Author: Nibletz Staff

The idea is the bright spark that creates an opportunity to capitalize on. Finding the right idea is like catching lightning in a bottle. But if you don’t know what to do with it, it can zap you instead. Here, we’re going to look at four major points of a business’s beginnings and how to make sure that you’re using them to the right effect.

Goals

The overall goal of a business might be simple enough. You want to provide a product or a service to a market and profit from it. But that’s a nebulous goal that’s ever shifting. Right from the start, you need to identify the goals you need to aim for straight away. How many customers, how much revenue, what tactics you take to build the brand, how you carry out and streamline processes in the business. Create a strategic plan that lays out not only what you want, but the key performance indicators that you can use to measure your progress in getting there.

Location

When we talk about choosing a location for a business, we’re talking about many things as thebalance.com shows. We’re talking about proximity and visibility to the consumers. We’re also talking competition and whether you can find a space with a target market large enough to either grab on your own or to be able to get a share that can keep you profitable. It’s also worth considering local and state considerations and regulations that can affect how you do business and how much profit you stand to make.

Structure

It’s easy to go for the simplest structure of a sole proprietorship when you start off with just yourself and maybe one or two employees. Structure choices need to take into account a few other things, however. For instance, if you plan on growing the business and you don’t want to be personally accountable for decisions that employees might make in the future or you want to keep personal and business finances separate, it might be worth looking at howtostartanllc.org. The structure of your business will change how it deals with tax, liability, ownership, and potentially selling the business, so it’s not a decision to be made lightly.

Cash

Businesses often face their toughest financial challenges right at the get go. Beyond your initial loan, you have to have a strict financial plan on how much you need to earn in income to be viable and where you’re going to invest your money. But you also have to consider how you’re going to finance the business costs until you get to the point of business growth. The use of credit, debt management plans, and potential cost reductions all need to be in the plan from the very beginning.

As you go on, you will face your own challenges and decisions that shape the course of the business as it grows. But firm feet on the starting line are going to give you a much better chance of coping well with those questions.

It’s all too easy to become lazy at work, and before you know it, you can find yourself part of the untrustworthy employees of the company. It doesn’t need to be said, but being unreliable can lead to dismissal, demotions, and even falling out with colleagues at work. Luckily, there are ways that you can regain your credibility in the workplace, and here’s how.

Punctuality

This is a bit of an obvious one, but many people tend to think that being a few minutes late to work won’t make any difference. Even though you may be able to catch up easily on the few minutes of lost work, your credibility with your boss, superiors and fellow colleagues will go down. Make sure you’re at work at least five minutes before you’re due to start. This will give you time to put your belongings away and be ready to start you working day on time. If you really want to show enthusiasm, why not turn up a little earlier than that and begin work early. This will show your boss and colleagues that you’ve turned over a new leaf and you can now begin to rebuild your trust with them.

Punctuality within your work is key too. Sometimes, missing your deadlines is unavoidable. If you realise this is going to happen, let your superior know so that they don’t think that you’re avoiding doing the task at hand. Of course, whenever possible try to get your work in before the deadline approaches.

Behavior

Just like when you were at school, your behavior in the workplace is important to keep an eye on too. Insubordination in the workplace is never taken lightly, so make sure that you’re adhering to the rules your employer has laid out at all times. For example, swearing in the workplace should never happen, even if you’re comfortable with the people that you work with, or they do it too. If a customer, or a member of management hears bad language, or even discussion that shouldn’t be taking place at work, it could lead to disciplinary action against you.

If you’ve been doing this in the past, then make a conscious effort to stop any bad behavior within your workplace, and make sure that you’re concentrating on the job at hand. It won’t go unnoticed.

Improve

Improving your standards of work is another great way to regain your credibility at work. You could make sure that the work you’re doing isn’t rushed and to the best of your abilities, or you could take on extra work. Training further in your job will also show your employer that you’re enthusiastic about your job and that you’d like to take your career further within the company.

If you don’t wear a uniform to work, change up your dress sense to something smarter to show yourself as a true working professional.

Following these three simple steps will help you regain your credibility at work, and may even help you get onto the right track for an eventual promotion. Try them today!

To attract high quality staff members and even higher quality clients, it is vital that your business has a good infrastructure. A lot of this revolves around your premises and the selection and design of your space. In this post, we’ll take a look at how you can develop the infrastructure of your start-up and what kind of difference this can make to your business.

Assuring Safety

When it comes to space design, safety should be your number one concern. After all, your employees and customers can only be productive or at ease in a safe environment.

This means that when you’re planning and developing your office space, you should prioritize safety above all else. This may mean compromising slightly on design or price, but you have to use safe form of insulation, cladding and ensure you meet the necessary fire safety standards.

Doing so could be simpler than you think. Before you’re tied into a quote from a builder, ensure you check out online retailers such as Insulation Giant. This way you won’t compromise on safety, but won’t pay over the odds, either.

The Importance of Professionalism

Once you’ve emphasized safety in your design, you need to begin to think about aesthetics and the overall “feel” of your premises. Many start-ups fail to match up to more established brands because they still feel small and inexperienced.

However, with the correct plans and design, you can safeguard against this feeling, creating an impression of professionalism no matter how small your business may be. Some of the world’s greatest companies have a much smaller physical presence than you’d expect, the key is to maximize your image to leverage against this.

For example, when Facebook purchased Instagram for $1bn, Instagram only had 13 employees. If you can create the correct mage and brand, you can be highly successful even as a small outfit.

Ensuring the Office is Well Lit

As well as being a professional space, your space should be inspiring. Part of this involves ensuring that your office is correctly lit. Bright, light spaces can be inspiring for your employees, can be inviting for your potential customers and can showcase your products at their very best.

So, when designing your office space, pay close attention to lighting plans. Consider not only where you need lighting, but what type of lighting you require. Softer lighting, natural lighting and harsh lighting are all good options for various applications. So, research and consider which suits your requirements.

Focusing on Sustainability

Finally, when you’re planning your infrastructure, consider the impact that sustainability can have on your company. This is something that many companies are now looking to consider; particularly how they can conserve water and energy as well as lowering their carbon footprint.

Customers are now more eco-conscious than they ever have been previously, and many are looking for sustainable companies that match their own preferences. Make sure you fulfil these criteria and then publicise it widely to ensure that customers know.

To conclude, infrastructure is vital for the success to your start up, so place a focus on safety, professionalism, lighting and sustainability to ensure a top quality environment.

Stress and entrepreneurship often go hand in hand. The pressures that come along with starting a business can push even the most prepared and level-headed person to the brink.

For some, those pressures are motivating. After all, stress is a physical reaction to a threat, and feeling stressed can help an entrepreneur stay focused and do what needs to be done. However, stress can also be detrimental to not only your health, but also your relationships, your ability to make smart decisions, and the overall productivity and morale of your business. That’s why it’s so important to keep stress in check, and take steps to prevent it from taking over your life. For many people, that means taking control of the little things that add up to big stress.

The Most Common “Little” Stresses

When most people think about business stress, they focus on the big things: Maintaining the bottom line, keeping clients happy, staying ahead of the curve in the face of major economic and industry challenges. As important as all those situations are, they aren’t generally the things that cause day-to-day stress.

More often, entrepreneurs are more stressed by things like:

1. Information overload. As a busy entrepreneur, it may feel like the alerts never stop coming. Emails, texts, voice messages, instant messages – everyone wants something, and they want it now.
2. Hunger and thirst. You’d be surprised at how many business owners say that they “forget” to eat and drink throughout the day. Being hungry or thirsty can have a major effect on your mood though – and cause you to overreact or lose patience.
3. Overwork. Being an entrepreneur takes time, and there is always more work to be done. But staying in the office until midnight, missing time with friends and family, or sacrificing sleep and time for hobbies or other activities can cause resentment, not to mention exhaustion, guilt, and yes, stress.
4. Negative thought patterns. Getting caught in a cycle of “what if’s” and irrational fears can cause undue stress.
5. A need for control. Your business might be your baby, but that doesn’t mean you need to control every single detail. Trying to control everything and make it go your way is nothing more than a fast train to Stress City.
6. Lack of perspective. In the early days of your business, even small things – an unhappy customer, a late payment – can send you into a spiral of thinking your business is doomed.

Any one of these stressors can contribute to a bad day. When you have several at once? That can lead to major stress, and a feeling of being out of control.

Taking Control of Your Stress

Identifying the factors that are contributing to your stress is only the beginning. You need to actually do something about them to conquer the stress monster to stay on track.

Some stressors are easy to manage. Make breaks a priority, for example. Try working on a 90-20 schedule: Spend 90 minutes on focused work, followed by a 20-minute break. Stretch, grab a snack and a drink, and spend some time refocusing. You’ll not only be less stressed, but more productive.

Your productivity will only increase if you can curb the interruptions that pepper your day. Schedule time to read and respond to emails in the morning and the afternoon, and turn off the alarms notifying you of new messages. If texts and other messages are constant, turn off those notifications as well. Consider setting up a dedicated email account for newsletters and other non-urgent correspondence. If your inbox isn’t getting cluttered with mail, you won’t feel so overwhelmed.  

To help curb the tendency to overwork, outsource those tasks that take up time that you can spend doing more important things – or that a professional can do faster. A part-time virtual assistant, for example, won’t bust the budget, but can take a lot of stress off your plate. Schedule appointments with yourself the same way that you would a client, and set clear boundaries that ensure you leave the office at a reasonable hour each day.

Finally, learn to control your thinking. Try telling a different story when you feel stressed: Instead of looking at your to-do list as an insurmountable challenge, try looking at it as an opportunity to move forward and make strides toward a successful business. Frame your work and challenges as positively as possible, understanding that you can’t control everything. Focus instead on what you can control and what you can do to avoid becoming overwhelmed.

Starting a business can be exciting, but it’s not without challenges. How you handle the challenges and the stress they bring can have a big impact on your health and success, so try not to sweat the small stuff and stay cool under pressure.

When you’re running a startup, you typically only have limited funds available and want to handle most tasks yourself. However, an entrepreneur’s time is limited, no matter how many late nights or weekends you work, so it’s very important to constantly find ways to be more productive. This not only ensures more tasks actually get done, but helps you to stay healthy, passionate about your venture, and connected to your life outside the business.

While you might struggle to let some things go or to pay for services when you think you should save as much money as possible, these days it is easier and more affordable than ever to outsource and automate business functions in a systemized way.

Whether you are completely new to delegating or are already making use of some technological tools, there are sure to be a number of things on your to-do list you can go about handing over in order to claw back time and to concentrate on working on your business rather than in it. This is particularly the case when it comes to regular, simple, yet time-consuming tasks.

If you’re looking to up the productivity in your venture and enjoy some work-life balance, read on for a few jobs you should consider automating or outsourcing today.

Payroll

One common task most people don’t enjoy doing, that can also be easily outsourced, is payroll. There are many great tech programs on the market these days, especially accounting ones, which can automate and simplify this process for you. For example, once you have inputted an employee into a system, you can program the tech to automatically create and email pay slips each pay period, plus the annual documents required for tax and accounting purposes.

If your firm’s payroll is more complicated, or you want to take advantage of a service which can also handle other tasks like the setup of employee benefits and development of training programs, it pays to consider outsourcing the work to a payroll service company.

Apart from the time savings involved in doing this, and the fact that you can be sure important payroll functions are taken care of, you can also often enjoy cost savings. Due to the fact that payroll firms work for numerous clients and are specialists in the area, they can typically provide very affordable rates, and leave you and your team free to concentrate on other business activities.

Social Media

In this day and age, when social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and LinkedIn are bigger than ever, all businesses need to have a digital presence. Social media posts should be a key component of any marketing campaigns, and need to be done well. If you struggle to find the time to really commit to social media marketing, or simply don’t know how to effectively use the sites so that you get results, it may be time to outsource all or part of the work.

For starters, consider using some of the many great apps and websites which have been developed to help automate social media posting, relationship building, and analytics. There are programs, for example, which will post your updates for you automatically at pre-scheduled times and dates, so that you don’t have to be live on the sites each time; plus those which will make sure your content is shared to multiple networking sites at once. This can be a huge time saver.

You should also take a look at software which helps you work out the most shareable content for you to upload for your particular target market, and which will analyze the results of each of your posts so that you can see which keywords, images, videos, promotions, or other types of content work best. Keep an eye out, too, for programs which will help you to locate and connect with industry leaders and influencers in your field, or assist you with making your photographs and other graphics more memorable, beautiful and shareable.

Recruitment

Lastly, when it comes to hiring new staff members, don’t be afraid to get a little help so that you save yourself a whole heap of time. For example, one of the benefits of technological advances with regards to recruitment is that there are now affordable tech programs which can automate the sorting of job applications. You can use specialized software which will use criteria you input (think keywords, locations, and qualifications) to find a recommended shortlist of candidates.

These types of programs can also help with the creation of specific careers website pages, the set up and scheduling of interviews, applicant tracking, and communication. You will also find software which will streamline and automate tasks such as shift scheduling and the tracking of staff attendance, sales results, and holiday accumulation.

In business, a lot of the advice you receive is very good in theory but doesn’t help that much when you put the work into practice. A lot of leadership methods are like this, often having nearly no impact on the work you do. But, in some areas, the advice you get could be very sound. A great example of this is a business plan. This element of your company is vital for success, but a lot of start-ups still ignore it, resorting to going with the flow, instead. To help you out with this, this post will be going through some of the areas you should be planning.

Of course, it will be hard to start building a plan if you don’t know what it’s important. Having a plan in place will make each stage of your business much easier. At the start, when you’re first learning, knowing what to do will be very helpful. As you grow, your plan will help you to improve your company, setting out objectives along the way. Like any goal you’d like to reach, knowing what you have to do at each point is very important. Along with this, though, your plan could also be an invaluable resource if you ever find yourself looking for investment.

Below, you’ll find some of the areas you should include in your business plan. Most of these areas are vital to your company, and will impact the work that you do for many years. So, it’s worth making sure that you consider them as best you can. Doing some research at this point can be extremely helpful.

Finances

Finances will always be very important to your company, and you will have to know what to expect along the way. To begin, you should plan how your money will be managed in your company. In most cases, small companies will use a CPA service to handle this side of their company for them. Of course, though, this isn’t the only side of money you have to worry about, though.

The future of your business will largely depend on the future of your money, and this is something you have to be able to plan for. As your company becomes more popular, you will slowly be able to start making more and more money. With this sort of resource behind you, it will be possible to start putting new work into action. But, you need to know what you’re aiming for if you want to achieve it. To do this, it’s wise to plan for at least five years, plotting how much you expect to grow and make with each one. With this in place, it will be easy to see if your business is successful with each year that passes.

Growth

As you start to generate more income, your business will get the chance to grow. In most cases, missing the chance or going for it too early can spell doom for a start-up, so it’s important to know how you’re going to expand. Some companies will want to start hiring new employees to increase their workload. Others, though, will prefer the idea of stocking a greater range of products to sell. This sort of time is critical to your company, though. So, you have to make sure that the growth options you choose make sense for the future of it.

Along with being able to expand at this stage, a lot of companies also like to have a look at their branding and marketing efforts. As your company grows, you will have to adapt the way that you speak and interact with customers. Of course, though, it will be hard to know what needs to be done until the time comes. To make this a little easier, your planning should include times for meetings and discussions with other members of your company to make sure that these areas don’t get forgotten. While trying to grow, it could be very hard to deal with things like this. So, it’s best to have them all sorted before you start.

Emergencies

During the life of your company, it’s likely that you’ll run into some unexpected things along the way, even with a good plan in place. The way that you deal with these issues will shape the impact they have on your company. So, it’s worth making sure you have the right tools in place in case you ever have any issues.

The law is very strict in most places and will be harder on businesses than anyone else. If you ever find yourself in legal trouble, it could be hard to know what to do, and you might have to spend crucial time doing research and learning. To avoid this, you should have a good legal company to help you with this sort of work long before you ever start doing business. The options in your area will probably be enough. But, to make sure you choose the very best protection, it’s worth including reassessments of this area in your plan.

Of course, the law isn’t the only thing a new business has to look out for. Along with this, you could have issues with public relations, employees, and even with other companies stealing from you. Knowing what to do in each of these situations will take a lot of learning. But, once you have all of the information you need, your company will be very well-protected against problems in the future. If you have to spend any money on this side of your company, it can always be seen as an investment.

Hopefully, this post will give you a good idea of what can be done when you’re trying to set out a good plan for your company. Along with this, though, it should also help you to understand the importance of this sort of work. In cases where companies ignore their plan or don’t put the right time into it, problems are usually found. Of course, though, along with this, you also have a lot of other work to do.

Does your startup have a website? If the answer is no, you might want to ask yourself why. It might not seem as though a website should be essential for a business to succeed, but it is. In today’s marketplace, if you are not at least spending some time focusing on your web presence, you can’t really be sure that your business will stay alive for very long. If you have a website, but you are not confident about it, you’re not alone. Many entrepreneurs feel this way at first about their website, and the reason for that is that it takes a lot of hard work to get a website to be professional. If you follow these ideas, however, you will be off to a good start.

Treat It Like A Front Page

Think of it this way: your website is the front page of your business. It doesn’t matter if you hardly ever take any sales online, or your website is just there because you think you should have one. When you are actually designing it, you need to think of it as ultimately being an advertisement for your business. Pretend that every visitor has never heard of your startup (and perhaps they haven’t, yet…). What impression are they getting from your website, straight off the bat? If it is anything short of amazing, you will want to think again about the design of your website. The best way to approach this is to ask yourself to describe your business in one sentence. Then turn that one sentence into something bold, visual and intriguing. You will be amazed at what this can do for your business.

Use SEO For Improved Traffic

One of the major elements you will need to think about during setting up your website is traffic. Ultimately, the more traffic you draw into your website, the better. If you have anything set up as ecommerce, even if it is only a few items for sale, then this is especially important. But even if your website is just going to be that front page we spoke of, you will still want to do everything you can to make sure as many people see it as possible.

Fortunately, there are these days a huge number of tools available which you can use for just that purpose. Many of these tools and techniques fall under the heading of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). If you don’t already know, SEO is the act of improving the likelihood of your website appearing high up on the Search Engine’s Results Page (SERP). There are a lot of things that fall under this umbrella, and one of the main ones has to do with keywords.

Researching what keywords your potential customers are looking for, and then including those in your website, is hugely effective in drawing people in, as is knowing the intent behind those specific searches. How intent works in SEO is a tricky and complex issue, but ultimately the more you understand about your customer’s searches on search engines, the better equipped you are to drive traffic to your website.

The more people who visit your site, the better, so make sure you are doing at least something to drive traffic. If necessary, find professional help with your SEO efforts. You will be glad you did.

Think About Navigation

The simpler your website is, the better, as your customers will want to stay there for longer and might even return more often. One of the best things you can do to make it simpler is to ensure that navigating around the site is as easy as possible. There are many unique solutions to this problem, and a quick search of the web should throw up a fair few templates which you might be able to make use of. However you do it, you want to make sure you are putting some kind of effort into making navigation as easy as possible.

At the very least, you want to make sure that people can easily get from any page back to the home page, as this is the most commonly sought after navigation button. Most often, websites will have these buttons at the top or side, and this is certainly an elegant solution. However, you can do it however you like – as long as users will feel that they can easily get around your website, you are good to go. You will know if there are any troubles, because the relative pageviews and bounce rates of your different layered pages will show the discrepancy. Pay careful attention to this, and if necessary tweak the design so that navigation is given more of a precedent in the web design.

Linking To Social Media

Chances are, your startup will benefit hugely from having an active social media presence as well as its own website. But in order to make the most of both of these, you should endeavor to link them together. There are many ways to do this, some of them quite simple, and they are all effective means of ensuring that your startup’s online presence is more integrated, more brand-loyal and therefore much more effective.

At its simplest, this just means that you have an integrated button or widget on your home page displaying your latest tweets. Even this will ensure that people see much more of your web presence, and is definitely worth installing. If you want to go a little further, you can do so by also linking to your website through your tweets and updates. You would be surprised at just how effective such measures can be in drawing awareness to your brand as a whole – which, after all, is the whole point of the website.

If you allow your website to have a fighting chance of survival, then your startup will begin its life in a much better position than it would otherwise. This alone is reason enough to carry out the steps above as soon as possible.

Whether you sell cakes out of a bakery or smartphones that are made overseas, your product has a deep and intimate link with your consumers. The amount of money they pay for your products will ultimately determine the type of company you are, what your morals are and also how you go about developing your product in the future.

Regardless of how much you charge for your product, there’s a couple of things to keep in mind that you should never let slip.

Your Product Should Make Your Customers Happy

One of the biggest issues that most companies have is developing a product that can relate to their customers. Your products should make the consumer happy, not frustrated. The user experience needs to be clean and straightforward and you should always aim to put a smile on your customer’s face. It sounds like a simple task, but you’d be surprised at how many companies lose sight of this simple requirement and end up frustrating their customers.

Do Customers Know What Your Agenda Is?

Let your customers know in both words and actions about your agenda. Do you plan to provide them with cheap products? Then let them know. Do you want to give your customers the best user experience? Then, again, let them know this so that they can believe you and follow your words. The work you do has to resonate with the customer, and it can only happen if you tell them about your plans both current and future.

Your Customers Pay for What You Make

It sounds obvious, but your customers are going to be paying for what they deem is a good price for your products. If you advertise yourself as the cheap option, then don’t use it as an excuse to make terrible products that barely work after a few weeks. Similarly, if you’re going to charge large sums of money for your products, then make sure it’s worth the actual cost and that you’re not ripping them off. Take a look at Heartrepreneur.com for some more in-depth articles about cost leadership and how it can be used effectively in your business through examples. If you manage to build a niche around your business model and the worth of your products, then you’re off to a good start.

Do Your Customers Know How to Use Your Product?

One of the most underestimated things in business is the ability of your customer. Some customers will know how to use your product better than you, but others will have trouble with the smallest things that you wouldn’t even be able to notice. Take a look at this article from Talentzoo.com for a rough idea of how you can use simple language to explain complicated products. Although something might make sense to you, you need to keep in mind that customers will have zero experience with your products and they need to be taught in simple terms. If you ignore this, then your customers will only get frustrated at using your product and ultimately stop using it.