Business and Personal Financing

Category: Business Ethos

  • 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.

  • Scaling Up A Business With Limited Funds

    It can be difficult to move a business to the next level without using extra finance. One of the ways to deal with this is to spend some time analysing the business itself, considering the all the available options and what can be improved. This allows small inefficiencies ironed out, which in the long run will bring in more money.

    Sometimes the key to scaling up can be scaling down, this includes improving on inefficiencies but can also involve making better use of time and schedules, understanding your staff better and just focusing on the basics in general. There is usually great benefit in considering these things before hand, if the business is serious about growing, these issues will have to be ironed out eventually regardless.

    However this is not always enough and sometimes a business needs to find extra finance from somewhere. If this is the case, there are plenty of options out there, including Start Up Loans, bank loans, invoice financing and community funds.

     

     

  • Basic Office Business Supplies

    It’s always a good idea to take some time to think about the small things, especially when running a business. “What supplies need to be ordered in?” is always a common thought that comes to mind when taking the foot off of the business accelerator. So here’s a cathartic list of office supplies to sate the idea.

    Paper

    All offices use paper. Notebooks, notepads, sticky notes, printer paper.

    Stationery & Mailing Supplies

    To send invoices, paychecks or payments they need to be contained in envelopes, stamped and sometimes sealed in a certain way. Offices often need a large stock of these items in various sizes.

    Organisation Supplies

    Keeping organised is always important. Staplers and binder clips help keep documents and folders filed away.

    Office Furniture & Storage

    People often need to sit down, and seats and sofas can provide that service. Then there’s other furniture such as a functional desk, filing cabinets and other storage objects that make the office a functional and professional work space.

     

  • How To Grow Through Challenges As A Business

    Nobody starts a business with the direct intention for it to fail, everyone involved wants it to succeed. But success is not always found easily, and often businesses face difficult challenges.
    Like growing a field of crops, you plant the seed, you maintain the field, and you allow it to grow. Businesses can work in the same way.

    But like a field of crops, sometimes the weather is poor, sometimes a storm batters the field. Businesses must also face these challenges, and sometimes the challenges seem overwhelming.

    But the field is still there after the storm has passed, the plants can still grow and those that can’t can be replanted.

    There are always challenges, and there is always growth.

    You can’t grow without the challenge that is given to the business, because the challenge is what guides the business in its growth.

    This is using the challenge to your advantage and works in many different aspects of the business world.

  • Setting Clear Goals In Business

    Setting goals is an important part of running a business. Having an overarching goal that the business is working towards helps to maintain the structure and flow of all of a businesses operations. But sometimes goals can become obscure, which can cause the business to go in unfavourable directions.

    Keep The Goal Clear

    Goals work well when all employees within the business can understand it and make sense of it. Having a goal of improving stockholder relations might be a good and worthy goal for your business, but do all your employees know who or what your stockholders even are?

    A goal like this would be a goal only for those who deal with this area of the business. Even though the other employees will likely be effected by it in some way, they would not be able to see the goal in this case. So it can be important to set goals for the business as a whole.