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It’s a well-known fact that within the first 12 months of launching, around 40% of startups fail, with a further 20% failing in the 12 to 18 months after that. This equates to more than one in two start-ups failing within the first three years of launching – that’s a scary statistic, isn’t it?
Have you decided to quit your job and go it alone? Have you decided to take a left turn on your career path and try something different? Have you finally plucked up the courage to try and make a profit from your passions? If you’re running a business from home, there’s a lot to think about. Far from being easy, working from home can actually present multiple challenges. Hopefully, this guide will help you to overcome hurdles and make your home business a success.
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Business owners often bemoan the idea of making their office more friendly to the environment. It’s not so much that they don’t care about the environment. It’s just that there are so many things to consider! Where do you start? (more…)
There’s something really amazing about the moment when your business is finally successful enough to reach the point where you require a dedicated office space. Lots of people who start out running businesses from their spare room never reach this point, so it often feels like validation that things are really working out. Of course, as great as it can be, that doesn’t mean that moving to a new office is something that’s always going to be easy. In fact, it presents a whole variety of different challenges that you may never have had to deal with before. With the presence of more employees and different environments, it can be hard to know what you really need. To help you get past that stage, here are three things that your office cannot function without. (more…)
The technology industry is the fastest growing in the world and it’s becoming a huge part of business as a whole. The rapid expansion of computer technology caught us by surprise so there aren’t enough people to fill all of those jobs yet. A lot of people are choosing computer science courses at college but if you’ve already graduated, you might not have realized how important it was going to be when you were choosing your major. There are so many different jobs that you could apply for in the industry that don’t require a computer science major so don’t worry, you haven’t missed the boat quite yet. If you are trying to get your foot in the door of the biggest industry out there, here are a few tips. (more…)
Life gets pretty busy sometimes, and it can be hard to stay organised. Is that important meeting today or tomorrow? Do the kids have everything they need for school? Am I drinking enough water? There’s so much pressure on women to do it all these days, but we should be thankful for that. Never before has it been more possible for a woman to reach her career goals, while doing everything else at the same time. Women are powerful and motivated, but we all need a little helping hand every now and again. Here are some items that business women shouldn’t do without. (more…)
When you open your doors as a small business– be they literal or metaphorical – then you take on responsibilities. You take on the responsibility for your own livelihood and ability to make a living, of course, but that’s just the beginning. Most importantly, you take on the responsibility of your customers, of being able to meet their needs and do the things that you claim to be able to do.
That’s quite a big ask, especially if you have relatively little experience dealing with the hopes and expectations of a client base. If you want your business to succeed, then it’s imperative that you understand the trust your clients place in you and your company could be the thing that makes or breaks you.
So how can you reassure customers that you are trustworthy and that their information is safe in your hands? (more…)
There’s no one thing that goes into making a business truly successful. After all, a business is made up of so many different elements that you could never truly rely on one thing to make it a success over anything else. Because of this, it can often be hard to know what things you should embrace into your business and what is unnecessary. That being said, there are definitely exceptions to this rule. No matter what kind of business you’re running and how large or small it is, you should always be willing to embrace and use new technology. Technology is very much the driving force behind the way society moves and changes. If your business doesn’t embrace it, then there’s a pretty good chance that it’s going to end up falling behind the competition. Of course, many businesses want to embrace more recent technology, but they simply don’t know what tech to use. With that in mind, here are just a few of the most useful pieces of modern technology that can really push your business forward and give it a competitive edge on the competition. (more…)
We’re living in the digital age – and with that comes the uncertainty of it all. There’s no denying that there are some people who are complete whizzes when it come to technology and computers, and the majority of us are actually quite limited when it comes to knowing what to do. When you couple this up with trying to keep everything that we store on a computer, whether personal or private, it’s safe to assume that we don’t know as much as we should – leaving ourselves vulnerable to losing it all. It’s not even a case of misplaced, as you would do with physical files; instead, your documents and software can be lost forever through not following simple protocol within your business and investing in the right outsourced companies to help you keep secure. So how do we go about this? (more…)
On paper, home-based employment is awesome! You’re spared the stress and time of commuting, you never have to worry about being late, you’re free of being mired in the gossip and chatter of the workplace and worrying about how you’re going to explain to your boss that you were stuck in a traffic jam is a thing of the past! (more…)
When you first start out setting up your business, it can be easy to feel like a fish out of water. It can seem like everyone around you doing the same thing is sailing through the process, which can leave you feeling a little intimidated. The important thing to remember is that you never see the struggles and the lows behind anyone else’s business; only the achievements and the highs. In real life, there are plenty of common mistakes made by fledgling business owners in those first few months. So, it makes sense that to get your business off to the best start possible, you find out what these mistakes are so you can avoid them should they ever head your way. More often than not, a lot of them relate to finances. After all, money makes the world go round, and it certainly rules almost every aspect of your business. If you’ve been pretty lax with your personal finances in the past, don’t think for a second that you will be able to take the same approach with your company. Here are a few common slips first-time business owners make with their finances, so you know exactly what to avoid. (more…)
If you’re on the cusp of your small business expanding and growing into a larger company; congratulation! All your hard work and effort is paying off, and it shows that you have the stamina and smarts to continue in the competitive marketplace. However, for your business to make the transition into something more substantial, you’ll need to ensure that each area is working well for your company and that you’ve invested time into considering any changes that you’ll need to make.