Tag: Business

The Things People Don’t Consider When Becoming An Entrepreneur

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. Many people say they want to become entrepreneurs, but they don’t understand all that goes into becoming one. There are a host of other considerations involved than when being an employee. The following contributed post is there entitled, The Things People Don’t Consider When Becoming An Entrepreneur.

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When trying to become an entrepreneur, you’ll often find that people are only thinking about a few things, and nearly all of them are positive. People think about the money, the opportunities it could bring, and the general happiness of being their own boss. Does this sound like everything that’s going through your mind at the minute, or perhaps did go through your mind when you were setting up your business. But there really are some things that we know people just don’t consider when starting up their own business, for one reason or another. Perhaps the positives really do cloud the vision, and it becomes hard to see what the reality is behind it. Which is why we want to create this article for you, because we really do want to highlight some of the things you might not think about when becoming an entrepreneur. It’s not even if you’re just considering to become an entrepreneur, because we know that some of you reading this might actually already be an entrepreneur, and trying to deal with the scary realities yourself now. We want to make this journey easier, and we think the tips we’ve got below for you will do just that, so keep on reading to find out more.

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The Personal Losses

There are some personal losses that you will feel alllll along the way of your business journey, and the first will start at the very beginning. The first loss you’re going to have will be financial, because we hope that you’re not just going to rely on the banks to give you a loan. Do this, and the money you could be racking up will drown you in the coming years. Unless of course you do become that successful entrepreneur that can control the money of their company without having to keep dipping back into bank money to move forward. So, if you’re investing so much money, you probably want to know how to make sure it doesn’t become a personal loss, and more a personal gain. Well, all you have to do is grow, grow, and grow some more. If you take it steady, seek out opportunities, and focus on getting your company name out there in every way that you possibly can, then you’re heading towards success already.

We think another big personal loss that people never seem to consider, is the loss of your time that you’re never really going to get back. You might think that your working life was restricting, but those of you who run your own business at the minute will know that your time just melts right away, and your main focus does become your business. All hours of the day are controlled by it, and if not because you physically have to do something, then because you’re thinking about it constantly. Don’t even get us started as to what it’s like when things start going wrong. You have all of these worries going on, and you just know how much is riding on it, yet you still have to try and balance normal life as well. Our top tip is to always communicate your fears with the people closest to you, and perhaps even have a business advisor on hand to help you through any of the tricky situations. Someones to talk to, and someone to guide you is actually going to be so beneficial.

The Problem Solving

Problem solving is something you’re going to have to become good at, but we don’t think people are actually prepared for how many problems they’re going to have to solve. It can become a serious issue for a business when there’s just so many problems present, but we think we have a few solutions for you. A big problem a company has is tracking what their employees are doing, and what they should be paid for. For example, some companies pay mileage if their employees are out on their road, but tracking actual business mileage can be hard. However, if you check out companies such as triplogmileage.com, you’ll find your solution to your problem. All you need is an app or software to track it for you, and you’ll find it’s so much more trustworthy than your employees. You also need to be able to track the hours they’re working, and we promise you there’s software for that to. We think that pretty much any problem you have can be solved with software, so check out what solutions you can find today!

Lingering Feelings

The biggest lingering feeling that every entrepreneur has to go through, is the one that they’re going to fail. It’s the feeling that your business is going to drop at the minute, and the financial weight is going to come crashing down on you. Because if you have a big investment from the banks and your business fails, you’re just going to have a whole world of problems to deal with. But these lingering feelings are something you’re most likely going to have to deal with everyday. The slightest change in your monthly profit, a slow day in the office, an employee leaving… it can all trigger these feelings. But, we think the best way to battle them, is to focus on turning them all into positives. If you know you’ve had a really slow month with your profits, figure out a plan that will ensure you more than make up for it the next month. If you feel like your business is becoming a little stale and that’s why you might not be able to attract as many customers, think of ways that you can jazz it up a little bit! We also find that business owners have the lingering feeling of success in their mind, which can only be a positive. If you always have that thought that you’re going to succeed in your mind, it’s going to be so much easier for you to have that drive to win. We think it pays for a business owner to be a little cocky in this respect.

Making Your Legal Practice More Enticing To Prospective Clients

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. As with any field, the legal world is competitive. It’s thus important to understand how to set yourself apart from your competition. The following contributed post is thus entitled, Making Your Legal Practice More Enticing To Prospective Clients.

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Running a successful legal business requires a lot of dedication and perseverance. It’s an industry that fosters fierce competition, so you need to continuously reinvent your business plan in order to help your practice grow. Still, it can be difficult to turn heads when there are so many other firms with highly professional teams of lawyers in the market. You need to be unique in order to stand out from the crowd. What can you do to make an impact on the target market? Well, in this article, we’re going to discuss some ways in which you could make your legal practice more enticing to prospective clients.

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Focus on your company culture.
It’s easy to become laser-focused on clients when you run a law firm because your reputation is important. And it’s true that your clients are important – you need to become known for delivering an exceptional legal service to clients. People and businesses choose firms to represent them based on their success rate; it’s a highly competitive industry. But you need to start by improving your legal practice behind doors. You can’t deliver an exceptional service to clients and take the industry by surprise unless you have an exceptional team of attorneys to help you out. A strong workforce is important in any company, but law practices entirely depend on the legal expertise of their employees. You can’t just hire any average candidate, and you also can’t take your members of staff for granted (even if they are exceptional). You need to treat your team well and foster a strong company culture. Not all cases will be easy to solve, so you need employees who are going to work well together.

Additionally, you need a balanced workplace. Take a look at firms such as Ogletree Deakins which have taken huge strides forwards and achieved balance in terms of gender. This isn’t just to avoid workplace discrimination; it’s about creating a more diverse and varied work environment. In the legal industry, this is essential. Creativity is involved in unpacking many legal claims and protecting individuals. You don’t want a team full of employees who are carbon copies of one another. But it’s important that your team works together. You don’t want senior attorneys who make newer and less experienced attorneys feel stupid. This might cause newer members of staff to shy away from offering the full extent of their legal advice to clients because they’re afraid they’ll get something wrong. If your team is cooperative then everyone can learn from one another. In turn, you’ll create a team that can solve any legal problem or simply offer exceptional advice to clients by pooling together their expertise and experience.

Deliver customer service that is second-to-none.
Again, this is important for any business in any industry, but it’s particularly important for legal practices. As stated above, you need an exceptional reputation if potential clients are going to trust you, and this starts with you impressing your current customer base. For example, you need to understand clients on a personal level. In other words, keep the technical legal jargon in your head and try to relate to them on a human level. Understand their problem or their concerns, depending on the type of legal representation they need. You might even be able to offer a more appropriate type of legal coverage or protection if you get to know them and their situation more thoroughly. This will give you a reputation as a business that cares about its clients. In turn, you’ll be able to make your business look more enticing to prospective clients.

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Project the right message.
Branding depends on more than a pretty logo. It’s about the message that a business presents to the target market. And in the legal industry, it’s vital to craft the perfect statement. As has been discussed throughout this article, reputation is important for legal practices. Clients put a lot of money and trust in attorneys. They’re not buying some menial and unimportant product; they’re buying a service that has value to them in more than just a monetary sense, whatever the field of practice in which you operate. A good rule of thumb is to keep quiet if you’re ever in doubt. Saying the wrong thing can really damage your company’s reputation. As a law firm, you are expected to say the right thing on behalf of your clients, so you need to prove that you can say the right thing on behalf of your own brand.

Heading To A New Commercial Premises In 2019? Here Are Some Things You’ll Need To Consider

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. Most successful business enterprises eventually reach a point where moving to a new location makes sense. A change of location requires a lot of thought and consideration. The following contributed post discusses this and is entitled, Heading To A New Commercial Premises In 2019? Here Are Some Things You’ll Need To Consider.

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Who knows what new heights of growth, prosperity and productivity 2019 will bring for your business? You may well find that this is a transitional year for you. A year in which you outgrow the limitations of your current business model, throw out the rule book and rewrite a new one as you go along. This can be extremely exciting and liberating… It can also be kinda scary! As you take baby steps down the path to sustainable growth you may feel like a novice all over again, grappling with the inherent challenges of growth like you’re still a year one entrepreneur.

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This is all part of the learning curve of entrepreneurship and should be embraced. Take searching for a new commercial premises, for example. When you first started out and were trying to make waves in your community and industry, your selection criteria for a premises was probably pretty simple. The only real question was “what’s available”. Now that you’ve reached a period of growth, however, you need to think a little more strategically. You’ll need to consider…

Footfall

Not only will you have to consider footfall in a very general sense, you’ll also need to consider exactly which feet are falling as they pass your business. Do the passers by match your target demographic? The best market research you can do is position yourself outside for a couple of hours and take notes about the age groups, genders and groupings of people who pass by your prospective new place of business.

Surveying

Whether you’ll be moving into a purpose built commercial premises or making one from scratch on a newly acquired plot, you may need to consider the surveying needs of the project. These may have a knock-on effect on your budget and moving date. Potential surveying needs may include;

• Topographic surveys
• Property boundary surveys
• Zoning and land use investigations
• Subsurface utility mapping surveys

Knock-on effect on punctuality

Your new premises’ location may well have a knock-on effect on your employee punctuality and productivity. How easy is your new premises to get to from where they live? What is the parking situation like compared to where you currently do business? You may find that even if you’re able to find a spot in a great location in terms of customer footfall, it may be harder to get to and park in for your employees which could have a residual effect on punctuality and productivity, especially if employees wind up fighting over parking spaces.

Layout

Your premises’ layout can have a knock on effect on productivity and profitability whatever the nature of your business may be. For retailers, for example, it’s essential to have your store set out in a way that makes the products easy to find and showcase, while lending a sense of journey and progression as customers move around the store.

Security

Security is an important consideration for all kinds of businesses. Will your site be safe and secure from prospective thieves or saboteurs? Will the site have its own security staff or will you be expected to provide your own? Will the lease agreement prohibit the installation of CCTV cameras, fencing, window bars or other anti-theft measures?

Physical security is important, but let’s not forget digital security too. Premises using a shared Wifi network, for example, can face potential security risks that could compromise your data.

If you shop around for a new premises with the above in mind, you’re likely to find a great fit for 2019!

What To Do To Ensure Your New Products Are A Success

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. No matter which sector you are in, and no matter which products you are seeking to produce, you want to think about how they will be received as positively as possible. The following contributed post gives some considerations for this and is entitled, What To Do To Ensure Your New Products Are A Success.

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Launching a new product in a business can be a daunting experience. It is a time where you are in a new and unknown territory so for any business it can be a scary time especially if you are sinking a lot of time and money into it. When launching a new product there are a few things you need to be aware of such as will the customer base like it, is it relevant for the market you are within and so on, so here are a few tips to help you make sure your product launch is a success.

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Give your customers an input

Making sure a product is suitable and required by your customer base is key to ensuring its success. This means giving your customers input into what they want and what they think the business needs is a great way to ensure you are keeping your customers happy. This doesn’t mean you have to relinquish the decision making and control to them but giving them an option between multiple ideas is a great way to gauge interest and the success of that potential product. This can be easily done through customer surveys where they can give their input, surveys are great as they can be sent out online or handed out instore meaning you can reach more customers and make sure the data you collect is relevant to both type of customer. If you are struggling to find someone to use to create the surveys then there are lots of idea online such as survey tools by PeoplePulse who can help you create and distribute your survey to your customers.

Check your competitors

To make sure your new product is going to be relevant to your market, checking with your competitors to see what they are selling and if they are selling anything like your product can help you gauge whether this product is right for your store. It is best to check with multiple competitors because if they all or most of them are selling similar products then you have a substantial amount of data to go on and make sure that you have made the right decision. Although they are competitors they may have better or the same ideas as you so seeing what they have to offer helps you stay competitive with them and allows you to stay current in the market you are in.

Product testing

Making sure your product is fit for market and consumers is really important. If your product is not properly tested and is released to the public you can end up with problems with the product this then can then lead to lawsuits which are damaging to the business. So making sure it is tested is crucial. Take extra care to be sure it meets standards for the category it falls into and make sure it checks all the boxes before release.

When releasing a new product in your business, it can be make or break for your business. If your product fails it can cost a lot of money and damage your reputation this then leads to losing more money in the long run while you recover from it. If you follow the above tips it will help to make sure you are making the right decisions and your products are more likely to succeed.

Could You Be Using More Creative Ways To Promote Your Business?

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. Advertising and promotions is a major part of any business. It’s therefore important to understand the most effective ways for promoting yourself. Knowing to effectively do so can cause your business to thrive while not knowing how to do so can cause it to falter. The following contributed post is thus entitled, Could You Be Using More Creative Ways To Promote Your Business?

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One of the most difficult things about running any kind of business in the modern era is the fact that there really has never been so much competition out there. After all, thanks to the internet, there are more and more people starting their own businesses and the modern marketplace really has never been more saturated. This means that reaching your customers comes with extra challenges that many businesses simply aren’t ready to deal with. One of the most common challenges is that many of the more traditional methods of marketing your business simply aren’t going to be as effective as they once were. In order to avoid falling into that trap, here are some more creative things that you could be doing to promote your business.

Video content

If there’s one kind of marketing content that become more popular and effective than just about any other it has to be video content. Sites like Youtube have become such a natural part of people’s daily lives that ignoring video content would be irresponsible. Putting out content that is well made, funny, and engaging is a wonderful way to create positive associations with your customers. You can easily find royalty free music online to give it some extra sparkle, and finding someone who can present on camera effectively is going to be a godsend. It doesn’t have to be particularly complicated stuff, just think about the kind of content that your customers would enjoy.

Behind the scenes

One of the biggest problems that a lot of businesses run into when it comes to connecting with their customers is that their customers don’t have much interest in connecting with faceless companies. That’s why it’s such a good idea to give your business a face. Behind the scenes blog posts are an amazing way to show your customers the human side of your business. They’re going to be far more invested in the success of your business when they see what the people behind it are really like and read their stories.

Direct contact with customers

One of the biggest developments in the modern era has to be that of social media. It has completely changed the way that people talk to each other and it has definitely altered the way that businesses and customers interact. One of the best things about it is that it has made your interactions with customers public. This means that if you can show that you’re offering great service to customers and that you’re always willing to offer help and support, that’s something that other people are going to be able to see. This turns your customer service into an incredibly effective promotional tool.

Now, it’s important to think of these kinds of things as an addition to your current marketing model rather than a complete replacement for it. Remember that the more popular marketing methods out there are popular for a reason: they’ve been effective for a very long time. In the same way that you don’t want to rely exclusively on traditional marketing techniques, relying purely on the more unusual methods can cause just as many problems.

Low Unemployment Levels: How Can Your Business Compete For Staff?

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. An important part of running any business enterprise is recruiting and retaining talented staff. Doing so often requires competition for qualified individuals. The following contributed post is thus entitled, Low Unemployment Levels: How Can Your Business Compete For Staff?

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For business owners, the unemployment rate of a country is perhaps the strangest of all the economic indicators. On the one hand, a low unemployment rate is undeniably good news; more people are in work, thus more people are paying taxes and – importantly for businesses – that means there are more people who will be spending money on goods and services.

On the other hand, a low unemployment rate can be rather troubling for businesses.

Why can low unemployment be a problem for businesses?

Essentially, the more people that are in work, the harder it is to recruit and retain staff.

If unemployment is high, staff recruitment is relatively simple; there is a large pool of – often highly qualified – potential employees to choose from. Furthermore, existing staff are also more likely to stay in their existing job, as they are aware there is more competition for other roles.

However, if unemployment is low, the pool of potential employees diminishes. Worse yet, businesses can find that their existing staff are more likely to leave, as competing businesses begin to offer tempting deals to attract highly qualified, experienced workers.

As a result of the above, low unemployment levels are something of a double-edged sword: it’s good news, as there are more consumers looking to purchase goods and services, but the bad news is that companies may lose, or struggle to recruit, staff – which, in the worst case scenario, could mean that businesses cannot take advantage of the beneficial boost in consumer spending.

What are the current trends for unemployment levels?

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Unfortunately – or, in some ways, fortunately – analysis shows that unemployment is low across the globe; not quite at pre-financial crisis levels, but the trend is definitely in a downwards direction.

What does this mean for businesses?

Essentially, low global unemployment levels mean that businesses now find themselves having to actively compete to both hire and retain the right staff for their company. What’s more, this competition is a truly global competition; so even if business owners wanted to try to hire overseas workers due to low unemployment at home, they are still likely to struggle.

How can businesses compete for staff in the current environment?

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If you are a business owner, this question is by far the most crucial – and so below, we’ve sought to answer it, by providing a list of five tips that can help you both hire and retain staff even when unemployment levels are low.

#1 – Provide written employment contracts

Written employment contracts have fallen out of fashion in recent years, with employers preferring “at will” contracts that are more flexible – the employee can quit whenever they choose, and the employer can dismiss the employee at any time, provided their reason for doing so is not illegal.

However, written employment contracts are definitely beneficial for employees, as they offer robust job security. Prospective employees will be attracted to any job posting that provides a long-term, formal written contract, while existing employees will be less likely to leave a job with a written contract, especially if other employers will only offer “at will” contracts. As a result, written contracts mean that everyone benefits: your staff enjoy security, and your business’s ability to hire and retain staff increases.

#2 – Shorten probationary periods for new employees

Probationary periods are tough for new employees, causing a kind of ‘suspended animation’ – they might have a long-term job, but they also might not. This uncertainty is generally disliked, especially for probationary periods that stretch for up to six months.

Realistically, a three-month probationary period provides plenty of time to assess an employee’s skills and ensure they are suitable for the job. Alternatively, if a role is particularly complex and you need longer to evaluate your new employee, opt for a shorter probationary period as mentioned, but then only initially offer an “at will” contract for a longer period. You can then offer a full written contract after a set period, informing any new candidates of this arrangement during interviews.

#3 – Offer retirement benefits

Fuelled by multiple stories in the media about how much of the modern workforce tends to be unprepared for retirement, many people have made retirement benefits a specific focus when considering their career options.

To keep pace with workers who factor their post-career life into their present-day working concerns, it’s best to look for a specialist company that is experienced in providing group retirement planning and similar services, then formulate a customized plan that is suitable for both your business and your employees. Furthermore, when your plan is in place, advertise this fact in your job recruitment adverts and on your website to catch the eye of prospective employees.

#4 – Allow remote working

Over the past ten years, remote working has moved from a rather odd concept that few businesses implemented to a mainstream norm. There are two reasons in particular for this change: technology advancements have made remote working more viable, and secondly, employees simply like having the opportunity to work from home rather than having to commute to an office every day.

It is also worth noting that, in addition to attracting and retaining employees, remote working is actually beneficial for businesses, too – so there really is every reason to consider making a change.

#5 – Break away from the weekday/weekend structure

A conventional working pattern is five days “on” and then two days – usually Saturday and Sunday – off. Unfortunately, this working pattern may be well-established, but it’s far from beloved – which means you could seize the opportunity to do something different.

For example, you could consider switching to a four-day week, wherein employees work for 10 hours Monday to Thursday and then enjoy a three-day weekend. Alternatively, you could move to a rotating pattern; for example, employees work for seven days in a row, then have seven days off. A huge number of employees will embrace these innovative working patterns, and your business doesn’t need to suffer: employees will still, across the course of a year, work the same number of hours – just arranged a little differently than has been seen as “normal”.

In conclusion

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Low unemployment levels can be detrimental for businesses due to their impact on the ability to hire and retain staff. However, with the measures above, you should be able to ensure your business enjoys only the positives of low unemployment; a rise in workload and custom, which in turn results in higher profitability overall.

How To Make Waves As a New Business

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. When your business is in its early stages, it’s important to understand how to maximize your visibility and presence. This will increase your patronage, sales and potential return customers. The following contributed post is thus entitled, How To Make Waves As a New Business.

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When you’re brand new in business, your future can seem overwhelming. For some, it’s always going to be exciting. Because the prospect of being able to reach goals or take your business to new heights is always going to give you endless opportunities. But then to some of us, this is scary. Because you’ll never really know what your future looks like or what you can do to get results. Instead, you need to have faith and then a plan to back it up. Sure, you really don’t have to spend hours pouring over how you’re going to make money and the exact way it will all pan out. Sometimes, you just need to have determination, a gut instinct, and then work hard enough to make it happen. And, it also helps to be able to make waves too. So, what can you do to stand out as a new business?

Have Personality

Now, one of the most important things that you can do to make waves, is have some personality. If you’re memorable or likeable or outspoken or you have something about you that stands out, you’ve got something to work with. So think about what it is in your personality that is going to be your ticket to making waves.

Be Everywhere

When you want to rock the boat and start to get noticed, you have to be noticeable. So the first thing is to make sure that you are everywhere. At industry events with different branded merchandise options, check them out here. Or writing articles online, which you can search for in your industry. Or affiliating yourself with big names. Just be everywhere and you will get noticed.

Show Up

However, you cannot be fooled into thinking that a lot of publicity and marketing is enough. Because it’s not. If you really want to make waves, then you need to show up and put the work in. You need to be at bat. Working harder than anyone else. And this will often speak for itself.

Get Your Name Out There

But not only that, you’re going to want to be talked about as much as possible. Because if you want to make waves and be known, people need to write about you. This is why you should invest in PR or spend time on it yourself. Because if you can get your name out there, and you can be features in articles or referred to as someone to watch, an up-and-comer, or even an expert, then you’re making it happen.

Be Audacious

But above all else, you just need to put yourself out there. You need to have the audacity to knock on doors and make opportunities for yourself. If you’re shy and you hide away, you’re just not going to get anywhere. But, instead, if you understand how important it is to have grit and to just keep on going, and keep asking for the opportunities, you are bound to make waves. So just keep going and go get your success!

Are You Running Your Business Into The Ground?

Two of the key focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. In any business, it’s important to know when you’re making decisions to help your business, or if your decisions are hurting it. What kinds of things can hurt your business? The following contributed post is entitled, Are You Running Your Business Into The Ground?

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There are few things more appealing when it comes to running a business than the idea of getting to be in charge. After all, many of us start our own businesses specifically because we get sick of having to listen to orders from people above us who clearly don’t know what they’re doing. However, becoming too attached to this idea of yourself as a business owner with all of the answers can actually be pretty dangerous for your business as a whole. Here are some things that you can do in order to make sure that you’re running your business properly rather than running it right into the ground.

Learn to outsource

Outsourcing has been the saving grace of so many businesses, big and small. Part of the reason that Apple has been so successful over the last decade is that they outsource almost all of their manufacturing to other companies. This means that they have more in-house resources to use on research and development as well as branding and marketing. From SEO to outsourced IT support, being able to hand different parts of your business over to the experts with the most experience is one of the best things that you can do. Leaving you free to focus your energy on the areas of your business where you have the most skills.

Stop micromanaging

If you want to get the most out of your employees, one of the most important things that you need to do is to trust them. If you spend all of your time staring over their shoulders and nitpicking every little thing they do, they’re going to end up getting extremely frustrated. That’s going to kill their motivation entirely and leave them feeling pretty resentful of your business as a whole and you as an employer in particular. Remember that you hired these people for a reason, let them do their jobs.

Take a break

For some reason, a lot of people seem to entirely forget that a work/life balance is important as soon as they start running their own business. They assume that they need to dedicate all of their time to their business no matter how much of a negative impact it has on their life and their health. The truth is that taking a break can be just as good for your business as it is for you. It means that you’re able to come back to your business with fresh eyes and you’re far less likely to end up getting burnt out.

The idea of letting go of any part of your business can be incredibly stress-inducing. However, one of the most important lessons that you can learn as a business owner is that your ego has no place within your business. You need to make decisions that are right for your business first and foremost. If you’re making decisions based purely on what you want then your business is always going to suffer for it. Make sure that you’re keeping your ego in check and always do what’s right for your business before anything else.

How To Choose The Business Model That Suits You Best

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. Depending upon which business you’re in, one of the first decisions you’ll have to make is what model you will choose. It’s a critical consideration as it will dictate how you carry out your operations going forward. The following contributed post is thus entitled, How To Choose The Business Model That Suits You Best.

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One of the first things you’ll decide when you’re starting your business is the business model that you’ll use. The business model is simply the way in which you’ll deliver your services or products.

For example, you could choose a more customized and one-to-one service based model that’s often used by people like coaches and consultants, or even by companies like praxent.com – or you could go for something that’s more hands-off such as a subscription based model like that of Dollar Shave Club, or even something like Affiliate Marketing.

The point is, when it comes to choosing your business model, there’s really no right or wrong way to go about it – it’s just about finding what fits with your overall business vision, your goals, and your current lifestyle.

So, in this post we’re going to share with you how to choose the business model that suits you best.

Think about your solution:

The solution is basically the thing you offer, so your product or service, and ultimately this is going to determine a large part of your business model. So, for example, if you’re looking to sell custom t-shirts online, then you’re obviously going to be looking at an e-commerce model. Now, this doesn’t mean you need to be constantly designing all day long and splitting your focus between designing and then getting online to sell – there are things you can utilize online such as dropshipping and building a team or just developing systems and processes to help sell your products online.

Of course, you’re not going to be fully restricted to an e-commerce model – well, not in the traditional sense, anyway. If that’s not really what you want to be doing, but you really want to get your t-shirts out there, then you don’t have to it just because that’s how it’s always been done. You could go for a subscription-based model. Plenty of fashion companies offer this, so subscriptions aren’t just for digital products or services – in fact, some of the most successful subscription businesses, such as Dollar Shave Club are offering physical products.

Think about your customer:

The next step is to think about your customer – who they are and how they like to shop. Of course, your decisions shouldn’t be based fully on this, but it’s important to consider them in the process somewhat. If you know your ideal customer well, and you should do by this point if you’ve taken the time to do your research, then it’s important to think about the way they like to experience their purchasing – for example, do they want a one-to-one experience, or do they want downloadable materials and products that they can use in their own time?

Think about the lifestyle you want:

This part is very important when coming up with your business model and is actually the part that many people overlook when they’ve considered the parts above. Remember you started your business so that you don’t feel like you’re working in a job, so you get the luxury of designing your business model to suit the kind of lifestyle you want. If you don’t want to have your schedule dictated to by private client calls, then perhaps a one-to-one business model isn’t going to be the best for you.

How to Collaborate with an Outsourced IT Company

Three of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money, Business/Entrepreneurship and Technology. Outsourcing can be very helpful to your business operations. In some instances you can use an outsourced IT company and it’s important to understand how to get the most out of the collaboration. The following contributed is thus entitled, How to Collaborate with an Outsourced IT Company.

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It is now quite evident that many businesses are reliant on IT to be successful but what many aspiring entrepreneurs don’t understand is that they don’t have to be IT geniuses – they just need to hire an IT genius to realize their vision.

Outsourcing is now so fundamental to business that almost any function can be outsourced from PR, HR and Accounting to Cloud Computing. It stands to reason that even the heart of your business idea could be successfully outsourced if you find the right professional to help. Then all you need to focus on is coming up with new ideas and strategies for growth.

Many IT companies such as http://www.sabioit.com/services-solutions/it-consulting-cio-services/ offer a wide range of services from CIO services right through to email management. However, finding the right company and working well with them can be two mutually exclusive ideas.

Here’s how to manage your relationship and make the most of your outsourcing.

Be Clear With Your Vision

As an entrepreneur you really only have one main job: to have awesome ideas and be able to explain them to other people (preferably people with the cash to buy into it!). This is a fundamental skill and yet for so many of us, finding the language to explain a complicated idea so that it can be translated into an IT solution is tough.

If you can’t explain your idea to a company – either because they simply don’t understand or because you don’t have the right approach – your project is going to stand still until you can. A good IT company will try to suggest what you might mean but a great IT company will ask questions until they are sure they know what you mean.

Clarity isn’t always immediate so work on your relationship to develop a common ground you can work with. This should make future collaboration easier.

Welcome Alternative Ideas

Of course, it could be that you are struggling to communicate your idea because your IT company knows that there is a simpler solution. In this case, it is vital that you are able to let go and welcome new ideas. Being more open minded and focusing on the results is the best way to work. Does it really matter whether you use your idea or their idea to get to what you want?

If you are not an IT expert yourself, it is very likely that the company you outsource to will have all kinds of alternative ideas for you to consider. To work well together, you might find that it is actually easier to present them with a problem first rather than a solution. Compare and contrast the solutions you both come up with and you could just find a game-changing alternative to bring to your industry.

Collaboration with an outside company may not seem as sensible as bringing in your own employees but when you are right at the beginning, it is important that you save money where you can but also get the highest quality product you can afford. It makes sense.