Several weeks ago I was asked to be a guest on a podcast show called The Christian Entrepreur Show. Amos Johnson, Jr., is a professor, author, entrepreneur, and the host of the program.

The show aired yesterday on his site.

On the show, I talked about my journey through the market crash of 2008, and some of the things God taught me during that rough period. 

I was also asked an interesting question:

What is one mistake you made that you learned from?

I answered with one mistake that was almost made, but  was avoided because of some great encouragment from a trusted source.

Find out what mistake was avoided, and who gave the advice by checking out the podcast here.

Conflict is a normal part of any relationship. However, when conflicts involve family relationships and they include issues regarding business and money, your relationships can take a turn for the worse. While conflict will always be inevitable, here are some ways to prevent and overcome the frequency of these conflicts.

Even if your family business is a model of harmony, having some sort of plan in place to deal with conflicts is a good idea. The more open the family is about discussing and working out the conflicts the more likely your business is to succeed. The key is to take your disagreements and use them to your advantage to make the business better and stronger, rather than let them break you down.

Let’s take a look at some simple guidelines to help avoid problems within the family before they even have the chance to arise.

Conduct regular family meetings

Include all family members who own shares or that play an important role in the business, along with their spouses, in-laws and other members who can influence decision making. Another good idea might be to invite your professional accountants or lawyers, to attend some of these meetings, depending on what is discussed.

Do not assume that informal meetings can do the job, or that discussions will or should “trickle down” to the other members of the family. If you allow this to happen, you run the risk of lack of communication and distrust.

Create a formal written policy governing the participation of the family business.

Specify a process of decision making, rules of succession, salary guidelines and equity, dispute resolution, and other vital points. Do not depend entirely on lawyers or other outsiders to establish a family policy.  The actual process of creating the document within the family is as important as the final result. This is not intended as a legal document, but rather a reflection of the shared family ethics and corporate culture.

Conduct performance evaluations.

 Evaluations are also an important source of feelings of grief and family conflicts. Develop a formal structured assessment that everyone understands and accepts. Focus on improving the performance of family work rather than merely to point out its flaws and weaknesses. Use this time to acknowledge the good work and efforts put forth. This will help encourage better individual performances as well as increased team efforts.

Be specific about compensation and property guidelines.

Compensation is another source of conflict in family businesses. Some family businesses will always try to keep peace by paying everyone the same, regardless of their contributions. This false equality can work in the short term but will eventually alienate family members who are not recognized and rewarded for their work.

Similarly, relatives, spouses and distant members of the family may want a stake in the business, but more active members may not be willing to lessen their authority in making decisions. Rather than completely avoiding family members, consider offering votes and non-voting shares. This gives everyone a stake in the business, while limiting decisions to a central group. It can also help maintain the power structure, which otherwise may be spread too thin as future generations enter the business.

Finally, remember that not having enough conflict can be as destructive as having too much conflict. Constructive criticism and debate are essential for growth. You should not “manage” the conflict to avoid it or pretend it does not exist. It’s much better to face these problems head on and use conflict to the advantage of bettering the business.

This article was written by William from Home Loan Finder.

Small Business Start Up Advice

Starting a small business is no simple task.

A great number of people have been in the same situation as you, frustrated with their job, ready to take orders from only themselves, and filled with the ‘perfect’ idea for starting a small business.

However, without knowledge of how to actually start a small business and what it takes to manage one successfully, many of them fail.

Failure in a small business is often not because the idea was bad.  Rather, great ideas fail simply because the execution of that idea was poor.

This is largely to blame for the eager entrepreneur jumping the gun and starting a small business before he or she did the right research.

Adequate research will tell you whether or not your small business idea has the potential for success.

Unfortunately, many small business owners make some big mistakes, but well managed businesses have a few things in common.

Let’s take a look at some small business advice worth considering for starting a small business:

Location, Location, Location

The first piece of small business advice a new owner needs to consider is location.

For instance, let’s say you want to open a knitting shop. There may not be very many shops in your area solely dedicated to knitting, but you happen to know that there are a lot of people interested in the craft.

You can’t simply open a storefront and wait for the customers to appear. You first have to choose the right location for your small business.

You will have to scout many options and decide which ones would actually draw a significant amount of traffic.

You’ll have to ask yourself if a specific location is easy to access and if there are other small businesses around that might attract the same type of customers.

But location is only the beginning of your small business management study.

Profit Margin

Next, you have to look at how much your location costs and how much you can really make selling knitting supplies.

In other words you need to look at your profit margin.

As the business owner you will have to pay yourself and your staff. You will have to buys supplies to stock your store and decor to make it look nice.  There will be insurance and licensing you will be required to purchase.

In addition you will have to pay rent and utilities at your location. How much yarn, per day would you have to sell to make enough money to meet all of those expenses and still make a living and save for your goals?

You might find that starting a small business is not such a great idea after all.

Advice from Other Successful Business Owners

But, if you think that you can make enough money to pay your expenses and make a decent living,  the next step is to talk to people experienced in your line of work.

While you might not want to go to your direct and local competitor you can probably find another small business owner in a non-competing area who is willing to give you advice.

Just make sure they have a similar type of small business – someone else with a craft store is a far better mentor then someone who owns a pizza parlor.

Do not be afraid to ask questions.

Find out about their struggles, their mistakes, and the things they wish they had known before starting their small business.

The value of other peoples experiences cannot be underestimated in life or in business management.

These steps are not intended to deter you from your dream of starting a small business or of business management.

They are intended to help you jump into starting a small business being prepared with good research and a great plan for making money and being happy at work.

Just as there are loads of small business failures there are also loads of people who had a good idea, did good research and came out ahead of the game.

Some went on to huge success – others just enough success and a huge amount of happiness.

This article was written by William Eve, a regular personal finance writer for Home Loan Finder, a 100% free mortgage comparison and application service. Visit the Home Loan Finder website for the most competitive investment loans and first home buyer loans on the market.

This was a post I originally did on ChristianPF.com. I’ve adapted it some for my site, but you can check out the original here.

It seems there are more and more people becoming self employed these days - or at the very least, many folks are starting a side business, turning a hobby into some extra income or doing some type of independent contractor work.

In my day job, I am actually an independent contractor so I know quite well there are some things to remember if you’re self employed.

Whether you’ve decided to turn your blog into a business, sell a multi-level marketing product or rent a storefront to start selling your homemade jewelry there are some mistakes you will definitely want to avoid.

Not Having Your Small Business Set Aside Money for Taxes

This seems simple enough, but is probably one of the biggest tax mistakes people make .  The number of people I talk to that haven’t set aside money for taxes is pretty high. 

If you are a 1099 contractor, the company you are contracted with does not pull out small business taxes for you. 

At first, this feels great because your paycheck is higher – then reality sets in when it’s time to file your taxes.

Uncle Sam requires you to make quarterly estimated tax payments.  If you don’t have enough paid in for your estimated taxes you could face some penalties. 

I recently talked to someone who didn’t think they really needed to set money aside for his independent contractor work and figured he could just use his savings to pay the taxes.

He ended up making a little more than he thought by the end of the year and couldn’t pay all the tax liability.  He got whacked with some stiff penalties and is now making recurring payments to the IRS until his debt is wiped out.

Another thing people fail to realize is the self-employment tax that’s due.  This was a kick in the gut to me after my first year of self-employment.

Uncle Sam charges 15.3% tax for small business in addition to your regular income tax!  This is equivalent to the FICA tax on a regular paycheck.  The good news is that you can deduct half of your self-employment tax, but you still have to pay this small business tax! 

What I do to help me throughout the year is any time I get paid, I set aside a certain percentage of my money right away into a separate bank account, which is labeled Uncle Sam’s.  Then each quarter I take that money and make a quarterly estimated tax payment.

In the fourth quarter I do a quick assessment of where I am in terms of income and tax payments and adjust accordingly.  This has worked well for me the last few years.

Small business taxes are an annoying part of being self employed, but it’s a must.

Not Considering Incorporating a Business

Many self-employed folks start out as a sole proprietor.  They themselves are the business and everything (income, expenses and liabilities) gets funneled through their own personal account.

To set the record straight, not everyone should incorporate a business. 

If you’re not planning on going “big time” with your small business or you’ve decided you just want your hobby to make enough to cover expenses, it probably doesn’t make sense to pay the fees associated with incorporation.

It does make sense, however, to at least consider whether incorporating a business is right for you.  One benefit of incorporating is that you can get around the self-employment tax.

The biggest benefit however is limited liability.  This means that the business - not the owner - is personally responsible for its obligations. 

In other words, if the business gets sued, only the business assets are at risk, not all of your own personal assets like in a sole proprietorship.

So incorporating a business can be a pretty big advantage – definitely one worth considering.

Not Keeping Track of Income and Expenses

This is one of those mundane tasks that most owners hate, but every business must do in order to maximize deductions as well as protect themselves from an IRS audit.

A business owner should really be organized when it comes to keeping track of income and expenses.  Don’t write down your mileage on a napkin each time you travel.  

Your bookkeeper will thank you for that.  Or, if you are acting as bookkeeper you’ll appreciate your organization as your business grows.

Get a notebook, use a spreadsheet or some budgeting or personal finance software to track the amount of your expenses, the category (i.e. office supplies) and a brief explanation of what you purchased etc.

Don’t rely on your memory to come through for you when you need to report an expense.  Keep your receipts, develop a system and keep up to date.

I typically store all my receipts in one place for the week and then each Friday I pay bills, track my expenses in a spreadsheet, review my income and take a look at profit and loss statements. 

This may be a bit much depending on what type of business you are in, so just be sure you come up with a system that works for you.

Avoiding these mistakes as a self-employed person will help free up time, save you money and protect your business so you can maintain a long and profitable career.

What are some other mistakes you would avoid?