4 Business Expenses That You Should Eliminate Right Now

I have good news for you! Reducing costs in your business does not have to take a lot of time or a significant amount of effort. In most cases, it comes down to making smarter choices. Continue reading on to find out what I meant.

MARKETING COSTS

Use technology to your advantage as you jump on the social media marketing wagon. Social media has a vast and diverse audience that you can tap. You are missing out on the potential of having fast-paced and low-cost marketing when you do not make use of Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. What’s more? You can collaborate with other advertisers or influencers.

Image Credits: pixabay.com

As I spearhead a school, I have teamed up with an mommy influencer to market our program offerings. In exchange of a post, the influencer was given free classes to fully immerse her child in our school environment. Bartering in an exchange of goods or services without handing out any cash is a good way to maximize your marketing budget.

TRAVEL COSTS

Unless you are taking the public transportation route, traveling domestically or internationally can be hefty. Eliminate the travel costs that come with business conferences by using downloadable software such as Skype or FaceTime to allow you and your client to have face-to-face conversations from anywhere around the world.

Reducing your travel costs does not mean that you must eliminate it entirely. Meeting in person with a client can bring serious profits and can close major deals. Thus, you must save your travel funds for high-priority situations.

PRINTING COSTS

How does one begin to emphasis the price tag that comes with printing? For starters, most of my school expenses surround paper and ink. Not to mention, maintaining a machine can be a time consuming. Just calculate the amount of time you spend dealing with printer issues!

Printing costs add up in a snap. Eliminate as much paper as possible by going paperless when it comes to waivers, contracts, or memos. Use online signature apps to sign contracts. Alternatively, you may invest in one printer to cut back the printing of the entire office.

MANPOWER COSTS

Is it necessary to hire a full-time graphic designer when you can outsource positions for short-term roles? There are numerous platforms such as Fiverr and Upwork that can offer the right talent at reasonable rates. This also helps other talented individuals to grow their businesses.

Image Credits: pixabay.com

Furthermore, you can try designing posters or other artistic materials for free through websites such as PosterMyWall and Canva. You do not have to be as artistic as Bob Ross to execute the task! These websites are easy to use as they have ready templates available. Isn’t that amazing?

Sources: 1 & 2

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Why You Shouldn’t Hire A Friend Or A Relative In The Workplace

The hiring process should center around making the decision for the company or the business establishment. When considering a friend or a family member for the job, ask yourself why you are doing it. If you have good reasons to support your decision then, go for it. On the flipside, please consider these reasons why you should not hire a friend or a relative in the workplace…

LOYALTY > WORK ETHICS

You and your friend have been thru tremendous ups and downs. Through it all, your friend has shown you his or her loyalty. While this is an admirable trait to have, loyalty and professionalism are two different things.

What if your friend decided to skip town without asking for permission? Or, miss the project deadlines because he or she can “easily” get away with it based on your strong bond?

Your next step is to discuss the matter to your friend. This is a tricky situation especially because you do not want to create resentment for the days to come.

PERSONAL ISSUES > CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISMS

People react to criticisms differently. While others embrace it fully, some people may take it personally. This is something that you should consider when giving employee feedback.

Do not get me started with relaying feedback to a friend! A friend might take your criticism much harder because of the grey area that separates the professional and the personal life. Other than that, you may find yourself being more critical of your friend than you would have been with a regular employee. Honest is acceptable, but at what cost?

POSITIVITY > NEGATIVITY

It is human nature to overlook the flaws of the people we love. Perhaps, we just accept them for who they are without reservations. However, this perspective can be costly for business. It is important to not be controlled by “wishful thinking” during the hiring process of a new staff member.

If you are considering the possibility of bringing a friend or a relative on board, you must access all the issues at hand. An honest evaluation of their positive and negative attributes is needed to sustain a permanent business relationship.

NO LIMITS > BOUNDARIES

It comes as no surprise that striking a balance between your professional and personal relationship is challenging when you hire someone you are close to. You will find yourselves discussing about business matters while in social gatherings. Or, chatting about personal matters while in the workplace.

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Hiring friends and family members is a hit or miss situation! It can either affect your business positively or negatively in the long run. Are you willing to take the risk?

Sources: 1 & 2

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3 Ways to Protect Your Business Legally

If you are running a business, and you have a nice product that you sell and earn profit from it, there are chances that someone will take it away from you. Well, it is not like they will snatch your business from you, rather they can start selling it under their brand name. In this way, the traffic of customers coming to you divides as many of them will also buy from this new fake seller of the product. In this situation, you have to step forward and secure your business and its products.

This article is written to make people aware of different ways that can help them secure their business legally. It is need of present time because if your products are not legally secure, someone will come, take your product, and make it their copyright to sell. You will not be able to claim it as you’re in any way possible.

So, now stay with us, and learn about these ways.

1.  Register Your Product

The first thing that you have to do is to register your business, all its products and services. By doing this, it will be secured. You can claim that this is first introduced by you, so you are legally the owner of the product, and anyone who wants to sell it must take consent from you first.

Registration of business is very simple. You have to know the simple steps of application which you will submit to your state authorities, and then they will issue you the code that will be used as the registration number of product or services.

2.  Start With Your Website

Well, when you are securing your business, it is not like you call to 020 numbers and asking them to help you protect it, rather you do things that tell other that it is your product. One simple way to do this is to make your business website. As the business websites have their terms and conditions, and they declare their policies, so there is no chance that anyone could exploit you and your business.

You can also display the legal documents on your website so that anyone who is looking for any weakness might know that you are completely secure, and any wrong turn against you could be detrimental for them.

3.  Set Policies

Your policies should be very straightforward and simple. Everyone who has your product must read that policy mentioned in it. You can declare in that small section that your product has copyrights which if violated, would result in a bad situation for them. In this way, you can make your product completely secure from those who are planning bad or evil for it.

Conclusion

Business security is very important. If you do does not do it, you will face very bad consequences, and even you can lose your business. So, always keep yourself on the secure side, and take into account any of the above ways to protect it.

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Which Suits You Best: Employee Or Entrepreneur?

There are definite perks when you become your own boss. When you are the boss, you call the shots! This does not mean that you will disregard the opinion of others and that of your clients. Simply, you need to interact harmoniously with your team, your business partners, and the clients. No man is an island, no matter how many coconut trees you own.

Being a boss fits a certain type of mindset. Consider reinventing yourself as an employee if you do not meet the Entrepreneur mindset.

THOUGHTS ON INDEPENDENCE

An entrepreneur welcomes the idea of working independently. Business owners are willing to take full responsibility for completing their own tasks on schedule. Not to mention, self-employed individuals who work at home spend most of their time without a staff supporting them.

On the other hand, employees set their minds to tasks given by their bosses. They are expected to complete these tasks within a given schedule.

THOUGHTS ON GOALS

Business owners plan, market, and oversee the success of their businesses. Running a successful business entails formulation a well thought out business plan. Write a simple mission and vision statement for the company to direct their goals to it. Having a specific set of goals directs the actions to a unified path.

In contrast, an employee follows the short and long-term goals that someone else set.

THOUGHTS ON MONEY

Business owners need to operate based on the financial situation of the company. Are you knowledgeable about the operation costs and profits? Can you create a fair paycheck while tackling risks? A key factor in starting a business is being able to handle the financial ups and downs. Take money management classes or hire financial professionals to improve your financial support.

Image Credits: pixabay.com

Lastly, employees take away the responsibility of building a successful business. Sometimes, they overlook the financial risks of building a profitable business. When this happens, the business owner must step in to mend things.

Sources: 1 & 2

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Practical Ways To Save Money When Hiring Employees

The second chapter of the year is done. With 2019 in full swing, now is the time for business to open vacancies and focus on meeting their staffing needs. The hiring process can exhaust someone’s time, effort, and money. There is no doubt that hiring can be cumbersome!

On that note, here are practical tips that you can apply during hiring process.

BEGIN WITH THE INTERNAL CANDIDATES

One of the simplest ways to make hiring more efficient is to consider the talent within your company. Hiring internally entails that you do not have to worry about background checks or goodness of fit. Your current talent has already been coherent with the team and has already completed the reference checks.

If you are looking for a principal, perhaps you can source out from your current teacher pool! You just have to train him or her. Promoting existing employees will not necessarily help you avoid training. Instead, you are leading an employee to a smoother transition with his or her basic knowledge in mind.

SPEAK TO THE CANDIDATES THROUGH THE PHONE

Conducting multiple face-to-face interviews is a waste of time! Instead, you must filter out the applicant pile by conducting a phone interview. Screening through the phone is a quick, cost-friendly, and easy way to ensure that the employer’s basic requirements are met.

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Once you weed out the bright from the dull candidates, you can reserve a slot for the candidate to meet the Hiring Manager. This way, the Hiring Manager can focus on more important tasks at hand.

CONSIDER HIRING INTERNS

Many companies and startups can agree that interns carry a huge value in the team. Firstly, hiring them is cost efficient. You give them the substantial experience they need for the “real” world while they provide you with their inexpensive services. Secondly, you can train a potential employee. You will know all of his or her strengths, weaknesses, skills, knowledge, attitudes, behavior, and work ethics. Choose your interns wisely.

All the hard work is done! Consider hiring an employee from the interns that impressed you.

SCHEDULE THE INTERVIEW PERIOD STRATEGICALLY

It is no secret that the hiring process takes time. Screening the potential candidates or writing a job description can already take up your entire day. To ignite productivity within the hiring process, you must arrange for all key players to commit to being available within a week-long stretch. Doing so will prevent you from having gaps between the candidate phone screens and the candidate meetings.

You will be able to make decisions smarter and sooner.

GET SOCIAL WITH THE CANDIDATES

Did you know that more than 90% of companies prefer to recruit through social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn? Yes! Times have changed and you must too.

Have your Human Resources team (or do it yourself) analyze the social media presence of a potential candidate. You will be surprised with what you can uncover! This is a good strategy, especially if you are hiring employees in the Silicon Valley.

MAKE CLEAR AND CONCISE JOB DESCRIPTIONS

Last but not the least, you must create clear and specific job descriptions. There is a higher chance of attracting the right candidate when you invest your time in making sure that job listings are detailed and precise.

State the skills and qualifications that you are looking for. Furthermore, you may state the qualities or behavior that are deal-breakers for you. For instance, the candidate himself will skip through your listing when the skills you are looking for are not parts of his repertoire. The candidates will have a realistic sense of what they have applied for.

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Good luck with the tricky and complex period of hiring! 🙂

Sources: 1 & 2

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