7 Tips for Effective Credit Control in Small Business


Many small businesses overlook the importance of credit control. They assume that because the orders and sales are rolling in thick and fast, everything is great. What they fail to realize is that if a few customers don’t pay, their cash flow will dry up.

You need to be proactive about collecting payments from your customers. It’s not enough to send out an invoice and forget about it. There will always be some customers who wait as long as possible before making payment. The problem is that if you don’t have enough money flowing into the business, it affects your ability to pay your own suppliers. Some might be understanding, but others, in particular the IRS, definitely won’t take kindly to being made to wait for payment.

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4 Tips to Make Your Home Craft Business a Great Success


There are a lot of interesting crafts that can be turned into a home business. You can start with an idea you actually love and develop unique, beautiful products that customers are willing to buy. There have been plenty of successful businesses built around home crafts and creative art too.

Turning a hobby and a craft into a business is actually easier than you think. In this article, we are going to take a closer look at how you can take the crafts and creative projects you love so much, make them into a business, and then take that business to success. Let’s get started, shall we?

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6 Tips for Keeping Your Employees Motivated and Engaged


For your business to succeed and thrive, you need dedicated and hardworking employees working together in harmony. And to have that, you have to keep your staff engaged. The people you want to have on board are those who are enthusiastic and committed to doing their job.

However, according to a recent study, there are only about 13% of employees worldwide are engaged. This means that the majority of workers around the globe are unhappy, unfulfilled, and unproductive. Employees like these are the ones you should avoid having, as they can cause a string of negative effects on your business.

While these workers can be a source of frustration and can hurt company performance, an effort to improve your people management skills can turn the tide. Here are 7 tips that can help you keep your employees engaged and motivated:

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Your Guide to Success in Small Business after Losing Job


It can be quite daunting when you first leave the world of work behind to set up on your own, and even more intimidating if this is your first time dipping your toe into running a business. Not everyone’s cut out to make millions. In fact lots of new businesses, and start-ups fold within five years. Still, there are a few key things you can do to give yourself the very best chance at success before the ink on your company logo’s even dry.

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Professional Search Tips for Small Businesses


If you own a small to mid-size business and need to find a trusted professional to address the needs of said business, there are a variety of routes to choose from as you are starting out. Depending on what it is that you need you may feel like you are trying to find the proverbial needle in a haystack – especially if you don’t have a huge network of contacts built up.

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4 Common Small Business Problems and Solutions


The world of business is constantly on the verge of change. This is something that anyone who is involved in a business at some level knows within their heart. To build a business which will stand the test of time, you need to know what the common challenges facing businesses are, as well as having a keen idea of how you might go about fixing those issues. In this article, we aim to help in that endeavour. We will look at some of the major, most common problems that arise in businesses of all kids today, and discuss how you might go about fixing them in an easy and fast manner. Let’s take a look.

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How Can Data Mining Help Small Businesses Gain Competitive Advantage


Seeing how the customer is always right, a business that already knows what their client is thinking will leave both parties feeling happy and satisfied. A great modern day tool that lends itself to understanding the customer better is called data mining. Data mining has been around for a while, and its use has brought great outcomes to customers and business owners alike. Today’s data collection is affordable and reliable, and it’s something that could be done internally as well as with help of professional external companies, and the information gained can be successfully used and combined with the company’s knowledge management system solutions.

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Is Your Business Prepared for DDoS Attack?


Distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS) used to be something only talked about in cybersecurity and hacker circles, but in the past few months DDoS has found its way into the popular lexicon following high-profile attacks last year. After all, it’s hard to ignore DDoS when you can’t access your Spotify playlist or Twitter feed.

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Growth Hacking 101: Adopting Brick and Mortar Techniques for the Web


A lot has changed for businesses over the past few decades. In the past, most businesses were set up in a physical location – offering services or goods from a storefront. As technology has improved, and become a more integral part of our lives, many businesses are now choosing to be conducted solely online, and are abandoning the old brick and mortar methods. While the days of every business having a store may be gone, that does not mean the techniques that made them successful are gone with them. Many of the tools that work for brick and mortar establishments can apply to the web, as long as you are willing to tweak them a bit.

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Infographic: Challenges of Email Marketing Strategy for the Modern Marketer


The constantly evolving world of marketing means that the marketers have to stay on their toes at all times to stay up to date with the latest trends and changes across the industry. There really is no time to sit back and reflect on your latest successful campaign, you have to come right back with another, even more successful campaign using your marketing expertise and research.

If you don’t have the time to master all of the latest trends, we have summarized them in this infographic which outlines the 7 main email marketing strategy challenges that marketers face and provides some useful tips on how to combat these challenges.

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