Category: Contributed Posts

Changing Brand Perception With The Right Story

Two focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. A critical piece of any business is its branding. Interestingly branding isn’t something that’s entirely static. There are some elements of branding that are fluid which must evolve over time. The following contributed post is entitled, Changing Brand Perception With The Right Story.

* * *

Brand perception goes a long way in business. If people have a general mistrust or misliking of a company, their reputation can start to permeate all of their dealings, making it harder to keep customers loyal and to make the right first impressions. However, stories can change over time, and there are ways that your business can help them change sooner.

Source – Pixabay License

Respond to the perception
If there has been a negative reaction to some part of the business, whether it’s how it handled some marketing or support issue, or a misconception around an aspect of the product or service you provide, ignoring it only works sometimes. If that perception is too widespread, it’s best to know how to get ahead of it and to respond appropriately to criticism. The best way in the majority of cases is to welcome it and accept it with humility. If you can end up entirely solving a customer concern and publish the results of how you did that, it can win your business a much better reputation.

Do some good
There are some elements of your business you can’t change. For instance, some industries and products have a reputational bias they have to fight, often due to people simply misunderstanding how they work. For an example of how to handle that, look at how charitable CBD companies use cause marketing to not only do good and live up to their brand values but to shine a spotlight on aspects of their industry that customers might understand. Don’t try to use social corporate responsibility to distract from criticism, but rather to keep a platform that allows you to better inform and assuage customer concerns.

Make sure your selling point gets through
Sometimes, the “bad” parts of your company’s reputation and the audience’s perception of the brand isn’t all that damaging, but you simply haven’t provided enough of the good to balance it out. Make sure that you’re using brand messaging to your advantage by investing more in your online marketing campaigns. By making sure that customers are hearing the right message about your business, not only the wrong message, you can slowly shift perceptions in your favor.

Be authentic and consistent
If you want to boost another message about your business, whether it’s the good your products and services do, the way you handle negative criticism, or the good that your company does, you have to make sure it stands up to scrutiny. Do what you can to keep your branding consistent by, for instance, publishing the story you want to tell as part of the company’s core values. This is more than public signaling, this also helps the team ingest and integrate those values by acting as a constant reminder of the ideal they’re supposed to aim for.

If you’re finding that the perception and reputation of your brand have been taking a hit as of late, then consider ways that you change the story that’s told about it. Consider the tips above and put a genuine effort into showing the good side of your business.

Run Your Own Profitable Handyman Business In 3 Steps

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. There is a lot of power in learning the skill trades. Not only are they profitable skills on an individual level as a singular ‘handyman’, but they can be powerful once harnessed into a business. The following contributed post is entitled, Run Your Own Profitable Handyman Business In 3 Steps.

* * *

If you would like to start up your own small business and you know exactly what you would like to do with it, then that is something that you will want to think about long and hard before taking the necessary steps. One of the small businesses that many people think of turning to when they want to just help people out in their local area is the handyman business. This is where you are essentially a general handyman for the people in your area, and help them out with whatever home problems they might have. It’s a great career choice if you have always thought of yourself as a handy person to have around, and you will find that it is varied enough that it remains interesting, while ensuring that you get plenty of custom. Let’s see how to make it profitable.

Image Credit – CCO Licence

Know How To Market Yourself

First of all you have to make sure that people are actually going to hear about your services, which is not necessarily something that will always come easily. Marketing yourself as a one-person small business means that you want to focus on making yourself the brand image and vice versa. As long as you do that, you will find that you are going to get many interested people wanting your services. It’s a simple matter of advertising yourself in the local paper, on local radio, and simply by talking about your services with as many people as possible too. If you do all that, you are going to find that you are getting many more customers in no time.

Schedule Yourself Properly

It’s important to ensure that you tread the line between having no customers and being far too busy. That means that you need to learn how to properly schedule yourself, which is something that anyone can easily learn – but it does take some patience and practice to do so. One of the best ways to make this easier for yourself is to get hold of some decent handyman software, scheduling software which can help you with every aspect of running your business – from planning out your days and weeks to chasing up invoices and everything in between. By scheduling yourself properly, you show yourself respect and you ensure that you are operating in a profitable manner.

Image Credit – CCO Licence

Define Your Ideal Customers

It’s important to know who your ideal target customers are going to be, as that will inform the way in which you market your services and you will find that you are going to be much more likely to have a lot of them flooding in at any one time. This is likely going to be based on research you have carried out in your local area, and that requires that you have a good understanding of the people that you live and work amongst. That is vital in making yourself a part of the local community in a strong way, and therefore building trust with people as you would hope to.

Building A Business From Your Passion

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. One of the best businesses you can start is a business built on your passion. You have to be smart about it though. The following contributed post is entitled, Building A Business From Your Passion.

* * *

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

There is a saying that if you love what you do, then you will never work another day in your life. Those that say that, probably haven’t ever run their own business, the truth is, if you love what you do, you will work harder, lose all your boundaries and take everything quite personally. You will, however, enjoy every part of it.

Starting a business is simple; anyone can do it. You don’t even need to have a particularly good idea. Sustaining a company and making it work is different. This is much harder to achieve but, if what you do is what you love then you’ll make it happen. If you don’t love what you do, then all of your stakeholders will feel that. When you are genuinely passionate about your work, everyone will see it and your enthusiasm will become infectious.

You must know enough about the industry you love before you embark on starting a business. If you are a jewellery maker, then you need to know what is the material that everyone wants to buy right now. You might be creating stunning pieces that are gold plated, but if the market prefers 925 sterling silver, you might need to adapt your work. You also need to know all of the best places to source equipment and materials. If you don’t have any experience, you might make some simple mistakes. This could lead to overspending or under budgeting.

Talk to other people in the industry. Check on LinkedIn or Facebook to see if there are any networking events in your area. This is a great place to pick up vital tips from people who have shared a similar journey to the one you are about to start.

Don’t sit still. You haven’t got to throw the towel in at your current job and go head first into business. Take some time to create a strong business plan and an economic forecast. You need to understand what money and time you need to make this work. It’s a good idea to speak to a financial advisor to help you work through all the figures and make sure you haven’t missed anything. This will also help you understand any tax obligations that you may not have known about.

When you do take the plunge, you need to surround yourself with positive people. However, you also need at least one friend to help keep you grounded. If no one in your circle challenges your decisions, then you might not make the right decisions. We need people to cheer us on but guide us too, as sometimes we can be blinded by our passion.

Whatever you choose to do, if you have the passion, then you will find the dedication, and this will help lead you to success. Prepare to work harder than you have in your life and understand you will need to make sacrifices, the journey is a long one, but you will have a future enjoying every moment of what you do.

Stop your PC From Lagging with This Step by Step Guide

A key focus of my blog is Technology. If you own a PC, you want to get the most out of it in terms of performance. The most common metric users associate with high performance is speed. The following contributed post is entitled, Stop your PC From Lagging with This Step by Step Guide.

* * *

Waiting for a computer to turn on is one of the biggest annoyances in life. If you want to make sure that your PC is running properly and that it is also not taking hours to load, then you can find some great tips to help you with that right here.

Uninstall some Programs

When you buy a new computer, there will be a lot of programs installed onto it. Older PCs tend to accumulate them over time and the best thing that you can do is stop them from running in the background. If you want to remove these programs, then you need to go to Start and then onto the Control Panel. You can then go onto Programs and Features. At this point, you can scroll through the list and uninstall any of the ones you don’t use.

Source: Pexels (CC0 License)

Delete your Temporary Files

Whenever you use the internet, your browsing history will stay on your PC. It’s like ordering a product and then not disposing of the packaging. If you want to get rid of all of this clutter then you need to click on My Computer and then click on the Windows folder. You can then open the Temp folder. Use your mouse to right-click on this folder and then in the “view” option, click on details. When you have done this, click on all of the files that are older than the current date and press delete.

Invest in a Solid State Drive

If your PC takes forever to turn on, then you may find that your hard drive is at fault. Typically your hard drive will have a lot of moving components and it can take a very long time for it to load up. A solid state drive will use flash memory which is very similar to a huge USB stick. It can read data way faster and this will speed up your start-up in general

Use a Mouse Sensitivity Calculator

Another thing that you can do is use a mouse sensitivity calculator. If you feel as though it’s taking a while to turn your character around, or to point and shoot at an enemy then the problem may not lie with lag. It may be that you need to turn up your mouse sensitivity to accommodate the game. If you are using your PC to play games then try and use this CS GO mouse sensitivity calculator to improve your performance.

Get More Storage

It doesn’t matter how tidy you keep your computer sometimes because if you know that your hard drive is getting too full then this will almost certainly affect the overall speed of your computer. If you use your system for heavy tasks such as video recording or even media, then there is a chance that your HDD is full. You can easily get storage drives which are well over 1TB in this day and age, so you don’t have to worry about that at all now.

Stop Start-ups that Aren’t Necessary

Whenever you turn on your PC, you may find that some programs automatically run in the background. Things like Spotify and even Skype are very guilty of this. All of the applications that run will be using up your computer memory so you need to try and ditch the ones that you are not using. If you want to do this then go to start-up and then type “run”. When you see a box come up, type in MSConfig. At the top of the new list, click on Start Up and this will list all of the applications that start up when your computer loads. Manually untick the ones that are not required, but always keep necessary ones like antivirus running.

Get some More RAM

Have you ever noticed that when you try and run a lot of different programs at once, such as your internet, email and MS Word, that your computer struggles to flick between them all? This means that your PC is having a hard time going between all the programs. If you want to help your computer here, then you need to try and make sure that you install more RAM if you can. This is the only way to solve issues such as this.

Defragment

You should never be scared of things like this. It’s a great way for you to optimise your hard drive and its efficiency overall. If you want to go ahead with this then click on “my computer” and then select the hard drive. When you have done this, you then need to click on “properties” and under the “tools” tab, you can then click on “defragment now”. This is an incredibly easy way for you to boost your PC’s performance overall and you would be surprised at how easy it is for you to really get a great result out of your PC’s hardware.

A Quick Guide To Investing For Beginners

A key focus of my blog is Financial Literacy/Money. Unless you were raised in a family of investors, it can be a whole new world. In addition to beginning your investing journey, it’s important to begin it as safely as possible. The following contributed post is entitled, A Quick Guide To Investing For Beginners.

* * *

Picture by Nattanan23 from Pexels – CC0 Licence

‘Investing is the act of allocating resources, usually money, with the expectation of generating an income or profit’ Investopedia.com.

If you’re eager to invest but unsure where to begin, this quick guide covers the basics to escort you in the right direction. Below are a few commonly asked questions that you may be thinking about, coupled with answers to help you decide; whether investing is right for you, the opportunities available, and some top tips to help you invest with confidence.

Is investing the right option for me?
Before investing, firstly think about whether you have a substantial amount of savings, like an emergency fund. And whether you need to pay off any high-interest debts such as credit cards and finance agreements, as these should ultimately be your top priorities.

Beyond this, if you have the means to ride out the current pandemic without jeopardizing your finances. Money leftover to play with, and time to invest for the long-term, before a particular life event such as retirement. You’ll have a better chance of riding out the ups and downs of the market, and investing could be an excellent option for you to boost your future income. Especially when the interest on savings accounts at the moment is pitiful.

However, if you’re hoping for a get rich quick scheme, investing may not be of interest to you. It takes time to accumulate wealth from investments, and there is always the risk you could lose the money you put in.

What investment opportunities are there?
From tangible objects to living things, there’s a broad spectrum of items for you to invest in. Here are a few for you to consider;

➢ Property – commercial and residential buildings
➢ Foreign Currency
➢ Cryptocurrency
➢ Real estate
➢ Shares within a company
➢ Art and antiques
➢ Commodities such as oil, coffee, and gold

A concept and currency that’s piqued the interest of newbie and experienced investors alike is virtual currency, and sites like Bitit, have made it far easier to begin investing. To find more on Bitit, there is a wealth of information online to help you decide whether investing cryptocurrency is right for you.

Top tips for investing?
With an array of different opportunities to invest your cash, research and familiarize yourself with your options because you should;

‘Never invest in a business you cannot understand.’ – Warren Buffett

When learning about investing, you’ll often see the term investment portfolio mentioned a lot. It’s a sensible money management technique used by investors to create a diverse collection of investments, which shall hopefully provide them with a higher prospect of making a return. For instance, should one of your investments cause you to lose money, you would still have other investments in your portfolio that may endure the volatility of the market.

In summary, the top tips for investing are;

➢ Research investment opportunities you are interested in
➢ Diversify your investment portfolio
➢ Refrain from withdrawing your money too soon. You need to stomach the ups and downs and refrain from withdrawing your cash too early.

Inspired Merchandise Ideas For Any Event

Two key focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. Depending upon the type of business you’re running, the need may arise to host special events. As such, lots of thought must go into event planning. Events can be made more memorable and successful just using the right merchandise. The following contributed post is entitled, Inspired Merchandise Ideas For Any Event.

* * *

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Everyone loves collecting merchandise when they attend trade shows or events. It’s one of the perks. Company’s go to great lengths to attract people to their stands, so having a few lonely branded pens and note pads aren’t going to cut it in today’s competitive market.

You don’t have to break the bank, but you do need to get creative if you want to compete for people’s attention.

ID Lanyards & Holders

Many companies issue employees with cards that allow them to swipe in and out fo the office. Why not hand out branded lanyard that can go around the next, or connect via reels to a person’s clothing?

It’s a super useful piece of kit that might not seem very exciting but it’s something that a lot of people need, and will use multiple times per day.

Power Banks

Who doesn’t have a smartphone these days? A portable power bank that lets you recharge your phone, tablet, or even laptop on the move. Produced in your company color, with your logo, it’s a great way to position yourself as invaluable to your target audience.

You can choose from a smaller unit, that is good for phones, through to a more expensive, larger one that will easily charge a laptop. This is an item that is likely to be kept for a long period of time.

Desktop charger/dock

Many people like to keep their phone on charge when they’re working at their desks, that way they know that if they have to leave the office, they’re taking a phone with a full charge.

A desktop charger will let them just place their phone in the dock, upright, so that they can still see notifications when it is being charged.

Mini Bamboo Speaker

Good quality, portable speakers are priceless. People love taking them on holiday or using them in places around the house where they don’t have another way to listen to the audio. A speaker can usually last for around 8 hours on a single battery charge.

A bamboo speaker is a great option for those people looking to lessen their impact on the environment by reducing the amount of plastic.

Go for the best quality you can afford.

Umbrellas

If you live somewhere with a less than perfect climate. An umbrella is a good idea. Large golf umbrellas are popular but if you want more people to carry around your branding, go for the smaller, telescopic umbrellas that can fit into a bag or briefcase.

If you’re really looking to up your umbrella game, there are even such things as smart umbrellas that can track the weather and have a built-in tracking device so you can find it if you lose it.

Wireless Mouse

Laptops are great, but if you’re using one for a long period of time, the trackpad can become a bit irritating to use all of the time.

A compact wireless mouse that connects to their laptop via Bluetooth will come in handy and light up your logo when in use.

Smart Backpack

Briefcases and old-fashioned work bags are becoming a thing of the past in a lot of industries. To take advantage of this, a smart backpack can hold your phone in its strap, so that you can use it hands-free if you need to. It also has a charging cable that can recharge your phone or any USB device directly from your bag.

RFID Card Holder

Contactless payments are great. They are so convenient but one of the downsides to this contactless technology, is the opportunity for people to steal your money with wireless payment readers. An RFID protector is a sleeve designed to hold your credit or debit card and block anyone from being able to read your card details. It fits inside a wallet or purse like a standard credit card.

Bamboo Coffee Cup

Even though it’s reported that younger generations just aren’t drinking coffee anymore, it’s still a multibillion-dollar industry. Why not give your customers a beautiful, reusable, and eco-friendly travel mug in which to have their favorite drink. You’ll also be saving them money too as many places offer discounts for people who bring their own cups.

Ice Scraper Glove

Another product to file under the boring but useful category. If you’re in the right industry and the right location, then an ice scraper glove is a perfect piece of equipment, which will likely remain with someone for years. If, on the other hand, you live in a place that hasn’t seen snow for 50 years, you might want to reconsider your choice.

Webcam Cover

The world seems to conduct it’s meeting on Zoom at the moment and we’ve all heard the horror stories about people accessing our webcams without our knowledge. A webcam cover is a small, branded sticker which sticks over your webcam that you can slide back when you need to use it, and close again when you want to be sure you have absolute privacy.

Jute Bag

Another chance to show off your green credentials by providing an eco-friendly and useful item. A well designed, reusable just bag is a huge attraction at events. Choose a size that people can fit a lot into but is easy to store away.

If you want maximum longevity out of it, be creative with your design and branding. No one wants to be a walking advert, so think about clever ways to weave your branding into an attractive design.

Key takeaways

Everyone loves merch but you have to put effort into thinking about what is useful and what is gimmicky and will be thrown away. The best items are good quality, well designed, and have a practical purpose which will see them used over and over again, ensuring that your brand is getting the maximum value of its promotional spend. That’s not to say that pens and notebooks don’t have their place, everyone loves a good quality pen, but you need to look beyond that if you’re going to keep up with the competition.

Three Rewarding Careers That Get You Outdoors

A key focus of my blog is Career Discussions. Not all careers are indoors and there are actually some fun careers that get outdoors and into nature. The following contributed post is entitled, Three Rewarding Careers That Get You Outdoors.

* * *

https://unsplash.com/photos/a4Swf9wzdKA

The office job is something that many people will, at some point, experience in their professional lives. For some, it is a quick means to an end, a temporary stop-gap between graduating college and doing what they want to do. For others, it becomes their livelihood, and that’s something they are okay with. Most of the time, anyway.

The office environment, and by association the office culture, is not for everybody, though. It can take some time to realize this, but once you do, there is a chance that you are pining for something more. For some people, this something more is being free of the constraints that office work brings, and instead, they look to the wide world outside of their cubicle. If this sounds at all familiar, here are three rewarding careers that get you outdoors.

On the Open Ocean

Working as a biologist, on a marine documentary series, or even part of a Marine logistics team, will help you try something that not many people will ever be able to experience. Furthermore, there is a more significant percentage who won’t even know such opportunities exist.

If you love the smell of the fresh ocean air and aren’t prone to getting seasick, a career on the open ocean is right for you. There is the chance to work tirelessly to help preserve our oceans, encounter exotic sea life, and you can use this experience to educate others on why it is so essential to preserve what we already have.

Into the Woods

There are a wide variety of woodland careers that you can explore, including a wildland firefighter to battle wildfires all over the world, or becoming a park ranger where you will have the chance to study and care for the forests that you adore so much.

Being out in the woods, maintaining it, and being one with nature, while also having a team to help you keep order will allow you to enjoy the fresh air that you can only get from being in some of the most beautiful parts of the world. From glaciers to dense forest woodland, there is something for all passions.

On Top of the World

If you’ve never felt right being stuck at sea level and love to see how the world looks for unique vantage points, a mountaineering job could be perfect for you. Much like woodland work, you get the chance to explore parts of the world that very few people see while also encountering elusive animals.

Depending on what you prefer, you can lead guided tours up to the highest points all over the world. You will learn the trails like the back of your hand, and you will always feel the rush that comes from surmounting the trickiest, but also most rewarding, peaks wherever you go.

Fresh Air

From stunning vistas, fresh air, and a chance to do something that helps the world around us, outdoor careers are a fantastic way to feel rewarded in your career. If you’ve always felt more comfortable on the ocean, strolling through woodland, or climbing up the mountainside, these careers could be the answer you have been craving.

How Can You Improve Your Chances of Business Success

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. Once you start a business venture of any kind, you must always think about what’s coming next. Improving your operations will assure its survival. The following contributed post is entitled, How Can You Improve Your Chances of Business Success.

* * *

Image: https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-writing-on-notebook-669615/

Have you always fancied yourself as a business owner? Maybe you’re sick of being trapped in the rat race, or maybe you’ve always been told you have entrepreneurial qualities. If so, putting in the groundwork surrounding your knowledge and experience will massively increase your chances of success long term. Here’s how you can go about it, from the beginning.

Define what ‘success’ means for you
It goes without saying that a business can’t be successful unless it’s making money, so a lot of your success will come down to profit. However, there’s generally much more to it than that- most people want to be entrepreneurs and start their own companies for reasons in addition to money. Do you want your business to be a flexible way to earn money around raising a family? Do you want to do something that feels rewarding to you? Do you want to build your skills? Setting out these goals in the beginning can help you to carve your path in the world of business, it can help you make decisions that will bend and shape your business. Even if these objectives change over time, going into things with a good idea of what you want ultimately is a smart move and can help you gain success.

Get educated
Many people have started businesses with no previous business education and gone on to do incredibly well. However, this isn’t usually the case, and if you want to increase your chances of success then getting educated is always a good idea. This could involve going to university and studying in a business related topic, if you’re early on in your career (such as being a school leaver or not being established in your career yet) then taking the time out to study full time is well worth considering. You will build an excellent foundation of knowledge surrounding all areas of business which can be absolutely invaluable when it comes to starting your own venture. While it’s possible to learn as you go, this involves a fair bit of trial and error which might not be something that every business can get away with financially. If you’re sure you want to be a business owner and are serious about success then start at the beginning, get educated and build your way up from there. It’s a better way to go about things than starting a business with no idea and hoping things work out.

Gain experience
Once you’ve completed your formal education you might be keen to jump into something of your own right away. However, what can be better is to gain experience working for someone else first. Whether it’s paid or voluntary, working in a similar company to one you eventually want to run yourself can teach you lots of valuable things. From what works to what doesn’t, which softwares is best and how they’re run, how staff are dealt with and much more. Again, it just means that you’re not starting up a business and then being clueless as to how to go about things. Education really does go a long way but it’s best combined with experience so you know how to apply it. Aim to do at least a year working in a similar setting to the kind of business you want to start up yourself, and pay attention to the way everything is done. By the time you come to start your own venture, you’ll know exactly how things work and won’t just have to guess.

Build up your savings
While you’re working for another company, this gives you time to save money. Starting out your business venture with a healthy bank balance is one of the best things you can do, while there are lots of business loans available, taking one out means that you’re starting out ‘in the red.’ This can put a lot of pressure on you in the early days, as not only do you need to be making a profit but you need to be making enough money to cover your loan repayments too. In the year or so before starting your venture, work on building up a healthy level of savings which you can use to launch your business, and have something to fall back on too if things don’t pick up as quickly as you’d hope. Even if you do need to take out loans too, it will mean borrowing a smaller amount and generally make things easier when it comes to repayments. So while you’re gaining experience working for a company you could be building your bank balance at the same time.

Network
You don’t need to wait until you’ve started your business to start networking and building connections. Having a strong network before you start can be incredibly helpful when you come to start your own business. So attend networking events, open a linkedin account and take up any opportunities to meet professionals or relevant individuals in your field. Your college or university alumni is a good place to start when it comes to networking. These people can provide invaluable advice when you have questions that need answering or guidance if you have a good relationship with them. These can introduce you to new contacts, customers and clients too. Be mindful of connecting with direct competitors, what can be better is to find experts in related but different industries so that you’re not competing with them and instead your business can work with theirs.

Improve your skills
Finally, even once you’ve started your business and things are running well, don’t rest on your laurels. Things change so quickly that being successful involves keeping up, adapting and moving with the times. Even when you’re running a business you could take shorter courses such as diplomas and certification in your spare time. Having as much knowledge as possible, particularly up to date and relevant knowledge really can help you to succeed. Some courses to consider:

● Accounting and Bookkeeping.
● Business Economics.
● Business Finance.
● Business Management and Operations.
● Business Marketing.
● Business Support and Administrative Services.
● Entrepreneurship and Small Business Development.
● IT Security Degree

Even if you don’t plan on running these areas yourself since you’ll be outsourcing or have your own team, it’s useful to have the background knowledge to allow you to make the best decisions as a business owner.

How to Take Your Concept From Idea to Reality

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. An important step for all businesses is taking your concept to reality. There numerous steps that follow it, but it is arguably the most important step. The following contributed post is entitled How to Take Your Concept From Idea to Reality.

* * *

When you have a great idea for a product or a business idea you think would work out great, the feeling of not knowing how to take it from vision to reality can be really frustrating. But sometimes you need to take a leap into the darkness and have faith in your idea. That’s not the same as having blind faith, however. There are lots of things you can do to help you take your concept from idea to reality, and that’s what we’re going to talk about right now, so read on.

Seek Advice

It’s a good idea to start out by seeking help from people who really know what they’re talking about. There are many people out there who’ve been in the same situation as you’re in now, and their experiences and insights can really help you to develop your ideas and find the next steps forward. There are plenty of people out there willing to help if you reach out to them.

Embrace the Risk

You’re going to have to accept that there’s a significant risk involved with developing a product or starting a business. There are certainly no guarantees of success or riches. But you should embrace that risk and everything that comes with it. It’s part of the ride and no one ever manages to innovate if they don’t take a few risks along the way.

Work Closely with Others

You’re going to need to work closely with others if you’re to have a chance of getting your product to market. For example, you’ll need to create a product requirements doc when working with designers and manufacturers. You need the specialist expertise of all kinds of people throughout the process because there’s almost no chance that you will know how to do it all yourself.

Test and Trial It

When you have a prototype of your product in place, you should test and trial it. This means putting it to the test in practice and also seeing how the target customers of your business respond to it. You can use things like focus groups to do this and you can then use the feedback you get in the next stage of development when making improvements to it.

Make Adaptations

Making adaptations is something that will happen many times over when you’re developing a new product. Something’s wrong if you feel like you’ve got it right the first time because that’s something that simply never happens and it’s not going to happen for you either. The process of adapting and improving your concept is one that’ll take time and resources, but it’ll be worth it in the end.

Image Source – CC0 License

When you have a great idea, you should act upon it. So many people have great product or business ideas but don’t know how to translate them into reality. It’s not necessarily as difficult as you might expect, so why not take a risk and try to make it happen? It might be the best thing you ever do.

Questions To Ask Yourself When Buying New Tech

Two key focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Technology. New technologies are emerging all the time. As such it’s important to spend your money wisely and make sure getting the right terms when you’re making your new technology purchases. The following contributed post is entitled, Questions To Ask Yourself When Buying New Tech.

* * *

Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

If you’re looking to buy new tech and you don’t know where to begin then don’t worry, you have definitely come to the right place. Whether you’re looking to buy a new TV or you want to invest in a new gaming PC, you need to be sure you’re buying the right products for you. Luckily, there are lots of questions you can ask to ensure you’re doing exactly that. From setting yourself an overall budget to buying from trustworthy retailers, the more questions you’re asking the better. With that in mind, here are a number of questions you can ask yourself when buying new tech:

What Is Your Overall Budget?

One of the first things you need to ask yourself when it comes to buying new tech is in regard to your budget, as you need to ensure you’re not spending more than you can afford. Whether this means researching the average cost for the item you want to buy or hunting around until you find the best price, you need to ensure you’re not spending more than your budget allows. For a guide to budgeting for new technology at home, you can visit this site here.

Are You Buying From A Trustworthy Retailer?

Another important thing you need to consider is whether or not you’re buying from a trustworthy retailer. If you’ve never heard of them before, it might be worth doing a little bit of research.

From reading reviews online to asking your friends and family if they have ever purchased from them, there are lots of ways to ensure you’re buying from a legitimate store. Another option is to ensure you read buyers guides.

Have You Read Product Reviews?

When it comes to buying the right products, you need to be sure you’re reading as many product reviews as you can. Not only will this tell you whether or not the product is high-quality but it will also give you an idea as to whether or not there are any issues you need to be aware of. For a guide to trusting product reviews, you can visit this site here.

How Soon Will It Arrive?

Another important thing to consider is how soon the product is going to arrive. If you’re in a hurry, you may want to find a retailer that can offer next day delivery.

Is There A Returns Policy?

Although the chances of there being an issue with your item are low, you need to ensure there is a returns policy you can trust. Whether it’s a 30 day returns period or something a little longer, having that peace of mind when buying a large ticket item is important.

With the options above you can be sure you’re asking the right questions before you buy new tech, helping to ensure you’re making the right yourself decision. What else should you be asking? Did we miss anything off of the list? Let me know your thoughts and ideas in the comments section below.