When To Check a Potential Employee’s Credit

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StrategyDriven Talent Management Article | Employee Background Check | Employee Credit Check | When To Check a Potential Employee's CreditAs a hiring manager, you want to ensure you interview and employ the best workers possible. Naturally, you spend plenty of time reading resumes, contacting candidates, and performing thorough interviews. However, what you might not realize is that you sometimes need to perform a credit check on potential employees. Check out this quick guide to help you decide when to do so.

Job Positions That Benefit From Credit Checks

Employee credit checks are most common when a company is hiring someone who will directly deal with either the company’s finances or the clients’ finances. This may include people who work in upper management, call center representatives for banks and credit card companies, accountants, and more. Some employers even perform credit checks on the store clerks who run the cash registers.

What To Look For

When it comes to what to look for when performing a credit check on potential employees, it is really up to you. Most hiring managers first look for current or past bankruptcies as well as consider how many delinquent accounts the potential employee has. More scrupulous employees may also consider how much the person owes on mortgages or in student loans. Keep in mind that a credit report won’t always tell the whole story, though. If the candidate looks good otherwise, feel free to interview them to find out more information.

Make Sure It’s Legal

Before you spend money on a credit check services for employers, make sure you can legally look into your employees’ credit histories. Some cities and states don’t allow you to do so at all. In the ones that do, you must follow a protocol. This includes getting written approval to do the credit check from the potential employee, not looking further back than 10 years into the history, and providing the employee with a copy of the report you receive if he or she requests it.

While it is important to research a potential employee’s credit history if he or she will deal with any of your company’s financial information, keep in mind that poor credit doesn’t necessarily need to be a deal breaker. Remember to go with your gut feeling and to look at other important factors when choosing your new employees.

3 Reasons to Be Careful about the Companies You Do Business With

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | 3 Reasons to Be Careful about the Companies You Do Business With | Entrepreneurship | Risk ManagementIn business, there are all kinds of different things that you need to be mindful of, and cautious about. It’s certainly the case that you need to invest your money wisely, and if you’re operating in the wrong niche, that in and of itself can be lethal.

Perhaps one of the biggest pitfalls that a new entrepreneur can fall into, however, is getting in bed with the wrong business partners, or becoming a bit too embroiled in shady dealings, alongside unscrupulous companies.

Certain businesses are likely to be a boon to you, if you work with them. A company that is focused on protecting the rights of maritime workers, and that is run ethically by an upright and reputable individual, is unlikely to cause you trouble if you happen to be in partnership with them.

Other companies, on the other hand, can ruin you by association.

Here are a few reasons to be careful about the company you keep in business.

You may get exploited and dragged down directly

The first risk that you face when doing business with an unscrupulous company, is that they exploit and drag you down directly.

It’s not unheard of for devious business partners to use fairly naïve entrepreneurs as “fall guys” for schemes that are fundamentally based on misrepresentation, and exploitation of the customer. In such cases as these, you might find yourself being contractually listed as the responsible party when things go wrong.

Other forms of exploitation are even more blatant – and involve things like the direct theft of your unsecured intellectual property.

Your reputation can be permanently tarnished by working with an unscrupulous company

In business, reputation is a big deal, and if you sink yours by associating yourself with deeply disreputable companies, it’s entirely possible – if not even likely – that you will never be able to recover, professionally.

Plenty of people find their reputations completely destroyed, not necessarily because of something they did, but because they got too close to assorted sketchy companies, and were painted with the same brush when things eventually came to a head.

Avoid this situation altogether, because trying to do damage control can be a real pain.

By being inattentive, and complacent, you may end up in a position where you compromise your own moral code

This is actually the most important point in the list, although it comes last in the article.

Plenty of companies act in ways that will violate various people’s moral codes and standards. Of course, living by a moral code, and being forthright and accountable to your own values, is perhaps the most important thing in life.

Without character, you have nothing.

Just by being inattentive, and complacent, you may end up in a position where you absentmindedly or unknowingly compromise your own moral code, by your choice of collaborator.

It’s very hard to regain self-respect if you come to find that a company you are closely working with has ruined the lives of your joint customers or clients through their immoral or reckless actions.

Ideas For Keeping Your Small Business Protected Online

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | Entrepreneurship | Cybersecurity | Risk Management | Ideas For Keeping Your Small Business Protected Online These days you’re likely doing a lot of business and performing your tasks online. While the Internet can be an extremely beneficial way to run your company, it also comes with its downsides.

One cause for concern is being vulnerable to hackers and those who wish to sabotage your files and business. The following ideas are going to help you learn and understand what you can be doing better at your workplace to protect your small business online. This is one subject matter you want to take seriously and attend to if you wish to keep your company free from any unfortunate situations that will be difficult to clean up later on.

Educate Yourself and Be Current

One idea for keeping your small business protected online is to educate yourself on the topic. Be current about knowing what anti-virus programs to use, what backups to perform and when and getting to know your computers better so you can make sure they’re consistently running smoothly. The more you know about IT maintenance, the less of a chance there will be that your business will fall victim to hackers and wrongdoers. You put yourself at risk for negative consequences when you choose not to learn more about online security and what you can be doing better to improve it at your workplace.

Hire Help

Another great idea is to hire help and pay for the professionals to assist you on the matter such as using a Managed IT service. The reality is there’s a lot of information in this area you’re not going to know and will need assistance with if you want to make sure your business is protected online. You likely have other pressing matters and initiatives to attend to and can’t always be in the know about what’s new in the IT world. Invest in using a third party to help you make sure you’re doing all you can to keep yourselves safe on the Internet.

Use Strong Passwords

Never underestimate the advantages of using strong passwords to protect your computers and files. Keep your small business protected online by committing to using passwords that would make it difficult for someone else to hack into your information. Create ones that are challenging and complex, but also update your current passwords often so that it makes it harder for someone else to guess it or compromise your data.

Provide Best Practices to Your Employees

It’s not only your job to make sure your business is protected online, but also that of your employees. However, they may not be aware of how important this matter is or how to go about doing so unless you inform them. Provide best practices your employees can use to make sure their laptops and files are secure. For example, educate them about not clicking suspicious looking links, following through and complying with computer updates and who to ask or turn to should they have online security questions.

How to Start a Team Building Events Company

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StrategyDriven Business Startup Article | How to Start a Team Building Events CompanyWhile most business owners are aware of the fact that their employees play a huge part in the company’s overall success, it has really only been in the past decade or so that business owners have come to appreciate that to its fullest. Not only do you need a staff of properly trained, experienced, and knowledgeable employees, but they also need to work well as a team. If there is a lack of communication or conflict between staff and departments, the entire company suffers, as does the bottom line.

This is where team building activities and events have really taken center stage, as they are the perfect way to bring everyone together and start to open up lines of communication and build trust with one another. This has also sparked the creation of team building events companies, who are the ones that put these events together and host them.

If you’ve been watching this trend and feel like now is the time to get in the ring and open your own team building events company, then here are some tips that can help you get started.

Create a Business Plan

Just like with any business the best place to start is with a plan. Within this plan, you want to outline the basic concept of your company, outline the business’s goals, describe what actions and plans you will take in order to reach your goals, who your target market is, what services and products you will offer, the financials, and how many employees you’ll need.

Invest in Engaging Games, Activities, and Rides

In order to be successful with your team building events company, you’re going to need to stand out from the competition, as this is an industry that is growing fast. One of the best ways to stand out is to offer your clients the best of the best when it comes to engaging games, activities, and rides. Clients need to be able to take a look at your offerings and feel as though you’ll knock it out of the park where employee engagement is concerned.

Take a look at the options available through Galaxy Multi Rides via https://galaxymultirides.com/ as great examples. You can invest in any one of these games and rides and know that displaying them on your company website will draw attention.

Ensure You Have a Digital Presence

This leads us to the next tip which is to ensure you have a robust and engaging digital presence right from the start. This means a professional looking website that operates smoothly and a presence on all the top social networks. Digital platforms will provide you with a way to interact and engage with the public, fill them in on new and exciting offerings and promotions, share useful information, and start to build name recognition.

Remember Any Business Takes Time to Grow

Even with following each of these tips, it’s important to remind yourself that your team building events company will take time to build and grow. This is natural and just part of being an entrepreneur.

7 Types Of Marketing You Can Do Yourself

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StrategyDriven Online Sales and Marketing Article |Marketing Your Business | 7 Types Of Marketing You Can Do YourselfYou don’t need to hire a marketing company to promote your business. Whilst creating adverts and designing packaging are probably best left to professionals, there are many other forms of marketing that can be easily DIYed. This could save you money and give you more control over the voice of your brand. Here are just 7 types of marketing that you can do yourself.

Networking

Building connections is a great form of marketing. By meeting influential people and telling them about your brand, you can spread of knowledge of your business through word of mouth. Networking events are a popular ways of building connections. You can also use sites like LinkedIn to build connections online. Other forms of networking could include attending conferences, trade fairs, local launch parties, joining local business groups and reaching out to people directly via email.

Web design

It’s also possible to build your own website using a free website builder like WordPress. You don’t need any programming know-how to use these website builders, making it an easy DIY way of acquiring a website. These are hosting providers out there that can offer cheap web hosting with SSL, allowing you to keep to a tight budget. Paying for a more expensive host and paying a web designer to build your site may be necessary if you’re a larger company, as it could help with the speed of your site and authenticity of your brand – however smaller companies can simply rely on a cheap host and DIY website.

Social media

Social media marketing is also something you can easily do yourself. Setting up a Facebook and Twitter page is free and easy and you can build an initial following quickly by inviting all your friend and family to follow. Social media can be a great tool for keeping existing customers in the loop when it comes to events and promotions. It can also be a great tool for attracting new customers by promoting posts – this is something you can do yourself via social media without the need for a social media marketing company.

Blogging

Blogging is another effective DIY marketing strategy. Generating blog posts on your website can help you to keep your website active and utilise more keywords, which can boost your search engine rankings. Your posts can also be a chance to boost your reputation – most companies use blogging as a way of offering advice to potential customers, helping to demonstrate expertise and improve credibility. You can even create guest posts on other people’s sites to expand your web presence.

Vlogging

Vlogging involves creates video content. YouTube is the most popular platform for this – many companies have YouTube channels that they dedicate to giving advice. This is great for one’s credibility as it demonstrates a willingness to show your face and the fact that you’re confident enough to give advice. When starting a business YouTube channel, it could be worth investing in a good quality camera and microphone in order to keep a sense of professionalism. Setting up a YouTube channel is free and you can use other mediums to promote your videos such as Facebook and blog posts.c

PR

PR involves reaching out to journalists, influential bloggers and media outlets in order to encourage media coverage. A lot of businesses use a PR company to do this, but you can quite easily do your own PR. By researching into media outlets and finding people to contact, you can then start emailing them with requests for coverage. It’s best to have some kind of angle in order to encourage coverage – this could include a new product or an upcoming event or an interesting story related to your business. By creating a press release you can help to deliver this angle in a way that grabs people’s attention.

Event marketing

It’s also possible to host your own events without using a marketing company. This isn’t always easy but it can be done. Event marketing could include attending a trade fair, hosting a conference or putting on a seminar. You can even host webinars online. To promote the event yourself, take advantage of social media and use email marketing to inform key people.