Running a Business Can Take a Toll on Your Mental Health

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article |Running a business|Running a Business Can Take a Toll on Your Mental HealthDue to COVID and widespread job loss, many people have decided to become entrepreneurs and start their own business. It’s a great idea to go to work for yourself and build your own dream, but unfortunately, many of these people don’t know what they are getting into and quickly find themselves stressed out, depressed and overwhelmed.

What if it didn’t have to be this way? How can these new entrepreneurs build their new businesses while staying mentally healthy? It is very doable if done right.

Hedge the downsides

You’ve probably heard the hype: Entrepreneurship equals freedom. Starting a business is the fastest way to build wealth. Build the life of your dreams. Unfortunately, it’s the biggest lie out there. The truth is that all of these things can happen, but it’s not so easy. You need to have realistic expectations otherwise you’re going to be quickly disappointed, stressed and depressed when you realize how much work is really involved to run a successful business.

Care enough for people not to fail

If failure tends to get the best of you, you might want to avoid entrepreneurship because it is filled with failure in the traditional sense. In fact, you could say the most successful entrepreneurs are really just professional failures who keep trying. But ultimately, you can relieve any stress, anxiety and depression around failure by caring so much for people that in essence, you never fail. If you show people that you genuinely care and go to bat for them all the time, you’ll never be a failure.

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Be adaptable

If you don’t adapt to change well, you might want to avoid entrepreneurship. In business, things are constantly changing. For people who like the same routine day in and day out, your emotions might start to get the best of you when you realize that running a business is filled with new and different challenges every day. Learn to accept change and don’t let it get the best of you.

Find a healthy outlet

Unfortunately, when it comes to depression, anxiety and other negative emotions, many entrepreneurs feel as if they need to appear strong and in control. As a result, they hold it all in and this makes it worse, leads to drug and alcohol abuse, and in severe cases even suicide. The sooner you can address your mental health, the better the outcome.

Focus on your health

All the success in business is meaningless if you’re not healthy enough to enjoy it. Entrepreneurship is hard work and will take a toll on your mind and body. Make your health a priority and eat a healthy diet, get plenty of exercise, get enough quality sleep, find time to relax, drink plenty of water and don’t overextend yourself.

Have a big solution

Deciding to become an entrepreneur is commendable, but you need to have real solutions for people otherwise everything is going to go astray. After all, business is all about soling people’s problems. The more problems you solve for them, the more money you make. After that, you can put your mental health at ease by answering some very important questions: How are you going to get clients? Do you need to hire employees? How will you handle cash flow and bookkeeping? Are you willing to wear multiple hats and work the long hours to build the business? Start with a solution to people’s problems, then follow up with a solid business plan.

The takeaway

Starting a business is definitely a great idea in these times when so many people are out of work and simply trying to make ends meet. It can yield great wealth, immense satisfaction and a totally different lifestyle for you and your family. Just make sure you know what you are getting into and that it’s not as easy as some people portray it to be. Entrepreneurs, in particular, need to take precautions to protect their mental health and take care of themselves.

About the Author

StrategyDriven Expert Contributor |Dr. Alok TrivediDr. Alok Trivedi is a health, human behavior and national stress reduction expert. He is founder of The Aligned Performance Institute and author of the book ‘Chasing Success.’ https://aloktrivedi.com/

Winter Woes Won’t Keep Your Business Down, If You Do This

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article |Winter Business|Winter Woes Won't Keep Your Business Down, If You Do ThisYes, winter is going to threaten every business regardless of whether or not there is a pandemic. It’s always been like this and may always be like this. Winter presents unique challenges that businesses have to prepare for every year. Not only is there a lot of snow and ice to contend with, but you have to deal with colder operating temperatures, less daylight time, more morale-boosting ideas to think of, and trying to beat your competitors during the seasonal rush. Not to mention, the challenge of meeting export and import needs too. But, winter woes won’t get your business down if you do these things.

Get shoveling, or not

Commercial snow removal is very popular for businesses and if you are interested in this, then we recommend you read this. Not only do they use professional heavy-duty equipment, but that will also mean that snow is carefully removed and safely taken away. But it also means that if you have a complex area such as a car park, you won’t be in any danger of doing unwarranted damage to your foliage, lighting, wiring, machines or curbs. And of course, you lessen your liability to injuries. Employees that have an unsafe car park or exterior to the business could slip, fall and get seriously injured. Not only will they need to get sick pay but they could sue you. So commercial removal is quick, easy and very effective when you have suffered a heavy snowfall.

Protect logistics chains

The number one challenge of winter is the travel. The highways and train lines are covered in snow and ice, making them a hazard. It draws logistics to a crawl and can harm your bottom line because you’re not getting supplies and inventory when you need it. So prepare beforehand and ready your logistical chains. But how?

  • Increase your fleet number temporarily. If you have a fleet of delivery trucks, you should seek to increase the number by 10-20%. So if you have 20 trucks, increase the number to 22 or 24. If one or two trucks break down, another is involved in an accident, another gets trapped, you at least have a technically, full strength fleet.
  • Export markets need some love too. Just because it’s slow and challenging in your local or national marketplace, doesn’t mean it’s the same on the other side of the world. You should seek to increase your export customers during this time, as you try to compete with your rivals.
  • Hire more. If you cannot handle your logistical challenges, hire those that can. Hire more drivers, more warehouse managers and employees to make sure you can meet the higher demand and keep things ticking over.

Keep morale high

Make sure the ambient room temperature is nice and toasty in the office. Keeping morale high with surprise hot meals for lunches, extra time for completing projects and providing mental health care for the holiday season, is so crucial.

It’s easy for businesses to suffer from winter woes as they battle the weather and the seasonal rush. But these things will keep your employees happy, your business open at all times and ahead of the competition.

Tips You Need to Use to Help Your Business Become a Success

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article |Tips for Business Success|Tips You Need to Use to Help Your Business Become a SuccessMake sure you do as much as possible to focus on this right now, and there are a lot of elements that play a part in this moving forward. Think about what it takes to move things to the next level as a business owner. You have to focus on the best ways of being able to do this right now, and it is important that you do what you can to take things forward in the right way.

Come up with ideas that you can use to help improve things as much as possible moving forward. You need to try to make the business a success as much as possible, and this is something that you need to make the most of moving forward.

Study the Market

Make sure you focus on studying the market and how it affects your business. There is so much information you can learn about the industry you are in that can help to inform your business decisions. Whether you run a business in the baby food industry, automotive industry, or recruitment industry, you need to make the right decisions at the right times in order to be a success as much as possible. Making sure you study and understand the market is one of the most important things that you need to do if you are going to be able to work on being successful right now.

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Beat the Competition

Beating out the competition and getting ahead of your rivals is one of the best things you can do to ensure the success of the business. This is a massive factor when you are trying to achieve success because there is so much competition, and a whole host of other businesses and business owners vying for market share. You need to learn their strengths and weaknesses (as well as your own), and use this knowledge to get ahead of them.

Customer Service

Make sure you do as much as possible to improve your process and help you when it comes to improving your business. You need to present a company that people are happy to be a part of, and this means you need to treat your customers well and think about what they need and want from your business. Develop a mobile app that allows people to stay in touch with your business at all times, even when they are on the move. Make sure you prioritise customer service and do as much as possible to make the right decisions as a company right now.

As you can see, there are a lot of things you need to consider when it comes to improving your business and achieving the right levels of success. This is something that can play a massive part in the role of taking things forward, and you have to make sure you come up with the best ways of doing this. Try to work on doing as much as possible to factor this in and focus on taking things to the next level right now. It is important that you look at how you can keep up with this as much as possible moving forward.

“Covering” Your Career Trajectory: Climbing up the Insurance Industry Ladder

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StrategyDriven Professional Development Article |Insurance Industry|“Covering” Your Career Trajectory: Climbing up the Insurance Industry LadderEvery career path usually comprises a ladder of sorts. Arguably, the only exception to the rule is those working in the creative industries. But if you have been eyeing up a career path in the insurance industry, what is the best trajectory?

The Wide Variety of Gateway Roles

You could start out as a broker or claims agent, as well as numerous other roles, but this gives you a thorough grounding to progress within the industry. The insurance industry is a very mobile one. And it is common for people to gain experience in multiple career paths. The best thing for you to do is to try a role that feels like the best fit. And one of the best ways to gain access to mobility in the industry would be to obtain a CIP (Chartered Insurance Professional) designation as early as possible. There are a wide variety of ways for you to improve your knowledge, from the Ambetter contracting opportunities to short courses online. But once you get an understanding of the gateway roles that can provide you with an idea of how to progress, you can venture into one of the four popular insurance careers:

Underwriting

Underwriting provides a thorough base knowledge of a wide variety of policies. The more complex the policy works, the wider the knowledge you get. It gives you an opportunity to liaise with customers directly while also protecting your employer from risk. As such it can be the perfect opportunity to build strong relationships with both sides and you can get recognized and rewarded for the right choices, which can help you progress up the ladder.

Sales

Quite a hard-nosed approach, but some people take to it like a duck to water. It’s all about achieving sales targets while also keeping customers happy. The best approach to progress up this career ladder is to develop a wide variety of knowledge and demonstrate a commitment to continuous learning. You can then become a subject matter expert or progress on to a supervisor or management role.

Claims

One of the positions that require a significant amount of contact with customers. It’s not for everyone because of the contact center nature of the role. But it’s a perfect place to start your insurance career trajectory by doing the grunt work. By getting a wide variety of knowledge through this career route and learning to handle all your claims adequately, you can get recognized for progression. It can lead towards manager or supervisor roles, and you could become an independent adjuster that represents a wide variety of insurance companies.

Actuary

One of the most important roles in insurance because it requires taking exams. However, it becomes a more fulfilling role in many ways because you work on projects that require various degrees of risk while analyzing trends and establishing premiums for products. It requires a wide knowledge of niche subject matter expertise, and is a fundamental component of the insurance industry.

Climbing up the insurance career ladder is not just a singular journey. As you can see, there are a wide variety of roles suitable for anybody looking to make their mark.

How to Start Up Your Own Business

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StrategyDriven Starting Your Business Article |Start Up Your Own Business|How to Start Up Your Own BusinessWhat an exciting time for you! You have decided to start up your own business, and your heart beats faster and a trickle of sweat creases your forehead.

A million thoughts bombard your brain as you have your epiphany moment when you realize that all the events in your life have been leading to this grand moment – your destiny! Maybe you should put the brakes on for a minute, though, and begin to think of things like business growth strategies for your masterplan.

Here’s a quick step-by-step guide for you to follow.

Is this a business with a hook?

In other words, is there something unique about it that will make people want to buy from you? This may not be the case, but there may be a zillion businesses like the one you thought of, and if that’s the case, then you will have to have that “Wow!” factor that’s going to get the people running to you. What will that factor be for your product or service?

The expert market research writer at best essays, says that if it’s something brand new, then the field is wide open, and your business may fly very early on in its existence. Can you cope with this scenario? You could find yourself shooting to the sky while your business collapses around you.

That’s obviously a worst-case scenario, but you must consider all the possibilities and how you would deal with each of them. That’s very smart thinking.

Structure, structure, structure

The more pillars to support the business, the better. One little pillar could collapse very easily, but a couple could hold up the framework if one or two collapse.

It’s important to firstly think of the top structure. This is an extremely important question – do you want a partner? Do you have someone in mind that would be a good fit? It’s nice to have the security of having someone with you to deal with all the myriad events that occur daily in the running of a business. Is that person going to have an equitable share? If he or she is bringing money in to start the business, that’s great.

However, a word of caution – most people have a story to tell about “the partner from hell.” You don’t want this; your business doesn’t need it and your sanity doesn’t need it. Even best friends can turn into monsters. Money does funny things to people.

The blueprint for success

If you are going to go it alone, or even you risk having a partner, you will probably need funding for your business. You are going to have to get a business plan together, and you could seek an operator that will help you in this endeavor.

All financial institutions that you approach will ask you for a plan, and it must be a sound scenario that looks at your objective, projected income and profit margins.

According to a renowned motivational speaker and researcher at an assignment writing help, don’t lose heart if you get turned down by one company. Try and try again, and if your plan is sound, you will find someone who will back you.

Also, take another look at your plan and maybe do some fine-tuning. There could be a simple reason why backers are turning you down. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and find out what exactly is troubling them. Some adjustments could see you get that finance! You could approach a small loans provider. Get ofay with all the legal structures and requirements.

The dreaded paperwork!

You will have forms coming and going like never before, but they are a necessary part of starting a business.

There are the forms for your backers. Signed, sealed delivered should be the sequence of events here. Ensure everything is completed on these vital forms. Read the small print! Ask questions!

There are many business structures, and these may change as your business develops. Each time there will be more forms. Read the small print! You will need to plan and think of leases, utilities, staff payments and so on.
More forms! Read the small print.

What’s in a name?

Well, a lot actually. A catchy name for your business will go a long way into grabbing the curiosity of others. Does your name accurately reflect the nature of your business? This is not vital, but it helps in honing down the possibilities when people are thinking of a service that they need.

A cute but irrelevant name could be fun, but also an annoyance. If you’ve ever watched the goings in Shark Tank, you’ll know how the sharks get irritated when the presenters think they’re onto something good with a name but it’s quite meaningless. Anyway, think, test it out on friends and ask them to be blatantly honest with you. Catchy and relevant is the way to go.

Register your company

You must register your company with the government and the IRS. If you have gone with a small loan’s provider or a business start-up consultant, they will be able to help you with all that is needed in getting your company in line with the government requirements.

You will find it a requirement of most states to supply a form stating the nature of your business. When it comes to taxes, you will need to keep your business and personal taxes separate. There are rules aplenty when it comes to the IRS, but again, you can get expert help on all this from your consultant or backers. Just ensure that you have completed everything that is needed by state and federal governments. Don’t leave any strings hanging that can trip you up.

Get insured!

This is something that slips the minds of a lot of people. There could be damage to the property you have rented, or theft, or a myriad nasty things that could happen.

There are quite a few different insurance policies that cover various aspects of your operation. Make sure that you know all about them, especially if you are providing a service. It is the nature of life that things can go horribly wrong, and when it does and you’re insured, then there’s nothing to worry about.

Speaking of those strings that can trip you up, most business memoirs will include events that damaged a company, but the owner wasn’t insured. It could be a small thing that would never occur to you. Again, get the advice of insurance experts.

Tackling the team

If you’re going to have a sales team and specialists working for you, build your team wisely. If you’re going to advertise, use the sites that you think will attract the right people.

Make use of the call-back system that Broadway operators use when casting a show. Get the person to come back and then back again. It’s rare that producers of a show cast the person the first-time round. By using this system, you’ll make doubly sure that you have indeed chosen the correct candidates.

Also, when using “call backs,” have different people with you when interviewing. This way, you’ll get the perspectives from all the angles.

Is anyone there?

This is a simple one yet can make or break a company. Once you have everything in place, get to market your company. If no-one knows about it, how can anyone buy from you?

Depending on the nature of your business, find out what will make the right impact, and this should be a team effort. Today, besides direct marketing, using digital marketing to its fullest extent will ensure that people get to know about you, quickly! Here’s some sound advice – only market when you’re ready to. There’s nothing worse than garnering a demand without your ducks in a row.

Conclusion

Good luck with your efforts. Three words you must keep in mind all the time – Plan! Plan! Plan! Let this be your mantra on the road to success. The times are challenging but challenges always throw new opportunities and that is what builds new brands and billionaires.

About the Author

Charlie Svensson works as a freelance academic writer for an assignment writing service that ranks as the best thesis, dissertation and essay writing service in the business. His work is centered around providing assignment writing help to university-level students, both native and foreign. He is currently authoring a book on the role of sports in career excellence and plans to release it around January next year.