Shortly after forming my business as an LLC, I started to receive regular IRS and NY State tax forms in the mail like this and this. Inevitably these were in miniscule type and intimidating.

As a non-specialist in tax law, I found it frustrating to know that I needed to start paying money just to know what the various government forms said.

Now, I do not have a problem paying taxes, and I do believe the government provides a lot for the average small business. Most importantly for Cedarcrest, there is no country in the world in which contracts – the key to doing business with other people – are so enforceable through government entities such as the courts.

I do have a problem, however, with the cost of merely complying with the law. What I mean is: paying large sums of money per year to tax specialists in order to properly pay taxes is one of the more frustrating parts of running a small business.

The greatest service the State and Federal governments could do for small businesses, I believe, is to simplify, simplify, simplify the process of being in tax compliance.

I have a dream: A person running a small business should be able to prepare their own taxes, with no more than one day out of the year dedicated to the effort. Most importantly, the business owner should be confident at the end of that one tax day that it was done properly.

As it is, I would never dream of preparing my own business’ taxes, for fear of overpaying, underpaying, or making a career-ending error.

Anybody in government listening?

Shortly after starting my business I joined a small-business networking group organized by my bank.

We met as a group every two weeks at breakfast, and during the interim we got together one-on-one for coffee or an exchange of ideas. Originally I thought of my network as group therapy for the entrepreneur, where we could share war stories and occasional contacts. What I learned to my surprise was an important skill, namely, how to network effectively.

I’ll pass on the basic lesson of my network group:

Never treat your fellow networkers as potential clients who are going to buy your service. Basically, they probably won’t buy it, and they may be annoyed by the pressure of your sales pitch.

Instead, figure out what your fellow networkers do for their clients. Next, offer yourself as a resource and solution-provider to your fellow networkers, as you explain to them how you can be helpful to their clients. The service you sell can make their clients better off, and make your fellow networker a hero to his client.

Ever since I joined a networking group I have loved talking to accountants and lawyers. The reason is that the good ones know their clients problems well and are constantly on the lookout for solutions.

One attorney’s client had sold his successful hair salon to his employees but suddenly needed money. An accountant was advising his clients about a municipal bond he had taken in exchange for a parcel of land. Another attorney referred me to his client who inherited a restrictive trust but needed funds to go back to college. As a financial service provider Cedarcrest Capital helps attorneys and accountants bring solutions to their clients who would otherwise not know where to turn.

I never ask an attorney or accountant to use my service, but rather provide them with a tool to solve their client’s problem.

A few years ago I found myself wearing an over-sized Hawaiian shirt, sipping an umbrella drink by the pool, at a hotel resort in San Diego, trying to start up conversations with perfect strangers.

I was attending a conference of about 1,000 specialists in a particular industry that I had a hunch would make good clients for Cedarcrest. The problem was, I really didn’t know if my hunch was correct, or whether my Polyester-Polynesian-shirt-umbrella-drink-poolside-networking-in-the-sun project would just result in needless suffering on my part.

When I introduced my company and the service we provide to the first person poolside, he looked at me thoughtfully and said:

“Ah, so you’re like that guy, Bob, in San Antonio.” [Names have been changed to protect the innocent.]

I replied that I didn’t know Bob in San Antonio, but that I supposed I was like him if he provided the same or a similar service to that group of professionals.

Throughout the rest of the evening most of the professionals I met requested my card and said they could use my help, while a handful of others referenced Bob, and exclusively Bob, as the only other competition I had.

As I left the conference (and my suitable-only-as-upholstery-Hawaiian-shirt) behind me, I realized a wonderful thing: My competition consisted of one person, and that there was a great niche Cedarcrest could fill.

A couple of times a year I like to attend conferences in my industry, to try to ascertain how competitive the field is getting. My happiness about the conference is inversely proportional to the number of attendees who do what I do.

As a small business owner, I want to meet the competition, but I also want to find areas in which I do not have any competition at all. If I have to suffer with my umbrella drink by the pool to find these areas, well, so be it.