In a competitive, complex business world, there are few companies that have the capability to do everything alone. The skills and technology necessary for success in business today, many times, mandate that companies work with other companies that possess complementary skills for the mutual benefit of each. Regardless of the alliance partner or how the alliance is structured, strategic alliances can bring significant benefits to each partner, especially small businesses.
If you are a small business owner you’ll inevitably face the challenge of creating and maintaining your presence in social media. Social media presence is a must to promote your business and stay in touch with your customers. However, people will not find you and won’t follow you in social media if you don’t have regularly updated content – you have to communicate with your customers regularly and find the ways to engage them.
Services such as Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus offer you a great chance to promote your business through social media. You can even do this without a dedicated website as social networking sites offer you a surface to carry your content themselves. You just need to fill these channels with engaging content and this may require some time, and of course, resources.
Your working environment can have a significant impact on your staff productivity. The office layout, wall colors, decoration and other surroundings can help or hinder the creativity and output produced. No wonder Google and many other companies spend so much attention and money on office buildings and furnitures.
What factors do you need to consider as you look to improve the working environment to boost productivity, creativity and employee retention for your company? Here are some ideas:
Many small business owners consider the cost of electricity as fixed and do not pay much attention to it. They receive a monthly bill in the mail, make a payment and move on with their daily business. For some, even if they want to do something about it, they feel helpless thinking that they do not have many options to save on electricity, other than to cut the usage.
While this may have been true in the past, many options have opened up recently that can help small business owners save money on their electric bills. Some of the options are driven by the elimination of monopoly and rise of competitors. Companies such as commercial electricity suppliers British Gas have been very proactive in helping business owners with ideas and presenting them with alternatives that can be tailored for specific situations.
Mobile credit card processing is all the rage these days. It is one of the hottest topics of discussion for small business owners, and for the right reason. After a long time traditional credit card processors, such as Visa and Master Card, have found their business model undergoing dramatic change. Many companies have introduced mobile credit card processors aimed at helping small business owners. Small businesses have plenty of choices to satisfy the growing demand for mobile credit card processing services, which can make choosing the best mobile credit card processing company a daunting task.
Most website visitors take two-tenths of a second to decide whether they are going to stay on the website or not. This is a very narrow window of opportunity for small business owners to impress visitors and encourage a sale, which is why the design of a business website is very important. Pop Creative, a Miami web design company, encourages following best practices that will help your business website stand out amidst thousands of others just like yours.
For small business owners, cash flow is equivalent to blood flow. When it is flowing well without hiccups the system (business) works just fine. You spend cash buying inventory, leasing equipment, making repairs or doing anything else that will help produce goods and services that you can sell to customers and receive cash in return. This cash can then be deployed again for the abovementioned purpose and the cycle continues. Hopefully, you are receiving more cash than spending it, resulting in positive cash flow.
So you’ve put out a job advert and ended up with a pile of CVs on your desk. Great, but now you face the daunting task of whittling down the candidates to three or four to call in for an interview.
A standard CV is maximum two pages long and only provides an outline of the candidate’s skills, experience and qualifications. Although this is useful when you have a lot to get through, it also makes it difficult to gauge person’s ability, personality and suitability for the role. So how do you decide who to invite for a job interview?
It is said that more than 60% of new businesses fail within 2 years of operation. Majority of these businesses fail because they run into financial trouble – they cannot generate sufficient cash flow to keep with the expenses, they have not saved enough to survive the first year when revenue are still being generated or they simply go on a spending binge and run out of cash in a short time. While you can always seek investors or business loans to get funding in the initial stage of your business, those who have done it will tell you that it is not as easy as it sounds. Successful entrepreneurs and business owners know that having a financial savvy, especially for new business owners, is one of the most important requirements to succeed at business. So, here are the 3 most important tips to keep in mind as you are working on building the next Starbucks or Google.
Social media access at work can be a great way to break up the day for employees. In a pressure-driven environment a little Facebook or Twitter distraction can be a quick, free and easy escape from intense routine that some employees experience in their daily 9-to-5 roles.
However, social media can also end up as a significant company expense, costing significant amount in lost productivity. The average staff member can spend up to 12% of a given day on social media sites when they should be doing what they’re paid to do.
