A key focus of my blog is Financial Literacy. A key to understanding money is knowing the best ways to use what income you have, but also to eliminate waste. Incomes vary and there is less room for error the less you make. The following contributed post is thus entitled, Are You Putting Your Income To Good Use?
* * *
With the number of expenditures most of us face on a daily basis, it’s hard to make a paycheck last for the entire month. But there might be more you could do to manage your financial situation. Are you putting your income to good use? Let’s talk about some ways in which you could spend your money wisely.
Tidy up your monthly expenses. The first way in which you should put your income to good use is to tidy up your monthly expenses. So many people unnecessarily waste their earnings on expenditures that they don’t need. Practicing the 30-day rule (avoiding buying a luxury until you’ve waited for 30 days) is a smart way to control your desire to splurge. Of course, even those of us who avoid luxury purchases might still struggle to cover the endless list of monthly bills. But you could save money in that sense too. You could insulate your walls and windows to reduce the energy needed to warm up your house and save money on your energy bill. You could use online vouchers to save money when shopping for food, new clothes, or anything else you need online. You could even put up a lodger to help cover some of your bills if you have a spare room in your house or flat. There are so many ways to tidy up your monthly expenses if you change your approach to spending money. Budgeting is the easiest way to track and manage your finances, of course.
Find worthwhile investment opportunities. Finding worthwhile investment opportunities is another way to put your income to good use. As we’ll discuss in the final point, saving your money is important, but you could really improve your future financial situation by letting your wealth grow substantially through investments. Perhaps you could look at the stock market, for example. You might even want to head here for some new build houses. Investing in property is very smart because it’s a market that always has keen buyers. After all, people always need somewhere to live. Whether you buy and fix up properties to sell them for a quick profit or you buy properties to lease them out for a regular income, there’s a lot of money to be made here. Still, however you choose to invest your money, just make sure you do your research to make low-risk and high-reward decisions.
Save on payday. If you know that you’re prone to splurging as soon as that paycheck comes through every week or every month then you should start saving on payday. That way, you don’t have to worry about triggers urging you to spend your money when you’re out shopping or browsing online. You can immediately transfer a portion of your disposable income to your savings account and any disposable earnings that remain can be your spending money for non-essentials. It’ll mean you don’t have to feel guilty if you do treat yourself to luxuries because you’ll know that you’ve already put something into your savings for the month. This is a smart way to start putting your income to better use. You’re allowed to treat yourself in life, but you shouldn’t do so at the expense of your overall financial security in the present or the future. That’s always the crucial thing to remember.
Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. In some ways the medical industry is a model of others and there is a lot that can be learned from it. It is constantly evolving and changing. The following contributed post is entitled, 4 Lessons You Can Learn From The Medical Industry.
* * *
There are some things that we can learn from the medical industry that you might not have considered. For example, if you don’t take the time to look at this industry, you are not going to realize all the excellent ideas that they can give to other industries. The medical profession can inspire a few different lessons that we should all be taking notice of, and in this article, we are going to talk about a few of them.
Efficiency is what all business owners are striving for. Getting the best out of your business as quick as possible. For example, in the medical industry, they may require medical billing services to ensure that they are getting paid by insurance companies. There are companies who specialize in this area and provide the necessary service to ensure that this gets done. The same thing can be applied to other industries. There should be certain areas of business that are handled by specialists in order to ensure the smooth running of other departments. Without this, the entire system could end up folding in on itself, and this is not what business owners need.
Leaning On New Technology
Have you ever thought about what technology could benefit your business? If not, now is the time to start. Some business owners shy away from new technology as it can cost a lot of money, and it requires training staff to use the new equipment. However, if you look to the medical industry, you will see that they largely lean on new tech to develop their entire profession. This is something that your business should be doing too. You need to allow the change in order to propel your business forward and keep up with everyone else on the market.
Putting The Customer First
Have you ever been to the doctors and felt like they had something more important to think about than your care? No, and that is what your clients should feel like too. Your customers should be the most important thing in your business, as without them, there is no business. You need to remember this and always make sure that the client’s needs are being met before anything else.
Showing your customers that they are valuable to your business is one of the most important aspects of owning a business. You should always ensure that they are being put first, and not being left behind for some other purpose.
Expanding Income
If your business is currently struggling for cash, have you ever thought about getting sponsored from others in your industry? Medical businesses often get sponsored by pharmaceutical companies, and this is something that could benefit you. Find a person or a business who is willing to sponsor you and come to an agreement with them about the terms of the sponsorship.
We hope that you have found this article helpful, and understand these four lessons that you can learn from the medical industry. Take this advice, and your business is going to run better than ever!
Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. The construction sector is a key aspect of the economy. It is impacted by other sectors and it impacts other sectors. The following contributed post discuss some potential things that can happen in 2019 and is entitled, What Construction Companies Should Know in 2019.
* * *
If you’re in the construction industry, staying up to date with trends that could turn things around is a must. Many industries change year on year, so here we’re going to be talking about what construction companies should know in 2019. Let’s get right into it:
Green Technology Is Becoming More Popular Than Ever In Construction
People are beginning to realize that something has to be done about the planet. We are fast using up resources, so being as eco friendly as possible is essential, especially when the construction industry accounts for about 20% of global emissions.
You will find that more and more buildings and plans are incorporating green technology into the construction process, and this is great because green construction is a way of building projects in an environmentally responsible and resource-efficient way. A focus is being put on environmentally friendly buildings and focusing on the longevity of the building, which can only be a good thing for the future of our planet.
Sustainable construction can include the preservation of the environment, an efficient use of resources, with an eye to social progress and culture. Even making small changes and considerations, such as ensuring the natural light is able to reach the middle of the building, thereby reducing electrical costs can help.
Better Safety Equipment There has been a rise in standards in safety over the last few years, and careless construction working just won’t do. There are a high number of accidents and deaths associated with the construction industry, so a push for better safety equipment has been inevitable. Now, we are finally getting somewhere. There are smart work boots that can connect to Wi-Fi, send their GPS coordinates, and will even tell if users have fallen or are tired. Things like this will eventually be commonplace.
Project Management Solutions Project management solutions are a huge trend this year. Today, you’ll find that there are many more — and better — construction software options than there were a few years ago. You are able to keep all documents related to the project in one location, which can help subcontractors and contractors get paid at the end of a project, amongst other things. You can even pay attention to the more minute details, such as how many pipe clamps you have or need.
Augmented Reality Augmented reality is set to change many industries, including construction, for the better. Just one way it will do this is by providing more accuracy and clarity. Workers will be able to use AR to show the entire project before it even starts, saving a lot of time and money. Details will be finalized before the project has even begun, making for a more more efficient project overall.
Self-healing Concrete Self-healing concrete being used on roads, buildings and homes could become the norm. When self healing concrete comes into contact with air and water, it then produces an outer protective layer. Overall, this will save the construction industry a lot of time and enable them to create safer and more durable buildings for us.
A key focus of my blog is Financial Literacy/Money. The greatest investment, many people will ever make is their home. Once you’ve made the purchase, transforming it into the optimal space for you is a key for your wanting to stay there long-term. The following contributed post discusses this and is entitled, House Proud: Finding Ways To Love Your Home.
With the price and scarcity of modern homes, most people don’t feel like they get the chance to live somewhere which they will love. Being forced to make compromises based on money or space, people are left looking at their home as if it is a simple tool, and this couldn’t be further from the truth. To help you out with this, this post will be exploring some of the work which can go into giving yourself a greater love for your home. With all of this in mind, anyone should be able to adapt their space into something which works better for them, even when you have a complicated lifestyle.
What Do You Do?
As you start this journey, one of the first things you will need to explore will be the hobbies and interests which you like to invest your free time into. These parts of your life are some of the most important to you, and it makes sense that your home should reflect this, with companies like SATP being able to push you towards creating a place which enables you to throw yourself into your hobbies. For example, if you really like to fish, you could look for a place which has a river on the property. This will give you the chance to spend far more time doing something you love.
How Does It Look?
Function isn’t everything when you’re trying to improve your home, and style plays a big role on the way that people feel about spaces like this. Instagram is a great place to go when you’re looking for inspiration for areas like this. Millions of people post each day, and this means that there are loads of photos to go through all the time. While changing the colour of your walls will be a little bit awkward, the work itself won’t be too hard, making it worth putting some time into doing some decorating for yourself. It will make you feel very proud inviting people into a home which you really like.
Collecting Memories
Of course, in reality, a large part of the way that a lot of people will feel about the spaces they visit will be based on their memories. When you’ve spent loads of time with your family at home, it will be easy to feel calm their, and you will constantly be reminded of the time you’ve spent together. This area is the easiest of them all, with friends and family being the perfect tools when you’re trying to build some positive memories. A camera can be helpful with this, but it will be important to make sure that you don’t miss out on real memories as a result.
With all of this in mind, you should be feeling ready to take on the challenge of making your home into something you can love. There are always loads of routes which can be taken with work like this, though a lot of people will ignore them, simply accepting their space for what it is.
Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. Often times the key to running a successful business is being aware of the details. The following contributed post discusses this and is entitled, The Surprising Impact Of “Finer Details” On Your Business.
As a business owner, your primary focus will always be on the “big picture” – which is exactly how it should be. Entrepreneurs have to think ahead, consider the future, and establish broad goals and aims for their company to achieve in order to grow and succeed, after all.
However, there is a hidden downside to focusing on the “big picture” – you can miss the finer details of your business.
What are the finer details of a business?
Whatever type of business you run, there are finer details for you to consider:
• If you own an offline retail store, you’ll have to think about which brand of point-of-sale system you use, or the material of the carrier bags you provide • If you run a borehole drilling company, you’ll need to consider inflatable packers on https://www.aardvarkpackers.com/products-list/inflatable-packers/ and decide if they are suitable for your project, or which size of injection cone you always need to have to hand • If you own a medical practice, the finer details might be the type of instruments that you choose to use, or which brand of surgical tape you prefer to use • … and so on.
Simply put, the “finer details” we are referring to are not the be-all and end-all of your company; they are the small decisions, the seemingly-minor choices that have relatively little bearing on the big picture you may feel you should focus on. However, the impact these finer details may have is far mightier than you may initially believe.
Why are these finer details so important?
The reason that finer details are so important is simple: they’re not actually particularly “fine” at all.
While finding the right inflatable packers or deciding on the material of the bags you provide in your store may seem somewhat irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, it only takes a hiccup with one of these supposedly-rather-small details to cause issues for your business. Let’s say that you have decided to provide plastic bags to customers of your retail store; a seemingly-small decision that you make in an instant.
However, what if your customers have been reading the likes of https://www.onegreenplanet.org/whats-so-bad-about-plastic-bags/ and are thus concerned about the impact of plastic bags on the environment? In such a scenario, there’s a chance that that small, seemingly inconsequential decision, could actually cost you customers or harm your business’ reputation.
For every finer detail, there is a potential downside such as the example above; a scenario in which a finer detail could interrupt your business’ productivity, alter your customers’ perceptions of your company, cause a loss of efficiency, or simply make your business’ operations more difficult than they need to be.
So what can you do?
Admittedly, finding time in your schedule to focus on every fine detail in your business is going to be challenging – like most business owners, you likely already feel that you’re constantly short on time as it is.
However, what you can do is review the finer details your business relies on. Every three months, take an afternoon to review all the details of your business, asking your staff for their input in areas that you do not deal with yourself. It’s also worth surveying your customers and asking them to identify any areas of the business they dislike, or problems that they have experience.
If an issue is identified with one of the finer details of your business, you can then make a change before the impact becomes overly damaging.
In conclusion
Focusing on the big picture in business is essential, but every once in a while, it’s also worth focusing on the very small, very fine picture too.
Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. Many people have gotten wealthy by investing in real estate. No matter which niche of real estate investing you get into, a crucial skill is identifying which properties are good investments and which ones are bad investments. The following contributed post is therefore entitled, How to Know if a Property is a Good Investment or Not.
* * *
If you want to buy a property, then there are a lot of different things that you need to think about. You need to think about the location of the property, the condition of it and even the price. Only when you have been able to take all of this into consideration, can you then begin to really make sure that the property is the right one for you.
Know the Numbers
Unless something catastrophic happens between the time your offer is accepted, and when you close, there isn’t a single reason why your loan shouldn’t go through. Before you start searching online, you have to make sure that you speak with a mortgage lender. You also need to make sure that you know what you can qualify for, and even how much you are spending on a monthly basis. When you do this, you can then begin to make good decisions that won’t impact your finances too much.
Location
Sure, it’s great when you can buy a huge family home for a very affordable price. If the location isn’t right however then you shouldn’t even look into it as an option. Location is such a huge factor when you are choosing your property. Remember that you can change almost any aspect of the home, whether it involves adding an extra bedroom or even converting the loft to get extra space, but you can never pick up the home and move it somewhere else. If you can’t seem to find a great location then look into the properties that Drew Fasy has to offer.
When buyers are working hard to try and set up their budget, they remember to account for things such as insurance payments, tax and even their mortgage. You might not remember to account for things like gas, cable or even electric however and this can really impact your budget. You also need to take into account things like landscaping and property maintenance. You can minimise this cost by working hard to find a property that needs very little improvement, therefore saving you some money. That being said, some hidden costs just can’t be avoided. And while there can be aspects of a property that don’t require many changes, this gives you scope to put your stamp on it, either through exterior renovation or curb appeal alterations, or giving the outside of the property a minuscule makeover, you don’t necessarily have to invest much.
If finding the perfect property means going over budget, then you really do need to reconsider. This is especially the case if you can find a property that is near enough exactly what you want for a significantly lower price. Sometimes compromises need to be made because if you don’t then you may end up overspending on something that really isn’t worth that much money. By being smart with your money, you can be sure to really help yourself and you can also do your finances a favour too.
So, there are plenty of ways for you to really make the most out of your investment, and by putting in the work you can be sure to find a property that suits your needs. The internet is a fantastic place for you to start when you doing your property research, so don’t be afraid to compare neighbourhoods online.
Three of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money, Business/Entrepreneurship and Technology. In today’s digital world, businesses of all kinds are operated online which involve the mass generation of data and transfer of that data. As such, there’s a need to protect your data. The following contributed post thus entitled, Man or Machine: Which Protects Your Data?
There has been a heavy emphasis on data security across mainstream media platforms for many years. With huge amounts of data being stolen from companies, personal information being more important than ever before, and criminals becoming more sophisticated, it makes sense that people want to keep themselves safe. Of course, though, as a business, it can be hard to know who or what you can rely on to make this happen. To help you out, this post will be exploring the roles of both people and machines in relation to your data security, giving you an idea of where you trust should lie.
Machines
Most people would assume that you can trust computers with anything. They don’t tend to operate without instructions, instead performing the tasks which you’ve told them to. Of course, though, it isn’t impossible for people on the outside to take control. To solve this issue, tools like encryption and firewalls are used, blocking access to data which should only be seen by those within your business. These tools don’t always do their job, opening the doors to data being leaked into the world. Of course, though, this isn’t something which you have to worry about if you have the right people looking after you systems.
People
Data leaks and information dumps are often the result of human error, with people clicking the wrong buttons or ignoring prompts which they should be taking action to solve. Updates, for example, are often handled automatically by operating systems like Windows, but will require a restart before they are in place. If a security update rolls out, but your teams don’t reset their machines, they will be vulnerable to attacks. This sort of issue has plagued some businesses, leaving them to rely on increasingly automated systems to handle their data protection, but this doesn’t always solve the issue.
What To Trust?
In reality, you should never trust either of these areas unless you’ve done the work to secure them. Your computers should be managed and maintained by a professional company, ensuring that you are compliant with local laws, while also keep everything updated to deal with new threats. Along with this, using special data storage recruitment companies to find your employees can be a great idea. By following this route, you will be able to fill your business with people who have already proven their ability to look after data. It’s never worth putting your trust in something which isn’t proven, especially when it comes to protecting data.
With all of this in mind, you should be feeling ready to take on the challenge of protecting the data within your business. Most companies struggle with this area, eventually feeling the impact which can come when you lose other people’s data. Of course, though, as time goes on, you will only have to put more effort into it. Criminals haven’t stopped developing their systems, and this means that companies have to remain on their toes, with new threats popping up all the time.
Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. While it’s great to envisions all of the positives associated with owning a business, it’s important to consider the costs as well as they can come back to bite you. What are some of the unexpected costs of owning a business? The following contributed post is entitled, The Unexpected Costs Of Owning A Business.
* * *
Choosing to start a business is not a simple decision. Although it may seem like it is at the time, there is a lot that you need to consider before you get the ball rolling, from the support of your family to the extra workload. You’ll also need to work out the cost. No matter what others may say, owning a business is very rarely cheap, and there are often many more expenses than you initially realize. With that in mind, here are five unexpected ones that you’ll need to plan for.
1. Research Expenses Before you can launch your new venture, you need to work out exactly what it is. While some people do decide to start a business knowing what they’re going to sell and who they’re going to sell it to, many others have absolutely no idea. If you’re with the latter crowd, you’ll need to conduct market research to give yourself some inspiration. This is something you can do yourself or delegate to a research agency, but, either way, it can end up costing you hundreds.
2. Employee Turnover We all know that recruitment can cost you big, but what few realize is just how expensive losing the employees you recruit can be. As well as having to repeat the costs of hiring someone new, you may also need to pay extra to cover the additional workload in the meantime. For this reason, high employee turnover can wreak havoc on any company. Thankfully, if you offer a welcoming work environment and competitive benefits, new hires shouldn’t want to move on.
3. Product Shipping Businesses who ship products to their customers rarely consider how much this can cost. In addition to packaging and postage, you may also need to invest in your own vehicle to transport goods and cover the costs that this will bring. Being on the road also runs the risk of an accident. That being said, a truck accident lawyer can help you get the compensation you deserve in this event. To cut shipping costs further, you can shop around for the best deals.
4. Inventory Shrinkage Any business handling physical products has to face inventory shrinkage at some point. This occurs when your goods are damaged, stolen, or otherwise lost before they can be sold and delivered to customers. Unfortunately, there is no way to eliminate this worry completely, but there are several things that you can do to reduce it. These measures include improving product management and investing in better security, such as security cameras and guards.
5. Equipment Maintenance We all understand we’ll need to invest in certain types of equipment to keep our businesses up and running. Computers, tablets, and other office technology is generally a must, but some enterprises require specialized and expensive tools too. While you’ll know to budget for these investments, you may not have planned for the cost of maintaining them. This helps to keep your equipment running smoothly, and is cheaper than replacing it, but still costly nonetheless.
In the world of business, money is everything, so make sure that you take care of yours by planning for the unexpected expenses listed above.
Three of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. Not all businesses are the same and thus not all rules apply across the board. If you’re running a special type of business, you have considerations that other entrepreneurs don’t. The following contributed post is thus entitled, Helming A Business Involved In Sensitive Specialisms.
There are some types of business advice that could be considered universal, from top to bottom. This is usually the type of advice focused on those that sell products and services of some kind. For example, the fundamental tenets of opening a restaurant are likely considered similar, no matter what cuisine is on sale. Of course, sometimes there will be outliers, such as how to organize a successful line of food trucks, or considering just how wacky a three michelin star restaurant can afford to be.
But there are some businesses that might not be that open to the fundamental business advice required. For example, research and development initiatives, innovative incubators and a range of other investment-led propositions. Helming a business involved in sensitive specialisms can be truly difficult, and no matter your level of technical expertise could be considered overwhelming. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be done. While keen business sense is a universal principle, sometimes excellence is required as a fundamental standard.
This is fine, because if you’re hoping to begin or maintain an operation like this, you are likely excellent already.
Consider:
Recruitment
When stocking any form of business with good staff, you need to understand your requirements to the T. Odds are that if you’re running your own business, you have a technical level of proficiency in this area already. However, that isn’t always guaranteed, and in fact can sometimes lead a once-innovative business to ruin if not handled well. This means that if you do not have the level of specialist expertise, you must craft a board of individuals that include some who are. These will act as your technical advisors, helping you make the best decisions from the offset, especially where matters of working policy come in. They might advise you the delivery times expected as you manufacture new products, help you optimize and make your manufacturing line more efficient, among a range of other positive helpers that can truly make all the difference.
Recruitment hardly stops here. You also need to stock your company with high-intelligence, accredited professionals. But you must also reach out to those places that could potentially help you continue to bring in the intelligence your company needs for success. A brain drain can cripple a company involved in high-spec ambitions. Recruit at science universities or even begin a sponsorship program to allow high-achieving students with their scholarships. Develop youth training links as far as you can to potentially help build brand loyalty in your employees of tomorrow. This is how you can ensure the average skillset of your staff stays high, but you can also benefit from new, fresh ideas, develop comfortable and confident understandings surrounding
Your Vision
Your vision is important to get right. If you fail to do this, you’ll unfortunately fall behind. A business that is aimless is one that tries everything, but never the right thing. A business without targeted goals and deadlines for those goals has no measure of success. Simply ‘breaking even’ might be all you need to survive, but is that success? Unless you’re running a non-profit, most business leaders wouldn’t. To innovate you need to reinvest, to stay on the cutting edge, and have the versatility to experiment with new ideas. Without this added flexibility, it can be very easy to fall to the wayside.
Refining a vision is important. Changing it over time is possible of course, so don’t feel you’re limited to one direction. But you need to know why you’re here, and why your specialist product matters. How can you help explain it in an accessible manner to those who might not understand? What countries do you hope to sell in? Is this a specialist item for the use of knowledged professionals or is it going to be part of the consumer market?
What pedigree do you want to set for yourself? Will you have the longest-lasting item, the item with the most versatility, or perhaps the most refined and complex of all the products in that industry? What problems with your current industry and the products within it do you wish to solve and overcome given the time?
Feedback & Creativity
It’s important to blossom creativity as much as you can within your business. Part of doing so will help you continually understand what current expectations are, and how you might improve upon them. Never use customer expectations and understandings as a means to base your current method of innovation from. Always look to improve upon it, because you are the ones who should be presenting the new standard.
However, with this kind of interfacing with professionals in your field, with the customers you hope to sell to and perhaps with consultants from many different highly-refined specialisms, you will be able to better gauge the patterns of the industry. But it is always important to keep that window open. This is because even in innovation, you need to understand the purpose of why you’re innovating. Any competent firm with the ability to can get lost in its own hubris, developing and refining products that might not have much practical use in the industry. That is what your sideline experimental products are for, but there must always be a balance between feedback and creativity, from top to bottom.
Directed Aims
As we explained before, directed aims are important. But how do they manifest in your product or service development? Well, of course the aims are to provide a product or service that is capable and competitive with others on the market. But what format might this process take? Do you hope to have the most energy efficient production capacity compared to anyone in the industry? Do you pride yourself on your vetted supplies, on the in-house ingredients generated for each development? How about helping initiatives flourish such as those trying to mitigate the damage your industry is known for?
There’s always something positive to try and achieve, and while this is always worthwhile for its own sake, it doesn’t hurt your PR to engage in this either.
Equipment & Expectations
It’s important to ensure that you measure your equipment correctly. Your staff need to have cutting edge gear, especially in your R&D lab. A temperature and climate-controlled area with excellent sanitizing procedures before and after, extremely worthwhile health and safety equipment, important alarms to sounds if an issue occurs, protective and regularly maintained apparel, stocking yourself with an excellent chip kit collection, and ensuring your storage capacities are all extremely well-maintained is essential to helping your lab staff simply start with the fundamentals. Equipment changes depending on the type of research and experimentation is being conducted is essential. Finding the space necessary for this, sometimes in warehouse units, sometimes in office buildings or even underground could be incredibly important. This leads us onto our next point:
Security
When you’re involved in a highly innovative and specialized field, competition is stiff. Half a document of findings could be the smoking gun that allows another firm to try and innovate on your products before your patent is accepted, and could prevent you from taking the competitive edge you would have done. Security needs to be tight, because corporate espionage can be a real, definitive problem in these industries. Vet employees through and through before giving them any sort of clearance, and be sure to tailor your security access in layers, allowing only the most trusted and proven to reach the higher echelons.
Gate document access, secure and encrypt your internet traffic, and ensure devices are restricted from certain areas. Have your staff sign non-disclosure agreements and be sure to keep a competent legal team by your side to execute any lawsuits you have correctly. Lock your building well, and ensure that full security systems are installed. When a single piece of research could potentially gain you or lose you millions of dollars, you need to construct your business correctly from the beginning, to avoid any and all suspicious behavior from reaching its end-point.
Constant Market Research
While it’s essential to conduct your own research and to try to shape the trends of the industry, you must also research the industry through and through. This can be well achieved if you know what you’re doing. Not only must you research customer opinion as we have explained prior in this article, but you must try to understand every move your competition makes. For example, if a rival phone manufacturer releases a model that seems innovative, purchase some in bulk and deconstruct them. Try to get to the heart of the OS, or the design philosophy, or how it was marketed despite the apparent flaws. Learn from those around you, because they’ll almost certainly be learning from you. It’s in this way that you can stay on top of any and every element of the industry that might have otherwise evaded your understanding.
With these tidbits of advice, helming a business involved in sensitive specialisms is sure to be worthwhile.
Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. A lot of people work in the area of ‘contracting’, particularly with government agencies. When working in this sector, it’s important to know how to get repeat business. The following contributed post is thus entitled, 3 Ways For Contractors To Get More Repeat Customers.
* * *
If you’re a contractor, it’s the loyal customers that will sustain your business. If all of your customers are only using you once, you’re not going to have enough regular work to keep you going. But finding repeat customers is often easier said than done. If you find that you’re getting a lot of new customers but you can’t turn any of them into repeat customers, you’re getting something wrong somewhere along the line. These are some of the best ways to get more repeat customers for your contractor business.
This is very important. If you repair something for somebody and it breaks again 6 months down the line, they’re not going to call you again to fix it. In fact, they won’t call you for any other work they need doing either. That’s why it’s important that you do a good job that’s actually going to last. A big part of that is the materials that you use for the job. For example, if you’re doing some plumbing work and you buy cheap pipe and fittings, they’re likely to corrode and leak pretty soon. But if you buy decent quality black iron pipe fittings and copper pipe, the job will last for years to come. As well as good materials, you need to make sure that the workmanship is perfect. Don’t rush jobs to get the next one in and earn more money, it won’t work in the long run. Take your time and make sure that everything is perfect. You also need to be realistic about your own abilities and don’t take on jobs that you’re not really equipped to do. The work will be bad and you’ll lose the customer for good.
Build A Relationship
The work is obviously an important part of it, but you’ve got to remember that the customer is going to have you in their house, so they need to feel comfortable around you. If you don’t have a good relationship with your customers, they’re not likely to ask you back. Always make sure that you’re polite to customers, the way that you represent your company is very important. If you can offer a personalized service to each customer, you’ll build better relationships and they’ll be more likely to call you next time they need work doing.
Follow Up With Customers
If you finish the job and then don’t have any other contact with your customer, you’re missing an important part of the process. The aftercare is just as important as the work itself. You should always call up your customers a week or so after you’ve finished the job to make sure that everything is ok. If there are any small tweaks that need to be made, you should do it for free. By offering good aftercare to your customers, you can show that you’re invested in the work and you care about them. This is what people are looking for in a contractor so it’ll really help you to get repeat customers.
If you use these simple tips to get more repeat customers, your contractor business will thrive.
