Investment for Small Business Owners

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article | Investment
 
Running a small business in the current financial climate can be tough. There are a plethora of challenges to be faced on a daily basis. If you’re a small business owner that is tired of the financial uncertainty that can happen, and would like a little more security to help flatten out the lows, then starting to learn how to invest small amounts of your money to provide a different source of income could be the answer you’ve been looking for.

While investing can become a great safety net for your business, there are many considerations to ensure your success. It can be a great tool for building your wealth, but it’s a common misconception that it’s only for the wealthy.

What is investing?

Investing, in its most essential form, is the act of committing money in the hope you’ll make a financial gain or profit. A portfolio of investments built up over time can allow your money to work smarter, rather than you working harder.

Investing can also be a great way to take financial responsibility for your future. It often means committing an amount of money, we would have used for something else, such as purchasing new clothes or going to a fancy restaurant. Swapping the instant gratification of consumerism for an investment in your future requires discipline and an acknowledgment of your responsibility to your future self.

Investing can take many different forms. Most of us are aware of the stock market, but stocks are from the only way to invest. There are also mutual funds, commodities, Forex, bonds, ETFs, or real estate.

Any act that involves staking an amount of money for future returns is technically investing.

Technology and investing

Over recent decades, technology has made investing more accessible to everyone. This has helped to drive down fees. Many of the functions of a traditional trader can either be performed by investors themselves, or by using a subscription-based platform.

Now we can jump on the Internet to compare brokerage fees. We can look at online reviews and often play with a free sample of their software. This has empowered investors and investment advisors by providing a range of new tools that can perform real-time research and analysis, and even warn you when certain pre-set conditions are met.

StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article | Investment
 
Start small

When you first start out investing the sheer volume of information can be confusing. Everyone knows what’s best or has a foolproof strategy to sell you. The best way to get started is to jump in at the deep end but in a very small way. You can start trading penny stocks, or only invest a very small amount, just while you get a feel for how the system works.

This will allow you to experiment with no real meaningful consequences. You can familiarize yourself with how the different systems work, what information and resources help you, and discover your own preferences. There are numerous approaches out there, and this is partly because there is no one system that fits all. As you progress you will gradually define your own parameters and discover what levels of risk you’re happy with.

Only using money you can afford to lose will prevent you from taking needed money away from your business. While you want your investments to enhance your income, it’s important not to be carried away if you enjoy some success.

Learn as much as you can

While there is an overwhelming amount of information out there, being selective can reap rewards. Join respectable forums and ask for advice on the best reading material, discover the best commentators to follow and learn from, search for helpful free resources, such as e-books, videos, free commodity charting, industry and investment news resources etc.. The more you know, the better you are likely to do.

Some investments require much more in-depth knowledge to take advantage of, while others require much less maintenance. If you’re managing your own investments, then the time commitment required should be a serious consideration.

Know yourself

As well as understanding the levels of risk you are comfortable with, it can be good to formulate a longer-term plan of what you intend to do with your investments. What are your personal objectives and goals? The goals for your business? Are you simply trying to accumulate wealth for the sake of it, or are you trying to ensure your retirement is comfortable?

Understanding these different factors can also help you to better understand your risk tolerance, and help you select investments that mature within a suitable timeframe for you to achieve your goals.

Variety is the spice of life

Diversify your investments. Having all your eggs in one basket increases your exposure to risk if something goes wrong. By spreading your money around, whether it’s different commodities, companies, or types of investment, you’ll help to mitigate this risk and ensure you never suffer any catastrophic losses.

This will mean learning about different types of investment, but you don’t always need to understand every minutia of a system in order to invest in it.

StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article | Investment
 
Always maintain a cool head

It’s not wise to go into investing expecting to get rich very quickly. Try to keep emotion out of your trading, instead relying on proven techniques and hard data to drive your decisions. Markets will always fluctuate, and a knee-jerk reaction can sometimes be worse than taking no action.

Shop around for a good deal

Whether you are speaking to a broker over the phone or using an app, there are always fees and charges. Sometimes it’s a set fee; other times it’s a percentage of your profit. Shop around and compare the different deals available, not just for the cheapest, but for the one that offers the most value to you.

Align your investing with your personal beliefs

If you’re new to investing it can be hard to know where to invest. However, where investors put their money can make a powerful statement. If you believe in sustainability or protecting the environment, then search for investments where the company acts ethically and with responsibility.

Taking Your High-Tech Business to the Next Level

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article | High Tech BusinessBusinesses that tap into the innovative power of new and advanced technologies can be challenging to scale. Often, such companies sit inside a niche of some sort, whether that’s sup-plying specialist machines to the medical industry, or producing a high-tech software solution for financial services. In this article, you’ll learn how to plan the scaling of such a company, with advice for planning a more profitable future within your chosen niche. If you’re running a high-tech business that relies on top quality technological breakthroughs, this article should help you drive towards further success.

Keeping up-to-date

One of the fundamental components of successful high-tech businesses is that they’re rigorously up-to-date. They’ll have a finger on the pulse of their industry, always positioning them-selves at the cutting edge of any given tech development. Your company should do the same, with researchers and specialists regularly reviewing recent literature and the products of competitors to discover ways in which you’ll be able to deliver the most attractive product to your customers.

Remember that you’ll win the competition in the market if you offer the very latest products or services to your customers. This, in turn, will generate higher profits and will establish your brand as a global leader in your high-tech sector.

New methods for production

As the world naturally bends towards the automation of jobs and the machination of much of the production process, it’s time for all companies to take stock of this phenomenon. Positioning yourself as a company on the vanguard of this movement will mean you’re more than ready to attract the business of those clients and customers who’re looking for automation products – or, who’re looking for the most competitive prices, achieved through your own company’s automation.

While automating some processes in your business may seem daunting, there’s no reason why you won’t be able to find a way to make things work. For instance, if you’re offering a very specific product that you believe will be difficult to automate, you should visit experts in new product design & development. They will be able to guide your requirements and ideas through from concept to final prototype, working closely with your team to produce a machine that’ll truly take you to the next level in your business.

Brand presentation

High-tech businesses should be received as such. If a business isn’t presented as high-tech, then it’s unlikely to be trusted as an industry leader. You need to show all parts of your business in a sleek, ultra-modern way in order to be regarded as a brand to trust in the high-tech industries.

It means everything from excellent web design to smart, well-thought-out logos and branding. It also means the savvy and professional use of marketing campaigns and the intelligent planning of business partnerships to help your business get seen more. Remember that your brand tells the story of your product and your company, so make sure it’s compelling and reflective of your high-tech wizardry.

With these tips, you should be able to bring your company to the next level of performance, driving your brand to the next level regarding trust and respectability.

Becoming Self Employed – Is It For You?

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Becoming self employed is an attractive prospect for many people. It offers a degree of flexibility and you have no boss to answer to. Being self employed can also be lucrative, any profits made are yours once you have met ongoing costs. If taking the plunge to go self employed appears tempting, it is important to take a rain check and remember that there many downsides too.

StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article | Freelance
 
One of the main cons of being self employed is that being employed on a payroll actually offers a great deal of security. When you decide to become self employed you give up many of the benefits enjoyed by employees. Employment gives a worker lots of rights including, a contract, regular pay, sickness and holiday pay as well as some legal protection. Of course as a self employed person you can still access benefits, but it will be instigated and paid for by yourself. Thankfully there are lawyers who specialise in offering support to businesses in different sectors, for example a truck labor lawyer will represent truck drivers working on a piece rate basis.

So why do so many people choose to go self employed, when there is so much security and benefits to being an employee? Read on to discover why some business owners choose to make the switch.

Earning potential

Most people working on a freelance basis earn more than if they were self employed in the same role, in fact it is estimated at around 45%. You are able to put certain expenses through “the books” which further enhances earning power. As you are working for yourself you will be able to develop your business without constraints, you will be able to pitch for work at higher prices as your reputation grows and any profit will be yours.

You are your own boss

Being self employed means that you don’t have anyone monitoring your every move. You will need to meet the requirements of your clients, but how you get there is up to you! On the flip side however, you will need a high degree of motivation and a strong work ethic. Otherwise your business will not progress as much as you envisaged.

Flexibility

If you require time off to watch the kids nativity or go to the dentist, you won’t need to grovel to your boss. You won’t be constrained to the 9-5 routine, as you can choose your own hours. This is particularly useful if you wish to become a player on a global scale in the future, as you will be accessible 24 hours a day and not just when you are in the office.

Variety

Being self employed and running your own business is a constantly evolving role. You need to stay one step ahead of your competitors in order to survive in the marketplace. You will need to adapt manufacturing processes, services and product design to meet your target audience requirements. All of which offers variety to your role.

To conclude lots of research needs to be undertaken prior to becoming self employed, but if you’re sure that being self employed is for you and your personality will allow a high level of commitment, then take the plunge and enjoy the freedom!

Free Business Plans for Small Business Owners and Start-ups

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article | Business PlanIt’s not the most exciting part of starting a business. In fact, if you’re like a lot of entrepreneurs, you’re probably going to find yourself pulling a few all-nighters to get one done before heading into your first pitch for funding. Because that’s the thing – your business plan is important.

Any funder worth his or her salt wants to see it right off the bat. Moreover though, a solid business plan is a living document that will continue to guide your efforts as your business grows.

A lot of those mistakes are the result of poor planning. Bad location, a marginal niche, having no specific user in mind, raising too much or too little money – all these issues can be prevented or at least mitigated with good planning.

Creating your business plan is more than just getting your ideas down on paper for potential funders to see. It’s an exploratory process in which you can evaluate your options, test your assumptions about your idea, and even discover new opportunities. It might even lead you to kill off aspects of your business before investing too much time or money in them.

That doesn’t mean you have to bust out Word and start the plan from scratch. A template is great–you probably aren’t doing anything that hasn’t been done before, so it provides a proven structure for your plan. Pretty much everything on it can be customized. Check out these comprehensive business plan templates you can download for free to get you started:

1. Score’s Business Plan Template for Startups

Score is an American nonprofit dedicated to helping entrepreneurs get their companies off the ground. Its template, available as a PDF or Word download, asks a whopping 150 questions and is generic enough to customize for most types of businesses. The Refining the Plan resource that comes with it is helpful, especially if this is your first crack at writing a business plan.

2. U.S. Small Business Administration Business Plan Engine

The SBA’s template is available to fill out online and then download as a PDF. You can go back in and edit it as needed, so don’t worry about having everything ready the first time you sit down to tackle it. Even broken into sections, it’s a long document and a bit of a slog to get through, but it produces a professional-looking and useful business plan. This is particularly helpful if your idea isn’t fully fleshed out and you know you have homework to do – it prompts you for information.

3. The $100 Startup’s One-Page Business Plan

Who said a business plan has to be a long, complicated document? Some funders are going to want to see a lot of detail, but you can provide that in appendices. The $100 Startup, the website for the best-selling book of the same name, has a ton of stripped-down resources for entrepreneurs, including a super simplified business plan template.

4. LawDepot’s WYSIWYG Business Plan Template

This one says you just have to answer a few simple questions and will be “done before you know it!” Don’t believe it. A business plan should take time and a lot of homework, but if you’ve already done that, LawDepot’s template is a decent choice. It walks you through getting started, marketing, product, competitive analysis, SWOT, and more, with a window below the input fields to show you the plan as you work away at it. You can download it free with a trial subscription, but you’ll have to remember to cancel it within the week if you don’t plan to continue using it.

5. SME Toolkit Business Plan Samples

The SME Toolkit, jointly offered by IFC and IBM, offers a simple two-page outline of what should be included in your business plan to meet the minimum requirements of funders and tax authorities (in the U.S.). It contains 10 broad sections, including market analysis, management and organization, etc., with a one-paragraph explanation of each. A second download on the same page is an Excel file to help with your financial projections.

6. Office Online Templates Galore

Of course, Microsoft offers a ton of business plan templates for Office users (you can get birthday invitations while you’re at it). If you’d rather do a business plan presentation than a Word doc, you can download one of Microsoft Office’s half a dozen or so PowerPoint templates for just that purpose. You’ll want to customize it with your company branding (you have your branding down, right?), but it’s easier than starting from a blank PPT.

7. Invoiceberry Templates for Word, Open Office, Excel, or PPT

U.K. online invoicing software brand Invoiceberry offers free business plan templates in .docx, .odt, .xlsx, and .pptx formats. Each one also contains a marketing plan and executive summary template. There’s a catch, though – the company asks you to take one of the following three actions before you can download the template: like it on Facebook, give it a +1 on Google+, or give it your email address. If you don’t mind doing that, it’s a good deal. Kudos to Invoiceberry for figuring out this effective lead-gen tactic too!

8. Santa Clara University’s My Own Business Institute Plans

Santa Clara U’s MOBI is an initiative of its Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Leavey School of Business. On the site, you can download each of the 15 business plan sections individually as Word documents, or grab all 15 together in one doc. There’s a ton of other helpful resources as well, including guidelines for evaluating your potential sites, a list of key people to review your plan, and sample financial sheets.

9. RocketLawyer’s Business Plan Templates by State

Like some of the others, you fill out RocketLawyer’s form and download the business plan when you’re done. These plans are tailored to meet your financing requirements which is a huge bonus for those seeking funding through banks. It’s also heavily geared toward financing, making it a good choice if that’s a priority for you.

Once your plan has been created

Creating your business plan is only the first step. Effectively executing against the plan is often what separates the winners from those businesses that stumble along.

  • Keep your business plan as a living document – don’t leave it to gather dust on a shelf.
  • Make sure it’s easily accessible and top-of-mind for you and your team.
  • Reflect your goals in the day-to-day operations of your business.
  • Outline the most practical and cost-effective way to achieve each goal – make a note of any extra resources you’ll need.
  • Make it clear these goals are the top priority for the business.

What’s often not included in templates like these, but is a critical component of business planning, is business insurance. For more information on the types of insurance available for your business visit https://www.state.co.nz/business

Solutions to Effectively Reach Your Target Audience

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article | Target AudienceReaching your target audience can often be a struggle. For a business just starting up, understanding how to best achieve this goal is vital in the early days. Start on the right foot and spend time, money, and resources focusing on appropriate ways to reach and appeal to your target audience. Below are a few handy suggestions for implementing the best strategy going forward.

Defining your target audience

Before you do anything else, you need to take time to work out who your target audience actually is. By identifying your target audience, you can begin to understand the niche that your consumer would fall into. With this knowledge, you can ensure your marketing activities will reach these people. Factors to research include:

  • Demographics – gender, age, profession, income
  • Psychographics – values, attitudes, likes/dislikes, how they think/purchase
  • Behavioral – the way they consume media and data. Is it offline/online? Any key sites or publications?

Once you have a strong understanding of the above you can begin to tailor your marketing, so you can directly connect your audience.

Reaching your target market

Now that you are familiar with the behavior and demographics of your target market, you can look into the best ways to reach them. For some, this will involve offline marketing techniques such as direct mail marketing, word of mouth, newspaper campaigns, and billboards. However, an overwhelming majority of marketing these days takes place online. Your digital marketing campaign needs to be top notch for audiences to discover you among the competition you’ll likely be facing.

Digitally reaching out to your audience

Email Newsletters

This technique may seem old hat to some, but email newsletters are still a simple, cost-effective way that you can directly reach out to your audience. You can deliver targeted messages efficiently and it won’t need a big team to implement. You can keep content simple and create instant impact with broad reach. Be aware of the GDPR regulations; but apart from this, the world is your oyster.

According to Econsultancy, ¾ of companies agree that email offers ‘excellent’ to ‘good’ ROI. Active email accounts are expected to hit 5.6 billion by 2019.

Hubspot

Facebook / Instagram ads

Social media marketing is the current trend that looks like it’s here to stay. With constant updates and content to capitalize on, such as Insta Stories and Facebook Live Video, it has never been easier to tap into audiences. Keep your social media pages current, looking out for opportunities to through hashtags, for example, and spend resources on fresh, visually appealing content that will get your target audience stop scrolling and pay attention to you.

Search engine marketing

Search engine marketing is paving the way for businesses to find their audiences. Having an intrinsic understanding of who your audience is can assist you in more ways than one. You will be able to identify not only what your target audience is searching for, but how they are searching. Through keyword research and analysis and Google Ads campaigns, for example, you can ensure your business is right where it needs to be for customers to find you. Get a team behind you and visit digitalmarkgroup.com. Outsourcing will provide you with the expert knowledge to take your campaign the extra mile.

Banner advertising

Banner advertising works by providing a visual ad that links to your website and is intended to generate traffic. This type of display advertising relies mainly on aesthetics. It promotes your services like a physical banner or poster, but is instead visible on another web page. You can use advertising guides and networks to assist you in creating the ads. Used effectively, this are a great way to share your services through sharp visuals that are designed to attract your target consumer.