4 Key Investments You Should Consider as a Small-Business Owner

As a small-business owner, you may be looking for the next big thing—an investment that might double your profits within the next year or allow you to maintain your income while working just a few hours a week. However, business success may depend on many incremental investments you make along the way.

By including investments that fall outside the financial realm, you may better position your business and yourself to take advantage of future opportunities. Here are four key investments that may help your business thrive.

Invest in Your Health

Starting a company is all-consuming. You may find yourself relying on too many fast-food meals and getting too little exercise as you put in the long hours needed to get your business going. Nevertheless, business success may be anticlimactic if you are not healthy enough to enjoy it.

Invest in yourself by taking time for self-care, exercise, time with family, and healthy meals. Realize that your business may only be as healthy as you are.

Invest in Your Education

Education is more accessible than ever, including pay-per-credit-hour classes at local community colleges and online courses from some of the country's most reputable universities. Small-business owners may take advantage of these educational opportunities to expand their knowledge on any number of subjects.

Perhaps you want a greater understanding of grants or loan opportunities that may be available. You might desire to learn about a new marketing strategy. Investing in your education may give you a knowledge base to support you throughout your entrepreneurial efforts.

Invest in Financial Professionals

If you try to run your business while also doing your taxes and keeping your books, you may find that there are not enough hours in the day to do everything. It is challenging to stay abreast of legal, tax, and regulatory changes that impact your business. Under such circumstances, financial professionals can be beneficial.

Having a financial professional handle your taxes and help you work towards making your business more tax-efficient may positively affect net income even with the existing revenues from sales. For example, you might change the way your company operates or the state in which your business is located to improve the tax efficiency for your business.

Invest in Your Business

When your business starts, it may be tempting to run it as lean as possible to boost profits and increase your attractiveness to lenders. But at some point, running your business too sparingly may create a problem. You might not capture the opportunities to make your business more efficient.

Whether upgrading equipment or purchasing new software, investing in your business may yield a higher return on investment if it frees up valuable employee time to help expand your customer base. Be sure to consider investments in technology and assets that might help your business perform better.

Important Disclosures

The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual.

This information is not intended to be a substitute for specific individualized tax advice. We suggest that you discuss your specific tax issues with a qualified tax advisor.

This article was prepared by WriterAccess.

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