Finding Balance as a Small Business Owner

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article |work-life balance|Finding Balance as a Small Business OwnerIn the early days, you probably don’t mind working all of the available hours to get your business up and running. But as you go on, you might be looking for more of a balance in what you do and when. Smaller businesses are very reliant on their owners to get things going, but over time you will find there are many options and tools to help you create a better work-life balance.

Goals

If you head to your office or open your laptop day after day without setting yourself some goals, you can spend hours ‘pottering about’ on a range of activities but not really moving forward. Take some time to set goals on everything that you need to do each day. This will mean you are less likely to start to procrastinate or do other tasks. Goals help us stay on track.

The critical thing to making it work is that you set a range of goals that are attainable over your day, week, month, and long term too.

Set goals in both your working life and personal life too. Like a date night once a week, or going to the woods or for breakfast with the children.

Tools

If you have social media campaigns running, are managing projects, and have an It network to manage, then you should consider the tools that can make this easier for you. For social media, there is a range of online tools that will help you prepare and automate your social media efforts.

Project management software like Monday.com or Asana are really popular and make a big difference in staying on track and closing your laptop at a specific time of day. And the right IT security solution will mean you don’t have to have that in the forefront of your mind – it’s all handled for you.

Lifestyle

Make your lifestyle the priority and shape your work around it. Many people let their life come second to work. It’s the default mode for millions. However, you can choose to put your lifestyle first. If you want to do yoga mid-morning and take a nap in the afternoon – then great, fit your work around your life.

Turn Off

When you close the door on your office for the day, make sure that you aren’t having a range of notifications coming through to your phone instead. This will keep you plugged into work. Meaning you never truly get a break at all. It would be best if you also considered building some time into each day that you don’t pick up your phone at all.

At least an hour can combat some of the negative effects that too much screen time can cause.

After all, part of the reason that you wanted to own and run your business was so that you had more time in your life for the things you love and the people you want to spend time with. So look for places to automate, learn to switch off, and set attainable goals.

The Top Pros and Cons of Purchasing Business Insurance

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |Business Insurance|The Top Pros and Cons of Purchasing Business InsuranceWhether you have a startup or a long-established business, you’ll want to protect it. There are so many risks associated with running a business and you want to know that it’s safeguarded in case of a lawsuit, a settlement or any other damage that it faces. And this is where business insurance comes in.

But although business insurance undeniably has its benefits, there are a few things to consider about it before taking the leap and investing in the cover. If you currently don’t have business insurance and are wondering whether it’s the right move for you, here are the top pros and cons associated with it:

Let’s start with the pros:

1.There is Variety of Types To Choose From

One plus point of business insurance is that there is a variety of different types to choose from. From management liability insurance cover to property liability cover, workers compensation, business interruption insurance, etc.

This gives you the flexibility to choose the cover that suits you. Often, businesses will opt for several different types of insurance or a package which offers them three or four types in one.

2. It Will Help You To Save Money

A huge benefit that comes with investing in business insurance is the fact that it can save you money in the long term. Protecting you from a range of unforeseen circumstances, you can have peace of mind.

Whether it’s covering the cost of a claim made by an employee, the cost of any property damage, or another issue, you won’t have to foot an expensive bill at the end of the process (unlike if you didn’t opt for the insurance).

Offering you an efficient and quick solution, you won’t have to worry about the financial implications of downtime. Many businesses around the world recognize this benefit and how much they will be able to save from it.

3. It’s More Appealing to Investors

When you have business insurance, your business looks a lot more appealing to potential lenders and investors – a benefit that startups will love. Providing a certain financial guarantee, investors will know that the business assets are protected in case of an incident. They will, therefore, be more likely to do business with you.

Now, onto the cons:

1. It Can Be Expensive

One downside to business insurance is that it can be expensive. As a business owner, you’re continuously looking for ways to budget out your costs every month – and the costs associated with business insurance might be too much for a smaller business.

Of course, there are ways that you can bring this price down; you could either focus on particular parts of your business that need protecting, review and change your policies ever so often, etc. However, you’ll want to make sure that the key parts of your business are covered – otherwise, the overall expenses will increase.

2. The Pay-out Can Be Slow or Non-Existent

With business insurance, at times, certain claims won’t be covered under your policy. If this occurs, then you’ll not be able to reap the benefits that you expected. When the claim is particularly complex, however, the provider might agree to pay-out to you, but it will take a while to process.

This is because the company needs to fully assess the claim and determine the exact cover they will provide you. In this time your business could suffer huge financial loss and other implications.

Seven steps for a carbon neutral coworking space

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |Carbon Neutral|Seven steps for a carbon neutral coworking spaceIt is the case that many individuals want to do more to ensure that their workplace is as green as possible. After all, we all recycle and make changes to our homes in response to climate change and the desire to live in a more sustainable way – so it is only natural that we would want to do the same thing at work.

In a company workplace, this can be easy – ideas can be taken to managers and schemes can be easily implemented. But what happens if your working day takes place in a coworking space. Coworking has become a very popular way to enjoy the advantages of an office environment for those people who work remotely or freelance. But trying to introduce green schemes in such as an environment is not always easy.

But it is important to remember it is achievable – huge Australian coworking space provider The Commons, which has over 11,000m2 of space, went entirely carbon neutral in 2019. Here we take a look at seven steps you can take towards a carbon neutral coworking space.

1. Go paperless

One of the most important steps in going carbon neutral is in moving to a paperless office. This can be done far more easily than you might imagine. The first step is to get rid of printers, and instead to encourage everyone in the coworking space to avoiding printing out documents needlessly – it is estimated that 20% of pages printed are never retrieved from the printer.

Additionally, you should look into ways to ensure that you never need to use paper. Many businesses are happy to send over documents in a purely digital form, so there is generally no need to have them in paper too.

2. Switch off computers not in use

There is a major problem in coworking spaces looking to achieve carbon neutrality – people leaving their computers on. Many people in a coworking space will get into the habit of logging out from a machine but won’t shut it down. This can mean it can go draining energy for many hours unnecessarily.

Make sure that people get into the habit of fully shutting down their machine.

3. Don’t charge your phone all day

Another problem comes in the common sight of phones being charged all day. Staff might get into the coworking space in the morning, see that their phone needs charging, plug it in, and then leave it there all day without thinking about it. Not only is this bad for your phone, it also is an unnecessary drain on electrical power.

4. Promote renewal energy

There are many ways that a coworking space can utilise renewable energy. If you can look into having solar panels installed on the roof of the space, this can be extremely effective. According to Geo Green Power, specialists in renewable technologies “There are significant benefits to be had from investing in solar energy, for businesses both large and small. With rising energy costs, putting your roof space to good use can be a sensible decision.

Many commercial organisations have already realised the huge potential income stream available from solar energy.”

However, many don’t realise that there are many different forms of renewable energy that a building can invest in. This ranges from solar heating to green source heat pumps.

5. Put a recycling scheme in place

Many individuals who wouldn’t dream of doing so at home, will simply throw their rubbish away when at work – regardless whether any of it could potentially be recycled. This can be out of frustration that there is no proper recycling scheme in place at the coworking space.

This can be easily set up. All you need is a recycling bin – get in contact with your local council if you don’t have access to one.

6. Switch to energy efficient lightbulbs

It is the same changes that can add up to a big difference. Ensure that every time a lightbulb goes, it gets replaced with an energy efficient one. There is double the good news here, as energy efficient lightbulbs tend to last longer than traditional bulbs.

7. Be smart with heating and cooling

Sometimes it is important to be mindful of your own actions. If you get cold in your coworking space, don’t immediately go and demand that the heating is turned up. Instead, consider putting on another layer in order to warm up – and vice versa if you need to cool down. Once again, this is a small issue that makes a huge difference throughout the course of the year.

Signs your business might qualify for R&D tax credits

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Finances Article |R&D Tax Credits|Signs your business might qualify for R&D tax creditsIt is common for businesses to think of research and development (R&D) to be something that is only carried out by specialist science labs and large corporations. And this can lead to them imagining that R&D tax credits are not something that could possibly apply to them. However, it is important to understand that these are misconceptions.

Businesses of all sizes can carry out R&D work – it is just a problem that many people don’t know what qualifies as R&D, or how they might go about making a claim. So here we take a closer look at R&D tax credits and examine some of the situations in which you might be able to claim them. It could be the case that you are missing out on a significant amount of tax relief for your current projects.

Here are some of the signs that your business might qualify for R&D tax relief.

You are an SME

Small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) are sometimes the most likely to miss out of forms of tax relief, because they may lack the accounting expertise to make the most of them. However, the R&D tax relief scheme was specifically designed for SMEs – defined in this case as companies with fewer than 500 staff and a turnover of under €100m.

Larger companies can get tax relief on R&D activities too, but under the R&D expenditure credit banner. But it is just quite ironic that many SMEs don’t realise they can claim on the R&D tax scheme even though it is specifically designed for them.

You’re trying to solve a problem

Even though many assume that their company needs to be scientific or advanced, however, this is not the case. You do need to be looking for ways you can improve what you are doing, and experimenting and researching ways that you can do this. But these activities do not need to be limited to a specific area.

You can claim R&D tax credits across a wide variety of industries. If you create products then it likely that you will be engaging in work that falls under the category of R&D. This could involve creating new products, or improving existing products. It may be in the production process itself, or even in distribution.

As long as there is a problem, and you are trying to solve it – you may qualify for the R&D tax credit scheme.

You are looking to advance the field as a whole

To qualify for R&D tax credits it is important that your project is aiming to advanced knowledge in the field as a whole, rather than simply as a way to benefit your business alone. For example, it would not qualify for R&D tax credit if you were just utilising an existing technology for the first time in your industry.

If your advance can be used by others, then you may qualify for tax credits. This is because the government is intending to incentivise things that the general public can use.

You are doing work others can’t

Another factor in qualifying for R&D tax credits is in showing that the work that you have carried out is not something that can be easily achieved by others. There can be many ways to do this, but one of the most effective is in being able to show that others in your field have attempted to find a solution to the problem.

It is worth noting here that being successful is not a condition of receiving R&D tax credits – you only need to show that you have attempted to find a solution.

You can show that the problem is real

To be able to claim tax relief, it is important to be able to show that there is a problem or uncertainty that you are trying to deal with. You cannot get tax relief for simple exploratory work in the hope that some positive is developed. Additionally, it means that your business cannot already have knowledge of the solution to be able to claim tax relief for it.

If you know the problem that you are trying to solve and can show how it has encumbered others, this can be a strong sign that you can get tax relief for it.

Handling Negative Business Reviews

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article, Handling Negative Business Reviews

It happens to all of us at some point. No matter how hard you work and no matter how much you try to do your best, a customer eventually has a negative experience. Unfortunately, when a customer has a negative experience no matter the fault, you can get hit with a negative review. While it surely stings, it’s not the end of the world. Luckily, you can actually take steps towards turning the negative review into a positive experience for both your business and the customer if you handle the situation the right way. Below, we will be going over some tips for handling negative reviews with the help of Cormac Reynolds from VelSEOity.

1. Don’t React

One of the main things that you want to do is avoid having a knee jerk reaction to the customer who is upset. By responding with negativity, you can guarantee that you will encounter even more negativity which can spiral out of control. Avoid reacting negatively and slapping back to the negative review for the entire world to see. While you want to respond swiftly, you need to do so in a calm and collected manner. If necessary, vent your frustration offline by doing some exercise or by conducting deep breathing exercises. It’s important to understand that a negative review can be a good opportunity to showcase your customer service.

2. Respond Quickly

As mentioned, you don’t want to delay when you are dealing with a negative review. Take quick action and don’t let the negative review fester. Ignoring a negative review is one of the worst things you can do. You want to deal with the negative review as soon as you calm down and can approach the situation with a calm mind. You should take steps towards acknowledging the customer’s pain points and let them know that you are there to remedy any situation they feel they’ve been wronged in.

3. Don’t Make Any Excuses

Even if you feel as though you did nothing wrong in the situation, it is important to avoid making excuses. You want to accept responsibility no matter what because “the customer is always right.” By showing the customer you understand they had a bad experience and you want to make it right, you will be able to showcase that you care about your customers for the world to see.

4. Make It Better

Once you have established communication, you will want to take steps towards actively resolving the problem. When you showcase that you are able and willing to take responsibility for the situation and that you are willing and able to make it right, you have a good chance of convincing the customer that it was a one-time mistake that didn’t warrant such a harsh review.] A lot of times, you will even be able to convince them to change their review and showcase the steps you took to remedy the situation which can turn it into a positive for your business.

One way to do so is to hire an online reputation management agency that can help you suppress and repair comments, all while monitoring your online presence. Make it better by taking control of what information is out there about you and your business and what consumers see. You can not only suppress negative Google results but can work to impress everyone who comes across your business online and create a long-lasting and positive impression. The experts can ensure your reputation is a good one and that you’re able to rebuild and regain trust with your customers and potential clients. Let today be the day you work to improve your business reputation and get off on a better foot.

5. Ask For Positive Reviews

When you are dealing with customers that just want to be angry or even trolls that haven’t frequented your business, you simply have to showcase your motivation for resolving the problem. Another good way to minimize the negative impact a bad review can have on your business is by asking for positive reviews from satisfied customers – this helps you pre-empt such issues and helps protect your reputation. This will help you drown out of the negative feedback with positive feedback. A lot of customers are ready and willing to help out their favorite businesses by writing positive reviews. All you have to do is ask! It is very important to encourage feedback across all review channels for various reasons:

72 percent of customers look towards online reviews when they are attempting to make purchasing decisions. There are search engines like Google who even include online reviews when they are ranking query results. Therefore, the more positive feedback you are able to accumulate, the higher you will likely get your rankings. The more positive feedback you are able to get, the better your chances of converting a prospective customer into an actual customer since they will be much more inclined to frequent your business due to having a high customer satisfaction rating.