Working from Home? Learn How to Separate Your Work & Home Life

Running a business out of your home can be a great experience and a tremendous advantage, but there are also some drawbacks and pitfalls that most entrepreneurs don’t foresee when they embark on their home business venture. Most of these drawbacks involve adjusting to the working environment. Whether you started a home based business or you temporarily have to work from home, there are many things you can do to set yourself up for remote success! Ultimately, the biggest mistake you can make is to jump right into it without taking much thought for how you will manage it and what your days are going to look like. You will definitely need to separate your work from your personal life, even though those two things will be happening in the same place. This is how to do it: Understand the Psychological Effects of Working from Home For those who have …

7 Ways to Improve Your Phone System with Automation

Automation for phone systems was one of the most important things that was ever created for businesses. It’s honestly kind of crazy not to take advantage of automation for managing your business calls because it does nothing but add value for you, across the board. It saves time, saves labor, gives the caller a better experience, and prevents you from losing sales due to confused or frustrated callers. There are a variety of ways that automation can enable your phone system to function better, and here are a few of those benefits. 1. Create a Company Directory Even if you only have a small number of employees, adding a company directory allows you to professionally direct callers to the right person, right away. With a directory, there is no need for them to speak to a representative before they can be transferred to the right person because you can eliminate …

How to Be a Better CEO

So, you’re the CEO of your own company. That’s a huge accomplishment and a fantastic position to be in, but just being in the position doesn’t mean that you’re automatically good at it. It’s easy to just sit back and revel in the fact that you’re the boss, without putting too much effort into the continual improvement of yourself, your company, and the way you do business because after all, you don’t answer to anyone, right? Technically, you still answer to your customers (or shareholders), but that’s not the point here. The point is that to be a highly successful CEO, you have to do a lot more than just take a seat and watch the cash roll in, and in fact, if you do that, the cash is bound to stop rolling in at some point. You need to be actively involved in all aspects of your company while …

Braintree: A Payments Solution You Can’t Live Without

  For those who searched in Google for payments solutions for your business, then you’ve earned yourself a pat on the back because you’re on the right track if you found Braintree. Or, maybe you’re just lucky. Braintree is one of the greatest-kept secrets for business payments solutions (not sure why it would be kept secret, though). They not only have a fantastic platform to tailor payments for a business, no matter what kind of structure or website you have, but they give you the ability to accept pretty much any payment type under the sun without paying separate fees for each type. By any metric, it’s fair to say that Braintree is most likely the best option you will find for payments services. Of course, you should do your own research, but there’s not much chance that you’re going to find a provider that offers more than they do. …

Online Marketing Home Business

Why Mastering Online Marketing is Critical for Home Businesses

  There are a few things that are essential when you run your business out of your home–a good ISP and lots of bandwidth, a dedicated phone line, a good space to work out of, and the usual office trappings. A home business is unique in many ways, though, and one thing that you should get very good at is online marketing. You can promote your product extremely effectively online, and that doesn’t just mean taking out Facebook ads and then sitting back to wait for the revenue to roll in. There are a variety of ways to market and advertise your home business online and gain multiple advantages while you’re at it.   It’s Great for Marketing on a Budget   Even more than other new businesses, your home business probably doesn’t have a lot of running capital to work with, or startup capital to spare as you make …

Things That Upset Customers

5 Things That Upset Customers When They Call Your Business

It’s tough to know what your customers are thinking, which is basically the whole reason that marketing strategy exists, but you can be sure of a few things. People don’t like to wait, they don’t like to go through any extra hassles, and they want things to work the way they’re supposed to. Those are the core issues behind these 5 points that you’ll see here, as it applies to your business’ phone system. You might not know exactly what every person who calls your business is thinking, but these 5 grievances are things that you can easily address to make your calling customers happy. 1. Long Wait Times Callers might have to wait on hold; that may be unavoidable. But you should limit that wait time to the best of your ability and manage their anxiety while they hold. One thing you can do to solve this problem is …

Why Focused Company Meetings Are Not Useless

Company meetings are either time well spent to move work along and benefit everyone in attendance, or they are the absolute bane of your existence. Which of these categories your meetings fall into depends mainly on how productive they are. A highly productive work meeting is actually pretty tough to achieve, which is probably why a lot of people thoroughly despise them. Practicing some simple, regular habits and adherence to a structure, however, can turn your meetings from loose, chaotic disasters, into concentrated sessions that really get things done. Once you pinpoint the things that are derailing your meetings, it’s actually not all that difficult to have very productive work meetings, which is exactly what you’ll learn in this article. Unfocused Meetings Are, Indeed, a Waste of Time If you don’t accomplish anything during your meetings, then you’re not just imagining it–your meetings really are a waste of time. It’s …

Clover vs. Square: Top POS Systems Face Off

When you’re running a small business, there are precious few moments when you get to have some honest-to-god fun, and fortunately, this will hopefully qualify as one of those times for you. Yes, it’s true that purchasing a new POS system is still another business expense that you have to budget for, but it also gives you some new toys to play with. Clover and Square have both created devices and accompanying software that are beautifully designed and built to be ergonomically smooth and simple, so that you and your team will actually enjoy using the product. It might be the most fun product that you buy for the business. This post will go over all the features and differences between the POS systems provided by Clover and Square, but it’s a really close race, both being exceptional products, so it comes down to personal preference in many ways. Ease …

Types of Virtual Phone Systems

3 Types of Virtual Phone Systems & What to Look Out For

Thinking about making the switch to a virtual phone system? You’re not alone. Due to a few important factors, such as cost, simplicity, and the ability to run your business from anywhere, many businesses, no matter how large or small, are moving away from conventional systems and on to greener pastures–and it is greener on the other side. A virtual system is less expensive, more versatile, easier to control and manage, and free of constraints imposed by the traditional systems to which we’re all accustomed. Now that there is a greater demand for them, there is no shortage of virtual service providers. This post, while not intended to go too far in-depth, will give you a crash-course in the 3 main types of virtual phone systems and provide a few cautionary points to help prepare you in your search for the virtual system that best fits your business. Not All …

Why Toptal is the Best Place to Find Developers & Designers

You can drive yourself crazy trying to find and hire the right people for your company, especially if the people you need are in a highly specialized field like programming and development. It helps immensely to have access to a huge inventory of sorts, consisting of professionals in all kinds of design fields, with experts as well, who are there to assist you in the selection process. Toptal is much more than a headhunter service. In addition to a massive network of the most qualified freelancers around the world, Toptal works intensively with you to make a connection between your organization and the individual looking to work for you. Toptal Hires the Top 3% of Freelancers This is the singular feature that sets Toptal apart from similar services because you would be hard-pressed to find a hiring assistance service that puts so many first rate candidates at your disposal. Although …