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They say that you should do what you love, but many times people fail to realize that what they love can actually provide them with an income. Many people love to write, but few really think it’s an option that’s available to them. You can apply the same to food. You often see people light up with enthusiasm when they’re talking about their latest recipes or the latest health craze that they’ve made part of their life, but they don’t always grasp that they can make an income from their passion. If you’re one of these people, we’re here to tell you that yes, you can, in fact, make your living this way. Here are five career idea for foodies!

Writing Your Way To Free Meals

You’re already waxing lyrical about food to whoever will listen; why not put those thoughts down onto paper and become a food critic or journalist? It’s a competitive industry to break into, so don’t expect overnight success, but if you’re knowledgeable about food and know how to craft a purring sentence or two, then with hard work and a pinch of luck it might just be your meal ticket. You don’t need anyone to give you the opportunity, either. Just start your own blog, writing about whatever aspects of food that interests you. Bonus: reviewers often get to eat at restaurants for free!

More Than a Chef

Of course, being a chef is the obvious career choice for people who love cooking up a storm. You might have to start small, working wherever you can get a job (restaurants are always looking), but if you show enough dedication to the craft and can concoct your own recipes, you’ll quickly find yourself working up the ladder. Bonus: if you’re a chef, you can pretty much land in any city around the world and find yourself a job. Food knows no boundaries!

Your Own Cooking Roadshow

Cooking for another person’s business is good: cooking for your own business is better. If you have a type of cuisine you’re particularly good with, look at starting your own street food business. These are everywhere right now, and they’re surprisingly easy to get started. All you’ll need is a truck, the essential professional kitchen equipment, a quirky name, and bags of energy. If your food is good enough, people will like it – and from there, the sky’s the limit. Bonus: you’ll be your own boss, and can go wherever you please.

Niche Products

Thanks to hipsters and people who appreciate quality goods, artisan products are everywhere. If you’re a dab hand at making jams, peanut butter, – or let’s be honest, just about anything – then you can bottle up your goods and get them on the shelves. Bonus: you’ll be dedicated yourself to one craft, which studies have shown is a key to happiness!

Expert Advice

If you’re more interested in the relationship between food and the body, look at becoming a food nutritionist. With the current emphasis on eating and living well, you’ll always have someone willing to pay you for your expert advice. Bonus: As a freelance worker, you can pick your own clients and hours.

Here’s to eating well!

As an inventor, creator, or designer; you’ll already understand the importance of timing when it comes to getting your bright idea out on the market. To have a successful startup with something you’ve crafted, you’ll need to ensure that you take all the required action needed to make it a success. An exciting idea, and a gap in the market will always help to get your company off on the right foot; however, more business savvy is needed nowadays to secure a permanent place on the market with your product. The following are some areas that you’ll need to consider if you’re on the cusp of bringing your design to fruition after plenty of hard work.

Can It Be Manufactured?

You may have spent months and years designing a product; however, if you can’t find a way to produce it on mass, it’ll remain a pipe dream. Look into where you’ll need to source each component or material from and think about the team you’ll need to make a quality version of your designs. Do you have the equity to invest in a manufacturing company? You’re going to need one unless you have all the equipment at home; which is unlikely. Find a reputable company who will produce your items, and ensure that you can access them with ease so that communication remains strong throughout the process.

Is It At Risk Of Copycats?

Once you know where and how you’re going to produce your design; you’ll want to make sure that it stays under your company name or brand. It’s worth finding reputable patent attorneys early on in the process to help eliminate the risk of businesses with more power from poaching your hard work. It’s vital that you’re the first to market with your particular item; so do all you can to ensure that nobody else can get their hands on it. Record every step of the process and ensure you have the right legal advice at each step of the way.

Do The Right People Know About It?

When you’ve secured the manufacturing process and the legal rights to your product; it’s time to let the right people know about what you’ve created. Trade shows, networking events, and startup seminars are a great way to hit your target buyers. There will be people from businesses who are looking to buy relevant items that suit their brand; if you think you fit well within another business, make sure you get the chance to speak with their representatives and buyers.

Can It Evolve?

You’re a fresh startup; this means you’ll need to be prepared for criticism and change. Don’t ignore the advice you receive from any industry experts; if more than one person has raised an issue, then it’s likely to be one. You can feel too protective and precious over your design; be prepared to evolve to suit buyers and the current market, and you’ll ensure that you’ll make an impact when you launch, and you’ll be heading for success.

Here, we’re not going to look at the building blocks that make a strong brand. To put it simply, a powerful brand needs a good message that’s smoothly communicated, it needs relevance to its target market, and it needs some amount of market positioning. That’s the brand itself. But a good brand alone won’t win you all the leads and grow revenue. It needs an eye on the more practical applications of the brand to really have its impact. Consider the crafting of the brand itself to be the fuel of your marketing, but here we’re going to look at the nuts and bolts of the machine that really get it working.

The visuals

Nowadays, it seems like most unique branding visual styles have been explored or used to some degree. There’s no doubt that it can be harder to find a style that’s unique to your branding alone. But that’s not such a terrible thing. We’ve created a brand language that allows your business to express itself in terms already known by the audience. For instance, if you want to create a visually striking brand identity, sometimes market research showing your branded materials or prototype packages to your potential customers can help you nail down the kind of brand image they’re most comfortable with. While you want to stand out, you don’t want to go too far and create brand imagery that communicates nothing to your audience.

The voice

Imagery is important, but it’s not the most important force in online marketing nowadays. Content is king, as they say now. You don’t necessarily have to produce a ton of content to stand out, but rather, finding a distinct voice for your brand can give it that extra sense of personality. For instance, in business 2 business industries, it’s more sensible to go with a brand voice that demonstrates authority and professionalism above all else. On the other hand, if you’re branding a lifestyle business like travel or food, then evocative, emotional brand voices can be much more tantalizing to the audience.

The name

This is one of the easiest parts of a brand’s identity to get wrong, and one that many companies still do. The name should, first of all, be recognizable and easy to remember. If you’re using online marketing, like most businesses are, then you should also ensure that you can easily acquire a domain name that fits the business’s name. Expertise from sites like Nameperfection can help you break down the science of what different styles of names evoke, whether you want it to be cutesy, catchy or cool. The name very much has to be tied to the brand, after all, not something distinct and different. If you want a brand that feels comforting and emotionally warm, then you’re not going to communicate that very well if your name sounds rigid and formal by comparison.

The platform

Where you build your brand matters as much as the materials you use to build it. When it comes to the online world, building your own site is an essential way of using whatever imagery, content, and formatting you like to design your very own brand display. Social media networks offer more restraints on the expression of your brand. At the same time, they’re valuable tools so learning how to work well within those restraints is crucial. For instance, lifestyle brands might use the visual appeal of their products and focus more on sites like Instagram compared to other brands. If you do, then Econsultancy’s exploration of different ways to use the format can show that there are a variety of ways to use the channel to fulfill different goals.

The connectivity

Another use of social media is, of course, to get others involved in the brand. The message, the imagery, and the name are only as powerful as the people who believe in them. Focus on building a community around your brand to give it the public prestige and the positive social proof of its place in the world. Your community doesn’t have to consist of just your customers and brand fans, either. It can also include partnerships with other businesses that offer a greater platform to share your content and latest news, often in return for the same favor. Of course, you need to be careful with who your brand associates with. If you espouse one value and you’re sharing content that espouses the exact opposite, it harms the consistency and thus the trustworthiness of your branding.

The confidence

Marketing the brand doesn’t all take place online. It takes place in conferences, at trade shows, in one-to-one meetings, and customer support phone calls. A sense of personal charisma and confidence in the business and the brand is crucial if you’re in a front-line role. People simply listen more to a confident speaker and are more likely to believe what they say. You might not necessarily get the Steve Jobs effect in every single startup, but you can have a great impact on how the brand is perceived.

The good

Finding your values are part of the initial development of the brand message. But acting on those values are how you reinforce that brand. For instance, many business owners are recognizing the importance of their corporate social responsibility and how it affects the consumer’s impression of them. Finding the right causes to cross-promote with and work with through services like Engage For Good can help you live up to the promises that the brand makes. Otherwise, certain political or social values you claim to have are going to look like little but lip service to the consumers. It’s also been shown that a company engaged in public good also tends to have more motivated, engaged employees.

The points above should help you plot out the transformation from a brand into a real marketing force to be reckoned with. It’s easy to get caught up in the power of belief in the brand without really implementing it in a way that’s going to catch the target market. Don’t let that happen to your business.

As a startup starts to make a profit, your role in the business must change. There is simply too much to do for one person to manage. So you start hiring. You might engage a couple of part-timers from a pool of associates and friends. Over time, you might even take on a couple of managers and some contract staff. Unfortunately, nothing stays the same for long. Your business is growing, and more opportunities are presenting themselves. What happens now?

You have a couple of choices when things start to ramp up for your business. You can develop and fully utilize the employees you already have. Or you can start hiring people that already have the experience and training necessary, albeit with a different company. Neither option is ideal, but every company that enjoys success will face it. So which is best for your business at this point in time?

Recruit

It’s important not to be put off by the recruitment process. As expensive and long-winded as it might seem, there are many shortcuts and clever hacks to reduce the impact on your business. Start by centralizing your HR provision. You might use HRMS software that can easily track and present your current employees as well as applicants you’re considering for new roles. This saves you an enormous amount of time. It can also reduce your need for a dedicated HR manager or third-party recruitment agency.

Recruiting new talent into your business helps to bring in more experience. You might acquire market insights that you don’t already have internally. Fresh inputs and ideas can help your business to grow in new ways and can help your current employees look in new directions too. Ultimately it gives you the opportunity to delegate tasks that are clogging your schedule. It gives you the chance to hire specialists that can perform those tasks quicker and more efficiently than you.

Restructure

Restructuring is all about change. Some of your current employees might not react well to change. However, a restructuring that is sold as a career opportunity might encourage more positive reactions. You might restructure by moving personnel up into more responsible positions. Adjust the job title and add some cash to their salary and you’ll have very happy employees.

For the most part, you are looking for current staff members to take on more tasks without adjusting their pay band. This will be more difficult to acquire a buy-in. It’s important you balance the move by taking some tasks off their workload. The purpose of this might be to move certain personnel into more specialist areas rather than offering them a general role. Remember, any drastic change to their work title or duties might require Union notification.

The best approach to both recruitment and restructuring is to discuss it openly with existing employees. You might be pleasantly surprised by how involved some personnel might be willing to become. If they volunteer to take on the tasks or agree to swap duties, then you’re unlikely to need to spend a great deal of time managing this. Which would you choose?

It’s not just the market that startups have to fear: it’s crime too. And with businesses being the target of about 20 percent of total crime in the country, it’s a serious threat. According to estimates, offenses by the general public cost businesses in the region of $120 billion a year, representing a significant drag on their bottom line. So what can your business do about it?

Secure Your Equipment

When thieves target your business, they’re not after everything you own. Usually, they just want the high-value items. Your office desks and chairs are probably safe, but your electronics (and other portable devices that can be easily wiped and sold) will be on their target list. The best strategy to protect your equipment is to use tagging and record any serial numbers in a central database. For other large valuable equipment, consider fixing it to the walls or the floor using non-standard bolts so that it is difficult for criminals to find the right tools to release it.

Protect Your Data

Your data is a target too. If your company collects valuable information about customers or has a proprietary database that other companies might want, then thieves will target these so that they can pass them onto other people. Plus, even if your data is specific to your firm, you could suffer a ransomware attack where thieves demand money for the release of your data.

Protecting data well isn’t an easy task and will probably require the assistance of external professionals. However, there are things that you can do right now to up your game. Try compartmentalizing your network so that individual members of staff can only access areas on an “as needed” basis. This will help to minimize risk because even if a criminal gets access to one person’s account, they can’t then use that to collect files from the rest of the system.

Use Vandalism Countermeasures

Vandalism can represent a serious cost to businesses in some neighborhoods. Even in wealthier districts, vandals can still strike during protests and riots. Because of this, it’s worth using anti-vandal paint wherever possible and graffiti film for windows. These measures dramatically reduce the cost of vandalism by providing a cheap and easily-replaced protective layer between the vandals and your property.

Conduct Regular Security Audits

Security isn’t a fixed parameter: it’s something that changes from day to day, week to week. To begin with, your employees might be following your security protocols, but over time, they may get lazy and decide that they are no longer important. What’s more, the criminals themselves will change tactics in response to your countermeasures. Startupdonut recommends that businesses conduct an internal audit of their security measures at least once a year and train their staff on how to protect their business, what to look out for and how to recognize potential criminal activity.

Prevent Employee Theft

Employee theft is a serious issue for many companies. It’s a good idea to conduct background checks on every new person you consider hiring and potentially to do on a yearly basis with your current employee base. You never know what might have happened in a persons life that will alter their focus or moral standards.

If you’ve got a passion for working with kids and want to help them grow, starting a daycare center business is one of the best career paths you can follow. Not only do you get to decide how you day care center runs and looks, but you also show the market, that your business model is the best on offer. Creating daycare center requires you to be a people person, because of the enjoyment and learning an aspect of children and understanding their minds, is what will draw parents in through your door. After studying the child business industry, you should be aware that there will be certain legal practices you’ll have to follow regarding paperwork the physical stature of your center. A lack of foresight can be detrimental, so health and safety must be absolutely at the forefront of the design, but the business plan should also lack holes.

Toddler target market

There are many different age groups that have their own style of a daycare center. Just-walking children will be more or less treated like babies, but with little more activities. While toddlers are the most popular market choice because they can occupy most of their own time, through play and interaction. They can also be better directed to pay attention and respect an authority figure. Slightly older children who are nearing the end of their elementary education, also have day care centers for busy parents who pick them up from school. Toddlers who are between the ages of 4 – 8 are the best choice for a startup as both educational and play services are important to their growth in equal measure.

Things to consider during construction

Health and safety come before anything when design the outside play area. Remember, you’ll be trusted with the physical health of other people’s children, so make sure the materials you use are modern. For example, to avoid children scraping their knees are tearing the skin off their hands when they fall, use poured rubber flooring. It’s bouncy and has the ability to be colored, into children’s character designs. The swing set must have foam put around the metal bars, and the playhouse should also have pillows in it, and cushioned ceilings, so children don’t bump their heads.

The ethos of the floor plan design

Measure the amount of space you have available and flowing floor plan the property you’re using has. Consider the fact that children should be subconsciously be made aware that the play area is separate from the learning area so that a clear boundary is understood. The most spacious room could be for educational purposes like reading books, coloring, stories and for sleeping. The small rooms should be used for eating purposes whereby groups of children should be taking turns rather than all eating at once, which could cause a lot of confusion and mess. Make sure that there is more than one toilet, so both girls and boys have their own private space when going to the bathroom.

It’s a beautiful business journey to open up your own daycare center, as you provide a place for children to come and play, as well as help them with homework. You take a load of the parents’ minds and allow them to work as hard as they need to, to provide for their families. However, you designing the best service takes time and a lot of things to consider, especially when health and safety takes a leading role in your business plan.

There are various forms of business that are mobile. The most obvious is building and  contractor businesses, the very nature of which requires that you are constantly moving from workplace to workplace. Other forms of mobile businesses include hairdressers, therapists – even being a self-employed taxi driver could be considered a mobile business.

These businesses have their benefits, of that there is no doubt. Unless you absolutely want to, there is no need for an office space. That means more of your hard-earned money is kept in your pockets, rather than paying for the cost of premises. As well as this, many mobile businesses are one-person-bands, which is ideal if you have never particularly enjoyed working with other people. You have freedom to do what you want, when you want – which is pretty much the dream.

However, while this might be the dream, focusing too much on running a mobile business without any assistance can be problematic. While it may be possible in the early days of your company, as you grow in clout, you will soon realize that you need to assemble a team. Here are the kinds of people you need to help keep your mobile business on the road.

1) A Call Handler

If you’re a contractor or a hairdresser, do you think it gives a good impression if you stop what you’re doing while working so you can take a phone call? Of course it doesn’t. Not only does it distract you from the work at hand, but when you can’t answer, your could miss a lucrative business inquiry.

Adding a call handler or personal assistant to your team is a must. This can be done remotely, if necessary – virtual assistants are a perfect solution if you don’t want to provide office space.

2) An Experienced Accountant

The nature of mobile businesses is quite different to a standard business, meaning that you need people who are experienced with handling the specific nature of your work. Finances are always important in any business, but experienced accountants for contractors and other forms of mobile business are a necessary expense.

Not only will they be sharp on the paperwork you need to have in order, but they will also be accustomed to how you work and how things are done. They can help you chase invoices, as well as ensuring you’re set for tax time.

3) A Local Supplier

It’s easy to think you can find anything you might need to do the work of your mobile business online. That’s true, but you can’t rely 100% on the internet. For one thing, paying an endless number of delivery charges is going to hurt your bottom line.

Making a strong contact with a reliable and trustworthy supplier of goods relevant to your industry is vital for a mobile business to flourish. Do a few ‘test’ orders with nearby candidates, then seek to develop a relationship with whoever performs best.

When you have got your team together, you can be confident your mobile business has got all the backing it needs.

As a startup business, you’d be smart to take your time with big decisions. One huge decision that startups should never rush into, is hiring. Once you hire your first employee or first set of employees, you have more mouths to feed. You’re responsible for paying them, even if your business isn’t getting paid. You’re also responsible for their safety, so you need to consider the work environment, insurance policies, and anything else that may affect them. This is why many startups put off hiring for as long as possible.

While hiring too soon can certainly be damaging for your business, failing to hire could also be damaging. If you wait too long, you may not be able to fulfil orders from people who really want to work with you. You could be holding your business back.

Delegating Tasks

There will come a time you need an employee you can delegate too. What tasks can you give them that will help to save you time, and allow you to focus on your work better?

Spending Money To Make Money

Although hiring your first member of staff means spending money, you sometimes have to spend it to make it. For example, businesses who hire social media managers don’t make money straight away from their hire, but in the long-term, it pays off. Business owners save time and the social media manager helps to increase brand awareness, drawing in more conversions.

Is failing to hire harming your business? The infographic below can help you to get started with your first hire!

credit to Washington State University Online

The business world today is vastly different from the business world of 20 years ago. The digital age has meant that when changes happen, they are swift and often brutal. Think how much humankind has changed over the past 100 years; our lives have shifted more than they did in the previous 1,000 years combined.

It’s into this volatile, exciting marketplace that you’re thinking of launching a business. That’s a good idea, for sure. The modern business world is open to new ideas and innovations, and you’ll find plenty of help and encouragement along the way.

However, you have to start thinking about the future – now. This can be a task of enormous mental gymnastics. When you’re launching a business, you’re focused so much on the moment, the here and now, and the immediate future. Asking you to think about the next five, 10, or even 15 years seems almost impossible – but it’s a necessity. If you don’t start your business on the right track, then you might never be able to catch up.

Technology Is Changing…

… so your business plan needs to as well.

It’s a simple fact that life is becoming more automated. For example, 38% of jobs in the US are at risk of being replaced by technology in the next 15 years. That’s a staggering number, and one that is only going to grow as tech becomes more accessible.

That’s why it’s good to go into business for yourself, of course; it’s the most surefire method of future-proofing yourself against technology. You do, however, have to ensure your business is ready to adapt to the changing times.

Understand The Trends

Look at the way that businesses are developing when it comes to choosing a niche for your company. More and more is being done online, using cloud-based services. The industrial and manufacturing world is stuttering, and will be the first battle line when it comes to technology making human jobs obsolete. Are you going to be starting your business in a niche that’s relevant in a decade’s time?

Services businesses are the perfect solution to this problem; anything that involves a human mind that can think. While there are great advancements in AI, and you should take the time to learn how artificial intelligence works, there will always be a place for the free-thinking of creators and in service work. It’s best to focus your entrepreneurial ambitions in these areas.

Be Tech Positive

There is no place for technophobia in a modern businessperson. You have to be willing to embrace business gadgets and the change they offer. Become an early adopter right from the get-go of your business. If you leave tech as a consideration until you are established, then you’re already behind.

Research, go to trade shows, read journals about how AI, technology, and even things like virtual reality are changing the business world. Provided you stay informed and pick a niche that is going to have a place in the world of the future, your business will be able to not just survive, but thrive.

Marketing is about being creative, which is why a trade show is effective. Not only can you get out and meet the people (novelty), but you can show off your artistic side. Businesses think a creative side means using gadgets yet there is a simpler fix. Drum roll please because the key to trade show success is… lighting. Yep, the lights at your stand can make or break the success of the event. Luckily, the following tips will make sure your booth shines out like a star in the night sky. Here’s what you need to know.

Consider The Atmosphere

Every stand should have a purpose, and you need to figure out what yours is going to be. Are you trying to be the new, young pretender, or do you want to be more casual? Are you looking for style over substance or does practicality matter? When you answer these questions, you can use lighting to hit the brief. For example, modern stands which want to show off their expertise can use spotlights to draw people in. In that case, Moons’ Industries suggest using a robotic arm with a vertical swing motor to pull off the effect. Or,  neon lighting can illuminate the products and services and give off a contemporary vibe. For a practical booth, focus on light, warm colors.

Make The Customer Comfortable

It is all well and good using fancy lighting, but it is pointless if it doesn’t please passers-by. A common mistake is to use an intense light to give off a dazzling effect. Unfortunately, the only thing it dazzles are the eyes of the people who walk past. Blinding customers is not a good tactic because it hurts their eyes. Instead, you want to make them feel comfortable by pointing the high beams away from their eye line. However, make sure the lights illuminate the stand because a dark booth is as repellent.

Substance Over Style

Quite simply, you want people to be able to see the products you are advertising. Otherwise, the event will be a massive waste of time, energy and money. The first step is to consider your position at the venue. Are you in the middle of the action or out in the wings? If the spot isn’t great, you will probably need additional fixtures to shed light on the booth. Also, don’t forget to factor in your expertise. Lighting is an art, which is why professional services are in demand because they have the know-how. As a rule, it is not functional for amateurs to take care of the lighting alone.

Light Up The Brand

Even if you fail to generate leads, there is a chance to get into the mind of the customer. After all, it is hard to forget a company when you walk past their logo all day. Well, it is if the logo is easily noticeable. With this in mind, always make sure the brand essentials stand out as much as the products. You want the attendees to relate you and your products to a name or symbol, and lighting will help.

Ultimately, if the light is not right, there is a good chance your business will get left in the dark.

Goal setting is one of the most important aspects of life. It helps to define who you are and who you want to be in the future, and it’s a fantastic way to stay on-track with your goals so you can live a full and enjoyable life. Those same rules and principles can be applied to almost any business as well. Fortunately, it doesn’t take much to understand how or why it can help, and this article is going to help you realise that.

Without goals to aspire for, your business (and your employees) will ultimately burn out because it serves no purpose. It’s one of the main reasons why startups fail—because they just lack vision. Don’t follow the herd and do what everyone else is doing because that’s just copying. You need original ideas and you need a business model that shakes up the industry if you want to succeed.

Here are a couple of long-term goals that you should strive for if you’re a leader with vision. While you might not obtain all of these with a single business, it’s worth aiming for something similar to these goals so you can set yourself on the right track to success.

Owning a global transportation network

When you’re an international business that ships millions of products across the world 24/7, you’re going to need a global transportation network. Most startups outsource their transportation needs and, at most, they only hire a single truck every few weeks or months to help keep their stock high. However, larger companies take a look at places like NautiSNP – Ships for sale. Buying a ship might seem absolutely absurd (especially when the net worth of a startup is a fraction of what it costs to buy a ship) but it’s ultimately one of the long-term goals that some businesses have. Having your own transportation network opens up an entirely new business avenue for your company, and those opportunities can lead to many prosperous business ventures.

Becoming industry standard

What operating system does your computer use? It’s most likely either Mac OS or Windows—two giant competitors in the tech world. However, despite both names being household names, there’s no doubt that Microsoft currently holds an uncontested #1 spot as the most popular operating system developer. Their Windows 7 operating system (which, by the way, released in 2009) is still the most popular operating system to this date and many computers all over the world run it. When your business reaches a point where it’s a household name and you’ve become an industry standard to many other companies around the world, then you know you’ve had a successful life.

These are just two simple examples of the goals that you should aim for, but it doesn’t mean they’re the only ones. Use these as examples and set your own long-term goals for your business, and you’ll find it’s much easier to stay on-track, find the motivation to continue working and make difficult decisions.

We are all struggling for ways to improve our business, but the age old adage of these things take time is something a lot of us don’t really have the time for! We need to strike while the iron is hot and we need to do it yesterday. We need to be more efficient at the same time as creating the perfect product while also juggling a million different balls in the air. It’s not feasible. Usually, all we can do is focus on one area at a time, especially if we are a small company and go through each aspect, making the necessary alterations. But for those that are desperate to change your business for the better right now, there are some simple things you can start right away!

Look At Your Goals

Before you can improve on what you have, you need to see if your goals are still relevant, so you need to do something very simple and get out a piece of paper and write down where you want your business to be in one year’s time, two years’ time, three years’ time, etc. It may be something simple, but you may have just veered off the beaten track a bit too much. So if you can begin to reevaluate your goals and understand why you are in this business, it will give you a sense of reinvigoration, and maybe the spark you need to do things a little differently so you can achieve these goals.

Are You Connecting With The Customer?

Not just in an online sense, but in a personal way. The customer is the most important asset to your business, and you should get as much information from them as you can about how you are doing in every aspect. Don’t forget that the most powerful marketing method is word-of-mouth, and especially in this social media age people are quick to vent their frustrations online and “name and shame” companies like yours if you have mildly inconvenienced them. One bad tweet or comment could set off a chain reaction that won’t have a positive effect on the outlook of your company. The benefits of the social media age, as well as the various tools we have at our disposal, is that we can analyze data far more effectively than we could a few decades ago. The improvement of things like metrics and ways on how to measure customer service quality through specific processes like the RATER framework means that not only do we get detailed feedback from our customers. But also we can break down this information in a way that will benefit so many different aspects of how we relate to our customers. Right now you can start to communicate with your customers better, and there’s always room for improvement in this aspect.

Look At It From The Customer’s Viewpoint

Sometimes a change of perspective is all we need to switch on the light bulb in our minds that will improve everything. You can do it right now by going onto your own website and looking at it for the first time, in other words, pretend to be a customer that’s visiting your website. Go through some of the basics such as if you can understand how to use the website properly, if the website is similar to a site to have seen before, and your first impressions. First impressions are always important in every aspect of business, and even if you have been through it a thousand times, there will always be a customer that is coming to it fresh faced. And don’t be afraid to be picky in this respect, for example, could the fonts be larger or the pictures clearer? Are there too many colors? All of these things can be rectified simply and right away.

Get Rid Of Distractions

Every one of us that is running a business in some way, shape, or form, is guilty of procrastinating. This is especially true for those that are working from home, and even though in the age of social media and SEO, you can feel tempted to check on your Facebook page in the middle of “research,” but time is money. And 20 seconds here or 20 seconds there will soon add up. It’s at this point that the 80/20 rule may be beneficial to those budding entrepreneurs reading this, in other words, what is the 20% of what you doing that is making the least impact on your business? Once you have cracked that, you can work on these remaining issues and increase your overall productivity.

Ask Questions!

There’s always going to be something that you don’t have the answer to, so why don’t you fire off an email to one of the LinkedIn influencers or send a question out to a forum, and you’ll be surprised at the wealth of information you will get back. It’s foolish to think that we know everything about our own business, even if we did build it with our own two hands. But there’s always a different perspective to take and another angle to come at your products or how you manage your staff. Someone else’s opinion is always beneficial, even if you don’t use it! At least you learnt something else about how not to complete a specific task. If you’re not asking questions on a regular basis, it’s time to start, you’ll be surprised at what you learn!

Step Outside Your Comfort Zone

As people, the more we do this, the bolder choices we will make and this is an important lesson for anyone running a business, because the goal of a successful entrepreneur is to push the envelope however they can. And if you are swimming in a sea of contentment, you are not going to come up with that all important idea that will launch your company into the stratosphere. But before all that begins, it’s about your mindset as a person, not as a business person. Step outside of your comfort zone, do something that scares you every day. It doesn’t have to be complicated, turn the shower to cold! Just do something that you find scares you a little.

We can all begin positive changes right now on a personal level, but you can get the ball rolling on changes to your business also, so the time is now!

Economic instability and recession can often be the downfall of small businesses. Many a great entrepreneurial endeavor has been torpedoed by a harsh and unforgiving economic climate despite a cogent business plan. However comprehensive your market research, no matter how well researched your cash flow projections, if you don’t factor the economic climate into your business plan, you’re building your house on a foundation of sand.

In uncertain times, both businesses and individuals face budgetary constraints that can seriously inhibit their spending. Though some businesses find themselves seriously affected by economic downturn, others are able to survive, and indeed thrive, by making themselves agile and finding inventive ways to weather the economic peaks and valleys. Of course there are no guarantees in the business world, but here are some ways you can limit the effects of a poor economy on your business and keep it fiscally bulletproof.

Find your USP

Luxury products and services are usually the first to get thrown under the bus in a recession but even those businesses and industries considered “evergreen” are far from immune. Plumbing services, for instance, will always be in demand but plumbers need to make sure that they stand out against their competitors in uncertain economic times. Check out ABC Home and Commercial Services’ website. They use qualifiers that promote their environmental awareness and emphasize the fact that their plumbers are fully background checked. These are some ways in which they can differentiate themselves from the competition. Of course, the best way to stand out from the crows is an acute awareness of your Unique Selling Point (USP).

If it takes you a while to think about what your USP is then… good! Your USP is something that you should agonize over. It’s your entire reason for being and finding it may be something of a vision quest.  

Never stop marketing

It’s infuriating when businesses only consider their marketing when things are going badly. Marketing is a ubiquitous activity that should be pursued through the good times and the bad. Only by maintaining a strong marketing presence can you be assured that your brand is at the forefront of your potential customers’ minds. If customers need to tighten their belts, they’ll be nervous and apprehensive in their transactions. They’re likely to opt for businesses to whom they can relate and have trust, they’re far less likely to put their faith in an unknown commodity. This is where marketing can be your lifeline. There are a few ways in which you can help to develop this through your marketing strategy:

• Pay Per Click- Growing your reach organically can be difficult and time consuming. Many businesses kick off their marketing campaign with a Google Adwords and / or Facebook PPC campaign that’s specifically targeted at the demographics they want to reach.

• Content marketing- Posting regular and original content is a key step in giving your brand with which customers and clients can develop a relationship. Make sure that your content emphasizes your unique knowledge and skills with blogs, ebooks and whitepapers that potential leads will be able to access. Everyone likes something for nothing, after all.

• Outsourcing- Developing a digital marketing strategy is an extremely time consuming and process intensive endeavor. Sure, you could do it all yourself, but can your business afford to lose your time, attention and resources for long enough for you to put it all together?

Keep your cash flow healthy

In a difficult economy, businesses need to be as agile as possible to stay afloat. This means having the ready cash to move quickly on purchases and investments that will help your business to grow and evolve. This could be a cheap bulk batch of stock, talented new personnel, a piece of equipment that will boost your productivity and time efficiency, or even moving to a better location with greater footfall. Failing to move on any of these can impede your business’ growth and lead to stagnation, and this is what can happen if you create blockages in your cash flow by over investing in stock and being lax on debtors that don’t pay up on time. There are many simple but effective ways in which small businesses can improve their cash flow, thereby allowing their business to move with the times in an uncertain economic climate.

The economy is a vast and unpredictable beast that no small business can ever hope to tame. The best you can hope to do is armor your business against its caprice. By adopting these 3 simple safeguards you can put yourself in the best possible standing to weather the economic storm.

Building up a brand is difficult to do in most businesses, but as a clothing brand, the unique style and design of your clothes take on more of a risk. This is because consumers wear your brand and display your logo, making it a more in-your-face kind of marketing. It’s important to realise that maintaining your brand requires constant innovation and a fortitude not to follow what everyone else is doing. Creating an identity is your unique selling proposition because it’s what separates you from all the other clothing lines in the world. Designs that are remotely similar are sometimes labelled in the same group subconsciously. This has been the struggle that Pepsi and Coca Cola have been trying to shrug off for years, and it’s the same for clothing brands. It’s imperative that your style and designs are truly their own if you want to compete successfully with the major brands who have already cemented their position in consumers’ minds.

Cultivating ranges

Your boutique clothing brand needs direction so one day it can become a franchise. It’s very easy to make random designs because you have so many different ideas which you want to fulfill. However, this is bad for business as there’s no real brand being cultivated. Ranges in clothing lines are a way to position yourself as a sustainable brand. Certain designs that share a pattern, however subtle it might be, should be grouped together as part of a range customers can by. This may be to attract a certain customer e.g. straight jeans vs. skinny jeans; they’re still jeans, but your products can now be categorized and different variations, can be split even further into a finite design narrative. It doesn’t make sense to have one design of something, then five or ten different variations of something similar and selling them as one-off designs

Maintain independence of design

Many entrepreneurs in the clothing and fashion industry, spend hours and hours, printing their designs by themselves to save a lot of money. They stay after hours and make sure they have enough products for sale for the following day or week. This means extensive use of such equipment, and eventually, the wear and tear will creep up on you. Update and maintain your manufacturing ability by employing services for Screen Printing Equipment Repair. The constant use of UV printers requires you to replace or strengthen the vacuum system, or replace the LED lights that transfer the heat to the emollient.

By now you should have your own methods, technology and equipment to give you the ability to create and test your designs before they go to market. As a small business, you should try to be as self-sufficient as you possibly can. Outsourcing can be expensive and hiring freelancers is a great alternative to working with large companies that charge top-end fees. Maintain a certain level of independence when you’re creating and implementing new designs by sketching the art and intended graphics yourself. You don’t need to be an artist, but you save time and money, putting your imagination down on paper, before taking it to a professional freelancer.

Part of the joy of running a boutique clothing shop is the fact you get to sell products that are utterly unique. It’s your imagination, artwork and style that people buy and wear. However, preserve your independence and be able to do this without interference, requires constant maintenance of methods and equipment.