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7 Ways To Increase Your Restaurant Curb Appeal

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It’s no secret that first impressions matter. When it comes to your restaurant, curb appeal is everything. From the moment potential customers pull up to your establishment, they’re making judgments about your food, your service, and your overall brand.

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article | 7 Ways To Increase Your Restaurant Curb Appeal

So, how can you make sure your restaurant is putting its best foot forward?

Here Are A Few Ways To Increase Your Restaurant Curb Appeal:

1. Invest in quality signage.

Your sign is often the first thing potential customers will see, so it’s important to make sure it’s high-quality and eye-catching. Work with a professional designer to create a sign that accurately reflects your brand and entices people to come inside.

2. Keep the exterior clean and well-maintained.

First impressions aren’t just about what potential customers see, they’re also about what they feel. If your restaurant’s exterior is dirty or run-down, it’s not going to give off a good vibe. Make sure to regularly power wash the outside of your building, use Commercial concrete repair when needed, and keep up with other basic maintenance tasks like trimming bushes and sweeping sidewalks.

3. Add some greenery.

Plants and flowers can really brighten up an exterior, making it more inviting for customers. Container gardens are a great way to add some color without a lot of hassle. Just be sure to choose plants that are appropriate for your climate, and that won’t require too much upkeep.


4. Create an outdoor seating area.

If you have the space, adding an outdoor seating area is a great way to increase your curb appeal. People love being able to enjoy the outdoors, so giving them the option to do so at your restaurant will definitely make it more appealing. Just be sure to furnish your outdoor area with comfortable chairs and tables and keep it well-lit for evening dining.

5. Use lighting to your advantage.

Good lighting can make all the difference when it comes to curb appeal. String lights around your outdoor seating area, or add lanterns or sconces to either side of your door to create a warm and inviting atmosphere.

6. Make sure your windows are clean.

Your windows are like a giant billboard, so you want to make sure they’re always clean and free of any smudges or fingerprints. Not only will this make your restaurant look more presentable, but it will also allow potential customers to see inside, giving them a glimpse of what they can expect from your food and service.

7. Add some fun and unique décor.

Personalizing your exterior with fun and unique décor is a great way to show off your personality and make your restaurant stand out from the rest. Think about adding art pieces, sculptures, or even just fun signage that reflects the vibe of your establishment.

In Closing

By following these tips, you can make sure your restaurant is putting its best foot forward and attracting new customers. Just remember that it’s important to keep up with trends and to regularly freshen up your exterior to ensure that you’re always making a good impression.

Tax Compliance For Small Businesses: A Complete Guide

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Finances Article | Tax Compliance For Small Businesses: A Complete GuideAs a small business owner, filing taxes for the business can be stressful. One of the things you might notice is that the types of taxes you’ll be filing for the business are different from personal taxes and a little bit more complex. The taxes you’re required to file for your business will depend on the tax laws in your country or region. For instance, you’ll be expected to file income tax, estimated quarterly taxes, and self-employment taxes in some countries.

Additionally, you should hire a professional to guide and help you file taxes for your small business. A professional will also help you understand the kind of taxes you’ll be filing and their implications on your business. Furthermore, failure to file and pay taxes on time can be severely detrimental to your business because you’ll be fined and subject to interest on the amount due. If you have no idea where to start with filing taxes for your small business, here is a complete guide:

1. Understand Your Tax Obligations

As mentioned earlier, there are several types of taxes, and you must understand the ones your business needs to comply with. If you know the tax system well, evaluate and organize all your tax obligations to ascertain you’ll get dividends, if there are any. You’ll also have to ensure you’re up-to-date with changes in tax regulations to ensure compliance.

However, suppose you find the tax system complicated, you can hire a reputable accountant or a tax filing company such as Swyft filings registered agent service to handle the entire process.

Subsequently, you can start by looking into the basic tax forms, which differ depending on the business bracket. When filling out the tax forms, you can decide to consolidate both the business and personal obligations, especially in income tax returns. Another item you might want to consider is creating estimated tax returns where you can specify the amount and the deadline for payments.

In addition, you can check and inquire whether your business has extensions that should be handled within the prescribed time. You can request an extension for the business when there’s a need for extra time to meet legal obligations. Despite being granted an extension, you’ll have to calculate the amount owed in taxes and ascertain it’s paid before the due date.

2. Create A Personalized Tax Calendar

Keeping track of all your business tax obligations can take a toll on you, and an electronic calendar would be helpful. Start by creating a digital calendar detailing the taxes that must be filed, the amount, and deadlines. Another benefit of creating a digital calendar is that it’ll also serve as a reminder. You can also include notes on tax reports and hardcopy documents on the calendar.

Besides, you should ensure you’re using a secure application or software for the calendar. Since you’ll note important business information on the digital calendar, you must ensure it’s safe. Any form of illegal access or breach into the digital calendar can expose crucial business details. Nonetheless, a tax calendar will help you stay organized and have a one-stop shop for all business information.

StrategyDriven Managing Your Finances Article | Tax Compliance For Small Businesses: A Complete Guide3. Consider Tax Deductions

As a business owner, it’s essential to constantly look for ways to save money and boost profits. While it might sound odd, you can save money on tax deductions offered to small businesses. Some of the deductions that might be available to you are business expenses such as payment of salaries, insurance, and start-up expenses. Another area you might consider when claiming a business deduction is a home office deduction if you’re running the business from home.

In addition, you must learn what the laws on tax deductions provide and how they’ll benefit your business. For illustration, regulations such as the Qualified Business Income Tax Deduction give room for up to 20% deductions on the total income of a business. Though you’re entitled to tax deductions for your business, you must be qualified. You can check the tax regulatory bodies for qualifications for tax deductions in small businesses.

Moreover, if you’re wondering what deductions you can claim for your business, start by checking tax regulations. However, if you’ve sought the services of an accountant or a tax agent, they can advise on the tax deductions you can claim.

4. Ensure Accurate Calculation Of Taxes

Your small business must always file accurate taxes. Once you’ve collected all the information on the types of taxes, you’ll be filing and the possible deductions, you can start calculating taxes. When calculating taxes, ensure you comply with the legal structure to avoid issues with the tax regulatory body. In addition, use receipts and invoices to correctly identify income and expenditure in the business.

Once you’ve tallied the total revenue and expenses, you can determine the deductions your business qualifies for. The calculations will help determine how much tax your small business should pay. When done, file the tax forms with the tax regulatory body accompanied by payments of the amounts due. Nevertheless, if the math becomes overwhelming, seek the help of a professional.

5. Make All The Tax Documentation Accessible

Once you’ve gathered all your documents, including receipts, ensure they’re accessible to authorized personnel. The papers are proof of tax compliance and should be accessible to your business partners or anyone else that might need them. While it’s easy to keep a digital record of all documents, hardcopy documents can be saved as a backup. You can keep the documents in a lockable drawer for safety.

Besides, if there’s an issue with the tax process, the documents can be used to countercheck accounting details. Further, you can label the documents using tags to differentiate documents and the consequent return periods.


6. Create A System

Filing business taxes can be tedious, but creating a functional system can make it easy. You can start creating a system by organizing your documentation and taking the time to comprehend your tax obligations. While it might take a lot of time and energy to establish a sustainable approach, the benefits to your business would be tremendous.

Nevertheless, you must ensure your system gets updated whenever your business has new tax obligations. You’ll have to regularly revisit the process to ascertain it’s still meeting the business needs. Eventually, you’ll spend less time and resources on tax compliance for your business.

Conclusion

Ensuring your small business is tax compliant can be complex and stressful. Despite the difficult and tedious process, you must ensure your business files the appropriate tax documents on time to avoid being penalized. You can make the taxation process for your business easy by creating a system that works for you. Feel free to consult a professional if you’re not confident about the taxes you’re supposed to file for your business.

7 Ways to Ensure the Safety of Your Commercial Premises

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There are plenty of things that can impact the success of your business. But there’s arguably none worse than a safety incident at your premises. If that happens, your business won’t just face financial repercussions, but it could also face legal ones, too. Plus, as a good employer, it’s essential that you create a safe environment for your employees. In this blog, we’re going to run through some effective methods for ensuring that your commercial premises are as safe as can be.

Hire an Expert

To put your business on the path towards impeccable safety, you’ll need to know what the safety threats are. Sometimes, this is an easy process because identifying safety issues is relatively straightforward. In other types of facilities, it’s more difficult. If you’re unable to clearly identify what the safety concerns may be, then it’s recommended that you hire a safety expert to do the job for you. They’ll be able to tell you where your potential weak points are and make recommendations for how you can improve things.

Take Care of the Infrastructure

There are plenty of things that can cause a safety incident at your business. The leading non-human cause of accidents is faulty infrastructure. As such, it’s important that you make every effort to ensure that the infrastructure of your business is watertight from a safety point of view. For example, are your safety valves up to standard? Is your roof watertight and secure? This is something that requires ongoing management — you can’t just look at these things once and expect them to work forever. After all, things do lose their quality over time.

Train Your Staff

Most workplace accidents are a result of human error. That’s not to say it’s the employee’s fault, however. If they haven’t been specifically trained to use the company’s equipment properly, then it’s actually the company’s fault, not the employee’s. Health and safety training isn’t the most exciting task, sure, but it is a critical one. You should be conducting regular training sessions so that your team is always up to date with the latest practices. It’s a good idea to hire a professional to lead the training sessions unless you have specific training in that field.

Maintain a Clean and Tidy Environment

There are plenty of workplaces that are safe when they’re in spotless condition. It’s when they’re not in a spotless condition that issues arise. This is a particular issue in warehouses and factories, but in truth, all business premises can suffer from being untidy. It just makes the environment more dangerous — it’s not hard to see how an injury could occur if someone was carrying something and tripped over an item that shouldn’t be there. As such, it’s imperative that you’re working to keep your work environment clean and tidy at all times. If you have a particularly busy workplace, then it could be a good idea to hire a cleaner to do the task for you.


Take Every Incident Seriously

Serious accidents in the workplace are rare. However, when you look at the events leading up to those incidents, you usually find that the signs that something bad was going to happen were there. It’s just that those early signs were non-serious injuries, so no one took them seriously. It’s for this reason that you should take every incident in the workplace seriously, even if the injury is extremely minimal. You might have just gotten lucky this time around — the next time could result in a serious injury.

Health and Safety Tools

It’s essential to invest in the correct health and safety tools for your site. It’s not hard to see how a fire extinguisher could be extremely useful if the premises experienced flames. There’s much more to know about safety equipment than you might expect, however. There are various different types of fire extinguishers, for example, with each type being used to put out a different type of fire. You will also want to have an extensive first aid kit, as well as any equipment that is specific to your particular line of work.

Secure the Premises

Finally, be sure to work on securing your premises so that no one can enter the building. The chances of someone entering your facility with the intention of doing harm are extremely small, but it’s not zero. Having keypad access, CCTV cameras, and other security equipment won’t just protect your team of staff but will also ensure that your site is kept safe when you’re not there too.

5 Expert Tips to Make Money from Your Blog

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article, 5 Expert Tips to Make Money from Your Blog

As your website grows, you can use it to make money from your blog for a great additional revenue stream. Here are some expert tips to get you started on the path to monetization.

Hire a Quality Digital Marketing Agency

Almost every online business needs to do digital marketing now. Given the large number of other companies, blogs, or channels, it’s essential to push your business a little further to beat the competition. But the field itself is vast and complicated. Reach Digital is a reputable digital marketing agency that can help your business grow on the Internet. They can do this by using professional methods to make your business stand out against competitors. These include SEO, PPC, and social media campaigns, among other valuable and impactful techniques.

Use Google AdSense

If a lot of people visit your site, Google AdSense can bring in extra money. The good news is that once it is set up, nothing else needs to be done. Connect your website to Google AdSense, set up your site’s settings, and then sit back and let the money roll in. The algorithm slowly learns what your site is about. Next, it starts to show ads for products in your niche that are relevant to you. Then, you get paid when a user clicks on an automatic ad. Over time, the ads become more relevant to your users, resulting in a steady growth in ad revenue from clicks.

Make Money from Your Blog with Affiliate Links

Affiliate marketing is used a lot on the Internet. And almost all successful blogs now use it to make extra money. Each sale made through your unique ID link earns you a small commission. For example, if you have a great blog about photography, you could add affiliate links to stores where people can buy lenses. You shouldn’t have too many affiliate links on your website, or it will look unprofessional and hurt your SEO ranking. Instead, you should make content that fits well into your niche and incorporate links naturally throughout to avoid Google penalties.


Include a PayPal Donation Button

Asking for money on a blog is one of the oldest ways to make money from it. If your audience is dedicated enough, they are more likely to give you money. But you need a steady source of a lot of traffic to make good money from donations since only a small number of people will think about it. If you think you can make money from donations, put a PayPal button in a prominent place on your site, like the menu bar or the sidebar. Always set up a thank-you message for donations, and think about letting your best donors know in public.

Use Blogger Outreach Posts

As your blog gets more popular, SEO and link-building experts who work for clients might get in touch with you. They will ask you if you would be interested in publishing relevant posts with links bought by clients for backlinking purposes. This is called “blogger outreach,” and you will get a small fee for publishing certain posts. They do all the work for you and only have relevant internal and external links. Your SEO score is also helped by posts that are relevant, which most outreach distributors will offer since it also benefits their link clients.

Summary

It’s not easy to make money from your blog. But with some expert guidance from a digital marketing agency, you can thrive. You can also use affiliate links and accept outreach posts.

The Business Benefits of Lean Management

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | The Business Benefits of Lean Management

If you are looking for ways to ensure that your business is as efficient and as profitable as possible, then taking a closer look at lean management is probably a sensible idea.

What is lean management? It is a production method that focuses on reducing times during the manufacturing process, whether it is in the production itself or at the logistics end. It is a method that aims to strip everything back to its bare essentials with a view of increasing productivity.

What are the benefits of lean management?

There are a number of benefits you are likely to see if you adopt a leaner approach to running your business, including the following:

Faster lead times

Perhaps, the biggest benefit of adopting a lean management style is that it will enable you to get things done much more quickly than you are now. Anything that is unnecessary will be stripped away, leaving you and your employees to focus on getting the job done.

Any step that is not vital to the manufacturing process will be removed, and stricter inventory processes will be implemented to ensure that you always have just the right amount of inventory for your needs which means less time managing excess stock and more time working on the task at hand.

An improvement in quality

A lean management style is likely to lead to an increase in quality because it enables you to more easily identify any problems in your manufacturing processes, and it will also help you to come up with more innovative solutions to those problems, Not only that, but it enables you to invest in things like automation and better cleanroom design which will lower the number of mistakes and defects that are made well in advance of them hitting the marketplace.

Better levels of customer service

With a lean management style. Every step of the process is documented, which means, when problems do arise, you can more quickly resolve them by checking the log and pinpointing issues. It will be easier for you to make the customer happy when you have all of the information you need to help them, and even more importantly, all of the info you need to eliminate aspects of the product that the customers find unnecessary.


Greater efficiency

Of course, when it comes to efficiency, lean management is hard to beat. Working practices are standardized and the best processes are put in place to make working in your business as simple as can be. Not only is this good for efficiency in and of itself, but it helps to boost staff morale too, and as you will know, happy workers are more productive workers.

Peace of mind

When you implement lean management practices, you have the peace of mind that comes with knowing your business is optimized to the nth degree.

As you can see, lean management can reduce errors, increase productivity and boost your bottom line, so be sure to consider it for your business going forward.