Tag: business tips
Tips For Starting Up A Small Business
Starting up a small business is no easy task, but a lot of people have a dream of someday running their own company and being their own boss. If you’re one of these people, be prepared to make some sacrifices and put in a lot of hard work and a lot time into your venture. Remember that you’ll only succeed if you’re truly dedicated to your business idea and you go about it with the right strategy in place.
If you’re ready to start up your very own small business, continue reading for some tips that’ll help you make your dreams a reality.
Find a Location for Your Business
Depending upon the type of business you wish to own, you’ll need to determine where it should be located. You want to go where there’s a market for the goods and services you’re planning to offer, but you also don’t want to enter an area that’s already saturated with similar businesses. Therefore, it can be quite difficult to find the ideal spot where customers will know about your company and will want to purchase goods and services from you. You need to really do your research, find out where the competitors are and how well they’re doing, and consider which demographics in particular you wish to target.
Get the Proper Amount of Funding
Once you have an idea of what area you want to be in, you need to think about how much money you’ll need to actually get the business going. This includes figuring out how much the real estate costs in the area you’re looking at cementing your business in are, and you also have to consider that the first few months of a business are the hardest because you’ll be operating at a loss until you generate enough revenue to start earning profits. Once you have done the math and figured out how much money you need, though, you’re ready to get some funding to start up your venture. Look up grant opportunities, which you may qualify for that will give you free money you don’t have to pay back, as well as loans that you can apply for that you’ll need to repay with interest. These funds will help you establish your business and keep you going until you can stand on your own.
Start Advertising
You have to start marketing your new business before it even opens, so once you have your location and funding in place, put up a huge sign with your business’s name on it and the words “coming soon.” This should begin generating some interest in the local community. Put your website address on the sign so that people can find you and learn more about you, and start placing ads online and in the local newspaper.
Starting up a business is an exciting time. This is your chance to do everything right, so make sure that you gather enough information about the demographics you wish to target, the real estate you’ll need, and the loans you’ll require.
Featured images:
- License: Creative Commons image source
- License: Creative Commons image source
- License: Creative Commons image source
The contributor of this post, Brian Smith, is an enthusiastic sales executive. He enjoys sharing his opinions through his articles, which mostly focus on his work experiences at YellowStone Capital. He is also very passionate about racing.
5 Simple Ways To Reduce Office Expenses
A tough economy has made people and companies realize that office expenses need to be cut if a company is to use its capital more effectively. Here are 5 simple ways to reduce office expenses.
Good for the environment is also good for your office
It is amazing how much money you can save by making the office more eco-friendly. Most companies shy away from the idea since it costs money to make an office eco-friendly. However, they fail to realize that it is not a cost, but an investment. One of the best ways to reduce overhead costs is by cutting utility bills. And that is exactly what an eco-friendly office can provide – better heating and cooling resulting in lower utility bills. The cost of making an office eco-friendly is recovered in no time, not to mention a lot of the money spent can be claimed back as a tax deduction.
When it comes to marketing, think outside the box
It is undeniable that marketing expenses often take up a massive chunk of every company’s budget. If you stick to traditional marketing techniques, do not expect to see a fall in expenses. However, thinking outside the box, in terms of marketing, can help you come up with unique and novel marketing strategies that are a far cry from the traditional methods. For example, social media marketing requires little manpower and the expense levels are incredibly low. Despite the low levels of investment, he results of social media marketing are staggeringly better than those achieved by traditional marketing formats.
Ditch the landline for a trusted VOIP service
Two monthly expenses that every office has to deal with are the phone bill and the internet bill. Wouldn’t it be much better if you could simply combine the two? If your office hasn’t switch to a VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) service yet, it is losing out big time. Not only does a VOIP service make use of your existing internet connection, thus eliminating the need for a landline, it is also cheaper to use, especially for long-distance and international calls.
Interns want to work for you. So let them.
A very common mistake is to assume that your office doesn’t need interns. Just because you are struggling to come up with ideas does not mean that your office cannot accommodate interns. There are plenty of duties around the office that do not need full-time staff. These tasks can easily be delegated to interns, who work for a fraction of what you would have to pay a full-time employee. With the number of jobs available failing to keep up with the number of students graduating every year, there is no lack of eager interns waiting in line to be hired.
Retail is passé; shop for office supplies online.
Whenever the office is running low on supplies, the usual protocol is to go to or call a retail store and stock up on necessary office supplies. However, the smart money is on buying office supplies online. You can get all sorts of office supplies online, including printer ink and toner cartridges. The potential savings by shopping online are well worth spending a few minutes in front of the computer.
Follow these 5 simple steps and you will see a noticeable drop in office expenses.
This article is submitted by James Hanning. He used to work in a leading computer software company but gave up his job to follow creative urges. He is now a fulltime writer and blogger. He writes tech and software related articles.
6 Ways To Promote Your Product Once You Take It Online
If you want to start selling your product online it can be overwhelming. You have been offline your entire life, so where do you start after you have built your website? You’re actually really lucky because it’s never been easier to promote a product to the masses. Here are a few ways to get you started. You should obviously test out a few of them, but when you find something that works you should concentrate on that one method until you start making as much money as possible.
Just pay for ads
If you’re looking to see instant results there are not a lot of ways you can do it. The quickest way to bring in some money is by paying for ads. There are a lot of different places you can test out, but the general idea is always the same. You must find a winning campaign then scale up. That means you make more money than you’re spending, which can actually take a while to achieve so don’t give up as soon as you lose a few hundred dollars.
Give your product away
If you have a physical product it might be a good idea to give it away to a few people. You will have to select them very carefully because they should have a platform where they connect with a lot of followers. If you need an example you can think of a blogger with lots of readers. If you gave them one of your products and they loved it they might help you promote it on their blog. This does work well if you send your products to the right people.
Team up with someone
There are plenty of people who will happily team up with you and it’s only a matter of finding them. You have to be careful because you’re not looking for anyone you are in direct competition with. If you sold snowboard boots you could team up with someone who sold snowboard bindings. Each person could recommend the other person’s product. You just need to find someone who has a product that complements yours.
Run a competition
If you offer your product as a prize in a competition it will help get it in front of more eyeballs. You should ask people to share the link to your competition and in doing so they automatically enter the draw. I’m sure you have seen a lot of these already if you use Facebook. The reason they are so popular is because they work. You just need to be creative because there are a lot of ways you can promote your competition.
Try to go viral
If you come up with an amazing blog post or video it has the potential to go viral. When this happens it will spread like wildfire around the Internet and you will end up with a huge amount of people back at your site. They will then buy your product because your post or video was so good. You can never predict when something will go viral, but you can definitely aim for it with every single thing you do.
Email people regularly
If you have a website you need to be collecting email addresses. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you sell. If you email people on a regular basis they will think of you whenever they want to buy a product you sell. You just have to make sure you are not pitching them in every email. You should be giving them some great advice that changes their life. That is how you turn someone into a customer and email is a great way to do it.
Attached Images:
- License: Royalty Free or iStock source: http://pixabay.com/en/reply-all-e-mail-email-letter-post-97621/
- License: Royalty Free or iStock source: http://pixabay.com/en/blog-blogger-together-community-92132/
- License: Royalty Free or iStock source: http://pixabay.com/en/icon-outline-cup-free-gold-sports-39763/
- License: Royalty Free or iStock source: http://pixabay.com/en/personal-group-silhouettes-man-109965/
- License: Royalty Free or iStock source: http://pixabay.com/en/euro-money-currency-man-woman-76203/
Author of this post, Adam Tyler; is a marketing manager at conceptplus.ca, a leading firm for manufacturing custom usb in Canada. He is a keen reader and reads business magazines in his spare time to keep himself updated with the latest happenings in the world of business.
