Author: anwaryusef

Anwar Y. Dunbar is a Regulatory Scientist. Being a naturally curious person, he is also a student of all things. He earned his Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the University of Michigan and his Bachelor’s Degree in General Biology from Johnson C. Smith University (JCSU). Prior to starting the Big Words Blog Site, Anwar published and contributed to numerous research articles in competitive scientific journals reporting on his research from graduate school and postdoctoral years. After falling in love with writing, he contributed to the now defunct Examiner.com, and the Edvocate where he regularly wrote about: Education-related stories/topics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), Financial Literacy; as well as conducted interviews with notable individuals such as actor and author Hill Harper. Having many influences, one of his most notable heroes is author, intellectual and speaker, Malcolm Gladwell, author of books including Outliers and David and Goliath. Anwar has his hands in many, many activities. In addition to writing, Anwar actively mentors youth, works to spread awareness of STEM careers, serves on the Board of Directors of the Friends of the David M. Brown Arlington Planetarium, serves as Treasurer for the JCSU Washington, DC Alumni Chapter, and is active in the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace Ministry at the Alfred Street Baptist Church. He also tutors in the subjects of biology, chemistry and physics. Along with his multi-talented older brother Amahl Dunbar (designer of the Big Words logos, inventor and a plethora of other things), Anwar is a “Fanboy” and really enjoys Science-Fiction and Superhero movies including but not restricted to Captain America Civil War, Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice, and Prometheus. He is a proud native of Buffalo, NY.

Business Unusual

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. Whenever starting any business/enterprise, it’s important to be proactive about anything that can go wrong and proactively come up with contingency plans. The following contributed post is thus entitled; Business Unusual.

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Business, as usual, might sound boring, but there are times when you might long for it. When things go right, you never really consider what might go wrong. But as the saying goes, you should fix your roof when the sun is out. Here are some business calamities you might not want to think about, but you should, before they happen.

Employees being swept by a sickness bug. It’s not something you want to think of, but what if an epidemic erupts that wipes out whole teams? Sure, you can deal with one or two, but what if the fall back of the fall back falls ill? They key here is prevention. Make sure your employees have facilities to wash hands when needed and promote hygiene where relevant. People get sick when they are weaker, also more so during colder months. Ensure that employees who are coming back from illness are indeed fit for work. If you have the capacity, perhaps a final day working from home will ensure they don’t bring back any disease to the office.

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Someone on your premises getting hurt. This falls under the category of the unthinkable. But what if this happens despite diligently making sure signs are put up when the floor has been mopped, and the appropriate signs are put up? The key here is to get legal representation, for example, Simon Law Group can be a lifesaver navigating the tricky waters of injury law. And it’s not the case you can wait till things actually happen, time can be of the essence. So make you are prepared and know exactly who to call when as soon as things happen.

Cash flow is not sufficient to pay ongoing bills. The worst nightmare of any financial controller or accountant. What if your invoices aren’t getting paid fast enough, which affects your ability to pay your own bills? The key here is to audit often and early. You should continuously monitor the debtors lists, flag and take action when needed. Review your terms of payment when required and in extreme cases negotiate payment plans when invoices can’t be paid in full. It might just be that debtors struggle with the entire sum, but a payment agreement is just precisely what they need. The same goes for suppliers required payment, negotiate. Having a full payment, in the long run, outweighs a business going bust and not getting paid at all.

Imagine your key employees who have a fundamental knowledge of operations leave. The significant brain drain could be one of the most negatively impactful things to happen to a business, especially operating in a service driven industry. You might not only lose essential operational knowledge, but people might move over to a competitor! The core thing here is to ensure you have NDAs and non-compete’s set up from the get-go. Ensure you know what the value and processes are these key employees bring and ensure that this knowledge is codified in some form. Sure, no one likes creating handover notes or complete process sheets, but investing this time will safeguard your business long term. There is also a secondary benefit, really understanding and valuing the input of critical employees might bring you closer to them, and you might uncover any doubts their end that made them consider jumping ship in the first place. You might not be able to stop people from leaving, but at least you can part on good terms.

A major incident at your office forces you to shut down for the day. You might hear of these incidents from time to time. Someone smelled gas, or there is no water. Health and Safety usually dictate you need to shut the office until this is resolved. Do you actually know what to do in these type is situations? Get an emergency plan in place. Know what to do with emails, phones, ongoing work and suppliers that will assume business as usual. Do you have a core team that can relocate to a temporary office space nearby and can you reroute and supplies or clients coming in? Do you have a phone tree ready to inform employees? As you would practice fire drills, so should these type of incidents be trained for. Ensure that a core set of employees knows what to do in which situation.

Most of these calamities require some scenario planning and establishing rules and procedures. It’s a time and resource investment you will have to make upfront and keep up-to-date with regular reviews. Just do it, you’ll be thankful just in case business as usual turns into business unusual.

Your Say Matters On Election Day, And Don’t Let Conspiracies Convince You Otherwise

One of the focuses of my blog is Current Events. Over the last 30 years politics in the United States have regularly been linked to some speculation of corruption. In the past, big corporate money and the wealthy have been suspected of controlling our elected officials. In the most recent elections, foreign countries have been suspected of tampering with our elections. Should either case affect whether one votes? The following contributed post is entitled; Your Say Matters On Election Day, And Don’t Let Conspiracies Convince You Otherwise.

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It’s been nearly two weeks since the midterm elections here in the U.S. As with any election, there’s been name calling, close calls, and unhappy members on either side of the political line. The results have seen democrats gaining control of the house by hitting the 218 seat mark. Other monumental events include a record 99 women serving in the house of representatives. Oh, and an astounding 114 million voters turned up on the day. That’s 31 million more than the same vote garnered during 2014. All around, then, this midterm election has been a huge achievement for people finally having their say when it comes to the biggest problems facing the country.

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Of course, not everything ran smooth. This election, like any other, was shrouded in conspiracy theories. They ranged from the expected to the ludicrous, and they all had one thing in common: every single conspiracy suggests that we’re powerless in the game of government. And, that’s what we’re taking exception to, because it’s about time someone stood up and noticed the damage conspiracies like these can cause.

As we’ve already mentioned, the turnout for this election was astounding. The results prove how things change when people turn up and make their mark. This is a crucial message to spread. If Trump’s presidency has proven anything, it’s what happens when people don’t make the effort to vote.

But, then we have conspiracies, which do nothing more than fuel the fire of the people who think ‘there’s no point voting’ anyway. One minute, we’re told that Russia is rigging our elections, so our votes aren’t even our own. The next, we’re facing yet another of the endless Soros conspiracy theories which tell us our votes won’t even count unless we make them by paper ballot. Then, we’re told that representatives like Beto O’Rourke and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are manipulating us to ensure we vote in a certain way. While each of these is entirely unfounded, they can do a great deal of damage.

It should come as no surprise that many of those who didn’t vote chose not to in part because of conspiracies like these. We spend so long convincing ourselves that higher powers control our votes, that many of us truly believe we don’t have a say. And, if you don’t have a voice either way, what’s the point of going out of your way on election day? Let’s not forget, either, that conspiracies also give the other side a springboard on which to discard the relevance of opposing views. If some higher-power rigged the vote, then that opinion is null and void. Right?

No. We’re here to say that it’s time to put conspiracy theories to bed. While they’ll always be there in some form or another, we need to realize the power our ballot papers hold. Russia isn’t pulling the strings of our elections; we are. And, the sooner we take responsibility for that, the sooner we can work towards a country which suits our needs.

A Look at Careers: The Federal Government’s General Schedule Pay Scale and Salaries Revisited

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“When I first moved here, a couple of men told me they had achieved their ‘14s’ when we first met and I didn’t know what that meant.”

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The first principle of my blog is Creating Ecosystems of Success and some of its focuses are: Career Discussions, Education, and Financial Literacy/Money. I originally published this piece in 2015 on the Examiner as I started to understand some of the nuances of being a federal employee. While the employment in the government is relatively stable in comparison to the private sector, there are some other unique differences which I thought were worth discussing. If you or someone you know is considering a federal career, this is a good and insightful read.

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My last article gave an overview of my experience as a federal employee in a general sense. This article will talk about one of the more intriguing parts of being a federal employee; the General Schedule (GS). The GS is particularly relevant when one is looking to get hired into the federal government and it takes on more significance when seeking promotion within one the federal government’s many agencies.

The General Schedule is a payroll scale which dictates the salary of each federal civilian employee. The scale spans from levels 1-15, with 15 being the highest paid and most senior. The only levels higher than the GS are the Senior Executive Service (SES) and then becoming an elected official.

Within the GS some promotions to the next grade are automatic without competition. Within grades, there are ‘steps’ where one automatically gets a raise periodically. There are 10 steps to each grade, and the first four step increases are automatic annually. Afterwards they are every two years. This seems like a really good deal right?

Reaching the GS-14 and 15 levels from the 13 level involves competition. That’s assuming that there’s money in the federal budget or ‘continuing resolutions’ for those promotions to become available in the first place. Another caveat is that one cannot jump to a higher grade without proving that they adequately performed the functions of the grade below it – going from a 13 to a 15 for example. A 13 must first become a 14 before reaching a 15.

While the GS is standard across the board for all federal employees, the cost of living for geographic location varies. For example, a GS-14 in my hometown of Buffalo, NY would make slightly less than a GS-14 in the Washington, DC metro area due to the vast difference in the cost of living.

What does all of this matter? As with everything, it isn’t a perfect system depending on your point of view, and there are pros and cons to working in the public vs. the private sector vs. academia. As described in my Earning a Ph.D. series, ascension within the federal government isn’t entirely dependent on one’s degree level. Having a Ph.D. for example doesn’t guarantee a promotion or even favor within an agency, and there are scenarios where Ph.D.’s can end up being supervised by master’s and in some cases bachelor’s level staff, something that would almost never occur in the private sector or in academia.

“We have Ph.D.’s.!!! We shouldn’t be making the same amount of salary as those filing records or who are doing administrative things,” a former colleague who has since gone to the private sector often lamented. That’s another caveat, tenure is an important component to federal employment. Specifically, there are instances where someone with a lower level of education who has been in the system longer, can make equal or more salary than someone with greater academic credentials who has been the system for less time. Ponder that.

“I wanted to move to Washington DC, so that I could get my 11,” a friend with a background in Human Resources who was a GS-9 said upon moving to the Washington, DC. Because the federal government is centralized in Washington, DC, the opportunities to get promoted are more plentiful there. Likewise, once promotions are achieved, that level is typically maintained wherever one goes afterwards throughout their career.

“When I first moved here, a couple of men told me they had achieved their ‘14s’ when we first met and I didn’t know what that meant,” a female acquaintance shared with me about her early dating experiences in the area. A funny but true and in some ways disturbing aspect to all of this is that in the DC Metro area, your GS-level can have huge social implications. In the minds of some, it represents: power, prestige and status in addition a considerable salary, the latter probably being the most important though they are generally lower than comparable private sector positions.

In closing, none of this information is confidential so I won’t get in trouble for sharing any of this. The salaries of federal employees are readily available to the general public online. Thus, when you know someone’s GS-level, you have an idea of what they earn, unlike in the private sector – an unsettling thought in terms of privacy to some degree. Nevertheless, it’s one of the cons that come along with being a public servant. The bonuses tend to also be more robust in the private sector.

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There are other aspects to being a federal employee such as the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) which is the retirement plan/system for civilian employees. I will probably discuss it in a subsequent post about retirement as it’s something I didn’t quite understand when I started my federal career.

I’m going to close by going back to stability, but in a different way. In some instances, federal employees may perform at low levels for their given duty for any number of reasons. This likewise can earn consecutive poor ratings at their annual performance appraisals. This is difficult for supervisors because it’s classically hard to fire federal employees as there’s a long and involved process for letting go of them once they’ve passed their probationary period – again something very similar to academia.

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog post. If you enjoyed this one you might also enjoy:

• Perspectives of federal workers caught in the middle of the 2013 government shutdown revisited
• The myth of the stability of being a government employee revisited
• Father’s Day 2018: Dad’s doctor and his lawyer, and a discussion on careers
• Applying School To The “Real World”: Turning Subject Knowledge Into a Career
• Staying Relevant In The Workplace: The Tips To Help
• Common Mistakes When Choosing A Career
• Making The Most Of Your Education

The Big Words LLC Newsletter

For the next phase of my writing journey, I’m starting a monthly newsletter for my writing and video content creation company, the Big Words LLC. In it, I plan to share inspirational words, pieces from this blog and my first blog, and select videos from my four YouTube channels. Finally, I will share updates for my book project The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story. Your personal information and privacy will be protected. Click this link and register using the sign-up button at the bottom of the announcement. If there is some issue signing up using the link provided, you can also email me at bwllcnl@gmail.com . Best Regards.

The Basics Of Branding And Marketing For Business

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“A well-branded product instills the visions, values, thoughts, and feelings you wish to express to attract the desired customer.”

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Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. Potentially the most important component of any business/enterprise is its branding and marketing. What are the basics of these two aspects? The following contributed is entitled, The Basics Of Branding And Marketing For Business.

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Picture by Rawpixel

Branding and marketing are both instrumental in helping your product or service to be visible to customers either online or in person, a distinguished brand which makes an impact big enough on your customers to trigger their curiosity enough to buy your product and then recommend it to their friends. Discussed below are the basics of branding and marketing and how you can apply this to your own business to effectively sell your products.

Branding

A well-branded product instills the visions, values, thoughts, and feelings you wish to express to attract the desired customer. However, once your brand is launched to the world, it also encapsulates the ideas and interpretations of what new and existing customers think about your business too. The quote below highlights the importance of shared values between the brand and the customer:

“If people believe they share values with a company, they will stay loyal to the brand.”

Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks

A well-branded business will help you to stand apart from your competitors, you will become distinguished and recognizable in the market to the people who matter most to your brand.

For instance, when you think of Dolce & Gabbana, this may conjure thoughts of, luxury, exclusivity, whereas when you think about Walmart, you may think family-friendly, affordable and accessible. These thoughts are shaped by the brand and how it presents itself.

The best place to start when thinking about how to piece together your brand is to treat it as though it was a person trying to attract other people. Start by answering questions such as what impression you want to convey? And what’s your reputation? With this, you can begin to create a name, a logo design, a slogan and gradually an identity. According to Steve Forbes Editor in Chief of Forbes Magazine; “Your brand is the single most important investment you can make in your business”

Which is why it’s paramount to invest a lot of your time and creativity not just in the initial creation phase, but also throughout the duration of the brand’s existence to save your business from sinking later on.

Marketing

There are various divisions incorporated in marketing. One of which is the process of distributing your brand to a broader audience to increase popularity, to target intended audiences, and to convey the message set during your branding process. However, the branding process is an integral part of creating your business prior to distributing your marketing collateral. The reason being is because, without the brand, your marketing plan will lack direction. If you need help with marketing, be sure to hire an expert who knows what they’re doing, like Cullen Fischel.

For instance, you may decide your brand of clothing will represent the importance of veganism. This will help you to devise a marketing plan with direction to reach those who are interested in veganism. In turn, you can tailor your marketing strategy on targeting this niche to convey your message across social media sites, to take an active part in either attending or initiating vegan events by supplying merchandise from customlanyardscanada.com, or you might choose to write a blog on your business website related explicitly to veganism to improve your search engine optimization with unique content and improve your business’s chances of being discovered on Google. By presenting a well-crafted brand to a specific niche, you can better own, you can convey a consistent message to customers, which will also support your brand’s professionalism and reputation.

Investing time in branding and marketing your product or service will help you to reach your intended audience with an image that’s relevant and professional in both appearance and ideologies in order to attract and persuade your customers to buy from you now and in the future.

Learning To Solve Computer Problems Before They Happen

Three focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money, Business/Entrepreneurship and Technology. Whichever business or enterprise you’re in, management of your Information Technology (IT) systems is critical, and it’s also critical to figure out how to solve computer-related problems before they happen. The following contributed post is thus entitled, Learning To Solve Computer Problems Before They Happen.

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It’s practically impossible for a modern business to get away with not using computers, nowadays. These machines have truly taken over this field, and this means that people simply have to learn to get used to them, even if they don’t find them very easy to use. Of course, though, their popularity doesn’t make it any easier to deal with problems with them. Instead, when you have an issue with a machine you need, you have to pay someone to fix it for you. To get around this and help you out, this post will be exploring some of the work which is going into solving problems like this before they even happen.

Machine Learning

One of the keys to achieving a goal like this is being able to spot the common factors between various computer faults. If a CPU is generally killed very quickly by excessive heat, for example, knowing which temperatures they can safely operate at is very important. This has lead to a lot of companies dedicating their time to this sort of learning, running near constant tests to figure out the connections between various hardware and software flaws, drastically improving the chances of spotting them before they cause problems.

Remote Monitoring

As a more direct approach to the work above, remote monitoring is often used to help with viruses and other attempts to damage the integrity of a system. Device and system monitoring can be a great way to solve this, with services available which can stop malicious software in its tracks without your users ever noticing a thing. This gives you the power to keep an eye on all of your machines without having to lift a finger.

Automated Protection

People can make mistakes, though, and this makes it worth having a second line of defense when it comes to protecting your computers. In the case of a hot computer, having the right settings in place to power off the machine before the CPU gets damaged is a good idea. While this may seem simply, a lot of people fail to take advantage of protection methods like this, making it far harder to keep their machines safe.

Simple Methods

Most of the work above will require the help of another company to get set up. There are jobs which you can do for yourself which will make this even better, though, like refreshing your hardware once in awhile to make sure that it is up to the right standards. A lot of people struggle with this, finding it hard to know what they need to do to keep their computers alive, even though they are like any other machines, and simply need to be treated correctly to keep running for a long time.

Hopefully, this post will inspire you to start working harder on the time which goes into your company’s computer problems. A lot of people find this sort of work very challenging, but it will be worth putting some time towards it, even if is hard.

Managing Your Small Business’ IT Effectively

Three focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money, Business/Entrepreneurship, and Technology. Effectively managing your small business’ Information Technology (IT) operations is a key aspect of its overall health and success. What are some keys to doing this? This contributed post is entitled; Managing Your Small Business’ IT Effectively.

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Nowadays, people will check their smartphone every twelve minutes, and the average person will spend more than one entire day of their whole week online. There are various reasons for this. A lot of checking will be for personal pleasure – people will be checking their social media feeds, looking up information that is useful for them, or reading up on the news. However, an increasing number of people are seeing their time spent on tech devices clock up, as they are needing to engage with them on a professional basis. Seeing as the public are turning to the web more, it’s not all too surprising that businesses are as well! Many companies are creating social media accounts and using the web to carry out correspondence to clients, partners, and customers over email or instant messaging chat. So, you need to keep your IT up and running in order to run your business effectively. Here’s a little more on the subject!

The Importance of Keeping IT Running

You don’t really realise how central IT is to your business’ functioning until it happens to go down. Without functioning IT, many of your staff will be unable to do their jobs and you will find yourself paying out days worth of wages to individuals who aren’t actually doing anything for your company’s progression. IT flaws can also breach security, which could pose major problems down the line. Dealing with IT effectively will ensure that all of your systems remain problem free.

Outsourcing

Perhaps the easiest and most convenient way to take care of Technology Support for business is to outsource the work to a reliable company. This means that you don’t have to take on the responsibility of becoming a full time employer of an IT specialist, but you do gain the same benefits in the long run. You will always have someone or a team overseeing your company’s IT needs, preventing problems that may arise, and tackling problems that do manage to arise quickly and effectively.

Building an In-House Team

Your alternative is to build an in-house team of IT specialists. Generally speaking, this is something to consider when your business begins to expand and you have the time to draw up contracts and fit an in-house IT team into your commercial property. One of the benefits on having an in-house team, should you need one, is that everyone working for you will eventually become extremely familiar with your unique system, being able to detect and resolve problems a little more quickly than people who may not have encountered your system before.

As you can see, maintaining fully functioning IT is absolutely essential for any small business owner who wants to keep their company up and running. Hopefully, the above advice will help you to achieve this!

Business Information: Backup Data Solutions

Three of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money, Business/Entrepreneurship and Technology. In today’s digital and information-based world a critical component of any organization is a data backup strategy, and there are tremendous potential dangers from not having one. The following contributed post is thus entitled; Business Information: Backup Data Solutions.

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Picture by Christina Morillo

Data backup in America appears to be rare in the US, as according to Nationwide Insurance 68% of small to medium businesses don’t have a disaster recovery plan in place, even though Small Business Trends highlights that 140,000 hard drives fail each week. This is a surprising fact to behold, in a world where information is power, a business without its customer credentials, tax and account details, sales and so forth, is a business that would cease to exist should it’s data become eradicated or lost in a disaster.

For businesses that rarely survive the mess caused by losing data, by the time they’ve clawed back any customers and credibility they once had, they have most likely lost unnecessary time and money in the process. This post identifies the importance of backing up your data to prevent issues within your organization. Because whether you’re a startup business, medium business or large company, data matters to you and your company for continued growth.

Potential Disasters
Business information could fall victim to a number of threats such as:

Fire or flood
Thiefs
Lost Files
IT Breakdown
Hackers

In response to the above scenarios what do you have in place currently to protect your data from a devastating fire, a hard drive failing or hackers accessing your online resources? Beyond protecting your information, by use of burglar alarms for thieves, fireproof cabinets for paper documents, and cybersecurity software, if these plans failed to keep your data intact, how would you regain vital information?

What Should You Back Up?
If you’re unsure about what information you should be attempting to back-up, it should include everything that is vital to the business’s survival. Such as customer details, business accounts and taxes, sales information and any data stored on behalf of customers. For example, for a law firm, this would include client case files, both ongoing and archived files. Archived files must be retained on behalf of the customer in case the information needs to be reviewed in the future.

If keeping a copy of physical files appears impossible to store due to a lack of space. an alternative option to this would be to transfer your paper files to digital form.

Backup Location
There are two routes to consider utilizing for backing up your files. Business owners should aim to keep a local on-site backup, easily accessible day today and an off-site backup, in the event the business premises is invaded by a disaster rendering all information useless. The backup source you use depends on the type and size of your business.

For instance, a freelance website designer could keep an external hard drive in the office with a backup of all of their tax files, website projects, and customer details, while also maintaining an external hard drive replica at home or even a disc.

In contrast, a private hospital would have a more significant amount of data, which is exceptionally confidential requiring sturdier backup than an external hard drive. In this scenario, a manager may instruct for all paper files to be copied and scanned, and transferred to companies offsite data server.

Large data servers can store masses of data which is housed explicitly in a secure environment to keep data safe. Preview info about iConnect Montana for a comprehensive, detailed explanation on what offsite data servers inhabit to help gain knowledge on how to best backup your business information.

Easy Ways To Save Money To Start Your Own Business

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. One of the challenges to starting a new business is raising the money. There are several ways to approach this problem. What are some simple ways? The following contributed post is entitled, Easy Ways To Save Money To Start Your Own Business.

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When you’re starting a business, the first thing you need is a great idea that has the potential to sell. The next thing you need is money. You can come up with all of the great ideas that you like but you’re never going to get anywhere without startup capital. At some point, you’ll need to go to investors to get some cash to build the business. But people aren’t going to put their money behind a business that hasn’t proved itself yet. You need to get things going and start building a bit of a customer base before you can realistically approach investors. If you’re lucky, you might have that kind of money sitting in your savings account but most people don’t. If you’re serious about starting this business, you’ll need to take some drastic steps to get the cash together. These are some of the best ways to save up money to start your own business.

Image From Flickr

Slash Your Budget

You’re never going to get to where you want to be without making some sacrifices. If you’re going to put together that kind of money, you need to be brutal with your budget. All of those luxuries that you normally enjoy are just eating into the cash that you could be saving for your new business. Write a new budget that covers all of your essentials and get rid of any extra luxuries. That doesn’t mean you can never enjoy yourself again but every time you think about spending money on something frivolous, look to the future and consider your business.

Earn Some Side Income

Your job might not be earning you enough to save for your business. If that’s the case, you need to find some ways to earn more money. Looking for a better paid job is one option but if that doesn’t work out, there are plenty of other ways to make money. If you know how to make a lot of money fast through side hustles, it’s a lot easier to save up the startup capital you need. You could do anything from becoming an Uber driver to trading cryptocurrencies. Whatever it is, just find as many ways as possible to bring in extra cash on the side.

Cut Your Startup Costs

You should have a goal amount in mind when you’re saving. Look at what the rough startup costs of your business will be and that will give you something to aim for. Things will be a lot easier for you if that bar is a lot lower, that’s why you should think about cutting startup costs for your new business before you even start it. Running it from home is one of the best ways to do that because you cut a lot of overheads like office space and lots of employees. If you plan a way of running your business on a barebones budget to start with, saving up the cash you need will be a lot easier.

Saving up for your own business is hard, but if you’re dedicated enough, it’s absolutely possible.

How Can You Better Protect Your Business?

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money, Business/Entrepreneurship and Technology. With most business enterprises today being digital and utilizing some form of technology, new security needs have been created. The following contributed post is thus entitled; How Can You Better Protect Your Business?

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You’d like to think that if you would just work hard and get a stroke of luck, that your business would thrive. Alas, that’s not really the case. It’s a complicated world out there, and any number of things can go wrong! As such, it’s imperative that you’re treating your security just as seriously as anything else connected to your business. But since you’re an entrepreneur and not a security expert, it’s unlikely that you’ll know where to begin. We take a look at a few helpful pieces of advice below.

Source: Pexels.com

Set the Procedures

Taking a proactive stance is much better than a reactive stance, when it comes to your security (and, now we think about it, most things to do with your business). So take a look at your business, and identify its vulnerable spots. There might be weaknesses that you’ve never even thought of before which are leaving you open to attack; this is common with things like data security, which is a big concern at the moment. If you don’t know what you’re looking for, then you can work with a security expert. You can’t know how to keep your business safe unless you know where the danger is.

Hire the Right Staff

Your staff is the backbone of your organization. Alas, they may also prove to be a threat to your business, if you’re not hiring correctly. The vast, vast amount of crime that is committed against a business happens internally; that is, the staff are taking advantage of their knowledge and ripping them off. While there’s no way to completely limit the threat, it’ll be severely reduced if you’re checking that your staff are as trustworthy as they say they are before you hire them. Always follow up with the references they give you, and perform additional security checks too.

Systems in Place

There are plenty of modern systems that can incorporate into your business that’ll help to keep it safe, in a number of ways. For example, if you have CCTV cameras positioned around the edge of your business, then there’ll be a visual warning for would-be thieves to stay away (and, of course, they’ll also come in handy should anything be taken). An advanced protection system, like the one offered at www.apsmontana.com, will also provide added peace of mind that all of your alarm systems are in full working order. It’s all about putting all the protective pieces in place so that everything can run smoothly.

Get Covered

But what if something does go wrong? Try as you might, you can’t stay safe all the time. Accidents and other issues do happen! When they do, it’s important that the impact they have are kept to a minimum. You can do this by getting full coverage insurance. It’s not the most glamorous thing to buy, but you’ll be glad you did if something goes wrong – it might just be what keeps your business afloat. Don’t let one accident undo all of your good work!

Spend Less Time Doing The Business Tasks You Hate

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. When starting any business enterprise, it’s important to be able to effectively manage your time so you can focus on the tasks that need your attention the most and not spend time tasks that don’t need it. The following contributed post is thus entitled; Spend Less Time Doing The Business Tasks You Hate.

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Whilst there are certain to be tasks within your job that you enjoy doing, there are also likely to be tasks that you dread – this could be anything from accounting to making phone calls. Fortunately, there could be ways to make these tasks easier and less daunting. Here are just a few ways to spend less time doing the tasks you hate.

Delegate them

If you have employees, one way to deal with these tasks could be to simply delegate them. Obviously, you want to ensure that your employees are capable of doing these tasks – if they’re not trained in this area or if they’re just as busy as you, delegating this task could be unfair and could result in it being done badly. There’s an art to delegating and the best employers know how to get the right balance. You should treat employees by giving them tasks they want to do from time to time. At the same time, you should also take on some of those difficult jobs to inspire your employees to do the same – if you’re not prepared to get your hands dirty, your employees may start to wonder why they should be expected to do so.

Outsource them

Another way to free up these tasks could be to outsource them to a professional that isn’t an employee. This could mean parting with a little extra cash, however by hiring a professional, you’re certain to get the job done competently. You can outsource practically anything nowadays. A few common tasks include office cleaning, marketing, accounting, IT support and legal support, however you can also outsource other tasks such as planning business trips, making phone calls and even answering emails. Always read testimonials and reviews before choosing a company to work with so that you get the quality service.

Automate them

Some tasks may be able to be performed by software. For example, it’s possible to build rotas and monitor work progress using software. It’s also possible to use software to automate invoices and bills – if you click here you’ll find one such programme. Such software may require paying a subscription fee, but this could be worth the added efficiency. You should always do your research before choosing software – this could include reading reviews online, attending software demos or downloading free trials.

Consolidate them

There could be tasks that can be streamlined to make them easier. This could include storing all your information in one place such as choosing one insurer with an all-in-one business package or going paperless so that all your files are digitally stored in one location. Whilst having lots of different options may save you money, it can sometimes make life confusing and could be making various admin tasks more gruelling.