May 21, 2012

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Growing a business from the ground up

December 15, 2011 By Daisy Lewis

These days, everyone seems obsessed with getting rich quick through business.

This is because the success stories really make the headlines. You get a Mark Guttenberg type of phenomenon, particularly when it becomes almost a legend as in his case through the film “The Social Network” and suddenly that’s what all the young up and coming wannabee entrepreneurs want.

What they don’t see is that for every meteoric success story, there are maybe another few hundred that didn’t make it – not only didn’t they make it, but they had to re-start their careers from scratch having effectively wasted their time in a hopeless venture.

That isn’t to say you shouldn’t dream of success – rather that you should be willing to really put in the hours to achieve a steadily growing a business from the ground up in the way that others have done for hundreds of years.

Overnight rampant success happens to very few people and very few businesses. Far more people get wealthy gradually by careful investment, shrewd business planning and, more to the point, a great deal of very hard work. Anyone in real; estate, for example, who has had the opportunity in the past to connect with David Lichtenstein will be able to tell you that business gurus like David have built their success steadily.

Sure, they’ve taken balanced risks and they have all suffered major setbacks, but they all made steady and balanced progress on a “two steps forward, one step back basis” working hard all the way down the line.

The reality is that while you’re out there dreaming of some crazy idea that might make a million overnight, there are 99 other people building a solid business little by little supplying metaphorical white sliced bread – the day to day stuff of life we all need in other words.

 

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Top Ten Office Efficiency Tips

December 6, 2011 By Daisy Lewis

One of the best ways to impress your manager at work is to be thoroughly efficient. Making sure that you are poised, organised and calmly in control of your workload will always be looked upon favourably and show your skills in a positive light. If you could do to brush up on your efficiency skills then here are my top ten tips for efficiency in the office – and they are great ways to improve your prospects too!

 

  1. Always arrive slightly earlier than your official start time. A 9 o’clock start means coat off, computer on, coffee made and working at 9am – not walking through the door.

  2. Don’t over-stretch your lunch hour or leave early. I’m not advocating skipping breaks or working late into the night, just make sure you give your employer hard work for at least the number of hours they pay you for.

  3. Watch your cigarette breaks. If you are a smoker and in need of a fix every hour or two then consciously knock the time off your allocated breaks. It will not go unnoticed by the boss or by non-smoking colleagues either.

  4. Keep on top of your admin. Filing is boring but if you do it every day it will only take a few minutes. Apply the shredder confetti cut to sensitive information and unwanted paperwork and deal with anything pending as quickly as possible.

  5. Always have a ‘to do’ list. Whether on a note pad or your PC, make a note of all allocated tasks, keep track of your own progress and prioritise on a daily basis.

  6. Have a tidy inbox. I’m talking emails: deal and file your emails as you would with actual paper. There may be no such thing as online office shredders, but that shouldn’t stop you deleting and emptying your email waste paper bin regularly.

  7. Never forget. Keep your ‘to do’ list and diary ruthlessly up to date so that you never forget a meeting or an appointment. Prepare properly and always have the right information easily to hand.

  8. Under promise and over deliver. Try to complete tasks ahead of their deadline rather than always rushing at the last minute. It will be noticed higher up, believe me, and you will be much more in control of your job.

  9. Never turn down the opportunity to do a colleague a favour. Help people out and go out of the way to show them in a good light – great team players can become great team leaders.

  10. Be honest at all times. If you make a mistake then own up quickly and make suggestions as to how you can rectify the problem.

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Seek business advice from proven winners only

November 22, 2011 By Daisy Lewis

Have you heard the old saying that those who can’t do it teach it instead? This is obviously a huge insult to teachers of all types around the world and at all levels of education. But you also know there’s a kernel of truth about it.

How many times do you read advice on different areas of business given to you by people who haven’t actually been there and done it themselves? There’s an absolute surfeit of empty advice out there from a whole host of people who feel sufficiently qualified to give it to you without having done anything much themselves!

My advice is to ignore all this stuff – unless you need it for academic purposes only. If you want and need real, practical, hands-on advice about any aspect of your business, seek that advice from someone who’s been there and done it and made the mistakes – but who has learned from those mistakes. In this way, you can learn extremely valuable lessons from the past, from real experts without making these same mistakes yourself. This is absolutely crucial in my opinion.

Let’s consider a specific case in point. If you’re looking to invest in any form of real estate business, then why not go to someone like David Lichtenstein, well-known founder and CEO of USA-based real estate business, Lightstone Group? David founded the company in 1988 and has certainly learned from his mistakes – going on to build a solid business through sound business practice.

Lightstone also looks for properties in distressed situations, particularly those with distressed sellers or troubled capital structures. So the company buys quality real estate on market weakness. This kind of advice is given free by the company.

There are hundreds of other examples around. Just remember that whatever aspect of advice you really need, it’s best to seek it from proven winners only.

 

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Ensure your data doesn’t fall into the wrong hands

October 7, 2011 By Daisy Lewis

Whether you’re a newcomer to the business world, or a seasoned veteran, it’s important for you to make sure the data and valuable information you hold doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.

Increasingly, emphasis is being put on data protection. With the age of the internet comes the increased threat of data being lost or stolen, which can result in companies receiving hefty fines.

While you don’t want your clients and customers’ data being taken by someone, you also don’t want your business’s information being bandied around in any way. If your darkest secrets fall into the hands of one of your biggest competitors, you could be in serious trouble. So, in order to counter this risk somewhat, you should office shredders within your workplace.

Paper shredders are extremely useful to have in your office, as they allow you and your staff to dispose of information and data quickly and easily, without worrying about someone else seeing any important details.

You need to try to do everything possible to protect your information and shredding is a great way of doing this. As an added bonus, your actions will also be helping the environment. Once your papers are shredded, you should recycle them, helping to reduce the number of trees being felled around the world to make paper. The energy which goes into recycling paper is significantly less damaging to the environment than the energy required to make paper from scratch.

It takes around 24 trees to make just one tonne of paper, so just think what a difference you could be making if you recycle.

Shredding really is the best thing for you to do within your firm – you’ll be doing something to help the environment, at the same time as protecting the valuable data within your company.

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Keep costs down

September 27, 2011 By Daisy Lewis

The number of women who are running their own business online is increasing every day, and these days it is easier than ever to get started.
The traditional model of launching a business now seems outdated.
No longer do you need an accountant to set up a company for you. You don’t need to buy or lease premises for your store, and there’s no need to worry about hiring employees.
Instead, you can sell products on your site as a hobby. Your website is your store, and you can do all the work yourself quite easily.
However, there’s one thing that hasn’t changed from the “old fashioned” way of doing business, and that’s the importance of the bottom line.
Whether you’re Starbucks or Jane Brown running a website from her spare room, the equation is simple. Sales $1, expenses $1.50 = failure. Sales $2, expenses $1.50 = success.
So until you have launched and are bringing in significant amounts of money, it’s best to limit your outgoings as much as possible.
You could opt for free webhosting, which takes the pressure of you in the early days. Once you business is doing sufficiently well, you can then think about upgrading to a paid hosting service. The same thing goes for all business essentials such as antivirus software. Following good security practices is essential to avoid issues, but if cost is a concern there is no need to buy expensive software. There are plenty of good free antivirus downloads available. Free trial versions such as Kaspersky free antivirus will let you evaluate whether it is worth investing in a more sophisticated antivirus program once your business is making profit.

One path to success that many people take is drop shipping. Again, unlike the old way of doing business where you have to buy product from a wholesaler then sell it on, drop shipping allows you to reduce your outgoings.
With drop shipping, you promote the products of a particular manufacturer and take orders, but you never actually handle or store the goods yourself. The manufacturer handles the inventory and does the fulfilment, and you just take your profits out of the sale price.
Because there are no inventory costs to you, you can set up an inexpensive niche site to tests and promote different ranges of products.

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Protect your data and boost your green credentials

September 19, 2011 By Daisy Lewis

Businesses must make sure nowadays that they take data protection extremely seriously. It’s the age of the internet, which means it’s all too easy to lose people’s personal information in cyber space. But physical documents still exist as well and it’s vital for firms to see data protection as being important, or else they risk receiving fines in some countries around the world.

When you’re disposing of anything with personal details or information on it, you really should have a confetti cut shredder to hand. This will allow you to cut the paper into tiny pieces, meaning you won’t need to worry about who could potentially get their hands on the information.

As well as helping you to boost your company’s security, paper shredders are a great way of boosting your green credentials. You can recycle all the paper you shred, which can really help your firm do its bit to help the environment. It’s best to recycle everything you can, as at least then you know there will be fewer trees deforested in order to produce paper for you to use at work and you’ll be reducing your carbon footprint.

Businesses around the world are increasingly looking for ways to be greener and this is just one simple thing you can do to help out.

Companies should definitely be taking their data protection very seriously, particularly if they hold valuable information on their clients and customers. They have a legal obligation to look after this data, whether they are in the private sector or the public sphere.

With so much emphasis put on looking after data, it’s clear that looking for ways to dispose of information in a sensible manner, which is also eco friendly, is a great idea.

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Career Objectives

May 9, 2011 By

Career objectives are goals that you set for your career path. They can be anything from your career choice to where you would like to be in your career in a specific number of years.

A vocation outlines how you would like to spend a serious component of your life, so career objective setting is something that everybody should be doing no matter what career they select. If you do not currently have a career that you would like, finding the career that is suitable for you is the 1st step of career planning. Your career should suit your life’s purpose and enthusiasm as well as depend on your best abilities. [Read more...]

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Company Profile

April 15, 2011 By

Company profiles are reports that supply a top level view of the history, current standing, and future goals of a business. A business company profile can be as short as a single page, or contain enough info to fill one or two pages. While there are a selection of different formats that firms use to form these profiles, 1 or 2 kinds of info are thought to be necessary. With nearly any sort of company profile report, contact info is included. The contact info might be nothing less than the physical and mail addresses for the company headquarters, or it may include the names and mail drops of express officials and company management employed with the company.

It’s not unusual for a phone and fax number to be included in this basic contact information. In recent times, the incorporation of at least a general info e-mail is also considered necessary for any company profile. With contact information, the company profile usually includes some historic background on the business. This includes info on when the company was formed, the names of the founders, and the way in which the company fared in its earliest days. Regularly the historic account continues on to the present time. While not an exhaustive history, it is frequently enough to give the reader a sense of how the Corporation has grown over time. It isn’t surprising for a company profile to incorporate at least some general stats in relation to the prevailing standing of the business. This will include info like the amount of plants, offices, or other operations the company current owns. Frequently the total of staff is mentioned, together with rounded figures about revenue generated in the latest economic year. The company profile also may include info pertaining to the future plans of the business.

A profile may debate plans for future growth apropos locations, new products that are expected to be offered in the future, or plans to restructure the operation as an element of the technique for making sure the continuing success of the business.

Nonetheless a company profile is unlikely to include info on any plans that haven’t been debated and accepted by stockholders and other front-runners in the company. All of the information found in a company profile is thought to be in the general public domain, and unreservedly available to anybody. Most corporations update their profiles one or more times a year.

This is critical, since officials can retire or decide to leave the business, or locations can open and shut over a period of a few months. By keeping the information, the profile can be exploited by people that are considering buying stock issued by the company or probably considering work with the business.

Company profiles are reports that supply a top level view of the history, current standing, and future goals of a business. A business company profile can be as short as a single page, or contain enough info to fill one or two pages. While there are a selection of different formats that firms use to form these profiles, 1 or 2 kinds of info are thought to be necessary. With nearly any sort of company profile report, contact info is included. The contact info might be nothing less than the physical and mail addresses for the company headquarters, or it may include the names and mail drops of express officials and company management employed with the company.

It’s not unusual for a phone and fax number to be included in this basic contact information. In recent times, the incorporation of at least a general info e-mail is also considered necessary for any company profile. With contact information, the company profile usually includes some historic background on the business. This includes info on when the company was formed, the names of the founders, and the way in which the company fared in its earliest days. Regularly the historic account continues on to the present time. While not an exhaustive history, it is frequently enough to give the reader a sense of how the Corporation has grown over time. It isn’t surprising for a company profile to incorporate at least some general stats in relation to the prevailing standing of the business. This will include info like the amount of plants, offices, or other operations the company current owns. Frequently the total of staff is mentioned, together with rounded figures about revenue generated in the latest economic year. The company profile also may include info pertaining to the future plans of the business.

A profile may debate plans for future growth apropos locations, new products that are expected to be offered in the future, or plans to restructure the operation as an element of the technique for making sure the continuing success of the business.

Nonetheless a company profile is unlikely to include info on any plans that haven’t been debated and accepted by stockholders and other front-runners in the company. All of the information found in a company profile is thought to be in the general public domain, and unreservedly available to anybody. Most corporations update their profiles one or more times a year.

This is critical, since officials can retire or decide to leave the business, or locations can open and shut over a period of a few months. By keeping the information, the profile can be exploited by people that are considering buying stock issued by the company or probably considering work with the business.

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The Advantages and Disadvantages of Buying an Existing Company

March 27, 2011 By

If you would like to form your own business, the quantity of selections available are nearly infinite: beginning from nil, purchasing a franchise, partnering. If you do not have prior business experience nevertheless, it may seem clever to consider purchasing an existing business, which can put you ahead of the contest by throwing you straight into the business sector. Prior to making the final choice, though , these are some of the benefits and disadvantages of previously established firms and how best to handle them.

Some advantages of purchasing an existing business include:

  • The key advantage of purchasing an existing business is the incontrovertible fact that all legwork has been done already for you. Getting a business off the ground is frequently the toughest part, so you are guaranteeing an early lead by skipping the 1st stage. No necessity to file documentation, get allows, and consult with counsels.
  • Purchasing an existing business gives you the benefit of a longtime purchaser base. Folk will know the place, so that the costs of advertising will be less. You’ll also avoid the doubtful primary period, where enticing purchasers to the business can become a full time job itself.
  • When you purchase an existing business, you’ll get workers that are already working there to remain and work for you. This will permit you to use their experience rather than having to coach new folk to take over the work.

Some Downsides of purchasing an existing business include:

  • You may inherit all issues that run with the business. If the prior owner had difficulty captivating new customers, paying the lease, or running new campaigns, you’re going to have to cope with everything to set things right before it is possible to even begin to think about moving forward.
  • If the business has a record of displeasing shoppers, you may also have a difficult time convincing folks that things will change under your direction. Purchasing an existing business will most likely mean a large original investment, sometimes way higher than it’ll need to start a business from nothing. The investment will also need to be in an one-off sum, and you will not have the opportunity to go thru the method in phases.
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