How to Prepare the Launch of Your First Ecommerce Company

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article
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Branding & Company Name

Before you can even think about launching your business you will need to make sure that all your branding is air tight. You will need a solid business name, that makes your company recognisable and that effectively communicates who you are and what you do. You business name, logo and branding will need to be memorable and unique. So make sure you are researching online, beforehand, to make sure that your business name is not already in use and that your branding is not too similar to that of any of your competitors.

You will then need to register that company name and the domain of your site and if you are wanting to do business internationally, or even just outside of your local community, then you will certainly want to consider trademarking your logo and creating a copyright for your business.

Understand Logistics

Ensuring the success of an ecommerce site is not just knowing your website and your products. A huge chunk of your business is going to be logistics, so it’s essential that you get your head around how it all works and that you have all the logistics in place, prepared and ready to go for when the orders start rolling in.

You are going to need to to look into local warehouses and logistical partners. You will need to get all of your inventory sorted and organised and get all the necessary items in place, such as shipping labels, boxes and central Carolina scales. Making sure that everything is ready in the warehouse, that you have a logistics team in place and all your inventory and shipping materials are ready to go, means that you can really hit the ground running when the orders come in.

Employer Identification Number

Once your business and website are registered and you have researched how to properly trademark your new brand you will then need to think about how to get your employment identification number. You will need this number to open a bank account for your business and so that you are able to do all your paperwork, like invoicing and taxes. Every business need an employment identification number, whether you are employing staff or not, so this needs to be in place before you launch your ecommerce site.

Business Permits & Licenses

Another very important task for anyone launching their first ecommerce company is to ensure that all the correct business licenses and permits are properly organised and in place. These may differ depending on the location of your business, therefore you should check with your local city council in order to understand what sort of tax licenses, business licenses and permits you need in order to be legally trading from your home or office address.

Choose the Best Vendors

The bread and butter of any ecommerce site is the products. Therefore you are going to need to make sure that you are working with the best vendors and that your products are of the best possible quality. You will want to be negotiating for the best price and be building solid relationships with the best vendors that you want to go into business with.

5 Tips on How to Better Your Time Management

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StrategyDriven Practices for Professional Article

In a world where it is getting difficult to spare even one moment for personal salvation, time is of the utmost essence. The world is progressing at a pace that is becoming more and more rapid daily. The days seem to be getting shorter and there are somehow not enough hours to deal with the huge bulk of tasks that await us. We all know how it feels like to wake up regretting the procrastination we thought wouldn’t have that big of an impact.

This is the reason time management is fast becoming a necessity instead of a choice.

If you want to be able to breathe without feeling suffocated, then you need to start working towards managing your time. It is the only way to make your day more productive without cracking under the pressure. Due to the rising need, time management has now become a process that must be treated like any other value-generating function. It has become a proper discipline and more people are working towards refining it.

Here are a few tips that will revolutionise your entire schedule and assist you in dealing with the daily stress without losing your sanity.

  1. Make use of resource planning software

This first tip is especially important for busy businesses. Resource planning software is a blessing when it comes to efficient time management. These tools assist you in planning out your day and completing your tasks on time. Any business is founded on the belief that time is money for everyone and that making the most out of it is everyone’s aspiration.

These systems are designed to save your valuable time and improve project delivery. This will help you delegate projects to the right people, improve the quality and speed of work, and take productivity to a new level.

If you’re looking to make use of resource planning software, an example I found that’s worth looking into is timewax (https://www.timewax.co.uk/) which is a highly proficient and reliable resource planning application for businesses of all sizes and nature. It is a multi-platform solution that travels with you wherever you go, on your desktop or your mobile devices, offering the freedom to work without wasting time.  If you are looking to give your profits a significant turnover, then Timewax is your go to time management assistant.

  1. Prioritise Intelligently

One of the secrets behind the lives of those who seem to have it all together is that they have learned the art of prioritising. Instead of allowing the daily workload and endless chores bring you down, make a list of all your tasks and then break them down into several categories for your own ease. Prioritising will help you plan your time in a better and more productive manner than if you haphazardly attempt to check items off your to-do list.

Here are four priority categories you can jot down and fill in according to the urgency of the tasks at hand:

  • Important and critical– Tasks that are high priority and must be done no matter what. These are the tasks you should start with.
  • Important, but not critical– These jobs are ones that seem to be important at first glance, but after a closer look do not make it to the list of tasks to be completed urgently. Note down a slot for each of these responsibilities and complete them according to your decided schedule.
  • Critical, but not important: These chores are a nuisance as they are not of any real value, but gain importance because of the ‘noise’ they make. Make efforts to delegate such tasks to someone else and if not possible, attempt to give them average precedence.
  • Not important and not critical: These are the responsibilities you can do without as they only clutter your day and make you busier than you actually are. It is best to delegate these tasks so that the time saved can be utilised for priority tasks.
  1. Learn to Plan Ahead

One of the worst blunders you can make to ruin your entire day is to jump in without having a clear picture of what you are expected to accomplish. The time you spend planning the events of your day is trivial compared to the time you will waste jumping from one task to another, desolately trying to accomplish everything. There are two time-frames for you to plan out your schedule, depending on whether you are a night person or a day enthusiast:

  • The night before: Take fifteen minutes out before you start your bedtime routine to note down the tasks that are waiting for you when you wake up. Getting up the next day with everything already planned out will give you a sense of calm and kick-start your day on a good note.
  • First thing in the morning: After getting ready to face the day, sit down and plan your day before leaving for your first assignment.
  1. Set deadlines

Even when our days are filled with an endless list of tasks, we still somehow manage to waste time procrastinating or doing things that we can definitely do without. Setting specific deadlines for every task you need to finish will help you keep your schedule and avoid losing precious time.

Try to set a deadline that is a few hours earlier so that you can take care of any tasks that emerge suddenly. It is helpful to challenge yourself and setting a reward for yourself for completion of the chore will do wonders for you.

Keep your eyes on the clock and do not let anything divert your focus and attention. Set rewards for completing your task on time.

  1. Utilise Your Downtime Efficiently

This certainly does not mean that you spend all of your downtime planning and prioritising further, as it will just elevate your stress levels and make you incompetent. If you find yourself stuck in morning traffic or sitting in the waiting room before a meeting, then finalising your dinner plans or putting together a grocery list will help manage your time efficiently. However, make sure you spend some of this extra time relaxing and catching your breath as overworking your mind will lead to premature fatigue before the day is even half over.

Time management is a skill that everyone needs to master. Be it a student attending music lessons after school or a business person running from one meeting to another. Stressing out about having too much to do in an inadequate amount of time will only result in you almost getting a brain haemorrhage!

Make use of these tips, get help where you can, invest in the right technology and watch your life take a turn for the better. You will be able to spend some quality time with your loved ones without having to feel guilty about sacrificing the time you could have spent on completing your tasks.

Golden Rules for Maintaining a Healthy Cash Flow

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article
Photo courtesy of Nicholas Youngson of NYPhotographic (Title CC BY-SA 3.0 NY)

You have, no doubt, heard the saying ‘cash is king,’ and it may be cliché, but it is definitely the truth. No business can survive without any cash. It is the fuel that keeps the engine running. This is why all companies, especially SMEs, need to have a strategy in place for maintaining a healthy cash flow and dealing with any potential related problems that may arise.

Have a clear process in place…

Businesses run efficiently when they have clear procedures in place, and this is definitely the case when it comes to maintaining a healthy cash flow. You need to have a straightforward procedure for dealing with invoices and collecting payments. Don’t forget to practice what you preach; you need to send out invoices promptly if you are to be paid on time. How can you demand efficiency if you are not operating efficiently yourself? There are plenty of great tools available today to assist with sending invoices out and tracking them. By automating this part of your business, you can ensure everything runs more smoothly and quickly.

Don’t accept defeat…

One of the worst things you can do is simply assume that there is nothing you can do about late payments. Many business owners assume that it is out of their hands. After all, they cannot literally force the client to pay on time. You need to get rid of this defeatist attitude. No matter what frustrating business problem you are faced with, there is always a solution. Of course, you can improve your internal practices, but if this does not solve anything, there are other options. Working with a cash flow finance company is highly recommended. If you get an indication that a client is not going to pay on time, a finance firm will pay on their behalf. The client will then pay the lender instead.

Do your research beforehand…

It pays to do a bit of research about the customer beforehand. This is especially the case for any substantial orders. Begin by acquiring their credit report. This will give you a good indication as to whether the potential client is someone to trust. If they do not make payments on time, they will have a bad score, and this should be an immediate red flag. You should also find out about the payment practices of the customer. For example, do they pay on an ad-hoc basis? Do they only pay on a certain day per month? By knowing a customer’s payment habits, you can plan more efficiently. The more you know, the stronger your position.

Set an upper limit per customer…

Finally, make sure you set a bespoke upper credit limit for each of your customers. You can use the credit check you obtained to assist you with this. Also, obtain references from other businesses that have traded with them. You need to determine the risk you are exposing your firm to when arranging any type of credit agreement. Once you have set the limit, do not budge.

Powerful Marketing Gems To Help You Build Your Brand

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Good marketing can be the difference between a company that is just surviving and one that is flourishing. But with a glut of information out there on what the right way to do things is, it can be hard to weed out the gems from the dirt. That is where the following information can be useful.

Color is vital

So, it may sound a little basic to include color into your marketing materials, but it really isn’t. Color is much more of a complex thing that we often give it credit for. In fact, certain colors can evoke particular emotions, something that can have a huge effect on how customers relate to and feel about your business.

Marketing is the business of getting your company brand out there and getting potential customers to respond positively to it. That means choosing the right color or color combination for your brand is very important. For some more information on this check out this article on which color relate to which emotions and how you can utilize this is your logo and brand creation.

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article
Photo courtesy of Pixabay

Money well spent

Marketing is a specialist subject. It is something that people go to college for years to study. It’s also something that changes all of the time very quickly. That means reading a few how-to books doesn’t qualify you to do the in depth detailed work that many campaigns need to be successful.

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article
Photo courtesy of Pixabay

It’s not that you can’t have an educated overview of what is going on. It just means that you do need to do is raid the coffers to invest in a professional to do things are pivotal for your company. Such as video making and contract creation.

Of course, many businesses struggle with the cost of employing the best marketing professionals, because they have to outlay the money before they get to see the results.

However, it is well worth finding the finances by reinvesting current profits or going to a provider like Swift Corporation for a loan or an advance that is easy to replay back in installments.  You can even risk going into your business overdraft, for a job well done. As paying peanuts gets you monkeys, not really the caliber of worker you want looking after your vital customer facing image!

New content is king

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article
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As you may or may not know after Google’s recent Fred update, the way that search engines respond to marketing tools like content is changing… again. This means that you have to stay current and move with the times to remain relevant and high in the search engine ranks.

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article
Photo courtesy of Pixabay

To do this, consider the type of content you produce. Eschew the general and go for something that more specifically answers the possible questions that can spring up around a topic.

Also, the value of video content is now huge due to this update, so consider making clips that show the customer how to use your products, or make things relevant to the field you are in. Some great example of this are the Buzzfeed videos made for Pinterest, which play even when they aren’t clicked on, drawing people’s attention.

Leading Your Team One Step At A Time

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If you want to get far in business, one of the primary factors that you can’t afford to ignore is ensuring that your management team are as professional as possible. They are among your most important staff members, and it is vital that you hire people you think will succeed in leading your team in however they need to be led. Of course, there are always certain characteristics which you will need to look out for if you want your team to be led well, and it is worth looking into what those are. Let’s have a look at some of the more important qualities now, so that you can help to lead your teams as well as possible.

StrategyDriven Management and Leadership Article
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Confidence To Lead

People will generally have a much easier time following someone if they appear to have the confidence to lead. This is something that you can’t really overlook when you are thinking of who should lead your teams. You probably don’t want to put in charge someone who is unable to display confidence in front of groups of people. However, it is also true that sometimes less confident people have better ideas. It seems fair to try and draw a balance, and not to immediately dismiss those who might not be strongly confident in comparison to others. Confidence, after all, is something which can be learned, and it is good to give people the chance to prove themselves. Sometimes, you find real gems this way, and it favors your business massively in the long run.

Cool Head In Emergencies

Being prepared for the worst is a good idea in business generally and in leaders in particular. No matter what happens, you need to be able to know that your management team will be able to properly deal with it. It is therefore a good idea to choose managers who appear to have a cool head, and who would continue to do so in an emergency situation. There are all kinds of emergencies which can crop up in business, and preparing for as many of them as possible always puts you in a good stead. You’ll find that your managers are more adept at remaining calm particularly if you have a number of good emergency procedures in place – get business insurance online, have a risk assessment done, coincide with all safety laws. This all helps, and your management will probably appreciate it.

StrategyDriven Management and Leadership Article
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Easygoing Communication

The ability to communicate well with others is always going to be paramount for your management staff. When you can communicate strongly, it means that you are more likely to get things done properly and on time, and it also means that relationships in the working culture can be developed much more easily and fluently. Make sure your managers are all the kind of people that other can talk to easily – this really does make a world of difference when it comes to getting things done on a daily basis, and creating a positive working culture.