Building and maintaining a successful business is stressful and enough hard work as it is. The last thing you want is to have to deal with people hiding behind computer screens, telephone lines, or just behind the door to your workplace who are trying to take you for a ride and take your money while they do it.
As much as the internet age has brought everyone together at the click of a button or tap of a screen, it has also created more innovative ways for hackers, scammers, and schemers to take advantage and present themselves as something they are entirely not.
There are many different ways in which your business can be harmed through these sorts of scams. Because of this, it is imperative that you can recognise and resolve any instance that you might believe to be shady practices. As with most things in life, if something seems just too sweet to be true, then it more than likely is.
Taxes
Ugh, taxes. Along with death and bad weather on your vacation, it is one of the few constants in life. But adequately filing your taxes is essential to ensuring that you are running a transparent operation and don’t get drawn into problems with the tax office.
However, there are places that will offer tax resolution services that are not always legitimate. Should your business fall victim to such practices, you could be looking towards a long road to recovery.
To prevent this, employing someone with an extensive knowledge of the tax process can help identify any unusual goings-on and, furthermore, check and double check with the relevant authorities if something seems just a little bit off about someone demanding you pay your taxes now, at any time of the year.
Security
Recent hacking instances with the likes of Equifax and the like have proven that it doesn’t matter how big or small your company might be, it is still susceptible to falling victim to potential invasion by those who will search for any vulnerability in your security system.
And this can have ruinous effects on your business and its reputation. Storing sensitive data about your employees, finances, customers, and clients on your servers leave it open to attack should anyone be able to breach the protection you have set up.
Allowing this information to be accessed by those who don’t have the permissions to access them can lead to you facing data ransom demands and struggle to recoup the trust put in your by those you have collaborated with while building your company.
Employee
When looking towards hiring a team of employees to help you build your business, you want to bring in the best and brightest that your industry has to offer. You want ambitious people who are dedicated to building upon existing successes and striving for more.
But this isn’t always as easy as it may sound. While the majority of people you do employ will be diligent and hardworking individuals, you might also come across a few people who are in it solely for themselves and will look to take advantage at the first opportunity.
It can be hard to spot this, and it may even take a while before you realise that something is wrong. Typically, these sorts of people will present themselves as someone you can trust, but behind the scenes will be bleeding your company dry, be it through stealing supplies or electronics to resell or slicing a fraction of the account balance off and depositing it for themselves.
Customers
Much like your employees, you want to work with customers and clients you know that you can trust. And, also like your employees, ninety-nine times out of one hundred this will not be an issue. However, that one percent can still disrupt the progress your company has made since its inception.
While you don’t necessarily have to worry about them stealing from you, you do need to think about their reliability. Unlike employees, unreliable clients become apparent more quickly, and so you need to be prepared for when they inevitably don’t pay up.
A lot of clients like this think they can get away with accepting your business, receiving your support for whatever service you have provided them and then disappear once the job is done, but payment has not been made. Avoid this by taking an initial deposit and also set up a standing order to ensure that your business gets paid for the work it has put in.
Protected
You want to be able to trust everyone that comes along and walks into your business. However, there are some people who will be looking to merely take advantage of your trusting nature. This isn’t to say treat everybody with suspicion, but being vigilant and aware of the signs that could lead to problems further down the line is essential towards maintaining a profitable and secure company.
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