Financial Literacy and Money – Page 131

Protecting Your Business From The People Within

Two key focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. When running any business, it’s important to hire staff you can trust to the best of your abilities, and also protecting your operations from your employees if necessary. The following contributed post is thus entitled; Protecting Your Business From The People Within.

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Hiring people should always mean that you’re able to trust those inside your business. When you’re paying someone to work for you, you should be able to expect their loyalty, even if things go a little bit wrong. Of course, though, this isn’t always the case, and a lot of businesses have been impacting by their employees in the past. To keep your company safe, this post will be exploring some of the measures which can be taken to make sure that your team is always on your side. This sort of effort is worth it in organisations of any size, even if they are very small.

Monitoring: While keeping an eye on people may seem a little sneaky, it’s not such a big problem when you’re paying for their time. A lot of companies monitor areas like search histories, room used by employees, and even the activities people get involved with outside of work. Taking this approach is nice and easy in the modern world, with loads of tools available to make sure that you can achieve this goal without making your employees feel like they’re being watched all the time.

Security: Information within a business should always be kept on a strictly need-to-know basis. If someone doesn’t need access to a set of files, they shouldn’t have access to it, as this helps to improve security by a huge degree. Likewise, when it comes to items which need to be physically protected, locks and safes can be very useful. It’s amazing what people will steal when they have the chance, even when they’re being paid by the victim they’re making.

Strict Policy: A lot of companies struggle to keep their employees in line because they simply don’t try hard enough. It will be easy for your team to be lazy with their work if there aren’t policies in place for targets, discipline, and reporting bad behaviour, making it crucial that you work to put them in place. To make sure that you can enforce this, a lot of companies use shift managers to keep people working as they should be.

Legal Support: As the last area to consider, it’s time to think about what could go really wrong for your business. When you hire someone, you take on a set of responsibilities which you have to fulfill. Failing to do so could result in being taken to court, forcing you to get help from a company like Ogletree Deakins to fight your corner for you. By following the rules and doing things by the books, you should be able to avoid this sort of issue, even if someone is hell bent on trying to take you for everything you’re worth.

With all of this in mind, you should be feeling ready to start putting protection in place for the inner workings of your business. A lot of people struggle with this sort of work, finding it hard to know exactly what they need to do when they want to keep their company safe and secure.

Where And When To Outsource Your Solutions

Two key focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. When running any business, it’s important to know what tasks you can effectively perform on your own, and when the need arises to outsource those tasks. The following contributed post is thus entitled; Where And When To Outsource Your Solutions.

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Outsourcing provides you with the option of giving some of the work that your business is responsible for to a third-party company. There are companies that can help you outsource all kinds of work, but it’s an option that needs to be used responsibly. It can help get rid of monotonous tasks and implement expert knowledge in the business but if it’s overused, it can cost a lot more than simply hiring someone. Here, we’re going to look at when it’s a good idea to outsource and some of the risks of doing it poorly.

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When you’re not ready for full-time employees
A common reason to outsource is that you have more work and duties than your current team can handle. Why wouldn’t you simply take on some employees? The biggest reason to go with outsourcing instead is that there isn’t quite enough suitable work to justify a full-time role in the business. In that case, the process of recruiting and training an employee so that they can spend most of their time doing nothing can be much less cost-effective than simply relying on a service that you can call on whenever you need it. Outsourcing is scalable to your needs, but a full-time employee might not have that flexibility.

When it makes your business more efficient
There are services that can help you work on the business from a bird’s eye perspective, creating the structure and tools that allows your team to become a lot more productive and efficient. Many business consultants do exactly that, helping business owners strategize certain teams, processes, and systems that the rest of the team uses. The most common form in today’s tech-fueled environment is IT consulting for businesses. You might not necessarily need a full internal IT team if your business isn’t big enough, but consultants can make sure that you have the right tech systems in place, as well as providing repair and maintenance when it’s needed.

When you need real expert insight
There are a lot of tasks you might not need to do quite as often, but when you do, you really need expert input on how to do it right. For instance, there is a lot you and your team can learn to handle in marketing, from content marketing to social media networking. When it comes to website design, however, you need someone with specific experience and expertise in that field. When it comes to parts of the business that have legal implications, it’s best not to go it alone, too. For instance, hiring a business accountant when the tax season rolls around, and you want to avoid getting audited as best as you possibly can. Outsourcing allows you to temporarily tap into a much broader network of expertise that you might not necessarily need on your team, but you definitely need on your side.

Outsourcing can really help you unlock the productivity of your team and benefit from reals experts that you might not have room for on your internal team. Make sure that you’re following the tips above to outsource in a way that promotes the growth of your business rather than stifling it.

A look at the Law of Compounding Interest and why you should care

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“Compounding Interest is the ‘Eighth Wonder of the World’. He who understands it, earns it. He who doesn’t, pays it!”

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Note. Like my Net Worth piece, the subject matter of this blog post is not new. It has been known for years by those who’ve learned about it in their families, learned about its concepts in business school, or who have discovered it on their own. It’s a discussion from my personal perspective which I think is worth visiting. Also, while this is a ‘money’ topic, I’m discussing it from a ‘scholarly’ perspective. I’m not rendering financial advice where I’m telling readers what they should do. In the spirit of the first principle of my blog, Creating Ecosystems of Success, I’m simply introducing a concept and discussing why it’s important for the lay person, so they can make their own life choices.

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“Because we’re getting our Ph.D.s and we’re in school for so long, we won’t start making our money until much later,” my lab mate and senior graduate student Damon adamantly said. “When you save and invest your money, it doubles about every 10 years, and we’re missing out on the ‘doubling cycles’! The classmates I attended Colgate University with, who’ve already gotten out and started working, are already seeing their money double!”

To start this off with some humor, coming from the eastside of Buffalo, anyone named Damon I’d ever met up to that point was black, but this Damon was of Greek descent. Damon was a very smart, opinionated and short-tempered guy. He was also knowledgeable on numerous topics: current events, politics, and economics, and I loved talking with him while in our research lab as I always learned something.

Damon introduced me to one of my current heroes, Dr. Thomas Sowell and let me borrow his copy of Inside American Education, which Dr. Sowell wrote. I didn’t know it, but that day while our Pharmacology experiments ran, Damon gave me my first lesson ever on the “Law of Compounding Interest”. I was in my late 20s, and similar to my learning about the ‘Net Worth’ and a ‘Matching Contribution’ concepts, it was late in the game, but still much earlier than many people learned about it. So, let’s talk about the Law of Compounding Interest and why we should all care.

As opposed to trying to piece together an explanation of Compounding Interest myself, I’m going to simply reference the book How To Turn $100 Into $1,000,000 which I referred to in my post entitled, Challenging misconceptions and stereotypes in class, household income, wealth and privilege. In that story I talked about how my mentor challenged me to read what appeared to be a children’s book. While it is written for children, the book contains lots of valuable information that many adults don’t have a handle on – even those in their 40s and beyond. Since reading the book I’ve consequently given copies to my younger cousins and other youngsters in my circle to give them the chances I didn’t have. You should too!

Before discussing the Law of Compounding Interest, I’m going to jump ahead to Chapter 9: Investing, because for the sake of this post, it needs to be introduced first. According to Chapter 9, investing is defined as, “Putting your money into something that can potentially make you more money.” There are likewise lots of investment classes out there: stocks, real estate, and businesses of all kinds.

Coincidentally, the same buddy I discussed in my post entitled, We should’ve bought Facebook and Bitcoin Stock, recently approached all of us, looking for ‘investors’ because he wants to start his own Amazon store – a ‘speculative’ investment. When you think about the Law of Compounding Interest though, you want to think about putting your money in places where it will steadily ‘appreciate’ over time – someplace safe where you’d place your retirement savings for example (discussed below).

Two important concepts to understand here are ‘Principal’ and ‘Interest’. Financially, Chapter 8 assumes readers understand the meanings of Principal and Interest in the context of getting a ‘Return on Investment’ (ROI), as opposed to the borrowing context where you’re paying someone else interest on a loan. The chapter quickly starts discussing how Interest can steadily build your Principal from year to year.

If for example you have a $100 and it’s invested in something at a 5% interest rate after one year, you’ll have earned $5 so your total principal at the start of year two will now be $105. If you keep that $105 principal invested, it will earn the 5% on that amount and not the original $100, so your new total after year two will be $110.25, and so on. This is just an example, and this is just with the starting a principal of $100, but what if you started with a greater principal – let’s say $2,000, and you steadily added more money to it every month for 10-20 years? For retirement purposes the ideal scenario is to be invested for 40 years allowing one to retire well at age 65. Ideally the person should have started investing/compounding at age 25. However, getting started at any age is the key.

The second aspect of the Law of Compounding Interest discussed in the book is the “Rule of 72” on page 84. The Rule of 72 is a calculation which allows investors to determine how long it will take for their money to double based upon a given interest rate. To determine this number, you simply divide 72 by the interest rate that you expect to earn over time. The higher the expected ‘Rate of Return’, the less amount of time it takes to reach your goal. For example, if you divide 72 by an interest rate of 10%, it would take 7.2 years for your money to double. If you divide 72 by an interest rate of 2% the time would be 36 years – hence the importance of looking for the most competitive rate of return relative to your personal risk tolerance when looking for investments.

The chapter cites two more examples which highlight the importance of continuing to add to your principal and then the importance of time. The example on page 86 shows the difference in returns when two siblings both start with a $5,000 investment at the same age at an interest rate of 8%. One sibling continues to contribute to her account out to age 50 – that is $1,000 every year and arrives at 50 years of age with $750,000. The other doesn’t contribute anything further and arrives at 50 years of age with a total of $200,000.

The last example on page 87 gives an example of two people who start investing at different times in life (pictured above). In this example both subjects become millionaires by 70 years of age. The first individual started saving $1,000 per year starting at age 15 and paid in only $55,000 to reach their $1,000,000. The second individual started at 30 years of age and had to put in a total of $140,000 to reach their $1,000,000. The take home lesson here is that because the first person started earlier, it took them less than half the principal of the second person the reach their $1,000,000.

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My classmate Damon’s words at the start of this post, underscores these last two points. Our peers who started working immediately after earning their Bachelor’s degrees, were in theory able to start taking advantage of the Law of Compounding Interest earlier, assuming they knew to do so. Working towards our Ph.D. s, we wouldn’t be able to start the process until much later. But there were other professionals from our peer group who were getting even later starts than us due to the nature of their fields and the amounts of debt incurred during their educations; the Law and Medical students come to mind.

There’s another piece to this though. What about individuals who didn’t go the college route at all? They too would’ve been able to start using the law earlier in life assuming they knew about it and followed it. So, as I’ll describe below, having a degree has nothing to do with using this law.

Who should care about the Law of Compounding Interest? Everyone. That goes for STEM professionals like me and Damon, ‘Blue-Collar’ workers swinging hammers, cooks in the kitchen, lawyers in courtrooms, non-degreed individuals, business owners/entrepreneurs – everyone. No matter what your profession is, you only must know about the law, start it, and start it as early as you can.

To start using the law and to using it correctly, one must embrace two of the principles of my blog; the learning of Financial Literacy/Money, and Long-Term Thought/Delayed Gratification. Thus far in my writings I’ve discussed the latter principle sparsely, but it’s key here because to take advantage of the Law of Compounding Interest, the individual must think long-term. This means that they must be disciplined enough to live without a certain percentage of their paychecks every month.

They’ll also forgo or delay some short-term luxuries and indulgences for greater gains later – playing the game of ‘Chess’ in a way. This isn’t something that’s necessarily easy to do in the presence of considerable peer, societal, and in some instances familial pressures. See my Mother’s Day 2017 post, to get an idea of how to lose both money and time due to personal and cultural pressures.

What are the real-world applications for this? I’ll cite two articles. The first is by Rodney Brooks of the Washington Post. I cited his article entitled; 71 percent of Americans aren’t saving enough for retirement in my post about the Tax Reform and Jobs Act. It discusses reasons why people can’t take advantage of the Law of Compounding Interest. Another piece is entitled; Club Fed millionaire: Membership 23,000 and growing by Mike Causey which discusses the growing number of federal employees who are retiring as millionaires – most self-made. I’ll say it again, the majority are self-made meaning no one gave them anything, and they simply methodically prioritized, saved, and invested their money.

Of course, if you run a business, using a venture capital firm makes sense. Like investing, companies are also “money attractors”, but often more powerful. Using other people’s capital to get them off the ground can accelerate entrepreneurs along the path of compounding, just like it has countless times in the past for people like Larry Ellison and Elon Musk.

There’s a final context for the law, and that’s giving. When you think about Higher Education, philanthropists and generous alumni often leave gifts to their schools of choice through ‘Endowments’, many of which are invested so that they’re continuously compounding and generating returns used for scholarships and operating expenses. The famous Jim Kramer runs his “Charitable Trust” of which he is continuously thinking about out how and where to safely invest its funds for charitable purposes. Lastly, consider how the lives your relatives and your community could be changed by having a continuously growing principal and interest you can use in any fashion you see fit: saving up a down payment on a home, college tuition expenses, seed money for building businesses, supporting political campaigns, etc.

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If it sounds like an underlying theme of this post and others like it is that your financial (and life) success is about what you know and don’t know (outside of your profession), then you’re correct. In an upcoming story I’m going to discuss how I didn’t understand these pieces when I first started my federal science career and didn’t take advantage the Law of Compounding Interest or the federal government’s ‘Matching Contribution’ – both of which have cost me money. There were actually several personal ‘blunders’ in these areas.

The opening quote for this piece is from the famous Physicist Albert Einstein and it pretty much sums up the importance of this topic – either you’re getting paid, or you’re paying out. Compounding Interest is something anyone can take advantage of regardless of: race, creed, color, sex, gender or religion. One just must know about it, and then start living by it. If they don’t know about it, they must be curious enough to find out about it. Most financial literacy programs cover it in some way.

There are other necessary pieces such as ‘Budgeting’ which I’ll cover as well in another post. As I stated in my Net Worth piece, it’s not something that can be worked out with your boss, or even legislated by the government, though I do think schools could do a better job of teaching this information at an early age. In closing, two other principles of my blog do tie in here, and they are Self-Accountability and Self-Reliance, because first, the individual must realize that no one can make them practice and incorporate this law into their lives, and secondly, it’s themselves who have to do it. And with that, I hope you’ve learned something here about the Law of Compounding Interest.

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

• Your Net Worth, your Gross Salary, and what they mean
• The difference between being cheap and frugal
• We should’ve bought Facebook and Bitcoin stock: An investing story
• Challenging misconceptions and stereotypes in class, household income, wealth and privilege
• What are your plans for your tax cut? Thoughts on what can be done with heavier paychecks and paying less tax
• My personal experience with Dave Ramsey’s Debt Snowball revisited
• Mother’s Day 2017: One of my mother’s greatest gifts, getting engaged, and avoiding my own personal fiscal cliff

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

Know This If You Plan To Keep Your Company Open Overnight

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. Not all businesses are 9-5 operations and some are open for 24 hours. There are special considerations for these types of business. The following contributed post is thus entitled; Know This If You Plan To Keep Your Company Open Overnight.

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In modern retail, you need to live up to a variety of expectations from your customers. The typical ‘9-5’ workday isn’t enough in this field anymore. Instead, you need to aim for a business which is available to customers at all times. At the very least, this means operating an online shop. It’s also not unusual for retailers to now stay open overnight. The practicality of being able to pop to the shop at any time has become an expectation rather than an exception. So, you may well be wondering whether 24-hour opening is for you.

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In many ways, this seems like a sound business decision. More opening = more time for profit, right? In reality, though, there are a few things to consider before you take the leap. To help you decide, we’re going to look at the main realities you’ll face.

You’ll need to pay more

There is no federal law which says that you need to pay night workers more. But, sticking with day rates here will soon see your night staff deciding to quit. Why would they put up with the added risks and fatigue for no extra money? As a rule, then, pay at least an extra dollar or two for each night hour. Over an all-night shift, that can add up. With that in mind, consider whether this would make monetary sense.

You’ll need to increase security

It’s also worth noting that you’ll need to improve security during those night shifts. In the day, other customers provide a deterrent for thieves. But, if the shop is empty with only your staff inside, thieves may be more willing to take a risk. Hence why you need to consider everything from panic buttons to security cameras. It may even be worth investing in systems like those offered by Athena Security, which have gun detection. That way, your cameras can call the police when they witness the extraction of a gun. Many would argue this is the only way to keep your night team safe.

You’ll need to work night shifts too

Don’t think, either, that you can hand every night shift over to someone else. Like anything in business, you need to show willing with whatever you expect your team to do. At least once a week, then, you’ll need to tackle that overnight shift yourself. If team members are off sick or can’t work on set nights, you may even find yourself alone. Make sure to consider that before making a choice here.

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Do all these pointers mean that 24-hour opening wouldn’t work for you? Not at all. If you stayed busy through the night, you could easily cover that extra pay and security cost. If you don’t mind working through the early hours, it won’t bother you at all that you have to step up to this mark. But, by considering these things, you can ensure you’re 100% certain about taking the late-night plunge. All the better for avoiding unpleasant surprises in the dark!

How to Make Your Clients Happier All the Time

Two of the key focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. A key aspect of business is keeping your customers and clients happy and maintaining your relationships with them. The following contributed post is thus entitled; How to Make Your Clients Happier All the Time.

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It is said that it costs five times as much to find a new client that will buy from you, or use your service than it does to get an existing one to give you repeat business. It has to make economical sense to spend some of your marketing budget on letting your existing clients know of any new products you have on offer, or of any special deals that are available. Of course, new customers are important, but if you want your business to be strong you have to foster loyalty from the ones you already have.

Keep In Touch With Them

You should not make a sale and then ignore your customer. An occasional call or email will be appreciated by most of them especially if they are not always promotional. Keeping in touch with your customers lets them know that they matter to you and that you are always there to help them if they need assistance.

Simple things such as a handwritten Christmas card can make a big difference to how your business is viewed, and a personal touch such as this can keep the customer loyalty flowing.

Keep Your Premises Presentable

Not all businesses are online. If you have a store, warehouse, offices or anywhere else that your customers venture, they need to be kept presentable and safe all the time.

Make sure they do not get cluttered, particularly in walkways, as someone could be injured if they trip over an item. Keep them clean, as nothing is more off putting than dirty premises. You should use commercial cleaning services so that you can be certain that your store, offices or warehouse are spotless. All areas should be clean and safe for workers and customers alike.

Know Your Industry Well

Make sure you know all the ins and outs of your industry or profession. Customers who feel they are dealing with an expert will trust your business more and are likely to stay loyal to you. If you can solve a problem for them, this will ensure that they never go elsewhere.

Keep up to date with the latest trends in your line, and make sure that you are aware of any new laws and regulations that affect it. Your customers are relying on you and if you let them down because a law has changed that you and they were unaware of, they will soon find someone to give their business to.

Listen To Feedback From Customers

Feedback from your customers can be invaluable, regardless of whether it is good or bad. Good feedback will let you know that you are getting things right. If they are complaining you should thank them for getting in touch with you. Them letting you know there is a problem means you can put it right before the same issue arises with another client, and that could prevent you from losing more customers. Research leads us to the conclusion that customer loyalty is built on how complaints are responded to and dealt with, so ensure that you and your employees always handle them in a positive way.

In fact, some businesses send questionnaires or surveys to find the thoughts of their clients, as they consider them to be so important.

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Be Confident In All Your Dealings

Customers use your services or buy your products because they trust you, and you need to stay confident to maintain that trust. Always be decisive and positive and avoid words like ‘if’ or ‘maybe’ in your correspondence with them. If you think they might ask you something you are unsure about, do some research before you take their call or reply to their email.

If you really do not know the answer to a question, be honest and tell them that. Also, let them know that you will find the information they need and get back to them without delay. Once again, this will help to keep the trust you have built, but a quick response will also make them feel they matter.

Keep Your Promises

Be realistic about the delivery dates of products, or deadlines you can meet with a service. It is always better to be early than for goods to turn up late or for the deadline you have set yourself to be missed. You have to remember that if a customer has a bad experience because of unrealistic promises you made, they will tell everyone within earshot what an unreliable business you are.

They do not tend to tell so many people when their experience has been good, but if they only mention it to 4 or 5 people, that is getting your brand name around. Then some of those people may become customers too, and hopefully, they will be treated well enough to recommend your business as well.

Have Valuable Content On Your Website

If you are an online business, it is your website that people will go to view your products and services. Make sure the content on there is relevant and useful to the consumers that are likely to buy from you. It does not need to be all written content, as images and videos can sometimes be more appealing. It seems that these days, consumers are more likely to watch a video about products rather than read written text about them.

Use the feedback clients have given you in a question and answer section, as this can show others how often people come back to you. Let the customers know that you are using their comments, as that will make them feel a bit special that you consider what they think to be important enough to repeat.

Ask About New ideas

Keeping your existing customers is all about making them feel you care. If you have an idea for a new product or an addition to your services, send an email to all your existing customers asking their opinions. Firstly, this could bring invaluable advice before you move forward, and secondly, they will be impressed that you cared enough to ask the question.

Keeping your existing customers happy will give you a client base that is loyal, and most time, this is the best basis any business can have.

How Small Businesses Can Afford Their Equipment

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. A key challenge for many small business owners starting off is covering their operating expenses. The following contributed post is thus entitled; How Small Businesses Can Afford Their Equipment.

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Entrepreneurship is one of the primary principles of your ecosystem of success. As you get to build your business, you build, with it, its path to success. Every strategy, every market research, every service or product moves your company forward along the success ladder. The aim, naturally, is to climb the ladder, and not to fall back one or few steps lower. However, expenses, and especially equipment purchases can exercise a negative drain on your cash flow and your rate of expansion. While a company can’t provide its offering to the market without the appropriate equipment, its purchase can bring insurmountable obstacles and threaten growth. In a desire to continue your business journey safely and on stable grounds, you need to be able to look out for alternatives solutions.

Image courtesy of Pixabay

They look for cost-friendly alternatives
High tech machinery comes at a price, especially in industrial sectors such as agriculture and construction businesses where the business can’t perform without specialized equipment. For many small businesses, the cost of purchasing brand new machinery can drag the budget in the red and put the company at risk of bankruptcy. Entrepreneurs are rightly suspicious of second-hand equipment, which could present faults and represent an even higher cost in the long term. However, you can find safe and professional auctions online that guarantee customer care services and precise description of each item. You can save money on used equipment that works for your business.

A typical auction room

They choose not to buy
Expensive machinery requires specialist maintenance and servicing. Needless to say, if the equipment is draining the budget, it’s likely that the necessary maintenance schedule might affect your cash flow significantly. As a result, only a few small businesses are happy to commit to the purchase of equipment during their first years of existence. For many, hiring the equipment they need for the duration of specific projects and tasks ensures that the teams are supplied with everything they need in real time without permanent commitment. Ultimately, while it’s not a viable approach in the long term – especially as projects multiply and the need for equipment increase – it can allow your company to build up the necessary capital to purchase.

They sell their specialist knowledge to partner companies
A subcontractor is, by definition, a professional who owns their own business and is hired by another company to support a project. Their skills are designed to enhance the set of talent the company has to offer. For small businesses, acting as a subcontractor can ensure access to high-quality equipment on a project basis without needing to purchase or hiring additional machinery.

They use tax relief
Last, but not least, small companies can receive a permanent tax break when they buy new equipment. Indeed, by using the Section 179 deduction, a small business can immediately write off the items of equipment – without waiting for the natural depreciation to run its course over several years. The tax provision is only aimed at small and medium companies in an attempt to support growth.

Applying any of these financing solutions can ensure that your small company gets access to the equipment you need for growth without putting your cash flow at risk.

3 Qualities Any Product Should Have

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. When generating a product of any kind for business/commercial use, there are some basic considerations to keep in mind as the seller/creator and for the customer. The following contributed post is thus intitled; 3 Qualities Any Product Should Have.

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Regardless of which side of the equation you happen to be on – whether you are a business owner making products for the general public, or a member of that public using products made by businesses – it’s good to know what people generally expect from products of all kinds, and what qualities tend to be important in products of all kinds. The truth is, this helps you to determine where you should put your money, and when you should complain – and if you do happen to be a business owner, it is also clearly important in ensuring that the products you make are made to the highest professionalism and degree possible. In this article, we are going to look at three qualities that any product should have, and which should be considered unavoidable. As long as a product has these three, it is much more likely to be a good acceptable product worth buying.

Useful

All in all, a product should answer some kind of problem with a useful solution. If it does not do this, it might be worth asking why it exists at all. But determining the usefulness of something is not always that easy, and it’s something which you will need to think about whether you are buying or making a product. The truth is it is hard to tell how useful something is until it is being used by people. But you can at least try to work it out by looking into what kind of solution it appears to be answering, and seeing if it is doing that. As long as it is, it is likely a product that people will enjoy greatly, and it will probably be successful and popular to some degree. Whereas, if it is not useful, that is much less likely to happen.

Safe

Something that we should consider an absolute basic of any product in the world is that it is safe – or at least as safe as possible, as obviously there are occasions when a product is by definition not safe – such as a weapon or a vehicle. But even those things need to undergo particular safety standards – in fact, especially those things – and a product being safe should be considered an absolutely vital aspect of it on the whole. If you ever buy a product which causes you some kind of injury or illness, then you should think about contacting a product defect lawyer, as they will be able to assist you with what your rights are and what the law states. But hopefully, the products you use won’t cause you any harm in the first place.

Intuitive

Finally, you should be able to use a product in an easy intuitive sense, so that you can get out of it exactly what you need to at all times. This kind of intuition is something that you can easily work on if you are developing products, and it is all about making sure that it works in the way that people would expect. This is a hugely important part of a product being usable and enjoyable, so it’s worth remembering.

Don’t Make These 5 Big Business Mistakes When Starting Out

The first principle of my blog is Creating Ecosystems of Success, and two key areas of focus are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. When starting any new business venture, some mistakes will be invariably be made, but it’s important to know what mistakes not to make. This contributed post is thus entitled, Don’t Make These 5 Big Business Mistakes When Starting Out.

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Many business owners make mistakes when just starting out. This is ok; learning from mistakes and making changes that way is absolutely key, so mistakes shouldn’t be looked at as a reason not to begin in the first place. If you’re afraid of making mistakes, you’ll never get anything done!

However, just because mistakes can be looked at in a positive light, doesn’t mean you should make the same mistakes that many new entrepreneurs have made time and time again. Avoiding obvious mistakes can save you a lot of time and money. Below we have 5 big business mistakes you should avoid when you’re just starting out. Take a look:

1. Skipping The Planning Stages
Why would you skip the planning stages of your business when they are the stages that can make all the difference to your business later on down the line? Planning your business in detail with a business plan (you can use a template to make it easier if you’re not sure how to begin) will keep you focused later on down the line and give you something to refer back to if you need it.

A business plan can help you to look at things objectively when you encounter problems, as well as secure financing. Do not skip these stages if you want to make a success of your business!

2. Not Setting Goals
Setting both long and short term goals for your business is imperative if you want to make sure you achieve what you set out to achieve. However, you should find out how to set effective goals first. They should be measurable and actionable, so you can accurately assess whether you have met your goals and break them down into baby steps. Goal setting is a very important step in every entrepreneurs journey.

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3. Undervaluing Your Products and Services
It’s normal to want to get more customers and interest when you’re just starting out, but undervaluing your products and services is not the way to do this. You need to make sure you’ve thoroughly researched your competition so that you can price your products and services fairly. You don’t want to be known as a cheap or budget business if you offer high quality products and services. It can actually go against you, even if you think it’s a good idea at the time.

4. Not Thinking About Things In The Legal Sense
You’ll need to think about all of the legal implications of your business, such as insurance, contracts, and anything else that could trip you up later on down the line. You can read this webpage to learn more about contract draughting and get a feel for why it is important. You want to make sure that you, your business, your customers, and your team are all protected adequately.

5. Failing to Research Your Ideal Customer
Researching your ideal customer will help you to create better marketing campaigns as you can target people right down to their age, profession, relationship status, and more. Who are you servicing with your business?

Deliver The Best Deliveries For Your Customers

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. For businesses that ship inventory to consumers, it’s important to be able ship your deliverables in the most efficient manner and to keep customer satisfaction high. The following contributed post is thus entitled, Deliver The Best Deliveries For Your Customers.

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Do you know what the biggest issue many customers have with businesses? It’s that they don’t offer quick enough deliveries or that they seem to overcharge for the shipment. As a result, some companies can struggle with their customer service reviews, and they might get a few more poor online reviews than they would like.

Don’t let your deliveries drag you down like this! There are ways you can up your game and improve the overall delivery and shipment processes within your company. Read on to find out more!

Make The Internal Process As Simple As Possible

One of the first things to work on is your internal delivery process. One of the main problems that many companies have with their process is that it is far more complicated than it should be. Thankfully, it can be easy to cut down and make a lot more efficient. The key to that is to try and take away as many steps from the whole process as possible. That will slim it down and make it a lot more effective.

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Train Your Warehouse Staff

You also need to offer regular training to all of your warehouse staff. As these are the employees that will be handling all orders and ensuring that they are shipped out on time, keeping them well trained will ensure their productivity. It also informs them about the best way to handle fragile goods and perishable items that might need to follow special regulations.

Consider Outsourcing Deliveries

If you find that trying to handle all of the deliveries is too much for your company, you could always outsource them. You could hand the packaged shipments to a courier service, for instance. If you sell large items, then you might need to find a flatbed trucking company. There are some businesses that also like to outsource their storage as well. Thankfully, there are some courier companies that will be able to store and ship all of your products for you for very reasonable prices.

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Be On The Ball With Your Stock Takes

If you do keep hold of your own stock, then it’s best to stay very organized with your stock takes. Ideally, you should try to carry them out at least once a week. This helps you carry out stock rotation and will reduce the chances of you ever selling out.

Ensure Customers Are Up To Date

I’m sure that all of your customers will want to be kept up to date with all the orders that they placed. In fact, it’s the not knowing part that can often result in a lot of bad reviews! So, make sure your customers always receive a tracking number and that they can use this to see every step that their item makes on its journey. At least this will give them a better idea of when they can expect their purchase to arrive!

Hopefully, all of these tips can help you improve the delivery of all orders for all of your customers!

Financing A Business When You Don’t Have Capital

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. A key to starting a business and growing it to the point where it thrives is acquiring the startup capital and then finding ways to run budget surpluses going forward. The following contributed post discusses tips for doing this and is entitled, Financing A Business When You Don’t Have Capital.

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One of the hardest parts of trying to run a business in the modern world is the spending which has to come alongside it. With fewer people than ever before managing to build up savings, most don’t have the money to start something like this when they are working in a normal job, and this makes it a challenge to try and find a foothold. Of course, though, you don’t need to finance something like this for yourself. Instead, as long as you’re willing to do some research, you can find loads of ways to fund your company without having to save.

Investments: Traditionally, investments have long been one of the most popular ways for a new company to be able to afford their initial expenses. You will often have to pay for this by giving away a piece of the business, making it appealing to some people, while also providing an easy way to get yourself started very quickly. There are loads of companies out there which can put you in touch with someone like this, making it even simpler to get started.

Loans: If you’d rather avoid giving away a slice of your hard work, you could look down a slightly different avenue. There are consumer portfolio services all over the world. These businesses provide funding for other companies on a loan basis, with special terms and conditions which are designed to make your first few years very secure. In this case, you will have to pay all of the money back by yourself, but will have an income to help you to do it.

Something Free: Not all ventures need to have money spent on them to get started. In fact, over the last few years, it’s become much more common for people to seek methods which give them the ability get their company started for free. Working online, dealing with services, and a host of other ideas make it possible to get started for nothing or very little investment. This is a great way to avoid getting involved with tricky finances which could make life harder later on.

Grants: Finally, as the last idea on this list, you may have the chance to look towards your government to help you. Certain types of industry are being heavily pushed by these groups, nowadays. Green technology, computing, and loads of other fields have grants available to small companies. You will have to work to meet certain criteria to be able to get something like this, but this will be worth it once you’re able to fund yourself for free.

There are loads of ways to handle this sort of work, and most people will have their own idea of what should be done. Of course, though, it’s always worth doing plenty of your own research, making sure that you’re not going down the wrong route with your business. If you need direct support with this, a business management company will be able to give you some advice, making it even easier to get started.