Category: Financial Literacy and Money

Making Sure Your Business Is Reputable For All The Right Reasons

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. Businesses develop reputations after a while. If you want to continue to generate profit, it’s in your best interests to build a positive reputation. The following contributed post is entitled, Making Sure Your Business Is Reputable For All The Right Reasons.

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Businesses need to grow in order to be successful in a competitive marketplace, and entrepreneurs always focus on making a name for their brands in order to achieve their goals of expansion. Of course, there are good and bad ways to make a name for yourself. You want to be famous rather than infamous, in other words. People might say that all publicity is good publicity, but that isn’t necessarily the case in the world of business. Don’t cut corners; focus on building a good reputation because even a handful of bad reviews can massively damage your company’s image in the eyes of potential new customers. You need to keep every single client happy so that you make sure your business is reputable for all the right reasons. Let’s talk about how to achieve that objective.

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Understand your target market.
You need to understand your target market if you want to make sure your business is reputable for all the right reasons. The best way to become known as a professional and caring company is to make sure you know exactly what your customers want. Don’t play the guessing game. And don’t just copy your competitors. Do your research. Ask people what they want. Find out what problems your customers or potential customers want to see solved. And we’re not just talking about what your business might be doing wrong; we’re talking about what the entire industry might be doing wrong. If you can find a unique solution then you’ll differentiate your company from its rivals. That’s how you’ll build a reputation.

Create a genuine brand.
If you want to make sure your business is reputable for all the right reasons then you also need to create a genuine brand. This all starts with complete transparency. Obviously, we’re not talking about uploading your business’ sensitive data on social media; we’re talking about being honest with your audience. Making mistakes can be frustrating, but misleading your customers turns a bad situation into an unsalvageable situation. If you’re upfront with your customers and make amends when you do something wrong then you’ll be able to maintain a good reputation. In fact, this will help your reputation; it’ll show customers that your business is comprised of human beings who make errors. It’ll also show that you’re willing to go the extra mile to make things right for your customers when mistakes happen.

You should also think about your brand statement if you want your business to come across as genuine and relatable. The market wants to buy high-quality goods and services from you, of course, but that isn’t a very interesting identity. Your company needs to stand for more than that if it’s going to distinguish itself from the competition. Think about the things that you and your team value. Do your interests and passions come across in your business’ branding? You need to make your company appear human. Perhaps you all care about the environment; you could make your business more sustainable to demonstrate this to the marketplace. It’d show that your company cares about more than making money. Being socially responsible is a great way to build your reputation.

Be a strong and trustworthy leader.
A boss is more than a figurehead. You need to be a strong and trustworthy leader for your team. If you can inspire them then they’ll share your enthusiasm about the company. In turn, they’ll deliver a higher standard of service to your customers. That’s how you’ll get a reputation as a friendly and caring business. But it all starts at the top. Delegating is important, but that doesn’t mean you should just put your feet up and step back from the company. You need to be an inspiring leader for your team.

Of course, some entrepreneurs are innovators but they struggle when it comes to leading or managing a team. What’s the way forwards? Well, you have to keep learning. Read plenty of books and do research so that you can gain the business skills necessary to be a better leader. Keep working on yourself in terms of your confidence too. If you experience self-doubt then you’re certainly not the first entrepreneur to feel that way. You might want to do some reading on imposter syndrome. That might help to enlighten you and give you some advice to start moving forwards. Being an assured leader will help you to create an assured brand for your business. In turn, you’ll make the right impression on the market and build a powerful reputation for your company.

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Make sure your employees are satisfied.
Treat your employees as you want them to treat your customers. We started to discuss this in the previous point, but being a great leader is only one aspect of motivating your employees. You have to think about their individual wants and needs too. Job satisfaction isn’t some unattainable goal, so strive to make a change if you’re worried that your workers are unhappy. You can achieve this by taking care of them. Obviously, you can start by ensuring that your team members have good benefits and they work in a safe workplace. But you should go further than this. Give them office perks; a ping-pong table in the breakroom could offer a fun way to unwind during lunch breaks. You should also reward employees for hard work. This will encourage your entire to work hard in the hope that their efforts will be noticed.

If you want to make sure your business is reputable for all the right reasons then the key is to deliver an exceptional service consistently. As mentioned in the corner, you shouldn’t try to cut corners. Making a profit is important, but you should never aim to do so at the expense of your brand image. Otherwise, you’ll be ruining your ability to make a profit in the future. Focus on impressing your customers and delivering a service which gains 5-star reviews. That’s how you’ll make a name for your brand and get the attention of the market. That’s how your business will keep growing.

Are You Confusing Your Customers?

Two of the key focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. In any business, clear communication with your customer base is critical. Ensuring this clear communication could be the difference between your business thriving or dying off. The following contributed post is entitled, Are You Confusing Your Customers?

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Everything about business can be confusing. One minute you think you know it all, then all of the sudden you realise that someone is doing something totally better than you, and that the systems you have in place haven’t been the most effective. But that’s simply because businesses are developing at such a rapid rate, that the demand for new software and systems to facilitate that is always growing, meaning it’s to keep up with the technological race that’s fueling business. But the demand on new technology production is not the only thing that seems to be increasing as the years go on, customer demand seems to only be getting worse. The world’s population is expanding at such a rapid rate, meaning more and more people are now waiting to be pleased, and more and more are there to shake up your business. Customers literally control everything you do, and manipulate your business perhaps without you even realising. So considering they’re so precious to the progression of your business, we think it’s about time that we introduced the problem that so many businesses are having, and that’s customer confusion. Confusing your customers through the processes you use is so easy to do. It’s hard to simplify your business, so much so that’s perfection to your customers. But this is what we’re going to try and help you with, because the simpler it is to use your business, the more people that will come flocking. So take some time to have a read of the tips below, and see if we can help your business!

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The End Sale

The end sale is the most important part. Just because someone is so close to clicking pay, it doesn’t mean that if your end process is clunky and hard, then people won’t just click that little x button in the corner. So you really have to think about the ways that you can simplify your sales process, so that your customers can move from one section to the next, seamlessly. So the first thing you need to do, is think about your connectivity, and what terminal you connect to, to allow your customers to pay. Some of you will be connected to the slowest vendors, meaning your customers experience delay after delay, and you experience more hassle. Some vendors mean you have to download software that could so easily malfunction at any point, meaning potential customers will definitely turn away. What you need to look into, is methods such as the InovioPay virtual terminal. Virtual meaning you don’t have to download any dodgy software packages and hope that you find them easy to use, and an outsourced terminal will handle all of the transaction for you. Having something like this to facilitate payments and make the whole thing easier is exactly what you need, especially if you’re finding that people are never actually completing a sale, only getting close to the end!

Filling Them With Jargon

Filling Them with jargon is the worst thing that you can do, but most likely the thing that you are doing right now. Customers might not always want to hear the technical side of things, they want to know what it does, and how it’s going to benefit them. Yet so many businesses fill their website with all these technical terms, facts and figures, and we don’t understand why! So have a scroll through your website at the minute, and see if you can change the way you’re describing your company and the products you sell. You might find you can dumb it down a little, and make the whole website a little more attractive, so that you can retain more customers!

Terrible Add Ons

One that we want to finish with, because we know how damaging this can be to a business. So many of you will be selling products, but selling a lie. It’s a trap we’ve all fell into as customers, and it’s so frustrating. This is when you buy one product, and then get told you need to buy add ons to make it work. This is so infuriating for someone who thinks they’ve bought all they need, only to find out they need to buy more in order to get it fully functioning. So if you’re selling anything where you could possibly do this, change your sales technique. It might seem like a good idea in terms of money, but it’s really going to damage your reputation as a business. Focus on honest products, with honest reviews!

Different Ways You Need To Protect Your Business

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. Once you start your business, there are myriad of things that can go wrong. As such it’s critical to understand how to safeguard your business enterprise. The following contributed post is entitled, Different Ways You Need To Protect Your Business.

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When you run a business, even if it’s an online business, you should be focusing on protecting it just like you’d take measures to protect your house from break-ins when you’re on vacation, or indeed any other time.

However, what does that actually look like? We can talk about protecting your business all day, but without sharing examples of what we mean, then it’s not really going to make much of a difference at all.

The great thing about technology is that it’s growing at such a rapid pace that there are always new things being brought to the market that can help you protect your business, but just as quickly as they’re being brought out, there’s a new hacker creating something else to destroy it, so you really need to be constantly staying ahead of the game when it comes to keeping your business safe, and so below we’re sharing with you some of the ways you can do that.

Technology:

Since we touched on technology above, it seemed wise to start with this. The other reason is that technology is always going to play a crucial role in how your business is being protected, so it really made sense to start with this.

When it comes to technology for keeping your business safe, this can take many different forms. You can get things like malware, secure payment systems, and you can always read more here about the different solutions available for keeping things like data secure so that you don’t lose it in case of a cyber attack.

Privacy:

Privacy is becoming more and more of an issue for business owners these days, and if we look at companies like Facebook who are forever in the news because of their privacy issues and how they’re handling customer data, it’s really so important that people trust you with theirs and that you understand the consequences of abusing this.

Having clear policies in place such as privacy policies and terms and conditions on your site is really a good step to take because it keeps you in the right and also ensures that people know how their data is being used.

Legal:

Although we do understand that having a lawyer for your business is maybe not something you can afford right now, you certainly don’t need to have one on retainer in order to have some protection.

You can easily seek the advice of a lawyer at the start of your business and anytime you need something like a contract drafted up so that at least you know you’re doing things the right way.

Another way you can protect your business is by having things like business and liability insurance in place in case you need to fight a case and don’t want to be held responsible for the costs of lawyers or going to court.

This list is certainly not extensive, but should help you when it comes to understanding the different ways in which you can protect your business from facing any potential issues that you may see down the line.

Important considerations when buying a condominium unit revisited part two

This is a continuation of my series entitled, Important considerations when buying a condominium unit. Part one ended with a discussion of the nuances and caveats of buying into condominium communities. This second part will talk about what can happen when condominium owners must finance common projects within their complex in emergency situations.

To start this discussion, I want to introduce a key financial term, the “Residential Assessment”. Residential assessments are basically lump sums of money every owner must pay which is typically the condominium fee. In some instances, based upon the community’s by laws and constitution, a residential assessment can also be mandated from every owner should a project need to be done affecting the entire complex under ‘emergency’ circumstances.

This was painfully revealed to me when the first of many assessments in my condominium community was due in the Fall of 2010, just after purchasing my unit. Clues that something was up were there before closing though. When visiting my prospective unit for the first time, and when going through the inspection process, a large project was underway requiring the excavation of the land around the foundation of my soon to be dwelling. As a first-time home buyer, it didn’t occur to me to press the seller about what was happening – ultimately a good thing for her.

The question did come up though. She simply said, “Oh it’s just some foundational work.” She didn’t say however that the entire building was sliding and shifting on its clay foundation, and that the entire project would result in an $8,500 assessment for me, my entire Obama Tax Credit. Needless to say, having to cough up $8,500 unexpectedly was a bitter feeling.

Truthfully, the information about this project may have been in the “Condo Docs” or condominium documents. They were a binder of documents (at least 300 pages) provided prior closing. Another piece of advice; take the time to flip through any information given to you about your property prior to purchasing it, especially if it’s in condominium community. In the real estate world, this is part of what’s called doing your ‘due diligence’. Why didn’t I take the time to read the documents? I’ll chalk it up to ignorance and being a novice to the home buying process.

In any case, having the $8,500 Obama tax Credit was a blessing as it saved me from having to take out a loan. In addition to the $8,500 assessment, there was a $1,600 assessment preceding it due to delinquent condominium fees from other owners throughout the complex. This all occurred just after the bursting of the 2008 housing bubble and the subsequent recession, so there were quite a few folks in the community who either lost their jobs, ran out of money, didn’t have enough money on hand, or both. Either way, the rest of us owners had to pick up the slack.

Since those first two assessments, there was another $8,500 assessment to help replace the old underground piping of our complex which seemed to break every winter like clockwork. The board of directors created a payment plan so that the payments could be spread out over three years. The installments would be paid with interest, while those who could make the payment at all once, would be charged no interest. Years later there was yet another $8,500 assessment to cover updates to our HVAC system. If this all sounds like a lot of money, it was.

So, what are the takeaway messages from this? Aside from the points Dave Ramsey made in part one of the series, they are as follows:

• No matter what type of real estate you decide to buy (a detached home, a townhouse or a condominium unit), budget so that you’re as debt-free as possible and so that you have extra money on hand (Dave Ramsey’s Emergency Fund of 3-6 months of expenses for example);
• When you buy into a condominium community, every owner’s destiny and finances are intermingled;
• Before you buy and piece of real estate, ask as many questions as you can of the seller, especially the obvious ones and;
• This last bullet comes from one of Suze Orman’s books. Before you buy into a condominium community, go as far as to hunt down the board of directors and ask questions. Try to figure the history of the community, its overall financial health and any additional issues it may be facing going forward.

Part three will conclude this series and discuss a key part of a condominium community; its board of directors, and the ongoing challenges my community is facing. Thank you for taking the time out to read this blog post. You might also enjoy:

• Are you getting your Matching Contribution? A discussion on saving for retirement
• A look at the Law of Compounding Interest and why you should care
• Your Net Worth, your Gross Salary, and what they mean
• Is the power in budgeting your money?
• I still don’t have a car in 2018: A story about playing financial chess
• We should’ve bought Facebook and Bitcoin stock: An investing story

If you’ve found value here and think it would benefit others, please share it and or leave comments. To receive all the most up to date content from the Big Words Blog Site, subscribe using the box in the right-hand column in this post and throughout the site, or add the link to my RSS feed to your feedreader. Please visit my YouTube channel entitled, Big Discussions76. Lastly follow me on Twitter at @BWArePowerful, on the Big Words Blog Site Facebook page, and on Instagram at @anwaryusef76. While my main areas of focus are Education, STEM, and Financial Literacy, there other blogs/sites I endorse which found on that particular page of my site.

Adding Personal Touches to Your Home

A key focus of my blog is Financial Literacy/Money. One of the most important purchases any of us will ever make is the purchase of our homes. One important consideration is how to personalize your home so that it’s unique to your tastes. The following contributed post is entitled, Adding Personal Touches to Your Home.

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You probably spend a lot of time in your house. We start and end our days there. We entertain friends in our dining rooms. We rest and relax after a long day in our lounges. We feed our families from our kitchens. We enjoy a bit of sun in our gardens, and we look after our health and hygiene in our bathrooms. Your home is the one place on earth where you should always feel safe and protected. Your home should be somewhere that you love.

A lot goes into creating a home that you love, and feel safe in. Many of us stick to similar furniture, saving money by buying mass-produced flatpack from large retailers. But, none of us wants our homes to be exactly the same as everyone else. Even though thousands of people might have your sofa, you don’t want your lounge to look like anyone else’s. You want it to reflect your personality and speak for who you are. That’s the only way that it will ever become your safe haven.

Fortunately, it’s entirely possible to create a unique home, even without spending a fortune, making sure all of your furniture is one of a kind.

Get Something Custom Made

Yes, custom made large pieces can be costly. But, large pieces aren’t your only option. Find a local crafter that’s creating things like photo frames or small tables, or commission some metal work such as brackets for shelves, from https://naimormetalfabrication.com/ for something a little different.

Add Prints

Credit – https://pixabay.com/photos/picture-frames-wall-art-interior-1149414/

Original artwork can also be very expensive. Prints can be a cheaper alternative. They won’t be one of a kind, but art is a very personal choice, so it’s unlikely that anyone you know would choose the same prints.

If you are looking for other ways to create quirky artwork, consider framing things like wallpaper samples, textiles, greetings cards and postcards and even pages from a magazine.

If you truly want a one of a kind area, create a gallery wall with family photos, pictures that you like, framed pictures that your children have drawn and even your own creations.

Get Crafting

Creating your own home accessories and soft furnishings is a brilliant way to save money while making your home a little different. Even better, you don’t need to be a talented artist, create a piece with meaning. Check out https://www.pinterest.co.uk/ratkinson/home-decor-crafts/ for some ideas.

Accessorize

Credit – https://pixabay.com/photos/pillow-sofa-cozy-furniture-2092155/

So, your sofa is the same as next doors? Add a colorful throw and some patterned cushions, and it’s suddenly completely different. Turn a boring nest of tables into a trendy surface with the addition of frames, candles and fresh flowers. Your accessories can completely change how your home looks, and are a cheap way to add your own unique style to plained areas of your home.

Have Stuff

The modern world is much more minimal. All of your books can be on your Kindle and all of your films on your Fire Stick. You don’t need to buy books or DVDs, and you certainly don’t need CDS. But, having belongings on display shows visitors who you are. Your book collection says a lot about you, so why not let people see it? Even if you are downsizing and mainly going digital, keep a few favorites on display to add personality to your shelves.

Three Reasons To Implement Preventative Maintenance In Your Home or Business

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. Preventative maintenance is an underrated component of homeownership and business. This one category however can save you time, money and headaches going forward. The following contributed post is entitled, Three Reasons To Implement Preventative Maintenance In Your Home or Business.

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If your home or business maintenance schedule is still run on a reactive basis, you need to get your head around Preventative Maintenance. Why? Because fixing problems before they get really bad will save money. What better reason do you need?

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When it comes to fixing that clogged pipe in your home or business location, do you take a reactive or preventative approach? If you’re not sure, you’re probably being reactive, which is costing you money. While they might sound like similar practices, preventive maintenance and reactive maintenance could not be more different in approach. While reactive maintenance focuses on fixing problems when they happen, preventative maintenance is geared towards stopping those problems from rearing their ugly heads at all. (No prizes for guessing which approach is better.)

If you still need a little convincing, the following benefits of preventative maintenance will have you scheduling in those checks and services in no time.

Enhance the Longevity of Your Equipment

Not only will preventive maintenance save you money when you don’t have to perform pricey emergency fixes, it will also extend the life of your infrastructure, machinery or equipment. For example, getting your boiler serviced regularly, before it starts to give trouble, will delay the time when the boiler eventually needs to be replaced, giving you years more use, and therefore rendering that initial installation much more cost-effective. Whether it’s in the home or at work, your expensive installations will last you longer if you schedule in regular maintenance and upkeep to avoid nasty surprises.

Avoid Downtime

It is a truth universally acknowledged that time is money. If you’re a business owner, or if you’ve had to take time off work to fix something that’s gone wrong in your home, you know that every day that an essential piece of machinery or equipment spends in a non-functioning state costs you money. Extended unplanned downtime can be a real disaster for your business which can result in ruin. If your business employs people who are responsible for operating the equipment that is acting up, you’re going to be paying their wages until the repairs have been carried out. And if you work in manufacturing, it goes without saying that you’ll be losing money when you fail to meet the required output because of mechanical faults. A little downtime once in a blue moon cannot be avoided entirely, but if you think ahead and implement preventive maintenance, you’re going to dramatically reduce the amount of downtime you have to account for in your business or work schedule. Whether it’s lubrication, hydro jetting, cleaning, repairs or replacing parts, the time and money you put in will pay off when you look at the downtime you’ve avoided in the long run.

Photo by Agto Nugroho on Unsplash

More Efficient Operations

The machinery runs most efficiently when it is in perfect working order. This means that when your equipment starts to function at less than optimal rates, your energy bill is going to creep up. You may not notice this right away, but if you let the problem continue, your bills will suddenly see extraordinarily high, and you’ll be wondering what has caused it. This is a really common problem, which can easily be avoided with a little forward planning. If you put in place routines that guarantee your equipment is going to be maintained, you will notice that your energy use remains constant, saving you money and reducing your environmental impact.

Whether you’re running a massive operation or simply keeping your home in order, preventative maintenance is the key to saving money and preventing expensive call-outs.

Areas Of Your Business That Are Worth Investing In

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. If your business grows and successfully generates profit over time, there are critical decisions that have to be made about what to invest in next to ensure its continued growth. The right decisions will ensure continued growth and profit. The following contributed post is entitled, Areas Of Your Business That Are Worth Investing In.

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Knowing where to start investing in your business, especially when just starting out on a low budget can be a pretty tough thing to decide, and although there’s really no definitive answer because every business is different, there are definitely some areas that really are worth investing in as your business grows and you’re potentially looking to scale your company.

Just to be clear, though: we’re not saying that you have to start throwing money at these things right away.

In business, you should always start with what you have available until it makes financial sense to invest, but these will at least provide you with some starting points to go from:

Your team:

In the beginning of your business, unless you have the backing of investors, then it’s likely that you’ll be wearing all of the hats and doing everything yourself for a while.

After some time when you’re making profit, then you really need to consider handing these tasks off to people who are better at them than you are so that you can focus your time and energy on working with your clients and growing the business even bigger.

Hiring a team is definitely quite overwhelming, but you should start small and build your way up.

To get started you could even just bring in a few contractors to help with things, such as strategy consulting or web design until you reach a place where you’re able to hire people full time.

Marketing:

Marketing is going to play a huge role in the success of your business and it’s definitely something worth investing in, even if it’s just to save you time from trying to do things organically.

It’s definitely not going to be something that you should be throwing a lot of money at from the beginning, and when you do decide to start investing, then it’s something you should only do once you have a solid and clear strategy and plan in place for your marketing.

Technology:

Even if your business isn’t going to be an online business, it’s definitely going to depend on technology, at least somewhat.

Therefore, investing in technology to ensure that things run efficiently and effectively, such as payment processing technology and fast computers is always going to be something that will be of benefit to you.

Security:

It doesn’t matter what kind of business you have, keeping it safe is a huge priority and is something that should always be taken very seriously.

From having the correct policies noted on your website, to having the best malware on the market that keeps you protected from hackers, security is something that all business owners should be investing in, and it’s not even something that costs a lot, but the peace of mind and potential savings gained from potential loss of earnings if anything should happen is priceless.

As we already said, this is not an extensive list, but we took some of the most important aspects of what we think are important when it comes to investing in your business.

You also shouldn’t feel pressured into getting all of these done at once, but take each step by step and base your decision on what you feel will benefit the business long term.

Why Your Personal Brand Is Essential To Success

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. When starting your own business, your brand is critical as it distinguishes you and sets you apart from everyone else. Care should be taken when establishing your brand. The following contributed post is entitled, Why Your Personal Brand Is Essential To Success.

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Photo by rawpixel.com from Pexels

It used to be that branding was reserved for businesses. Now, it’s important for individuals to develop a strong personal brand if they aspire towards a successful career. As the workforce becomes more and more competitive and the way we network changes, a strong personal brand can help you to stand out from the crowd.

What is a personal brand? It’s the words your new client will use to describe you to their colleagues. It’s the way an acquaintance knows you’re the person to call when a certain job comes up. Your brand is why a manager will hire you, rather than the next candidate. So it’s crucial that you present yourself in a thoughtful way that helps, rather than hinders, your journey to professional success.

Define yourself, before someone else does

First impressions count and if we don’t define ourselves, it’s easy for others to do it for us. To make sure people remember the right things about you, you’ve first got to identify what you want those things to be.

Who do you want to be known as, professionally speaking? It goes without saying that you’ll want to position yourself as an expert within your given field. It’s worth niching down, rather than presenting yourself as a generalist.

But your personal brand comes down to more than your expertise. It’s not just the things you know and the skills you have. It’s also about who you are as a person and how people can count on you to behave. So who do you want to be known as? Is it someone who is articulate and a powerful communicator? Someone who is trustworthy and brimming with integrity? It’s probably a combination of characteristics and qualities. Write these down and commit to them so you can build your brand around these specifics. Just make sure you’re choosing characteristics that reflect the types of businesses or clients you want to work with.

Stay authentic

If you are not already sure of exactly what your personal values are, now is a good time to explore this. Your personal values define the standards to which you hold yourself and the qualities you want to aspire to.

Make sure that your personal values and your personal brand are carefully aligned. If you value yourself as a humble, calm and trustworthy person, this is the message you should put out into the world. It’s tempting to try to market yourself in ways that seem the most charismatic or dynamic. Of course, you want to present your values and qualities in the most attractive way, but don’t be tempted to sell yourself as someone you’re not. This will only cause you trouble in the long run.

The fact is that everyone is looking for something different in people that they choose to work with. You can almost guarantee that someone will be looking to hire or work with someone exactly like you, so stay authentic and true to your own brand. Once you’ve got this secure, you won’t be tempted to present wildly different versions of yourself to fit in like a chameleon.

Get creative

Once you’ve settled on your personal brand, you need to get it out into the world. One excellent way to put yourself out there is to create content that’s relevant to your brand. An ideal way to do this is through a blog. Producing quality content can establish you as a credible and valuable source of information in your field. If you’re then able to share that content via Linkedin or other social media platforms, then you’re getting your message out there for others to see. Photography or video, perhaps instructional Youtube videos, could also be a great platform, but only if it’s relevant to your industry and brand.

Image via Pexels

Be visual

As humans, we make assumptions based on visual information. It’s true that things like clothes and hairstyle all contribute to the way people see us, so make sure your style reflects the things you are trying to say. It can seem like a small thing but dressing to reflect your brand adds coherency and authenticity.

Your visual brand will also affect your website and social media presence. Whether it’s bright and whimsical or elegant and monochrome, having a consistent approach to visual content helps. This extends to things as simple as the style of photography you use.

In this digital age, pen and paper can add a distinctive edge. People still use business cards, as they’re still useful for real-world networking. Whatsmore, handwritten or just hand-posted correspondence can add an unexpected personal touch that helps you to stand out. If you’re a freelancer or small business owner with your own logo, think about getting customized stationary. You can use a service like Winmark Custom Stamps and Signs to create custom stamps, embossing seals and name badges with your own distinct logo.

Make time to network

Now you’ve got an idea of how you want to brand yourself, and the tools to do it, you need to get yourself out there. There are many ways of doing this in the modern day. Traditional networking is still just as important, so be sure to get some dates in your diary when you can attend relevant professional talks, events and networking meetings.

You should also be networking virtually, too. Be sure to optimize your Linkedin profile to reflect your personal brand and start building relevant connections there. Don’t neglect other social media networks either. If you can solidify your niche and your brand into one sentence, you can add this to your bio across all networks, including in your email signature. You want to create a consistent idea of who you are since you never know where your next business prospect might find you. You can use Twitter as a platform to engage with relevant people. Just be sure to do it in an appropriate way that doesn’t come across as spam.

Have fun with developing your personal brand and putting yourself out into the world. See what a difference it makes when you present a coherent and confident vision of who you are as a professional and what you offer. In this digital age, it couldn’t be more important.

3 Types Of Employees That Are Incredibly Bad For Your Business

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. The employees you hire to accomplish your objectives are critical. Bringing on the right staff can pay dividends while bringing on the wrong staff can be costly. The following contributed post is entitled, 3 Types Of Employees That Are Incredibly Bad For Your Business.

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As a business owner, you are unlikely to have the ability (or the desire) to handle every aspect of your business alone. Be you a small or a large business owner then, you have probably hired one or more people to work for your company.

In theory, your employees will carry out the tasks you have set for them. They will help you to promote your business. And they will show commitment to the business you have set up. We are saying ‘in theory’ because that isn’t always the case. Sometimes, you might unwittingly hire a bad egg, a rotten apple, and whatever idiom you care to use when describing an employee who isn’t doing what they are supposed to be doing.

So, what do you do with these employees? It depends. You should have policies in place with the correct warning procedures. If an employee steps out of line, you need only point them to the way they are breaching the contract they signed with you. Hopefully, they will then fall back into line. However, there are times when you might need to fire an employee, especially when their behavior is far removed from what you expect of them. You should, of course, seek legal action beforehand to ensure you aren’t breaking any labor laws – you don’t want a lawsuit on your hands – but in relation to the types of employees we mention below, you might have no other option than to remove them from your company. Check out these tips on how to fire an employee, some of which are connected to the types of employees we mention below.

These are the employees who are bad for your business.

1: The employee who goes against your policy’s ‘standard of conduct’

The ‘standard of conduct’ refers to the type of behavior you expect from your employees. It should fall under the remit of the key policies within the employee handbook that you give to your members of staff after hiring them. Typically, the policies that fall under ‘standard of conduct’ refer to those related to bullying, discrimination, and sexual harassment. If you discover your employee has breached such policies, a simple warning might not suffice, especially if their behavior has threatened the welfare of other staff on your team. An investigation needs to take place with eye witness statements, and if found guilty, you have grounds to fire the employee. Your business depends on it, as you might suffer a walkout from your other employees, as well as legal action if you haven’t taken their complaints about the offending employee seriously.

2: The employee who engages in criminal behavior

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Closely associated with the previous point, but we have included it here as criminal behavior might also include the need for police intervention. For example, consider an employee who steals from you. Now, we are not talking about the occasional paper clip or notepad (although you should still clamp down on minor thefts), but rather those employees who are caught with their hands in the till or who syphon money from your account into their own after accessing your computer systems. On a financial level, your business is obviously going to suffer. And then there’s the employee who engages in violent behavior, perhaps against you, another employee or a customer. They might even take their violent behavior out on your premises, damaging furnishings, doors, walls, and equipment, etc.

Such behavior cannot be tolerated. You will need evidence of criminal behavior of course – you can’t accuse somebody if you are in any way uncertain as to who the culprit is – but you can get this from the surveillance equipment you should have set up, and from eye witness reports from your staff and customers. When the culprit has been found, either by you or the police, you should consider firing them, unless, as in the case of violence to your property, there are mitigating circumstances, such as provocation from another employee or feelings of being treated unjustly from yourself. In such a case, you might be lenient, though you will need to put an action plan in place to reduce the chances of such behavior happening again.

3: The employee who is repeatedly absent

There are times when absences can be allowed. If your employee falls ill or has a family emergency, for example, then you can expect them to be absent from work. Hopefully, they will show you courtesy with a phone call to let you know why they aren’t coming into work. On the other hand, there are some employees who might try to take advantage of you. They might not turn up for work at all without any explanation. Or they might have a string of excuses as to why they can’t come in, some of which may be genuine, but then again, some of which might not be. You need to take action if absences become a regular thing. This involves you sitting down with your employee to discuss the reasons why they haven’t shown up to work.

In some cases, you may be to blame. If you have overworked your employees, or if you haven’t provided a functional working environment, they may have used excuses for their absence because they dread coming into work. The same applies if the employee feels threatened by another member of staff. On the other hand, they might simply be lazy and uncommitted, in which case, you might want to fire them, especially if there is no reasonable excuse. If you don’t, your business will suffer if absences continue, because work won’t get done and you will struggle to make a profit.

Finally

Firing an employee is sometimes the right thing to do, so while you might be reluctant to do so – you might want to avoid hurting their feelings, or you might be afraid of confrontation – you should still take steps to remove the employee if their actions hurt your business and the people who work within it. You might need to start the hiring process again, but despite the time and the expense involved, this is better than having an employee on your team who is incredibly bad for your business!

Major Moves

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. As your business grows, it’s important to know when to move in order to better run your operations. It’s important to execute the move in the most efficient way possible. The following contributed post is entitled, Major Moves.

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Your small business is growing. What started as a solo effort has expanded and you’re desperately in need of more office space and more people to help take your company to the next level.

It’s time to upsize and commit to a bigger office. Moving day can be tough going, so we take a look at the process from start to finish and more importantly we take a look at how to reduce your downtime in this guide to office moves.

Image courtesy of Pixabay

Before

Preparation is key so begin the process early. If you already have a small team then perhaps consider appointing a move manager to take care of the move details while you focus on keeping the business flowing. They will need to appoint someone to take care of the social media and website details, liaise with the moving company and handle the utilities. They’ll also need to make decisions on layout.

Before all that though, why not take advantage of the move by having an office clear out. It’s the perfect excuse for slimming down the amount of filing and paperwork you need to take with you and will make moving in an awful lot easier. Get a skip outside with http://www.budgetbinhire.com.au/ and begin the big clear out.

Now you’re ready to go. Have your move manager tell the utilities companies when you’re leaving the building and have your staff clearly label their desks, computers, office furniture and so on.

On The Day

Send your move manager to the new office early to mark up where desk, chairs and office furniture are to be placed. They will also need a paper plan to give to the moving crew.
If some of your team are able to work remotely, have them do that while the move takes place.

Your move manager should do a final reading of utilities, before they leave the old office and have arranged for the network, electricity and so on to be up and running on arrival at the new office. As soon as you’re unpacked, have your IT company in to connect you all up.

After

Don’t forget to update your social media platforms and your website with news of your move and double check that any email footers, letterheads and so on feature the correct new address. You may want to have your post redirected for a few weeks to allow for any crossover in the post.

With a clear and logical set order and plenty of preparation, your move shouldn’t be a stressful experience.
Have everyone in your team up to speed with the process and any staff not essential to the move working remotely. Keep the business going by redirecting phone lines. Get your layout organised ahead of time with a trip to the new space and make sure your removals company understands where all the desks and chairs are going. Then your business has the space to grow, to take on more staff and reach new heights.