Business

Starting a Business 101: 4 Steps to Managing Your Company’s Finances

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Starting a new business is an exciting endeavor. You may have been planning for years and look forward to utilizing your skills and experience in new ways. Some skills are unique to entrepreneurs, who must be visionary, conservative and strategic, often all at the same time. Managing your business’s money is one of the most important skills, and investing, with the help of someone like RMR Wealth Builders, Inc., should be a part of your financial planning. These four financial tips will help to get a good start.

– Borrow Strategically

Getting capital to start your business can be difficult in the early period. You must demonstrate a good understanding of your own needs, as well as the needs of the marketplace. When borrowing money, shop around for a good interest rate and never borrow more than you will need in the short term. Pay off loans as quickly as possible to ensure that financial institutions will be willing to extend more money when you need them to expand your business.

– Grow Manageably

Learning to plan for the ebb and flow of your business is one of the most critical skills an entrepreneur can develop, and good planning can help to weather financial storms and reach for new business opportunities that come your way. Managing your finances carefully will help you to achieve your goals, regardless of economic changes.

– Review Your Expenses Regularly

During busy periods, you can experience runaway expenses, with a growing need for supplies, equipment, and payroll. Savvy entrepreneurs keep a close watch on expenses, reviewing supply contracts and seeking out better pricing at regular intervals. They may keep payroll expense in line by hiring part-time or temporary help, instead of paying full-time employees that require the additional cost of benefits.

– Invest Carefully

As your business grows and with a little luck, your business will begin to produce high-profit margins that will be significantly in excess of your immediate needs. This is time to carefully consider options for investment to fund your retirement, pay for children’s’ college costs or other goals. A reliable investment firm with fiduciary review program in NJ will have the knowledge and experience to advise you on the best ways to grow your money for the future, while still providing funds for today.

Starting a business can be an all-consuming endeavor, with hidden surprises, both good and bad, along the way. You will be better prepared for the ups and downs of economic cycles if you manage your business in a strategic way that allows for unexpected needs. With these four tips, you will be in a good position to make the most of your business opportunities.

Meghan Belnap is a freelance writer who enjoys spending time with her family. She loves being in the outdoors and exploring new opportunities whenever they arise. Meghan finds happiness in researching new topics that help to expand her horizons. You can often find her buried in a good book or out looking for an adventure. You can connect with her on Facebook right here and Twitter right here.

Tackling Your Business’s Waste Problem

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With increasing regulations and a growing awareness amongst consumers, every business owner has to seriously consider the environmental impact their work has. In particular, waste is still a significant issue, but one that you can help to decrease dramatically. Here, we’re going to look at some of the greatest sources of waste in all businesses and what you can do to lessen your impact at least a little.

Paper

Paper isn’t being treated as the completely expendable commodity that it once was. This is thanks, in large part, to the growing reliance on IT. More and more businesses are turning to a paperless or near paperless model. By relying more on digital storage and backups, you can reduce the amount of paper your business uses dramatically. Not only does this cut on the costs of buying paper itself, it also saves in terms of printing costs and the storage space necessary to keep all that paper, too.

Power

Many businesses use more electricity than necessary. From vampire electricity wasted by leaving devices on standby to relying on old equipment that is far from energy efficient, you could be driving your power bills sky high. An energy audit service can help you easily see where exactly you’re using the most energy and what to do about it. Investing in question like a genset can help you cut costs, too. Many utility providers are willing to offer discounts on energy, for instance, if companies are willing to use their own genset to supplement their reliance on utilities.

Water

Water-saving faucets and toilets can drastically reduce the amount of water wasted by employees in every bathroom. However, water waste isn’t just about how much water your business uses, but how clean it is when disposed. From businesses with fleets to warehouses and construction crews, water contamination is a serious problem. Oil water separators are more than just an ethical choice, they could be an essential part of making your business compliant with environmental regulations, depending on the industry you’re in. As the business grows, make sure that you’re getting rid of waste water in the cleanest way possible.

Packaging

If you’re in retail, manufacturing, or production of any kind, consider the packaging you offer. Regular product packaging is one of the most widespread sources of plastic and paper waste, but there are eco-friendly packaging options available. You can make it much easier for your customers to recycle or reuse your products. Not only will this help tackle your ecological footprint, but it’s a very visible sign of your company’s dedication to environmentally friendly operation methods. It can be as much a part of the brand, helping to win the goodwill of your consumers.

It’s reasonable to expect that businesses will be legally required to produce less waste as time goes on. Even now, consumers are becoming more mindful of who they support and producing lots of waste can be bad for your image as far as they are concerned. Keep the tips above in mind, as it’s only going to become more important.

The Expert Seamstress: How to Run a Successful Fashion Business

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If you are an expert seamstress, then it may be very easy to turn your abilities into a money-earning career. There are some steps, however, that you will need to take along the way. Here are some points you may want to consider to turn your fashion ideas into a money-making proposition.

Create a Business Plan

You will want to consider the type of sewing that you want to do for the public. Making a list can be a great place to start. Then, think about the supplies that you will need to carry out each one of those activities like an embroidery machine, a regular sewing machine, thread, fabric, tape measures and manikins. Make a list of the cost of each of your expenses and figure out what you need to charge your customers to make money from your sewing passion.

Choose a Location

Many seamstresses work from their home while others choose to open a storefront. Others choose to meet with their clients at a location of the client’s choosing. Decide on which choice is right for you, but remember that you will need a place to work on projects for clients. Often times, businesses find tax advantages or grants that make one location more favorable over others.

Decide on Marketing

You may be a great seamstress, but unless others know about your skills, then you cannot make money using those skills. Therefore, you will need to advertise. Consider creating a website showcasing projects that you have completed. Spread the word using social media. See if you can write guests blogs on other people’s sites to introduce them to your services. Make sure to claim your Google My Business account and your spot on Google Maps.

Network

Make sure that others in related businesses know about your services. Consider letting bridal boutiques who do not have their own seamstresses know about your services. Join community groups so that you get to know others in the community who might need your services such as putting logos on company shirts. Attend area trade shows where you can interact with local people to tell them about you and your business. Take advantage of these opportunities by practicing your elevator speech beforehand.

If you have the skills of a seamstress, then you can make money using those skills. Use these ideas and your own ingenuity to go into business for yourself.

Guest author, Lizzie Weakley is a freelance writer from Columbus, Ohio. She went to college at The Ohio State University where she studied communications. In her free time, she enjoys the outdoors and long walks in the park with her 3-year-old husky Snowball.  @LizzieWeakley

Easy Business Growth Strategies to Follow Right Away

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It is difficult to grow a business and requires considerable effort. You must begin by handling your own marketing, sales, corporate compliance, taxes and customer interactions. You can grow your business efficiently and quickly with the right perspective, hard work and a good growth strategy. The strategy you choose will impact your profits and the bottom line of your business. The value you build must be honest and help your customers. Your foundation should be based on genuine caring.

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The Sales Funnel

Building your sales funnel is the first step in growing your business. This will help your business become automated resulting in easy and fast growth. You will have to put in some work on the front end but once the process is established it leads to smooth sailing. You need to think about the different types of funnels such as high-ticket coaching and free shipping offers. To establish growth, you must have an automated selling machine for your business.

The Customer Management System

It is difficult to manually track your transactions and becomes harder as your business expands. The best solution is a customer management system. There are numerous types available depending on your business type. There is software based in the cloud, accounting software, sales and marketing software, etc. You need to figure out which software will best suit you needs and run with it.

The Competition

You must take the time to research your competition to assure your offer reaches your target audience. There are different platforms available but they all provide competitive intelligence. This is the way to see your competitor’s ad copy, landing pages and every stage of their funnel. You will reveal your competitor’s online strategy and their longest running ads. Emulating these ads will help scale your business. If the add was effective for your competitor, it will work for you as well.

The Loyalty Program

A good loyalty program will increase your sales. Acquiring a new customer is three times more expensive than selling an existing customer. It costs a lot of money to acquire new customers. You can retain customers with a customer loyalty program. You need to provide your customers with an attractive incentive. This can be anything from free shipping to buy one get the second product at fifty percent off to five-dollar coupons. You can also try to arrange different kinds of wellness programs like health tips seminars, informative session on ‘what is calisthenic’ and how to maintain health. These programs may increase their loyalty towards your brand as it shows that you care. When your loyalty program is accessible to your customers, your sales will soar.

The New Opportunities

When you analyze any new opportunities, it will help you understand the demographics for your business better. This includes your distribution channels, analyzing other industries with potential, foreign markets and your direct competitors. Your analysis will reveal dozens of opportunities with immediate potential.

The Email List

An email list is an excellent way to grow your business quickly. Once you have a lead magnet, an email list and a sales funnel, your customer base will begin to increase. You must provide a good incentive for consumers to subscribe to your email list. The more creative and unique you make your emails, the better the results. There are also excellent online tools available to help you manage your list efficiently.

The Strategic Partnerships

Forming a strategic partnership with the right business will make a big difference. This will enable you to reach a wide variety of customers much faster. It can be difficult to identify the right companies. Find the businesses that compliment what you do, make contact with them and propose a business venture beneficial to both companies.

The Franchise Model

If you already have a successful business but are looking for fast growth, considering franchises. A franchise model is complicated and will require significant research, expenses and marketing knowledge. This being said, this is an excellent opportunity to procure growth extremely quickly.

The Diversification

Your offers should be diversified. Your business should include any complimentary services or products appropriate for your customers. This will help expand your business and achieve growth. Look for any new opportunities available in your niche. You need to figure out what you can sell your clients to add extra value to their purchases.

The Passive Income

Passive income streams are incredibly beneficial if your margins are razor thin. This will enable you to make errors without losing everything. The ample resources provided by a passive income will help your business market excel and achieve growth more quickly.

The Business Acquisition

One of the best ways to grow your business quickly is to acquire other businesses. You need to look for businesses or competitors in industries that will compliment your business. These acquisitions can be used as a launching platform to scale your business at an increased rate of growth. Do not limit yourself to just looking inside your industry, look outside of it as well. You will find the potential for numerous opportunities.

International Expansion

You may be able to use your existing offers for international expansion. Your offers may scale well for Europe, Mexico or Canada. International expansion is an excellent opportunity if you have an offer capable of converting. There will be costs involved but the potential for future profits is astronomical.

The Webinar

A webinar is a great way to promote your services or products. This is also a way to establish fast business growth. A webinar will help you reach a large audience extremely quickly and is an automated selling tool for everything your business has to offer. A webinar will help captivate your audience and make sales automatically.

Conclusion

Growing a business takes a lot of hard work but the results are well worth the effort. Following the above tips will help ensure your hard work pays off. Remember your goals and celebrate every milestone.

Even The Smallest Side Hustle Has A Chance To Be Great!

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There was a time when the idea of starting a business was reserved pretty much exclusively for those who were already well established or, at the very least, had a great deal of money to throw around. This was because a business usually needed premises, employees, infrastructure networks, and a whole host of other things. And sure, that’s all still very important to a lot of businesses, but the reality is that thanks to the rise of the internet, there’s been a pretty radical shift in the possibilities for smaller businesses. Now, all you really need to start your own business is a computer, a great idea, and the drive to make it happen.

Get online

If you want to start your own business and you don’t have huge amounts of money or power to throw around, then there’s only one place for you to go: the internet. The internet really has revolutionised the process of starting and running businesses in a way that no one could have predicted. Whether you want to become a freelance copywriter, you want to set up a retail store, or you simply want to promote a crafts business that you run out of your home, all of these things can be done online. With little more than some cheap online hosting a decent knowledge of web design, an understanding of social media marketing for franchises, and a few simple resources, you can create your own business in a matter of days. Sure, it’s going to take much longer than that to actually get it off the ground, but the barrier to entry really is that much lower now.

Crowdfunding

For a long time, if you wanted to get some capital for your business then you had to either sink a great deal of your own money into it or go courting investors. Both of these were perfectly viable strategies but they did come with their fair share of drawbacks. The first being that, if you didn’t have money to put into the business in the first place, you were kind of stuck. The other being that, if you wanted an investor’s money, you often had to give up a certain degree of control in your business up in exchange. Now, thanks to things sites like Kickstarter, you can fund your business with the help of your customers. Customers can donate to you in exchange for treats and bonuses which can help you finally get your business the funding that it needs.

Free marketing

Of course, however important funding is to any business, there are plenty of ways in which the internet has made things far cheaper. One of the best examples of this is marketing. Thanks to social media, it’s never been easier or cheaper to reach a huge potential audience. Sites like Facebook and Twitter are totally free and give you access to the kind of potential customer base that businesses in the past could only have dreamt of.

Sure, there are always going to be roadblocks in the way of creating a successful business, but in the modern era, it’s now more possible than ever before for people to start businesses that can become incredibly successful with only limited resources.

 

How to Prepare Your Business Location for All 4 Seasons

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Regardless of whether you own your business facility or you are leasing the space, it is essential that this area remains well-maintained at all times. Proper seasonal maintenance may ensure excellent energy efficiency for financial savings. It may also keep many types of property repair concerns at bay. Remember that the condition of your facility may also affect your employees’ health in some cases as well as the impression that your customers have about your business. These are a few leading seasonal maintenance tips that business owners can easily follow.

Test Indoor Monitors and Sensors

Your office’s indoor smoke detectors and carbon monoxide sensors should be checked multiple times each year. You should check their functionality as well as the remaining battery power in them. Because this should be completed every couple of months, it makes sense to include this task on your to-do list at the beginning of each season. Make sure to call in the help of commercial hvac services.

Schedule Seasonal HVAC Service

The condition of your HVAC system affects indoor air quality, the longevity of your system, your comfort level, energy efficiency and more. Follow the maintenance recommendations from your system’s manufacturer. In many cases, this recommendation is for service before the heater and the AC are turned on for the first time each season. Remember to replace the air filters monthly or as recommended by the manufacturer.

Re-Seal Windows and Exterior Doors

The seals around your business property’s windows and doors can easily deteriorate. This common problem can detract from your HVAC system’s ability to do its job efficiently. You may feel uncomfortable draughts inside the building, and you may notice that your energy bill is higher than it once was. Re-sealing doors and windows is an easy maintenance project that can have excellent results.

Show Your Plumbing System Some Love

Before the cold weather season arrives, ensure that all exposed pipes are wrapped and protected. Drain the exterior sprinkler system if your business uses one. The spring or summer season is a great time to schedule pipe cleaning and hot water heater service. Remember that any developing repair issue should be properly addressed as soon as possible.

There may be many additional maintenance steps that are required on your business property throughout the year. These are most common and may be most relevant to many businesses. A smart idea is to create a maintenance schedule that breaks down tasks per the season. By doing so, you can more easily stay on top of seasonal maintenance.

Meghan Belnap is a freelance writer who enjoys spending time with her family. She loves being in the outdoors and exploring new opportunities whenever they arise. Meghan finds happiness in researching new topics that help to expand her horizons. You can often find her buried in a good book or out looking for an adventure. You can connect with her on Facebook right here and Twitter right here.

How to Make Your Growing Business More Competitive

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Your business needs to be able to compete in its industry like never before. Today’s companies are competing with businesses who have truly milked every advantage imaginable to stay at the head of the pack. Your business cannot be behind in this process. Once a business starts to pull out in front of other competitors in their industry, they cannot afford to lose ground. They must keep up this momentum to remain a strong industry leader. The following are a few ideas to help your company compete on a whole new level.

Employee Upgrades

As the needs of your business change, you will need talent that can keep up with the pace. Sometimes you have to let employees go who are not cutting it to make room for new staff upgrades who can competently stay on top of the learning curve necessary to help improve company performance. As you weed out weaker employees who cannot keep up and replace them with stronger employees who can, you will find each department providing your company with the edge it needs to compete at a whole new level.

Offer New Benefits for Employees

More than ever before, companies are trying to keep employees by making work a fun place to be and offering benefits they and their families can enjoy. Beyond just the job’s salary, many employees stay loyal to companies who can provide dental, vision, and health benefits, as well as 401(k) programs. Take a look at the benefits you currently offer and see if implementing something like paid lunches, paternity leave, or life insurance might sweeten the deal for those you hire.

Expanding the Business

One way to make a huge competitive move is to expand your business to new locations. The more locations you are able to expand into and keep running with solid quarterly revenue, the more competitive you will prove to be in your industry. With every new location that you establish, this is a whole new revenue stream to help your business obtain the funds to react to the strategies other competing companies are using.

Conclusion

Competition is at the heart of modern business. If your company is not in it to win it, then it will start to lag behind other competing companies. Your company should always be poised to swoop in on any opportunity in the market that will ensure a competitive advantage. These opportunities are what will help your company to pull out in front of the other companies you are competing with in your industry or marketplace.

Dixie Somers is a freelance writer and blogger for business, home, and family niches. Dixie lives in Phoenix, Arizona, and is the proud mother of three beautiful girls and wife to a wonderful husband.