Things to Know When Starting Your Business

August 17, 2017 / nancyrubin / Leave a comment

Starting a business is more difficult than people normally realize. Once you set off in the business world, you’ll face many obstacles on the path to success. Many entrepreneurs decide to start their own business and be their own boss. However, a lot of businesses fail because their owners weren’t properly prepared for challenges that awaited them.

In order to avoid failing, you have to know what lies ahead, so that you can be ready to face it on time. The startup stage of your business will be the most difficult one and it will demand a lot of attention and a lot of effort from you. Nevertheless, if you get well informed before you begin, you’ll be able to handle any situation much more effectively. Here are a few things you should know about starting your business.

Be thorough with the research

Research is the most important step you have to make when starting your business. Understanding the market, the audience and how it all fits together is fundamentally crucial for business success. Through research, you’ll be able to determine your target market and who your target audience is. This is vital, because you want to offer your products or services to people who are actually interested in them.

Furthermore, you’ll know who your competitors are and what you will have to do in order to outrun them. Moreover, you need to research what you want to sell. For instance, is there a similar product or service on the market already? Is it doing well on the market and are people interested in it? Is there a way you can make people more interested in that product and will your business flourish if you opt for that idea? You can answer all of these questions and more, by conducting a thorough research and understanding the market.

Start networking

It’s important to expand your network of contacts when starting a business, especially if you’re new to the business world. Your network should consist of more than just friends and family, although they can be helpful as well. Try to find relevant people with experience in your industry and get them to help you out a bit. Any advice or any bit of information you manage to acquire will prove to be invaluable. Furthermore, they might introduce you to more key figures and even potential customers.

In order to expand your network, you’ll have to maintain your presence on social media and attend social gatherings and business forums that are related to your specific industry or niche. Make sure that you never hesitate to approach people that may prove to be helpful. After all, you may approach someone who is willing to invest in your business or even start a partnership with you. Moreover, you may even meet a mentor who will guide you and help you overcome any business obstacle you might be faced with.

Market your business early on

It’s never too early to start with the marketing. Just because you haven’t launched your business yet, it doesn’t mean you can’t start marketing it. The sooner you start promoting your business and improving its visibility, the better. For instance, social media and networks are best places to start things off. Not only can social media help you promote your business but it can also help you familiarize with your target audience. Your audience is the best source of information, especially if you want to start an early marketing campaign, test your ideas and gather feedback.

The best way to know if your product is going to generate enough interest is to ask your audience what they think about it. Moreover, you need to start marketing your business in person, like networking for example. You can use the traditional methods, such as giving out business cards to your business associates and potential customers. Just make sure you invest in effective printing services beforehand, because no one will take you seriously if your business cards aren’t designed well.

Get some help

There are things you simply can’t do on your own and it’s always the best option to get some help. There are things about your business that you may not be aware of and professional assistance can be of great help. For example, you should hire or consult with a lawyer concerning your legal obligations. They will inform you about licenses and insurances you need to obtain to successfully start your business. On the other hand, you should also hire an accountant or a bookkeeper for your business operations.

If you don’t know what you’re doing, then accounting is best left to someone who does, because one missing to pay your tax bill or forgetting to pay an outstanding invoice may result in financial trouble you don’t really need. Moreover, you can also consult with financial experts that may help you improve your credit score. After all, a bad credit score may result in banks refusing to give you a loan when you need it the most.

Starting a business isn’t fun and games. The promise of a lucrative career comes with many challenges and many obstacles. The best way to grow your business is to be well-informed about what awaits you once you start out.

Guest Author is Alex Williams is a journalism graduate, and a rookie blogger trying to find my luck. Blogs are the perfect opportunity for presenting yourself to wider audience, getting the chance to showcase my expertise and receiving recognition. I am a regular contributor at Bizzmark Blog

What Professionals Working Remotely Need to Know About Marketing

August 16, 2017 / nancyrubin / Leave a comment

Self-employed workers and freelancers have long enjoyed the affordability and convenience of remote work. To begin with, they reclaim the hours that they would otherwise daily spend commuting to and from a corporate office. As a result, they have more time to spend with their family and friends and enjoy a healthy work-life balance. Now, professionals who work for companies or corporations increasingly also can work from home and enjoy a healthier work-life balance.

Meanwhile, clients and employers increasingly embrace remote workers as a way to cut costs. For example, companies that utilize remote workers require less office space and, therefore, can reduce their rent, insurance and energy expenses. Additionally, clients and employers can access talent from practically anywhere in the world. Furthermore, home-based workers offer high levels of productivity and efficiency.

As a professional, your opportunity for working from home has no limits. Thanks to technology, you can collaborate and communicate with people and work with teams regardless of their location. You must, however, have a productive office environment to work in as well along with a well-defined and promoted personal brand. Here, you will learn about the important considerations you must make and activities you should engage in to build a successful career as a home-based professional.

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1) Build A Landing Page

Like any business, you can use the internet to promote yourself so that the companies and clients that need your services can find you. By creating and publishing a simple, easy-to-navigate landing page, you can showcase your experience and talents. In many ways, your landing page should function as a business card and as a place where clients can schedule and pay online for your services.

Important elements of your landing page include the title, primary tagline and description. You should also carefully choose your keywords and tags. Of course, the main content of your page should concisely introduce you and explain why businesses should choose to use your services.

2) Pick Your Apps and Online Services

Place a high priority on choosing the applications and services that best support your business. As you search the internet, you will find myriad options that seem attractive, but you should resist the temptation to try to use too many applications and tools because they can become a distraction. Use customer reviews and free trial periods to narrow your selection and only choose the ones that contribute to your productivity and efficiency.

Tools and services for task management, web page creation and SEO, project management and accounting are categories of apps and services that almost every home-based professional will need. Additionally, you might need to look for tools and services that support the creation of documentation as well as those that facilitate copyrights and trademarks.

3) Be Serious About Your Social Media Game.

Social networks continue to attract millions of users, making it the perfect place to promote your professional services. Furthermore, you can use social media to connect with other professionals, influencers and vendors who can contribute to your business. Still, social media can become a liability if you fail to properly manage it. For example, if you never engage users, you might damage your reputation just as severely as you would if you communicated with the wrong vocabulary or attitude.

Although you might feel tempted to open accounts on every popular social network, you should focus your efforts on only one or two of them so you can minimize the drain on your time and avoid management complications. Also, place social media tools on your landing page so that your website visitors can easily follow you as well as “like” and share your content. Additionally, you should always respond to comments and questions left for you on social media and consider using social media to post articles and display your work.

4) Create A Productive Home Office

As has been noted, your home office should rank near the top of your priorities. For the most part, alternative arrangements such as working on your bed or at the kitchen table will not allow you to achieve high levels of productivity. Instead, choose a little-used section of your home and remodel it as your office. Make sure that it has boundaries so family members can avoid encroaching on your space and vice versa.

Your office should have ample lighting and easy access to power outlets. It should also host essential equipment such as a printer, networking and video conferencing gear, a telephone and office supplies. You should also equip your office with an adequate amount of storage space and work surfaces. After all, clutter can lead to wasted time and confusion and destroy your creativity and enthusiasm. Also, you should make sure to do home maintenance tasks, just like you do with the rest of your home.

5) Give Without Asking Anything in Return

Offering value to people with no strings attached can effectively promote your business and build the authority of your brand. To demonstrate your communications skills, you should use social media to converse with users. Similarly, you should share content posted by other users to emphasize your commitment to the community. Furthermore, you can emphasize your expertise by publishing tutorials and holding question-and-answer events.

In many cases giving back to the online community can extend beyond simply sharing information and solving problems. For example, giving away useful freebies that include your contact information can promote your brand and demonstrate your generosity. Organizing contests with meaningful prizes give people an incentive to return to your profile and stay actively engaged. As you give, however, always ask for feedback regarding your ideas, designs and strategies. Such free guidance can become invaluable as you fine-tune your brand and messaging.

BONUS TIP: Use Influencer Outreach

After tending to the basics of building a home office, creating a presence on the web and social media, and interacting with your audience, start connecting with influencers. This group of people might include politicians, professors, celebrities and business icons as well as other popular people. Such people can influence the decisions people make, including choosing to use your professional services.

When you make contact with an influencer, try to make a deal where they give you exposure to their large audience in exchange for reaching yours. For instance, you can offer influencers guest-blogging opportunities on your website and ask them to endorse you as a professional. Every time you get an influential person to recommend you or associate with you, their audience takes note and will naturally turn to you when they need your talent and skills.

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Working at home as a professional helps you benefit from the modern trends in employment. Increasingly, people are working from home and therefore enjoying an improved balance between their work and personal life. By choosing the right apps and services, creating a productive work environment and building a landing page and social media presence, you lay a solid foundation that will help you provide high quality work to a steady stream of clients.

Guest Author, Jeff Brown, is a freelance writer from Oregon with a knack for lifehacking and DIY projects. Based out of his home office where his two dogs keep him company while he types, Jeff loves writing about home improvement topics, teaching others all the tips and tricks he has learned since he moved out of an apartment and into a house. When he’s not writing, he loves organizing barbecue parties in his garden.

5 Ideas For Running Effective Team Meetings

August 15, 2017August 15, 2017 / nancyrubin / Leave a comment

Sadly, a lot of leaders today hold meetings that are essentially dull, make time pass by ever so slowly, and leave people exhausted and frustrated. If you want to run effective team meetings, you need to make it an interesting event that is filled with energy, so that it drives all the team members to collaborate in order to come up with decisions and solve issues. It makes all the difference how you plan and run the meeting. In this article, we are going to discuss 5 ideas on how you can run effective team meetings.

Have a Positive Attitude for the Meeting

A positive attitude is an essential aspect of every team meeting. Your task is to get people involved and actually work with them in order to come up with results, solve issues, make decisions, inform, inspire, and motivate them. This means that you simply have to occasionally get everyone together in a room and hold a meeting that is going to keep the spirits high. It’s a fact that you can’t simply manage people from the office via email. So make sure that you hold meetings that inspire everyone to take part in them actively.

Have a Purpose for the Meeting

The meeting needs to have a particular purpose. Having a meeting just because you always have one isn’t really a purpose. When you set up a meeting, you actually have an opportunity to do a variety of things. It’s the time when you get to find out how everything related to your business is panning out. It’s a chance to learn how each and every team member is handling their own end, and try to help them out with issues. It’s the perfect time to emphasize your mission statement and remind everyone what their goals are. Team goals should be the focus of every meeting.

Come up With an Agenda for the Meeting

Every purpose must have its own agenda. It’s basically a list of things that need to be covered during the meeting. By looking at it, you will know how much time you can devote to each item. The fact is that time is important when it comes to meetings. Every meeting should start on time and last for a given time. If not every item of the agenda is covered, they should be moved to the next meeting. If it’s urgent, a separate meeting needs to be held. There also needs to be a regularity when it comes to meetings. Decide how many times a week a meeting should be held, and make sure everyone arrives on time.

Encourage Team Members to Participate

You want each member of your team to participate in the discussion and take part in making decisions, if the purpose of the meeting is relevant to them. You can go around the table and get everyone’s ideas. Use glass white boards to put everything down and brainstorm. Furthermore, you don’t always have to be in the focus. Let another team member lead the discussion if they have something valuable to contribute. People will feel inspired about meetings if they are encouraged to take part in them and see that results are achieved. They will feel like their contribution is valued.

Keep Focus on your Strategic Goals

Continuity is an important aspect of business meetings. Every meeting should stay focused on your general strategic goals. After all, they are what connects all of your business efforts. Generally, the best way to do this is to start every meeting with a point in the agenda that consists of quickly going through all of these goals. That way, your team will discuss all the issues while still having the big picture in mind.

Be Positive

It is essential that you hold a meeting that encourages all the team members to participate. There has to be a purpose and an agenda, and you need to keep your focus on your strategic goals. And, of course, a positive attitude is important.

How to Create a Culture of Wellness in Your Company

August 8, 2017August 8, 2017 / nancyrubin / Leave a comment

A healthy workforce is a happy one, and satisfied workers are staggeringly more productive than their worn-out counterparts. While this statement seems to be commonsensical, a lot of business owners do not seem to realize its meaning and importance.

Constantly promoting healthy lifestyle choices, such as proper exercise and nutrition, is one of the most important responsibilities of a well-meaning CEO. After all, there will be no company without a healthy workforce. But before we give advice on how to create a culture of wellness within your organization, let us dive in to explore some of the benefits of promoting wellness among your employees and colleagues.

What are the Benefits of the Culture of Wellness?

First of all, healthy employees are more energetic and focused, so they will probably be more productive than others, but most importantly – they inspire productivity and competition, which has a significant positive influence on their colleagues.

Your employees will feel more valued when they notice that you are paying attention to their wellbeing. That will result in higher employee happiness and increased productivity, because they will want to return the favor.

Physical activity is also one of the things that increases endorphin levels. Our mood improves upon the release of endorphins, which in turn influences our productivity as well. Given the numerous benefits of leading a healthy lifestyle, let’s now take a look at how one can implement a culture of wellness within their organisation.

Identify Collective Requirements

The first thing to do is to start encouraging conversations among your employees or colleagues about the current state of wellness within your organisation. Important things to consider include physical health, workplace happiness, stress management, opportunities for career advancements and personal growth, the office environment, and lastly interpersonal relationships between the employees.

Facilitate Physical Activity

Remaining active is one of the most important things when it comes to staying healthy. Encouraging and facilitating physical activity among employees is an extremely important, and the management is usually open to such suggestions. What you can do is start encouraging walking meetings, allocate a space in your office for a treadmill or an exercise bike.

You can also start having group exercise classes led by an employee, or team contests where you all have the same set of goals and are connected through an app that tracks your progress. Using standing desks is a good option as well.

Encourage Healthy Eating Habits

The majority of employees eat a couple of meals during the day at the office. Consequently, there is a lot of room for malnutrition. This is why it is extremely important to pay attention to this aspect of your employees’ health. You can encourage each other to take healthy lunch breaks, request that healthy snacks and food exist in the kitchen at all times, and challenge one another to bring a healthy meal each day.

Keep the Office Clean and Healthy

If you are just starting out, this might not be on the top of your list, as you have to deal with tons of paperwork, meet new people, etc. However, keeping the office a clean and healthy an environment to work in should be your top priority. For example, you need to pay attention to air quality and air conditioning (Temper Troops can help with that).

Also, you have to check the ventilation and air filters and if you sense an odor, you have to notify the staff immediately. Other than clean air, you have to provide fresh drinking water and clean and sanitized bathrooms. These are the basic requirements for creating a culture of wellness.

Wellness Equals Efficiency

By creating and keeping a culture of wellness in your organisation, you directly positively influence the productivity levels of your employees. The less stress they have and the more physically active they are, the better they feel. And the better they feel – the less they think about problems. This leads to increased productivity levels and enhanced efficiency. Keep your employees healthy and it will give your business a major boost.

Guest Author, Tony, is a writer and the senior editor at MediaGurus with several years of experience in writing content for the web. Tony does research and writes articles across various industries, such as business, technology, marketing, lifestyle, etc.

Are You Confident Going Into Your Next Job Interview?

July 31, 2017 / nancyrubin

Job interviews can be both exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time. What are you doing to give you the best possible chance for success each time you enter an interview?

For some people, they can adjust at a moment’s notice. This means nailing their interviews with little or no preparations. Meantime, others need prep time to learn more about the brand they are interviewing with. They also need time to rehearse how they will speak and act in front of an interviewer.

It is important that you have as much confidence as possible in any interview that comes your way.

So, what is your confidence level heading into your next sit-down or phone interview?

Is Your Background Going to Come up?

In most cases, your background to one degree or another will come up during your next interview.

This means you could have to discuss your past or present job history to some length. While personal questions not in most cases a part of an interview, don’t discount them altogether. You might be asked about where you see yourself living down the road etc.

With a background check, don’t think companies in today’s digital age are not investigating. This is why you need to have an answer to the question of what will a background check show?

Among some of the items that could show up in a background check on you:

Any issues you may have had with a former employer
Any DUIs or other driving related problems
Any run-ins with the law outside of driving i.e. domestic violence etc.
Any financial problems such as filing for bankruptcy

Some employers may do a license plate search to indicate any past driving issues. Once again, always be ready to address any potential hot topics about your background.

By being ready to answer about any past or current issues in your life, you will come across as better prepared. If you seem unprepared, it could prove to be your downfall.

Do Your Own Research

As companies will research you, it behooves you to do the same with them. Nothing is worse than an interview where one has no knowledge about the company they could work for.

By doing a little research before your interview, you should be able to answer the following:

What does the company do?
Approximately how many people work there?
How long has the company been in business?
What specific skills are they looking for in the position you are interviewing for?

Exude Confidence Each Time Out

Though many people are nervous before and at a job interview, exuding confidence is key.

Do your best to show the interviewer you are confident in your abilities to do the job if you get the position.

Given costs to rehire for positions, show a potential employer they’d make a great choice in hiring you.

About the Author: Dave Thomas covers business topics on the web.

Decrease Your Bounce Rate, Increase Loyal Customers

July 31, 2017 / nancyrubin

A poor bounce rate is a conundrum that a lot of businesses face. They are attracting a good amount of traffic to their website, but they don’t have many conversions to back it up. Of course, traffic means nothing if the people that are visiting your website are not interested in what you have to offer. So, where are you going wrong? Let’s take a look at some of the ways you can decrease your bounce rate in order to increase your loyal consumer base.

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Is your web design confused?

This is one of the main reasons for a high bounce rate. Does your branding reflect your business and the industry you operate in? If your web design is confused, it is going to dilute your brand identity, and it will immediately turn potential customers away. This often occurs when people work with web design and marketing businesses that have no experience in their area. If you run a law firm, for instance, a company like Foster Web Marketing would be ideal, as they cater to the legal sector and have an abundance of experience in this industry. It is so important to find designers that have experience in your niche, and check out their portfolio to see the work they have done so far.

Do you understand what your visitors are looking for?

As mentioned in the introduction, one of the biggest problems business owners face is that they have a tremendous amount of website traffic, but they can’t turn these users into customers. The main reason for this is because not all every user is your ideal consumer. So, what happens is that someone gets directed to your page, and then they realise that you don’t offer what they are looking for, and then they leave. This is why your bounce rate is high.

To rectify this issue, you need to understand your website visitors. There are a number of ways you can do this, including:

Analyse onsite search trends – This is a good way to understand what your customers are expecting from your website. You can see what search terms they use, and whether your website is catering to what they want. If not, you can identify the gaps in your content and make the necessary changes.
Discover the highest converting pages on your website at present – You can learn what type of content attracts customers to your business by understanding the highest converting pages. You will probably find that there is a big difference between your highest converting content and your most popular content, and this signals that you need to make a change.
Find your most popular content – This leads on from the former point perfectly. You need to find your most popular posts and make sure they are optimised for boosting conversions.

Do you encourage new website users to opt-in to your email list?

If you don’t, now is the time to start. This is important because research indicates that to create a viable sales lead it takes six to eight touches. This is why collecting email addresses is a must. This enables you to keep in contact with your potential customer, ensuring the relationship is kept alive until they convert. Otherwise, how would you be able to encourage the six to eight touches until a sale takes place?

You need to have a careful and considered approach when encouraging people to sign up to your email list. You need to give them an incentive to do so. For example, you could offer valuable digital downloads, such as a whitepaper, cheat sheet, template, or eBook.

Do you re-engage abandoned visitors?

This is the final point to consider when it comes to your bounce rate. A lot of business owners simply give up on the users that have abandoned them after their first visit to their website. This is a big mistake, which can result in many opportunities lost. You shouldn’t give up on these users. Perhaps they simply were not ready to make a purchase from your website or sign up to your email list first time around?

You need to look for the most effective methods of re-engaging with these visitors. One of the ways you can do this is with social media. You can target people that have recently engaged with your website, creating posts that have been perfectly put together to appeal to them. You can also use on-site remarketing to appeal to abandoning visitors through targeted exit-intent popups.

All in all, reducing your bounce rate is of huge importance if you are to have a successful online presence. Use the tips that have been mentioned above to get started.

Eco-Friendly Business: A Guide to Successfully Marketing Yourself as Green

July 27, 2017July 27, 2017 / nancyrubin / 1 Comment

That green is all the rage lately is hard to disagree with. Not only are businesses discovering the vast financial benefits of going green; they’re also noticing that doing it for the right reasons has a lot more going for it than joining the party for the fun of it. If you’ve completed the tour of electronics around your office already, banned hard copies, and found ways to use less energy in general, you’d probably love to see your company celebrated by your community.

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Don’t let your good deeds go unnoticed; here is a useful guide to how you can market your business as green and show it off from its best side.

Green is the most complex color

It should be easy enough to get the word out there when you know for a fact that you’re green through and through – yet, green marketing is no easy challenge. Do it for the sake of profits and the community is likely to punish you for selfishness; do it for the sake of the environment, and you could still risk being avoided.

It seems overly complicated, but there is a simple explanation to this. Sometimes, marketing yourself as green doesn’t speak to your target group quite as it should – and it all depends on what sort of business you’re in.

Think about it this way; when you hear that a business is green, what comes to mind first? Most likely, you’re not settling on luxury and comfort. The truth is that a luxury resort that is marketing itself as eco-friendly is likely to scare pamper-seeking guests away. They’ll think cold and short showers, going to the toilet outside, and sleeping under the stars; kind of romantic but not always comfortable.

As a business owner who offers comfort and luxury to their target audience, you should still be green and eco-friendly – just be it quietly. It saves you money in the long-run and is wonderful news for our planet, so don’t let snobbish customers who think eco equals discomfort steer you in any other direction.

It’s a good idea to think about who sustainability is important to, since certain demographics seem to care more than others. As a general rule, women tend to focus on soaps and cleaning detergents that are free of chemicals, especially when it comes to cooking and products for their children. A label of being green won’t sell your products, though, so don’t expect your business to bloom just because of this.

What do you mean by green?

Sure, we use it as an umbrella term for being conscious of the environment – but going green could imply various things to your customers. It’s important to communicate exactly how you’re contributing to keeping our planet healthy; with vague and imprecise boasting of being green, you risk confusing or even disillusioning your community.

The companies who are marketing themselves as such but fails to inform the consumers on the specific measures they’ve taken so far might be seen as dishonest. Especially when their competitors are successfully marketing themselves as green and provide detailed explanations of how they do it; by reducing carbon footprints, using solar energy, banning papers, and steering away from hazardous chemicals.

Go green but tell them how you do it and, even more importantly, why you’re doing it.

Find ways of incorporating this message without explicitly using the word ‘green.’ People are able to connect the dots themselves, and the positive message will shine through without the use of vague umbrella terms. To falsely show off one’s business as eco-friendly is known as greenwashing and you’d want to avoid this by all means.

Although you’re likely to find other guides online that tells you to incorporate your green vision in every part of your business – as well as the logo, we wouldn’t take it that far. Ask a marketing agency to help you with finding the right solution for your company; Cardinal Digital Marketing is a good place to start or have a look at this detailed guide.

When deciding on how to market yourself, remember that transparency and honesty are keywords to happy customers. Consider your target group, however, and figure out how you can tailor the message of eco-friendliness to fit their needs and wants.

Use online marketing

Whatever you do to promote yourself as green, make sure you do it online. It’s common sense, in a way, as thousands of leaflets on sustainability is both ironic and irritating to your customers. Plus, online marketing is a lot more cost-effective than the old-school traditional methods, which is excellent news for small businesses.

You can use recycled paper, by the way, which is also cheaper and more eco-friendly than regular printing paper. Concentrate on less paper and more digital, however, and you have vast opportunities for expanding your social media marketing as well as growing your email database. Less is certainly more when it comes to green marketing, so any signs of extravagant spending will be bad taste for your eco-conscious customers.

Make a point out of it

A part of being liked is to be predictable – and people don’t like businesses who say one thing and do another. Someone who is truly passionate about the environment and wants to make the world a better place by starting with their own business should be rewarded, but they should also be honest. We expect you to carpool, to have incorporated a green company culture, and we certainly expect you to be consistent.

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Make it fly by allowing this green thinking to shine through every corner of your office; it’s excellent PR, you know. Engage in local environmental causes, make donations to charities in your community, and source your produce or products from local farmers. As a household, you’d be good to nature by investing in your community; as a business, you’d do the same.

Get your employees on board

To be consistent, you’re going to have to spend some time on figuring out your company culture. It’s such a buzzword these days but for good reasons; a company works as a team where you happen to be the leader. That means that the message of eco-friendliness and sustainability needs to come from the top and work its way downwards; nobody’s going to follow your lead unless you show them that the green culture is here to stay.

Start by reaching out for suggestions. It’s an ideal way of making them feel involved – plus, you’re likely to get a lot of great ideas. Happy employees are listened to and taken into consideration; when you ask for the opinions, make sure you put them into life. It might mean investing in more natural cleaning detergents or successfully incorporating meatless Mondays into the cafeteria menu – but it’s all worth it.

Next, find ways to remind them of your green vision in a non-intrusive way. Tell your team to turn off their computers at the end of the day, install a water dispenser to eliminate plastic bottles, and put up a few friendly reminders in the bathrooms to make sure no taps are dripping.

These are small but effective ways to be a more sustainable business while also keeping it real. Don’t lose their respect by preaching sustainability and driving to work every day; they’ll look up to a leader who takes the bus or carpools like the rest of us. Market your business as green for the right reasons, and you’re in for reduced costs as well as a happier community.