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How to Use Outsourcing to Boost Your Profits

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Finances Article | How to Use Outsourcing to Boost Your Profits | Entrepreneurship | OutsourcingOutsourcing is a word that’s used a lot in business articles and guides for business owners, but is it really worth considering if you only have a small business or are a sole trader? If you think of outsourcing as something that only medium to large companies need to do, you’re missing out on a powerful way to boost your profits, because the benefits of outsourcing have no relation to the size of your business.

Because of its association with more sizeable businesses, outsourcing tends to be viewed as a situation where a whole section of a large corporation or organization is subcontracted to another company. For example, a hospital that pays a specialist cleaning company to undertake all the housekeeping duties.

There could be fifty or a hundred employees taking care of the hospital with not one of them being employed directly; the hospital pays the cleaning company, and the cleaning company deals with staff management. The hospital director gets a clean hospital without having to worry about looking after staff, equipment, recruitment, rotas, and all the other responsibilities of doing the cleaning in-house.

The test of whether outsourcing can work for you is to examine the numbers, which will tell you if outsourcing is viable in your circumstance or not. You may be a small business with a handful of employees or someone who works alone out of their back bedroom, but the same financial calculations are as applicable to you as they are to the hospital director. The bottom line is, can you earn more in the time it takes you to perform a task than it would cost you to pay someone else to do it? That’s the essence of how outsourcing boosts your profits in a nutshell.

In practice, what it means is that if your profit is $35 per hour as a freelance researcher, and it costs $20 an hour to employ an assistant to do all your admin, every hour you spend doing admin is costing you $15. If you spent those hours doing more paid work, you could have all your admin done for you and still be making money. In some cases doing tasks yourself could well be costing even more if you don’t have the skills to complete the task effectively and efficiently.

For instance, if you do all your own SEO, that could be taking you five hours each week, so straight away you’ve got the difference between how much you’re losing by not earning, and the cost of outsourcing the task. However you’ve also got the loss you’re incurring by spending more time than an expert would, and not being as effective as an expert at optimizing your business presence. By outsourcing to a specialist like Orlando SEO, you can devote more time to earning, and have a better return on the investment than you’d get if you carried on trying to do your SEO yourself.

Have a look at what you’re doing that could be done by someone else, and see how much it would cost to outsource those tasks. Even if you just take on a remote assistant to do two hours a week, if you make $35 an hour and pay them $15 an hour, over a year you’ll boost your profits by over $2,000 a year!

The Ridiculously Simple Ways You Can Get People To Read More Of Your Content

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Content creation is an effective yet epic task. It takes up hours of your time and is a massive drain on your marketing resources. Because of this, you want to make sure that it’s useful. But how?

It turns out that creating compelling content that people actually want to read is more complicated than many company owners imagine. If you’re like most professionals, you’re focused on what you know – the nuts and bolts of your business. Your bread and butter, if you will. Content marketing is usually little more than an afterthought.

Get it wrong, and you can waste a tremendous amount of time and money. Get it right, and you can dominate.

The trick to successfully getting people to read more of your content is understanding how people consume material on the web. Most of the people on your site probably aren’t reading every single word that you type. Typically, they’re scanning pages, looking for information they need, and then moving on. Bearing this in mind, therefore, is essential when creating content. Your content needs to have pertinent details highlighted or under particular headings so that people can visually scan your document and pick out the information they need.

That’s just one example. There are many more. Take a look at these ridiculously simple ways to get people reading more of your content and get them closer to conversion.

Start By Using Bullet Points

Using bullet points is a compelling way of engaging your users while at the same time giving them a break from a block of text.

  • Bullet points look different from regular prose
  • Bullet points break up the text
  • Bullet points provide white space
  • Bullet points succinctly collect information
  • Bullet points help readers to memorize your content
  • Bullet points organize all of the most critical information in your post

Enrich Your Text

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article | The Ridiculously Simple Ways You Can Get People To Read More Of Your Content | Content Creation | Entrepreneurship
Photo courtesy of Diggity Marketing

The art of lead magnet creation involves doing much more than writing, say, 1,500 words. It’s also about including a catchy title, moving images, calls-to-action, landing pages, branded document designs and much much more. Creating a visually compelling document is an ideal way to encourage people to investigate more of what you have to say. People want to read articles that tell them about the pictures they’re looking at, for example.

Place Helpful Links Whenever Possible

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article | The Ridiculously Simple Ways You Can Get People To Read More Of Your Content | StrategyDriven | Content Creation | Entrepreneurship

If you’re writing a blog about a particular food ingredient, it helps to insert a couple of links to recipes that use it. Likewise, if you’re writing an article about personal finance, it might be helpful to give users a link to an investment calculator so they can see how much their portfolio will be worth in ten years.

Placing helpful links is helpful to users and helpful to you too. People will want to come back.

Double Check Your Formatting

Once you’ve written your article using the advice above, double check it to see whether the format actually communicates your core message. Put yourself in the shoes of your reader and ask whether they can glean the information they need.

Crumbling Under The Pressure: Is There Ever A Time To Devolve Your Business?

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article | Crumbling Under The Pressure: Is There Ever A Time To Devolve Your Business? | Devolve BusinessIt’s not something we should take lightly. After all, starting our business and getting it going is one of the biggest challenges we can undergo in life. But when you feel you’re at a dead end, and that once great team you had his now in tatters, you may very well give proper consideration to packing up, and giving your business away. But when you are going through something as traumatizing as this, are there any telltale signs that you need to start devolving your company?

The Financial Component

In an obvious sense, if you are struggling to make any profits, you could think that it’s not worth it, but is it as cut and dry as this? If your business is making no profit, do you need to give up? The question is all about if you’ve put enough preventions in place to ensure that your business is doing everything in its power to remain financially afloat. And it’s not just about a dire cash flow situation, it’s about ensuring that you’ve actually been to every creditor, resource, and institution in your midst to see if there are any ways to get out of this issue. It may very well be about getting rid of a certain aspect of the business to ensure that it can stay afloat. Resources, such as Professional Transition, are able to help businesses provide a suitable transition process, which may be a better option than giving up completely. The financial component is such a wide-ranging one that if you are considering giving up because profit is a problem, then you’ve got to give consideration to the next point…

Is Your Heart In It?

Your business is your baby. Or, if it was at one point, but now you are at the end of your tether, is it about evaluating your own attitudes towards the business? Giving up on something shouldn’t be taken lightly. But the question is if you are able to maintain this enthusiasm and zeal for the company in the long run. Because it’s not just about our own responsibilities within the business, it’s about seeing if it’s having an adverse effect on our lives. Not in the basic sense of one too many late nights, but if you’ve bent over backwards, you receive knockback after knockback, and after overcoming all of these obstacles, you still don’t have any sort of results, financially, professionally, or personally. At this point, if you start to lose heart, and you realize that the business isn’t good for you anymore, it’s time to see if you can spend time without the business in your life. Delegating to someone will help at this juncture, because it’s essential that you have time away. Having time and space away from it will give you the chance to see if it helps you renew your enthusiasm for the business.

Of course, we can’t answer the question for you. But when the thought crosses your mind that you should pack it all in, and it is a dire situation, professionally and personally, it could very well be time to make some major changes.

5 Key Tips for Starting Your Own Office Cleaning Business

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StrategyDriven Starting Your Business Article | Entrepreneurship | 5 Key Tips for Starting Your Own Office Cleaning Business | Office Cleaning BusinessSmall businesses are booming and there’s no end in sight. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy, there were 30.2 million small businesses in the US during 2018.

So why not use the opportunities available to pursue your dream of opening an office cleaning service.
But what do I know about starting a business? No one is born with all the knowledge necessary to thrive in business. But if you are willing to put in the time and effort you can learn what you need to start your business.

Read on to learn more.

How to Start an Office Cleaning Business

There are no foolproof steps to begin a successful office cleaning business. Businesses grow and flourish through effort.

But be sure to ask yourself some questions such as “what do I need to start a cleaning business.” You may even consider starting a cleaning business checklist.

Gathering information is key to beginning a business. However, there are some tips you should use to get going on the road to success.

Choose Your Target Client

When deciding to start a business you should consider who you will serve. Offices come in many shapes, sizes, and locations.

Will you have the manpower to clean large, corporate offices? Or do you want to focus on smaller operations like daycares or banks?

Perhaps cleaning universities or shopping centers sparks your interest.

Whichever offices you want to clean do your research on the types of cleaners you can use in schools or hospitals.

Select the Services You Will Provide

Now that you know where you want to clean select the services you’ll provide.

Some of the cleaning your business offers may include:

  • Commercial Carpet Cleaning
  • Doors and Windows
  • Green Cleaning with environmentally safe products
  • Interior and Exteriors
  • Restrooms

Now that you’ve chosen your services it’s time to decide where you’ll work.

Select Your Office Location

In the early days of your business, you may decide to work out of your home to cut down on costs. Yet, this may not be an option if you need storage space for cleaning equipment and products. Plus an area for hiring and training employees.

But if you have space in your home and begin with a small crew of people you may be able to use your place.

Handle the Business Details

Now comes the not-so-fun part of beginning your business. Each business must go through growing pains in order to evolve.

The following are steps to creating your business:

  • Name your business
  • Get small business insurance
  • Price your services
  • Open a Business Checking Account
  • Register your business with your state
  • Consult an attorney
  • Choose if your business will be a single owner LLC, multi-owner LLC or corporation
  • Hire and train employees

Market and Get Customer

After all the paperwork tasks are complete you can focus on marketing and gaining customers.

Getting your website setup, order flyers and distribute them, advertise on social media, and tell your friends and family are helpful was to get your business brand’s name out to the public.

Continue to Grow

Running an office cleaning business is tricky but also beneficial. You get to be your own boss and help keep people work in a clean environment.

Yet, over time the fruits of your labor will result in profits and popularity among your peers. It just takes patience.

If you enjoyed this article continue reading our website for information on creating a successful business.

Creating A Website For Selling

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Website design experts offer the ability to have the perfect shop front for your business. It is so important in this day and age for your business to be found online, regardless of your trade.

If you’re new to the trading world and looking to be a success, then Internet shopping is the way forward and you’ll soon find that you will need an ecommerce site. Building an online shop is not easy for the average business person though; so seeking a digital agency will ensure your site is amongst the best and is going to work for you and your business.

In this blog post, we are going to take a look at creating a website for the purpose of selling in further detail. We hope this gives you the assistance and inspiration you need for your own e-store.

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article | Creating A Website For Selling

Some advice and recommendations for new businesses

You have a new business and you have the stock you need, now you just need a multitude of customers. Simple, right? But, where can you find these customers, or more importantly, how can your customers find you? It’s all very well relying on word of mouth, or passers-by if you have a shop front, but why limit yourself when you could reach a worldwide audience? With the use of the Internet, the sky is the limit when it comes to attracting an audience, meaning more potential sales for you, resulting in more revenue. Sounds good? The difficult bit is knowing where to start.

Thankfully, there are professional website design experts who are also eCommerce experts. These experts can build you a bespoke ecommerce site, meaning you can instantly start to benefit from this growing market. If you do it right, ecommerce is the way to go, attracting both men and women of all ages. It’s a great time to be a start-up business in the ecommerce world.

Another advantage of using a website design company to build your ecommerce site is that they are also likely to be professionals in SEO. This means they can ensure that your shop will be found more easily by people searching for your products. They can also maintain your site, ensuring you remain higher on those search engine results. A good SEO agency will have a number of different techniques and tools at their disposal to make your website more visible online. After all, you can have the most amazing website visually, but if no one views it, you’re not going to make any sales, are you?

Have you considered using Shopify?

There are many options for ecommerce sites available, so what makes Shopify the perfect choice? Firstly, the cost. Shopify is one of the more affordable shopping sites to run, with low monthly costs but a reliable website. Businessmen know the key to a successful start-up is keeping outgoings as low as possible, but still keeping the quality high.

Companies specialising in Shopify can ensure this happens. Shopify offers reports on your click-throughs, and even includes features that can improve your SEO. The reporting system can inform you of which search terms have brought the most visitors to your site.

Other tools available on Shopify include discount codes and gift cards, integration of social networking sites, and email marketing options. All of these can improve the success of your site, when used properly. There are more advanced packages available if you are looking for something else specific, such as pop-ups or similar.

Design and imagery can be a big part of a purchase. The layout of Shopify is simple and eye-catching, making it easy for the user to navigate and therefore resulting in a purchase is more likely. Teamed with website designers, your online shop will soon be turning heads. If you’re looking to purely run your business and sell your products, without the hassle of website hosting, payment gateways and software maintenance, then Shopify is for you.

All things considered, there is no denying that there is a lot to think about when you are selling products online. However, we hope that this blog post will help you on your journey by outlining some of the things that you are going to need to do in order to get started.