3 Easy Ways to Keep Your Small Business Buzzing

In today’s world everything is literally at our fingertips. Many people are use to getting their news, recommendations for things such as restaurants, shops and services all come in the form of 5 second snips. Gone are the days where people spend time researching in depth to find that perfect fit for whatever they are looking for.

So - how can you position your business to the the “5 second snip” which people are raving about online and to their circle of influence? Below are 3 simple tips to enhance this:

1. Never stop networking. While networking can seem to be most crucial in the infancy stages of a business, the long-term effects will provide profitable results the more the owner or manager is networking. Some examples of ways to network are:

• Local Com,unity Organizations i.e. Chamber of Commerce 
• Philanthropy opportunities for the business
• Local School Booster Clubs
• Like-minded business development groups 

2.  Use social media to your benefit. Never underestimate the power of social media. You have the opportunity to reach a large number of people with free advertising. Yes it takes someone taking time and staying on top of all your outlets; however, the benefits are limitless. You can offer special promotions for your social media followers, announce new products, and reward loyal customers. These are just a few ways to keep your business relevant to people through their social media platforms.


3. Never underestimate the power of hand-written notes. Receiving a hand-written note from a business you frequent will most likely be the icing on the cake for you to become a walking billboard for that business and to return to that business more frequently. You can challenge your team to pick one customer per week or per month and write a note to them of how they are special to you and your business.


urBook$ strives to provide it’s clients with content that will improve your business. Experience the urBook$ Difference today and begin your way to a hassle free life of bookkeeping, payroll and bill paying so you can focus on taking care of your clientele!

Spring Cleaning Tips for Your Tidy Business

Springtime if the perfect time to step back, reflect on your your business and tidy up a few areas. Just like your closet, kitchen pantry or garage - your business needs to be re-arranged, cleaned out and spruced up.

Have you ever stepped back and looked at your business through the eyes of someone who is seeing it for the first time? Sometimes you get use to walking through the same routines, overlooking the same messy shelves or files and don’t realize how “untidy” your business actually is. Take a step back and walk through your day from start to finish looking at things with fresh eyes. Ask yourself these questions:

• Are there items that can be cleaned out? 
• Have you been stacking up things that you haven’t touched since you put them there? 
• If you have a business that has consumers within your storefront - have you looked at the glass on your door? Are there fingerprints older than your business? 
• Would you walk into your own store and purchase your product if it were not your business? 

Looking at things this way can often lead to decluttering your business and making you and your business more successful.

If this task seems overwhelming to you - it might be a good idea to ask for help and make a list of things that need to be addressed. Check them off one-by-one and before you know it you will have a fresh new outlook on your business.

Do you need assistance with your business bookkeeping, bill pay and payroll? urBook$ offers these services to clients in a timely organized fashion utilizing Smart Vault allowing you to access your up to date records at any time. Contact urBook$ today and begin the urBook$ experience to a spring cleaning for your business records! 

How love can impact your life - both personally & professionally!

The month of February always brings the topic of love to many peoples minds.  It is usually full of hearts, flowers and chocolate. The truth is - regardless of the emphasis February puts on Valentine’s Day and all that it encompasses research has shown that the emotion “love” can have many benefits to a person’s life and well-being.  Wether that be personally or professionally one can agree there is nothing wrong with improving either right? 

To understand the benefits love can bring to a person it is important to understand the definition of love. According to www.webster.com and www.wikipedia.com: 

Love is an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment.  Love is also a virture representing all of human kindness, compassion and affection as well as the “unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another.” 

Love can also be described as actions towards others based on compassion, or as actions towards others based on affection. 

Although the technical definition of love brings a variety of meanings and interpretations, the health benefits of love are easy to identify and much more obvious.  

1. Love produces positive emotions.

        Love is known to bring about many positive emotions.  Laughter is on of the more prominent emotions that rises out of love.  Laughter is known to be healing to the soul and good for your mental well-being.  After all - laughter is the best medicine - right? 

It is a very powerful antidote to fight stress, conflict and pain both mentally and physically.  Love also has the power to heal and renew ones mental, emotional and physical well being.  Research shows that loving acts neutralize the kind of negative emotions that adversely affect immune, endocrine and cardiovascular function. 

I think everyone can agree these benefits can be seen as positive for both your personal and professional lives. 

2. Love helps your live longer and fight disease. 

Who doesn’t want to be healthier and live longer?  Many studies have shown that patients who are diagnosed with cancer have recovered from treatments faster when they had strong family connections.  Also, those in loving relationships recovered quicker or completely eliminated the cancer with no scientific explanation other than the fact that the patient had great love and support from close family and friends. 

The feeling of “butterflies in your stomach” is an actual physical reaction caused when our body responds to the strong attractions that is feel when one is “falling in love” or “in love” with someone else.  Physically, your heart rate increases which causes increased blood flow to all parts of your body.  This actually has been proven to have a positive effect on the mind and body. 

3. Love keeps the doctor away. 

Many studies prove that people in a loving, long-term relationship have longer average life spans than those that are not in a partnership.  Typically, when you’re in a relationship, your partner cares about your health.  Therefore, he or she will encourage you to watch you health and discourage bad habits.  

“Endorphins are the key,” according to the National Institute of Health.  Love triggers the hormone oxytocin which makes us feel good. It also lowers the levels of stress chemicals in our system. 

Even with these 3 brief explanations of why love is important to everyone, hopefully you have a better understanding of the long-lasting benefits love can bring into a persons life.  Whether you are a small business owner, or an employee of a large corporation, having love in your life can benefit you at work as well as at home. Fewer sick days, happier moods and energy all bring about positive outcomes in day-to-day interactions.  

urBook$ advocates for the health and well-being of all clients and professional relationships.  It is our goal to provide you with professional services such as bill pay, payroll and bookkeeping allowing you to focus on your passion and "love" for your business. Contact urBook$ today to become a client and experience the urBook$ difference. 

The Power of Customer Service in Business

The majority of businesses involve customer service on some level.  Whether you are directly selling a product to the consumer or dealing with vendor and suppliers to provide a product to a retailer you are involved in customer service.

As a business owner the words of a "dissatisfied customer" are like a knife in the back.  Research has shown how positive and negative customer service feedback is handled directly impacts your bottom line in business.

According to Forbes.com:

• 1st Impressions last - Surveyed respondents were more likely to recall negative experiences vs. positive ones. 
• Bad reviews & experiences travel faster than positive ones - People who experienced a negative experience shared their story with 5+ people on avg. compared to 1 -2 people for a positive experience. 
• Social media reviews impact online shopping - 88% of consumers in a study reported they added an item to their cart based on a customer service review. 
• Happy customer lead to larger sales - Consumers who had a positive experience had larger shopping carts than consumers with negative experiences. 

As you can see consumers "drive" business in many ways.  It is always in your best interest as a business owner to strive for positive customer service at all times.  There are many factors that can improve your chances at positive customer service.  Research has shown that employers who treat their employees well have a higher positive customer service rate.   Businesses who responded swiftly to negative feedback were able to salvage the relationship more often than not prior to the consumer spreading negative feedback to other consumers. 

Considering the impact customer service has on your bottom line, you cannot afford to allow poor customer service within your business.  Always monitor online reviews and quickly respond to both the positive and negative.  It also never hurts to ask your customers for online feedback - simply tell them "Your review and referrals are our biggest compliment."  You might just be amazed at how it can impact your business.  

urBook$ strives to provide our clients with the best chance at success.  Equipping your business with up to date information regarding your business pay roll, bookkeeping and bill paying is only part of the equation.  Contact urBook$ today to experience the urBook$ difference and allow yourself to concentrate on things that impact your bottom line such as great customer service! 

How to Set Achievable Goals for 2016

Top-level athletes, successful business-people and achievers in all fields set goals.  Setting goals gives you long-term vision and short-term motivation.  It focuses your acquisition of knowledge, and helps you to organize your time and your resources so that you can make the most of your life. 

By setting sharp, clearly defined goals, you can measure and take pride in the achievement of those goals.  You will also see forward progress in what might previously have seemed a long pointless grind. This will raise our self-confidence as you recognize your own ability and competence in achieving the goals you have set! 

Here are a few tips of how to begin setting your achievable goals for 2016:

1. Create the “big picture” of your goals. These are big 10 year goals that you would like to achieve. Examples of these areas could be:

• Career 
• Health 
• Financial 
• Spiritual 
• Educational 
• Public Service 

2. Break-down these goals into smaller and smaller targets that you must hit in order to reach your lifetime goals. Breaking down your long-term goals into shorter achievable goals will ensure that you allow yourself to not only see progress but actually achieve the 10 year goal.

For example, if you choose to save a certain amount of money over the next 10 years. You need to break this down into monthly or quarterly savings amounts over the next 10 years. Seeing your savings account increase each month or quarter will let you realize your progress with each deposit.

3. Set systems in place to remind yourself when and where you are to act on your goals. If you have weekly weight-loss goals or exercise goals then set calendar entries or physically write down your work-outs for each week. Putting your goals to pen or electronic calendar entry will increase your chances of actually completing the tasks.


urBook$ wishes you and all of your team a successful & productive 2016!

End of Year Tips for Business Owners

As 2015 comes to a close, there are several items that businesses should look at before closing out their year.  Below are a few tips of general items that may benefit your business.


▪ Look at your Profit & Loss report. Where do you stand? If you have a larger than expected profit, are there any major purchases you should make now that can be depreciated? Make sure you have the cash. Talk to your accountant if you are not clear of the depreciation rules.

▪ Verify your 1099 information is setup properly in your accounting system. If you don’t have proper information from each vendor, ask for it now, then create a form to use every year. Need help making this happen in QuickBooks? Just ask us.


▪ Begin to think about year end bonuses or special gifts. Will you give these this year or in January? It depends when you write the check.


▪ Take a physical inventory of your products and make adjustments in your accounting system as necessary.


▪ Write a list of all the company’s major accomplishments for the year. Be prepared to share this with your team, they will appreciate it.


▪ Write out your goals and plans for the next year.


▪ Create budgets for the next year if you work on a calendar year fiscal basis.


▪ Check all of the links on your website to make sure they are active.


Bookkeeping, payroll and bill paying are vital roles when it comes to accurately planning out your year. urBook$ strives to ensure that your business records are up-to-date and accessible to you at all times throughout the year. If you do not have a current system in place for bookkeeping, payroll and bill paying for your business contact urBook$ today to become a client. Our team will transition your records utilizing our Smart Vault and take the burden of these tasks off your plate so you can focus on your passion - YOUR BUSINESS.

Daily Habits of Successful Business Owners

We know it’s hard to get out from under the covers when the alarm goes off, but making the most of mornings is more important than you might think. How many successful business people do you know who sleep in? Exactly.

Believe it or not, our willpower is greatest in the early morning, and our bodies even experience a surge of cortisol about 20 to 30 minutes after rolling out of bed, giving us an extra boost of brain power. Trust the evidence — CEOs, government officials, and entrepreneurs all rise early (sorry, night owls), and have been found to be more proactive and productive for doing so. Check out some other morning habits that will help you keep your business on the up and up.

1. No snoozing
The snooze button is tempting, but don’t give in. Oversleeping equals a frazzled morning, which sets the wrong tone for the day. If rising and shining is a perennial problem, it’s time to examine your sleep hygiene. Most experts recommend adults get between seven and nine hours a night to stay healthy and alert, so if you need to get up at 5 a.m. (ouch), that means you need to hit the hay at 10 p.m. at the latest.

2. Avoid reading email until you’re out of bed
It may sound counterintuitive, but hear us out. Before you get bogged down in what your inbox is shouting, take the time to set your own personal priorities for the day. This will help you keep focused on what is actually important instead of falling victim to what your email says is most pressing.

3. Exercise or meditate
Whether you prefer reciting oms or affirmations or taking a jog around the park, meditation and exercise help clear the mind to keep you focused on the day ahead. It’s also a good time for daydreaming about future achievements. This kind of positive visualization, even if you only do it for one minute, will improve your mood and outlook about the day’s workload.

4. Eat a healthy breakfast
Protein, fruit, vegetables, and even a cup of tea or coffee will fuel your morning. Consider it the necessary brain boost to get you going.

5. Set goals and priorities
Take Monday mornings to set the week’s goals. Then, before you head to the office, take stock of what needs to happen that day. Make a list and jot down notes about the top three things you need to accomplish when your mind is clearest and sharpest. While in the shower, make a mental map of what the day ahead will look like. After all, this might be the only quiet, uninterrupted time of your day. Then, when things start to get hectic, you can refer back to this list and recalibrate.

6. Check in over your morning cup of Joe
Now let’s get down to business. Look over email, take a peek at social media, and make checking in on metrics one of your best daily practices.

7. Tackle tough things first
We all have that one thing on our to-do list that we’re absolutely dreading. Here’s a pro tip: Do the least desirable task first. You’re more equipped to handle a tough assignment first thing when your brain has the most energy. And then you can cross it off your list. Not only will it make the rest of the day easier and more pleasant, but it also starts you off with a real sense of accomplishment.

8. Be habitual and consistent
Create a morning routine and stick to it. Habits help your mind and body reset in preparation for the tasks ahead. That means waking up at the same time every day — yes, even on the weekend (we’re looking at you, Sunday sleepyhead).

Hopefully these tips can get you motivated to end 2015 with some good habits of highly successful people! Contact urBook$ today for more information on how we can assist with your business needs.