Author: John Maddox

Inventors are in the business of inventing things – no surprises there. But often they forget that they need to do more than come up with some fantastic opportunity. An invention can be an amazing feat of human intellect. But if it’s not paired with business execution, it’s hardly worth a dime.

Marketing their inventions to prospective investors can be a headache for inventors. Investors want to see the market potential of an invention. And entrepreneurs need capital to ensure that their invention is brought to market rapidly. But sometimes inventors and investors can end up talking across purposes. Investors might not understand the real potential of the invention. And inventors may struggle to communicate it.

If you want to get venture capitalists on your side, here’s what to do.

Consistent And Clear Signals

After the recent spate of world patent marketing complaints, it might seem hard to get any traction for your idea. But the problem there was the fact that inventors weren’t focusing on profitability. When you pitch your invention, it needs to be more that just a showcase of the invention itself. Don’t just leave the ROI to the investor’s imagination. Instead, build a pitch as you would in any other area of business. The bait, of course, is the executive summary of your invention. But the value proposition for the end consumer is the real hook.

Be Polite

People looking to invest in your company want to know if you are the sort of person with whom they can collaborate. If you find yourself prone to regular outbursts of rage, then they might decide that they don’t want to work with you. The value proposition to the investor isn’t just about the dollars that your invention might earn. It’s about the quality of their day-to-day life as they work with you.

One way you can show investors that you care about their personal well-being is to tailor your pitch. Some investors will want to invest in businesses with short-term profitability. Others are more interested in playing the long game. Knowing which type of investor you have on your hands will change the way you approach them. There are plenty of ways you can find out which type of investments investors are most interested in. A simple search online will usually inform you of investment history. Or you can just ask them straight up where they have invested in the past.

Be Emotionally Engaged

Mike Makropoulos is the founder of High Impact Funding. And he knows a thing or two about playing the VC game. He reminds startups that they should always be emotionally involved in what they’re saying. Investors and VCs see dozens of pitches every month. And so if you’re going to get their attention, you need to hold their attention. A person who is passionate about what they’re doing is much more likely to engage an investor than an individual who is reading off a script.

The advice from Makropoulos is to develop a compelling story that is also believable. Your pitch must have impact – but it must also make sense.

If you’ve ever seen a business owner trying to get to grips with Twitter, it can look like somewhat of a car crash. Some of those first few posts are filled with hashtags, symbols and anything else in all the wrong places. Twitter isn’t the easiest thing to understand from the outside looking in. However, it doesn’t take a whole lot of effort to get to grips with it. If you’re planning to use Twitter as a marketing tool (good idea!), read on.

Short And Simple

The first thing about Twitter that you need to understand is that there is a character limit for everything that you post. Those long statuses that you post on Facebook have no place here; they won’t fit! You’ve got to be clever with how you word everything to ensure it fits within the character limit. Twitter is all about getting to the point quickly, so you want to grab people’s attentions. You can still put images and videos in there if you want, but they will reduce the amount of characters available to you.

Hashtags And @ Symbols

I’m going to presume that the most confusing thing on your mind is the idea of hashtags and @ symbols. So, what do they mean? Hashtags are a way of getting your content to be seen by more people based on relevance. For example, if I were tweeting about video games, I’d put a hashtag like #videogames. Then, everyone who searches for that hashtag will come across my post. Don’t overcomplicate your hashtags or people won’t search for them. In terms of @ symbols, these can be used when mentioning another person or company on Twitter. They’ll then notice that you’ve mentioned them in your status, and might retweet it if they want to. This provides you with even more views.

Getting The Most Out Of It

As you can see, getting lots of retweets leads to the potential of going viral and getting more views on your statuses. Getting to this point requires knowing exactly what to tweet and even the times that you need to tweet it out! This takes some time to learn, so you might want to seek the help of a social media agency. You can also go look at advanced techniques such as utilizing paid advertising on Twitter to get your content out to more people.

Direct Messages & Followers

If you want to converse privately on Twitter, you can use direct messages to do so. This bypasses the character limit, but it still has its restrictions. You’re allowed to choose whether anyone can direct message you, or limit it to people that you’re following. This choice is up to you, and it all depends on how many time wasters you get and how important customer service is to you on Twitter. Speaking of followers; you’ll want to follow the most important companies and people that you are associated with. Don’t go crazy with this, though; it’s generally a good rule to have more followers than follow lots of people yourself. It just looks more professional.

Once you get used to it, Twitter has massive marketing potential. Good luck!

As a startup business, you have to use any tools at your disposal to help your enterprise grow. Believe it or not, one of the best ways of helping a startup grow is by taking advantage of big data. Traditionally, big data is something that large corporations leverage to gain a competitive edge. Today, it’s a concept that smaller startups are using. Here’s why big data is so important to today’s startup firms:

Big data doesn’t have to mean terabytes of information

Despite the name, big data doesn’t mean you need a room full of servers that have information on them! Rather, it’s a term that describes a volume of raw data. In essence, something other than a single data set. Small startups can scrutinize details like membership databases to learn more about their customers. Big data doesn’t have to mean historic information that dates back twenty years or so. Nor does it necessarily refer to gigabytes of information stored each day.

Streamline the sales and supply process

Anyone that has a small business will be selling something. But, what is it that customers buy the most? When do they buy those products and services? And why do they buy them? The IT industry now comprises a vast array of data experts that can process data and report it into a usable form. Almost two million people alone last year got hired by firms to deal with big data. The infographic below details just how important the sector is to businesses:

Infographic Produced By online master of science in computer science

If you want your company to turn into a thriving, modern brand, you need to start a blog. But, before you do that, you need to understand and learn what you can about setting one up. So, here are some things to consider before you launch a blog for the business.

Research

Before you start your own business blog, you will need to do some research. You’ve got to understand exactly what a business blog is, and why your company needs to have one. It’s also useful to discover exactly what the process is when you want to set up a blog. There is a great deal of information online about these sorts of things. So you need to get online and do plenty of research before you do anything else. Once you understand what is involved, you are going to be well placed to launch a brilliant blog.

Contribute to Existing Blogs

As well as doing the right research into setting up blogs you might want to get involved. Blogs are an excellent place to share comments and opinions. To get a feel for what to expect you need to get involved with other blogs. So think about things that might interest you, like health blogs. Visit https://www.guestposttracker.com/blogs.php?cat=2&name=Health to have a look sites where you can guest post. This is an important part of the blogging experienced, and one that you need to have.

Come up With Topics

The big challenge when it comes to creating and launching a blog is coming up with content. You need to find topics to blog about, and they don’t always have to relate to your business. In fact, it’s probably a good idea to have a bit of variety. So, you need to come up with topics, and you need to understand how to generate titles and topics yourself. Social media is a great resource to use to help you with that. You can use sites like Twitter to have a look at topics that are trending, and you can use these to generate blog titles for your business blog.

Visit Other Blogs

The best way to understand how the process works is to visit other blogs. The blogosphere is so vast and expansive, and there are blogs on almost anything these days. Of course, business blogs are going to be more relevant and pertinent to your case. So, it might be a good idea to visit rival businesses and find out if they have blogs. You could have a look at the blogs and see how they are laid out. This is a really helpful thing when it comes to gathering information and helping the company grow. It will give you important pointers that you can apply to your town blog, and you’ll know what you need to avoid.

Setting up a business blog is something you need to action as soon as you can. It’s a wonderful way of staying current and modern. It will breathe new life into the brand, and make things a lot more interesting. But, before you actually launch your business blog you should probably learn more about it. So use the points made on this guide to help you set up the perfect business blog to promote your company.

Unfortunately, you can’t always beat the taxman no matter how hard you try. From time to time, the taxman will come calling asking awkward questions. That isn’t to say that you are guilty by any stretch, but it still isn’t nice. It isn’t nice because your response could determine how they treat you in the future. If they feel you aren’t cooperative, they will push even harder. As a result, it’s vital that you respond in the right manner. If you don’t know how to respond, take a look at the tips below.

Always Be Polite

Regardless of how they are on the other side of the phone, you need to be polite. On the whole, nothing good comes from arguing with anyone, especially a government official. Plus, it may make them more sympathetic to your cause. They deal with so many angry people that your polite approach may put them on the back foot. One thing’s for sure – it can’t hurt your chances.

Don’t Admit The Debt

The call is certainly going to be recorded, which means they can use it as evidence. If you admit to the debt, they win and you lose. In all honesty, it is almost impossible to come back from a confession, especially one they have on tape. After all, why would you confess if you didn’t mean to confess? No matter how hard they push, don’t wilt under the pressure. Answer them in generalities to avoid committing to anything and get off the phone as quickly as possible.

But Don’t Deny it Either

You shouldn’t confirm or deny the allegations – how does that work? It works because it doesn’t commit you to anything. If you do deny it and it proves to be true, they could use it against you at a future date. Or, they could use it to say that you are a liar and have been trying to dodge tax, which is illegal. Obviously, both of these scenarios are not good for you or your business. So, whatever you do, don’t commit to any of their statements even if you think you are right.

Direct Them To Your Legal Counsel

There is no better way to respond to the call than to tell them to contact your tax attorney or enrolled agent. Tax officials hate this because they know that they are going to have to go through a long and arduous process. After all, lawyers are experts in the field and aren’t intimidated. Use this to your advantage so that you don’t get caught out in the act. Plus, it’s a great way to get off the phone!

Don’t Ignore The Situation

After the phone goes down, you need to respond. Now is the time to show emotion because they can’t see or hear you anymore. The best thing to do is to call your attorney yourself to tell them about the call. Then, they can give you the advice on how best to act next. As long as you are proactive, you have a good chance of coming out the other end.

There are plenty of ways a business can obtain success, but they all revolve around your staff. The simple fact is that your staff is the lifeblood of your organization. And, without them, you can’t reach the levels of success that every company wants to reach. The problem with employees is that they don’t always work to their maximum. Some are lazy and only want to do the minimum amount while others lack leadership. Regardless, it costs you money.

Obviously, you want your firm to be as productive and efficient as possible, which means they need the same traits. To hit your goal, you need to extract every ounce of talent and skill that your workforce possesses. Only then can your business begin to reach astronomical heights.

Here are a few tips that will get the job done.

Tip 1: Believe In Them

The great thing about this first tip is that you don’t have to communicate outwardly with your staff. All you have to do is believe that they will do the job that you need them to do for your business to benefit. It might sound like new age mumbo jumbo, but it does work. Your belief in them will affect your body language and the way you communicate, as www.forbes.com illustrates. Instead of giving off a distant vibe that screams failure, you will give off an accepting vibe that screams success. Everything from looking them in the eye to your body position will fill them with confidence. Quite simply, your belief will transfer to them.

Tip 2: Demonstrate Your Belief

Now that you believe, it is time to show them that you believe. Some of your perceptive employees will pick up on the fact that you are a more open and caring boss. But, others won’t even blink. For their sake, you need to show them that you care. Otherwise, they will carry on as normal and not make any changes to their work habits. One awesome way to show that they are important to you is to listen to their thoughts and feelings. The fact that you are listening to them means you are taking the time to set aside your issues for their sake. Plus, it makes them feel more valuable if you don’t dismiss their ideas out of hand. Listening is a great tool because hardly anyone converses or listens anymore.

Tip 3: Be Honest

You are not a divine being, and you are not infallible. Yet, there are plenty of bosses that act that way, like they are a descendant of God. Just because you are in a position of power doesn’t mean that you are always right. Let your employees see that you understand this and that you are willing to be open and honest. Tell them about your strengths and your weaknesses and they will adopt the same strategy. For starters, it gives them the green light to admit that they have limitations because their boss has readily admitted the same. But, more importantly, it makes them think. The best employees among your staff should think, ‘my boss has limitations, so what are mine?’ If they take the bull by the horns, they can work out how to be better.

Tip 4: Understand Their Strengths And Weaknesses

Once they open up to you, listen to what they have to say. Every boss has some form of bias that they can’t fix. It is an occupational hazard of being a part of the human race as your past experiences mold the person you are today. The problem with this is that they can affect the way you treat your subordinates. For example, if you are a planner you might look down on someone that doesn’t plan. If you go one step further, you might even pressure them into changing their way of working. The result won’t work out in your favor because they won’t adapt. Instead, you need to understand that is how they work, and that it works for that individual. The more you change people, the less you will benefit.

Tip 5: Clear Communication

Businesses deal in specialist areas and use a lot of jargon. As such, your work might be complex and hard to understand. It isn’t beyond the realms of possibility that your employees don’t understand their job. When that happens, productivity falls by a large amount. You have to be able to tell them what you expect of them on any given day to make the company tick. The best option is to talk to them in a simple and clear manner. Forget about using strange terms and abstract phrases, and break it down to its bare bones. That doesn’t mean you have to treat them as idiots because they are far from stupid. But, it does mean that you shouldn’t complicate the issue if possible.

Tip 6: Inspire Them

Inspiration can appear in many different forms, but fear tends not to work. The culture of fear in most businesses is apparent: the boss is the big cheese, and you can’t disappoint them. However, the problem with this culture is that it limits your staff’s ability to work creatively. As they don’t want a dressing down from their boss, they do whatever is required to get by. Another term for this is doing the bare minimum. Instead of putting them under pressure, out an arm around their shoulder. Use kindness and positive messages to inspire your team to bigger and better achievements. When you have to, you need to be firm. But, as long as you are fair, they should understand.

Tip 7: Praise Effort

Ability is not the be all and end all with employees. Yes, you need them to be able to do their jobs. Still, some people have the ability, but they need to unlock it first. Again, if they are working under intense pressure, they will fail. But, if you praise their effort as well as their ability, they will shine. Most employees recognize that they need time to improve. If you give them that time, you will be the one that benefits.

Tip 8: Give Them The Right Tools

It is plausible that they have all the ability in the world, but they don’t have the right tools. Your employees are nothing if they don’t have the equipment to do their job. It’s like asking a doctor to perform surgery without a scalpel – it’s stupid! Your duty as the boss is to make sure they have all the equipment they need, from infrastructure and tech to uniform. Don’t underestimate the importance of a uniform by the way. To use the medical analogy once more, uniform like scrubs is essential to basic tasks. For more on uniforms, visit http://www.uniformsandscrubs.com/landau.html.

Tip 9: Invest In Training

Training is essential if you want your staff to be better at their jobs. Firstly, training is a form of education. When they go on courses, they learn information that they can use to perform their role in the company to a higher standard. No training course, no information. And if there is no information, there is no increase in quality. Just as importantly, it is a gesture. The fact that you are willing to pay money to make them better is a sign that you value them as workers. You are trying to not only enhance the business but the business’s personal. Any intelligent person will see this and work harder. At the least, they should understand that training is good for them and their career, even if they don’t care about the company.