How to Build an Affordable and Attractive Benefits Plan for your Small Business

Finding valuable employees isn’t an easy task and an even harder one if you’re a new or small business owner. You want to find people who will not only put the necessary value into their job but also represent your business well. Fortunately there is a pool of qualified great professionals out there waiting for their opportunity to gain your attention, but with so many competitors, the trick is keeping their attention.

For small business owners, there’s no use in trying to outdo big corporations when it comes to your employee benefits package because although we want to give our all, if we did that, we’d have no company left.

The key to creating the most attractive benefit plan possible is to know your limits while also maximizing on the value of what you can provide. For example, did you know that small business owners can help their employees find practically anything from the best yoga classes to the best auto insurance for the independent contractor?

Small businesses may not be able to offer every possible benefit, but that doesn’t mean the benefit plans have to be terrible. Find out how to make sure your benefits are both attractive and affordable to your employees.

Know Who You Attract

To be a good business owner you have to know your business inside and out, which includes knowing what kind of people your business attracts. Just like dating, every business has “a type,” so knowing who is likely to come work for you will make designing a benefit plan easier than shooting blind.

What are the common health issues folks in your line of business usually have? What are the most popular attractions in your area? Great benefits include anything that makes life easier or more enjoyable, and by offering perks for future care and local activities increases the quality of company culture and can also gather local support for your business.

If buying the mandatory employee benefits in bulk seems to be overwhelming your business’s budget, try exploring smaller multiple options that your employees can choose from. Having multiple options for health, dental, or even student loan repayment programs allows you to keep from overspending on benefits that don’t get utilized.

Think Creatively

The good thing about being a small business is that even though you may not have a corporate budget, you have the freedom to tailor your needs based on worthy talent.

Familiarize yourself with the needs of your community and pick the benefits that tailor to those needs in order to give your business compelling starting points against your competition. If your budget for benefits is small, look into annual and seasonal perks like events and bonuses that give your staff things to look forward to or assistance with things they need.

Helping provide extra money during birthdays or the holiday season for holiday turkeys or extra groceries, or child care are incentives that make employees feel valued which keeps them around longer. You don’t want to lose good talent simply because you couldn’t do the small things you could’ve that show you care about them and their family’s well being. 

Chances are if you’ve thought about starting your own business, you’re a creative person even if you don’t see yourself as such. After pricing out the necessary benefits like health, dental, and retirement plans, try to have things career seekers can actively value and enjoy that will make the positions you offer stand out.

Provide A Cell Phone

This is easy. Business accounts with mobile providers are extremely flexible and great for small businesses. Everyone needs a phone nowadays so why not offer discounts or even to provide mobile devices for your team.

The upside to this is you’ll have dependable communication with your team as well as be able to reap the benefits of having multiple lines. Cell phone carriers want your business so ask for everything, and you may be surprised at what you can get!.

Invest In Mental Health

Health plans are a basic standard when creating a benefit portfolio, but it’s not often someone has an extreme medical emergency so most employees don’t actually feel the perks of this benefit. One way to keep this necessary cost low while giving potential employees something extra to think about is offering something in your benefit package that caters to mental health. This can be something as simple as offering to provide or assist with anything from gym membership to EAP benefits to specified counseling costs. Tailor this to fit your business and your employee’s needs. Look into offering the benefits as individual or office perks depending on your budget.

With the rise in anxiety due to the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more companies are increasing the quality of their mental health benefits for their employees, which just goes to show that mental health care is always needed.

It’s been proven that happy workers are better workers so if you want to optimize the potential with each hire, you should invest in your employees’ mental health just as you invest in your own if not more.

What Options to Take Away

Maybe you’re here, and your business still has some growing before you can fully include more compelling qualities to your employee benefits packages. However, sometimes the best things in life really are free.

Keep your business attractive to talent by providing a positive safe atmosphere for your employees. Attitude goes a long way when deciding if, where, and who you’ll be working with. Make sure you offer an environment that is attractive to all potential talent.

Remember coffee only goes so far when people are showing up everyday to help grow your dream brand. Investing in them in a variety of ways will multiply the value that comes back to you.

It’s okay if you can’t afford all of the bells and whistles as long as the benefits you provide add to your employee’s benefit of life, and these things show that working for you is an experience unlike any other job offer.

 

 

Danielle Beck-Hunter writes and researches for the car insurance comparison site, CarInsuranceComparison.com. Danielle has grown up around entrepreneurs and is a small business owner herself. 

Things to Consider When You’re Opening a Car Dealership

From whether it’s okay to have two car loans at once to ways to compete with your competitors, there’s much to be considered when you’re opening a car dealership. The first thing to consider is if opening and running a car dealership is a viable option for you.

If you have sales experience or a sales manager that does, and a good business head on your shoulders, then it may be a great idea and quite lucrative as well. However, there are a few things to consider and questions you should ask yourself before you make the decision to open your car dealership. A few of those things are listed below for your perusal.

Do Your Research Carefully

The last thing you want to do is jump into the car dealership business without first doing the proper research. The research includes things like whether you need a surety bond for your business, what the best location is to put your business and even taking a few classes to help with marketing and business. The more research you do, the better prepared you’ll be when you finally open your doors.

Your Customer Base

Your target audience is going to be your local community. This consists of family, friends, and sales referrals, especially in the beginning. Is your dealership going to be located in a working-class neighborhood or a more affluent part of town? Who lives in this area? Baby boomers? Retired couples? College students? Knowing these things helps you with what type of cars to carry and what price points to set, as baby boomers can certainly afford a more expensive car than a struggling college student.

Type of Dealership

If you’ve done your research, then you already know that you need to decide on the type of dealership you want to open. Decide whether you want to deal with new cars, used cars, or a mixture of both. You could also focus on luxury cars, foreign cars, or even just electric cars. This will be decided during your research of your customer base, by figuring out what sells the best and what the people of your community are looking for the most.

Your Business and Financial Plan

Never open a business or sink your money into opening a car dealership without drawing up a solid business and financial plan first. If you’ve never developed one of these plans before, it might be best to consult a professional, so it’s done the right way, the first time. This car dealership is your future, so you don’t want to leave anything to chance.

Research Licensing Requirements

To open a car dealership in any state, you’re going to need to have a business license and follow the rules and regulations of that particular state. Each state is different, so make sure to research the licensing requirements in the state you’re opening the dealership in. For example, in Texas, anyone interested in pursing a car dealer career are encouraged to attend a TxDMV Enforcement Division seminar, as well as completing an online education course, in order to be able to get the license they need to start their business.  Some states have few requirements and light fees, while others have heavy fees and stringent requirements for licensing.

Research Legal Provisions and Requirements

Once you open your dealership, you’re going to be required to adhere to federal and state legal provisions and laws. From surety bonds to insurance and laws that differ from state to state, you need to research them all, and if you don’t understand something, ask for help.

These are just a few things to consider when you’re thinking of opening your own car dealership. Considering the things above will help you open your dealership and help you make your business the success you’ve always wanted it to be.

Growing Your Home Business

With more and more of us finding ourselves out of work or working limited hours, this is a great time to consider growing your at-home business. Today with a little funding, a plan, and some creativity, you can turn a passion or side hustle into a full-time role. You can be your own boss and be flexible enough to handle whatever is the next challenge 2020 is going through your way.

Initial Funding:

The first hurdle for a home business is finding the seed capital you need to start. To get others to give you money, you are going to need a clear plan and a clear elevator speech that shows what is unique about the products or services you are planning on providing. Your business does not have to reinvent the wheel; you have to prove you have a different angle to solve a problem or that you can solve it quicker or cheaper than others. Sometimes when starting a business, you will be fortunate and have savings or access to consumer installment loan products. In other cases, you will have to find others who are willing to back your work instead. This might include getting backers who are your family or friends or might consist of using Gofundme. This type of fundraiser is especially useful if you are seeking seed money for something creative like a book, comic, game, etc. By sampling your product and getting it in front of a large number of eyes means you are more likely to find those individuals who love your idea and want to support it.

Next Steps For Financial Health:

As you start your business, its important that you keep your personal and business financials separated. This is important for both tax purposes and for future audits. When you are a business with only you as an employee, this may seem less important, but once you start to expand, you are going to want to have healthy systems in place. Getting your business financials in order is essential, but you also need to think about personal finance as a small business owner. If you want to have a successful business, it’s vital to make sure you have an emergency fund, money put away for retirement, and a handle on your credit health. The last thing you want is to be like the character in many films who is about to lose everything they have because they did not plan in case their business had a hiccup.

How To Use The System For Your Advantage:

The final step to growing a home business is to understand the systems in which you conduct business. This often involves understanding what paperwork you need to files. It could also be determining what copyright issues you have to face. This might mean learning what expenses you can write-off and how to save the most on your tax bill. There are many resources for small businesses both on a local, regional, state, and national levels. While this might seem like a lot of work, it is well worth your time. You are putting your love and passion into this project, and you should take advantage of all the resources which are available to you.

This three-step plan will help you take your dreams and turn them into a successful small business. When faced with everything that 2020 is throwing at us, the satisfaction of such an accomplishment can bring us is indescribable. Allow this to be the beginning of the business that gets discussed long into the future.