Category: Contributed Posts

Considering Investing in a Franchise? Here’s Everything You Need to Know!

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. If you’re interested in going into business or yourself, you can either grow and nurture your own idea, or you can buy into a franchise-model. What are some considerations for this? The following contributed post is entitled, Considering Investing in a Franchise? Here’s Everything You Need to Know!

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The majority of people fall into one of two categories when it comes to making money – they tend to either be an employee working for someone else’s company, or they take matters into their own hands and create their own business from scratch. There are, of course, benefits that come hand in hand with each of these options. When you are employed, you benefit from contracted working hours, sick pay, annual leave, parental leave, and you are likely to get a redundancy package if your job falls through. If you run your own business, you get to keep a much larger share of the profit that you are actually earning. But it’s important to remember that these aren’t the only options out there. There are alternatives. One alternative is to take control of a franchise. Here’s everything you need to know on the topic if this is something that you could potentially be interested in!

What Is a Franchise?

Let’s start out by establishing what a franchise actually is. Put simply, franchising is a form of licencing relationship. When a business takes off, the business owner controlling it might recognise that there is demand for more branches of the company to open up, but they may not want to have to control the extra branches themselves – after all, this would be a lot of responsibility. So, these business owners may then decide to open new branches, but relinquish the majority of control over these branches to someone who is willing to buy the franchise from them (a franchisee). If you become a franchisee, you will generally have to follow rules and guidelines set out by the original business owner. You may have to keep their branding, operate under their brand name, and provide particular products or services that their brand is known for. But you do gain the control of running the business yourself and profiting from the business. There are seemingly endless types of franchises out there – you can find anything from fast food outlets to a tick control franchise for sale. So, there’s likely to be a franchise out there that genuinely interests you and that you would enjoy running.

Sticking to Terms and Conditions

If you do decide to go ahead and invest in a franchise, it is absolutely essential that you stick to the terms and conditions laid out by the original business owner. So, make sure to read through them and ensure that you are happy to abide by them before investing. The main terms and conditions tend to revolve around maintain the franchiser’s brand. This, of course, can be relatively frustrating if you want to make changes or alterations to the products and services that your franchise is offering and you are denied permission. However, remember that the brand is what is going to make you a lot of money with little input from yourself in the long run. When you invest a franchise, the business owner has already put a whole lot of hard work, time, effort, and financial investment into establishing the brand. People are already going to know what your franchise offers and there are likely to be loyal customers already in the area, who will be happy that a franchise has opened near them. This will save you the time and effort of carving a space for yourself in the market, and you can start making sales and generating profit a lot faster.

Expanding

If you do want to make changes along the line, make sure to open up a line of communication with the business owner. There’s always a chance that they will take your ideas and suggestions on board and you never know – they might grant permission for your plans to go ahead. It’s always worth at least asking.

Moving Forward

If, over time, you do find that franchising isn’t allowing you the creativity and control that you want over a business, you can always sell your franchise and move forward. But remember that engaging with a franchise is a great way to ease yourself into running a business and to familiarise yourself with how businesses work. You can then use this knowledge and experience moving forward to establish your own small business that you will have complete control over!

As you can see, franchising could prove to be a great business opportunity for anyone considering taking a little more control over their own careers. Whether you intend to stick with franchising or use this as great experience in running a business with lowered responsibility to start out, it’s worth looking into and getting involved with!

3 Tips on How to Represent Your Business Well

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. A major component of building your business/enterprise is personal appearance. This encompasses both physical appearance, demeanour and actual preparedness. The following contributed post is thus entitled, 3 Tips on How to Represent Your Business Well.

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Image via Pixabay

If you’re a small business owner at a trade event, or if you’re a member of a much larger organisation and have been tasked with representing the organisation in some official and formal context, it’s essential that you know how to conduct yourself in a manner which presents your business in the best possible light.

Of course, there’s a lot that goes into a professional presentation, and there are many aims that you will likely be trying to accomplish.

It will, for example, be important for you to present your business as a serious, professional, and diligent force to any competitors in the field. It will also be necessary for you to reassure your clients, or would-be clients, of your organisation’s strong ethical standards that sit above reproach.

Here are a few tips on how, specifically, you can conduct yourself to represent your business well.

Be sharp in your presentation — both your personal presentation and the presentation of your branding and marketing materials

If you’re in the position of representing your business in an official capacity, then it’s important for you to treat your own personal presentation as an extension of the kind of image you want to convey for the company at large.

This means tailoring your outfit for the day according to the image the company would most like to convey. Should you wear a suit or a pair of well-fitted jeans and a black T-Shirt? Of course, your personal grooming and hygiene should be impeccable in any case.

The next step is to carefully select the branding and marketing materials that you plan to use to represent the company more specifically. Will pull up banner displays help to make a strong impression, and highlight some of the company’s key benefits and USPs?

It’s worth spending a good amount of time considering these questions.

Be the person who accepts responsibility — let the buck stop with you

It’s all but impossible to respect people who don’t accept responsibility and accountability — certainly for issues which are essentially their own innate responsibility anyway, but even for things that aren’t necessarily their responsibility in the conventional sense.

If your company has been embroiled in recent controversies, and you’re going to be representing your company in public, expect people to raise those topics, and have answers prepared. Answers which position you as someone who is accepting responsibility on behalf of the company.

If someone raises a point of company controversy, and you shrug and say “don’t ask me, nothing to do with me, I just work here”, the impression made is not likely to be stellar.

Play it straight and stick with the truth, don’t get caught up in spin

Obviously, you’ll want to present your company or personal business in the best possible light. But you should nonetheless do so in a way that is rooted in the truth, and that doesn’t involve deceit or mischaracterization of the facts.

If you get caught up in spin, you undermine your own position, put people off you on an instinctual level, and also are liable to get caught up in your own tangled web of confusing half-truths.

Speak positively of the company, but only to the extent that your words are true. If you can’t find anything to say about the company which is both positive and true, you’re likely working for the wrong company.

Making Money From Those Major Investments

A key focus of my blog is Financial Literacy/Money. A key aspect of this is understanding how to invest money for significant rates of return. If you weren’t raised in an ecosystem where this knowledge was prevalent, you have to obtain the information and then have the drive to apply it in disciplined way. The following contributed post is thus entitled, Making Money From Those Major Investments.

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If you’ve got plenty of entrepreneurial spirit, and a zest for savvy financial decisions; there’s no doubt that you’ve got a couple of the attributes needed to gain financial success and a comfortable future. The fun part (mostly) is in the process; deciding how, where, and when to invest your money, and work hard at something, so you can reap the rewards is also the challenge. But, you’re not here because you’re shy of a challenge, and you won’t be fazed by making some major decisions. You’ll already understand how crucial it is to hold as much knowledge as possible regarding your investment; you’ll have worked hard for what money you have, and won’t want to waste it due to a poor, or ill-informed choice. Therefore, whatever it is that you’re thinking about; prepare, plan, and acknowledge as much as possible beforehand.

It’s time to push forward with your plans, and ensure that your major investments are an excellent way to reap some financial reward. Don’t expect instant success, as this is a rarity in a heavily saturated market; however, put plenty of time and effort into where you put your cash so that the return will keep you smiling. Whether you want to be the CEO of a new venture out of your investment, a pot of money for a rainy day, or you’re just happy to see where it takes you; your work ethic and decision-making need to be on point. The following are some ideas, advice, and inspiration for those who have made, or are about to make a significant investment so that they can gain more from their money.

Image source: https://www.pexels.com/photo/analytics-blur-business-close-up-590045/

Investing In A New Venture

So, you feel like you’re born to do a certain job, provide a particular service, or create an empire; however, the difference to most people, is that you want it to be as part of your own company and venture. Fortune often favors the bold and the brave, but, only if they’re smart about it all. Focus on your business’s USP so that you can really set yourselves apart from the crowd. If you want to become a serious competitor in the hospitality or leisure industry; you need to push something different. As a hotelier, your venue needs to make an impact as soon as it opens; consult with both design and service experts so that every review is an excellent one. Perhaps you want to take hospitality into the sky, and invest in a private jet service; the luxury market is forever growing. You could even push your skills into the water; looking into marine engineering and naval architecture will allow you to investment in a yacht or boat, that’s ideal for your brand and business. Keeping your potential patrons in mind, at all times, will help you budget as you create something truly unique.

Maybe it’s your products that you believe in, or your curation skills in regards to stocking a business that offers consumers something different. Remember that many are bored with the mass-produced items that they see everywhere, all the time; so focus on being something a little different so that a customer feels like they’re buying into something niche, without being off-putting. Become a business that stocks and supplies other businesses; this is great for entrepreneurs with a particular knowledge or skill in a specific area of the market, who are adept at large supply and demand. You’ll need to be brave will your initial investment; however, your reward could exceed that of the consumer market.

Upcycling may bring about thoughts of small garages and home projects; however, there’s a huge demand for vintage, and antique items, due to their rarity. If you have an eye for value, and a knowledge for what’s in demand, perhaps it’s a good idea to spend your time in an auction house. Restore items that need some TLC so that your markup and profit will be far greater than the time and money you originally spent on it. There’s some luck and timing involved in this venture, but if you’re the sort of entrepreneur that thrives on that, you’ll be perfect in your fresh role. Build-up a friendly, and more importantly, trustworthy, reputation, with both customers and your various suppliers so that grabbing a bargain and selling it on will be as straightforward as possible.

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Building-Up Your Cash In Something

Perhaps a quick-paced supply and demand, or opening a venue or service, just isn’t for you. That’s more than fine; there are entrepreneurs out there making money in a huge variety of ways. If investing in something solid (quite literally), and building-up your cash over the years, is how you want to kick things off, then real estate and property could be your ideal option. Even those who buy to live in a property, will add value to their original investment eventually,; however, there are ways to get that bit extra at a distance. Buy-to-let properties are an excellent way to pay off your original spend, and continue making a decent income into the future. You can also re-invest the profits so that you can build-up a portfolio of homes for people. Utilizing a letting agent is the perfect way to take a lot of the stress out of looking after tenants, so it might be worth considering if you have other things you need to focus on each day.

Becoming a shareholder in a startup, is yet another way to make money at a bit of a distance, and over time. You’ll need to be really savvy regarding who and where you invest, as many new businesses can fail in the first year. However, ensuring that you’ve chosen something smart, and ensured that you’ll receive a set percentage at a certain time, will help to alleviate any concerns, and bring you a lump sum. Depending on your agreement, you can arrange to receive a certain percentage each year instead, which is great for a long term option, and will mean that you don’t need to worry about selling your share. Get the right information and advice, and you could well be onto a winner.

Image from Pexels

Six Ways To Handle Workplace Stress

Two of the key focuses of my blog are Career Discussions and Health and Wellness. Regardless of which career you’re in, the workplace can cause you quite a bit of stress if you’re not careful. It therefore becomes critical to understand how to manage it if and when you get into a position where the workplace is impacting your quality of life. The following contributed post is thus entitled, Six Ways To Handle Workplace Stress.

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We’ve all woken up in the morning and dreaded heading to the office at least once in our lives. Whether it’s because deadlines are looming, the traffic on the commute is getting worse and making you late, or the fact you’ve been passed over the promotion yet again, it’s all tough when it comes to the workplace. Stress is one of the hardest things to cope with, because trying to manage the stress can be difficult when you’re also trying to keep up the momentum with your boss on your back.

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It’s important to try to overcome stress in the workplace, though, because without trying, you’re not going to get anywhere, ending up more stressed than you were already. So, whether you start advance checking for traffic and road closures, or you hold a meeting to ask about that promotion from the higher ups, you need to start thinking of ways to reduce stress. Below, we’ve got six ways to do just that, without you needing to lose it.

Fresh Air. Going for a short walk during the work day can make a real difference. Whether you go on your lunch break or you head out quickly for a coffee, you really need to think about that fresh air. Offices are notoriously stuffy and breathing in recycled air is not the most fun way to spend the day. If you feel your tension rising, get out for fresh air
and get a little exercise with a walk.
Have A Stretch. Whether you get up or not, stretch your body. Sitting down for a long time can cause a lot of pressure on your back, and prolonged sitting can really place a lot of stress on the body as a whole. Every hour at least, get up and stretch. It doesn’t matter if it looks weird, it can allow you to keep concentrating on your work and not feel wound up.
It’s A Mental State. Stress is all in the mind. It may manifest physically for a lot of people, but it starts in your head. You can simply put on a meditation app and relax for a few minutes, concentrating on your breathing and slowing your heart. It’s in the mind, and the mind can be controlled; remember that.
Divert Your Focus. At work, the pressure is on. If you start to feel closed in, start helping someone else for a moment. A problem shared is a problem halved, and then ask them for some guidance on your issue. Even if all you do is open the door for someone else when they’re coming through, it’s helpful and it can take your mind off your stress.
Dance It Out. Head to the roof space, the bathroom, anywhere private. Put your favourite song on your headphones and dance madly. Blast out the energy and the jitters at the same time, and release your stress that way.

No one needs to feel pressured, hurt or put upon by their workplace. With a little help, you can dispel the stress as fast as possible.

Getting Your First Small Business UP and Running

Two of the key focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. They say that the majority of business fail with the first couple of years, but even to give your idea a chance to succeed you have to start it. There are some key considerations to getting it up and moving. The following contributed post is thus entitled, Getting Your First Small Business UP and Running.

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Nowadays, increasing numbers of people are opting to set up their own small business in an attempt to escape the rat race and work towards building their own dreams rather than making someone else’s dreams a reality. But setting up a business can actually prove to be a relatively complex process. So, it’s a good idea to familiarise yourself with the start up process before throwing yourself in the deep end! Here are just a few areas you should focus on to get the ball rolling in the right direction.

Company Formation

One of the first steps that you need to take when it comes to setting up your company is to engage with company formation. If you are unfamiliar with the process of starting a company www.yourcompanyformations.co.uk will be able to help you out. This process will essentially establish your business as a distinct legal entity, making everything official!

Product and Service Development

Now that the ball is rolling, it’s time to start seriously considering what kind of products or services you are intending to provide the consumer market with. If you already have an idea, that’s great. But if you’re feeling lost and are unsure what area you’d like to specialise in, choose something that you are genuinely interested in and try to identify a gap in the market within this field. The marketplace is already a very saturated place, so it could prove extremely difficult to offer a product or service that already exists – someone else will have already established their company as a leading brand or force and chances are that they have more money to play with when it comes to advertising and securing brand loyalty. Identifying a gap means you have a good opportunity to dominate an area of the marketplace for yourself.

Conduct Market Research

No matter how good you might think your idea is and how much encouragement you might have from friends and family members, it’s absolutely essential that you conduct market research. Market research is essentially a process where you pitch your products to your target demographic and see what they think of them. You can gain a whole lot of information, including:

● Whether your product concept appeals to people.

● What they feel could be improved about your product.

● Whether they already source a similar product from someone else and who these alternative products are being provided by.

Engaging with this process will give you unbiased information and advice from the exact people you are targeting. These are the people that your company relies on for sales and profit, so who could possibly be better to ask? At the end of the day, no matter how much time, effort, and money you pump into your business, everything will be wasted if people don’t want to buy what you have to offer them. Once you’ve got the go ahead with your product concept, you can also use market research to determine whether your products will be financially viable and potentially profitable. You can ask target consumers questions about:

● Their income (this will help you to figure out an average so you know how much the average consumer you are targeting earns and has disposable).

● How much they would be willing to pay for the product that you are offering.

This will help you to come up with realistic price points and you can then work out profit margins. If there’s a large margin, it could be worth going ahead. If you’d be making a minimal amount of profit after forking out for manufacturing, packaging, shipping, and other factors, you might want to give creating this product a miss. As you can see, conducting market research before going any further ahead will help you to only make wise investments and only move forward with bringing concepts to life that will actually sell. If you are unfamiliar with conducting market research yourself, not to worry. There are plenty of different tutorials out there that can help you find participants and ask the right questions. However, generally speaking, it’s best to outsource this service. This ensure your market research is conducted with as little bias as possible (as it will be carried out by a third party) and you can better spend your time focusing on other areas of your business’ progression while market research is being carried out.

These, of course, are just the starting blocks of starting your own successful business. But everyone has to start somewhere and focusing on these areas should get things off to a good start!

7 Words You Need To Understand Before Starting Up In Agriculture

Three of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money, Business/Entrepreneurship, and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). Agriculture is a fascinating sector in that it merges business with the plant sciences, Botany and Ecology. In order do business in Agriculture, there are key terms that you need to understand. The following contributed post is thus entitled, 7 Words You Need To Understand Before Starting Up In Agriculture.

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Agriculture is a thriving sector of the economy and currently going through enormous change. That means that there are big opportunities available to people who can see them.

But part of understanding any industry is knowing some of the jargon that people in that industry use to communicate with each other. Jargon isn’t pointless, as many people contend: it’s just a way of expressing shorthand with other people with a high level of knowledge of a particular subject. So what words should you know if you’re planning on setting up in the ag business? Let’s take a look.

Yield

If you grow your own crops, you need to understand the concept of yield. Yield, put simply, is the weight of crop produced, divided by the area required to produce it. Modern farmers will usually speak of “tons per hectare”, but old-fashioned metrics might include “bushels per acre” where a bushel is an imperial measure for a quantity of a crop. Visit this website to find out more.

Bushel

Pixabay

Speaking of bushels, what exactly are they? Bushels are just a unit of measurement for a crop, Traditionally, a bushel was 8 gallons of grain, but the weight of a bushel varies with the type of plant. Eight gallons of oats, for instance, weighs about half as much as the same volume of wheat.

Polyculture

Wikimedia Commons

Take a look at most modern farms, and what do you notice? The same crop is grown in all directions, mile after mile. But is this the best way to grow? Polyculture refers to the process of growing complementary crops next to each other, boosting the yield of both.

Seed Drill

Seed drills are pretty self-explanatory. Before mechanisation, farmers used to drill seeds into the ground mechanically using horse or cattle-driven ploughs. Today tractors pull seed drills along fields, allowing farmers to plant seeds at set depths and intervals.

Permaculture

Wikimedia Commons

Permaculture refers to a process of designing human communities so that food production and waste are closely linked. The idea is to recycle all of the raw ingredients of farming to create something sustainable.

Dry Farming

With freshwater supplies under threat worldwide, there’s a growing need for dry farming: or the practice of relying on rainfall and soil moisture alone, rather than irrigation. Traditionally, farmers relied on building channels that would transport water to their crops to keep soil moisture levels high. But dry farming is a far riskier process because farmers essentially don’t have any control over when it rains. Dry farmers tend to rely on hardy crops that can withstand water and nutrient depletion.

Herbicide-Tolerant

Weeds can reduce yields by outcompeting crops for resources: soil nutrients, water and sunlight. Farmers need to get rid of weeds, but that can be difficult. Killing weeds with herbicide is all well and good, so long as the herbicide doesn’t kill the crops at the same time.

Herbicide-tolerant crops are those which can survive treatment with herbicide. The weeds die, but the crops don’t – exactly what you want as a farmer.

So, are you ready to start up in agriculture?

3 Ways to Kick Off Your Healthcare Business

Two of the key focuses are my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. The healthcare industry is constantly evolving and will most likely not go anywhere. Thus those who choose to get involved with this industry stand to make a lot of money. The following contributed post is thus entitled, 3 Ways to Kick Off Your Healthcare Business.

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No matter how much experience you have in the field of healthcare, all new business owners need a bit of help along the way. There is more to a healthcare business than providing healthcare, after all, and without some proper business sense, you won’t really get too far – and you certainly won’t survive for those all-important first five years.

Image by: Pexels

If you have just embarked on the journey as an entrepreneur, you’ve definitely come to the right place. Here is a handful of tips in terms of kicking off your healthcare business so that you can watch it prosper a bit faster and make sure that you’re able to provide the best kind of care for your clients. It’s what it’s all about, after all.

#1 Pinpoint the challenges

First of all, you know very well that the healthcare sector is full of small and big challenges. While you might be able to overcome some of them, there isn’t much you can do about the problems surrounding funding and finding enough time for each client – but you can certainly try to make it a bit better for your business.

What most clients look for in a healthcare business is a flexible and convenient place they can go to with their health problems. This means that, while other healthcare businesses in your area may struggle to find the time to fit every client and make it convenient for them, you can try to make use of technology to make it a bit easier.

Start by researching the market, from a business-point-of-view, before you attempt to solve these issues within your own healthcare business.

#2 Provide time and convenience

Provide time and convenienceLet’s start with the challenge we mentioned above first. Make sure that your business, first of all, has a system that allows you to get a bit more time with each client. This might mean that you invest in the kind of technology that allows for video consultations, for example, so that you can still meet with the clients who are not able to travel.

Your calendar system will also need to be up to date, though, to ensure that you have a perfect overview of every consultation in the future. That way, you won’t overbook yourself – and you can give your clients a bit more of your time during each session.

#3 Invest in your suppliers

You’re going to depend on your suppliers of medical tools and gadgets quite a lot, by the way, and cultivating a good relationship with these is the key to keeping your business up to date on all of the new advances. Start by having a look at this reservoir 12, for example, and consider each supplier individually before you start to make any deals.

When you start to pinpoint the specific issues with each supplier in relation to your business needs, you will naturally gravitate towards suppliers that spark a good working relationship. But this can mean if your business expands, you may work with additional suppliers. If you need to branch out into radiofrequency oriented practices, which require tools like radiofrequency ablation needles, the eye must always be towards the future and making sure that each supplier can serve your needs. But this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep up your end of the bargain; working with your suppliers is all about a two-way relationship where you can both help each other.

When your relationships with these suppliers are great, you’ll also be able to enjoy excellent service in the future – and won’t have to worry about any missing deliveries.

It’s the kind of stuff that makes it a bit easier to start your very first healthcare business and make sure that it kicks off right from the start.

Business Ideas For Those Who Enjoy The Outdoors

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. Outdoors-type businesses can be very lucrative depending on the location and what the location is. If your interested in such a venture, the following contributed post is entitled, Business Ideas For Those Who Enjoy The Outdoors.

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Picture by David Bartus

Being outdoors has many benefits for one’s wellbeing. You get a healthy dose of Vitamin D, it helps you restore focus and gain perspective. Plus according to psychologists, it can also give you the strength to shrug off social pressures and place more importance on valuable aspects of your life such as family, sharing and community, essentially making you a better well-rounded person. When the thought of being confined indoors working fills you with stress, there are alternative ideas for you to develop your own business and spend all the time in the world outdoors so that you can feel energized and motivated to take on the day.

Starting a business that’s in keeping with your personality and values is imperative to ensure you are pursuing a life that makes you happy and that your business doesn’t sacrifice your health and wellbeing causing you unnecessary stress. For those who thrive on being outdoors, that’s exactly where you should be, take a look at the opportunities below.

Gardener / Landscaper And Urban Planner

If amongst being outdoors, being meticulous about design and aesthetics of the outdoors sounds of interest to you, starting a business as a gardener or a landscaper may be your calling. With no particular education and experience required to be a gardener, you may wish to practice on your own and your families gardens before providing your services to customers. The extent of gardening activities you offer is entirely up to you, whether mowing lawns, pruning bushes or selecting and planting perennials, you decide the breadth of your role. The most important part being, you get to be in your favorite place, outdoors.

Farm Business

Without the world’s farmers, where would we be? Becoming a farmer is another option for those who adore the outdoors, however gaining education and experience is recommended as farming is no easy task. You may wish to enroll in a course for agriculture and shadow a reputable professional farmer to better understand what it takes to become a successful ethical farmer. Working alongside a farmer you can establish what you would like to farm, what equipment you need such as tractors and fertilizers from https://www.fertilizerdealer.com/ and how to generally and own and run your own business. Although you have the luxury of mostly being outdoors, this work is physically demanding and requires a genuine and passion in growing crops and/or feeding and nurturing animals to carry you through the challenges you will face as a farmer.

Outdoor Activity Club

If you’re friendly, energetic and like instructing, guiding and encouraging others, you may want to consider opening a business for an outdoor activity club. The activities you provide can range from anything such as river rafting, water zorbing, paintballing, cycling or offering general sports such as soccer. You may wish to play on your strengths and choose to become a qualified instructor in the activities you feel most confident, or challenge yourself and seek a certificate for a new activity. This job caters to your need to be outdoors and if you’re particularly adventurous and sporty may appeal to other parts of your nature too.

You are not limited to the above positions for being outdoors because when you run your own business, you can work where you want to in reason. Even if this means working online but sitting outdoors with your laptop (weather permitting) there are ways to adjust your startup business to also prioritize the needs of your health, wellbeing, and happiness.

Are You Cutting Your Boss’ Decisions Enough Slack?

Two key focuses of my blog are Creating Ecosystems of Success and Career Discussions. Stepping up into management doesn’t just mean an increase in pay, but it also involves a whole new set of responsibilities and decisions to make that most staff level employees aren’t privy to. The following contributed post is thus entitled, Are You Cutting Your Boss’ Decisions Enough Slack?

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As an employee, it feels as if you and the boss are at war. Not literally, but metaphorically. You ask for things and suggest improvements and they go about their business as usual. It’s incredibly frustrating when they don’t listen, especially if the idea could transform the company.

It’s easy to see bosses and managers as incompetent. They are stuck in their ways and make decisions for their gain and nobody else’s. Of course, they got to their position through hard work and competency among other things, so they aren’t inept. If anything, they know things you don’t and haven’t yet considered.

Far too often, workers don’t cut their boss’ decisions enough slack and the relationship suffers as a result. You’re more than welcome to go down this route but it won’t work out well for you in the long-term. The better option is to try and see it from their side. Why doesn’t the person in charge drop everything when you have a light bulb moment?

Trade-Offs

Not everything is as straightforward as it appears to the untrained eye. You might want new desktops and iPads for remote working, yet it isn’t a case of making an order. For a boss, an expense such as this will require a trade-off in another area of the company or further down the line.

An example is the impact the cost will have on the budget as a whole. New software and hardware might raise productivity a little, but it won’t help with employee training. If the boss considers the latter to be more important, they won’t make the tradeoff as it doesn’t make any business sense.

No-brainers do exist yet the majority of the time it requires the person in charge to play politics. Yep, even for the most basic of decisions.

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Humanity

The last thing anybody wants to see is layoffs. Watching colleagues and friends pack their things and leave the building is a heartbreaking sight. It’s also scary because you know you could be next. Redundancies don’t discriminate as one way to limit the number of layoffs is to fire high-earning workers.

You might think there are other options on the table; however, the reality is different. Asking people to go part-time or to take a redundancy package isn’t always viable. Depending on the company’s finances, the budget might need cutting to the bone. Also, don’t forget that they have to think about the future as well as the present. It isn’t enough to lay off people to stay above water – the business needs breathing space.

Bosses have to do whatever necessary to stop the firm from going under. Their allegiance is to the company.

Health And Safety

Why is that there? What do we need this for? How come this makes no sense? It’s not uncommon for employees to judge the internal processes of the workplace. After all, an inefficient format makes your life more difficult and it’s stressful.

What workers often forget is the topics of health and safety. Bosses must ensure everyone is safe within the workplace particularly if you work with heavy machinery. That’s why there are electric chain hoists in warehouses which lift small to medium loads vertically. Machines that do it horizontally often swing the load and it’s a potential danger. Pretty much every piece of equipment or resource in the workplace has a meaning, and it’s usually health and safety related.

The next time you wonder why something is the way it is, remember your wellbeing. The odds are the management has put it there for your benefit.

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Fairness

Sometimes, a decision will improve the business as a whole yet it’s tough to implement. The reason is simple: the perception of fairness. Employees who feel their coworkers are getting preferential treatment will rebel. Once this happens, the morale of the team hits rock bottom and everything starts to go wrong.

Home-based work is worth considering in this context. You know that it would suit your life if you could have some independence a couple of times a week. Although the boss agrees, there is no way they can sanction it if there is going to be a backlash. Everyone will want the same and it’s impossible to allow. After all, some people aren’t made for unstructured hours.

So, if a boss makes a decision and you know it’s wrong, think about the bigger picture. As a rule, the togetherness of the team is always going to come ahead of the individual.

How do you see your boss’ decisions now?

What Do You Need For A Successful Startup?

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. All businesses initially go through the ‘startup’ phase. If you have the training and experience, the steps to this are obvious. If it’s your first time, you may need some guidance. The following contributed post is thus entitled, What Do You Need For A Successful Startup.

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Starting a business requires you to have certain things in place to give yourself the best chance at success. Without these things, you could be in the 97% of startups that fail every year. We know that you don’t want that, so you are going to have to ensure that you have got everything on the list we are about to give you to avoid this from happening. You might think that you already have everything you need, and if that’s true then great, you’re good to go. But, we suggest that you read this article first, and make sure that you have thought of everything that we have.

An Awesome Website

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The first thing that you are going to need is an awesome website. If you don’t have one of these, you are going to have a high bounce rate meaning that people are going to click onto your website, and then click straight back off. You need to have content that grabs peoples attention, you need to have images and videos to engage with them, and perhaps most importantly you need to have a great web design. You can hire a professional to take care of this for you, and we would highly recommend that you do as they know what clients are looking for.

By doing this, you are giving your business the best possible chance of success by ensuring that you have a website that is easy to use. Your clients aren’t going to spend more than two minutes trying to figure out how to work your site, so you need to ensure that they can do this in one.

Money, Money, Money

People say that you can start a company with next to no money, and while this is true, it is only going to make your challenge all the more difficult. You may also have heard those same people say you need to spend money to make money, and this is also true. It is possible to do it both ways, but one gives you a better chance. Yout business is going to have an easier time if you have the money to invest in it. You need resources, employees, and so on which don’t grow on trees.

If you are struggling to find the money yourself, you could always take your business idea to a tradeshow. Here you will find investors and other companies like yours who are looking for something new to try out. So, if you can get the attention of an investor, or a bigger company here, they may be able to help you fund your startup.

A USP

USP stands for unique selling point. While you might think that you are offering your customers something they need, other companies on the market are going to be offering the same thing. What you need to do is find something that you can offer that nobody else can. It doesn’t matter what it is as long as it is going to appeal to your customer base. People like to go to a business that knows who they are, and what they can do for their clients. By establishing a USP for your business, you are doing just that. Ensure that you market this effectively to get the best results when you enter the market.

Marketing Strategy

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The final thing that you are going to need is a marketing strategy. Without one of these, your business is doomed to fail before you have even started. If you don’t know anything about marketing, then you are going to need to hire a team to take care of this for you. It might be a little pricey for you in the beginning, but if you have no prior knowledge of how to market effectively, you are going to have to take this chance and run with it.

You should make sure that your company is going to be utilizing all of the main marketing strategies both online and offline. Getting your content to be a little different from the current trend in your industry is more likely to make you stand out to prospective clients. The marketing is all about targeting your customer, and telling them why they need you, so keep this in mind when you are strategizing.

We hope that you have found this article helpful, and now know some of the things that you are going to need for a successful startup. Following this advice will help you to hit the ground running as soon as your business is ready to launch, good luck!