5 Tips to Manage Your Finances Before a Recession

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Finance Article |Recession|5 Tips to Manage Your Finances Before a RecessionIn the global economy, there are always highs and lows. And when a country or the world is hit with a recession, it can be tough to survive. We can often tell when a recession is about to hit. However, we sometimes ignore the signs and then repent later. Ideally, your safeguarding should start the moment you get the hint that a recession is about to hit.
Here are five tactics to make your finances recession-proof:

1. Switch to a Frugal Lifestyle

We tend to spend more when we have more. But this lifestyle inflation is very dangerous in the long run, especially when the economy is hit with a recession. And developing a frugal lifestyle requires practice; it does not happen overnight. So, don’t wait for the next recession to occur. Instead, modify your lifestyle changes from today itself.
Observe your spending habits for a month. Identify the must-haves and the good-to-haves, and see where you can cut down your expenses. See the products which have cheaper alternatives, and see what you can replace. Gradually, you will become thrifty with your spending habits, and this habit shall be beneficial when the recession hits the economy.

2. Build an Emergency Fund

Savings is an integral part of personal finance management. No matter what, it is a necessity that you save a certain portion of your income every month and add it to your contingency fund. You may be tempted to use this fund during demanding times, but discipline yourself not to touch this fund unless there’s an actual emergency. Instead of using this fund for your regular expenses, you can opt for a credit line that offers flexible repayment options or a short term personal loan, depending on your requirements.

3. Pay Down Your Debt

The higher your debts, the more loss you will suffer during a recession. So before the recession hits, identify all your debts and try to consolidate them to pay them back. Most often, you may not have the liquidity or cash flows for repaying all the debt separately. Then you can choose a personal line of credit or a personal loan to help you get rid of your debt. This will help you save money in the long run with lower rates of interest too.

4. Hone New Skills

Instead of getting upset in a crisis, we should upgrade ourselves. If you see a recession coming up, diversify your knowledge base, and learn new skills that will help you earn income if you lose a job or if your business suffers losses. Several online learning platforms help learn new skills and add to your knowledge base.

5. Hedge Your Income Sources

When you have multiple income sources in a recession, it helps hedge your earnings and diversifies your risk of losses from a particular source of income. Be tactful while choosing multiple sources of income. You can study the recession-proof sectors, like education, medical, etc. and see how you can leverage these sectors based ontheir skills. You can even pull off some extra hours before a recession to make extra income in additional sectors. That way, your finances will remain secure due to risk diversification when a recession hits.

About the Author

StrategyDriven Expert Contributor | Lily TranLily Tran is a content writer, working for MoneyTap, who writes about all things Finance. Her passion for credit, debt, loan & investment drives her to help readers get an insight about everyday finance.

How to Turn Your Hobby into a Business

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article |Turn Your Hobby into a Business|How to Turn Your Hobby into a BusinessTurning something you truly love and enjoy into a flourishing business that generates a constant flow of revenue can be an exciting and fulfilling experience. Perhaps you’re currently unemployed, you’re looking for a side hustle to increase your earnings, or you just want to leave your job and become the CEO of your life by building a thriving empire that generates Millions like the famous Dan Peña did. The good news is that you can turn something you do for fun into a thriving and sustainable business. But that will require thoughtful planning, commitment, skillful management, and a business mindset. Here are 6 practical tips to help you get started.

1. Set a Clear Goal

Choosing to build a business out of your hobby isn’t a goal. You’re looking forward to working on something you truly treasure, but do you want anything else from that business? Are you planning to run it part-time or full-time? Do you want to create an extra source of revenue? Or do you just want to challenge yourself?
Answer these questions and set expectations for your business. Clearly outlining your goals can help you remain committed to turning your hobby into a profitable business empire.

2. Do Thorough Research and Pick your niche

When you’re building a business out of something that you’re truly passionate about, it’s easy to get carried away and skip the research part. It happens all the time with entrepreneurs who are in love with a business idea. Don’t fall into that trap. Instead, do thorough market research to ensure your business idea isn’t making sense to you alone.

Market research involves you collecting as much information as possible regarding your target customers, asking the right questions, analyzing potential competitors, and discovering your target market. It also involves knowing how to monetize your products and/or services. Corona forced the would to go online and you could ride that wave and create a business line Dan Peña but with live events and video streaming on zoom leveraging new platforms like stream.club.

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3. Examine Your Priorities and Look at the Big Picture

How will you integrate your business into your everyday life? Being able to perceive the big picture will help you spot and tap into new opportunities. Here are the questions you need to ask yourself:
Would turning something you do for fun into a revenue generator be exciting, fun, and fulfilling?
Would the business generate revenue that can sustain your current lifestyle?

Would this business be a key to your financial freedom?

What other benefits will you gain from this venture apart from the cash flow? Perhaps you want to create awareness and build an identity for your online business. If that’s the case, many online business coaches out there will help you reach a global audience and position yourself as an authority in your specific niche.
Does it have the potential for capital growth?

4. Come up with a Business Model

Developing a business model is an important part of building a successful revenue generator. It’s easy to identify a problem, get an idea, and embark on product or brand development right away. But if you don’t have a clear way to monetize your product and/or service, you’ll never turn your hobby into a long-term, sustainable business.

You must strive to know the amount of money that will go into developing your product or service, the appropriate pricing, and the amount your target consumer is willing to pay. You’ll also need to know how you’ll sell your product or service. You may opt for a one-time purchase or adopt a subscription model. Other options for selling your product include leasing, crowdsourcing, franchising, and ad-revenue. Next, choose a platform that suits your target customers, products/services, and pricing strategies. As an example: if you’re a podcast enthusiast, Supercast is the go-to platform for monetizing your podcast.

5. Develop a Business Strategy

You might be great at your hobby, but without a well thought out strategy, you’ll never turn it into a profitable business. Having a good strategy in place will help set your new business for success.

What do you want your business to achieve in the long-term? Your answer to this question must be captured in your business strategy. Other things worth incorporating in your strategy include your offerings, your long-term and short-term goals, your business values, your value propositions, your financial projections, and your marketing strategies.

6. Implement Your Strategy

Now that you have a business strategy, the next step is to put it into action. To implement your strategies, you must accompany each of the strategies laid down with specific action plans and the relevant steps to help you reach the intended destination on time.

You must come up with the right action plans and be ready to act in order to implement your business strategy successfully. And if the strategy isn’t bringing the desired results, be prepared to adjust it, or adopt a whole new strategy altogether. Be sure to take advantage of the latest technology to make your business strategy implementation a bit easy. For instance, if you’re building an online fitness business, incorporating Sutra software into your site will help you stay on top of your schedule, sell courses, and earn money from your fitness videos. What’s more, you can use sites like reach.live to host live fitness events. In fact, Sutrafit like McKenzie started teaching yoga on Reach.live during a crisis.

Conclusion

Turning something you do for fun into a profitable business is a fantastic way to make your life more exciting and satisfying. But you must follow the above steps to successfully turn your hobby into a reliable revenue generator.

Personal Development: Help Yourself and Your Employees Grow

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StrategyDriven Professional Development Article |Personal Development|Personal Development: Help Yourself and Your Employees GrowPersonal development is crucial in building a holistic workforce made of leaders and employees who have the skills to succeed in all areas of life. This is because it looks beyond just job qualifications to include mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical development. This can be achieved by encouraging activities that build skills to reach the goals and full potential for you and your employees. The result- better, fulfilled and satisfied individuals, with improved strengths and talents for career advancement and personal and career goals achievement.

There are many benefits to gain from pursuing personal development in the workplace. You all are happy when you feel accomplished. When your employees know that you value their personal development, they become more engaged and committed, which leads to a low turnover rate and high productivity. You also become a good leader who can lead a team to achieve high results.

Here are ways that you can help yourself and your employees take on a personal development journey.

1. Encourage learning

Continued learning of new skills is very crucial in the journey of personal development. You can encourage your employees to learn new skills by offering incentives to sign up for classes or reimbursing part of their tuition fees. You can also plan for training such as the latest technologies in the industry. Invite key speakers in different facets of life to give talks in the workplace. This can be a good place for you and your employees to spot opportunities that can be beneficial to your lives. This should be inclusive of all employees. If you have employees in other countries, in Japan, for instance, hired through a Professional Employer Organization (PEO), such as NH Global Partners, or other providers, be sure to use their services to extend the incentives and training opportunities.

2. Allow flexible schedules

The traditional 9-5 work schedule is one of the biggest hindrances to personal development. People have to wake up early to beat the morning traffic, work throughout the day with little time to rest, and get back home late and tired to do anything else.

Allow a more flexible time where all of you can work in your most productive hours. You can also allow them to choose their best place to work from. This way, you all have the rest of the day to carry out personal development activities like attending a class or hitting the gym.

3. Encourage healthy lifestyles

Leading a healthy life is crucial in improving the physical fitness of a person, which is part of the larger personal development. You can encourage healthy meals at work by offering healthy snacks and drinks. If you have given a contract to a restaurant to provide lunch, ask them to serve healthy meals. In addition, encourage physical activities for you and your employees. For instance, you can start biking to work so that your employees can follow suit. Help them pay for gym subscriptions or even have a mini-gym at work complete with showering facilities.

4. Work on more challenging tasks

If a person spends a lot of time in his or her comfort zone, it can be very hard to move forward and grow to the level that one desires. Mostly, it is fear of the unknown that keeps people at the place that they feel comfortable. However, you can break this cocoon by encouraging your employees to take up challenging tasks. Be there to help them through by giving them timely and honest feedback. You can also assign another employee who is skilled in that area to help others through such tasks. Be sure to also take up such tasks from time to time.

5. Foster open communication

People thrive in places where there is open communication. This is because they are able to express themselves without fear of intimidation or punishment. They have no room to bottle up negative feelings, if issues or concerns come up in the workplace, they are able to table them and solve them amicably.

For starters, you can start by encouraging interactions in the workplace. Everyone in the office becomes confident with one another when they know each other better. During meetings, encourage everyone to participate in airing their ideas, opinions, or concerns. This goes a long way in developing public speaking skills.

Conclusion

A lot can be done to encourage personal development for you and your employees. Be sure that your workplace is built on a positive culture. Positivity yields so many other good results, and that is how you will have you and your employees shining all through.

Business Sectors to Invest in That Offer Higher Chances of Success

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article |Business Sectors|Business Sectors to Invest in That Offer Higher Chances of SuccessWith about 20% of new companies failing every year, investing in the right business sector is challenging. That is why every budding entrepreneur or potential business owner needs to identify which industries offer them a higher chance of success, and that’s the information which this article provides. However, it’s essential to note that the sectors mentioned are part of the fastest growing and not necessarily the largest business sectors. So, are you planning on venturing into a new business? Are you looking for the right industry to launch your business with higher chances of success? Then consider these sectors before you begin.

1.Hospitality industry

The hospitality industry includes restaurants, hotels, and leisure facilities and offers a wide range of opportunities for aspiring entrepreneurs. It is a sector that keeps evolving to meet the new and changing demands of its consumers – a situation that also offers new business opportunities. As the potential consumers’ spending power continues to grow, it creates more avenues for as many future investors interested in this sector. Start-ups with innovative ideas can find many businesses in this sector ready to enter a partnership with them. You’ll have a higher chance of success investing in this sector if you first have a better understanding of what the hospital industry is.

2. Technology industry

The technology industry has become one of the main driving forces in almost every business sector- so it is with little wonder it makes it onto this list. Technology is at the heart of nearly everything we do. For example, a simple-looking electric cylinder can be used in different motors to power or run machines in various sectors. The growth of many online platforms has promoted the ease of doing business across physical boundaries. However, there is still a lot of room for improvement and even better innovations, as humanity keeps searching for ways to make life easier.

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3. Healthcare industry

The healthcare industry is growing at a fast pace and has led to several breakdowns in the sector. Despite that, the breakdowns in this sector also present entrepreneurs and aspiring business innovators an opportunity to fill the gaps with innovative tech solutions. This means that a person does not need to have a background or training in health to impact this industry. The healthcare sector uses different kinds of software and hardware technologies that need constant changes and upgrading. This situation offers vast opportunities for software developers and programmers prepared to think outside the box and create new ideas for the healthcare sector.

4. Construction industry

From construction technology to extensive infrastructure and residential housing, the construction industry has grown steadily over the past decade. For most people outside the industry, the construction sector comprises giant bulldozers and building equipment, which require a lot of financial investment. But the industry also has more than enough space for different kinds of technology and innovations that will make construction more manageable and less time-consuming. Furthermore, as populations continue to grow worldwide, there is always the need for residential and other housing needs.

Apart from the sectors mentioned, entrepreneurs can make a beneficial impact in any industry. If you have an innovative idea, do not be afraid to act on it- it would be a winning one.

Protect your Business From Cyber Security Threats: 4 Smart Ways

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StrategyDriven Risk Management Article |Cyber Security|Protect your Business From Cyber Security Threats: 4 Smart WaysIt seems as if cybersecurity threats are both sophisticated and ever-present these days, something that can indeed make those of us owning and running businesses incredibly concerned. The good news is that there are several strategies that you can use to protect your business from such threats. Keep reading to find out what they are.

Update your systems

Out of date systems provide weaknesses for hackers to exploit, that is why it’s hugely important to update your systems regularly. Indeed periodically updating your systems and software is a low-cost solution that can help you stay on top of the ever-evolving cybersecurity threat that hackers pose.

You don’t even have to update your systems manually, as you can use a patch management system to do it for you.

Make use of penetration testing.

Similarly, as well as updating your systems using penetration testing to identify any weaknesses in your IT provision is a brilliant idea indeed. The reason is that once you have found where the problems lie, you can have your team working on fixing them before they are discovered and used by anyone with nefarious intentions.

There are many different Types of Penetration Testing to consider as well, and it helps to know the difference between grey, white, and black-box testing if you want to perform the most useful tests for your business. The good news is it’s not hard to remember as black-box testing is all about external testing, while white is about internal, grey, on the other hand, is a mixture of them both.

Properly train staff in IT security

Sadly, people inside of your business can also contribute to cybersecurity concerns. In particular, employees not sticking to IT security protocol like using only secure networks, not bringing it USB sticks can be problematic.

Additionally, phishing emails are becoming more and more convincing all the time. Therefore you must educate your employees on how to spot these, and how to weed them out.

The most important thing to remember here is that if something seems off, it probably is and therefore it is worth checking up on through an official route. This means using a phone number other than the one provided in the suspicious email to check that the request for information or money is genuine.

Also, ask your employees to check the email address, and the link contained within any suspicious communication. If they do not seem official or legit, then you can direct them to take the advice above.

We also recommend that you send them on training courses that deal with more detailed and complex parts of IT security. For example, while not directly a security problem, your business should be looking into decentralized identities so that you are not beholden to a specific service provider, but rather manage this yourself. This is safer for your business, but you need employees who understand the process, and what this means.

Finally, do not forget to remind them to report any suspicious emails to your IT department. Then you can warn the rest of your workers to be on guard for them, and even have your IT folks protect against something similar in the future.

Always have a back up

Lastly, while it is better to be proactive when dealing with cybersecurity threats, it is also essential to have a backup plan. Indeed, a literal backup of your data and servers are what is required here. Although whether you choose to do this onsite, or via the cloud will depend on what will better keep your company safe.