Tag: entrepreneurship

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Mastering the Art of the First Impression

At National Tax Office, we want to put all our entrepreneur clients on the right track when starting a successful business. Since you’ll be meeting with potential clients of your own, one of the most critical things you need to keep in mind is the importance of a first impression. A first impression can make or break a visit with a client. A good entrepreneur will want to give off a feeling of confidence and competence to potential clients. Here are a few tips that you should follow if you want to make your business a success.

Start with a Firm Handshake

First meetings in professional relationships often start off with a handshake. When shaking hands, make sure to use a firm, complete grip and maintain eye contact. A loose, wimpy handshake can signify weakness. A firm handshake indicates to many people that you’re confident, trustworthy, and you have leadership qualities.

Be Courteous

You should always meet any potential client with courtesy and respect. Although most people know about this and try to be courteous, a person can be discourteous without even realizing it. One of the most discourteous things you can do is to constantly check your phone. Whether it’s to send a text or even just to check your mail, it sends a message to a client that you have more important things to do.

Use Positive Body Language

Just like how a good handshake can indicate favorable factors about you, using positive body language can do the same. Make sure your expressions and gestures remain positive. Keep a friendly tone of voice while you’re speaking. Also, maintain eye contact with your client while either of you are talking.

Be an Active Listener

Instead of spending more time thinking about what you’re going to say, make sure to actually listen when your potential clients speak. Don’t interrupt; listen to everything a client says. Also, be sure to ask questions to show that you’re paying attention and you’re interested in the conversation that’s going on.

Humanize Your Conversations

This is something that many professionals and businessmen can forget. Don’t be too stiff. Try to find some common ground in a topic that can be fun for you both (though taxes can be fun too!). Taking a few minutes to befriend and make a connection will go a long way toward turning your potential client into a client.

Contact Us Today!

For the entrepreneur who has paid attention and adhered to the tips, you’re one step closer to gaining the trust of your client and gaining repeat business. If you have any questions or comments, please don’t hesitate to contact us online or by phone at (844) 686-1040. We hope to hear from you soon!

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How Diet Affects Your Work

Entrepreneurs are constantly looking for ways to improve efficiency and productivity, and if you fit this description, we’ll bet you’ve read countless books, articles, and blog posts on the newest way to enhance your work output. But while you may be up to your eyeballs in time tracking systems and organization tools, there’s one productivity hack we bet you’re not considering: your food.

More Than Just Fuel

For most of us – particularly busy workaholics – food is just fuel. We prepare it (or, more likely, purchase it) and eat it as quickly as we can, eager to get our midday fix and get on back to work. But that’s a flawed analogy, because food gives us more than just energy. Food is literally how the body creates itself on a continual basis, and this constant process of remaking has a big impact on our productivity.

All food is eventually metabolized into glucose, which our brains and cells burn to create energy and keep going. But that metabolizing happens at different rates. For high carb foods, it happens all at once, giving us a boost of energy followed by a crash. For high fat foods, it’s more of a slow burn – but they make our digestive tract work harder, leading to lower brain oxygen levels and a feeling of grogginess. Healthier foods with more lean protein and omega-3 fats lend themselves to a sustained, well-timed release of energy, leaving you motivated, curious, engaged, and productive throughout the entire day.

Contact Your Tax Preparation Business Partners

Once you’ve got your diet optimized for success and are ready to get to work owning your own business, we’re here to help. If you have questions on how National Tax Office can help you start your own tax preparation business, feel free to call us at 844.686.1040, read up on our FAQ, or reach out to us at our contact page with any questions. We can’t wait to hear from you, and we look forward to helping you live the dream of owning your own business.

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5 Things Wealthy Entrepreneurs Do on a Daily Basis

Tips for Entrepreneurship Success Beyond Managing Money Well

Successful entrepreneurs experience success because they visualize and set goals and then follow that up with actions steps that take them closer to achieving those goals. Additionally, most successful people set themselves up for success through preparation and discipline.  Being able to manage finances is essential for success as well. A great entrepreneur has a budget that they stick to, they invest money wisely, have an emergency fund and are constantly looking for new opportunities for financial success and stability. Here are other tips and tricks that successful individuals practice daily and cost NOTHING.

1. Wake Up Early & Meditate

There’s a saying that goes, “The early bird, catches the worm” and this is so true amongst successful entrepreneurs. Early risers start their days ahead of everyone else and are able to naturally making their day more productive than others. Beyond that, they couple waking up early with a good nights rest and meditation. Taking care of your body and mind through relaxation, regular exercise and healthy eating are essential for improving the chances you will achieve success. Entrepreneurs that practice taking care of their mind, body and soul, tend to be overall happier and can achieve their goals faster than an average person.

2. Network! Network! Network!

Networking is very important to get ahead in life even more today than it was back in the day for Hendry Ford. Networking has a way of connecting people in different ways. Successful entrepreneurs who network are more innovative. Additionally, it is a great way to expand your circle of “go to” people to bounce ideas of off, give and gain advice as well open up avenues for new or different opportunities. Entrepreneurs that network tend to be sincere in helping others succeed and are said to rarely complain or be critical. Entrepreneurs know that for them to succeed, they also need to help others succeed. Network is the best way to meet others and become successful.

3. Entrepreneurs Know When To Say, “NO”

Saying yes to everyone or to everything can cause a person to lose site of their goals and distract them from being able to cross things off of their task list. Successful entrepreneurs are able to say no to things that can steer them away from their path to success. Types of activities successful entrepreneurs say “no” to include:

  • Activities that are a waste of time
  • Extra work
  • Negativity and others

By doing this and knowing when to say no, they are able to focus on increasing their productivity and getting closer to their success goals.

4. Create a To-Do List & Keep Busy

A successful entrepreneur never starts their day without knowing what they have to do that day. Before going to bed, they create a “to-do list” for the next day. Determine the priority level of each task and use it as a guide for the day. Entrepreneurs who are successful are rarely idle; they work anywhere between 60-100 hours per week. That may seem like a lot, but it is what’s necessary to be successful.

5. Keep the TV Off & Read More

Did you know that 85% of wealthy people love to read and 88% of those spend 30 minutes or more a day reading a book that is geared to self-improvement? Successful entrepreneurs keep their eye on growth: financial, personal and network growth. As you grow, so does your level of success.

If you own your own tax preparation business, National Tax Office has the tools to help you become a successful entrepreneur! You don’t have to do it alone. Contact us at 844.686.1040 and lets get you and your business on the right track to success!

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Why Do We Procrastinate?

Everyone has been in the situation where you have to get something done, but then you convince yourself to put it off, even if you had the time to do it right in that moment.  Procrastination is just something that we have a tendency to do, but where did this tendency come from? Why are our brains more inclined to do something later than now?

The Reason Behind Slacking Off

The reason lies in the distinction that we each place upon our present selves and our future selves. In our minds, we tend to value our present self more than our future self, and with this comes the desire to enjoy immediate rewards that benefit our present self.  Of course, those immediate rewards can leave our future self overloaded with work or dealing with a whole mess of problems due to our present self not considering the long-term consequences.

You can look back at any moment that you procrastinated and see the battle between your present and future self.  Let’s say you had some work that you needed to finish but the deadline was a few days away, so you decide to procrastinate and relax instead.  The immediate benefits may be that you could do something fun and enjoyable, but the long term cost is that you are stressed, pressed for time, and even have more work on your plate to finish when that deadline finally rolls around.

How To Combat Procrastination

If you want to break free of your procrastination habits, it may be difficult, but it is possible.  The key to beating procrastination is to make your present self place more value on your future self so that you’re more inclined to make choices with long-term benefits. To achieve this, there are three options that help you, but they do require a high level of self-discipline. 

Make Long-Term Behavior Have Immediate Rewards

While the actual long-term benefits of your choices are far off, you can come up with a way to reward yourself for making that choice.  Whether it’s rewarding yourself by doing something you like (that doesn’t counteract the long term benefit of course), or even just visualizing yourself enjoying those benefits.  Even the process of imagining your future self being better off because of your hard work in the moment can help you feel more immediate satisfaction.  For example, after finishing your work today even if it’s due in a week, imagine yourself having a stress-free day later.

Create Immediate Consequences For Procrastinating

When we procrastinate, our present self usually doesn’t have to deal with any consequences.  In order to convince ourselves to not procrastinate, we need to make it so that we realize the gravity of our choice in the moment.  While it requires a lot of discipline, you need to set consequences that would deter you from procrastinating.  Some examples would be making bets with yourself, like each day you put off your work, you put $20 in a jar.  You can even bring friends or co-workers in for help, with them checking in on your progress and ensuring that you’re not slacking off.

Avoid Causes Of Procrastination

There are countless things that can distract us and prevent us from getting our work done. It’s up to you to try and remove yourself from situations or things that can be distracting so you can focus and work efficiently.  Things like shutting off your phone or finding a quiet place to work will put you in a better environment that encourages work instead of procrastination

Stop Procrastinating A Become Your Own Boss

If you’re an entrepreneur and you want to start your own business, it’s about time you stop procrastinating too. With National Tax Office, we make it easy for you to become your own boss, and open up your own successful tax preparation business.  Don’t procrastinate making this positive change in your life, since all you need to do is contact us to get more information.

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Enhancing Collaboration With “Plussing”

Collaboration is rarely a smooth and simple process. Team members come together and offer opposing ideas with disagreements and critiques abound, and in the end, one idea comes out on top while the rest are tossed aside. While that one idea was able to triumph, what if one of those ideas that didn’t make it had the potential to be something even better? This is where plussing comes in.

What Is Plussing?

Plussing is the practice of following any critique of an idea with a constructing suggestion. What this does is slightly expand and improve on the idea further before it is tossed to the side. It’s from this expansion that can help drive inspiration, and pull in the insight of the entire collaborative team on one idea to explore it’s potential.

The goal of plussing is to not let the process of collaboration be more of a conversation than people just shouting out different ideas until the “best” one is chosen.

How Does Plussing Help?

Below are some of the ways that plussing can help enhance the creative process.

Innovation

Maybe it’s not the idea that inspired someone but the suggestion that someone else made on that idea. Without that suggestion, they would have never been inspired to make that idea even better. From there, others are inspired to come up with even more improvements, and it’s a cycle that can go on and on.

Team Efficiency

Requiring every team member to provide insightful feedback to every idea means that they need a complete and clear understanding of that idea, so they need to stay involved and listen closely to the entire conversation if they want to contribute. Those who are not helping the group’s cause, or tend to cause roadblocks with non-constructive feedback, will naturally be filtered out of the conversation so that the team can continue with its forward progress.

Team Respect & Comfort

While titles and seniority should never play a role in collaborative environment, plussing ensure that every team member is equal, with seniors required to respect and build upon the ideas of the less experienced, who can also learn from the seniors and offer their own, fresh perspective.

The plussing technique has shown to make for a more comfortable collaborative environment, since those who contribute know that their idea or any suggestion that they make will be built upon instead of shot down.