innovation” in this scenario is not a very high bar to surmount, so anything will do).  But then they sent me an automated survey.  Oh goody - I rolled up my sleeves and got started.  I filled it out and gave them good feedback, but was not mean-spirited.  The last comments section was an open-ended question so I took my time to fill out that section to really help them in the future.  I spent too long on the question and the browser timed out.  Not good.

I was thinking of using Authorize.net because they sync with many cloud products, and someone also suggested Chargify.  And now Daniel Hauer with North American Bancard contacted me over Facebook noting that I was having trouble with my merchant company.  He is monitoring social media and he would love to help me out. (Daniel’s number is 248-876-4502 and his email is .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)).

Not sure who I’ll use yet.

Take aways:
1.  Remember who determines your company’s value in the marketplace.  It’s not you!  It’s your clients and customers.  They determine what your value is, and they determine if you are worthy to be used.  Please don’t forget this.
2.  Institute ways where “real” people can engage and communicate with users of your services and products.  Don’t leave your voice out of what is being said concerning your company and brand.  Big mistake.
3.  Remember that our marketplace is getting younger and younger.  And these new users of your products use social media, and they have real influence with their colleagues. I’ve tweeted about my experience, put it on Facebook and now I’m blogging about it.  Will I hear from Innovative Merchant Solutions?  Probably not.

Am I being too harsh?  What do you think?

We made a mistake with a client recently.  It really stinks when we do that!  But don’t be surprised - making mistakes is a part of the human life.  You do it in your business too.

Anytime we make a mistake in the firm it becomes an opportunity to prove our integrity.  We confess fully what we did, tell the full truth, and we let the consequences be what they may.  Confessing mistakes can lead to the client leaving our firm (almost never happens), or proving to the client what we are really made of.

We could lie.  There are a lot of technical compliance complexities to our industry, and we could lean on one of those to push the burden a little further away from our doorstep.  But let’s compare the options of lying to our clients and telling them the full truth.

If we lie, the clients may not even know that we did anything wrong.  They may be neutral about our firm, with no change in how they feel about us.  We’ve basically gained nothing.

If we confess our mistake, the client has now learned two things (at least) about our firm: (1) we will tell them when we make a mistake, and (2) they trust us more after the mistake than they did before the mistake because of #1.

What do you think?  Do you leverage your mistakes in other ways?

Our client, CoWork Greenville, LLC, has a bunch of creative clients and friends moving into their new space soon near downtown Greenville, SC.  The office is going to be awesome, so if you are looking for a long-term or temporary space to be innovative and collaborative, check them out.

CoWork’s web is: http://www.coworkgreenville.com

Check out this video by Jamin Jantz, a Project Manager for the creatives, and one of CoWork’s members:

A client sent me a great article on how to build referrals in your business.  It got me thinking about some other recent stuff I’ve read on building referrals.

Here are some of my take-aways:

1.  Asking for referrals is one of the greatest ways to build business, but we never do it.  If you consistently serve your clients well, then they would probably be happy to send you referrals.  They’re just busy (like you) and don’t think about it.  Ask!

2.  Ask for referrals right after you’ve delivered a superior service or product.  Start it this way, “If I was able to add value to you, do you think there is anyone you know that I could help as well?”

3.  Setup a process to ask for referrals.  Our firm’s marketing person (my wife) has helped me do this in our firm.  We have made a list of the top clients that we do a lot of work for, and have strategically put them on my calendar throughout the year to call and ask for a referral.  If we didn’t have a process, I would have forgotten.  But its working.

4.  Tell your referral sources about what you do, and who would make a good client.  I often meet with potential contacts just to see what they need and what type of client they are looking for.  Likewise, they ask me what type of client I am looking for.  We often think of clients that could mutually benefit each other right in our meeting.  Very helpful.

5.  Meet a lot of new people.  This takes a lot of time, but anytime I travel, I’m always looking to meet new people in the city I’m traveling to.  Never waste that opportunity to simply make an acquaintance with other people.  You never know, maybe the barista’s brother-in-law just told him about a friend’s mother that needs your services.  Building your business ALWAYS means building relationships – you never know where it will lead.

6.  Now it’s your turn – please let me know how you build referrals… (leave it in the comments above)

Thanks, Jason M. Blumer