Take a look at our January newsletter!
January 2022
HANSON HEADLINES
CraigHansonCPA.com • (701) 252-6190
4 Tactics to a Happier Tax Season
Let’s Get Through It!
Happy new year! I hope this newsletter finds you and your family well and that you’ve enjoyed a festive, happy celebration with your loved ones this holiday season. The new year doesn’t just bring about a fresh set of 365 days; it’s also the start of tax season! While this occasion may not elicit as many cheers as it does groans, the start of a new year should always serve as a reminder to begin preparing for tax season. It’s not the most exciting task on your to-do list, but if you do start now, you’ll experience a less stressful start to 2022.
respond and act quickly was almost a joke — something we tax professionals could find humor in. Now, it’s no longer funny. Together, we can do our best to get you the data, responses, and money you’re owed in a timely manner, but it’s important to be patient. There is one way you could expedite the process or ensure this potentially rocky journey goes smoothly: Be prepared and file early! Start the prep work for tax season in January, organize your documents, and file earlier than your tax deadline to get a jump on any potential delays the IRS may throw your way. While we cannot control their approach, we can anticipate the IRS’s shortcomings and help you avoid unnecessary slowdowns. Plan ahead for tax season next year. I know, I know — you just started this year’s taxes, so why would you begin planning for the 2022 tax season? This is a favor for your future self. As you move through this tax season, make note of what worked well and what hasn’t. Do you need to organize your documents better? Are you optimizing tax laws to protect your wealth and save more? Are you being as accurate as possible? Find the gaps, and I can help you fix them. But it all starts with this season.
All forecasts for this upcoming tax season predict that it will be a hectic one, so I advise you to start doing the following now!
Prepare your documents. An extensive amount of paperwork and documentation goes into tax preparation. When you push collecting this information to a later date, you risk losing valuable data or end up creating unnecessary extra work to find what you need. Employers have until Jan. 31 to provide employees with the documentation they need to file, but you can start gathering other reports and valuable documents, like donation receipts, retirement savings account details, and reports of large sale items, like a new home. Store this information somewhere that is password- and/or fire-protected. Don’t forget about crypto. With the growth in popularity of cryptocurrency, the IRS is questioning the uses of this type of investment and income. The IRS has made intensive inquiries into the thousands of forms of cryptocurrencies available on the market today, so it’s important to not forget this form of transactional and ultimately taxable currency, unless you want to land in hot water with the IRS. Prepare for delays. (Hint: File early!) The pandemic affected our world in many, many ways, and one of the lasting impacts of this event has been the major slowdown of the IRS. In the past, the agency’s inability to
Doing your taxes will not be the highlight of your year, but it also doesn’t have to be a pain or nuisance. Let’s start 2022 on
the right track: Prepare, file early, and begin planning now to conquer what could be a busy season. And remember, it’s my job to help you! If you need additional guidance, please ask.
Happy tax prep!
—Craig Hanson
CraigHansonCPA.com
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Stop Losing Clients Today! R etention is crucial to your business. According to Investopedia, acquiring a new client can cost five times as much as retaining an existing
6 Ways to Rethink Your Retention Marketing
one. And if that doesn’t convince you, research from Bain & Company and the Harvard Business School both show that a 5% increase in customer retention can boost profits by as much as 95%.
Make personalization possible. In order to retain customers, you must build quality relationships with them. This starts with knowing who they are, what they need, and how they interact with your company and your marketing. To figure out those key points, you should gather and interpret a lot of data, both online and off. You can do some of this data-gathering and calculating yourself (for example, you might consider calculating the lifetime value or LTV of each client), but hiring a third-party data analytics company will help you take your retention marketing to the next level. SAS, Alteryx, Kissmetrics, and InsightSquared are great options for small-business owners. Hire (or create) a retention expert . If you truly want to maximize your retention, you need to make it an integral part of your team’s marketing approach. Investing in specialized training for your team is one way to do this. But you can also hire a retention expert or shift one of your existing team members’ roles to focus exclusively on managing and retaining clients. Yes, hiring is expensive, but remember — increasing customer retention by just 5% can increase profits by as much as 95%. That new team member will pay for themselves in no time! Retention marketing mindset shifts will be game-changers for your company. You can start with one of these tips or dive into all of them. Whatever feels right for you, if you try these ideas, it won’t be long before you’ll see the difference in your bottom line.
If you don’t have appropriate retention strategies in place, 2022 is the perfect time to make a change! Here are 6 ways to completely rethink your retention marketing that will save your team time and money. Reallocate your resources . Don’t just talk the retention talk — walk the walk! In order to truly change your company’s ways, you need to invest in retention and reallocate your resources. Provide your team with additional training on customer service. Important points to emphasize for retention (per Forbes magazine) include frequent and friendly customer communication, transparency, active listening, and the value of relationship-building. Create a fund for customer perks and gifts. Celebrating your clients allows you to give them attention when they might appreciate it most. If you know a customer who recently had a baby or is going through a difficult time, consider sending a gift or a card to show you're thinking about them. These gifts cost resources, but as Newswire reports, multiple studies show that customer gifts increase retention. Invest in retention tools. Staying in touch with your customers is the best way to keep them happy and remind them that you care. You can stay on top of this by doing the hard work of reaching out personally each month, but it’s easier and more efficient to invest in recurring communications like automated weekly emails and regularly printed newsletters.
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HAVE A Laugh
January is a busy month for sports, which includes football playoffs and the NBA and NHL seasons. Stars from each of these leagues have cultivated a global fan base and become celebrities, but this is nothing new. Thousands of years ago, many gladiators reached untold levels of fame, too. For the most part, gladiators were not born into nor did they receive much wealth. In most cases, they were originally slaves who became so indebted they had to sell their bodies. Many slaves were chosen and sent to gladiatorial schools, where they trained to become the best, too. For their fights, the Colosseum in Rome was built almost 2,000 years ago and could seat up to 75,000 people. For comparison, the largest U.S. stadiums hold a little over 100,000 people. Back then, there were no Jumbotrons or screens to see from far away. Tens of thousands of people would happily watch gladiator fights with nothing but eyes. Gladiators: The Original Celebrity Athletes?
The story of gladiators prove athletes are and always have been influential.
Go Brandless!
It’s Back and Better Than Ever
Brandless is thriving again, nevertheless. When Brandless shut down, they cited their struggle with fierce competition and business model inviability in the direct-to-consumer market. Part of the problem was that Brandless simply wasn’t sustainable in the way Sharkey and Leffler originally hoped.
Companies like Warby Parker have built a powerful customer following for creating direct-to-consumer products that slash prices by cutting out the middleman. Now, Brandless is doing the same thing for small, everyday purchases.
When you buy peanut butter, you’re not just buying the product — you’re also buying the brand attached to it, along with its costs of distributing and warehousing, plus retail space. By eliminating what co-founder and CEO Tina Sharkey calls a “brand tax,” she realized Brandless could significantly cut down the costs for small products that people bought every day.
That’s when Utah-based digital marketing exec Ryan Treft entered the picture. He’s the new CEO, and his vision has, thus far, helped make the consumer’s “quality to price valued product” daydream a reality. "It's not about racing other brands to the
bottom of being the cheapest, because that's where people compromise on the quality, the ingredients," Treft said. His new leadership promises to uphold Brandless’ previous commitments to keep all its products free from 400 potentially harmful ingredients, including parabens, sulfates, and synthetic dyes. For a new “brand” that attracted a lot of attention back when it was in its early stages, Brandless is certainly back to the top with its newer product lines in personal care. They’ve received great reviews and attention across platforms. Congrats for fighting your way back, Brandless!
When Sharkey and veteran entrepreneur Ido Leffler came up with the concept of Brandless, it immediately caught fire. They raised over $16 million in November 2016, and at launch, received over $50 million in venture capital from New Enterprise Associates, Google Ventures, and others. However, their business model didn’t sustain itself forever — Sharkey stepped down as CEO in May 2019 after friction between her and lead investor SoftBank Vision Fund. By February 2020, Brandless had shut down and laid off 90% of its workforce, leaving only a few to manage open orders.
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905 James Ave. NE • Jamestown, ND 58401 (701) 252-6190 • CraigHansonCPA.com Inside This Edition
Have tax problems? Unsure what to do? Before you do anything, call me to get a special report, "The 7 Secrets the IRS Doesn’t Want You to Know!” Call (701) 252-6190 to get your free copy today!
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4 Ways to Make Tax Season Easier
6 Retention Strategies That Actually Work
The Original ‘Celebrity’ Athletes
Go Brandless —Their Unique Comeback Story
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Make Neuroplasticity Your Secret to Success
Is Neuroplasticity the Secret to Success? 6 Scientifically Proven Ways to Boost Your Brain Power
Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to change and adapt throughout your life, forming new connections that can have a direct impact on your energy, productivity, focus, creativity, motivation, and much more. Your brain can expand and grow even after an injury. That’s why many entrepreneurs are saying the same thing: One of the smartest ways to invest in your business is to devote resources to your most important asset — your brain. But how do you keep your brain active, healthy, and functioning at a high level? Param Dedhia, MD, says six key areas are involved: sleep, exercise, joy, nutrition, internal medicine, and inflammation. All of these factors work independently, but together, they can promote neuroplasticity, which is why they all require equal attention. Everyone wants to stay engaged with the world around them, but you can’t do that without sleep. In fact, research published by the journal PLOS One discovered that getting six or fewer hours of sleep was associated with memory and executive function problems, i.e. problem-solving, planning, and execution. So, make sure you get enough sleep before tackling your day.
Exercise is crucial because, according to brain plasticity researchers at IOS Press, exercise “alters the synaptic structure and function in various brain regions,” promoting brain growth and even delaying the onset of Alzheimer’s
disease. Promoting growth can also be as simple (or as difficult) as focusing our attention on thoughts that bring us joy. Gratitude promotes very different brain activity than negativity, anger, or bitterness, and studies on gratitude show that the positive effects can be lifelong. Nutrition can’t be understated either, since it can assist your body in maintaining health and fighting inflammation. The brain uses about 20% of the body’s calories, and eating plenty of omega-3 fatty acids can strengthen brain cells, while antioxidants reduce cellular stress and inflammation, which are linked to brain aging and neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer’s disease. With the right habits, you can keep your brain healthy for many decades to come. You might even grow in entirely new and unexpected ways.
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