6 Things to Consider Before You Start a Business

    Odds are, if you are starting a new business, then you have been planning this for a while and have considered very carefully what it will entail. Just in case, here is a checklist of things you should be thinking about as you prepare to open your brand new business.   1. Beware of a low barrier to entry. As the saying goes, “If it was easy, everyone would be doing it,” and sometimes, everyone is doing it. If you find that it’s a little too easy to get into an industry, then it probably means that it’s already over-saturated with too many competitors.   It should give you pause because some barrier of entry to an industry or field of business is actually a good thing. Barriers to entry, such as access to materials, brand loyalty, or strict government regulations—these things limit the number of competitors so …

Do You Have the Guts to Run Your Own Business?

    To be successful, a business owner has to have some key traits, and one of those things is guts. It’s great to be your own boss, but running and growing a business is not for the faint of heart. An owner experiences long hours, long weeks, and extreme highs and lows, which requires some guts to stick it out.   Startups are taking a gamble. If you’re running a startup company, then you need to be especially bold, due to the risky nature of a startup of any kind. Your average small business can be risky, as it is, but a startup is even more so.   You may be sitting on a gold mine, but startups are usually just an educated attempt, by nature. It usually means that you are testing an original idea for a product or service, and only time will tell if the market …

6 Lists Every Business Owner Should Have

    It’s just one of those simple, indispensable things—a list. Whether you are the type of person who likes to use them, or not, the items you put on these lists might end up saving you a huge amount of time and headache.   1. Professional Contacts If you don’t already, you should always have a dedicated list that contains complete information for all of your business contacts, and not just on your smartphone.   We all depend on our phones for a lot of information these days, but you should consider keeping a separate, additional list—or at least back up your phone contacts in the Cloud.   That way you won’t be lost, if something happens to your phone. Murphy’s Law pretty much guarantees that something will happen to your phone.   2. Alternate Suppliers/Vendors   If you’re running a business that requires operating materials & supplies, then …

3 Ways to Stay Interested in Your Business

    When you’re in business, it can be very easy to become bogged down and worn out from the never-ending stream of tasks necessary for you to keep everything running smoothly. The key to becoming inspired about your work again is to find out what you enjoy about it and concentrate your efforts based on that inspiration.   1. Remind yourself why you started in this business. We all lose sight of the forest for the trees; that’s why you have to remember what it was that interested you about your line of work, in the first place. This is first step because if you can’t get back to your original motivation, then you’ll just keep spinning your wheels every day.   You can bet that the heavy workload will be much easier to shoulder when you are enthusiastic about your work. Once you remember why you started your …

Setting Up an At-Home Office for Your Small Business

With more than 22 million self-employed workers and 543,000 new businesses opening each month, office locations have begun to shift from traditional building settings to individual homes exponentially in recent years. In fact, 52% of small businesses are now solely based from home! If you are one of these budding entrepreneurs, you should know that a properly equipped and strategically structured office can make all the difference when it comes to productivity. With just a few easy tips, your at-home office will have you feeling constructive and creative in no time. How Your Small Business Can Succeed Across the board, small businesses bend over backward to try and become profitable from their inception. However, this struggle can eventually lead to a business’s demise if proper financial and business concept planning aren’t considered. But by following these tips, especially in your business’s infancy, you’ll be well on your way to ensuring …

Conversion 101: Create Content that Attracts the Right People

    What is content, and what does it mean today? The word is now ubiquitously used to describe just about any media on the internet. There is an ocean of “content” on the web today, and it is growing larger every day, sometimes with little or no thought given to crafting it carefully.   The word itself even sounds empty and non-specific, which is exactly how I would describe most content that you’ll find on the internet these days, and that is just what you want to avoid when designing content for your readers.   Here are some new ways to look at how you produce your own content, that is actually made for your target audience.   Don’t be generic. Be specific, and be original. The first thing is that you don’t even really have to try to stand out when you’re writing and organizing media that is …

5 More Reasons You Should Get Up Really Early

OK, so you already know that it’s good to get up early, we all know it, and it’s no secret. So why don’t we all do it? The truth is that not all of us are wired to be early-risers—in fact, some of us are decidedly more functional or creative at night—but if you are a professional in any field, there’s no question that you should be an early riser. Here’s why: You will be happier and more productive. As stated in an article published by Psychology Today, “Early risers are happier, healthier, and more productive than night owls.” People who get up earlier generally report being in a better mood, due in large part to the social convention of the 9-5 workday that has been established in our society. What apparently happens is that there is a feeling of “finding your place”, in a sense, in addition to the …

How to Make Your Small Business Seem Like a Big Business

Your business has many different areas that need to be optimized to keep everything running smoothly. As one of the most vital elements of any business, your phone system has to be set up to handle anything your customers can throw at it. Not only can you serve your customers better with an efficient phone system, but it will also give your business a “large” feel, if it has some key features. [clickandtweet]Just because your business is small doesn’t mean it has to sound small.[/clickandtweet] One feature that gives your business a “big” vibe is a call menu, or phone tree. Also known as an auto attendant, this allows you to set up a professional menu to which you may send all of your calls. When you answer every business call on your cell phone, without a call menu, what’s going to happen? The caller will hear it ring, then …

It Takes More than a Cell Phone to Run a Business

The ability to run a business from your cell phone affords you a great deal of freedom and flexibility, but at the same time, it can add a lot of frustration. The problem with doing this is that your business calls are not being managed by any system, but it’s just you and your cell phone. Professional phone systems are set up a certain way that caters to serving customers with features like hold queues and call menus, but if you don’t have a system like Talkroute, your cell phone may not be up to the task. Here are some of the problems you may run into: The whole world knows your private number. Once you start taking business calls on your cell and giving out your number to customers, things can get out of hand pretty fast. There are not very many people who are okay with their private …

17 Best Quotes from Famous Entrepreneurs

Sometimes we all need a little nudge to keep fighting the good fight, and that’s especially true if you’re running a small business. Fortunately, we can stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us, been through the trials, and discovered how to navigate through life as an entrepreneur. The following is a list of thought-provoking quotes from some of our greatest predecessors. 1. “Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.” —Steve Jobs 2. “It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste.” —Henry Ford 3. “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” —Bill Gates 4. “What separates the winners from the losers is how a person reacts to each new twist of fate.” —Donald Trump 5. “A man can succeed at almost anything for which he has unlimited …