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4 Things to Consider When Starting a Small Business

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StrategyDriven Starting Your Business Article |Starting a small business|4 Things to Consider When Starting a Small BusinessWhen starting your own small business, there are many things that you will need to think about, include and develop in order to help boost your brand and grow your customer base. Whatever type of products or services your business offers, it is important to make sure you are organized and prepared to take the industry by storm. Here are just a couple of things you might not have considered yet when thinking about starting your small business.

Branded Products

These are brilliant marketing tools, as you can effectively turn your customers into walking advertisements for your brand. Using a customizable swag store and getting your logo printed onto a variety of different items may not be something that you have yet considered. Branded products are incredibly useful in many different ways and not just for marketing. They can be used as giveaways or competition prizes, freebies at tradeshows, and also given as a ‘thank you’ to customers to help build relationships and encourage return business. You can also use and wear them yourself in order to get your logo out there, and if you have staff, they are a great motivator and gift to receive in the post and keep your team working hard!

Social Media

Social media is an incredibly powerful tool when it comes to online marketing. It is cost-effective, can reach large audiences, and also gives you the ability to look at the analytics and see what’s working and what isn’t. Keeping your platforms up to date is very important, as a huge number of users follow at least one business. If you don’t have a dedicated social media team, then there are plenty of courses or management software that you can use to make the most of social media.

Virtual Tradeshows

For a small business, it may not be possible for you to attend tradeshows for a huge number of reasons. However, with more and more moving online, it might make it more accessible for you. Virtual tradeshows allow you to demonstrate, promote and engage with your audience and clients remotely. This reduces this need for expenses such as accommodation and travel, which allows you to spend more on items such as branded products. You can still utilize this powerful marketing tool with virtual events, sending out products to new customers, and following up on any leads you generated.

Collaboration and networking

Don’t forget to reach out and see what other small businesses are doing. Asking for advice or help is not a bad thing; not everything has to be a competition. Networking and collaborating with others can give you valuable experience and contacts, as well as creating good working relationships. Every small business had to start somewhere, so those with more experience than you may have valuable advice. It is also important to maintain relationships with customers to make sure they have a good experience and are more likely to return or leave good reviews.

What Is CFD Trading & How to Use It

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article |CFD Trading|What Is CFD Trading & How to Use ItAlthough CFDs (Contracts for Difference) made their first appearance on the financial market less than 30 years ago, they are now an integral part of the Forex market. CFD trading online remains a realm of vagueness for many traders and even brokers, but one can’t deny that the number of benefits offered by CFDs is 3 times larger than the number of risks. Of course, the risks are high, as it’s a foreign exchange trading instrument, but proper application is called to solve the problem for a trader who knows how to control their emotions. Let’s get introduced to CFDs!

What It Really Is

Contract for Difference (CFD) is an agreement between 2 parties to pay the difference between the opening and the closing price of an asset. The benefiting party is always the one that predicts the trend correctly. Using a CFD, parties can participate without owning any assets at all. Both profit and loss appear when the price of an underlying asset mentioned in a contract goes above or beyond the opening price. CFDs let you speculate on the price movement without the need to invest in ownership but oblige you to pay the difference if your prediction appears to be wrong. The bright side is that your earnings can be impressive. CFDs are usually traded throughout the day, and it’s normal to run multiple trades daily.

Here is a quick example for you to better understand the trick. Imagine that you choose a $50 stock and open a CFD position worth 10 shares. On a stock market, this would cost you $500 plus fees. When you “purchase” a CFD, you pay only a 5% margin (although this may vary), so opening a CFD for the same asset will cost you around $25. That’s 20 times less! The payment for such a level of comfort is the risk, and your reward must always cover the spread cost of your broker.

Let’s also compare this instrument to a classic stock. Imagine that the price of the stock you selected grows and reaches $55. If you owned it, your asset worth could be $550. That’s a good profit if we ignore the commission. But what happens to the CFD opened for the same asset? It generates the same profit, while the initial investment is 20 times lower. The cost-reward ratio is bigger as well as the cost-loss ratio.

Benefits of CFDs

Here is the full list of benefits offered by this arrangement:

  • Low entrance costs – trading CFDs requires minimal investments. Most brokers charge very low or even zero commissions by earning on the spread instead. Its size depends on the underlying asset volatility.
  • Lower day trading costs – most markets require larger initial capitals and don’t let you trade multiple positions per day until you grow big enough. CFDs don’t require asset ownership, so opening multiple positions with as little as, say, $1,000 is not a problem.
  • Diverse vehicle selection – are you interested in treasury, commodities, cryptocurrencies, indexes, Forex? There’s a CFD opportunity for a large variety of asset types.
  • Leveraged trading – CFDs let you apply higher leverage than any traditional instrument but keep the average margin at around 2%. Due to this, you can enter significantly larger positions and generate a larger income from day-trading. Don’t forget about the multiplied losses, though.
  • Accessibility – reliable CFD brokers let you enter all the major markets and work 24 hours a day if the broker trading hours are flexible enough.
  • Weaker shorting rules – generally, CFDs don’t involve higher margin requirements. You are not required to own any assets, so there’s no need for shorting rules either. This results in zero shorting costs!

Risks to Manage

Although the benefits are so great, they go hand in hand with considerable risks that you should never forget about. Here they are:

  • Legislation – the legal regulations on the CFD market aren’t as well-established as in traditional markets. Finding a trustworthy broker is much more difficult, so it’s highly important to assess the financial position and credibility of many brokers before starting out.
  • Margin trading – margin trading lets you increase the earnings but also draws your eyes from the total exposure. Instant losses can exceed your deposits multiple times, so stay aware.

Is It Worth It?

Like any other financial instrument, CFD isn’t for everyone. It can be risky, but it’s also manageable if you master your emotions. Do that to keep your grip cold and strong, and enjoy the benefits.

Why Hire a Financial Modelling Consultant

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Finances Article |Financial Modelling|Why Hire a Financial Modelling ConsultantWhen you’re starting a business, it’s a default action to try and do all the heavy lifting to get your ideas off the ground. Many entrepreneurs are often guilty of overburdening themselves with tasks they can hardly accomplish.

Aside from the stress and distraction that shifts your focus away from things that truly matter, there are some areas that, given your lack of expertise, could damage your business rather than benefit it.

A case in point is financial modelling. Financial models are a set of assumptions regarding the future financial conditions of a business, including its earnings, revenue, and cash flow, allowing them to reduce the risks and make better, informed decisions.

Hiring a financial modelling consultant provides you with access to their expertise, filling gaps in your own skill sets. In this article, we are discussing the reasons to bring in outside help.

The 5 Benefits of Hiring a Financial Modelling Consultant

Financial modelling consultants are hired to assist businesses with their budgeting, forecasting, capital raising, and other crucial business decisions such as mergers and acquisitions. Smaller businesses, particularly start-ups, usually outsource this service instead of hiring an in-house consultant. Regardless of the way you hire this professional, you can get access to their following skills:

Expertise

You may have a profitable business idea and the resources to get it started, but you may struggle to conduct market research and translate data to a comprehensive financial model and a succinct marketable plan. An expert consultant fills these functional gaps, helping you construct a model that provides immediate answers to things that may take a while to actually take place. This allows you to plan accordingly and make certain decisions.

Constant Monitoring

As you launch your business, your financial modelling consultant will also monitor the performance of your business—compare the actuals to the budget. This is a crucial factor that will allow you to make adjustments to realign your plans and ensure that you will complete a particular task or achieve a milestone at the end of the day.

Domain Experience

When venturing into new markets or launching a new product/service offering, you can benefit from seeking advice from a consultant who has experience in that particular domain. They can use their past consulting experience and familiarity to get the project done more efficiently by saving you from the need to conduct years of industry research.

Different Perspective

Because they are not engaged in your day-to-day operations, financial modelling consultants can analyse your situation with greater objectivity. It also makes them more apt to identify possible issues and opportunities. They’re also more likely to be updated with the latest solutions, thus are more versed in using them.

Time

Perhaps the greatest value of hiring a consultant is the fact that they are sharing a part of your burden. They will handle strategic responsibilities while you remain focused on the day-to-day operations that drive ongoing revenue and sustain your business operations. From an economic point of view, outsourcing this service is often more cost-effective than allocating resources to hire additional in-house staff to fulfil the need.

Aside from these direct benefits, hiring a consultant can provide other advantages. Because of their existing relationships with their clients, you can connect to an entirely new network of potential customers, investors, suppliers, and more.
If you have any more benefits to add to the list, let us know by leaving a comment below.

Will Passwords Soon Be A Thing Of The Past?

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StrategyDriven Risk Management Article |Passwords|Will Passwords Soon Be A Thing Of The Past?Is it only a matter of time until we see the death of passwords as a security measure? In fact, many believe passwords offer very little security at all. A mere word, with a few unique characters or numbers, is supposed to protect all of your personal details and payment information. Is this really enough?

The landscape of digital security is changing all of the time. Hackers are becoming more and more sophisticated with every day that passes, which means that we simply cannot afford to remain stagnant. We need to make a conscious effort to patch all possible security vulnerabilities, and many believe that passwords are a major problem!

To ensure that your business is up to date with all of the latest security efforts, you need to team up with an experienced IT company, such as Haycor IT support. Businesses like this can help to make sure that you’re using the latest methods and approaches, giving your business the best possible protection. Plus, all businesses are different, and this is why a bespoke approach is a must. Security is not a one-off thing; it is something that needs to be addressed all of the time and the security approach must be layered, meaning a range of different tactics are used to ensure the highest possible level of protection.

With that being said, let’s take a look at the use of passwords in further detail so that we can understand the concerns and what steps may be taken to move forward in this area.

Choose your password

Nowadays, it’s constantly drummed into us that we need to protect ourselves online and choose our passwords wisely. Most companies offer a feature telling you how weak or strong your password is as you compose it. Yet, did you know that 8.5 per cent of people use either the word ‘password’ or ‘123456’ as their password? In fact, 40 per cent of people have a password that features in the list of the Top 100 Passwords, with ‘iloveyou’ and ‘abc123’ being some of the most popular.

So, whilst the tech-savvy user may construct their password using a random sequence of numbers, unique characters and letters, it appears that most people are doing very little to make their password not guessable. Even so, with intelligent hackers ready to pounce, even those with complex passwords can suffer.

What’s the alternative?

It seems digital profiles may be the way forward. We have long toyed with the idea of using biometrics, such as a fingerprint reader or some method of voice identification. The problem with this is that such technology is buggy and expensive. Because of this, no one uses them, and consequently, they are never improved nor do they become cheaper. So, it’s unlikely that this will be the immediate solution – although we shouldn’t rule out biometrics being used in the future.

Instead, online identity verification will likely be a natural transition. This may well include the use of passwords, but passwords will only make up a very small portion of the identification system. The multifaceted process will be based on everything from where we go, to when we go there, to who we are, to what we do, to what we have with us and how we act when we are there. We already see this on a small scale with the security measures that are in place to identify an unusual pattern in an individual’s shopping behaviour, such as excessive spending.

  • Protect yourself now
  • But for now…
  • Never use the same password twice
  • Use long passwords
  • Use all authentication methods offered
  • Don’t use a dictionary word
  • For password recoveries, use a secure and unique email address
  • Give bogus answers to security questions

So there you have it: an insight into some of the worries and concerns regarding passwords. When you consider this, it is not hard to understand why we may end up embracing different solutions, such as a digital profile. We have already seen the move to two-factor authentication so that people have to do more than input a password to gain access to a system. However, we should not expect this to be the final change when it comes to enhancing security. More still needs to be done. For now, though, make sure you’re using strong passwords and you are changing them on a regular basis too. Plus, consult with an IT expert to ensure that your business is protected.

Marketing Tips for Start-Ups

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StrategyDriven Starting Your Business Article |Marketing Tips|Marketing Tips for Start-UpsMarketing is one of the most important elements of a business. Without it, your company will be lost in a sea of other companies and no one will know about your services. For start-ups especially, putting together a high-quality marketing plan is essential. If you’re new to marketing and are keen to put this into action, check out the tips below.

Find Your Niche

Finding your niche is key when it comes to developing a strong marketing strategy. It’s all well and good to market your services, but if it’s not hitting your target audience then it could fall flat on its face. To tailor your campaign to your intended audience, speak to potential customers and find out about their lifestyles, interests, concerns, and needs. Successful campaigns depend on your ability to connect with your audience, so establishing your niche is one of the most important first steps.

Attend Events

Networking is another vital step in your marketing efforts. Expanding your contacts, opportunities, and potential customers will go a long way. While networking events can be daunting, finding ones that are relevant to your industry can be highly rewarding. Where possible, try to meet new people and grow your network of potential clients and customers. You could even co-sponsor an event within your niche to gain more publicity for your business.

Give Away Products

Products can be a powerful way of marketing your business. Whether it’s pens and notebooks or stickers and t-shirts, applying your brand across merchandise and distributing these at events can be one of the most effective ways to get your name out there. Great Creates promotional products, including clothing, technology, drinkware, and office stationary, allow you to showcase your brand.

Use Social Media

Social media is another powerful platform for marketing your business. Creating profiles on the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn is essential if you want your business to be visible. However, to make this more effective, find out which platforms your target audience are using and create content that appeals to their interests.

Do Your SEO Keyword Research

Every business should do their keyword research to target customers. Again, this comes down to understanding your niche and audience. By knowing what these customers do, want, and need, you can then set about finding out what keywords they enter into Google. In other words, you’ll want to tailor your marketing efforts to accommodate the keywords that are used by your target demographic. This will ensure that your services are visible on the search engine results pages (SERPs) and that your potential customers can find you.

Host a Contest

Perhaps one of the lesser-known marketing tips is to host a contest. While contests can seem superficial, some of the most successful companies have achieved growth in this way (YouTube included). Contests are especially great for start-up businesses who are looking to grow quickly. Whether you’re giving away a prize or a service in exchange for sign-ups or purchases from your customers, contests can be a fun and easy growth hack.