Retirement can be daunting, especially when considering a pension at the start of your working life. However, with the right preparation, you can make retirement a simple and relaxing process, devoid of money worries and other concerns that you will want to leave behind in the working world.
Your Workplace’s Pension Scheme
Firstly, you should ensure that you auto-enroll in your companies’ pension scheme, where possible. Although it may be tempting to opt out and receive the extra money now, employers contribute 0.8% of their gross income into your pension scheme. In the long run, this means that you benefit extensively by waiting to reap the rewards of your hard work.
Your Home’s Equity
Many people would suggest that relying on your home’s equity in retirement is a good idea. However, although a popular way to gain extra money during retirement, there are both negatives and benefits to releasing your home’s equity for this purpose. Instead, it is best to save beforehand and ensure that you are already prepared for retirement by the time your working life is over.
Save Throughout Your Life
Although your quarter-life crisis may seem too soon to start saving for your distance future, the best way to prepare for retirement is to start saving as soon as possible. Whether this is your first pay-check or a little bit later, saving early can give you the best rates on compound interest which can drastically increase your retirement fund.
For instance, if you save £100 a month over 40 years rather than double that amount over 20, you can make almost £48,000 more in interest.
Prepare for a State Pension
Although state pensions may feel as if you are being paid back for your hard work, state pensions only provide you with £115 a week to live on, which can be difficult if you are paying rent and other bills alongside this. You may also have to wait longer than expected for this, with the age correlating to current life expectancy, which means that the boundaries are constantly changing. Therefore, it is important to ensure that you have multiple funds to support you in your old age by starting an independent pension fund.
Check Your Pension’s Performance
Next, you should always check your pension’s performance to ensure that it is growing at the pace which you expect. Many pension schemes can change over time and affect the amount that you are putting away, and so ensuring that you track your pension’s performance over time is important to prepare for your retirement.
Compare the Best Annuities
The best annuities can often be found on the open market than through your current provider. Although many people rush into buying an annuity with their pension company, there are often 60% differences in annuity rates between the best and worst annuities available, meaning that it is important to look around for the best one.
For more pension advice, contact Portafina, or follow their social media on Portafina’s Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Twitter.
Disclaimer: The above information is not financial advice. For any financial decisions you need to make, please talk to a qualified financial advisor.
https://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/CoinJar.jpg8001200StrategyDrivenhttps://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/SDELogo5-300x70-300x70.pngStrategyDriven2019-03-28 20:00:362019-03-28 21:32:54The Best Ways to Prepare for Retirement
When running a healthcare clinic, the chances are that you will focus primarily on running the best clinic you can run. You will read advice on marketing your services, improving productivity in your business, and similar guidance, all with a specific focus on the small clinic setting.
Of course, focusing on advice for clinics makes complete sense – but it is also worth thinking a little bigger, and considering the lessons you can learn from larger establishments. After all, if a large, monolithic hospital that provides services to thousands of patients every day is making a particular decision, or using a specific technology, it’s fair to assume they are doing so because it works. By implementing the same ideas into your clinic, you can enjoy the same benefits, and significantly improve the service you can provide to your customers. Here are three ideas that most larger hospitals will use, all of which could be hugely advantageous if incorporated into your smaller clinic setting…
Full focus on navigation
Hospitals are huge buildings, which means they have to focus on ensuring patients can comfortably navigate from one area to the next. While a smaller clinic is, of course, more modest in terms of the size, the same focus on navigation can be hugely beneficial. With good signposting and floor line systems, you can ensure your patients always know where they need to be without having to ask staff for directions; as a result, patients feel more at ease, and staff are free to focus on routine tasks.
Embrace tech advances
Large hospitals have to embrace tech advances across every aspect of their service; from ensuring they have a top-of-the-line appointment scheduling system to installing the best hospital pharmacy inventory management system currently available, hospitals know that they have to be at the cutting edge of innovation in order to provide for their large patient base. It’s therefore helpful if you bring the same willingness to embrace technology to your smaller clinic, continually seeking new solutions for every operational area of your business. It should then naturally follow that the more tech you can introduce, the more streamlined and efficient your clinic will be.
Expansive opening hours
Certain aspects of a hospital are available 24/7; the ER, for example. However, many hospitals now offer standard appointments with specialists outside of the usual daytime-Monday-to-Friday arrangement scheduling. If you are looking to expand your potential patient base, offering the same, wide-reaching approach to appointment times could be hugely beneficial. After all, if you only offer appointments during the day throughout the working week, patients who work the same schedule are less likely to be able to attend appointments.
It’s therefore worth experimenting with evening and Saturday appointments and then assessing the results; if the uptake is good, consider extending your opening hours further in order to better meet the scheduling requirements of your patients.
In conclusion
By incorporating the above, you can enjoy the advantages of a large-scale hospital in your smaller clinic setting – much to the benefit of your staff, your patients, and ultimately, the clinic’s overall success.
https://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/hospital-174924_1280.jpg8471280StrategyDrivenhttps://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/SDELogo5-300x70-300x70.pngStrategyDriven2019-03-27 16:00:432019-03-27 03:50:393 Lessons All Small Healthcare Clinics Can Learn From Large Hospitals
Our lives are hectic, and technology can help the situation and make it worse at the same time. However, if your company wants to communicate effectively, it needs to rely on text messaging as a way to be more efficient and increase revenues. We look at how in this article.
Increased Response Rate
According to research, text messages are opened at a rate of 98% when compared to emails which are opened at a rate of only 20%. Also, text messaging is the preferred method of communication among millennials. Lastly, most people carry their phones with them wherever they go, which means that if you want to reach someone with an important message, you should consider texting them.
Knowing that, let’s take a look at how your accounts receivable department can benefit from text messaging.
Texts Notifications Are Pervasive
More and more communities, governments, and outreaches are adopting text messaging as the way to get vital information out to people. Nearly everyone checks their phone when they get a notification even if they don’t immediately act on it.
Texts & Accounts Receivable
Now that we’ve seen how widely used text messaging is, and people are more likely to read their messages, let’s look at how your company’s accounts receivable department can benefit.
Sending out paper bills that get left on the counter for days is old fashioned as is waiting for a customer to send in a check. Many customers now prefer to pay their bills via autopay or by visiting a website or using an app to pay with a credit card. Text messaging encourages a quicker response to pay a bill and ensures that invoices don’t get lost in the mail or forgotten about.
Also, sending out a text message as a reminder is seen as less intrusive to people than a phone call, and is more likely to be acted on than sending a letter in the mail.
Increased Response Time
Another considerable advantage to using text messages to notify people about invoices is that you’re more likely to get an immediate response than if you inform them by other means such as email, phone calls or snail mail.
When a person receives a notification of a bill that’s due, and an easy way to pay, generally speaking, they pay right away, which means increased cash flow for your company.
Makes Accounts Receivable More Efficient
In addition to a higher response rate from your customers, your AR department becomes more efficient thanks to text messaging too. The less time your AR department has to spend sending out letters and making phone calls trying to track down money means they can spend more time expanding their reach and becoming more efficient.
If your company isn’t making use of text messaging and push notifications, it’s high time that you research the benefits and experiment and find a system that works for you; you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Ron Kinkade is the Director of Marketing at Call-Em-All, an automated calling and mass texting company that provides solutions for small and medium sized businesses, large corporations, membership organizations, community groups, and individuals. Ron has more than 15 years of experience with a proven track record of success. Ron is a graduate of Illinois State University.
https://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/business-3380350_1280.jpg8801280StrategyDrivenhttps://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/SDELogo5-300x70-300x70.pngStrategyDriven2019-03-27 11:00:242019-03-27 22:07:43Can Text Messages Help Your Accounts Receivable Department – Yes!
When it comes to marketing your business, there are many ways to go about this. Whilst you may think that the internet is your only option (social media in particular), there are a variety of ways to make an impact offline, and you should actually cover more bases than just those on offer on the web. But what are these ways of marketing yourself, and how do you actually go about them? We’ve put together three simple ideas, for those looking to market themselves, without sending out a single Tweet. Well, maybe you can do all of these things, you know?
1. Speak at conferences and panel discussions
Whether you’ve been invited to talk at a conference of some sort, or a panel discussion, it’s definitely in the interest of your business to take up this opportunity. Not only does this give you a platform to talk to people that you may not have otherwise had the opportunity to connect with, but it also gives you a brief window period to convince people that your business would be useful to their lives. Sometimes, there is no better way to sell yourself than being in front of the people that may be interested in your services, so make the most of these opportunities. You’ll also meet other people in your field!
2. Keep business cards on you
Business cards have existed for ages, but a lot of professionals are still ensuring that they’ve got a few on them at all times. This is one of the key ways of offline marketing, so make sure that you order some professional business cards from a company that offers a good printing service. If you meet somebody at an event, or even somewhere totally unexpected, it doesn’t really look great if you just write your email down on a scrap of paper, and the person in question will forget who you are pretty quickly. Get some printed, and take a few out with you wherever you go.
3. Advertise on local radio
OK, we know what you’re thinking. Local radio? Who even listens to the radio anymore? But think about how many people commute in the mornings and evenings, and a lot of them do listen to the local channels. In fact, more people listen to the radio in the US than those who watch TV. There are many benefits of local radio ads, but one of them is that it isn’t as expensive as national radio, and it specifically targets your community. Sure, it may cost you a little more to put an ad out during busy times, but when you see the benefits that you get from this, you’ll be glad that you tried this offline method of marketing.
So, if you’re looking to market your business without using the internet, there are a variety of ways that you can do so. Some of these options include speaking at conferences, keeping business cards on you, and advertising on your local radio station. Good luck, and happy offline marketing!
https://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/class-classroom-conference-716276.jpg8001200StrategyDrivenhttps://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/SDELogo5-300x70-300x70.pngStrategyDriven2019-03-26 20:00:052019-03-27 22:15:333 Ways To Market Your Business That Don’t Involve The Internet
In 2018, the US coffee shop market grew to over $45 billion, with over 36,600 stores across the country. While a lot of stores belong to chained brands, such as Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts, more and more independent shops are carving a spot to call their own in a competitive market. Indeed, more and more coffee enthusiasts are looking for a unique experience with their favorite brew. There’s plenty of room for independent business owners to tap into the interests of an educated and savvy audience. But at the same time, it’s essential to provide the same level of service than your customer would get in a branded chain.
Too many independent coffee shop owners forget to prioritize their customer expectations as part of their decor. While an independent shop can be the stage in a more rustic approach, it doesn’t mean that you should miss on some essential factors, such as:
A menu that blows your customers away
Your customers have probably experienced the likes of Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts and Tim Hortons before they’ve diversified their search for good coffee to include independent stores. As a result, they’re used to updated and modern visual displays when it comes to the menu. If you want to appeal to coffee amateurs, a digital signage would allow you to capture an image of each type of drinks, which can be useful – not everyone knows the difference between a Cortado and a Ristretto, for instance. Additionally, with the popularity of Veganuary, it’s impossible to ignore the impact of the vegan diet in everyday business. With customers demanding dairy-free alternatives to milk and vegan biscuits, you need to offer a diverse and inclusive selection of drinks and snacks.
Your interior says a lot about you
Your decor is your brand. It goes beyond the choice of furniture or colors. Ultimately, you need to find options that not only fit your budget but that also supports your vision. Creating a style that emphasizes the personality of your coffee while keeping your customers comfortable is significant. Independent shops prefer to focus their attention on reclaimed materials, which gives an eco-friendly finish. Additionally, using specialist materials on the wall, floor and ceiling can help to create a space that isn’t too loud – or that doesn’t sound too echoey which could be creepy for customers. Even though it is fashionable to create an atmospheric shop with dramatic lighting, do try to maximize natural light to make the room feel brighter and friendlier.
Go big online or don’t go at all
Last, but not least, you should seize every occasion to ask your customers how they like their #coffee. Indeed, Instagram is changing the way coffee shop promote their brands, encouraging bold creations and inspiring designs. The account @coffeeoprops, for instance, bring expert together to share their knowledge and passion around coffee, through artistic photos. There’s a lot of exciting ideas for you to learn how to make the most of each shot online by playing with the light, the colors and the contrast.
Independent coffee shops need to build a solid presence, in their premises and online, if they want to appeal to an audience of brew lovers. From offering practical solutions to introducing inclusive designs and menus, you need to make your shop everyone’s cup of tea… or coffee!
https://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/customer-experience-3024488_1280-1.jpg8481280StrategyDrivenhttps://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/SDELogo5-300x70-300x70.pngStrategyDriven2019-03-26 16:00:342019-03-26 20:14:59Staging Your Independent Coffee Shop
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Business Programs
The Best Ways to Prepare for Retirement
/in Practices for Professionals/by StrategyDrivenYour Workplace’s Pension Scheme
Firstly, you should ensure that you auto-enroll in your companies’ pension scheme, where possible. Although it may be tempting to opt out and receive the extra money now, employers contribute 0.8% of their gross income into your pension scheme. In the long run, this means that you benefit extensively by waiting to reap the rewards of your hard work.
Your Home’s Equity
Many people would suggest that relying on your home’s equity in retirement is a good idea. However, although a popular way to gain extra money during retirement, there are both negatives and benefits to releasing your home’s equity for this purpose. Instead, it is best to save beforehand and ensure that you are already prepared for retirement by the time your working life is over.
Save Throughout Your Life
Although your quarter-life crisis may seem too soon to start saving for your distance future, the best way to prepare for retirement is to start saving as soon as possible. Whether this is your first pay-check or a little bit later, saving early can give you the best rates on compound interest which can drastically increase your retirement fund.
For instance, if you save £100 a month over 40 years rather than double that amount over 20, you can make almost £48,000 more in interest.
Prepare for a State Pension
Although state pensions may feel as if you are being paid back for your hard work, state pensions only provide you with £115 a week to live on, which can be difficult if you are paying rent and other bills alongside this. You may also have to wait longer than expected for this, with the age correlating to current life expectancy, which means that the boundaries are constantly changing. Therefore, it is important to ensure that you have multiple funds to support you in your old age by starting an independent pension fund.
Check Your Pension’s Performance
Next, you should always check your pension’s performance to ensure that it is growing at the pace which you expect. Many pension schemes can change over time and affect the amount that you are putting away, and so ensuring that you track your pension’s performance over time is important to prepare for your retirement.
Compare the Best Annuities
The best annuities can often be found on the open market than through your current provider. Although many people rush into buying an annuity with their pension company, there are often 60% differences in annuity rates between the best and worst annuities available, meaning that it is important to look around for the best one.
For more pension advice, contact Portafina, or follow their social media on Portafina’s Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Twitter.
Disclaimer: The above information is not financial advice. For any financial decisions you need to make, please talk to a qualified financial advisor.
3 Lessons All Small Healthcare Clinics Can Learn From Large Hospitals
/in Tactical Execution/by StrategyDrivenOf course, focusing on advice for clinics makes complete sense – but it is also worth thinking a little bigger, and considering the lessons you can learn from larger establishments. After all, if a large, monolithic hospital that provides services to thousands of patients every day is making a particular decision, or using a specific technology, it’s fair to assume they are doing so because it works. By implementing the same ideas into your clinic, you can enjoy the same benefits, and significantly improve the service you can provide to your customers. Here are three ideas that most larger hospitals will use, all of which could be hugely advantageous if incorporated into your smaller clinic setting…
Full focus on navigation
Hospitals are huge buildings, which means they have to focus on ensuring patients can comfortably navigate from one area to the next. While a smaller clinic is, of course, more modest in terms of the size, the same focus on navigation can be hugely beneficial. With good signposting and floor line systems, you can ensure your patients always know where they need to be without having to ask staff for directions; as a result, patients feel more at ease, and staff are free to focus on routine tasks.
Embrace tech advances
Large hospitals have to embrace tech advances across every aspect of their service; from ensuring they have a top-of-the-line appointment scheduling system to installing the best hospital pharmacy inventory management system currently available, hospitals know that they have to be at the cutting edge of innovation in order to provide for their large patient base. It’s therefore helpful if you bring the same willingness to embrace technology to your smaller clinic, continually seeking new solutions for every operational area of your business. It should then naturally follow that the more tech you can introduce, the more streamlined and efficient your clinic will be.
Expansive opening hours
Certain aspects of a hospital are available 24/7; the ER, for example. However, many hospitals now offer standard appointments with specialists outside of the usual daytime-Monday-to-Friday arrangement scheduling. If you are looking to expand your potential patient base, offering the same, wide-reaching approach to appointment times could be hugely beneficial. After all, if you only offer appointments during the day throughout the working week, patients who work the same schedule are less likely to be able to attend appointments.
It’s therefore worth experimenting with evening and Saturday appointments and then assessing the results; if the uptake is good, consider extending your opening hours further in order to better meet the scheduling requirements of your patients.
In conclusion
By incorporating the above, you can enjoy the advantages of a large-scale hospital in your smaller clinic setting – much to the benefit of your staff, your patients, and ultimately, the clinic’s overall success.
Can Text Messages Help Your Accounts Receivable Department – Yes!
/in Marketing & Sales/by StrategyDrivenIncreased Response Rate
According to research, text messages are opened at a rate of 98% when compared to emails which are opened at a rate of only 20%. Also, text messaging is the preferred method of communication among millennials. Lastly, most people carry their phones with them wherever they go, which means that if you want to reach someone with an important message, you should consider texting them.
Knowing that, let’s take a look at how your accounts receivable department can benefit from text messaging.
Texts Notifications Are Pervasive
More and more communities, governments, and outreaches are adopting text messaging as the way to get vital information out to people. Nearly everyone checks their phone when they get a notification even if they don’t immediately act on it.
Texts & Accounts Receivable
Now that we’ve seen how widely used text messaging is, and people are more likely to read their messages, let’s look at how your company’s accounts receivable department can benefit.
Sending out paper bills that get left on the counter for days is old fashioned as is waiting for a customer to send in a check. Many customers now prefer to pay their bills via autopay or by visiting a website or using an app to pay with a credit card. Text messaging encourages a quicker response to pay a bill and ensures that invoices don’t get lost in the mail or forgotten about.
Also, sending out a text message as a reminder is seen as less intrusive to people than a phone call, and is more likely to be acted on than sending a letter in the mail.
Increased Response Time
Another considerable advantage to using text messages to notify people about invoices is that you’re more likely to get an immediate response than if you inform them by other means such as email, phone calls or snail mail.
When a person receives a notification of a bill that’s due, and an easy way to pay, generally speaking, they pay right away, which means increased cash flow for your company.
Makes Accounts Receivable More Efficient
In addition to a higher response rate from your customers, your AR department becomes more efficient thanks to text messaging too. The less time your AR department has to spend sending out letters and making phone calls trying to track down money means they can spend more time expanding their reach and becoming more efficient.
If your company isn’t making use of text messaging and push notifications, it’s high time that you research the benefits and experiment and find a system that works for you; you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Ron Kinkade is the Director of Marketing at Call-Em-All, an automated calling and mass texting company that provides solutions for small and medium sized businesses, large corporations, membership organizations, community groups, and individuals. Ron has more than 15 years of experience with a proven track record of success. Ron is a graduate of Illinois State University.
3 Ways To Market Your Business That Don’t Involve The Internet
/in Marketing & Sales/by StrategyDriven1. Speak at conferences and panel discussions
Whether you’ve been invited to talk at a conference of some sort, or a panel discussion, it’s definitely in the interest of your business to take up this opportunity. Not only does this give you a platform to talk to people that you may not have otherwise had the opportunity to connect with, but it also gives you a brief window period to convince people that your business would be useful to their lives. Sometimes, there is no better way to sell yourself than being in front of the people that may be interested in your services, so make the most of these opportunities. You’ll also meet other people in your field!
2. Keep business cards on you
Business cards have existed for ages, but a lot of professionals are still ensuring that they’ve got a few on them at all times. This is one of the key ways of offline marketing, so make sure that you order some professional business cards from a company that offers a good printing service. If you meet somebody at an event, or even somewhere totally unexpected, it doesn’t really look great if you just write your email down on a scrap of paper, and the person in question will forget who you are pretty quickly. Get some printed, and take a few out with you wherever you go.
3. Advertise on local radio
OK, we know what you’re thinking. Local radio? Who even listens to the radio anymore? But think about how many people commute in the mornings and evenings, and a lot of them do listen to the local channels. In fact, more people listen to the radio in the US than those who watch TV. There are many benefits of local radio ads, but one of them is that it isn’t as expensive as national radio, and it specifically targets your community. Sure, it may cost you a little more to put an ad out during busy times, but when you see the benefits that you get from this, you’ll be glad that you tried this offline method of marketing.
So, if you’re looking to market your business without using the internet, there are a variety of ways that you can do so. Some of these options include speaking at conferences, keeping business cards on you, and advertising on your local radio station. Good luck, and happy offline marketing!
Staging Your Independent Coffee Shop
/in Managing Your Business/by StrategyDrivenToo many independent coffee shop owners forget to prioritize their customer expectations as part of their decor. While an independent shop can be the stage in a more rustic approach, it doesn’t mean that you should miss on some essential factors, such as:
A menu that blows your customers away
Your customers have probably experienced the likes of Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts and Tim Hortons before they’ve diversified their search for good coffee to include independent stores. As a result, they’re used to updated and modern visual displays when it comes to the menu. If you want to appeal to coffee amateurs, a digital signage would allow you to capture an image of each type of drinks, which can be useful – not everyone knows the difference between a Cortado and a Ristretto, for instance. Additionally, with the popularity of Veganuary, it’s impossible to ignore the impact of the vegan diet in everyday business. With customers demanding dairy-free alternatives to milk and vegan biscuits, you need to offer a diverse and inclusive selection of drinks and snacks.
Your interior says a lot about you
Your decor is your brand. It goes beyond the choice of furniture or colors. Ultimately, you need to find options that not only fit your budget but that also supports your vision. Creating a style that emphasizes the personality of your coffee while keeping your customers comfortable is significant. Independent shops prefer to focus their attention on reclaimed materials, which gives an eco-friendly finish. Additionally, using specialist materials on the wall, floor and ceiling can help to create a space that isn’t too loud – or that doesn’t sound too echoey which could be creepy for customers. Even though it is fashionable to create an atmospheric shop with dramatic lighting, do try to maximize natural light to make the room feel brighter and friendlier.
Go big online or don’t go at all
Last, but not least, you should seize every occasion to ask your customers how they like their #coffee. Indeed, Instagram is changing the way coffee shop promote their brands, encouraging bold creations and inspiring designs. The account @coffeeoprops, for instance, bring expert together to share their knowledge and passion around coffee, through artistic photos. There’s a lot of exciting ideas for you to learn how to make the most of each shot online by playing with the light, the colors and the contrast.
Independent coffee shops need to build a solid presence, in their premises and online, if they want to appeal to an audience of brew lovers. From offering practical solutions to introducing inclusive designs and menus, you need to make your shop everyone’s cup of tea… or coffee!