Category: Local Branding

Digital Branding Legal Branding Local Branding Personal Branding

The Only Way Ahead: E-Commerce Business

Steven on August 10, 2020

Many entrepreneurs have consistently emphasized the importance of E-Commerce tools to grow any kind of business in order to succeed in this cut-throat competition. The fascinating part of the whole plot is that the spread of the virus has led people to believe the fact that taking your business ahead digitally is not an option anymore. If you want to survive, you ought to have a digital presence alongside your traditional ways of running a business.

The pandemic situation has urged the requirement to the next level as people have no option but to buy everything online. This signifies the value of the E-Commerce business market that was not taken seriously before. The way that the stocks of E-Commerce retailers and businesses have had a huge increase in the last few months is the perfect evidence of its position in the business world. For example, LivePerson and Pitney Bowes are the companies that develop AI software that is used by companies to build their presence online on different digital platforms. These are one of the topmost companies when it comes to a rise in the stock prices during the pandemic. Evidence and data suggest that such companies have flourished on every level because people have totally shifted towards online platforms for their business to survive and thrive.

On a local level, public speakers, gym instructors, dieticians, etc., have started YouTube channels, social media pages on apps like Facebook and Instagram, and have persistently been trying to know what it takes to grow their presence using SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Alongside being safe, people need to earn to survive this harsh reality that is currently going on. There are so many sites that support all kinds of business ventures with easy accessibility online so that people do not feel alien to the digital side of their own business.

People are looking at the biggest stock gainers today with keen interest. Certain businesses are really growing in pandemic times. Many investors want to know what stocks are growing and what ones are staying behind.

The worst part of the current scenario in the world is that so many businesses have been closed down all over the world, impacting millions of people as they have nothing to do. A food vendor on a street who is not registered with an app that supports delivery to people who can order food online or some other technological gadget goes out of business because there are no people on the streets at this point in time. The amount of cash flow that is required to continue the business is not an easy thing to maintain as most of the business owners already know. There are other factors that restrict your business to grow if you don’t have a website or an app or a collaboration with some of the top-tier companies that help you grow your business:

Mobility
Pre-existing loans
Production waste
Shortage of capital

Just after a month or so into the lockdown, America witnessed a rapid growth in online grocery shopping as people needed groceries to cook at home. Sale and revenue numbers were huge as in just seven days, the industry observed a 79% rise in the total consumers buying online groceries. The downside of this was felt in the tourism industry as well as the rental car industry, not to forget the airline industry that has suffered the highest losses. The best industry to measure the difference in sales within that same industry is the food business. Sale of restaurants and fast-food chains that don’t have an online presence and delivery system or collabs with famous delivery companies have suffered heavy losses while at the same time, those who have met all the above-mentioned requirements have succeeded and made good profits even during such adverse times which again highlights the crucial role of E-Commerce if we consider situations like the current scenario.

The way experts see it and through conclusive evidence which made the truth even more visible to the larger audience during these tough times, it is feasible to understand that the E-Commerce business model is the only way to go ahead irrespective of what scenario we might face. Emphasis should be laid on this practice because that is how businesses will survive and prosper. Believing that only traditional practices will work is vague and illogical.

Legal Branding Local Branding Personal Branding

The Case for Hiring Outside Consultants

Steven on August 10, 2020

In the world of business management, few words draw as much debate and discussion as “consultant.” For some, hiring an outside consultant is a chance to take an honest look inward, one that serves to benefit the company. For others, consultants are a waste of time and money, providing businesses as much useful information as would a carnival flimflammer or snake oil salesman.

Like all trades and industries, consulting is not without its share of so-called experts whether its legal, financial, or anything in-between. However, a few bad apples shouldn’t spoil the bunch. The truth is there is value in seeking business consultants for a variety of reasons.

The following represent the most common ways companies benefit from hiring outside consultants:

Improve their image

Many companies find themselves in a situation where their brand or their image (or both) have strayed from their intention. Whether through their business practices or plain bad luck, companies in this situation often seek the services of a marketing or public relations consultant. This consultant typically works in tandem with an ad agency or PR firm to devise ways in which the client can successfully reconfigure their image, elevate their brand, and improve their reputation.

Save money

If asked, most managers will likely say the number one reason they’d get an outside consulting service is to find new ways to lower costs and save money. For instance, shipping consulting software gets designed to help volume shippers get better rates from carriers. In other industries, identifying redundancies and waste are the primary drivers of savings thanks to outside consultants.

Streamline service

The brothers who opened the first McDonald’s restaurant didn’t make their first fortune by selling franchise opportunities. That didn’t happen until Ray Kroc entered the picture. Before his arrival, the McDonalds brothers were earning a lucrative living by selling their streamlined system to other quick-service restauranteurs, including the men who went on start Burger King and Taco Bell. In this sense, they were acting as the world’s first fast-food consultants by showing other companies how to operate faster and more reliably. It goes to show what businesses can learn from outside consulting services.

Get insights

Doing business in a given trade doesn’t automatically entitle one to trade secrets. It’s possible to be operating for years without knowing the best ways to do certain things, while competitors do. Outside consultants can outline these insights and improve operations overnight on things you can’t and won’t ever know about from tax codes to trademarks.

Gain an edge

The improvements, the insights, and the savings that come from hiring a consultant all add up to gaining an edge over the competition. At least, that’s the hope. As mentioned at the start, the key is finding a consultant or consulting service with the expertise and experience to provide the information needed for companies to do better. In doing so, businesses will have a gameplan going forward they can use to catch up to, or even surpass, their business rivals.

Business consultants get looked upon as saviors to some, charlatans to others. The vast majority fall somewhere in between. If a company finds consulting services in the range leaning towards the former, they’ll succeed in reaping the benefits of hiring a business consultant.

Local Branding Uncategorized

Getting Ready for an International Business Trip

Steven on August 7, 2020

Even if you don’t like going on business trips, this is one of those things we just have to do if we want to take our business to the next level. However, you can’t just pack your bags and fly off – there are a few things you need to take care of before you board your plane. Getting ready for a business trip might sound like the hardest job in the world, but it’s actually much easier than you think. Therefore, here are a few tips that might help you along the way.

Check your passport

Many successful entrepreneurs spend a lot of time traveling for work and having all the documents is the first thing they usually pack. We’ve all heard about people heading to the airport and preparing to find their gate only to discover that their passport has expired. This isn’t just an urban myth passed on from one generation to the next – it’s something that can happen to you as well. That’s why you need to find your passport and check the expiration date. In case your passport is about to expire soon, you should renew it before it’s too late. This process might take a while, so do it ASAP and save yourself some trouble at the airport.

Check other documents

Unlike business trips you take in your own country, heading to another country means you have to bring some extra documents too. Some countries require you to have a visa, and doing that can be a lengthy process that requires your immediate attention. In addition to that, you should look into rules and regulations that are active in specific countries because you don’t want to get there and find out you can’t enter the country. The same goes for your vaccinations, in case you’re traveling to a country that requires certain vaccines, so getting informed on time is crucial.

Figure out your finances

A few decades ago, people who traveled to another country – both for business and pleasure – used to take cash with them and didn’t have to worry about anything. Now, however, the situation has changed, and you don’t have to rely on the cash only. You can also take a credit card and pay for things even more easily. Instead of counting your money every single day, you could opt for a practical overseas spending credit card and complete your payments in a matter of seconds. These credit cards come with an option to save you some money upon every payment, so you’ll be actually saving money while spending it!

Pack your bags

Depending on the length of your business trip and what you’ll be expected to do there, you might be packing anything from a tiny carry-on bag to a massive suitcase. Of course, packing your luggage is never easy, regardless of the context, so make a plan in advance and stick to it. Figure out how much clothes you’ll need and stick to your favorite pieces that make you feel good and comfortable because this will help you feel good while talking to your business partner, clients, and investors.

Learn etiquette

While most business people focus on the business portion of their business trips, they shouldn’t forget that it’s still a trip, and that means going to a foreign country where your local rules don’t apply. Learning about the local etiquette can, therefore, go a long way and make your business trip much more enjoyable, productive, and lucrative. Learn how to behave when doing business with people from another country, but if you really want to impress your hosts, learn a thing or two about the place where you’re going and its history.

International business trips are always hard and exhausting, but if you think about the aforementioned things in advance and get prepared, your business trip will surely turn into success!

Local Branding

5 Things To Consider When Choosing Window Cleaning Services In Irvine, CA

Steven on August 6, 2020

If you are here, it’s quite obvious that you live in Irvine and would like to hire a window cleaning service that can clean up the windows of your house or office. Well, for starters, you need to understand the importance of clean windows because there are people out there who don’t pay much heed to it and consider it an unimportant investment.

You see, whether it’s your house or your office, your windows can make or break the entire look of the building. Especially if it’s your office, you need to keep the inside clean, but before that, the windows from the outside should be kept clean too as they do make an impression on those who visit you.

Think about it. Would you like a house or an office with dirty windows with dust and debris all over? Of course not. This is the number one reason why you should hire a professional for window cleaning in Irvine, CA as soon as possible. Many residential and commercial buildings have multiple windows that may be unsafe for you to attempt yourself.

Choosing A Window Cleaning Service

If this is your first time hiring a company for this job then here are some of the most important things you need to consider:

1- How does the company ensure the safety of its employees?

The very first thing to consider is how the company takes care of its employees because when it comes to cleaning windows, you do know that people have to use a ladder, and that’s where the risk of injuries is. You don’t want to take responsibility for a window cleaner if he falls off the ladder and gets injured, right? If so, then the company you are hiring should be insured because this is the only way that the responsibility won’t fall on you.

2- Experience

The second most important thing is experience. You need to invest in a company that has years of experience in window cleaning services. This is the only way you can be sure that you are hiring the right people, and the quality of service provided to you will be top-notch. We’d suggest that you give Irvine Window Cleaners a try as this company is quite professional in its dealings, and they provide the best of the best window cleaning services at affordable prices. Their employees are professional, and they are expert cleaners who won’t disappoint you with their services.

3- The equipment

Want to know if a service provider is giving you the right kind of services? Well, this is where you should ask about the equipment that they’ll be using to clean your windows. The equipment should be in accordance with the kind of cleaning they have to do on your windows, and they should be using advanced equipment for efficient and effective services.

4- Check reviews

Online reviews can be quite useful if you want to learn about a company, its services, and professionalism. If a company is well known, they’ll have a solid online presence, which also means that they’ll have solid online reviews. Check if there are any red flags and if there are, then look for another company as there are many operating in Irvine right now.

5- The other services

Confirm the type of services they provide, and if there’s some other cleaning they can do for you, it’s a plus since the neater your place is, the more impressive it looks.

Conclusion

These are the things you are supposed to consider when hiring a window cleaning service provider. Just consider these tips and take them seriously for the best services possible.

Local Branding

9 Advantages of Plastic Injection Molding

Steven on August 3, 2020

Injection molding is a term that describes the manufacturing process in which large quantities of parts are produced by injecting plastic material in a closed mold. A variety of materials can be used in the process, but the most common one is plastic.

There are many advantages of using this process, and some of them are described below.

Photo by Carloburkhardt – on Wikipedia

1. Highly complex features and small details

This is one of the most appreciated advantages of this process. The plastic injection molds work under high pressure, which results in the plastic being pushed to all the smallest possible parts of the mold as the plastic is pressed hard against the mold. Due to this pressure, you can add the smallest possible details into the mold, and the process will ensure the highest specificity.

2. Greater efficiency

Photo by Moldesbarcelona CC BY-SA

As the molds are designed per the requirements of the customer and the presses are pre-programmed, the molding process itself is very fast as compared to any other molding process. The plastic injection molding process takes no time and offers more parts to be manufactured by a single mold. The production output rate is one of the things that iscost-effective and highly efficient about this method.

3. More strength

In the plastic injection molding process, there is a possibility to use fillers in the injection molds. The fillers are able to reduce the plastic density while it molds and helps in achieving greater strength to the part that is being molded. So when there is a requirement for the parts to be strong and highly durable, there is an option to add more strength.

4. Multiple plastic types use

This is also one of the things that this process has to offer, and you can use different plastic types in one go. You can achieve this with the help of co-injection molding, so you don’t have to worry about using only one type of plastic.

5. Fast production

You can make many molds in just a matter of an hour, so depending upon the impressions that are in the machine, you can still expect the next output in a matter of a few seconds.

6. Colour and material flexibility

Multi_colors_plastic_dana_(plastic_resins_Plastic_granules)

Photo by AMB Enterprise Karachi / CC BY-SA

You can change the material and color of the product and can mix different types of plastics as well.

7. Low labor cost

It is a very reliable and automatic machine that works on the process of injection molding without any difficulty and is super efficient and fast. So the parts can be produced without much effort and even no labor.

8. Zero waste

There is zero or minimum waste with this process as the plastic waste is ground up and easily reused.

9. Design flexibility

Photo by Kei Scampa in Pexels

There are some restrictions around the design, but there are almost limitless flexibilities when it comes to design, so irrespective of the complexities, plastic injection molding can take care of all designs.

Final Words on Plastic Injection Molding

The plastic injection molding process is usually used for the production of plastic parts, including automobile parts, heavy-duty medical equipment and small instruments, and a lot more. You can design an entirely new product by using the plastic injection molding process. The applications are limitless, but it is much more convenient to get these services from the specialties, so there is no flaw in production. There are many companies offering great services, but Qmolding is one such company that has a great reputation and is known for delivering great plastic injection molding services to its clients all over the world. The company works with other materials as well and can provide you as much flexibility as you need.

Local Branding

Power Up Your Mac’s Gaming Performance- It’s Easier Than You Think!

Steven on July 29, 2020

If you are a gaming lover, you would want perfectly fluid, flawless, and glitch-free experiences with your Mac. But this is seldom possible because gaming is a resource-intensive activity.

Often, there are chances that your system may not be able to keep up with the requirements. Thankfully, it is possible to optimize your Mac’s gaming performance and make it good enough for the best experiences ever.

The best part is that you need just a little time and knowledge to get things on track. Here are some easy measures that you can implement to get the best with your device.

Learn to use the Activity Monitor

Before you start using your system for playing games, you need to know it well enough. The activity tends to be CPU-bound nowadays, which makes it important to keep track and take control. macOS’s Activity Monitor serves as a useful feature in this context. Activity Monitor gives access to your CPU, disk, memory, energy, and network usage for the device. When it comes to gaming, CPU and memory usage are the most important categories. So you need to understand all about opening the Activity Monitor and tracking both CPU usage and memory usage. If they don’t seem to be optimal, you can go ahead with managing them to prevent resource hogs.

Free up hard drive space

Although hard drive space is an overlooked issue, it plays a key role when it comes to gaming performance. The high game data requirements and big file sizes can result in space issues sooner rather than later. With a full hard drive, the system can experience a slowdown which isn’t something that a gamer would want to encounter. A periodic cleanup using CleanMyMac can address the issue and ensure that your Mac delivers enhanced performance. It is wise to do declutter periodically so that you always have some extra space on your hard drive. Apart from helping you with games, this practice enhances the overall performance as well.

Disable startup apps

Another simple measure to keep your Mac well-optimized for gaming is by disabling startup apps. If you are a habitual gamer, you will probably notice that your system often goes awry if you jump into a game immediately after startup. This happens because the device is not ready yet as there are multiple applications starting at the same time, all vying for resources at once. You can reduce this burden simply by disabling some of the startup apps for your Mac. There isn’t much that you need to do, just delete or delay the programs and background utilities by navigating to the Tools in the application and selecting startup.

Disabling notifications for your Mac is another good way of boosting your system and making it more compatible for gaming. Though this action will bring only a small boost, even little goes a long way when it comes to performance optimization. It is also valuable to keep a constant vigil on Mac’s background parts and resolve issues as soon as you detect them. Surely, problem-free gaming will not be a concern any longer!

Legal Branding Local Branding

Marketing Tips for New Amazon Sellers

Steven on July 27, 2020

Selling on Amazon is great for online sellers and e-commerce businesses. However, competition is fierce. With millions of buyers ordering from Amazon annually, many people start their businesses on Amazon.

To increase your amazon sales, you should quickly learn and adapt to the ever-changing market dynamics, such as using Amazon seller apps and keep up with the competition. An Amazon seller app will provide key analytics and other insights such as amazon fees, selling price, and information on Amazon products, which is valuable to help you succeed.

The landscape is continuously changing for amazon sellers, with some finding it challenging to keep up. Here is a list of 5 new strategies and tips to boost your Amazon sales in 2020:

Get Feedback and Customer Reviews

Positive feedback and customer reviews are essential on Amazon. Over 90% of buyers state that they always check the reviews section before purchasing from a seller on Amazon. Customers trust online reviews as much as they trust personal recommendations. While only 10% of Amazon buyers leave reviews after a purchase, you should maximize your amazon product reviews and after-sale customer feedback.

Proper Management of Inventory

Inventory performance will determine the success or failure of your business on Amazon. The more stock you have, the more you pay on storage fees, whereas having less inventory could also mean you miss out on potential sales opportunities. Make use of inventory management data-based tools to help with restoring decisions. This data-based software also limits human error while increasing your inventory performance on Amazon.

Be Unique and Stand Out From Competitors

Your unique selling point should differentiate your Amazon seller brand from those of your competitors. Work to address customer problems that your competitors are not. Go through customer reviews and find out reasons why customers love your competitor’s products, why customers don’t like their products, and also what customers think about competitor’s products. Solve these three customers’ pain points, and you will be on your way to making profits on Amazon.

Use a Third-Party Seller App

Over half of Amazon sales come from third-party sellers with over 60 million dollars’ worth of products sold annually. Third-party apps have come up to help sellers on amazon maximize their profits and efficiency. Make use of third-party apps to automate communication with your buyers, especially in a product review. With sellers always in competition, these apps have computerized their software to automatically adjust pricing while still optimizing it for profits and competition. Third-party apps also track your inventory every minute to ensure that you are not losing on sale due to a lack of products.

Make Use of Influencer Marketing Strategy

In today’s world, customers are more likely to purchase products from someone they trust or recommend. Thus, influencer marketing is among the best ways to boost your brand as well as sales. Connect with social media influencers to promote and review your products to their online followers. Through this, you will be connecting to potential online buyers you might otherwise never have reached.

As an Amazon seller, it is essential to keep fine-tuning everything. Ensure you continually improve your product listings and customer service and always monitor your competition to stay on top of everything. Create a brand on Amazon through the use of your products. Work with your sales channel, audience, and product to create a strong brand that will stand out to potential buyers.

Local Branding Personal Branding

Simple Ways to Make the Workplace More Enjoyable

Steven on July 27, 2020

If you do what you love, you won’t work a day in your life. While many of us don’t have the luxury of doing exactly what we always wanted to do for a living, there are still things we can do to make the workplace more fun and engaging.

Recent studies show that only ten percent of us enjoy the thought of going to work each day; that means for every 100 people you pass on their morning commute, only 10 of them feel optimistic and fulfilled about what they are offering society.

Whether you are a boss or merely a cog in the wheel, there are some things you can do to spice up your workplace climate and make your 9 to 5 more fun for everyone. Follow these tips for workplace fun and frivolity:

1. Give decorative license

Allow employees to spruce up their work quarters with personal items—photos, decorations, plants, and even paint–to make it seem warmer and more inviting. At certain times of the year, you could also have a decorating contest to see who can get the most creative with their space. Play it up, have fun, and create a work environment that feels more like home.

2. Serve up some snacks!

Who doesn’t work better on a full stomach? Serving up some healthy snacks and providing iced coffee in the break room is a great way to develop a sense of community while boosting productivity. Who knows? That extra caffeine might even get you through till lunchtime!

3. Throw a party

You spend enough time with your co-workers; why not celebrate some of life’s special moments with them as well? Birthdays, wedding and baby showers, and holiday office parties are just some of the ways you can add some fun and celebration to your otherwise routine days. Want to surprise everyone? Bring in some barbecue for lunch on a Friday for an excellent way to kick off the weekend. You don’t have to have an excuse to gather and enjoy each other; get fun and creative with how you spend those leisurely moments, and they may be the beginning of some solid friendships.

4. Improve office mechanics

Having to work in an environment that is too cold, too hot, or with poor lighting and poorly designed office equipment can make work duties drag on forever. Doing what you can to make the workplace more comfortable and efficient will increase productivity and improve morale; happy, comfortable workers are productive workers! Adjust the thermostat, improve lighting, and ensure that office furniture is ergonomically correct, and you’ll reduce the physical and mental strain that leads to burnout.

5. Design and promote incentives

Do you have to fulfill a quota in your line of work? Do you have a goal or a mission statement you need to realize? What better way to create more drive and initiative than by putting some incentive in place for meeting those goals. All can work toward a common purpose like making more money or maybe reducing your office waste as close to zero as possible. You could also choose to reward individuals for their achievements; recognizing others for their hard work will inspire all to do better.

The sky’s the limit

A little innovation and creativity are all that stand in your way of creating a fun and inviting atmosphere for all employees to partake in; work doesn’t have to be drudgery, nor should it be. Following some of these suggestions for improving working conditions will create happier, healthier employees, one initiative at a time.

Local Branding Personal Branding

Making Lean Business Part of Your Brand

Steven on July 27, 2020

While you may have heard people use the word lean when referring to business models, its meaning may not be clear. As the name implies, lean methodology aims to eliminate unnecessary business elements, while retaining the essentials necessary for business growth and customer satisfaction.

What Is a Lean Business Model?

A lean business model is one that focuses on implementing processes and making continuous improvements to achieve optimum business efficiency. Lean business models accomplish this by removing or changing ineffective practices and unprofitable products while assessing and improving team productivity.

Through correct implementation, most businesses, particularly start-ups, can benefit immensely from adopting thriftiness and optimization. Recognizing the value of buying used office printers versus new, and other situations where cutting costs makes sense is something a company should be proud of.

How Organizations Can Implement Lean Business Models

Arguably, the biggest challenge most businesses face when implementing lean business models is ensuring that new models and processes do not negatively affect customers. While removing or changing certain products or teams may appear profitable, the move could impact a sizable chunk of the customer base either immediately or in the future.

Therefore, during lean implementation, businesses should analyze their start-to-finish processes of building products and services and delivering them to customers. This analysis should highlight areas of the process businesses can cut or streamline without negatively affecting the delivery stage. If such areas are present, then they should be the focus of the team responsible for lean implementation.

Benefits of Lean Business Models

I.Ease of Implementation

Even without going entirely lean, businesses can introduce elements of lean models via small continuous improvements throughout the organization. This enlightens all members of the organization to perceive lean as an essential attribute.

For instance, Gazprom Energy uses the acronym TIM WOODS to target eight kinds of waste, i.e., transport, inventory, motion, waiting, over-processing, over-production, defects, and skills. This acronym enables Gazprom Energy to remain mindful of various wastes that fall into these categories, along with potential ways to eliminate them throughout the workplace.

II.Engaged Employees

Through lean business models, employees can appreciate the value they offer to the broader team, hence fostering increased participation and engaging the attention. For instance, by adopting lean manufacturing, Nike reduced its waste, increased customer value, and eliminated bad labor practices by as much as 15% in its overseas manufacturing plant.

III.Continuous Growth

Businesses that follow lean methodology function and current manufacturing trends almost holistically, since they focus on the essentials. This implies that a lean methodology helps a business shine a well-rounded spotlight. Employees responsible for the quality of output and business effectiveness think proactively to identify and eliminate elements that do not add any value to the work.

IV.Improved Leadership Skills

From shift supervisors to mid-level managers and even top-level directors, lean methodology encourages a more proactive managerial approach. Things like 1 on 1 time with employees to address concerns in addition to fun and free for all activities like icebreakers can help leadership and the employees develop a stronger bond.

Following a lean business model, managers at all levels will identify how to make their part of the business more effective to achieve greater efficiency, profitability, and quality throughout the organization.

Conclusion

Lean entails promoting simple, yet highly effective practices at each stage of the start-to-finish process and all levels of the business. By properly implementing a lean business model, you can reduce wastes on time and other resources, while improving KPIs(Key Performance Indicators) and your business’s responsiveness to opportunities.

Local Branding Personal Branding

Breaking the Myth of the Modern Concept of Working Mothers

Steven on July 20, 2020

Working mum, the modern phenomena that started in earnest in the 1970s – wrong! For the vast majority of human existence, working mothers have been the norm. Especially as up until recent times, the work that women do in the home was not segregated from the concept of ‘work’. For most of human history, work was about survival and women’s contribution to that survival was of equal significance to that of men, and they nearly always did it with children in tow.

In fact, a recent study of contemporary hunter gatherer tribes indicates that men and women have equal influence on the important decisions impacting the group. As these tribes emulate what life would have been like for us all in the Palaeolithic to early Neolithic eras, then the findings challenge the idea that the notion of sexual equality is modern – rather it has been the norm for most of human evolutionary history. In fact, early human existence was probably more egalitarian than we have managed to achieve today. It would appear that the inequality between the sexes that still persists emerged when we moved from hunter gathering to farming – when people started to accumulate possessions – including specifically owned tribal land, this was the dawn of inequality.

For most of recorded history, agriculture was the chief human occupation, and heavy physical labor was not confined to men. Women in today’s agrarian societies that have changed little since ancient times, still perform physically demanding jobs such as grinding grain by hand, drawing and carrying water and gathered wood (often over considerable distances), as well as churning milk to make butter. Toiling in the fields with primitive equipment is back breaking work, undertaken by both men and women, the women often with babies strapped to their backs.

As more and more people left their nomadic life and became settled, we know from evolving archaeological information and the study of historical writings that across the globe, women/ mothers in these emerging cultures played a variety of roles: artist, agriculturalist, nurse, healer, midwife, judge, priestess, weaver, queen, leader, merchant, laborer, warrior, holy woman, and more.

In the earliest civilizations (e.g. Sumeria and Egypt), whilst women were not as equal as their hunter gatherer forebears, there were no legal restrictions on their economic activity, they could own property, run businesses, become priestesses, scribes, physicians and act as judges and witnesses in courts. However, as these and other cultures grew in wealth and power and as it became increasingly necessary to defend what they had, as they could no longer move on when challenged by a stronger tribe, a strong warrior/ patriarchal society formed, which gradually eroded the rights of women. By the time of the Greeks and Romans in Western history, women were second class citizens and the chattels of the men in their lives. However, women from the lower orders still needed to work hard both inside and outside the home.

In the Middle Ages in Europe, women spun wool, cooked and cleaned, washed clothes, baked bread, milked cows, fed animals, brewed beer and collected firewood. At that time many women were spinners, brewers, jewelers, parchment makers and glovers. In rural communities, women worked alongside their men in the fields and in towns they helped their husbands in their businesses. Often if a man died, his widow would carry on his trade and aristocratic women managed their husband’s estates during their absences.

It was the Industrial Revolution that changed work forever. The home had been the center of work, production and family life; industrialization meant that work moved from home to factory. The role of women did not change overnight however, records suggest that women’s employment in the 1850s, 60s and 70s was higher than any recorded again until after World War II. Evidence suggests that 30 to 40 per cent of women from working class families, made a significant financial contribution to household income at that time. This was before State and Trade Union rules were brought in to regulating female labor, ultimately supporting the ideal of the male ‘breadwinner’, a concept that persisted well into the 20th century.

It was social and economic developments that precipitated the change in women’s work. The growth of education increased the demand for more teachers and the need for more office workers and salespeople (particularly in retail) was growing, providing more opportunities for women, especially as they could be hired on lower salaries than men. However, for married women many of these roles were unavailable, as numerous employers maintained a legal marriage bar (a ban on working after marriage), especially in ‘white collar’ work. Even after national emergencies such as the World Wars, when women took on manufacturing jobs to replace men on military service, women were ultimately forced back to housekeeping or traditionally female roles.

Significant change did not happen again until the 1970s when a surge in married women entering the workforce occurred and is still ongoing. Today, the equality landscape is so different from what our mothers, grandmothers and great grandmothers experienced; however, we clearly have a long way to go before we get back to the equality experienced by our Palaeolithic to Neolithic ancestors.