Tax Preparation With Care: Tax Centers of America

Company Name: Tax Centers of America

Owner: Ron Hayspell

Specialty: Tax Preparation/ Workforce Development Training

Address: 110 W. State Street, Trenton, NJ 

Phone Number: 609-503-5820
Email Address: Ron@WSofAmerica.org

 We all know what this time of year means, its tax time. But cast your fears aside, Tax Centers of America are here to help. For those that don't already know, there's a new tax service in town and they are ready to crunch the numbers for you so you don't have to. Located near Downtown Trenton, Tax Centers of America offers the community affordable prices for their tax services. Below you will find a copy of Anwar's Reflections exclusive interview with Ron Hayspell, the owner of the local chapter of Tax Centers of America:

 

AGS: First off, can you tell our listeners out there a little bit about your business? 

At Tax Centers of America, we specialize in income tax preparation. We offer online and electronic tax filing for taxpayers who want their refund fast. We also offer Refund Anticipation Loans RAL's that make sure you get your tax return fast.

I also have a workforce development business called Workforce Solutions of America At Workforce Solutions of America, we do everything from grant writing to training. We do market research. Most of our training is free to our clients. We apply for funds at the state and federal level to acquire grants to conduct the training sessions. Once we acquire the grant, we then basically monitor the grant for our clients. We either do the training ourselves or we outsource the training sessions to either a community college or a specific trainer provider that specializes in that kind of training.

AGS: What is your background? Is this the first time you have owned and operated your own business? How long have you been open?

I have a degree in business with a concentration in marketing. This is not my first business. I’ve been self employed for the last 8 years.  In the past, I had a direct marketing company. I’ve also worked with entertainment companies, record labels, and clothing lines. I also had a retail store and recording studio. However, after three years the retail store closed down I decided to try something new.

AGS: What motivated you to start your own business?

Tax Centers of America was a last minute venture.  Someone I knew bought a franchise and told me about the pricing and told me about the features of direct funds. I realized I had a prime location for real estate where I’m at in Downtown Trenton. Then I said to myself, the only tax preparation business downtown is H&R Block and being that they can’t do Refund Anticipation Loans (RAL’s) I figured it would be a good thing for me to jump into real quick as a seasonal business. So I sort of stumbled into it.

With regard to Workforce Solutions of America, there’s a story behind that. When I shut down my retail store, I decided to go into real estate. I was doing good in real estate until the market went bad, then when the market went bad, I was like, ‘what am I going to do now?’. I knew I didn’t want to go back to the workforce. So I thought about it, and I met with a guy with that did some consulting. We had a good meeting, after the meeting I then decided to start my own. It’s been on ever since then. Since we’ve been in business, we’ve done over a million dollars in grants altogether for training.  We’re looking to expand and do so more programs. Write some more grants and do some training throughout the state to develop the workforce.

AGS: In your own words, what makes your business unique?

Workforce Solutions is unique because we train people with no cost. Workforce Solutions is also unique because we put so much care into what we do, other companies do it strictly for the money, we are in it for the money but more importantly we’re in business to help people develop and be more competitive in the labor market.

Tax Centers for America is unique because we can do everything these bigger guys are doing but for a fraction of the cost. Tax Centers of America is the 2^nd fastest growing tax preparation company in America only behind by Liberty Tax. In addition, we also offer outstanding customer service. We’re so into quality customer service that we’re thinking about offering a service where we do house visits for our clients.

AGS: Did you face any challenges when launching your business? If so, how did you overcome those challenges?

Definitely, it was challenging. I think it was challenging to get people to understand the importance of training. Training is very important in developing a competitive workforce. To remain competitive, you have to keep retraining yourself. However, not everyone understands that. Right now we have a lot of literacy grants where we are teaching people about computers. This is definitely a challenge because people don’t realize the importance of computer training in making themselves more marketable. A lot of people don’t know how to work Windows 7, so that’s where we come in to help. I think that’s the only challenge we had.

AGS: How do you advertise or promote your business?

Well, Workforce Solutions of America isn’t really a business you advertise it’s more of a business that gets promotion through word of mouth but I do some marketing. For instance, we might buy an ad for an award banquet that’s more of the marketing we do for Workforce Solutions of America. It’s not a business that you would advertise in the newspaper or anything like that.

Tax Centers of America, I’m about to start a marketing campaign on that hard. I want to do a lot of street marketing, you know guys passing out fliers, doing email blasts, have people go door to door within a half mile radius of where Tax Centers of America is and put up fliers in the windows of local business. I also want to pass out fliers and have them posted to bulletin boards. I also want to have hours that are accessible to everyone. I plan to have weekend hours and be open late.  

AGS: Have you taken advantage of internet marketing at all? If so, how effective do you think this advertising method is? If not, how interested are you in learning more about internet marketing?

Yeah, we’re working on that right now. My IT (information technology) guy is doing a whole Facebook, Twitter campaign to promote my business. I want to use these social networking sites to make people aware of new things like the new healthcare act. For example, I would inform the public that all health records will be computerized in a couple years because not everyone is aware of that. By providing this information, we are adding value to the community.

AGS: Being that you’re an entrepreneur yourself, what advice, if any, would you give an up and coming entrepreneur that wants to succeed?

Persistence is the main thing. Stick to your guns. If you have an idea, stick to it. A person with persistence will in the long run win, even if they lose in the beginning. When you’re an entrepreneur, you have to understand that if you don’t do anything, you don’t eat. So there’s definitely risk, but I believe it’s worth it. Lastly, as an entrepreneur, you have to have to find a business that works for you but also works for the environment that you are serving. So do your research before launching your business.

AGS: Will you give us another interview one from now so we can follow upon your progress?

Of course, that would be no problem at all. I would like that. 

Thank you very much for your time. 

*AGS is an acronym for the author and founder of Anwar's Reflections, Anwar G. Salandy*