small business advice

The Importance Of Giving And Taking In Small Business Startups

November 5, 2015 by admin Leave a Comment

When I started my company, I was absolutely terrified of everything that could go wrong. I could already imagine huge bills for all kinds of services and a dozen lawsuits against me. Since I am not originally from this country and English is my second language, things looked even more difficult to me. What if I didn’t understand what certain laws meant and how would I know if I was breaking them?

I was torn between “taking the risk” or staying in the “safe zone”. In the scheme of things, this comparison becomes ridiculous because at any time you can get fired for doing what you don’t love so why not try doing what you do love.

With that thought, I started my journey into entrepreneurship. Being a newbie, I was naturally more inclined to take (take advice, take direction and, in general, take any help I could get). I have to say that I learned plenty by doing that, but not even close to what I have learned by giving. By sincerely giving.

You can tell by my business, RentBillow, that I am all about the sharing economy. The sharing of resources and the sharing of knowledge included. These are a few tips I have learned since launching my business that I would like to share, especially to new entrepreneurs and people in the media.

1. If you are thinking of starting your own business, try to find a startup to collaborate. You might not like the idea of not getting paid, but trust me, it will save you a lot of money and time once you make the decision to jump in.

2. Volunteer with local entrepreneur and startup events and associations. One mistake I made was not reaching out to local entrepreneurs right away. If I had met other local entrepreneurs beforehand, then asking them for help and advice after I started my own business would not have been so awkward. It’s really hard asking people for help when you don’t have a pre-existing relationship with them.

3. Be yourself. I have noticed that many entrepreneurs change for the worse as soon as they start a business. They become more serious and they stop doing things the way they had before. They don’t want to ruin their reputation as a serious owner, which is fine in a way, but remember to enjoy your pastimes. I personally continued being the same smart-alek on social media as I always was before. Why would I do this? Because if someday I become a known entrepreneur and I say something politically incorrect or offensive, people will say, “Oh yeah, she has always been like that.”

4. Never forget the people that helped you, the people that supported you, and the people that even listened to you whine about how broke you were and how your hair is falling out. These are the people that will keep your support alive.

5. If you are in the media, think about all the small fish in this humongous pond. I know it is more appealing to interview a unicorn entrepreneur, but your help can encourage an up and coming entrepreneur to be successful, and they absolutely will not forget you when they reach the level of success of billionaire entrepreneurs.

By: Anabella Watson – RentBillow

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Easy Ways To Set Small Business Goals

October 9, 2015 by Zack Duncan Leave a Comment

Have you ever felt like you are not moving things forward in your business? If you have then it is probably because you aren’t measuring yourself against your business goals. Don’t be another small business owner who doesn’t set goals because “you’ll never end up achieving them” or just backing out on your goals altogether. If this sounds like you then you need to shift your entire way of thinking when it comes to setting goals. Taking the time to set goals and following through on them is an investment that pays off immensely in the long run. If you are wondering what it is that you can do to realistically look at your business and create goals then follow these tips.

Create A Long-Term Plan

Focusing on long-term goals in a certain time-frame is crucial. These goals have a place in your overall goal setting though you really need to focus on setting clear, attainable goals in the short-term as well. Take college, for example. When you start off as an undergrad, you set the goal of attaining your bachelor’s degree before going on to pursue a master’s. Your goal roadmap should have goals that can be achieved sooner rather than later, which will help you achieve your long-term goals. Creating these goals could also assist you in realizing your vision even better.

Stay Focused

Setting goals is great and all, but you also need to make serious efforts to attain those goals. If you’re going to be developing something like content, then you should put aside one day a week to do specifically that. Be productive. Set deadlines. It is so easy to get distracted or discouraged so it is imperative that you stay focused as much as possible. One of the best ways to keep on track is to eliminate or avoid distractions whenever and wherever possible.

Be Mindful Of Your Current Situation

Take a good, long look at where you are currently and ask yourself this: “Is this where I want to be?” Is is crucial that you are 100% clear with yourself about your current situation, especially when it comes to thinks like money, accounts payable, sales pipelines, and processes. As soon as you have established what your current situation is like, you can then look forward to the future and the goals you have set for it.

One Big Picture – Lots Of Smaller Pieces

You need to make some short-term tasks that you want to achieve for the next year. Monthly and weekly sales goals can help you move closer to your revenue goals. Set a goal for increasing things like cold calls, posts on social media, and direct outreach if you are looking to increase sales. Trying to generate more traffic to your website? Create a content development system and start an editorial calendar. Trying to get more subscribers? Develop a new, free download for your website. It will be impossible for you to achieve your goals if you don’t take any steps towards doing so.

Hard Work

There’s nothing quite like some good old-fashioned hard work. And it is this hard work that really determines your outcome. A lot of small business owners spend a lot of time working on their day-to-day activities, refusing to put enough time and resources towards achieving their professional goals. These people are the same ones surprised that their business has failed or their goals have been left behind yet again. The amount of energy you put towards a goal and the likelihood of you accomplishing that goal go hand-in-hand. Set your annual goals first, then your monthly goals, and then your weekly or daily goals. Once everything is organized you will start to see a difference in your business.

What Have We Learned?

If you’re having a hard time setting goals, or an even harder time sticking to those goals and accomplishing them, you’re not alone. But just because this is an issue with other small business owners doesn’t mean it has to be an issue with you. Look over these tips, understand them, and then put them into practice with your own small business. I promise, if you really put an effort into your goals, you will find them accomplished more often than not.

Content originally published here

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How To Speed Up Virtual Meetings

October 8, 2015 by Zack Duncan Leave a Comment

A lot of meetings are now taking place using tools like Skype or Google Hangouts. This is really great in a lot of ways and can make your life a little bit easier. The downside, though, is that it can also be a royal pain in the butt. When meeting with multiple people in one video conference, there are going to be some technical difficulties. Someone’s microphone won’t work, someone will accidentally hit the mute button and someone’s camera won’t work. You could get 20 minutes into the meeting before you even get the chance to speak about anything important, and by that time everyone is already aggravated.

Things get even more complicated when you are meeting with people in other countries. Language barriers and cultural differences can cause even more issues.

With a little bit of planning ahead of time, you can generally make these virtual meetings a little bit more productive. You just have to make sure that everyone feels accomplished, respected, and everyone feels like you are closer as a team.

1. Be Fair When Planning Meetings

Everyone runs on a different schedule. So planning around EVERYONE can be a little tough. But, you have to understand that it isn’t exactly fair to make one teammate miss something important to them at the same time every Thursday just because that is when it is the most convenient for yourself. Get with everyone, discuss a time in advance, and make sure that no one is sacrificing any more than anyone else.

2. Discuss The Meeting Ahead Of Time

When you are scheduling a meeting, make sure everyone knows exactly what is going to be discussed, and exactly what goal you are trying to achieve at the end of the discussion. It is really easy for people to get off track, especially in groups. If everyone has a clear understanding ahead of time, this shouldn’t be an issue, and staying focused should be much easier.

3. Take Culture Into Consideration

You might want to jump on the video call and jump straight to business without thinking too much, but if you are dealing with people from other countries then you should familiarize yourself with business practices in that culture. You don’t want to accidentally offend someone, or be offended by them when you shouldn’t be. That would be a downer.

4. Set The Rules

Before the meeting takes place, you should tell all team members to avoid side conversations or doing other things during the meeting. It is also good to remind them to not speak too fast, and to speak clearly. This will make everything go so much faster.

5. Pay Attention To Body Language

It is really easy for two people to run the show during a video chat. But the last thing you want to do is to make someone feel left out or unimportant. If you can tell someone has something on their mind, but they are trying to stay polite and quiet, talk to them directly and give them a chance to be a part of the group. Just a little bit of effort can go a long way.

There are lots of ways that a virtual meeting can go wrong. But there are an equal amount of ways that they can be super helpful. If you follow these 5 steps, I know you will be able to pull off a successful business meeting from the comfort of your own home or office.

Content originally published here

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8 Must Haves For Your Startup

July 21, 2015 by Zack Duncan Leave a Comment

Must-Have Startup Investments A lot of entrepreneurs think that bootstrapping is the most efficient way to start a new company. It gives you a freedom you wouldn’t have if you needed to report all your expenses to venture capitalists or angel investors. Although, some expenses, even costly expenses, are important. Take a look at some of these expenses that are worth the investment.

1. Free Stuff!
Let’s be honest here, who doesn’t like free stuff? But honestly, giving away free stuff, like company t-shirts, will help generate money and business. It can help get people talking about your business, grow brand recognition and may even get noticed by larger companies.

2. Customer Service
Good customer service is very valuable. Marketing Metrics did a survey that reported almost 200 marketing managers revealed that 71% found customer satisfaction to be a major metric in managing businesses. Customer service and satisfaction is a high leading indicator that increases the lifetime value of a purchaser, reduces customer churn rates, helps customer loyalty and improves word of mouth as a major differentiator of your company. Spending a little extra on good customer service will by far pay off in the end.

3. Technical Support
Even if tech is your “thing” or not, it still may be a good idea to outsource some or all of your in-house technological needs. You could keep what you’re good at and outsource the technology you need to run on its own, so you can focus on other important things within your company. Spending hours on server maintenance and working on making your website could be better invested in core competencies. It is essential to business success for your technology to run smoothly. So spending money for great technical support will be easier on you and your business.

4. Powerful Software for Data Analytics
From the very start, you should spend money on robust data analytics software. You can’t improve what you don’t measure and you can’t measure unless you test. Analytics helps you understand what isn’t working when it should be. For data-driven business owners, you need to analyze numbers from a bunch of different sources so you can create an informed viewpoint. Having a powerful data analytics software can help you do all of this.

5. Market Research
Over 100 entrepreneurs that have failed startups took a survey that showed 42% attributed their failure to a lack of need for their product. So never assume you know your targeted customers and what they need. Market research can be expensive and time consuming, but coming out with a product or service to an untested market can be even more expensive and time consuming. Just spend the money from the start to really find out what the right targeted customers and their needs.

6. An Accountant
It can be a pain to know exactly how much money you need to keep aside for your taxes or quit confusing to identify all your valid tax reductions. Get a good accountant so you aren’t throwing money away or risking any issues with the IRS. Most accountants will meet with you by the hour to give advice on your documentation and deductions, then each year they complete and file your taxes, they’ll charge you a fee. It’s not rocket science, it’s just worth it.

7. Financial Advice
It’s very important to pay for good, secure financial advice unless you plan on opening a financial planning business. To save yourself from a rocky road of issues and stress, try getting a tax attorney to set up your books and help show you what should be tracked to help secure your future funding. Never underestimate the need for a long-term financial plan to help your company succeed.

8. Legal Advice
No matter how expensive lawyers can be, good legal advice is essential for startups. Just locate a lawyer who specializes in the business you are starting and pay for the right advice you will need to keep your business afloat. Statistics gather by VentureBeat in 2011, show the new Silicon Valley startups spent on average of $80,000 alone on legal advice. Good legal advice may be a bit expensive, but making a legal mistake can cost way more in court fees and could very well put your company in bankruptcy.

Starting a new business can be quite the exciting adventure. Many founders in the beginning stages of their company’s growth, go to bootstrapping. Don’t just rely on that, spend money on where it matters. These expenses are well worth the investment.

Content originally published here

Be Unique! Make Your Business Stand Out with These Tips!

May 12, 2015 by Zack Duncan Leave a Comment

It’s always been hard to make your business stand out from the rest. In this day and age, it’s even harder. You need to play on and exploit the strengths of your business in order to come out on top. Here are some different things you can do to really help yourself stand out in the sea of small businesses today.

Create Content That People Will Care About

One of the main points to creating content is to get people interested. If you can get people interested in the content you are putting out, then chances are you will be able to get those same people interested in what your company is actually offering. Make sure that your content stands out, and it is something that people will actually be interested in.

Go Green!

This environment is the only one we have so, naturally, it’s important that we take care of it as best as we can. What was once a new business method, “Going Green” has become a staple of the modern business. Going green may not set you apart from business in general, but it could very well set you apart from business that you are in direct competition with. Customers love knowing that the businesses they support are supporting things like recycling and conservation so this should be a main focus for your business.

Understand The Context Of Your Content

You have to be aware of the context of your content. This means that if you are gearing your content to a certain demographic… You have to put it in a context that makes sense for that demographic. Speak the way your fan base speaks. Once you understand that, it’s easy.

Think About Your Website Before You Make Changes

When you redesign your website, make sure it looks clean and streamlined. Nothing is better than a clean, simple, well designed website that is easy to navigate. If people can’t find what they want in just a few seconds, they will take their business somewhere else. It should also be easy on the eyes.

Use The About Page To Get People Interested

Everyone always visits the about page first. So this is where you really want to put a lot of effort. You should use this page to sell yourself the best way possible and show your potential new clients what makes you special.

Use Images To Your Advantage

Image based marketing has become a way bigger deal in the last few years. People like to look at interesting things. Make sure you are catching someone’s eye and getting your point across at the same time.

Keep Your Message Consistent

Make sure you are keeping your content simple enough to understand, while still making it interesting. With so many businesses out there using the same tactics, one of the best things you can do is deliver a constant message and keep your goal in mind with all of the content you put out.

In today’s rapidly growing business world competition is stiff and there are always new companies sprouting up that have the potential to take customers away from you. The most important thing for your business is to stand out among all the others. Make sure people see your business and only your business. Follow these tips and you will be well on your way to having a truly unique, stand-out business model.

Content originally published here