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3 Legal Tips Every Entrepreneur Must Know

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article |Legal Tips|3 Legal Tips Every Entrepreneur Must KnowEvery business faces the possibility of legal issues at one point in time or another. Did you know that the smallest companies in America with about 250 employees and less encounter legal issues the most? This highlights why business owners need to know all legal matters related to their business, to be on the safer side. How can you keep these issues to the bare minimum? Below are a few tips to help.

1. Be sure to document any agreements or contracts

As an entrepreneur, you may need to go into agreements with various professionals along the way, for example, contracting some independent service providers. For all such engagements, contracts will most likely be involved to set clear terms and conditions. In such cases, it’s advisable to have all contracts and agreements documented for future reference. For accuracy’s sake, be sure to contact a lawyer to assist you with your drafts so that your documents are well prepared, can be easily understood and enforced by law. Doing this will also help prevent any future misunderstandings.

2. Guard all your ideas and innovations

Being an entrepreneur mainly involves identifying problems and coming up with creative ways to solve such gaps. Even if your business idea already exists, there’s something that sets you apart from your competitors; whatever that differentiating factor is, you can protect it. All you need to do is speak with a lawyer and know how best to protect your ideas, designs, or creations. Your lawyer may suggest using the help of copyrights, trademarks, and many other forms of protection that will benefit you and your business.

3. Protect yourself, your business, and any other personal possessions

Starting up a business as a sole proprietor comes with many benefits, like your ability to enjoy the total profit. However, a sole proprietorship has less protection as compared to a limited liability company. Be sure to have a chat with your attorney for advice on what business choice would best suit you and be most beneficial to you. You may end up switching to a limited liability company and getting access to the required protection your assets will need. You can also protect your business and properties by ensuring you have all the necessary documents, such as your certificates, licenses, and permits. The type of business you’re running will determine the kinds of documents you’ll need to have. Your attorney can offer advice to help you know all the requirements of your type of business.

Similarly, taking care of personal injury within the office building must also be considered by entrepreneurs. There are many incidents that has been noticed regarding the personal injury of employees within the office premises, thus, read more about it if you are not aware of its legal consequences.

Another way to protect your business is by making sure you have the right insurance coverage. Workers’ compensation plus general liability insurance are good options to have. Lastly, be sure to conduct a safety and risk assessment for your business. It’ll help you ensure that your work premises, hardware, and business operations align with best practices. Additionally, contact capable personal injury attorneys whenever you experience any damages to your personal or business properties.

Starting a business comes with several legal rights and responsibilities, and sometimes it may come across as burdensome or even boring. Despite your take on this legal aspect of the business, the fact remains that the legal stuff is vital, so get all the assistance you can. Find yourself an attorney to handle all the legal issues to protect your business from any trouble.

Three Ways Property Owners Entice and Retain First-Rate Tenants

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | Three Ways Property Owners Entice and Retain First-Rate TenantsHave you ever rented to a tenant who refuses to pay rent on time, adhere to rental agreements, or get along with other property residents? If so, then you understand the value of a high-quality resident.  Whether you are trying to attract a reliable, considerate tenant with a stable income or are simply trying to keep one, these three techniques will increase your chances of finding a first-rate, long-term tenant.

1. Implement an Effective Tenant Selection Process

Quality residents are easier to find if you have a detailed screening procedure. Do not allow your need for a renter to prevent you from checking an applicant’s income, references, criminal history, previous eviction history and credit rating. Having the potential applicant provide references from previous landlords and employers will give you another opportunity to identify any red flags before generating a lease agreement.

2. Keep Your Property Well Maintained

Regular cleaning, painting, and appliance replacement will make your property look like a nice place to live. Property investment gurus like Paul Daneshrad understand that you must treat your properties as assets. Therefore, a landlord must keep their rental property impeccably maintained if they wish to entice good tenants to stay. Renters who make regular payments enable you to make repairs, comply with building code requirements, pay utilities and taxes, and supply other services to residents. You do not want to tick them off a tenant by not promptly responding when they inform you that something is broken. Keeping up with maintenance schedules and maintaining your property will reduce the likelihood of things breaking.

3. Use Effective Communication Strategies

Approachable, frequent, and clear landlord-tenant communication will help you build positive relationships. It is especially considerate for you to show flexibility in how you communicate with tenants, as some people prefer emails, texts or phone calls. Make yourself available in person and through all three of these communication modes. High-quality residents will want to stay long-term if you are easy to reach in the event of an emergency. Providing your tenant with a 24/7 contact goes a long way to building a trusting, professional relationship that will last.

Reliable and responsible tenants are hard to find, and not keeping them long-term can make your property management experience difficult. If you are choosy in your selection process, impeccably maintain your property, and practice frequent and clear communication, you are more likely to attract a trustworthy resident.

4 Time Management Tips for Professionals

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StrategyDriven Practices for Professionals Article |Tips for Professionals|4 Time Management Tips for ProfessionalsAre you the type of person who feels like they need more hours in the day? Have you heard the saying: work smarter, not harder? What can you do to ream more time out of your day?

Instead of working yourself well over your allotted time, you need to learn the value of your time and plan appropriately. Structuring your day, and often relinquishing control over your duties can help maximize your time.

You should know your limits. When there’s a leak in your bathroom, you would call a plumber, right? At work, you might expect a professional like a customs brokerage or an attorney to take care of difficult tasks so you can focus on your work. If you adhere to this order in your daily life, you can create some beneficial habits.

Plan Early

First things first: get yourself a monthly planner! A monthly planner will help you to plan out your entire week in advance. If you have never sat down and planned out your whole week, you will want to start small.

If you are a working professional, the chances are that you are using a service company scheduling software and it’s keeping you busy. You might have meetings planned, personal appointments, or critical deadlines to meet. Any plans in motion are the place where you need to start. As soon as a new plan pops up during your work, you need to immediately write them down.

Research has shown that writing something by hand solidifies the information into your memory up to 30% faster.

Plan for Work-Life Balance

You might feel like every minute of your day is planned out to the minute. In that case, you want to set some time aside at the end of the day for some rest and relaxation. Otherwise, a massive burnout is approaching.

Set aside an hour at the end of the day where you’ll do only what you want to do and not what you need to do. If that means writing down any niggling ideas you have for work the next day, this could be beneficial for your stress level. It is always better to have your stressors written out—then it is like a promise to yourself to complete and cross off the task.

Don’t Let Your Day Control You

When you are feeling overwhelmed, grab your planner. Separate your day into 10-to-30-minute chunks. Compile a list of your high priority tasks, like deadlines or meetings, and categorize them into these chunks.

It could help if you try to do some more manageable tasks first to get your mind into a workflow, but doing this won’t let those more difficult tasks fall to the back of your mind.

Learn to Be Present

With the rise of social media, we have distractions at genuinely every point of the day. If you work in a fast-paced work environment, you might continuously be inundated with work emails or phone calls. This could seriously distract you from some of your more important work tasks.

Our loss of interest and distractions are the most pressing reasons for time management struggles. It is important to ground yourself in between these high-stress moments and keep yourself on track. One great way to do this is to set a timer or an alarm to stay aware of your time and keep your mind on the present moment. You might even want to consider pausing your notifications when you’re working on more pressing tasks!

Six Easy Ways To Raise Capital For Your Business

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StrategyDriven Starting Your Business Article |Raise Capital |Six Easy Ways To Raise Capital For Your BusinessRaising capital for your start-up or small company is probably the biggest challenge most entrepreneurs face when starting a business. This is not only a serious obstacle but also a popular excuse for many business-minded people. From renting production space or office to hiring staff and buying goods and equipment, everything you do to take your idea to profitable business requires money.

Luckily, the success stories of all the entrepreneurs show that capital is available to everyone if you turn to the right resources and get a little creative with your capital-raising options! Below we share six ideas on how to get money to fund your business.

Start With Your Own Savings

Creating a new company and running your own business can be risky. Also, this level of risk sometimes prevents traditional lenders from providing loans to entrepreneurs. This can become even more difficult if the business owner hasn’t invested his or her own money.

If you take your business dream seriously, you can consider using your savings as a source of capital. Or maybe you are willing to refinance or take out a second mortgage. You should definitely look for available options of personal financing if you are ready to take risks and comfortable with the potentially bad consequences.

Talk To Your Friends & Family Members

Your friends are always there when you need them, therefore, raising capital through your closed ones is another viable option. Try to contact your buddies to get some money to raise capital, but think about how they can benefit from the idea of lending you money and what form the funding will take. For instance, you can ask for some debt financing and then pay it back with interest, or simply you add them on as partners in your business.

Similar to your close friends, your family members and relatives can be an entrepreneur’s first point of contact for raising capital. The peculiarity of the family is that they will always be ready to help and support a good idea with financial help. The bond between your loved ones is very strong, and even if you don’t have a very good business plan, you can still raise money from your family. Remember that the amount of funds collected from your family members may not be enough; however, it is a good start.

Regardless of what you decide to do, make sure to be honest with your friends and family, realistic about how much money you need and clear about the risks; otherwise, you will not receive money even from your best friends.

Apply For Business Grants & Loans

There are various types of lenders and debt products for small business – banks, government agencies, credit card companies, online lenders and microcredit programs. All of them offer term loans, invoice financing, lines of credit, cards, cash advances and much more.

For instance, since nowadays many businesses are dealing with the consequences of the global pandemic, Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS scheme) provides the small and medium-sized businesses with two fast and effective solutions to beat the cash flow crunch. CBILS lenders offer a hassle-free CBILS loan and a flexible CBILS revolving credit facility to get financial support and fund your business, whether you need to hire more employees, pay for your workplace or create an emergency reserve of capital.

Find Angel Investors

Angels investors are people with a surplus of funds who are usually interested in investing in new start-ups, but it is also possible to raise money for a small business in return for an ownership stake. Furthermore, they work in groups of networks to collectively review proposals before investing and can offer mentorship or invaluable advice alongside the capital.

Knowing this, angel funding can be a great source of capital for your business. First, you must have a succinct, clear and memorable pitch and a solid business plan. Since angel investors aim to fund a potentially profitable business with clearly outlined services or products and experienced leadership, you should capture their attention with enthusiasm and promising data on the current situation and future potential of your company.

In addition to visiting different events, such as fundraisers and conventions, to find angel investors, there are also various online platforms that can help you find the right people and fund your business. Angel Capital Association, Angel Investment Network and Gust are considered the most versatile online platforms for finding an angel investor for your business.

Or Venture Capitalists

Unlike angel investors, venture capitalists usually want to invest in slightly more stable and mature companies, and sometimes want to have a voice in the direction of the business and the management of its day-to-day operations.

Since venture capitalists are responsible for achieving a certain return for a firm or fund, they need positive cash-flow companies with proven products and a high potential for growth. If your company meets all these requirements, you can apply for an investment in a venture capital firm. It’s not an easy task, but many small businesses have been successful in getting the much-needed capital.

Raise Capital Through Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding is a new and quick way to increase start-up capital. Instead of focusing on a few people like your friends, investors or banks, this funding option allows you to make small amounts of money from many investors at the same time.

To launch a successful crowdfunding campaign and raise capital for your business, you need to present a detailed description of your business. This includes the goals of your business, the value of your service or product, plans for making a profit, how much funding you need and for what reasons. Then anyone can read about the business and contribute money if they like the idea.

At the same time, you should be aware that crowdfunding is a competitive place to get funding, so unless your business idea is absolutely rock solid and can convince regular consumers with a simple description and a few images online, you may not be able to raise money for your company.

HR Management Can Help Develop Your Team

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StrategyDriven Talent Management Article |HR Management|HR Management Can Help Develop Your TeamHuman resource management requires a wide range of qualities such as: leadership, proper time management, ability to motivate employees and assertiveness. In this section you will find a variety of tools that will help you upgrade your recruitment system, human resource management, management team development, tips and skills.

The perception of the role of the manager today is completely different from what existed 30 years ago. The variety of capabilities and multi-tasking that the manager is required to perform, leaves them very little free time to actually manage their employees. In the form of management today, is the manager first and foremost a leader? New employee recruitment processes and new job training processes are due to the Achilles heel of many organizations and small businesses. How to train employees? The answers in the article in front of you. It all begins with good training. Work training is vital to ensure that everyone is working to their potential.

The issue of productivity and the work of interfaces often arises in work in medium and large organizations. We lose valuable work time and build ineffective processes. Through proper work and a method of building processes it is possible to significantly upgrade the efficiency in any organization and save time and money.

Assimilation of procedures and processes in a focused management

Processes, efficiency, proper time management and tasks are among the four most common things most organizations today talk about. Often, we talk a lot about these issues, but do not carry out a deep and rooted process for deepening method and language in the organization.

An excellent recruitment strategy requires the use of your entire team as well as some aspects that you may not always anticipate. To help build the process, we have some tips to help you attract the best talent. After all, who does not want a large amount of inquiries on their site, constant phone calls from customers, new project management, new tasks and other profit channels for the business.

Many articles have been written about the status of management as a profession. Academic discussions, workshops and professional philosophical discourse on the subject have existed for decades. Despite this, as of today (and probably for years to come), there is no compulsory course or professional training in order to become a manager or improve management skills. So are you a manager looking to employ new staff? Like an electrician, an accountant, an engineer and a lawyer, a manager is also a profession and like any other profession, in order to perform it optimally it is important to learn and also to experience the work they are in; which is how training can maximize their skill. However, employing the worker is the first step.

Getting a new team together

Sometimes the simplest strategies are the best: recruit the most amazing people you know, make sure to keep them regularly happy, encourage them to bring in their most talented friends, make sure to provide great experience to each candidate and repeat this process regularly until your employees become recruiters. When you get to a point where you can not repeat this process, you have probably started developing a dedicated in-house recruitment team. If their experience with your organization is particularly positive, even non-accepted candidates still serve as recommenders for your organization. Poor candidate experience will usually leave a sour taste, not only for the candidate who came for the interview, but also for the employee who made the referral. It does not matter how much the organization pays, or how big projects the organization has, if you fail to treat candidates with the same appreciation you would provide to a veteran employee, you are doing a poor service to the organization. I’ve added a quick list of topics to make sure your candidate’s experience is on track. It is advisable to make a neat list for the recruitment process. Let’s not forget that you want to attract the very best people to your company. You can’t do this if you appear incompetent, incapable and inefficient.

How to interview potential employees: Freestyle interviewers versus template interviewers

We have all encountered one or two freestyle interviewers in our lives. Those who do not work with a page or a set of ready-made questions. They are usually big refusers of the pattern and their ability to feel and feel the candidate will determine whether they will be accepted or not. The questions do not repeat themselves and sometimes it is also not clear what they are asking.

How is an interview from intuition and gut feeling a rational and process interview? Very simple, because what those people call a gut feeling or intuition is an analytical process. How is this possible? The same gut feeling or intuition works in such a way that when we see a certain behaviour. We go back in time and identify patterns of identical behaviour, connect the same patterns in people and situations we have encountered in the past and draw a completely statistical conclusion which predicts the future behaviour of the candidate. If those interviewers who rely on feeling actually perform a thought and analysis process then where is the problem? Why are they not interviewing well enough? For several reasons and the main one is that they conclude how someone will behave in complex situations at work based on their behaviour in an unnatural situation which is a job interview. I will expand on the problems with the ability to draw conclusions in this way later.

In stark contrast to freestyle interviewers, the template people leave nothing to chance. The questions are ready in advance. Each answer indicates a character trait or behaviour of the candidate and there is almost nothing left that is prone to interpretation. Everything is clear and it is possible to know everything about the candidate before getting him a job, the people in the template say (and are wrong). Those who come to the interview with all the questions prepared in advance often find the best outcomes, for the business and its future.