How Having A Way With Numbers Will Lead You To Success

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No matter what kind of business that you run, it is absolutely essential that you know how to manage your numbers. So many companies end up bankrupt or missing on out amazing deals because they haven’t understood something, or they have miscalculated and are now at a total loss.

While being a good manager is important, if you don’t know the basic ins and out of transactions and financial management, you won’t get very far. Even knowing how to take out a loan with companies like Summit Financial Resources without having to worry about all the terms and conditions on interests, will save you.

Like anything; if you want to thrive in something you do, you should apply yourself to it as much as you can, drawing out as much information and going over that again and again so that it’s stuck in your mind and becomes second nature to you.

That’s how we learn.

Here are some of the most basic ways you can boost up your number skills.

Hire an accountant

Hiring an accountant to deal with all your money transactions is a great way of knowing that the job is under control, and allows you to have peace of mind. Trying to manage it all yourself can be very overwhelming and stressful, which then makes it more likely for you to mess up and make a mistake. An accountant will be able to monitor all of the money coming in, and all of the money going out of your accounts, ensuring that it is all done correctly and you aren’t missing anything. But not only that, they also deal with tax and any other things that you need to stay on top of so that your business is sticking to all the rules and doesn’t risk finding itself in any trouble down the line.

Speak to a financial advisor

If you aren’t sure what you’re doing, what to invest your money in, and what to put away safely, then a financial advisor will help you with making all those kind of decisions. You would sit down, and break apart your business finances with them, and they would work out what risks are good ones, and what risks you just can’t afford to make. They will help you figure out how to earn more of an income more often, while teaching you how to pay less in areas of your business like for manufacturing fees and marketing strategies. Advisors are trained to spot things that you may not, because they know exactly where to look. So bringing in a fresh set of professional eyes can make the whole world of difference to how your business is run.

So as you can see, these are only a couple of examples as to what you can do, but they are by far the most effective. A lot of people don’t like the idea of having to reach out for help, and bring a stranger into their company, but sometimes it’s necessary if you want to grow.

Improving the Efficiency of Your Business

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Countless businesses around the world are operating on a daily basis, with some proving to be more successful than others. Though this is down to things like marketing strategies, sales numbers, and top investors, even these indicators can be boiled down to having an efficient workplace. Higher efficiency leads to a business that is far more likely to succeed, and so it’s best to refine your workforce from within the office to see just how much this can help. Finding ways to do this can be hard, but you can start with small and easy improvements which will ultimately have an immeasurably valuable impact on the efficiency of your business.

Remind employees of goals

It’s almost like having a lesson objective up on the board during class time, but it works in the same way. Whether it be an email at the beginning of the working day, or a brief meeting as soon as everyone gets into work, having a daily reminder of what the goals in the company are for the day can keep workers on the right track. It will also help to clear up any potential confusion over what an employee’s tasks are and will prevent any greater misunderstandings happening further down the line.

It’s important to note that this will keep you as the leader from setting goals that are impossible to achieve in a day’s work, or which can be completed within a few hours. Having a physical reminder of what the workplace goals are will ensure that you can set them to match the fluctuating needs of a business. It will also introduce some variety into working patterns in the daily running of your company, which will keep your employees’ eyes on the prize. The trick is to set goals that are just outside the comfort zone of an employee, so as to challenge and push them to reach their potential.

Invest in better ways to communicate

You might have excellent goals and a foolproof business plan, but sometimes these can become lost when you are conveying them to staff. This could be down to things like overcomplicated jargon, or not using the correct vehicle by which to share these with your workplace. Either way, these factors are both things that need to be addressed. To start with, go over your goals and business plans with a trusted colleague or advisor to make sure that they are easily able to be understood by others in the office, and beyond. It may sound great in your head, but it isn’t your employees’ fault if they’re not able to grasp exactly what it is that you want. Breaking it down in a way that everyone can understand will help clear up any confusion you may be feeling, too.

Once you’ve done this, make sure you have a good way of communicating information to your staff, as well as potential clients outside the office. Having faster internet connectivity, a great landline provider, as well as a regulated email system can all markedly help with this. At the crux of it, companies now rely on the internet to communicate more than ever. To ensure you have the best of the best, and to look about bringing some extra funds in for your business, it’s a good idea to look into having a mobile tower lease.

Implement on the go training

Training is something that takes up a large chunk of time and resources of a company, which can often hinder any progress. Not only does it remove valuable workers from the office for an extended period of time, but it’s not even clear whether the training will positively impact the business. Traditional training requires staff to have training days, with large amounts of information being given out to staff, who are expected to take it all in during the allocated training slot. Not only has this proven to be ineffective, but it can certainly create a working environment characterized by high pressure, which will put workers off.

The key to solving this is through on the go training, where staff can learn at their own pace, in a place that suits them. You could even make use of mobile learning, so that they can do it from the comfort of their own phones, and so that training is not restricted to the workplace. This will not only make it more fun, but will enable the worker to embrace the newest technological requirements. By letting them train in snippets every day, the information becomes more digestible, and they will be better able to use it in a practical scenario.

Track progress

This type of training also makes it far easier to track the progress of workers, which you can do using internet software, or by checking in with staff at the end of every day. It may seem like a lot of work to put in from the start, but it will reap its benefits in the long run. By tracking progress, you will be able to see who is underperforming, and in which areas, and you will be able to spot any trends in the workplace that could be better improved in the next batch of training exercises.

However, progress isn’t always negative, and you can also use it to see just where your business is meeting its targets. This will help you take through a range of tried and tested strategies that you can rely on in the future. More importantly, you can use this information to see who deserves the next promotion, and who can be trusted with new responsibilities.

Reward hard workers

A happy workplace is known to be more efficient than an unhappy one. Incentivizing workers can be one of that hardest parts of running a business, especially on drab days where the hole office seems to be lagging. Though the easy option is to punish staff for not working that hard, the best option is to get to the bottom of why this is the case, and to offer support and extra training where needed. Not only this, but by introducing a rewards system for performance and behavior at work, employees will be more likely to reach for the higher goals, and will be able to see the same potential in them as you do.

How To Prepare For Your Next Marketing Event

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When it comes to getting your business noticed, marketing is essential. This can be done through emails, leaflets, and on social media, but conferences, exhibitions, and trade shows are also important. As any business owner should know, if you fail to prepare for these types of events, you should prepare to fail. If this is your first event, and you don’t know how to prepare, the tips below should be able to help you out.

1. Do Some Research

Don’t just head to whatever event your competitors are going to; You need to make sure that it’s the right event for you. Before you do anything else, make sure that you do plenty of research on the event to make sure that it benefits you in some way. You can do this by checking out the social media pages of the event, their blog, their visitors and exhibitors, and videos of past events.

2. Outline Your Goals

Once you’ve found the right event for you and your business, you need to figure out what you want to achieve by attending the event. If you simply want to use it as a networking opportunity or to increase brand awareness, then a simple tabletop display will suffice, but if you want to sell products, then you’ll need to bring enough with you to meet the demand.

3. Plan Your Display

Whatever your goals for the event, you need a creative and eye-catching display. If you don’t get it right, you’ll have little to no interest. Tabletop trade show displays by Exhibe Corporation and similar companies are designed professionally and ensure that you will stand out from the crowd. Just make sure that you find out any restrictions or requirements for your display, to ensure that it’s not too big.

4. Prepare To Talk

If you are planning to talk at the event, you need to make sure that you put a lot of thought into what you’re going to say. You will need to be able to speak about your business without reading off a piece of paper, so having some pointers and using a power point is a great way to jog your memory while you’re talking.

5. Organize Your Business

Taking members of staff out of the office for a day is going to have a big impact, no matter how large your business. To reduce this impact, you need to make sure that your business is organized, and that everyone knows what they should be doing while you’re not there.

6. Sort Your Transport

You can’t expect your members of staff to get to the event themselves, so make sure you have a meeting to discuss your options. Of course, if people are willing to drive themselves, they can, but it might be more sensible to hire a minibus for the day.

Marketing events are a great way to build brand awareness and generate sales, but only if you’re properly organized. Pay attention to these tips to make sure that you are.

Can You Manage Your Website’s SEO Strategy?

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Businesses need websites to promote themselves to prospective clients, and creating an effective site is a science, and indeed an industry, all its own. Whether you choose to build your own site or employ a specialist to do it for you, all your efforts will be in vain if you don’t get your website to the top of the search engine rankings. It’s hard to move on business and marketing websites for references to SEO and how important it is, but is it something you can manage yourself or is it the digital equivalent of brain surgery – best left to the experts?

What is SEO?

Search Engine Optimization; it simply means there are certain things you can do with your website that will result in search engines listing it closer to the top of the results list when someone searches for terms that are relevant to your business. That’s the simple part; the complication is how this is most effectively achieved. Different search engines use different algorithms (the combination of factors and how much weight is applied to each) to rank search results, and they are not inclined to transparency when it comes to providing details of their methods. Added to this, algorithms are regularly changed and updated according to a search engine’s development programs.

Tackling SEO yourself

There are some elementary steps you can take to lay the basis for a sound SEO strategy, based on some of the more static principles that algorithms take into account:

• Ensure your site has quality content and is well-written. This is a fundamental requirement, and algorithms place significant weight on the quality of your content.

• Include links to relevant, quality sites. Use sites that have the authority and high traffic for their subject area. The higher the quality and authority of your links the better your site will be rated.

• Get backlinks from other websites to your site. Again, concentrate on authoritative, popular sites. You will need to make connections with other website and blog owners, and you will need to add links to your site in exchange for them adding your link to their site.

• Use appropriate keywords in your metadata and content to highlight the relevance of your business to terms people are searching for.

It can be a time-consuming process to research where you want your site to be linked and agreeing on terms with the hosting site. There is no reason why, with time and dedication, you shouldn’t be able to accomplish this work yourself but remember to keep educating yourself about SEO methods and updates to the algorithms.

Professional SEO services.

Given the huge impact SEO has, it’s no surprise that there are a lot of companies offering marketing and SEO services. Some companies have experience and expertise that can be very effective in formulating a successful strategy. If you are contemplating this option, be sure to find a reputable company like Dymic Digital SEO, and avoid the scammers and the companies that are simply not very good at their job. If you’re contemplating this solution, do some research on the results of companies you are interested in and view their case histories. You can also consult forums and find out what other customers have thought about a company’s services.

Taking a middle path

If you have the skills, time and interest, you may want to deal with some elements of SEO yourself and leave the more complicated aspects to professionals. As long as you can work in harmony with your SEO company, this can achieve successful results. You need to be clear about what each of you is responsible for, and be open to the SEO advisers on every aspect of your strategy to ensure a good working relationship. If you have staff who are interested and capable, you could assign the best candidate to take charge of your SEO. You would need to facilitate appropriate training courses to enable them to be effective in the role and make sure they continue to develop their skills.

Assessing the success of your SEO strategy

Before you begin, whether you are doing it yourself or employing specialists, you need to know how well your website is performing. Use tools like Google Analytics to see how much traffic you’re generating, how many click-throughs and how many conversions. Once you have the figures, compare them every month to see what is improving and what isn’t, so you can adjust your strategy to aid in increasing site views and purchases or inquiries. Reviewing progress and results is a vital step, the same as with all your marketing activities, for without knowing what actions have increased sales, you can’t address any issues and find ways to fix them.

Where to go for help if it’s not working

If after repeated efforts you are still not seeing improved results, it might be time to engage a professional company. The competition for ranking position is fierce, and there are many other websites all clamoring to take the coveted page one positions. You will be at an advantage if you operate in a very focused niche because there will be far fewer relevant results to be retrieved. However, if you have a product or service with general appeal, you will be vying with hundreds or thousands of other businesses, and there are only a few who can make it to the front. If you are determined to or have no choice but to go it alone, you should at least do as much research as you can on optimizing your SEO so that you have the knowledge to make the right changes.

Don’t underestimate the power of SEO to make or break your company. Your website could be beautifully designed and full of exceptional high-quality content, but if it’s not marketed well, you’ll never get high levels of traffic visiting the site. Most people looking for products and services look to a search engine for information, and if you’re not on the first few pages (preferably page one) you’re unlikely to be seen, so give SEO the time and attention it merits.

Think Like A Hacker, Protect Like A Pro

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In physical spaces, companies rely on security guards and cameras. They place these measures in areas thieves are likely to target. Cameras point to expensive products. Security guards stand at possible entrance points. Systems like these were built by getting into the minds of thieves.

But, when you take business online, internet security becomes the primary priority. Here, instead of security guards, you’ll have anti-virus software to take care of matters. But, with big companies such as Yahoo still falling foul to breaches, it’s easy to see that anti-virus software isn’t enough. It’s possible, in fact, that the best way to beat breaches online is to get into the headspace of hackers. Just as you would in a physical store, you should think about where such individuals will target you. That way, you can put much more informed protections in place.

Of course, most of us have had years of dealing with thieves. But, hackers are a whole new breed. What’s more, few of us get to watch them in action. While thieves are right there for us to study and understand, hackers operate under a veil of secrecy. But, that doesn’t mean you can’t at least go some way towards getting into the mindset. And, we’re going to look at how.

Work out which information matters most

You don’t need to understand what hackers do to realize that they only target specific information. They’re unlikely to care, for instance, about how many views your page has received that day. Instead, they’re going to target your more vulnerable information. For the most part, that means they’ll go after any credit card details you store. Email listings and customer addresses may also be points of interest. In short; all the information that you want to keep as safe as possible.

When you’ve worked out exactly what hackers are after, it’s time to spread those details thin in your storage files. That way, you’ll make life much harder for potential hackers. And, you can rest easy that a breach in one area won’t compromise everything. Once you’ve spread the information, consider ways to increase security in vulnerable areas. Obviously, you want to protect your site as a whole. Any breach is going to bring a hacker closer to this information than you’d like them to be. But, it’s worth taking extra measures with these files. It’s the only way to be sure they’re as safe as can be.

Know your security weak spots

It’s also essential that you recognize your weak security spots, and strengthen them. Before attempting to breach, any hacker will suss your business and find their in-point. This is no different from thieves who aim for the back door. The only problem is, you can’t just stick up a CCTV camera and have done with it. But, that doesn’t mean you’re helpless. If you know about these vulnerable areas, you can take extra care to keep them protected. Often, knowing what information hackers will be after can help you here. So, consider that first. Then, think about areas where this information will be at weakest. In most cases, this happens when customers are first sending information to you. Here, hackers could gain access to card details and such before it even arrives at your site.

But, there’s plenty you can do to cover weak spots like these. Taking payments from an outside source such as Paypal can go a long way towards security. This can also help keep addresses and email information safe, as Paypal covers all this. You can keep your non-Paypal customers safe by providing secure connections. Urge them to check for the secure padlock before entering anything.

Another weak spot you should be aware of is when you outsource services. When you pass information to another company, you compromise security. What’s more, hackers know it. If your process involves software development outsourcing, or even remote workers, hackers will attempt to gain information during transfer. Even if they fail here, you can’t be sure of the security used by your outsourced options. To get around this, speak about the issue with companies in question. Together, you can develop plans and passwords which work to keep things safe.

Can one breach lead to another?

It’s also important to consider whether one breach can lead to another. Hackers are out to take everything they can, and will attempt to get as far past your security as possible. Adding many layers to your security system will at least ensure they can’t gain access to everything in one easy hit. And, that’s crucial if you want to provide any reassurance for customers. There are different ways to do this. As mentioned in a previous point, keeping information in different areas can go a long way. It’s also worth operating with a few different security systems in place. That way, working out one doesn’t give a hacker instant access to another. If you’re unsure where to start here, you could always turn to an outside company who can take care of this matter for you. Companies like these make their livings premeditating the actions of hackers. As such, they’re sure to be in a better position here than you.

Conclusion

Thinking like a hacker isn’t always easy. As we’ve already mentioned, these individuals will also have anonymity on their side. As a business owner, you just don’t have the choice to watch them as they work. Hence, you’ll always be operating on guesswork here to some extent. But, that doesn’t mean you can’t develop a decent security system. In many ways, hackers aren’t all that different to physical thieves. Only, instead of a shop, they’re breaking into your website. And, instead of expensive stock, they’re out to steal information. With that in mind, you should be able to take any action necessary here. At every turn, think back to the hacker mindset. Remember, too that technology is developing all the time. As such, you should revisit security measures often to keep up.