Maslins March 2010 Newsletter

Guarantee as a USP

Many businesses are hugely confident in their offering, but convincing potential customers isn't always easy. Even after seeing your brochure, or hearing a recommendation, they still see it as a risk to part with their hard earned cash for your goods/services.

A rock solid guarantee can help alleviate that risk for the customer. Being able to return things to a shop (provided you have a receipt) and getting a refund is fairly commonplace in today's world. However, it isn't anywhere near as common with a service. On most occasions someone is selling their time...which obviously can't be given back and resold. So be different. If you have confidence in what you offer you have little to fear.

One of my friends who's a business coach starts every billable meeting by simply saying "if at the end of the meeting you tell me you don't feel you got value for money, you won't get a bill".

This works brilliantly for him. The client is instantly at ease as they're happy they'll only pay if it's good. You may think there's a risk the customer will simply say they didn't get anything useful regardless of whether they did or not? It's pretty hard to say an outright lie to someone, just after having a successful meeting with them, so very rarely is this guarantee actually used.

If you have something like this in place already, or are now considering implementing it, make sure you advertise it! Just like any other benefit of your service, if potential clients don't know about it, you may as well not have it.

Actually getting this into your marketing can be tricky. The problem is most things that shout out "money back guarantee", "you can't lose" or "risk free" tend to be the dodgiest deals (they need them the most!) As long as you're clear how/why it is risk free, you're onto a winner.

Tax tip of the month

Are you claiming all the expenses you are able to?

Many expenses are pretty obvious and claimed by most business owners. However many people are surprised by some of the things they can claim. This is especially true for the smaller business owner, where often personal and business expenditure aren't quite so obviously separate.

Typical things that many business owners do not claim all they can include:

• Cost of home broadband - If you use it 50% for business, make sure you claim 50% of the cost.
• Mobile phone - if you predominantly have the phone for business purposes, the whole cost is deductible, regardless of whether you make the odd personal phone call.
• Mileage - Keep a log of your business miles done. You can reclaim 40p for the first 10,000 miles per year, 25p for any in excess. This may not sound a huge amount but it's often a few thousand pounds you can draw from the business tax free.
• Subscriptions - Many businesses have annual professional fees. Make sure you claim them.
• Bank interest - If you borrow money in the business name, make sure the interest expense goes through the books.
• Computer costs - As with mobile phones, if the computer was acquired for business purposes, and you can argue any private usage is merely incidental to the business use, the whole cost should go through the books.
• Use of home as office - This was covered in detail in our October 09 newsletter, so take a look if you're not sure about what you're currently claiming.
• Gifts and entertainment - Client entertaining/hospitality is not allowable for tax purposes. However, gifts to clients can be, provided they are <£50/client/year, they bear your business name/logo, and are not food/drink/tobacco/vouchers readily exchanged for cash.

Geeky joke of the month

An architect, artist, and accountant are discussing whether it's better to spend time with their wife or mistress.

The architect piped up first "I prefer to spend time with my wife, building a solid foundation for our relationship."

The artist disagreed, "I prefer to be with my mistress, because of the passion and mystery."

The accountant thought for a moment, then replied "I'd let them both think I was spending time with the other woman. That way I could go to the office and get some work done."