Here’s some great advise to boost your small business and make it grow for the long term. You can also prevent failures by applying these small tips.
Tips to Create Positive Office Environment
We spend a good amount of time of our life in the office. So office and work are important parts of our life. You have to be happy in your workplace or you wouldn’t be able to continue. You cannot compromise things on daily basis, that is not human characteristics. The working environment needs to be friendly and suitable for work. Most business owners are aware of the importance of positive working environment. They try to make sure that the office environment is suitable for their employees. The Environment of the office has an important impact on our health. Let’s have a look at how to create a positive working environment:
Keep it Clean & Tidy
An organized office is the most important part of creating a positive working environment. The office must be clean and tidy. Hygiene is important no matter wherever we stay. If the office is not cleaned regularly, there will be dusts everywhere. The office will soon be unhealthy for the employees and ultimately it will leave an impact on the growth of the company. Your employees must be fit and healthy to keep up the good work. Keeping your office clean and organized will boost the growth of your business.
Comfortable Office
Our mind and body is not designed to sit on a single place for 8 to 9 hours. But for many office workers, it is their regular routine. It has a negative impact on our body and mind thus reducing the working capacity of a particular employee. Sitting on the same spot for a great deal of time can cause depression, weight gain, muscle problems. So the best thing to do is to create an environment which is comfortable for mind and body. Encourages employees to move around the offices and maintain regular interactions with other employees. The office environment must be relaxing and comfortable to get better output from the workforce.
Life Balance
A business owner must discourage employees to spend too much time in the office. Work and family life should maintain a balance. If you give too much priority to one of those, the other will face difficulty. Overworking may bring temporary production growth in your company, however in the long run there will be disaster. Personal affairs must be taken care of. Employees should not more than what is required. Encourage your employee to balance their personal and professional life.
Recognition
You should encourage recognition of great works. A hard work demands some recognition. If one of your employee is doing good at work, let others know about the good work. It will encourage other employees to work even harder. If someone continues to work hard without any result, eventually he/she will discontinue that. Employee satisfaction is very important for the growth of your company. Your employees will work hard when they are promised something good. It is not about money all the time, sometimes a “good job” from the Boss can really encourage an employee.
Prevent major business failures
Most of us have that itch to start a new business and be successful overnight. However one should remember that it involves set guidelines, tactics and few principles which need to be followed. In this article we will discuss about how to keep your business from fizzling.
- Make up your mind for failure
Do you think this sounds to de-motivating and you would not want to dwell too much on this topic. I don’t think so!! Time and again, business people are so fascinated with their ideas that they can’t imagine disappointment. What’s more, when they have to face it, they feel extremely dejected and don’t know how to solve the problem. Hence be prepared for failure!!
- Build up a strong marketable strategy
A solid marketable strategy is one that explains all the necessary which needs to be followed for starting a successful business. Finance, marketing, production techniques are some of the important points of that. It likewise gives estimation on the amount you have to spend and your timeframe.
- Keep track of the choices you make
As a matter of fact, when your business is in the initial stage, then one small bad decision will make you penniless. Accordingly, it is imperative to deliberately measure your alternatives before deciding, even when you have to give quick solutions and have to move fast. In times of perplexity, outside guidance is a great a way to deal a problem.
- The ultimate king is Cash flow
Actually a business does not rely on just profits, cash flow plays an important role and this means how quick you make cash and how much goes out. In the event that you generate good revenue at a regular pace, however have to shell out too much money for debts, then that doesn’t sound good. Hence watch out for those numbers and ensure you make consistent stream of money through your business.
- Shape the future by adapting the latest trend
If a particular trend is being followed in the market and if you think it will benefit your business, then exploit it. Nonetheless, never stray from your main goal at the same time look out for new trends.
- Procure workers gradually, however terminate them quick
This statement is self-explanatory. Try not to be in a hurry to hire more staff, unless you definitely require it. Be that as it may, if you notice that your staff members are not committed to the job then release them without hesitating.
- Build good relationship with your employees
I know this is contradicting the previous point. What you need to understand is that your hard working employees are like your family. Hence treat them well and organize small team lunch or give birthday gifts.
- Your first clients have to be valued always
Your regular customers have to be treated like kings, this way you will have repeat business.
- Seek a mentor
If you know someone who is an expert in business, then it does not hurt to take his/her guidelines or tips.
Tips to Automate Your Business
You want your business to be a successful and profitable one, that’s the main goal of every entrepreneur. To be a successful businessman, you have to work on your business, not working for it. The growth of a business is hard earned fruit of your work. You have to work smartly to run your business. The sale and profit or the hand to hand business strategy is an old technique. You have to go along with the flow, otherwise you will be left behind. Business automation is the new demand for modern business. Here are some tips to automate your business.
A Website
Every business needs a presence online, otherwise you are missing out of lots of things. A website is not a paper of your business on the internet. It does way more than that. Modern websites are giant marketing device which does things you can’t even imagine doing yourself. A business website must be maintained properly. The website is the portfolio of your business on the internet. It shows the appearance of your work and it has to be top notch. You should spend more time on your site to keep it up to date.
Social Media
You just can’t ignore the impact of social medias on every business. Social medias are like marketing personnel continuously working for you. You need to have a strong presence on the social medias in order to boost your business growth. Every business owner wants to let other know about their business. Social media is the best way to let other know what you are working with. You have to improve your presence on the social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and others. It is very simple to create a presence on these platforms, holding that is the difficult part.
Email Automation
It can be annoying when you receive hundreds of emails from a particular company. But the good thing is, it reminds you of that business. Email automation is the future of business automation. It let people know about your work and remind them of your work. You don’t have to bomb people’s inbox with your email. Just send an email every once in a month. You can set the email sending time period with your hosting site. Let people know what new things you are brining for them. Email makes people more interested about your business. Make sure you are not annoying them with boring emails. Keep it short, eye catching and interesting.
Customer Support
You don’t always have to send someone to ensure your customer support. Make your online customers support strong. It will save a lot of time and money for your company. Large companies are forcing more on online customer support. Companies which are stronger in online support are doing well in automated business arena. You have to invest more on this sector. Once you can establish a good image for your company in the field on online customer support, you can do well with your business.
Tips to Boost Your Wi-Fi Signal
Weak Wi-Fi signal is very frustrating for internet users. We buy a router with money and don’t get the desired Wi-Fi range. Well you can blame the wireless router for that, but you have to be sure you are doing everything right. Wireless router is a networking device which is supposed to provide you a wireless signal. The Wi-Fi coverage of a standard router have to follow some rules and regulation given by IEEE. So before getting frustrated, you can try some steps to improve your wireless signal coverage. You will surely see the difference after implementation.
Latest Wi-Fi Technology
As said earlier, wireless signal is defined by some standards. If you are using an old router with older technology (b/g standards), you cannot expect a great wireless coverage. The latest technologies in wireless are n and ac. These standards provide wider wireless coverage with greater stability. So first of all you have to buy a router which supports latest wireless technologies. Because if the technical spec is below standard, you simply cannot do anything about the wireless signal. Buy a router with latest feature, you will notice the difference in wireless coverage.
Find a Better Spot
Wireless router broadcast wireless signal from it and the signal can be blocked if the router is not placed in an appropriate position. This is the first mistake we do after buying a wireless router, put the router in a place where we put our shoes. A wireless router should be placed in an open space. If the router is placed in an open space, it will be able to reach farther. Wireless signal will be blocked if there are walls nearby. Also place the router away from other electronic devices like TV or Fridge.
Wireless Channel
This step can be a bit technical for you if you are not that familiar with computer networking. A wireless signal of a router travels through a certain path. It is called the channel of wireless signal. If the channel is free, the signal will be better. If not, the wireless signal will get weak. Normally there are 11 channels in a standard wireless router. By default, the router will choose a channel which it finds suitable. There are some free software’s which can be used to monitor the traffics of different channels. You can select a particular channel from the router.
Better Security
A wireless router without proper security becomes a property for everyone. And when everyone starts to use your router, your router will cause problem. There are some latest security features which provide stronger encryption. Latest encryption technologies will provide better security which will be harder to hack. There are some routers which provides a table of connected devices, you can track down unwanted devices from that table. Monitoring the client list will provide better security for your Wi-Fi. You should also monitor the bandwidth consumption of different applications. Finding the bandwidth hog application and stopping it will boost your router performance.
Benefits of Business Networking
Being successful in a small business is not an easy task. There are so many things you have to do to take your business forward. Growing strong in a business is about knowing better than others. Business network is the most effective way of expanding your knowledge perimeter. Successful business network will allow to get better knowledge about your customers and clients. There are many benefits of business network. It is the most popular way of getting to know your client and building a strong relation with them. Here are some other benefits of business networking
Increased Business
The main goal of running a business is to increase and expand. You have to expand the field of your business to have better profit. Business networking is the most effective way of increasing your business. Participating in public networking events will give you the opportunity to get about new people and may be potential clients. Referral is very important to increase your business. When people talk about your business, more people get to know about it. Business networking will improve the possibility of referrals. Lots of referrals mean lots of new clients.
Opportunities
When you are involved in a small business, opportunities will not come easily. You will have to create your own opportunity and luck. You can never expand your business if you don’t get enough opportunity. So the best way to improve the possibility of opportunity is business networking. If your business is doing well, you will have lots of opportunity to expand, otherwise you will have to create those by business networking. Don’t go after every opportunity that comes in front of you, make sure you are taking the right one. Create opportunities and expand your business.
Connections
Business is all about knowing about people. It is not about what you are doing business with, it is about who know about it. If you want to be successful in your business, you will have to create great number of connections. Let other people know what you are doing. When they know about your business, they will be interested about it. Networking is very effective to increase the number of connections.
Advice
It is impossible to know every details about running a successful business. There are many icon businessmen from who you should seek advice. Knowing about new things will help you to run your business more successfully. It is not possible to know everything about business. Some advices from influential people will help your business. Business networking will give you the opportunity to get advice from influential business person. You can take advice from them and implement those to successfully run your business.
Profile
Raising your profile is another important thing to do when you want to run your business success. You have to let other people discover you. They must know about you before knowing about your business. Networking is very effective to improve your profile. With a better profile, expanding your businesses will be a lot simpler.
Running Your Small Business on Software
Technology has touched almost every sector of your daily life and your small business shouldn’t be out of it. It is not difficult manage a software for your business. It is quite difficult to understand the facilities you may get from it unless you start using. The technology of business software has developed rapidly and it is capable of running your small business almost single handedly. Using a database software will save your time, money and manpower. There are literally hundreds of things you can achieve with a small business software. Some of those are listed down for you:
Saving Money
A small startup business usually doesn’t start with a huge amount of capital. So money is always a concern when running a small business. A business can’t run smoothly unless you have different personnel on different section working for you. Manpower will cost you money and also there is always chance of human error. Unlike business software which can handle multiple task at the same time saving your time and the need of manpower. And there is literally no chance of mistakes, because machines don’t make mistakes. So an integrated tool like software will perform various tasks for you making sure your business running smoothly.
Keeping Track
It is possible to have many employees in the office and still running the business successfully with minimum cost and time. Those people will work hard to keep your business growing. But making the daily report and keeping tracks of the business is almost impossible for a human brain. You can only achieve it with a software. You will get 100% correct information from your software which will help you to make a report and therefore keeping track of the overall progress. Stop running around and asking your employee to make accurate report, instead use a software. It will automatically do this task for you with minimum effort.
Accountability
Everybody wants transparency and accountability in their business as it is very important for the growth of business. But human mind is not capable of keeping tracks of every single transactions and payment. Keeping those in a paper will quickly consume your office space with loads of files. Software is by far the best solution for you if you want to keep your business transparent. Small business running on a software adds flexibility to it and make sure of its growth.
Maintenance
Investing money in a business is not the end of it, in fact it is merely the starting. Maintaining the business is the most difficult part. You will need coordination between your departments. Having a software will not make your business a Childs play, but it will certainly reduce the effort you have to put into it.
There are other benefits like scalability, flexibility and reducing effort if you use a software for your small business. There is no point of staying away from technology because it has so much to offer for your business.
3 simple rules to maximize your profit in small business
The business initiative comes with the zeal and passion to run it. You need to be very careful and equally sensitive towards the profit. One might say thousands of words, but the bottom line of any business is the profit. It becomes even more important for small business. The profits ensure the reinvestment in the business and the growth.
On the other side, it is the portion that is going to the investors and it will allow more inflow of money. People often start a business but fails on the mid way. There are certain mistakes that the owners commit and that leads to a loss in the business. But you can ensure the profit for your small business with the following simple rules. These are the golden rules that can maximize your profit in small business.
Manage the expenditures
The expenditures are very important on profit point of view. The lesser will be the expenditures the better will be the profit. But that does not mean you should stop all expenditures. It is important for high sales as well. So, all that you need to do is keep a check on the categories for the expenditures. You need to make sure that it is not going overhead. A simple example could be the Advertising. You need to do that, but the scale of expenditure is basically dependent on the sales and performance. If you are getting good sales then there is no harm in spending money towards it. However, if the return on investment is less then should consider to optimize it to maximize the profit coming out of your limited sales.
Regularize the cost structure
You need to focus on the costing of a product and also the customers. You cannot skyrocket the price of the products at once and similarly cannot keep on selling the products for the lesser price. The only way to handle the situation is to regularize the cost. The moment you realize that the cost of the product is going high, you should increase the cost with a smaller amount. It will not impact the customers and also will make sure you are not at the losing end. If you wait for some time to increase the cost, it might get sharp rise and you may end up in losing the customers.
Employees are the key
No business can run successfully with unsatisfied employees. If the employees are enjoying the workplace then you will always enjoy high profits. There are two simple things to achieve this. The first thing is to develop a stress free environment and the next thing is to provide rewards and recognitions. Both of the things can do wonders for any business. These will ensure dedicated employees and that can in turn maximize your profit.
It can be easy to float a business, but I have seen many to go down just because they do not follow the simple rules. Your impressive start can tumble down with simple mistakes. So make sure you follow the simple rules and maximize your profit.
Misconceptions that can put an end to the start of your business
Business is nothing but rearing and caring of your kid. You actually start off as a novice even though prior experience in the field. However, you grow and mature with time and slowly but steadily make your business a fruitful one. The journey of becoming a successful entrepreneur is not an easy one. You may end up in losing something, but your goal should remain focused. However, often people get diverted from their course and make some mistakes. These mistakes are sometimes unintentional also and mainly fueled by some popular misconceptions. It is better to be clear about the misconceptions and make sure that you do not do such mistakes in life.
Accounting is for Tax Savings
This is the biggest misconception an entrepreneur could ever have. There is no doubt that accounting is important for Tax Deductions, but that does not mean it is all. Accounting is the backbone of any business. Good Book Keeping can make you do wonder in business. The more records and data you keep, the better idea you will have about your business. The market is dynamic and you need to be very spontaneous to understand these. Accounting opens up many doors for business and better ideas as well. So, do not limit to the Tax Deductions.
Business Loss can save Tax
People start a business out of hobby, not passion sometimes. The only thing that hovers around their mind is saving the tax. They do not even bother to generate some profit out of it. In a time of hardship, tax deductions are offered to the entrepreneurs but only when they are working hard and fighting to achieve it. If it is found that you are actually doing nothing, there might be no deductions for you and that could lead to double blow. You would have gone in the loss and you need to pay your full tax. It is better to run the business by heart and stop thinking about saving tax through loss.
No scope of incorporation
The person who does not incorporate with time actually does not stand a chance in the industry. If you are under this impression that you do not earn much money to incorporate then it is better to look back at the ethics of your business ideas. You must change as per the time and incorporate new things. If you stay as it is for long time, then you will only invite rust to your business.
Big Commercial Place
You may think that big commercial places attract customers and clients and take the burden of a lease at the starting of your business. This is one of the biggest and poorest misconceptions one can have. The first thing that you should concentrate is the quality of the job delivered and then anything else. If you are good enough, then the clients will come and if not then nothing will go in your way.
There are such many misconceptions go on in the mind of the entrepreneurs especially the young entrepreneurs. These will take nowhere but to the end of a bright start.
6 things that you should not do when traveling
You will find many blogs that will advice you that what you should do when traveling. They will tell you what to see and what things to do in the tourist places. But nobody bothers about the things that you must not do when traveling. Well, I am not going to tell that you should book your hotels and others.
There are many things that a traveler can only tell you. So, here are the 6 things that you should not do when traveling.
1. Never exchange currency at Airport
The first thing that you do after landing in the airport is exchange your cash. But that is one of the biggest mistakes that you can do when traveling. You will get the worst conversation rate in Airport so it is always better to carry your ATM or Credit Cards to do that part. Conversation at Airport will only reduce your travel budget.
2. Never eat in restaurants next to Tourist Attractions
Does not matter where you go and which country you visit. This trend will always be the same everywhere. The restaurants just next to the popular tourist attractions are always higher than the normal rate. It should be wrong to say higher in fact it is double or even more. If you consider delicacy then you will get nothing out of it. So, make sure you walk a bit of distance to find a good restaurant and enjoy the delicious food there.
3. Never use Private Transportation
Transportation like Taxis and cabs are always costlier. They charge even more if you are a tourist and a foreigner. Make sure to use Public Transport as much as possible. If you really do not have options then it is better to go for authorized cab services than normal taxis.
4. Don’t limit to hotels only
There is a common understanding among tourists that hotels are the best options. Well, if you are in the tight budget then never mind the options like hostels and apartment rentals as well. These places are usually very clean and many people use them very safely. The scenario has changed and apartment rentals are not so bad now. You can also look for the travel community services which are trending these days and not bad either.
When I went to Toronto, I rented an apartment from a very reputable online rental company and upon arrival and departure I made sue to hire a cleaning company to clean the place which I found it online. It was still cheaper for me than a hotel!
5. Never roam alone at night
You must admit and accept the fact that you are not as safe in a foreign land as you are in your own country. So, never walk or roam alone in the city streets especially at nights. Criminals are everywhere and they sought mistakes like this to happen. Do not label any country as safe and try to be cautious and take preventive actions.
6. Never pay any charges to your banks
Make sure that the cards you are carrying are free for transactions abroad. There are many banks that charge extra fees for it but make sure that you do not entertain such fees.
All these things are as significant as your what to do travel tips. As a tourist, it is important that you understand these with high importance.