We tend to get quite a few aspiring business owners and entrepreneurs that come into our offices thinking that they will save some time and costs if they simply hire the people they need in their business as independent contractors.

Usually it’s a “friend” or relative that’s provided them this advice. After all, if you don’t have to mess around with payroll, withholding, reporting & paying various taxes, and providing all the other things employees need, then it must be better.  After all, you can just pay a contractor what you owe them, and let them take care of the taxes and such.

The advice I usually give them is “If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck,” because this test usually works for this employee/contractor determination.

If you are hiring someone to work at your direction, provide them training and tools to do the job, set their hours, pay them by the hour, week or month, and treat them like an employee, that’s probably what they are.

We have a really good publication concerning this determination, “Employee or Independent Contractor?” among the many tools on our website.

The Internal Revenue Service sets the rules on this, and provides detailed information in its Publication 15A “Employers Supplemental Tax Guide. They will also help you make the determination for your particular business if you fill out their form SS-8 and send it to them.

Before you hire anyone, as an employee or contractor, you should really talk it over with your accountant or tax advisor, they will help you figure it out, and get it right!

Quack, Quack.

There was a brief mention of this in our last post, but it seems worth repeating. Contrary to what many people think about Nevada, we are the most urban state in the nation, and it looks like that trend will continue. The dynamics of our changing population and demographics will provide many challanges and abundant opportunities for business in Nevada, but for those of us living and working in the rural areas of the state, those challanges and opportunities will be much different from the experience in Las Vegas and Reno-Carson.

Here is the complete press release from Jeff Hardcastle:

“Reno, NV 10-19-2006 - The Nevada State Demographer’s Office has released its population projections for 2006 through 2026. The projections are for the state and the counties. Overall, Nevada is projected to grow by more than 1.8 million or 74 percent over the next 20 years.“Nevada will likely continue to outpace the national growth rate,” said State Demographer Jeff Hardcastle. “The Census Bureau’s Interim Projections show the United States growing by 19 percent between 2000 and 2020 and Nevada’s growth rate is projected at 74 percent for the same period; within Nevada, change will be unevenly distributed.”

Northwestern Nevada (Carson City, Churchill, Douglas, Lyon, Storey, and Washoe Counties) is projected to grow by more than 278,000 people. Rural Nevada (Elko, Esmeralda, Eureka, Humboldt, Lander, Lincoln, Mineral, Pershing, and White Pine Counties) is currently experiencing mining growth and that may last through 2013.

“There were some projects that are in the beginning stages that might help some of these counties weather any mining downturn,” said Hardcastle. “So while the projections show a potential loss by 2026, that may not happen. Southern Nevada (Clark and Nye Counties) is projected to grow by over 1.5 million people.”

The projections are used in preparing the state’s budget and for other planning purposes. They were prepared using the Regional Economic Models Inc. (REMI) model. This model relates a county’s population and economy to other counties in the model and the nation as a whole. A draft of the projections was sent to local governments and other interested parties for comment.

Hardcastle also said there are a number of factors that were not able to be included in the model, and those could impact how much Nevada continues to grow. These factors include affordable housing, the federal deficit, the trade deficit, a continued reliance on foreign oil and the peak production of oil and global climate change.”

I would add WATER to Jeff’s list of issues that could affect Nevada’s growth.

The complete data set for these projections is located here on our website.

Don’t forget about us.

You may be tired of hearing about baby boomers, but as you build or expand your customer base you shouldn’t ignore the folks that make up 1/3 of the population, have 77% of our nation’s assets, and control 57% of the discretionary income.

Is your young sales staff prepared to meet their needs and expectations? I know if I hear one more sales clerk say “No Problem” in response to my “Thank You” I may scream! A simple “You’re Welcome” would be much more appreciated, and I would’t feel like I had narrowly missed pissing him or her off.

The Nevada Small Business Development Center, along with a number of partners, is presenting an hour long, FREE program titled “Aging in the Silver State - The New Customer Majority” at 3:30 PM on Wednesday, October 18, in the Alumni Room of the Jot Travis Student Union on the UNR campus. The main speaker will be Harry R. Moody, Ph.D, Director of Academic Affairs for the American Association of Retired Persons. This presentation will explore marketing strategies that attract the growing elder population, namely those mature adults over age 50.

If you want to dig deeper into the changing nature of Nevada’s population, you might also check out our own Jeff Hardcastle, Nevada State Demographer’s, estimates on Age, Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin (ASRHO) out to the year 2024 on his publications page.

We told you that setting up and running your own business was not going to be easy. You should always remember to set aside some time to work “on your business, not just in your business”. Here is some interesting information from a recent study conducted by SCORE and VISA.

Sole proprietors, who make up three-fourths of all small businesses, lack the time and resources to focus on generating new business, according to a new survey from Visa USA and SCORE “Counselors to America’s Small Business.” At the same time, the vast majority say they are happier now than they were at their previous employer, despite working as hard or harder.

“The day-to-day challenges faced by a sole proprietor are often overlooked for broader, universal business issues like healthcare costs and the economy,” said SCORE CEO Ken Yancey. “Yet these individuals make up an overwhelming majority of small businesses that may become larger, well-established brands in the future. It is extremely important to identify and address their needs through education and mentoring programs at an early stage to help them reach their full potential.”

The full text of the press release from SCORE:

Sole Proprietors are Happier on the Own, but Feel Distracted and Overwhelmed Playing Multiple Roles, Says VISA and SCORE:

Most new entrepreneurs don’t decide to sit down and write a business plan for fun, most don’t even do it because they know how valuable it is to the success of their business. Most write a business plan because they are being required to do so by either a bank or a potential landlord. Whatever motivates the process for you, necessity or an uncompromising desire to succeed, understand that this all important document can do much more for you than simply secure you a loan or business location. A business plan can help you understand that your business is a integrated, interdependent system. Making a small change to one part of the system may create big changes in other parts of the system. You won’t know what these changes might be until you start making changes and playing with the numbers in your plan. Discounting a product of service for a special promotion, for example, may increase sales for the month, but selling your product or service at a discounted price will affect your margins and change your cash flow projections.

This brings us to Marketing Tip #1. Don’t fake your marketing plan. Don’t throw in the standard advertising jargon without any thought. Don’t leave out the realistic costs of advertising and marketing, and don’t think you can do it all yourself with only the force of your charming personality. To be honest, the banker and the landlord probably won’t notice that your marketing plan isn’t real. If you have the collateral necessary to secure the loan and pay the rent, you’ll get your loan and your location. I promise you, however, if you fake your marketing plan now, the day will come when you will find yourself without enough personal time or money to do the advertising and marketing that your business requires to succeed at the level you originally dreamed about when you launched your business.

If instead you set out to put together a realistic marketing and advertising plan from the start with accurate numbers, you will be able to budget the expense necessary to effectively communicate to your customers and clients on an on-going basis. You will come to understand that the personal time and expense of marketing is an essential part of the healthy system of your business, and you won’t jump over a dollar to pick up a dime.

Here we go, joining the blogosphere.

We plan to post timely and topical pieces that will be interesting and useful for business owners in Nevada. These articles will be produced by expereinced NSBDC Business Advisors, Researchers, Analystis, and the many alumni members of our program. Sometimes we’ll tip you off to upcoming events or new publications, and sometimes we’ll share information we come across that we feel would be especially useful to you.

You can return here to see the latest posts, or use the RSS feeds to put these articles directly on your desktop as they are published using your aggregrator, your Google homepage, Yahoo! homepage, or the like.

It’s a blog after all, so we’ll just see where it takes us.
Please plan to return often and add your own comments and suggestions.