Startup Tips

Are you interested in opening a tech start-up? Then you need to know about the trends that are currently shaping the modern IT industry. Technology in the world of business is changing every day. But if you know the direction it’s headed, you can get ahead of the curve and make sure your new company is on the road to riches. Here are a few of the trends you need to keep in mind when opening your new tech company.

Mobile Is Magic

If you look at the world today, you will see that the majority of the general public no longer spend hours on computers and laptops. Instead, they complete most of their processes on their phones or tablets. They buy products on their phones, they play games on their tablets, they work on their tablets, and they interact with each other using these devices. In a few years, we wouldn’t be surprised if major tech companies started to phase out mass computer production. Right now, they are still important, but it’s clear that the future is mobile. Google know this because they have recently implemented a new penalty specifically for poor mobile responsiveness. Therefore, you should make sure that any tech you’re producing is related to mobile devices. Or, that the software you’re creating can operate on these devices.

Rapid and Ready

One of the worst things that you can do in the tech industry is release a product or piece of software that isn’t as fast or as advanced as the competition. If you do this, your business is already behind, and we’ve seen this happen a lot with the tech industry before. Even major brands have made this mistake. Several years ago, Nintendo released the Wii-U. This games console was already at least one generation behind the current competition based on processing ability and graphics. The Wii-U was an incredible failure, but it provides an essential lesson that tech companies need to know. Even if it drives up the costs, you must keep up with the other companies on the market.

If you’re creating software, you should make sure that it is operating at its maximum potential before you start selling it to customers. To do this, you can use something like JIRA testing to ensure that your software does not fail upon use.

Automated World

If you want your new software or technology to be successful, make sure it is automated. What this means, is that it does not require any human interaction to operate. This tech is going to be part of the future for every industry in the world today. From manufacturing to word processing to customer service, tech and software will take over the jobs businesses used to need employees for. As such, it only makes sense that new start-ups should be based around this idea. Imagine if you created one of the pieces of software that passes the Turing test. It would ensure that your software was on the wish list of hundreds of companies around the globe.

If you understand these trends, there is nothing stopping your tech startup from being a huge success in 2017 and the years to come.

Whether it’s the result of programs like The Apprentice or the prominence given to startup hubs like Silicon Valley, entrepreneurialism is a hot topic right now. Starting a businesses is undoubtedly an attractive prospect, particularly when it relates to a personal passion, but many of the other so-called advantages of starting a company from scratch are accompanied by huge challenges.

Before you decide to quit your nine-to-five job and start your own business, make sure you know exactly what you’re getting yourself into. Here are five common misconceptions to be aware of.

That you’re in charge

It is true that if you start your own business you are technically your own boss, but in practical terms this doesn’t mean that you have no one to answer to. If you sought out investors, for example, you’ll certainly need to explain your decisions to them, particularly if they don’t go to plan.

Similarly, if you’ve co-founded a business with other individuals, there may be plenty of times where differences of opinion occur and you need to come to some sort of compromise. Although starting your own business probably affords you more autonomy than you would have as an employee, you can’t do whatever you want, whenever you want.

That everything has to be digital

It’s true that the digital economy has grown hugely in recent years and now underpins many businesses, but that doesn’t mean that it is the be all and end all. There are many startup organisations that, although they may have a digital presence, are not digital businesses per se.

So, your new business could see you working from a laptop in a coffee shop somewhere, or it could see you holed away in a job site trailer on a construction site. Don’t limit your business ideas to the digital sphere, there’s still room for more traditional industries to flourish.

You can buy your way to the top

Although having strong financial backing, either personally or from investors, will prove helpful, there are many examples of businesses that have succeeded through sheer hard work and determination, rather than a swollen bank account. You’d be surprised how far bootstrapping can take your business.

All you need is a good idea

Good ideas are often the starting point for successful businesses, but that doesn’t mean that they guarantee success. There have been plenty of instances of fantastic business ideas that have faltered for a multitude of other reasons, be it poor financial planning or disappointing marketing campaigns.

Some of the factors that undermine good ideas are also completely out of your control. Sometimes, the wider audience simply aren’t ready for the kinds of developments your business is offering and sometimes, the technology is not in place to implement your ideas. For example, there were video streaming sites before YouTube and mp3 players before the iPod, but, for whatever reason, they have not stood the test of time.

Starting a business should fill you with excitement, but don’t get fooled into thinking it’s an all-expenses paid ticket to the big time.

It’s easy to be swept away by the technicalities of the business world as an entrepreneur, and this is no bad thing. It’s better than you push your business to grow internally, through mediums such as online marketing and other technologically-geared solutions in an advancing and ever-evolving world.

Still, it helps to pull your head out of the virtual world of business now and then, especially if you’re running a business which is still based, in some sense, in the physical world and operated by physical people. Neglecting either of these aspects can lead productivity and efficiency to drop, meaning you’ll start to notice the effects within your virtual operations. Here’s some guidance for those business owners neglecting the important of the office space.

A better office means better workers.

If your business runs a lot of its operations online, it can be easy to forget the world around you. I’m not saying you don’t have to make connections with real-life people in real-life situations, but when business operations take place through a screen, the office-space in which you work can start to fall off into an unimportant backdrop. Yet, for many of your workers, the environment in which they work is still vitally important to their mindset.

If you want to ensure your business’ productivity stays at a high level, and your overall efficiency or reputation doesn’t falter, then you need to start thinking about your office design. Yes, you need to impress customers in the external world, but you also need to keep your employees happy on an internal basis. Dull colours, stuffy cubicles and uninspired layouts in office spaces are the butt of many jokes because they are a joke. People don’t want to feel like rats in a cage; they want to feel like people.

Improving lighting, colours, open spaces and even installing quirky features in the break room like an ice cream machine or a pool table, for example, could entirely transform your workplace. Employees might work harder when they’re actually looking forward to their breaks and they don’t have to work in such a dull, uninspiring environment. You’ll also impress guests (whether they’re potential business partners or clients) when they visit your office. This all helps to build the company image.

It’s what lies on the outside that counts.

I know. That goes against everything your mother told you as a child, but the business world isn’t like the playground. It’s a vicious, competitive and impatient game. People and businesses don’t have the time to get to know your business brand, what you truly stand for or how good your workers truly are, especially if you’re new to the playing field. That’s why you’ve got to make an impression from the word “go”, and this means your business needs to be making a rather shallow first impression through glitzy branding and an impressive exterior.

Of course, when your business reaches the point at which its ready to have its own premises, the building is very important. This is the physical symbol of your company, so you might as well make it count. There can be no half-measures in business, and this is a requirement which definitely applies to the aesthetic quality of your premises. Companies such as Armstrong Steel can offer you better guidance when it comes to creating the perfect office building.

The key to creating the perfect office on the inside and outside is to think about your business’ core values, your market, and what impression you might want to make; whether you want to be tall and intimidating or cozy and approachable, there’s a right and a wrong way to put together your business premises.

Relaying information to your customers is something that you definitely need to do when you run a business. But getting it done in a concise, professional and clear way is not always easy. One of the most important things to do is keep it simple. If you try to over-complicate matters when you want to get your message across, you will simply ruin your chances of getting it across successfully. When a message is complicated and messy, it doesn’t hit home.

Use Digital Displays

If you are looking for a way to get information across to customers when they’re in your store, digital displays can be good solutions. They are attractive and clean. Those things matter because information that is presented in that way is much easier to digest and understand for you customers. That’s what’s most important. Digital signage monitors are widely available, so make sure you browse the options. Another good thing about them is that they stand out and grab attention more than ordinary in-store signs do. That means customers will be less likely to miss them.

Emphasize the Important Things

There are some things that are always important when you are trying to promote a sale or sell a new product. These are the things that should be focused on and highlighted repeatedly when you are formulating your business’s messaging strategy. Keep it simple and focus on just two or three things that you want the customer to take away with them. Think about how many adverts people see each day. There is no way in which they can remember everything they are bombarded with. So, you will have more chance of making your messages stay in people’s minds if it’s simple and concise.

Ditch the Information That Doesn’t Matter

You will simply overwhelm your customers if you throw too much unnecessary information in their faces. Rather than allowing them to take more away with them, which I’m sure is your aim, you will cause them to remember nothing about what was said. It will just merge into one big messy dialogue that they forget within a few minutes. You should always ditch the information that is extraneous. If the customers don’t 100% need to know about it and if it won’t matter much to them, leave it out. It’s not about hiding things from them; it’s about hitting them with the important stuff first.

Keep Customers Informed Via Newsletters

However, there are ways to deliver more information to customers. This is away from the ordinary marketing and advertising methods that your company employs. Email newsletters are easy to send out and they help to keep customers informed with regards to what the business is up to. This is useful because it can be read by the recipient in their own time and at leisure. It can also deliver long-form information that is broken up into different sections. So, if that sounds appealing to you, start compiling an emailing list and send out email newsletters each week.

The market is more crowded than ever. Thanks to the internet it’s never been easier for people to set up their own startup companies and push forward with something they’re truly passionate about. This is, undoubtedly, a good thing. Startups are often some of the most innovative and exciting companies around. That is, of course, if they can actually succeed at all. The sad fact of the business world is that, for every business that succeeds, a dozen or more are left behind. But why does that happen? The sheer level of competition is definitely a factor, but it’s far from the only, or even the most important one. So why do so many startups fall at the first hurdle? And how can you avoid suffering the same fate?

Failing to move with the markets

One of the most classic mistakes that people make when starting their own business is not being ale to accurately see where the market is going. The world is constantly changing, and it’s the responsibility of every business to not only change with it but to guide those changes as well. The problem with a lot of startups is that they assume that the market they first appear in is the way things are always going to be. So when things inevitably do change, they’re completely unprepared. To prevent this, you and your business need to be ready to roll with the punches and move alongside the market. Entrepreneurs like https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimtsokanos have made their entire careers out of keeping businesses right on the cutting edge of the current climate. There are more than a few lessons that you can learn from people like Jim Tsokanos about how to, not only survive but thrive, in an ever-changing world.

Ambition

Ambition is important; there’s no doubt about that. You should always be driven to push your business forward. But the problem with many startups is that they don’t know how to keep that growth manageable. It might seem like a good idea to grow your business as fast as you can in order to compete in an increasingly cutthroat market but, in the end, that causes more problems than it solves. A larger business comes with more demands and bigger expectations from investors. If you’re not growing your business carefully in a manageable way, then you’re inevitably going to find that pressure becoming too much. It’s a much better idea to keep your business at a level where all of the expectations on it can be met. As your experience, bottom line and abilities increase, then you’ll be in a position to push your business on to bigger and better things.

Ego

It takes a certain type of person to strike out on their own with an idea that they’re totally passionate about. You need to be driven, talented and confident. All of these are undoubtedly positive attributes, but if left unchecked, they can cause problems. There is no room in a successful business for rampant egos. Business is a team effort and behaving as though you’re above everyone else is a surefire way to lose talented and dedicated members of that team.

With all the advancements that research into digital tech has brought, there is no surprise that are many problems emerging with each discovery. These issues can vary from simple storage issues to cyber-crimes and hacking.

In business? Problems can present much more than a simple headache. A simple problem can open a chasm. You need to nip it in the bud and prepare for the eventuality that problems and issues will come to the doorstep of your business.

There are plenty of things that can hurt a business and among one of the biggest issues for businesses right now is the threat of cyber-crime. Your business doesn’t need to have a physical presence to become a tasty target for criminals.

Criminals, hackers, terrorists, and thieves use the Internet as a tool to commit a crime. This threat, known as cyber-crime is a serious danger, and it’s a growing industry. Intrusions into the personal files and data of people and the servers that businesses store data on are becoming common. Why? Because some make it far too easy to be robbed over the internet. It can be easy money, and your data can be sold without a trace. As time goes on, this threat can only get worse.

The impact of these types of crime across the world is absolutely mind-blowing. A huge amount of money is spent repairing and maintaining systems that have been cracked wide open by Internet-based criminals. It’s an amazingly enormous risk to leave a business open to the threat of cyber-criminals.

As mentioned earlier, it’s your data they are after. Your data can be stolen and passed on. Why? Because legitimate companies will buy phone numbers and email addresses, so they have more people to market to without going through the work of generating leads. It can be passed on without a trace and criminals can make a lot of money from you. Protect yourself and your business so that you can prevent all of this from happening in the first place.

Solid anti-virus software is your first port of call. Update it frequently and scan your computers thoroughly. This is the first step and sometimes, the only step you need to take as it will remove malware and viruses from your system.

As for your data? Ensure all the data that your business holds is backed up. Sensitive data should be erased when your business has no need for it. If it doesn’t exist, criminals won’t be tempted.

In the event of a true disaster – a system outage or so, you need to get back on track as soon as possible. Any delay will result in your data and systems being vulnerable. Speak to a secure data recovery specialist, protect your data and work on preventing the situation from occurring again.

Whether it’s a power-cut, or cyber-crime – you, as a business owner, need to be proactive about the solution. Prevent and deter threats so that if the worst does happen – there’s no additional criminal activity going on that you need to worry about.

In business, there are a few areas that matter more than most. Think of them as your bones, or your bread and butter, if you will. When you’re creating a business, not only are you going to want to ensure that you can make money, but you’re also going to want to make sure that you can sell your product and service, and market your business too. Across each of these areas, there is one area of business that joins everything up, often, it can even make or break your business, and that would be your brand.

Branding is big. Not only does a color, a sound, a sentence, or an image have the power to bring your business to mind, but it can also facilitate the success of a company or even the failure. Whether you choose to work with Branding Agencies or give it a go yourself, it’s crucial that your business has a brand. When it comes to working on that brand yourself or creating one from scratch, here’s how to do it.

Think About Who You Are As A Person

Now, if you’re new to branding, or if you’ve got some experience but your current brand isn’t doing all that well, you’re going to want to start at the very beginning. In short, branding is all about personality and image. It allows a business or a company to be thought of as a person. One way that you can work on building up a brand is to break down yours. Think of your personal traits – what are they? When you can identify what makes you-you, you can get to know your brand. Then, you’ll start to understand exactly how branding works.

What Does Your Business Do

Now that you’ve dissected your own brand, it’s time to do the same with your company. If you’re going to create a killer brand, you need to work on getting to know it better. Understanding your business can be a lot harder than you think. Often, you can have an image in mind of what you want it to be, rather than how it is seen by the outside world. So, it’s time to break down exactly what it is your business does.

Do You Have An Image?

Breaking down your business can be a great first step. Not only will you uncover issues that you may not have known about, but you will also start to see your business as others see it. When you get to this stage, you can see exactly what image your business has. If you’ve yet to get started, you won’t have one, but if you’ve been operating for some time, your image could be positive, negative, or even irrelevant.

How Do You Want To Be Seen

Despite your current image, you need to figure out exactly what you want it to be. Sometimes, you’ll find that your brand image needs a complete makeover. And that’s okay, that’s what relaunches are for. The important part is that you can see where you are now and where you should be. At this point, you have to work out what your business should be saying so that you can figure out how to get there.

Research

With an idea in mind of what you want your image to be, you can then start to conduct research. It is tempted just to start with the idea that you have, but without research, it could be weak. When you consider the market and look at what your competitors are doing, you can spot new opportunities or work on improving things that they have gotten wrong in the past. It can often be the pivot that turns your brand from something that’s okay, to something that shines.

Understand Your Message

Next, you’re going to work on your messaging. Whether you realize it, every time your company communicates, you’re sending a message to your customers. From heading to Twitter and Facebook, to sending out emails or even speaking to your customers on the telephone, every single word says something about who you are as a company. So, it’s important that you work on getting your messaging right.

Draw Up A Design

With your ducks in line, you now want to work on pulling everything together. Regardless of the company design you’ve had before, you need to use your desires and research to come up with something that works. Imagery is everything here, so it’s important that you portray the image that you want customers to see, not just something that you think looks nice. Focus on your basics here. Are you luxury or budget? Make sure your design follow suit.

Pick A Color

Alongside design, you’re also going to want to make sure that you’re using a color palette that sends the right message too. Colors are powerful. They can signify different things to different people, but most of the time, they all have the same meaning. So, if you want to give off an image that is ‘fresh’ or maybe even ‘elegant,’ you need to pick a color scheme that works.

Stay Unified

Then, as your brand image is being built and customers start to recognize you, you need to make sure that you stick with a unified front. When you have a set design on your website, you need to make sure that it matches your store (if you have one), or things like vehicles, business cards, uniforms and even your social media presence. When you integrate your brand, customers can recognize you, regardless of the avenue they take to find you.

Be Transparent

And finally, as you start to build up your brand more and more, you’re going to want to ensure that it has integrity. A brand can only have a good or positive image if it stays loyal to its customers, it’s honest, and it’s true. One way to do that is to be transparent. That way, you can connect with your clients and work on building relationships that last, rather than selling yourself out and falling at the first hurdle.

Being in charge of any company requires a lot of focus on the finer details in order for the larger details to soar. Regardless of whatever company that you are in charge of, it is always a large task. When it comes to running a manufacturing firm, it is amazing that the focus is very rarely on the staff themselves. It is almost taken for granted that the human aspect will be there to punch in and punch out, but with factory workforces comes shifts, long hours with very little daylight, and low morale. When it comes to leading the factory operation, here are some things that you should take on board.

The little things mean a lot. In a factory setting, paying attention to the smaller details can be overlooked. When manufacturing products on a large scale, making the assumption that the product is correct every single time is not the right assumption. Make sure that you have a follow-up system in place. It is a fact of life that human error is a very common issue, and while we need to reduce these errors, we need to find the right methods in which to do it without reducing morale. One way to do it would be to implement discipline or reliability within a team, much like a military effort where reliability on each other and dependency is promoted as the number one working method, so there is no weak link in the chain, and staff are aware of their individual responsibilities as part of a larger system, especially when you are working in an environment which can compromise safety. For example, if you are working with chemicals.

Reinforcing team spirit is another tool which is seldom communicated. The General Motors credo of “Common, Common, Common” comes to mind. In other words, everyone understanding the same goal, regardless of where you are on the ladder. This is a great way to promote unity and solidarity. Using the right tools to continuously improve the manufacturing process, whether it is technology or employing staff morale techniques, understanding that everybody has the same goal is a good approach for a company regardless of its size and stature.

Understanding your space is an all encompassing term. You could take it to mean your physical factory space, or you could take it to be where you fit in the market. Either way, both approaches are required to make sure that you work as productive as possible. So when it comes to the physical space, are you making sure that you use it as well as you possibly can? The factory line process is a very linear process, are you using that space effectively? And when it comes to your place in the market, understanding where you fit applies especially if you are a start-up company, as you need to make sure that your overheads are not excessive and that you are able to corner a part of the market for you to be successful.

The final piece of the puzzle is keeping your staff happy. Ultimately happier workers are more productive workers, so by integrating some different techniques to increase workplace morale, this will have a benefit on them individually as well as your overall productivity.

You might think that your startup is fantastic and able to achieve anything you want it to. But the reality is probably not quite like that. No startup is an island, and going it alone without using external assistance can be a big mistake. You don’t want to risk the future of your business just because you were too stubborn. So, here’s why you need help and how you should go about getting it.

You Can’t be an Expert at Everything

You might be good at what you do, but you can’t possibly be good at every single thing that There are people out there who are experts and what they do, and that’s when outsourcing can be really helpful for you. It will allow you to take advantage of the skills and abilities of other people. Rather than doing things poorly by yourself, it makes sense to allow other people to do them well. In the end, it’s your company that will benefit from this, so it has to be a good thing. For example, Mustard IT, experts in IT support, can help you to do the things that you probably can’t.

Time is Precious When Running a Company

If you try to take everything on by yourself when you’re running a business, you will undoubtedly become pressed for time. Time is already tight when you run a  company, so why make it even more difficult for yourself? If you use the best external companies and outsource in the right way, you should be able to make sure that you don’t run out of hours in the day. Overworking yourself will take its toll eventually, so it would be a mistake to operate in this way. Eventually, you’ll crash and the business will suffer as a result of this.

Check the Company’s Reputation

When you do decide to start outsourcing some of the tasks that your business needs to take care of, you should always have a look at the reputation of the business first. This is key because you don’t want to outsource to companies that you can’t really trust. It’s understandable that some business owners are nervous about using external companies that they have no control over. It is certainly a risk, but by doing your research and informing yourself, you should be able to make choices that work out well for you.

Don’t Settle for Poor Support When You Outsource

Even if you do your research and find companies you think you can trust, there are still things that can go wrong. Don’t let this put you off, though. Remember, you are the customer when you outsource to another company. If you are not happy with the service you are getting, you can complain and fight for a better service. Or you can take your custom elsewhere and find a preferable alternative. You shouldn’t settle for poor support or poor results when you outsource to another company; that’s simply not how it should be, so don’t stand for it.

These days, nothing captures an audience’s attention quite like the magic of moving image. Before the internet really advanced, people were quite happy to sit through a couple of pages of text if that meant that they got the answer they were looking for. But fast forward to 2017 and most of the general public now require almost instant gratification. Advances in technology now mean that we can access pretty much any information we want in an instant – and things only look set to speed up even more. The attention span of the average consumer is not what it used to be. In fact, a pretty eye-opening study from the Microsoft Corp highlighted that now, humans have a lower attention span than a goldfish – around eight seconds, to be precise. This is considered to be a direct result of living in a digital age, where no one really looks beyond the first page of any Google search. Whether you think this is progression or regression is irrelevant – businesses are getting on board with this new phenomenon, many of them profiting from it as a result. Take a look at some of the most successful, modern companies out there. Many of them are choosing to stay away from long passages of text in favor of explaining their message with video instead. This tends to grab people’s attention easily and effectively – plus, nearly everyone has a smartphone, so video can be consumed pretty much all over the world. If you are the owner of a startup, getting your teeth into some video is one of the best ways to ensure you achieve early interest and therefore success. Take a look at these ways you can use video as a must-have tool in your business.

Business introduction/call to action

If you have started your business from scratch, nurtured it and watched it grow over the years, you’re probably going to feel pretty passionate about it. If you sit down to write a short history of your company, you might find yourself getting carried away with all the trials and tribulations you faced to get where you are today. 1000 words later, and you have the ‘About’ page for your website…right? Wrong! It might make a great story, but your customer doesn’t need to know your backstory in any great detail. Sure, it makes sense to give a bit of context. Plus, many people are keen to support local, grassroots types of businesses rather than major international corporations. But you don’t want to overload a prospective client with irrelevant information – they just need to know who you are, what you do and why you are right for them. Using the medium of video to do this with can be a great way to grab your customer’s attention in just a few easy minutes. Unless you are in a very formal line of business, be wary of making it look too corporate and serious. This can be intimidating for a lot of people and may even put them off contacting you. Show you normal working environment, as well as evidence of your business working positively with a client. Most importantly, don’t forget to show off the outcome and include a call to action. If you have an in-house marketing team, creating a video like this may well be within their realm of expertise. If not, you may need to hire a professional videographer to help you bring your vision to life.

Live video

You may have noticed the recent trend for live video that has been taking social media by storm. Going live can be done for a number of reasons by a number of different people. Maybe it is used to live stream a concert, or perhaps someone is going live to document something that is happening to them at the time. But in business terms, it can also be a useful tool. The beauty of social media is that it has given businesses the opportunity to interact with their audiences in real time. This, in turn, makes your customers feel more connected to what you are doing and aspects like the comments system also give them a chance to interact in a more direct form. It is also a great way to subtly market your brand. Obviously, try not to promote your brand too much when you go live. Anyone who is watching clearly already has some kind of interest in what you do, so you don’t need to overwhelm them with your message. Doing so can feel a little pushy and is likely to make people switch off. Instead, use live video to document anything interesting happening – whether this is a staff activity day (seeing behind the scenes can make a business seem much more accessible) or a conference you are attending. However, you need to make sure that the quality of video you are streaming is of an acceptable level. We all know that live video can go wrong sometimes – just look at the amount of news bloopers you see, even on some of the most major channels. But even live streaming for your business needs to have some modicum of professionalism about them, otherwise viewers won’t give you the time of day. Making use of a professional service like a live streaming sdk can help to ensure that your live video always looks good, thus keeping your clients interested.

Staff training

When you first started your business, it may have been a one man or one woman show. A lot of startups start in their future CEO’s bedroom – minimal overheads, of course – and you have to be responsible for every business aspect. That means doing all your own marketing, logistics, book keeping, and management. But as your business grows, there comes a time where this simply isn’t sustainable anymore. Taking on staff can be daunting, of course. Letting anyone else have a say in the business you have worked so hard to get off the ground isn’t a walk in the park for even the most relaxed of CEOs. But once you have started to build a small and loyal team, you will probably wonder how on earth you managed without them. The first step is finding the right kind of people for your business. Personality is just as important as career-skills; you need to find people who share your vision and who will bring vigor and life to your company. A recruitment video, rather than just a job advert, is a great way to capture people’s imaginations and stir some interest in great potential applicants. Once you have done all your interviews and you have a team that you feel confident with, you will need to embark on the training process. Usually, this would involve some kind of welcome pack and a manual. It’s still fine to hand these out – after all, your employees are unlikely to remember everything you tell them in one go. But a more engaging way to train them is by creating and showing them videos. Even if you have the utmost of faith in your employees, you can guarantee that some of them are going to zone out in a training meeting, or maybe not take it all that seriously. By providing a selection of training videos covering all bases, you can rest assured that they will be more likely to actually take in the things you need them to. Video as a whole is one of the best components a modern business can have. So if you’re not doing it already, make it your priority now

Given that every business out there makes a lot of use of technology, it’s surprising to realize that many small and medium-sized companies are still ill-prepared for the worst to happen. However, it’s also easy to see why. We are used to using technology, but until the proverbial hits the fan, most people have no idea of quite how serious an IT disaster can be.

Of course, there is no single method of preventing IT disasters – nor are there any guarantees. But you can reduce the risk to your business by a significant amount with a little investment and think about your critical business systems. Let’s take a closer look at some of your options.

Understand the potential for damage

Start by running through the worst-case scenarios for your business. It could be a serious hacking incident. Or, a natural disaster or fire that destroys a server. It might even be a simple case of a piece of hardware or software failing. In short, imagine having to take every piece of technology out of the equation, one by one, and ask yourself how your business will survive without it. Once you start to learn about the dangers and how long you could be unable to provide a service to your customers,  there is zero chance you will take your IT systems for granted again.

Develop a plan

Now you know the damage you could face, it’s a good time for some disaster continuity and recovery planning. It’s an enormous subject which deserves a closer look, but in essence, there are a few things that all plans should contain. You should have an inventory of all your IT suites, hardware, and software – including any laptops, tablets or smartphones. You should also establish planning to find offsite backups. Include details of key members of staff and assign duties to them in the event of an emergency. Who is going to be on-call? How many team members will you need to keep the business running? Finally, don’t forget, your recovery and continuity plan should never be set in stone – it will need regular checking, adjustments, and ongoing work if you want it to stay relevant for your business.

Invest in the right solutions

Once you know where your strengths and weaknesses lie, it’s time to invest in the right solutions for your business. You will need to fill in any gaps that you have uncovered, and you might want to think about making some suitable upgrades, too. Take your time when making your choices – you might benefit from hiring an IT consultant, who will have a broader view and advice for your business. Research is critical, whichever route you take – and be wary of taking what you read on the Internet as Bible. Always look for a variety of opinions. Let’s say you are looking for a new backup service. You might start to check out this review of Crashplan from cloudstorageboss.com, for example, but you should also look at other online reviews to give yourself a better overview of product suitability

Communications

Let’s not beat around the bush – communications with employees, customers, and suppliers will be critical if you want to survive an IT catastrophe. Let’s start with your employees. Every employee will be looking to you and the leadership team for guidance and encouragement. Don’t forget that an IT disaster can have a great impact on their lives, too, and there will be plenty of worries and concerns you will have to allay. Customers are another clear focus for your communications, who will be expecting to hear from you, receive services, or accept delivery of products. Without your IT systems in place, all of these activities will be difficult, so ensure you have a customer communications plan in place. Finally, take some time to talk to your suppliers, and involve them in a disaster recovery or continuity plan. Understand what they will expect – for example, you might not be able to cancel orders within a specified timeframe.  

Testing, testing, testing

Finally, you have to test all of your systems for robustness, and your team’s ability to manage in a crisis. Bear in mind that your test results will not just be a case of success or failure, it’s an ongoing process to refine and transfer knowledge between your teams – a learning experience if you will. Waiting for a disaster to occur will be a disaster in itself. Testing will help you identify any gaps or weaknesses in your recovery and continuity system – so never assume you have perfect protection.

Many startup owners have a huge problem where their business gets stuck in a rut. Try as they might, they can’t figure out how to get the ball rolling again. Well, did you know that doing some training can be the secret to running your business more effectively? It’s true, there’s lots of training you can do that will benefit both you and your business. Take a look at the ideas below:

Digital Marketing Training

Marketing is an essential part of every business and will help you advertise and promote your company to your target market. If you can train yourself to learn about marketing techniques and how to use them, then you’ll be doing yourself a favor. Instead of undergoing general marketing training, you should narrow it down to digital marketing. This is the current and future of business marketing, and the skills you learn will be very useful. With some training, you will soon understand how to promote your website and increase traffic to it. You can market your company via social media and learn the importance of SEO. All of this comes together to help you market your business all by yourself without having to rely on other people to help you out. The best thing is, it’s something you can teach yourself as you work and get better and better at it.  

Financial Analyst Training

If you undergo financial analyst training, you can streamline your business and run it so effectively. A financial analyst can help a business with regards to how their money should be invested. A good financial analyst can turn the profits from a business into even more money that helps the company move forwards. If you train to be a financial analyst, you can do this for your company. You can analyze financial situations and conditions to figure out the best way to invest your profits and make more money. You can do training and go on a Chartered Financial Analyst program to hone your skills and become even better. It’s great because you can do CFA exam prep in your spare time while you run your business. It may take a while before the training is complete, but the skills you’ll learn are well worth the time and effort.

Leadership Training

Employees are a huge factor in deciding the fate of a business. The key is making sure your employees are all working hard and committed to your company. How can you do this? By being a great leader and inspiring them every day. The best leaders will lead by example and always keep their employees best interests in mind. Often, if your employees are unproductive, it could be down to your poor leadership skills. So, if you get some leadership training, you will become much better at your job. You’ll be more inspiring and can get your staff to work harder and be more committed. Consequently, workplace productivity will go through the roof.

All of these ideas are great as they help you evolve as a business owner and bring more to your company. Plus, you can learn new things that mean you won’t rely on others and can save money by not hiring people to take care of things.

If you’ve been doing your research on what makes a business successful, you will come across all kinds of tips that tell you to spend money here, there, and everywhere. Money unlocks many doors, but you have a finite amount of it. So, let’s cut through all the budgeting stress and address how to prioritize your budget. We’re going to use a few examples, but it’s the reasoning we use that is going to help you decide when to and when not to spend that oh-so-valuable cash.

DO: Market Understanding

Every business is going to have one relationship, in particular, that is going to dominate most decisions that they make. We’re talking about the relationship to the market. Not just the customers out there, but the position of the business in relation to competitors. There’s no doubt that you can do a lot of free fact-finding, like launching questionnaires and looking at opponent marketing. But it’s worth spending a bit of money on market research at the start so you can have access to things like paid survey services that can get you answers a lot quicker. The entire future of the business depends on how well you understand the market, so you shouldn’t feel guilty about spending a little money on it.

DO: Precise production

If you are creating goods to sell to the market, then by no means should you skimp on any part of the production process. You might think that you’re saving money, to begin with. However, in industries like medical machining, opting for lower quality equipment results in products that simply cannot be used by the market. It means much larger long-term costs due to problems like manufacturing downtime, faulty goods, and the cost of additional maintenance and equipment repairs and replacements. Manufacturing isn’t cheap, we understand this. But it shouldn’t be. At the end of the day, delivering a quality product is what’s going to keep the business sustainable, not scrimping every penny you can from the production line.

DO: Employee development

Any business that doesn’t try to develop its employees is going to find itself having an increasingly harder time keeping them. Failing to retain an employee means having to replace them. This means losing production while they’re not there. It also means having to pay for the recruitment process and any training that needs to be done on the new hire. Per employee, this can cost upwards of $40k. Immediately, it becomes clear that investing in a bit of development and reducing their margins of error. is cheaper. It’s also better for the future of the company. A more versatile skill set means you might not have to expand the number of employees to expand the variety of processes that the business is able to take on.

SOME: Marketing

Marketing your business is essential. You need a brand image and some sort of relationship to your consumer base. That does not, however, that you have to constantly spend to do it. It’s a good idea to spend a little on honing your visual brand and creating a truly professional website. However, you don’t have to pay for people to do search engine optimization, content production, and social media marketing for you. It’s all too easy to take that all on yourself. It simply requires a bit of learning that is very available and very free with the amount of helpful content on the internet. If you want to invest in marketing, make sure you’re investing in methods you can’t do yourself. For instance, paying for video production or influencer marketing on someone else’s blog.

NO: Lots of software

The exact same logic applies to the software that your business uses. There’s no doubt that there are going to be some processes for which you would much rather rely on paid software. CAD software if you’re in the business of producing goods or you work in architecture, for instance. However, for a lot of administrative and organizational tasks, it’s a lot easier to simply hunt down the free ones that exist. Sometimes they might not update as often and they might not have the sleek user interface. But they take the same amount of work to get the same results. There’s even free automating software which means that free software might not only save you money but help you make it by making the business more productive.

NO: Your dream office

Having a workplace that fits all the needs of those working inside it and your responsibilities is very important. Investing in ergonomic chairs, effective HVAC, and proper lighting for desks is a good idea. Going above and beyond by investing in the very best office art and most stylish furniture? That is by no means a vital need of the business. When it comes to the workplace, focus on function first and foremost. Only look at the form if you get a sudden windfall and you feel like sprucing the place up a bit. In fact, we would recommend spending less on office space by using remote working agreements as often as you can, too.

NO: Lots of materials

When you’re creating goods and products, you might think that you’re being smart by going for bulk orders. There’s no doubt that you might get quite the discount at first. But have you considered how good the deal will be when you’re still holding onto some of those resources in the far future? You might be costing yourself space that could very well go to other resources that you need. You will also be increasing the cost of inventory. Most goods need some kind of air quality control to stay in shape, after all. Whether you’re dehumidifying, heating or cooling, that’s adding to your long-term bill. Order materials based on demand and nothing else.

The logic above will help you make the right decision no matter what potential expenses float your way in the future. Most importantly, make sure you’re not spending a fortune when you could get the same result from just doing a little work instead.

As a business owner, it’s important that your company always looks stylish and feels professional. Companies that look a mess are unlikely to get the support from customers or clients and will instead be met with snap assumptions. If your business looks untidy customers might assume that you don’t care about the little details. Some of which might be important when ensuring that they get a quality service from your company. Then there’s the trouble with what it says about your work ethic. If your business building is poorly maintained, does that mean that you cut corners? Or, does it simply mean that appearances don’t matter all to your business. You’d be surprised how quickly ideas like this will spread about a company. So what can you do to ensure that your business always looks like the best and brightest on the market?

Cleanup On Aisle Two

You should make sure that you have a full team of staff dedicated to guaranteeing that your business always looks clean and tidy. This is particularly important for parts of your company that will be seen by the customers like the shop floor. There shouldn’t be any dust, mess or rubbish around. You might also want to keep your office tidy too, particularly if you welcome clients back there or even business partners. Don’t forget, they will make snap judgements about your company based on the way it looks. Luckily, there are plenty of office cleaning services offered by companies online for you to choose from. There’s actually no reason to leave your business property looking like a disaster site with these options available.

Style And Appeal

How does your business look to people on the outside of your company? Does your office seem like a place where next level innovative products are created? Curb appeal is an important aspect to consider when thinking about your business design. You need to make sure that the exterior of your business represents the ideas that you are trying to convey. It should look contemporary with an excellent stylish design that stands out on the high street. Do this and you’ll see plenty of clients and customers flocking through your doors.

Little Details

Weirdly, it’s the little details about the look of your business that customers will notice the most. Are the uniforms of your employees freshly cleaned and properly ironed? Do they have name badges to show customers who they are and allow them to interact on a first name basis? It all helps shape the feeling of your company and your employees are just one example to think about. There are many more that will determine who will be interested in buying from you.

Online Appearance

Lastly, it’s important not just to think about the appearance of your business in the real world. You also need to think about how it looks to people finding it online. The key here is great content. If your release fantastic content related to your company you are always going to attract the interest of consumers.