Insights, Ideas, Results
If being a start-up business owner has been your dream for some time, and now that you’ve achieved it you’re finding it to be more of a nightmare than you imagined, then you should seek help and advice on how to making it a success. Even if you are the type of person who is more of a lone wolf, and prefers to do things by yourself, asking for assistance isn’t going to show to be weak. What will show you to be weak would be your business collapsing.
Employee morale is one of the most important factors that determine the fate of any business. Running a small business requires you to be concerned about this, more than any other boss figure. For large corporations, 90% of the workers will never even be in the same building as the person in charge of the company. With a smaller enterprise, you have more personal input, so you can rely on your own judgment as to how staff is feeling.
There’s often a great debate on whether or not you need a big office to run a successful business. Many people swear that you need to upgrade to a large office if you want to improve your chances of continued success. They say that big offices provide you with more space, helping you expand your workforce and provide better storage options for you too. Also, they argue that inviting clients to a big office will gain far more respect than inviting them down to a small one.
However, there are many arguments that show you don’t really need a big office to run a successful business. A lot of industry experts say that it depends on the type of business you’re running. In this article I will look at this age-old debate and see whether or not you really do need a big office to run a successful business.
Tax challenges are common among small business owners and it’s more than likely that one of your biggest pain points is filing your taxes. While it may only occur once per year, it requires substantial preparation.
At this point you may be asking yourself simple questions like “Should I do them myself?”, “What will cause the IRS to audit my small business?” or even “how can I save money filing my small business taxes?”
As a business owner, keeping the office in complete working order is always one of your main duties. And a large part of that is ensuring that the office is a safe environment to work in. Not only is this a legal concern in most places, but it is a moral one too – and it also happens to help your business when you are as safety-conscious as you can be. Nonetheless, even the most sensible business owner can sometimes struggle with keeping everything – and everyone – safe and sound. After all, how do you really ensure that your office is a safe haven for everybody? To try and answer that, we have put together a few of the essential checklist points for anyone trying to improve the safety of their office. Let’s take a look.
Effective leadership is at the core of any successful business. A good leader knows how to motivate his employees and listen to their needs. He also has the skills required for managerial activities. The best leaders will approach each new project thoughtfully, see the lighter side of things when times are tough, and help others reach their career goals.
From situational leadership to transactional leadership, there are various ways to run a business. An experienced manager or CEO should be able to choose the right approach for the situation. Studies indicate that successful business owners combine two or more leadership styles. The goals and culture of an organization determine which one works best.
Here are the most popular leadership styles and their unique characteristics:
Small business owners have hundreds of tasks on their to-do list at any given time. It’s impossible for anyone to tackle them all by themselves. Even if you are a super human and can take care of these tasks yourself the question still remains – should you? Are you better off spending time on tasks that are directly tied to your core business instead of the ones that can be taken care of by others? Based on interviews with number of small business owners and opinion of experts the answer is unequivocal YES. By focusing on core competency and letting others take care of non-essential ones you will be able to focus on and grow the business. So what tasks are better suited to delegate to others? Here are few that easily come to mind.
Your new business venture can feel awfully lonely and empty if you don’t staff it with the right team members. Unless you have a business idea that can be solely run by yourself and the help of freelancers, you are going to need some employees. In fact, if you haven’t already gathered some interest from internet and local job listings, then you’re going a bit too fast with your new startup and you need to slow down before you crash and burn.
2016 was an eventful year to say the least. The presidential election in the U.S. brought in a new leader in Washington and with him a very different approach to government policy and business regulation. Donald Trump has already started to make his presence felt in the first week. If that is any indication 2017 will be an eventful year for small businesses for sure.
As a small business owner it behooves you keep an eye on the trends that will impact your business. Not only will it help you avoid getting into trouble, but also position your business for the future growth. So what trends do we expect to see in 2017? Here are the top 10 from my viewpoint.
Employee engagement has an impact on everything from productivity to employee retention to morale. A variety of studies have found that highly engaged workplaces have 20% or higher productivity and profits per employee than those that don’t. Let’s look at three ways companies can improve their employee engagement.
