Is Your Business Struggling To Grow?

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article |Business Struggling to Grow|Is Your Business Struggling To Grow?Life as an entrepreneur is tough, and when your business is struggling, it can make life very difficult for you. You don’t want your business to be pulling funds for your personal bank account for too long, and you should be looking for solutions to help your business pick up the pace again. There are often many solutions when it comes to fixing the problems that your business is having, and it may just need a little push in the right direction to get things as they should be. Whether it’s finding new customers, changing up your marketing strategy, or rethinking the direction that you actually want to go in.

Improve on your financial decisions

Taking the time to look into your financial decisions and really analyze where you might be going wrong can change everything. If you’re properly managing your cash flow, then it will allow you to see where you might need to make changes and cuts here and there. It’s important that you do these things so you know how much money you’ll have available and where. Not only that, but you can use the data that you get from your last month of sales to help you reconsider where you should be putting your money. You might need to allocate more money to marketing rather than overstocking your products.

Hire an advisor

Sometimes you just don’t have the answer yourself, and it can be hard to handle the decisions on your own. Hiring a financial advisor, for example, can help you to figure out what the best investment for you is at this moment, and what you should do later on. You shouldn’t expect to be able to do everything on your own, and an advisor can make life much easier for you. Maybe you need help with marketing, maybe you need someone to help you get off match list. Even the most experienced entrepreneurs will struggle with the right answer from time to time.

Invest into your reputation

An effective marketing campaign can significantly improve the cash flow within your business, and you’ll find that you’ll be back on track in no time when you’ve learned how to properly appeal to your audience. Finding the right way to reach out to that demographic, while also not having to break the bank over it can be a promising investment, and will be paying for itself in no time at all.

Putting out new marketing ideas isn’t the only way you can improve your reputation as a business. Sure, you need to make your presence known, but advertisements aren’t always the best way to do it. People don’t want to have a constant stream of marketing displayed to them, and it can help to break the mold here and there. For example, running a social media page that isn’t all business and promotions can be a great way for you to build a better relationship with your audience. It doesn’t have to be all business all of the time, and sometimes no marketing is good marketing.

Are You Protecting Yourself As A Freelancer?

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article |Freelancer|Are You Protecting Yourself As A Freelancer?More and more people are now starting to work from home and provide their skills by freelancing. It has rapidly increased over the last few years, however, because some people have been pushed into it, they have had much less time to plan and research their move to this way of working.

Freelancing, of course, has many benefits such as the ability to work from wherever you like and the flexibility to work around your lifestyle, however, self-employment needs to be well-researched in order to protect yourself and your income.

Self-employed people are protected in the same way as an employee, which can lead to issues. Protecting yourself with a firm that has a good reputation in lawsuits such as the Zarwin Baum lawsuit, outsourcing to an accountant for your taxes, and using an IT service are three ways you can protect yourself, but what uncommon areas need to be looked at?

Let’s have a look below at some of the ways you can protect yourself, that you may not think about.

Sickness And Holidays

This has to be one of the top benefits of being an employee, sick and holiday pay. As soon as you are a freelancer you lose this benefit, and it’s not something that people think about until they need it. This can pose a threat, especially if you need ot take a week off sick, or want to go on a well-deserved holiday without worrying about losing money.

The best way to resolves this is by resting yourself a sickness and annual leave fund. Put some funds to one side each month. This way you have a buffer to rely on if you are sick or go on holiday. If you have a business bank account, then you will probably do well if you pay yourself a wage each month, and leave the remainder in the business bank.

Insurance Is An Essential

It’s natural to make mistakes, therefore, you need to ensure you are protected. You can have strict protocols and consider yourself a strict worker, and still make a mistake. NOt having insurance to protect yourself could have a huge impact on your earnings, especially if you end up being liable for a mistake. Liability insurance is the most common insurance that freelancers use.

Use A Contract

This is the first way that you can protect yourself. It is the number one way you can ensure you are getting the correct payments. You should have a contract for your clients ot sign when you are planning any projects. This both protects your funds as well as protecting you if there are ever any disputes. It provides something for you and your clients to refer to throughout the contract period so you both know what to expect.

Although freelancers may face some challenges, there are still many benefits that outweigh the negative, even more so if you protect yourself with the above tips. As long as you put steps in place to ensure you are protected freelancing is a brilliant way to have control over your career and earning potential.

Why You Should Start A Company

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article |Start a company|Why You Should Start A CompanyMany people would love to start a company. But have you ever really asked yourself why you’re doing it? Like, what’s the point?

Well, in this post, we provide some answers. It turns out that starting a business is about more than just having more money in the bank. It’s about so much more.

You Have More Job Security

Climbing the corporate ladder is an ordeal. You never quite know whether you’re about to go up the next rung. And when you don’t progress, you can feel like you’re being deliberately targeted or let down by the people around you. It’s not fun.

But when you have your own business, those sorts of politics don’t matter one bit. Instead, you’re the boss and you decide the direction that the company goes. It’s your job to create a system that generates money. And because you’re not worried about promotions, you have so much more energy to devote to providing customers with value.

You Can Be More Creative

Another advantage of setting up a company is the fact that you can be more creative. Corporate environments often force people to follow tried-and-tested paths. But as an independent businessperson, you can branch out and take risks that regular management teams would never allow.

You Get Tax Breaks

Why do some many ultra-wealthy people own businesses? It’s pretty simple really: they love the tax breaks.

Think about it. Corporate taxes are much lower than income taxes. So if you run your salary through a company, you wind up keeping more of your profits than if you do it through regular PAYE.

You Get More Control Over Your Life

Here’s the biggest benefit of owning your own business: you get to call the shots. There’s no manager sending you emails at the weekend, demanding that you have work done by Monday morning. Instead, your time is your own, and you can use it as you please. If you’re not happy with the amount of time you’re spending at work, you can always hire somebody to take over the necessary tasks for you. Nobody is telling you that you should do anything.

You Can Get Real Financial Independence

You can achieve financial independence working nine to five in a regular job. But it takes years and years of struggle.

When you own a business, though, you can massively shorten the time it takes to build wealth. What would take some people ten years might only take you two. If you’re really quick off the mark, you could make serious returns that outpace your regular job in less than a year.

You’re Following A Passion

Following your passions in life is critical. You’re only here for a limited amount of time, so you need to find things to do that make you feel fulfilled. And, if you’re like most people, that’s not working in insurance for 30 years. Starting a business is a blank slate which you can take anywhere you like. It’s something that makes you feel engaged every day of your life.

How The Pandemic Changed Everything For Entrepreneurs

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article |Pandemic|How The Pandemic Changed Everything For EntrepreneursThis pandemic has made us realize that we cannot predict the future. Business entities now have faith that their success depends on their ability to adapt to change. The preventive measures taken by governing bodies disturbed the entrepreneurial systems. The social and economic mediums of businesses were adversely affected due to this pandemic. The majority of the businesses got liquefied due to the adversities caused by this pandemic. Small-scale businesses and startups were the most vulnerable to these restrictions.

But entrepreneurs are a peculiar kind of successful people. They have the vision to extract opportunities from disasters. They are the ones for whom challenges are gratifying rather than frightening. Numerous entrepreneurs responded to the change optimistically instead of straying away from it. The change in business models and strategies has resulted in new entrepreneurial norms and a more digital atmosphere. It’s safe to say that the pandemic changed everything for entrepreneurs, and here’s how.

1. Digitalization Becomes Inevitable

Since the coronavirus broke out, we have witnessed an exponential increase in the need for digitalization. Entrepreneurial procedures are being shifted to digital platforms. All the major sectors like agriculture, education, trading, banking, and various business models are now rapidly transforming into digital versions.

As an entrepreneur, you must be acquainted with the digital processes in the business world. Luckily, learning resources for digital domains are increasing with the demand as well. They assist you in aligning with the exclusive integration of digital and business ecosystems. Several courses are now available on physical and virtual platforms to help. You can opt for courses like MBA programs no GMAT to gain access to virtual education to tackle your studies and startup at the same time.

Entrepreneurs who went digital were the only ones who successfully retained their market existence last year. Marketing campaigns are now run via mobile phones, emails, social media platforms, etc., reaching customers digitally rather than going door to door. Several service providers have even evolved their services to be contactless.

2. Shift Towards Remote Working

One of the biggest changes is the shift of workstations from offices to remote locations. Offices have now been shifted to home lounges from high-rise buildings, and “work from home” is the new slogan. If businessmen cannot meet people in person, they have found a way to work remotely. Virtual meeting rooms like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet are on the hotline since then.

Remote working has provided multiple benefits to the employees as well, like work-life balance, saving transportation costs, and an open room for time management. But, on the other hand, some entrepreneurs faced deterioration in work effectiveness due to remote working due to the addition of domestic responsibilities. According to a survey done by Kings College London, almost 22.6% of entrepreneurs faced difficulties due to such responsibilities. But, entrepreneurs must adapt to the need of the hour to ensure the success of their business.

3. Worldwide Supply Chain

The commerce and procurement sector is connected worldwide. This community took disastrous effects from restrictions over the international borders. It was a dire issue for supply chain executives when they could not communicate with vendors in the virus-affected zones. Most of these executives had their supply chains linked to the Chinese industry. Unfortunately, it became the center of covid-19 and abruptly disturbed the supply chains of every scale. Shortage of goods and materials caused an immense reduction in the productions of electronic and automobile industries. Production hubs like Taiwan, Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam, and India used to outsource their products from China. As a result, they faced a significant reduction in their entrepreneurial activities. The scarcity of supplies led to numerous challenges for the majority of the industries in meeting their targets. Supply chains have begun to gain momentum recently, but promising forecasts cannot be made yet.

4. Challenges For Small Scale Entrepreneurs

Since the pandemic, it has been a difficult time for small-scale entrepreneurs. Covid-19 has brought agonizing challenges to the newbies, and the majority of them are struggling with their businesses. A study by the Asian Institute of Research declares that 41% of small-scale entrepreneurs fell in the red zone during the pandemic and lost control over their cash flow. It was also seen that 20% of the startup got their commitments declined by investors. In addition to that, 53% faced a slowdown in the process, while only 27% were able to function normally.

In addition to this, almost all of the startups had to reduce their expenses. Some entrepreneurial firms even recorded a reduction of 76% in their operational costs. Almost 70% of the firms had to nullify contacts with their full-time employees, which affected their workmanship.

Closing Remarks

You can observe entrepreneurs enjoying hikes in their revenues during this pandemic. This is because they are the ones who have adapted to change and have stayed resilient. The essential step for staying resilient is to accept that you have certain boundaries, and being rigid won’t help much. This approach will lead you to regain control over the aspects that you can influence rather than dwelling on constraints that you can’t control.

You Can’t Be All Things To Your Business

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Realising that your business needs to you be one step removed from the changing fortunes of its success never happens in the early days. In those frantic days, you live and breathe everything that is connected to your fledgling company. And that’s how it should be: without your energy, the company would be nowhere. However, there comes a point where you can’t be dying a thousand deaths a day just because some small details have not turned out as you had planned. You need to step above the humdrum of the daily concerns and think much bigger about your company and its future. It’s the only way you’ll achieve the levels of success you want to achieve. Here’s how you do it.

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Trusting Others

When you began your company, you were probably in charge of everything that happened. You assumed many roles in an amateur fashion in order to get things done. This was your baby, and it was to be born in your creation. Now the company is off the ground, though, it is no longer your baby. It’s able to walk on its own two feet, and it needs to have the best around it to make sure it stays on course. If you hire people to do a job for you, then actually trust them to do the job for you. It’ll be hard not being in control of absolutely everything, but your company will be better for it in the end.

Switching Off

You can’t be on call 24 hours a day for your business. You’ll burn out far too quickly if you try to do that. Instead, you need to have systems in place that enables you to switch off without worrying what’s happening with your business. If it’s online, then integrating SIEM (security information and event management) will give you the peace of mind that your website is well taken care of, even if you’re not in a position to see it for yourself. Similarly, if you have a whole team who are tasked with making sure that your social media profiles are updated in line with the company philosophy, there’ll be no need to be on your phone every few minutes making sure the right content is being posted. Switch off. It’s the right thing for you.

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Controlling What You Can Control

You control what you can control, and adapt to the other things that happen that you can’t. Realising that there will always be some things that just happen to you is a good lesson to learn as a business leader (also good to learn this as a human being, too!). Instead, you should be pouring your energy into winning what you can win. If you’re fretting over insignificant details that might yield small results, then who’s taking care of the tasks that will yield the big results? If it’s not you, then it’s nobody. Use your skills wisely and you’ll get a much higher return on your efforts. You can’t be all things to your business, so just be things that you can be well!