Category: Legal Branding

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5 Tips for Hosting a Successful Small Business Event

Steven on July 26, 2019

Planning a small business event isn’t easy. Any missteps can hurt your mission and have serious repercussions for your company. On the other hand, if you get everything right, a festivity like this can help your operations in many ways. For example, it can help you attract investors or increase your base of loyal customers. But how exactly do you host a successful small business event? Listed below are five tips you might want to know about.

Know what you want to achieve

You’d be surprised by how many small business owners in Australia believe hosting an event is a great idea but when asked what their goals are, they can’t seem to find an answer. To make certain this isn’t the case with you, start thinking about what you want your event to achieve as soon as you decide to host it. Do you want to draw attention to your newest product? Do you need financing for your next project? Or you just want your Facebook page to start growing? Know what your goals are and coming up with the ideas that’ll make your event a success will be much easier. Fail to do this and your event will turn out to be nothing but a waste of money.

Don’t forget about money

Obviously, hosting a small business event can be expensive. Not only do you need to pay for a venue but there also other aspects of it such as catering and entertainment. That said, it’s very important to establish a budget and stick to it when planning the entire thing. Having a clearly-set budget will help you avoid overspending and ensure there’s always some money left just in case some unexpected costs come up. One trick that worked well for many business owners is breaking the budget into small pieces. You can then assign those pieces to every aspect of your event and make certain everything goes as planned. Of course, keep a record of all your costs so that you can later determine whether your event can be labeled as a success.

Think about catering

There’s no point in hosting a small business event if you’re not going to serve food and drink. Forget about catering and you’ll see your attendees leave even before you get to say everything you want. When it comes to choosing food for your event, it’s important to have in mind that people know have different diets and getting something for everyone if your safest bet. For example, you can never go wrong with adding a few vegetarian options on your menu. Sydney experts in corporate events say that serving alcohol at your gathering is a perfect way to have everyone enjoy it. Therefore, turning to experts who offer professional alcohol delivery service in Sydney can turn out to be a great idea.

Delegate some of the tasks

You may believe that you’re capable of planning your upcoming gathering yourself but in reality, letting others help you is a much better idea. Juggling too many things at once means you can’t pay attention to details and details matter a lot when it comes to small business events. Luckily, all you need to do is turn to your staff members and find ways to include them in the planning process. Think about each of your employees’ strengths and interests and you’ll be able to assign them the roles they’ll enjoy. For example, if there’s an employee you know has a good taste in music, why not have them create a playlist for your event? This will allow you to focus on more important aspects of the planning process and ensure everyone enjoys the music at your event.

Get the word out

Depending on the type of event you’re hosting, you might need to promote it if you want to achieve all your goals. The good news is, there doesn’t seem to be a lack of channels you can use to promote your event. So, if you aim at reaching customers who might want to attend your event, using social media is a must. All you need to do is create a Facebook event and have your followers share it with their friends and family. In case there are important clients you’d want to attend your gathering, sending them a carefully-written email invitation is always going to work. Just don’t forget to include a signature that’ll help them remember your business. For local businesses, channels such as newspaper and radio commercials are guaranteed to work as well.

Final thoughts

Providing people with a fun event is a great way to help your business achieve its goals. The best way to do it is to start preparing on time and paying attention to every little detail. Have these five tips in mind and you should be able to host an event everyone will find memorable and enjoyable.

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Top Business Tips for Starting a Small Business

Steven on July 26, 2019

Starting a business is a dream most people have had at some point in their lives. However, very few people actually take bold steps needed to make this dream into reality. If done correctly, starting a small business can be one of the most rewarding experiences you can have in your life. While it will certainly come with a lot of challenges you are going to have to overcome at the end of the day you will be able to tell yourself that you’ve achieved something great which you can really be proud of. If you are ready to commit to the idea of starting a business there are certain things you should keep in mind that will help you set yourself up for success. So, without further ado, let’s take a look at the top business tips for starting a small business.

Get personally invested

By far the most important thing to keep in mind when starting a small business is that you have to be passionate about seeing your business succeed in order for it to actually do so. Getting personally invested in your business will give you the drive to put in extra work and go above in beyond when working on it. On top of this, if you don’t feel connected with your business the work you put in will seem unfulfilling and you won’t be able to find the drive to keep going during hard times.

Secure your funding as soon as possible

Funding makes up the lifeblood of every business and as such is essential for its success. In fact, lack of capital represents one of the most common reasons small businesses fail, so making sure you have enough funding should be one of your top priorities. There are many paths you can take when deciding how you are going to fund your business. The one most people take consists of a mix of different sources of funding, most notably getting as much as they can by saving and borrowing from their friends and family and covering the rest with a traditional business loan or opt for quick easy loans in case they need the money quickly. On top of this, there are a lot of alternative paths you can take. If you think your business idea has the potential to generally interest people, you can try to get the money you need through crowdfunding or other alternatives such as angel investors or venture capitalists. At the end of the day, the path you choose should ultimately depend on your personal needs, possibilities, and preferences.

Find a partner

One of the best ways to make the process of starting a small business easier, especially if it’s your first one, is the find a suitable partner to help you through the endeavor. Not only will it become easier for you to fund your business but you will also have someone to bounce ideas off, share the workload with and if things go south, share the responsibilities with. However, you should remember that starting a business with someone can really impact the relationship you have with that person. So, you should make sure it’s someone you can fully trust and rely on to stick with you through whatever the two of you may have to deal with during your partnership.

Have a plan

While getting personally invested, securing your funding and finding a partner are all things you should do or consider before starting a business the one thing you simply just can’t go without is a plan. It will represent the foundation from which you are going to build your business and will also give you a constant reference point you will always be able to turn to and remind yourself of what your aims and goals are. A plan will also help you determine if your business idea is going to be worth the time and money invested in it, which is especially useful information especially if you plan on looking for outside sources of funding for your business.

Don’t stop learning

When starting a business, it’s important to keep in mind that everything should be viewed as a lesson. Even though there are extensive books and articles written on the subject, really knowing how to set up and run a small business from scratch is a skill that you can really only acquire through experience and a good attitude towards the whole endeavor. Because of this, you shouldn’t get yourself down when something doesn’t go the way you planned, instead, you should view it as a positive experience that will prevent you from doing the same mistake again.

Conclusion

While this list doesn’t consist out of everything you need to know when starting a small business, the tips listed here will help you put your small business on the right track for success and ultimately make the whole process a lot less stressful and pleasurable. With that being said, the most useful tip you can keep in mind when starting a small business is to just keep going. No matter how hard it gets or how many obstacles you face, the only way to succeed is to not give up and constantly strive to improve.

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3 Main Reasons You Have to Host an Open House

Steven on July 24, 2019

Selling a property on desirable prices is a difficult and time-consuming process as well. When you want to sell your apartment you usually think about different real estate agents and online advertisements of your property. The open house is a term that makes people think that they will face a strange type of peoples in their home. A huge amount will be required for the event of an open house. In reality, the open house is the best tool for the seller. The open house will bring customers directly to your doorstep. If you have an apartment in the Palm Jumeirah and you want to sell that apartment, then an open house will be a great tool for your selling process. The people who want to buy an apartment in Palm Jumeirah will visit your open house and will check your apartment without any long procedures. The open house will save you from a long time-consuming selling process. The open house needs proper ways and methods to attract customers. The following are the details of these ways by which you can make your open house successful and can get your desired customer and price as well.

It’s an Opportunity to Set Your House Apart from The Rest

Posting ads related to your apartment on the internet along with the pictures will not attract customers properly. The open house will allow them to visit your home and check everything without any realtors and other time-consuming processes. This type of open house hosting needs a proper home decoration. The decoration of your home will attract customers more. Hire staging company for furnishings. The good appearance of your home will make the process of selling faster.

Social Situations Ease Tension

In the open house, you will face multiple types of customers along with their agents. You and your agent can directly meet with customers and can discuss the process of your home without any embarrassment. These types of social events give a good and relaxed environment. The timely home viewing is usually not relaxed for you and the customer as well. You will get embarrassed by customers that come to visit your home at different times open house can save you from this time-consuming process by inviting all customers at the same.

Reduction in Marketing Cost

The open house will reduce marketing cost. You can easily sell your home by an open house as too many eyes on your apartment in a small duration of time will make selling process faster· The individual showings usually take more time and the open house can skip all these individual showings. The one-day affair is easy then every day showings of customers at your home doorstep.

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3 Questions You Have to Ask Yourself Before Buying a Home Warranty

Steven on July 24, 2019

Home purchase requires a lot of money as it is an expensive task. Buying a home requires a handsome amount of investment. You need to protect your investment as well. Avoid temptation by television and online ads pitching home warranties. The home warranties are the type of contracts that provide you guarantee to pay the cost of all types of repair, damage or replacement of appliances, plumbing, heating, and air conditioning systems if they stop working. The home warranties are a source of peace of mind but finding a better business bureau is necessary. As most of the companies deny to pay you the cost when you need it. To protect yourself from such type of scam and fraud is necessary. If you buy Dubai Land properties for sale and you are investing a huge amount, that huge amount should be protected from these types of fraud bureau.

The first step for buying a home warranty is to evaluate that this warranty is covering everything that you need? Study the contract properly following are the question you have to ask yourself before buying a home warranty.

Do I Already Have Protection?

The appliances of a new home are usually covered and sometimes the used appliances are covered as well if you have done the purchase with a credit card. Some credit cards have long term warranty. So if you don’t need any type of coverage than avoid buying a home warranty.

How Much Will This Warranty Cost?

Different kinds of plans cost you differently. These plans are of three types like a plan for a particular appliance, a plan for all your appliances, and a plan for your plumbing and electrical systems along with your appliances. The location of your home will affect the cost of a plan. You have to pay additional charges if anyone of your appliance is covered and has stopped working. The fee ranges from $60 to $125 for additional charges.

Am I Clear About What the Warranty Covers?

Carefully read the terms and conditions and the whole contract before buying a home warranty. Sometime misconception can put you in high money loses in the future. Most of the customer doesn’t get the whole contract and then make a company responsible for the extra charges. These contracts have different policies like some will cover your refrigerator but not the icemaker, some policies were only for water heater but not the hot water tank.

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Choice of the Right Credit Card Terminal Helps In Processing

Steven on July 23, 2019

You will come across a lot of different types of credit card terminals today to choose from. They can help you to make the right choice according to the type of business. It is also necessary to consider your specific needs for credit card processing.

The different types of credit card terminals come with different types of features but all of these are aimed at making your credit card payments acceptance a much easier process. Therefore, be knowledgeable and know about these types, their features and functionality before you make your final choice.

The traditional terminals

The traditional retail terminals are mostly found and are the best solution for businesses that operate with a face to face contact with the consumers. These types of businesses include:

A retail shop
A restaurant and even
Those that deal entirely in ‘card-present’ transactions.

Putting in simple words this means that in all these settings the cardholder physically possesses the credit card while making a payment.

In this setting, the ideal credit card terminal choice is a countertop PointOfSale model. In this type of terminal you will be able to:

Swipe the credit cards of the customers using a card reader to make and process the transaction
You can also process EBT or debit cards if you simply add a PIN pad on to the credit card reader.

In this system, ideally, there is a small printer connected to the card reading device or the Electronic Data Capturing machine. This prints out two copies of a receipt with the details of the transaction along with the date, time and amount of purchase. The reason for two receipts is:

The customer needs to sign on this print out called ‘charge slip’ which you have to retain as the vendor and
The customer keeps one for reference or disputes during charge-backs.

You may also use a countertop terminal for free credit card processing in a CNP or ‘cardnot present’ situation. This is especially a setting when gods and services are delivered based on the orders made through the internet, over the phone or faxes mails. All you need to do is type in the details of the credit card into the terminal to process the card and receive the amount of sale.

Few other types of terminals

Apart from the traditional credit card terminals that are usually used in a fixed set of a physical store, you will also get a couple of other types of credit card terminals to choose from.

You will get a wide assortment of mobile credit card processing solutions. You will need to set up a mobile merchant account with the credit card processing company for this by simply downloading their specific app to your tablet, laptop or smartphone. You accept both major credit cards as well as signature debit cards as and when you want no matter wherever you are.
Apart from that, you can also come across a virtual terminal which is the mark of modern development and use of technology. These virtual terminals are apt for online credit card processing using the electronic payment gateway to facilitate such transactions. This is a safe and secure way to get paid for the goods and services you sold to a customer. This state-of-the-art credit card processing platform will allow you to accept multiple payment types and all that in real-time.

In order to use these credit terminals all that you need is an internet connection and a web browser of your computer. You can combine these with a USB credit card swipe reader even to create such a virtual terminal. These terminals not only will allow you to use and process the major credit and debit cards but will also help you in ACH payments. In addition to that, it will also offer:

Shopping cart integration and
A hosted payment page.

All these are very useful for those e-commerce merchants who want to provide a better user experience and a faster and more secure service.

Look at the features

When you want to select the best credit card terminal for your business, you will need to know and consider the features that these terminals have. This is essentially required if you have diversified business and require more than one merchant account for that matter to process your credit card payments of different types.

There are several terminals that can process numerous merchant account transactions that are a good choice for a retail establishment to use especially if it has an online presence as well.
Then there are a few other credit card terminals available as well that are a good choice for businesses that share their space and a credit card terminal with a different business.
Apart from that, you can also choose the newer credit card terminal models that use IP connections rather than a dedicated phone line in order to connect to the browser and the credit card processor.

However, apart from the type and need of your business, you must also consider the internet speed and accessibility. Your choice may vary if your business has highspeed internet access or a DSL. This will speed up the processing time significantly and most importantly, you will not need to spend on an extra phone line.

Choosing a merchant account provider

Lastly, when you choose a merchant account provider, you may find it a bit confusing if you do not have the right information or do not conduct thorough research.

Start by checking up with Better Business Bureau or BBB to find a service provider with a sound and proven track record and no or not many complaints.
Also, make it a point that you investigate technical support options provided by the merchant account provider.

Check out their customer service hours, whether or not they have a toll-free phone number, the reasonability of their rates, whether there are any hidden fees not disclosed, and always think about the future needs of your business while choosing a service provider.

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Real Estate Revolution through Blockchain

Steven on July 18, 2019

Traditional real estate sector is quite hectic for both agents and customers. People are trying to find out a reliable means of investment. Innovation in blockchain technologies means that the real estate sector has no need to rely on traditional documents procedure and sales procedure. The reason behind this is that property ownership, titles, insurance, and escrow processes are moving onto the blockchain. Dubai real estate sector is shifting towards a blockchain that will be much flexible compared to the traditional approach of investment. All you need is just to search and purchase on a single click. For example, if you want to know about apartments available in creek harbor for sale, you can simply click Apartments for Sale Creek Harbour and the list of apartments will appear. Technology has made life easier and reduced complexity to a great extent.

Blockchain, an appealing force

It is an encrypted electronic record of data on a distributed archive where data is stored over a variety of system and shared simultaneously. The business process can be streamlined within the real estate sector and much more.

For instance, real estate property is to be transformed. Blockchain creates different methods for real estate investors and agents.

Blockchain creates New Methods for Real Estate

Various land registries projects have been proposed by different countries that make use of smart contracts and blockchain technology.
Blockchain will ensure trust and transparency in property transactions that will improve real estate systems and bring liquidity to the real estate market.
This technology will increase liquidity in terms of property fractionalization which is a radical new approach. It will gain momentum by keeping tokens or units in the residential era.
Blockchain will set up a market for people who are interested in investment but not have resources.
Tokenization will lead to a positive impact on the market. Properties can be sold out on a single click.
Moreover, property agents can have a broader range of roles and dealing the customers about the investment process and how to make use of fractionalization property approach.
Not only the current methodology of buying and selling will be improved through blockchain but also it will result in a positive attitude of customers. How we invest, how we live, how we pay for accommodation all this will be reliable through blockchain.

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Why Must You Not Keep Track of Technical Debt?

Steven on July 16, 2019

Persnickety coding style problems, a bit of copy and paste, incorrect variable and method naming, coding that does not adhere to the standards, and trivial bug issues are irritating. However, these technical debts (TDs) are not worth monitoring. You can take care of such problems in daily opportunistic refactoring. When you code the next time, you should clean up erroneous coding. If you do not, then nobody will. It will not cost you anything. Even if you choose to be complacent and think such problems do not exist, nothing bad will happen to you.

According to an article published on https://www.huffingtonpost.com, focusing unnecessarily on TD affects the product, customers, and engineering teams adversely. However, some TDs are bad. For instance, Heartbleed must not appear even in your backlog. You must fix it right away. Ensure that you can create a patched library immediately. All things other than this are of less priority. If the software has a new version and a few bug fixes, it does not matter. Avoid upgrading for the heck of it because it is a sheer waste of time. There are possibilities that you will come across new issues with no or little result. Read on to learn why you should not waste time tracking TD.

When You’re Unaware of TD

Do you know which is the scariest of TDs? It is that you are unaware of, which you did take on without knowing. It happens when you do not know about the same. You ended by making some poor design decisions, and you were in the dark as to how to use the software framework in the right way. You did not know how to shield against the major security threats. Such TDs should not be on the backlog. If there are new developments, like someone with more knowledge and experience joining your development team, or facing hacking issues, or you are audited, such debts might come to the surface all of a sudden. Else, TDs keep accumulating behind the scenes without you knowing about them.

TDs too Big to Manage

You will find other TDs that are hard to cope with and debt that you took on too fast, making an incorrect guess or decision. It may be possible that you did not know that you were wrong, but now you realized. You or someone else chose the wrong language, architecture, technology stack, and framework. You find that the system fails to scale or has an unreliable under load, rife with security loopholes, which are hard to change. It is not possible to refractor out of this. All you can do is put up with the issues as best as you can, or begin from scratch. Tracking TDs on your backlog is nothing but a futile effort.

Solve Now or Never

You resorted to shortcuts to roll out the code for quick feedback such as prototyping and A/B testing. There is a possibility that you will need to write the code again or throw away the same. Therefore, why fret overwriting the code for the very first time. These TDs are strategic ones, which you can take on and at least for some time. If you have more questions about TD, you can visit sites like https://www.nationaldebtreliefprograms.com/. You tried to fix bugs under pressure but failed to do so in the right way. You wanted to get it done quickly, and the results are far from satisfactory.

Code Works but Hacked

You find that the code is working fine, but it is hacked. You copied too much and pasted excessively. You did not care to follow the rules, conventions, and guidelines. You did not review the code, did not perform code testing or tried any one of these methods. All you did is leaving the same in some debugging code, and therefore you will have a tough to maintain it.

Get the Job Done Soon

You need to get the coding right soon, clean it up, and rewrite in a couple of weeks or months. Else, there is a possibility that TDs will never get paid down. The more it stays, difficult it is for to validate or doing anything about the same. Moreover, if it is working fine and all have other jobs to do, why track in the first place? The need for doing something about the same will fail. And if it continues like this, you will eventually forget about the same. Whenever you see it unsolved, you will feel bad, but you will overcome that feeling.

Fret not. If you are fortunate, the TD will get paid down without your knowledge. An individual may refractor some coding when altering, or may even remove the same because the features are obsolete now. This way, the TD will vanish from the code base, though it is still visible on your books.

Avoid Monitoring TD, Manage the Same Well

You may feel that monitoring TD is the most reasonable thing you can do. If you fail to track it, you will never know about its scope. However, what things you register in your backlog shall never be correct, foolproof, or complete. You will never know how much TD you have because of some hidden debt that you take in without your knowledge. You can be in the dark if you do not understand the nature of the TD or have not discovered it yet.

If you are not ready to do some tracking of your TD, it is a sheer waste of time for all. Therefore, only keep track of debt that the product owner and the team agree that it must be paid off. Once you are sure of this, you can pay the same off as soon as possible. Maybe within one, two, or three sprints, you can pay off. If not, choose to ignore the same. Take some time out to refractor instead of creating a huge backlog. It does not mean that you are irresponsible. Instead, it is all about being sensible.

Conclusion

Now you know that you should not track TD, but make an effort to manage it well. TD is a reality for all application development teams. Ensure that it does not go out of your control.

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Simple Ways Apart From Budgeting And Negotiating To Manage Finance And Debt

Steven on July 16, 2019

Money is an important thing that will help you to buy things that you need and want but it is essential that you save them as well. Since money plays a very significant role in your life, you will need to manage it properly and strategically. This will give you a lot of mental peace, financial strength and happiness as well.

Therefore, if you find yourself in a sticky situation you must know the ways to manage your debts and handle the situation. There are many such ways that are easy as well as effective in managing your money and pay all your debts off easily and quickly.

Budgeting is one such way which is perhaps the most significant aspect of crafting a strategic and proper debt management plan. A proper budget will help you to:

Know your source of income
Know all your expenses
Curb the unnecessary expenses or those that can be postponed temporarily
Evaluate your assets and liabilities to find the net worth
Consider all your debt obligations and
Create a plan to pay off your debts accordingly.

When you make some alterations and curtailments in your spending habits, you will be able to save a lot of money and pay off your debts effectively without fail.

Another important aspect of finance and debt management is negotiating with your lenders, especially when you have multiple credit card debts that you want to settle for a reduced amount. However, you are advised to go through several debt settlement reviews to be sure that this is the best possible option as compared to debt consolidation, balance transfer and filing for bankruptcy.

Considering other options

You must look beyond budgeting and negotiating to ensure you have a strategic debt management plan designed for you. You may even consider consolidating your debts. This will help you in several ways such as:

You will reduce the number of debts by rolling them into one
You will have only one monthly bill and creditor helping you in keeping proper track of your payments
It will eliminate the chances of falling behind on debt
It will reduce the number of your monthly bills
It will have a bigger loan, the lower rate of interest and an extended time period to repay your loan.

A balance transfer is another way to consolidate your debts, especially credit card debts. However, you will be better off if:

You calculate the Annual Percentage Rate or APR before you choose a particular card for balance transfer and
Also, consider the interest-free period to find out whether you will find it comfortable to pay your entire debt within this introductory period.

You can also take help of the expert debt counselors to decide which method you will follow to repay your debts, snowball method or avalanche method. The counselors will help you in many ways such as:

They will help you to prioritize your debt whether you it will be feasible to pay the high-interest loans first and then the low-interest ones or the other way round considering your financial situation.
They will also give you helpful tips about whether or not you should stick to secured loans or unsecured loans when you want to consolidate your debts. Ideally, stick to your secured loans is considered to be the most useful way to improve your credit score as you will have more money in hand to repay your other debts once you pay these off in full.

In short, the debt counselors will help you to get a better idea of debt and finance management, easy and effective disbursement, and to choose the most viable and feasible option.

Different types of debts

When you consolidate your debts it will have a positive effect on your finance and debt management. However, you will need to consider all different types of loans that are there such as:

0% APR credit card
Personal loan and even
A home equity loan.

You must choose the one that will best suit your purpose, financial condition and your ability to repay it on time and on a regular basis. This is another aspect in which you can take help of a credit counselor.

Suitability of debt and its payment will largely depend on the available cash. It will also depend on other aspects such as:

Your financial resources
Your credit score and history of payments
Your personality and
Your willingness to get rid of your debts.

Therefore, if you want to make a strategic plan to pay off the consolidation loan, you must first consider your financial strength and then weight it with the pros and cons of each of these available loans.

Take the help of the experts

You will need to choose the right type of loan to repay your existing loans simply to assure that you do not find yourself in further debts. A credit counselor will help you to make such a choice as well as suggest the best and most effective ways to get rid of your debt.

You will need to know the basics of financial management as well that will help you to create a corpus by curtailing a few of your expenses to repay your debt. Apart from all these, the credit counselors will also help in negotiating with your creditors to reduce the rate of interest or to get some waiver in fees.

The credit counselor will also help you to plan your repayment options which will involve:

Analyzing your debts
Prioritize these
Plan for your repayment.

Lastly and most importantly, they will be by your side till the time your financial stability is restored. They will analyze the terms and conditions attached to all the different types of loans available. They will make sure that the rate of interest is lower than the average interest rates of all your multiple loans. They can even help you to choose a bank or a credit union to take out a consolidation loan.

Therefore, planning is the most crucial part of the finance and debt management which starts with budgeting and ends with financial freedom.

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Experts Discuss Small Productivity Tips That Bring Big Benefits

Steven on July 15, 2019

As an entrepreneur, you have a lot to juggle every day. What takes more time and energy? Those big tasks that you do once in a while that bring big results to your business, like meeting clients or planning your next venture? Or the small stuff that seems to creep in all day long? If you’re like most entrepreneurs, it’s the latter.

Those small things take our valuable time and energy. In this marketplace, energy is the most valuable resource we have. If you’re wasting this precious energy every day on time-consuming tasks that don’t amount to huge growth for your business, this is something you need to fix.

Luckily, you’re not in this alone. We’ve talked to the best entrepreneur and business experts around to see what they do that makes the biggest difference. Unsurprisingly, it’s not the big changes that add up. It’s those small changes that leave the biggest impact.

What would you do with 10 more minutes each day? What about an hour? While it might not seem possible, learning to use your time more effectively and to use the right tools will make all the difference. In this guide, we’ll share the top small productivity tips for 2019 that bring big benefits. Some of them might surprise you, but they’ll all make a difference if you give them a chance.

This isn’t a static list. We plan to keep it growing and evolving as we learn more about what works for leaders and productivity experts across the globe. It’s time to reclaim your lost time to supercharge your day. You have nothing to lose and so much time to gain!

Master Your Scheduling

Fletcher Wimbush from The Hire Talent states that our time as professionals, endless back and forth to nail downtime is super annoying. However, most people don’t approach using self-scheduling tools in the right way. It is critical to use these tools for the OTHER person’s benefit and not just yours. Also, the placement of these tools in your emails matters.

For example, I place this before my signature and salutation after I request a time to meet with someone:

Great I would love to schedule a time to meet with you is there a good time for us to connect this week?

If it is more convenient for you please feel free to choose a time for us to chat using this easy scheduler link.

9.5 / 10 times people use the self-scheduling tool when I do this!

Walking

Our partners from HR Management App suggest “walking breaks”.

Office work is characterized by prolonged and uninterrupted sitting time. This can result in not only physical, but also cognitive fatigue which poses a threat to your productivity levels. Walking is the best way to smash through this fatigue and boost your creativity. The best part is, you will receive benefits regardless of how long you walk for.

Introducing 5-minute bursts of moderate intensity walking into your routine will improve productivity, energy levels, mood, and cognitive performance. It requires no skill and can be performed at any time within your office without sacrificing your break time – all you have to do is get up and walk around your office building.

If you’re finding it difficult to solve a problem or are starting to feel a mid-afternoon slump, take longer walks during your lunch break. This will improve your creativity by up to 60%, enabling you to come back to the problem re – energized and with a more innovative mindset.

Prioritisation

Our partners from Ripple CRM suggest “Prioritisation”

It’s an obvious one – we all know we have things todo everyday in business. Most people have a list of things that they need to work through. A long list can become overwhelming if you have a lot to do.

Many people just start with the first thing they put on their list and they don’t think about the priority order of tasks. Also people tend to prioritise tasks on what they think is the highest priority for them and not necessarily for their company or clients.

So when trying to prioritise tasks, think about it in this order and state of mind:

1. What tasks are high priority and must get done today? Or another way to think about it is if these things don’t get done today I am definitely going to get in trouble with my boss or my client.

2. What tasks are high priority but do not need to be done today?These are the things you should be focusing on but are not essential for today’s priority.

3. Low Priority Tasks Things that need to get done but are not as urgent as the two categories above.

Each day spend 10 minutes of your time categorising your tasks into the above categories. You should know how to do your work – otherwise you wouldn’t be good at your job right? But knowing whatto focus on, is essential to any business’ survival. Small changes like focusing on high priority tasks first could mean the difference between achieving a higher revenue turnover this month instead of next month. It all makes a difference.

Take mini breaks regularly

Our partners from Insights For Professionals suggest to “Take mini breaks”.

Working for long periods without breaks can often lead to increased stress and fatigue. So why not schedule mini breaks periodically to stretch, walk around and have a glass of water? In return, you’ll feel rejuvenated both physically and mentally, allowing you to think more creatively.

https://www.insightsforprofessionals.com/management/leadership/10-top-tips-for-improving-productivity

Utilize proper productivity tools

Our partner Mehmet Akyol from Startup Buffer suggest to “Utilize proper productivity tools”.

Being a single founder, maintaining motivation and productivity requires some additional work. Using different products and services, you can increase your productivity. Pomodoro technique is one of the secret weapons that I was using for a long time. Additionally, recently I have discovered Focusmate to find accountability partners for 50 minutes of sessions. So, using both Pomodoro apps and Focusmate can help any other solopreneurs to increase their productivity.

Accomplish more of what’s important to you

Our partner from Lead Grow Develop suggests to “Accomplish more of what’s important to you”.

Investing in productivity in your career will significantly increase your chances of achieving productivity in other areas of your life. If you are living a life out of balance, then you are not living a life of full potential. Someone who plans their day intentionally can get more things done in 5 hours, then someone who works 9 hours without a plan. Without the right habits, you will find yourself returning to the starting line, over and over again.

Write a to-do list every day

Our partner Julia Mankovskaya from Daxx Blog suggests to “write a to-do list every day”.

“It may seem as easy as pie, but I would recommend you write a to-do list every day. This helps you not to forget about something on a daily run. Additionally, it is a kind of motivating stuff to criss-cross every task you did from your list. You can also put some fun and attach an entertaining picture to the tasks you consider the most complicated or difficult. After all is done – rest well.”

Prioritize your activities

Our partner Haley Gray from Leadership Girl suggests to “Prioritize your activities”.

My best tip for productivity tips is to prioritize and do the things that are most important to you, saying “no” to the things that are not important, that don’t bring you pleasure, satisfaction, or move your business or career forward. So many times we say “yes” to too many volunteer activities. It’s how I ended up as a leader to 4 Girl Scout Troops. I loved it, but it was also a huge amount of time for me, taking time away from my children, and other things that I really needed to be doing. When I started learning to say no to volunteer activities, to job opportunities that weren’t a good match, and things that just don’t make sense for me to do, life got a lot easier.

Avoid getting caught up in the work of others

Our partner Dorothy Dalton from 3Plus International suggests to “Avoid getting caught up in the work of others”.

We all know the phrase “If you want something done, ask a busy person”? Don’t let that person be you.

One of the best ways to increase your productivity is to avoid getting caught up in the work of others. Also known as being “dumped on.” Learning to create boundaries in a constructive way to avoid assuming the work of others is vital. It could be taking on the work of a boss or peer or micro-managing a report. For women making sure the office housework such as buying leaving gifts, organising baby showers or setting-up the staff outing is rotated amongst all staff regardless of gender.

Equip yourself with practical skills

Our partner from Jobstore Blog suggests to “Equip yourself with practical skills”.

Working towards learning new skills to improve your expertise and knowledge can lead to enhancing and increasing work performance. Some of the core practical skills include public speaking, writing, self-management and networking. Besides that, decision-making, stress management and basic accounting skills are equally vital and practical to learn. Adopting and exercising any of these skills can bring a measure of the change in your life and what’s more, would turn your career’s to a greater path.

Start a time-use journal

Our partner Eric Taussig from Prialto suggests to “Start a time-use journal”.

Begin 2020 by starting a time-use journal, logging any activity that you repeat daily and noting how much time it takes you. If/when you find that a combination of any three of these activities requires 2.5 hours or more of your time, look for ways to automate these tasks. If they can’t be automated, hire an administrative assistant to whom you can delegate this work.

Stop multitasking

Our partner Alan Hosking from HR Future suggests to “Stop multitasking”.

Stop multitasking and do one thing at a time – properly. While multitasking sounds like the right thing to do to cope with increasing work pressures, few realise that it simply results in a number of things being done only half as productively as they should be.

Learning To Say No and Mastery of the 95%/5% rule

Our partner Cavakia from Infooomph suggests to “Learning To Say No and Mastery of the 95%/5% rule”.

My best tip for boosting productivity in my personal and professional life is learning say no and mastery of the 80/20 rule. Coming from a low conscious country like Haiti, I was programmed to say yes to everyone and every demand I perceived to have authority over me. Luckily things change when I met two mentors who raised my consciousness. One mentor thought me that NO was the most important word in the universe, and that I should develop the courage to use it more in order to achieve high levels of success in life.

The second mentor thought me the 95%/5% rule. A method of devoting your precious time to only perform the 5% task that requires your physical presence while delegating the 95%. I used to implement this concept to get amazing result with clients when I was a trainer. Instead of limiting my potential to the amount of clients I could train in one hour, I started saying NO to one on one traditional personal training, and graduated to group training to help more folks in that single hour. From there, I started teaching and delegating the 95% by hiring other trainers.

Plan your days in advance

Our partner Kelvin from Fuzu suggested to “Plan your days in advance”.

Knowing what you need to accomplish during a particular week will enable you to plan for the week. List all the tasks you’ll need to do in order of the urgency they need to be done and the amount of time it would take to complete each. This will make it easier for you to plan your calendar for the week while prioritizing the work that matters most.

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Investment Plan when Building a Home

Steven on July 12, 2019

While most people prefer buying a fixer-upper and then renovate it, others don’t mind building homes from scratch. This gives them a chance to build their own dream home, and that’s something you can’t put a price on. Still, this sounds like the hardest thing in the world, but it’s really not as complicated as people generally think. It’s all about making a plan, defining your budget, and trying to stick to it as much as you can. So, if you too are building a new home, here are a few financial tips you should follow.

Invest your time in your budget

First, you need to figure out how much money you’ve got and how much you can really spend. Going broke and spending every cent you have is never fun, so avoiding that situation is a must. That’s why you have to define your budget first and know how you’re spending every single dollar. After that, you need to try to stick to your estimate and not spend money you don’t have.

Hiring designers and contractors who understand your budget and respect it is a must. These people will help you save money, if possible, during every step of the process. Also, think about using second-hand materials and resources that are more cost-effective. Finally, don’t forget to create a contingency budget too, in case something bad happens. Unexpected situations can’t be avoided, so you’d better be ready for them. Anything from weather disasters to soil quality could set you back and cost you money, so get prepared in advance.

Invest your money in a proper kitchen

While most people think the living room is the center of every home, the kitchen actually receives more attention. This is where you’ll spend a few hours of your day, preparing healthy meals for your family. It’s also space where you can hang out with your loved ones and even receive your guests. In short, this is an area that makes your house a home, and it deserves a ton of attention.

When it comes to creating a perfect kitchen, it’s all about maintaining the balance. Make sure your cabinets aren’t too huge but are still big enough for all your essentials. Also, pick the right pattern for your countertop because it could easily turn into the focal point of your kitchen. Finally, invest in some new appliances that will make your cooking process easy, enjoyable, and successful every single day.

Invest your energy in the design

Building a home for yourself and your family is something you’re probably going to do once in your life. Therefore, you should make sure this home has everything you need and is perfect in every sense of the word. This means it has to be practical, functional, and, above all, visually appealing. That’s why the design is so important, especially if you’re planning on spending the rest of your life here. Homeowners all over the world, from Australia to the USA, know that and pay attention to their home’s visual appeal.

Creating the perfect design isn’t that easy, though, and you need to get inspired. Follow the latest trends, talk to designers, or consult your friends who have already gone through this process. You could also look into project homes, which is quite a popular idea with the aforementioned Australian homeowners. They could get explore ideas presented by those creative project home builders from Sydney who know everything about building homes. Checking their floor plans and solutions could help you define a design of your own, so look into them ASAP.

Invest your patience in the project

Unlike purchasing a turnkey property that you can move into straight away, building your own home takes time and patience. Houses can’t be built in a day, and the entire process might end up taking several years. This will test your patience in more ways than one, but you should stay cool and committed to your goals.

Building a home from scratch involves a number of different projects, from designing to decorating it, and everything in between. Depending on the size of your construction, you could even be done in a matter of months, if you’re lucky. If not, you could run into problems and holdups, and waste weeks dealing with them. This is why being patient is so important – otherwise, you’ll be under a pile of stress all the time.

Building a home of your own is a big, serious, and complex project. It’s a dream project for people around the world, and something that will give them a home they deserve. However, it’s a project you should definitely not try to complete on your own, especially if you have no experience. But, if you invest your time, money, energy, and patience into this project, it will surely turn into a success!