When You’re Faced With A Frustrating Business Problem, There’s Always A Solution

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article
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No matter how good we are in our business, or how well we can do our jobs, there are sometimes problems that we’re faced with. Some will be easy to remedy, but others will be much harder. Then, when you’re faced with a frustrating business problem, you can feel like it’s impossible to solve, or that you’re never going to get the time to tackle it head on. But, don’t let that put you off. When it comes to overcoming your business obstacles, there are easy solutions to most – you just have to know how to handle them. So, take some of these solutions and see if they work for you.

Not Having Enough Hands

Firstly, you may find that you just don’t have enough hands to get all of your business tasks done. This can definitely be the case when you provide a service to customers, and you spend a lot of your day with customers or clients. But, there is a way that you can gain more hands – or more time. And that would be to start outsourcing tasks to a virtual assistant, so they can get them done for you. Whether it’s admin, emails or processing invoices, you can have a lot of work done for you.

Losing Custom

Then, there is the kind of problems you face when you lose customers. Now, you may not always know why it’s happening, but that’s your first fault. To find a solution, you have to be able to figure out why you are losing them to get them back, or gain new ones. Sometimes you need to be able to improve your customer service or even the quality of your product or service. And then there’s also the option of pushing your marketing efforts too.

Not Being In The Office 24/7

When you can’t be in the office all day every day (because you do have to go home and have a social life too), it can be frustrating. If you’re missing calls, it can drive you crazy. But, instead of spending time playing catch up, you should look into options for answering calls after hours to save the frustrations. You should do the same for an online chat service or answer emails if you get a lot of contact via those two methods too.

Falling Behind

Sometimes, when you’re business, you realize that you’re starting to fall behind. It can be tough because you’re not sure how you’re going to find the time to keep up. But, just like outsourcing your admin tasks, you may need to look into innovative business options that can keep on top of things for you. You may find that automated online process means that you never fall behind the business trends.

Struggling To Find Investors

And finally, it can be super frustrating when you want to grow your business, and your business is ready to expand, but you just need the cash. So, you’re on the look out for investors, but how do you find them? You may find that you can pitch to different investors using online platforms, as well as considering selling stocks in the traditional route, to give you lots of options.

5 Important Checks To Be Made Before Your Assembly Line Starts Operating

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StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article
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Running a business is not easy, but running a functional assembly line is almost as difficult. It may seem easy upon first inspection, especially if you’re a new firm. Just hire the factory space and equipment, hire the staff, maybe even outsource this process, and you’ll be good to go, right? You’d be wrong. No matter how well staffed, how large your operation, or how trustworthy the firm is that you’re outsourcing to, it falls to you as the responsible business owner to make these 5 checks to your assembly line before you give the go-ahead for production.

Factories are intricate, with many working parts, working systems, and working employees all applying themselves to produce your intended material good. This is where the quality, safety and reputability of your firm is crafted. It pays to go over the various implements with a fine-toothed comb, so you can be sure that everything is functioning exactly as it should, to the most minute detail.

Here’s what to look for upon your first inspection:

Duly Staffed

The product line needs to be correctly staffed. There needs to be an understanding of how many people are needed to operate the machinery, how many people need to be there in quality control, and how many are responsible for storage. Outsourcing will help you with this, and depending on your output this could differ. Make sure you’re not stretching yourself thin and that you’re adhering to the correct laws.

Factory Hygiene

The factory you outsource to, or the factory space you rent should be completely free of pests and an overabundance of grime. Pests can spread disease and grime can be a flammable hazard. The nature of factories are that they’re generally messy, smell bad and create plenty of refuse, but that doesn’t mean the employees shouldn’t adhere to a strict cleaning schedule, or a cleaning service is there to take care of it.

Factory Safety

Arguably the most important point on this list. Your employees should be safe. Even if they’re being outsourced, they are still ‘your’ employees by proxy. You might not face direct legal ramifications for an accident through negligence when you weren’t there to see it, but you have a moral and ethical responsibility to make sure your money is funding a correct, responsible operation. This includes gearing the employees in the correct safety gear, giving them regular breaks, a well ventilated and well lit workspace, along with realistic shift patterns.

Equipment Maintenance

The machines that comprise your factory space need to be well maintained and observed during any standard work week. You should have a rota dedicated to regular machinery lubrication, machine cleaning where appropriate, and health and safety operational assessments that can keep future users protected.

Quality Control

You need a solid quality control team to make sure that your products are made adhering to strict safety laws, and are tested as such. Ideally, you should have a team of your own people responsible for making sure that the products are correctly made and handled. Don’t be afraid to lose money in the pursuit of positive, responsible material. This is your name on the line, and the health of your consumers.

Having a solid assembly line with great quality control goes a long way in providing your employees with great products, no matter what category of sale they fall into. Check these items regularly to maintain a well-functioning assembly line.

3 Innovative Ways You Can Move Your Business Online

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When you first start your business, a lot of it boils down to trial and error – especially if you have never done it before. You could follow another person’s business hints down to a tee, under the impression that whatever worked for them will surely work for you too. But as every company is so different, you will stand a much better chance of success if you take the plunge and carve out your path. That said, there are always certain things that successful businesses have in common, and one such example is having efficient operational systems in place. There are so many different components required to keep a business ticking over on a daily, monthly, and annual basis. Using multiple systems, or a poor one, won’t hold you in very good stead against your competition. Manual systems, in particular, are very outdated, and as the business world is all about efficiency, you may want to consider moving every aspect of your business online. This can be pretty intimidating if you are something of a technophobe, but it honestly isn’t as complicated as you may think. Here are a few examples of ways you can bring your business into the digital age, to create a more straightforward and streamlined company.

Employee training/monitoring

Depending on the size of your business, training and monitoring your staff can be a bit of a laborious ordeal. Sure, you want to invest time into your team so you can rest assured they know exactly what they are doing. But taking time off from your work to do so can potentially have a knock-on effect to the daily runnings of your business. With that in mind, moving your training online can save both you and your colleagues a lot of time. Plus, you can also invest in performance monitoring software so you can keep tabs on your team from anywhere in the world.

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Accounting

Bookkeeping and accounting are often the banes of a business owner’s life. Keeping track of all your expenditure, as well as any profit you turn, can easily be confusing – especially if you are doing everything by hand. Inevitably, pieces of paper will get lost, and those finance notes you made at 3 am suddenly don’t look quite as coherent in the cold light of day. Using something like hnwi and online accounting software can help you keep all your financial information in one place. Just make sure you have plenty of security on your computer systems too, as obviously, this is some pretty sensitive data.

Cloud computing

The term ‘cloud computing’ is a bit of a strange one – it arrived a few years ago, but still, very few people know what it means! It is something, however, that can revolutionize the way you operate your business. The Cloud is fundamentally a network where you can store files and documents, which means they are not linked to a particular hard drive or desktop. Therefore, you and your colleagues can access your work from any location, at any time – perfect for a modern business which has to work around the clock.

Take A Leap Of Faith & Launch Your Startup Abroad

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You think starting a business in your own country is hard, well it’s even harder launching one abroad. There’s the language barrier to overcome. The different currency to adjust to. The different culture and values to understand. It’s always going to be easier launching a business in your own country, that goes without say. However, just because it’s easier to start a business in your native country that doesn’t mean you have better chances of success there, which ultimately running a business is all about.

The reason that so many budding entrepreneurs choose to start businesses on foreign soil is because the rewards are often much higher abroad, depending which country you opt to open your business in, that is. Another reason so many business owners choose to launch their ventures abroad is because there’s call for what they are offering, which in the long-run boosts their chances of business success.

To make the process of launching a startup abroad easier, below are some useful pieces of advice.

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Learn about business practices

First things first, if you are going to launch a business abroad, it’s vital that you understand the business practices that are in place in that country. Business laws and practices differ from place to place, which is why it’s crucial that you learn about the business practices of the country that you intend on moving to, to launch your venture. For example, in New Zealand, you can set up a business in one day, while in other countries it can take weeks or even months. Take the time to learn about the laws that are in place in the country that you want to move to as well as what the requirements are to be allowed to move to that country. To learn more about this, get in touch with an immigration law firm for that country. The more knowledge you have about what is required to be granted residency, the better.

Get to know the area

If you are going to launch a business in an area, it’s important that first, you get to know it. What you want to do is learn more about the culture and values of the country (and specific region that you want to move to), to see whether your business idea would be a good fit. For instance, in the US fitness may be a big thing but in middle eastern countries, it may not be. To ensure that your business will fit into the community, visit the area at least four or five times and spend some time getting to know the place and people properly.

Put together a solid business plan

Once you’re certain that your business idea has the potential to be successful in the area that you’ve chosen, start putting together a business plan. This should describe your business idea, what your goals are, and how you plan on making it work. To make the process of creating a business plan easier, you may find working with a mentor beneficial.

Deciding to launch a business abroad is a daunting prospect, but if you have taken the time to do the research and plan out the concept carefully, then you should take a leap of faith and launch your business. It might be somewhat scary moving abroad to launch a business, but if it’s well thought out and planned, it could just be the best thing that you ever do.

Is Your Business Heading For The Cliff Edge?

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What exactly is a disaster scenario in business? A disaster scenario occurs when you are no longer able to sell your products or make a profit with your company. At that money, the engines for your business have faltered, and you’re falling fast. In cases like this, the best option would be to start completing damage control procedures. But, if we’re looking at the optimum outcome, you should not be controlling the damage at all. Instead, you should do everything you can to make sure it never happens in the first place.

You need to avert a disaster scenario in your business, and there are a number of ways that you can do this.

Keep Spending Under Control


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One of the most common disaster scenarios is caused by a simple case of overspending. By spending more than you make from your business, you will reach the point where you’re no longer making a profit. Once you get to that stage, you only really have two options. You must be ready to cut back. Of course, if you keep your budget under control from day one, you’ll never reach that point. So, you’ll have to think about how to manage your budget.

Outsourcing is a great way to cut the costs while still delivering a quality service to your customers. You can outsource almost any part of a business these days from logistics to HR. When you do outsource, you have to remember that you are essentially giving the control of that part of your business to another company. They’ll still work for you, but they will be responsible for maintaining quality levels. As such, you should choose a company very carefully.

Backup Everything


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Another piece of advice would be to make sure that you are backing up important data and files in your business. To do this, you can use a colocation service for your company. Colocation services provide data protection, handling and backup for companies and colocation pricing can be very reasonable indeed. For just a few hundred out of your budget, you can make sure that if your systems do break down you have a backup ready to go. This can allow you to avoid your business entering a period of disaster recovery that can take weeks or even months.

Hire A Legal Advisor


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Of course, one of the main issues that might cause a disaster scenario for your business would be a legal issue. That’s why you might want to think about hiring a legal advisor for your company. You can check in with your legal advisor every so often and ensure that you’re not crossing any lines that you shouldn’t be.

Legal issues can arise in any area of your company, but you should pay particularly close attention to employee management. It’s quite possible for an injury or complaint from an employee to send your business towards a legal case that could cost hundreds of thousands. An SME won’t survive this type of expense and neither will your business.

If you take this advice, you can steer your business away from the cliff edge before you get anywhere near it.