Business and Personal Financing

Author: Angelina

  • Why It’s Crucial To Keep Organised When Starting A Business

    Organisation is key when starting up a new business. Many great business ideas have fallen short because of a failure to keep things organised, eventually leading to the whole thing simply collapsing. It’s highly recommended that extra effort is put into maintaining a high level of organisation when starting a business. Even if the business is in it’s fledgling stages and it seems like there isn’t that much to organise, keeping organised will instil habits that will keep the business running smoothly for years to come.

    How To Stay Organised

    Good organisation can take the form of just simple things like keeping the desktops tidy, keeping hold of and sorting through used stationary, or organising where office equipment is placed. It could also mean keeping to schedule, understanding when things should be done ahead of time or if it might be best to leave it for later.

     

  • An Important Recent Phone Scam To Be Aware Of

    If you or your business happens to receive a call from the IRS asking for money, it’s recommended that you immediately end the call. Recently, con artists have been attempting to trick people and businesses by posing as the IRS and claiming to be owed money.

    It’s important to recognise this scam straight away if you are targeted by it. This can be done by not acknowledging someone asking for money over the phone. If this happens to you or someone in your business, end the call. It’s also important to be extra cautious if you receive a call from a credit card company, or any other company that requires personal identification information for any reason.

    To help combat this issue the IRS have set up a black list to record various common scams. This goes beyond fraudulent phone calls, recording scams such as ID theft, fake charities soliciting donations and more.

     

  • Business Social Media Predictions For 2017

    Social media has become a big tool for businesses, but the way it’s used is constantly changing. 2017 looks to be a big year for social media changes and trends, here’s a few predictions about how it might change over the year.

    Using Targeted Spending

    Targeted spending is being used more and more. The old ways of reaching users using specialised algorithms limits is limiting the amount of people that see adverts and posts. In 2017 businesses should start investing into native ads and promoted posts to reach a larger audience. This method is highly targeted and easy to track a return on investment.

    Increase of Digital Advertising Prices

    Digital advertising is extremely popular, and as a result is becoming more expensive to use. There is already a major trend in the surge of digital ad prices, and it’s only set to get bigger. This trend particularly will be straining on smaller companies, that may not have the money to invest in digital advertising.

  • Avoiding The Information Overload

    While we do live in the information age, it’s still not ideal to be overloaded with it. Most business owners as well as their staff are subjected to a constant bombardment of information. Email, blogs, podcasts, social media, video, TV, newspapers, all of these are great business tools but using it too much can become tiresome.

    One solution is to streamline the amount of information that is being used and delegating it’s management to separate members of staff. Having a dedicated person focus on social media, and another on mobile advertisements is not only good business practice, it can stop people from becoming consumed by them.

    It’s important to take breaks when using these powerful digital tools too. A consistent stream of blog posts might sound like a positive way to send a message, but it’s often the case that it’s just too much, both for the readers and the staff member assigned to the role.

     

  • Encouraging a Staff Member To Learn New Business Skills

    It’s often the case that certain roles in business are left to the staff members who have a natural ability in that department. While this is a common and obvious way of allocating business skills, it is not an efficient long term solution. Training staff in new skills, even if they are already proficient at their current roles, prepares a business for future growth and expansion.

    It may be difficult to encourage staff members who are already skilled in what they do to learn extra skills. It may even seem like a strange prospect for a staff member who is working well to be encouraged to learn more. However, with the right incentives in place and an understanding that it is for the growth of the business that they are involved in, it can be easier to show a staff member the benefits of doing so.

    There are always new skills that a staff member can learn, here are a few beneficial examples:

    • Opening conversations and presenting business propositions to others.
    • Effective questioning , listening, relationship building and influencing skills.
    • Handling objections and gaining commitment towards personal development.
    • Negotiating mutually beneficial business solutions.

     

  • How Goals Can Help To Solve Problems In Business

    All successful businesses have goals of some kind. These are the objectives the business is moving towards, the direction or directions the business is taking.

    Goals create momentum in the business, its’s this momentum that drives it’s employees to work towards something that is deemed worthy of the businesses resources. When the inevitable problems occur in and around the business, the momentum the business has can help to iron out these issues.

    An example of this could be a business that has issues with poor reviews of its products or the services it provides. If that business uses its momentum to create more, better received products and/or services, then the issues with poor reviews will dissipate as the positive reviews come in for the new products/services.

    Goals and momentum work well when all employees within the business can understand it and make sense of it. Employees need to be on the same mental wavelength for momentum to effect the business.