Business Owners: Are You Guilty Of Negligence?…

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If you’ve recently started a business, I’m sure you’re quickly discovering just how much goes into making it a success. Your big idea is just the start of it. From there, you need to think about your HR, marketing, IT infrastructure and a whole host of other factors. With so much going on, it’s essential to make sure you don’t neglect anything important. Here are some things that you simply can’t afford to neglect…

Office Data Backup

StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | Entrepreneurship | Business Owners: Are You Guilty Of Negligence?...
Photo courtesy of Torkild Retvedt via flickr

Office data backup is something that you’ll hopefully never have to use, but you’ll be glad you have it if and when the need arises. Backing up your office data is a great insurance policy against the unexpected. Files can be wiped from your servers, sabotaged by a disgruntled employee, or some kind of freak disaster could damage the servers beyond repair. By regularly backing up all your company’s important data, you’ll be able to get the company up and running again soon afterwards. Despite the massive importance of backing up, a lot of small businesses manage to overlook it completely. If you haven’t already, take a look at your options and set up a dependable system for backing up your files.

The Employee Handbook

Neglecting this part of your business is usually a side-effect of rapid growth. In the early days of your business, when there’s only you and a few employees, any kind of solid HR policies aren’t really that necessary. However, when your business starts to grow and develop as an organization, you’ll need to take on a lot more staff. This means you’re going to need some solid rules in place. A good employee handbook will introduce new recruits to the company’s core values, mission and culture, will tell them what’s expected of them, but most importantly, it will tell them what’s permissible and what’s not. By taking the time to draft an employee handbook, you’ll protect yourself from all kinds of costly litigation and disputes. Whether you do it all on your own steam or reach out to an employment law firm like Ellis Whittam, an employee handbook is an absolute must. Just a few printed words can make all the difference to your company’s future!

A Good CRM

StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | Entrepreneurship | Business Owners: Are You Guilty Of Negligence?...

CRMs, short for customer relationship management platforms, are great tools for managing your company’s interactions with both current and prospective customers. With one of these in place, your company will enjoy better workflow, will be able to automate various tasks, increase the number of sales leads you’re getting and generally increase productivity. Although these auxiliary programs were once considered a luxury, an increasing number of firms are using them, and they’re quickly becoming something of an essential resource for any modern business. Despite what you may have been led to believe, CRMs aren’t exclusive to big businesses anymore, and the packages on the market are getting more and more cost-effective all the time.

As you move forward with your business, make sure you’re not neglecting any of these and holding your firm back from what it can achieve!

Four Experts To Outsource With Today

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |Outsourcing|Four Experts To Outsource With TodayFor some employers, outsourcing is a bad word! It’s considered to be something that reduces costs because things are going wrong and savings are a must. The thing is, outsourcing is so much more than that. Outsourcing helps your business to improve productivity and bring better profits to your business over time.

You can pretty much outsource anything in your business, and if it enhanced employee safety, all the better. You can look at https://employeradvantage.com/workplace-safety/ for information about how to keep people as safe as possible. With the right outsourcing help, you can do so much more with your business and take it to the next level. With this in mind, here are four things you can outsource today.

  1. Cybersecurity. With the world of online security being at risk, you need to protect your business. Choose to update the way that you look after your data and your security, and you can guarantee that you will always have someone keeping an eye on your information. Online information is always at risk and you need to have an IT security strategy that’s on point. This can be the best option for your business to be a success and you will keep your customer information safe at the same time.
  2. SEO. It’s a big piece of the business puzzle, and sometimes it requires more than one person or one team in your business to make it work. You need SEO for your website to work, but not everyone understands what SEO is or what it means. With outsourced SEO, these experts don’t have to be on the payroll to get it right. You can hire people in on a project by project basis and have the experts holding your team together to get through it. SEO will improve the way that your website works – so, why wouldn’t you go for it?
  3. Customer Service. Your business has customers and for them to feel wanted and needed, you need to have professionals to make them feel that way. You can’t spend all your time on the phone to your customers, so you need to outource this service. When you do this, you have people supporting and listening to your customers.
  4. Payroll. Paying invoices, paying staff and even paying yourself can get complicated. By choosing to outsource your payroll, you can pay someone to come in once a month or once every tax season and get it done without mistakes. You may choose to hire an expert to pay your employees or manage your invoices, and it would be a smart choice for your business. You need to keep up with the changing and complex tax laws, and you can only do that if you have an expert in finance working with you. When you outsource your finances, you are trusting someone who knows what they are doing to look after your business properly. You will be impressed by how much an expert can save your business when your finances are managed properly.

Four Things Your Business Should Outsource Now

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Four Things Your Business Should Outsource NowFor some employers, outsourcing is a bad word! It’s considered to be something that reduces costs because things are going wrong and savings are a must. The thing is, outsourcing is so much more than that. Outsourcing helps your business to improve productivity and bring better profits to your business over time.

You can pretty much outsource anything in your business, and if it enhanced employee safety, all the better. You can look at https://employeradvantage.com/workplace-safety/ for information about how to keep people as safe as possible. With the right outsourcing help, you can do so much more with your business and take it to the next level. With this in mind, here are four things you can outsource today.

  1. Marketing. It’s a big piece of the business puzzle, and sometimes it requires more than one person or one team in your business to work it. You need experts, and those experts don’t have to be on the payroll. You can hire people in on a project by project basis and have the experts holding your team together to get through it. You may also have a need for more specialised SEO and marketing services, and outsourcing those services is a must.
  2. Call Answering Services. How many calls does your business get in a week? Sometimes, the volume of calls that you get can disrupt your business massively, and you need to do something about that. Contacting a call answering service will make a huge difference to the way that you run your business as you will have the time to do it all! With someone else answering the calls, you won’t be bogged down with busywork. Handing important calls is a must, but you can hire someone to do it for you and be more productive in other areas of your business.
  3. Finance & Payroll. You may choose to hire an expert to pay your employees or manage your invoices, and it would be a smart choice for your business. You need to keep up with the changing and complex tax laws, and you can only do that if you have an expert in finance working with you. When you outsource your finances, you are trusting someone who knows what they are doing to look after your business properly. You will be impressed by how much an expert can save your business when your finances are managed properly.
  4. IT. The tech world is changing constantly, and you need someone who is keeping up with these changes to work with you. They can ensure that you have the right software, and that your software is updated as often as it needs to be. You can invest in Cloud IT services, too, and that will go a long way toward better workplace safety and security. Your IT strategy won’t always be the same, and so having the right individual there to help will be the best option for your business to be a success.

5 Tips to Help Streamline Your Business

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StrategyDriven, Business Management, Business Plan, Bussiness Software, cIt’s important for any business to ensure it’s making the most of its resources. Often, you don’t need to add anything to your company in order to improve its performance; you’ve just got to make better use of what you’ve already got, and this is where streamlining comes in.

Here are five tips to help you streamline your business.

Planning

There’s got to be a plan, and there have to be goals that everyone is aware of. If you don’t have these two things, then it’s difficult to know what direction your business is going in. The better your planning is, and the more people understand their individual goals, the more efficiently your business is likely to run.
Make sure you’re taking the time to invest in your business planning, and be open with your communication in conveying goals.

Finances

It’s much easier to do that planning and create realistic goals if you’re on top of your finances. You should know exactly where you are with your finances, and the best way to do this is to get the best bookkeeping services in Boston.

Not understanding how your finances stand is a perilous situation in business, but the more you know, the more you can streamline how you use that money.

Finances are clearly a vital aspect of any business, but too often, people don’t pay enough attention to them.

Hiring

It’s extremely difficult for your business to run efficiently if you’re not hiring the right people. A company can be a complex, interconnected entity, and if there are just a few pieces that aren’t working well, then it can cause problems for the whole system.

This means you’ve got to put care and attention into every hire and really make sure you’re focussing on the process of how your recruit.

When you need to make a quick hire, this can be very difficult, but so often it’s worth taking the extra time and making sure you get the right person.

Software

Even if you’ve got amazing employees throughout your business, they can’t do their job effectively if they don’t have the right tools.

Any business today needs to make sure they’ve got the right software. It can be expensive to invest in new software, but it can quickly earn that money back through streamlining processes. If you think about all the small inefficiencies you have across your business, then they can add up to a huge amount, and the right software can help in this area.

Culture

Culture plays a huge part in how well a business operates.

If there’s a negative culture where people end up doing the bare minimum, then it’s going to have a big impact. However, when you create the right culture where people can thrive, then you will find everything becomes much more streamlined.

Business culture isn’t something you can change overnight, but you can take active steps to create the kind of culture you would like. A positive atmosphere can make the world of difference, so it’s well worth investing in.

How To Make Everything Easier For Your Business

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | How To Make Everything Easier For Your BusinessIs taking care of your company a challenge? Even if your business is thriving, there may be a lot on your plate. You may feel that there are too many responsibilities to take on. This is a normal thing to feel when you are taking on a large project, such as starting and maintaining a business. Even years down the road, you may feel that stress again. Here are three things that can make your life and the lives of your employees easier.

1. Get An Office

If you have lots of responsibilities, it may be time to rent an office. An office can be a space where you and your team can focus on the goals and needs of your company. You may also need an office so all of your workers have space to work. This is an important stepping stone for many companies as it makes the business feel established. Mail can be delivered to the office, you can store company equipment and you have a place to conduct meetings.

Once getting the office, you can more fully organize the company. You may consider delegating smaller tasks to all who work there to lighten the load and increase productivity. It may be easier for you to meet with clients and customers and host incentives.

2. Use Cloud Services

Tired of storing all your data on your computer? Make accessing data ten times easier and safer by using cloud services to back up your information. You can also use these services to run software and applications through the internet, making it efficient for all members of your team to do their duties. Microsoft Cloud Solutions offers security, IT service and flexibility that can make your company run smoothly.

3. Make Good Goals

If you are feeling overwhelmed with the responsibilities of your business, it’s time to make some serious goals. Have a meeting and plan out your yearly, monthly and daily goals. What are you trying to achieve? Where do you want the business to be in five years? Make sure to plan financially and take account of what expansions you want to make in the future. Try to keep your goals reachable and inspire your team to work hard. You may want to think about some digital marketing, local advertising and improved customer service to help you progress.

As you expand your business, increase digital security and make achievable goals, you can take on the responsibility of a business step by step. Don’t forget to make it a team effort!