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5 Starting Tips for Entrepreneurs

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article |Tips for entrepreneurs|5 Starting Tips for EntrepreneursSetting up a new business is an exciting move for any professional entrepreneur, but getting into the right headspace and doing the appropriate planning before you begin is key for success. The entrepreneurial journey will be different for every professional, but there are a few key tips every startup can benefit from.

1. Follow Your Passion

This is a key place to start if you’re looking for long-term success. Choosing to start your own business is the prime opportunity to fully follow your passion and create a business from something you truly care about. Without this passionate drive, you may find that your interest wanes in the long run if your business isn’t built upon something you truly care about.

Therefore, if you haven’t settled on a business idea just yet but know that you would like to become an entrepreneur, a good place to start is to think about what you’re passionate about and any lifelong interests.

2. Take Your Time

As a hardworking business professional, you may be extremely eager to get started — especially if you’ve already formed a business plan and have the perfect idea you wish to get the ball rolling with. Nevertheless, having a great idea is only the very beginning. Don’t rush into launching a business or product which isn’t quite ready. It’s much better to spend longer planning a business that will be perfect once launched, rather than launch one too soon that isn’t ready.

3. Get Help Wherever You Need It

Whether it’s help with your business from a family or friend, or help on a professional level by expert services, there’s no shame in reaching out as an entrepreneur. Being a successful entrepreneur doesn’t have to mean doing everything yourself.

What’s important is to plan out the areas you comfortably have the time for and pinpoint those that you might need help with — especially if it’s an area that’s going to affect your business, like new website management or marketing. You can seek help for aspects like this from Pronto Marketing for any areas you don’t have time for as a busy startup.

4. Never Stop Planning

While it’s important to plan as much as possible at the very beginning of your journey and before you launch your business, that also doesn’t mean that the planning is ever done. Plans can — and should — adapt and change within business, and this is crucial as you go along.

It’s a good idea to make both short-term and long-term plans for your business and for yourself as an entrepreneur.

5. Don’t Just Think About the Public Side of the Business

It’s easy to get wrapped up in marketing and building your product or service, and creating your brand. However, becoming an entrepreneur means taking care of a lot of background work, too, relating to legal obligations and finances.

Familiarize yourself as soon as possible with what you legally need to do in regard to a new business, such as licenses and taxes, so that you can start off on the right foot.

Follow these Rules if you Want to Become a Successful Entrepreneur

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article |Successful Entrepreneur|Follow these Rules if you Want to Become a Successful EntrepreneurIf you are thinking about becoming a business owner, then you are probably wondering what it takes. After all, there is no cookie-cutter answer that applies to every single person. If you want to try and get a list of guidelines to follow that will cut down the chances of you experiencing failure, then the only thing that you need to do is look below.

Work Smarter and Not Harder

Most people see an entrepreneur as being someone who is able to work 18 hours a day and who does nothing other than eat, sleep and breathe business. Of course, hard work is certainly the key to success as an entrepreneur, but at the same time, working every minute of every day isn’t going to make you successful. Overworking will lead to you experiencing fatigue which will of course, lead to errors. Plus, it doesn’t matter how hard you work because you are never going to have the skills required to do everything. You have to learn how to work smarter and not harder because that is the key to success. If you want to help yourself, consider following influencers as they can help you to learn more about the world of business. Trimantium’s Phillip Kingston is always a good starting point.

Hire People to Handle Tasks

It’s a really simple process. You need to hire people who can do the things that you are not really good at. This gives you the chance to focus on the areas of your company that actually deliver the most value. Great entrepreneurs really do know how important delegation is, and even though it may be overwhelming at times, you have to make sure that you trust other people as much as possible. If you don’t, then you may find that your growth is stunted. There are tons of websites out there that you can use if you want some help with your growth.

Get More Done

Hiring freelancers might not be the best solution if you own an established company, but when you are in the early stages, freelancers and even third-party contractors can all be a very effective way for you to do business, and it won’t break the bank either. In fact, it can be very affordable. This all comes down to the supply and demand. This dynamic is generally reinforced by the fact that most freelancers are based overseas. The cost of living there is lower, and this helps your money to go further. This approach is very cost-friendly when you compare it to hiring a full-time employee, but make sure that you are actually getting more done by not micro-managing.

Don’t Be Afraid of Failure

Working smart and finding the right people will certainly go a long way, and it will help you to become more successful as an entrepreneur. The main thing that you have to remember is that there are no guarantees at all. You have to be realistic, and you also need to know that not every company succeeds. Sometimes there may be something wrong with the concept, or you may have competition that is tougher than you would have thought. The more you can make yourself aware of this, the better.

How Food Marketing Will Change Post-Pandemic

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StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article |Food Marketing|How Food Marketing Will Change Post-PandemicFor every business owner, the challenge post-pandemic will be to reinvent themselves. Their brand must take on a new image as well as display the charms of the previous generation. It’s quite amazing when you think about it, that a pandemic has changed the way we see business and products as customers and clients. To this end, we must rediscover our passion for marketing, as business owners. The key to this is to realize that the world supply chains that we got used to, may need to change. That in turn, must incorporate green technology and sustainable design. Thankfully, there is no shortage of options for you to select a new design, theme, color scheme and narrative for your products.

Older customers

Older customers will be much more health-conscious than ever before. The majority of the casualties that were taken by covid-19 were indeed the elderly generation. The changes are very interesting. For one thing, it’s not just about more positive colors, but actually, ‘enjoyment’. This has been taken from the fashion industry, which often depicts the models in the adverts, as enjoying life. Since the aging population will live to 90 or more in the near future, we need to think about how we as business owners can display a joyful life at this age. It requires us to do a few things.

If our product is targeted to older people, such as older people using our product and smiling. Big white pearly teeth are a good sign of health and happiness, something that will be attractive to people who don’t live by the norms that older generations of elderly people conformed to.

Make sure that the colors are bright but not too bright. The reason they should be bright is to compensate for poor eyesight. The brightest product on the shelves will always garner more attention. However, if it’s too bright it can also signify danger, i.e. red mushrooms in the wild. So, color choice is just as important as color scheme.
Grandchildren should also be used in the video ads that you produce. This is something that is normal in our everyday lives, but something that doesn’t get taken advantage of in our marketing campaigns.

Packaging has to be simple

Green businesses are going to leap forward in the eyes of the customer this decade. Nobody has any patience anymore, to buy products from companies that do not make an effort to be sustainable. The cultural shift is so strong, that many CEOs feel like they are playing catch-up. One way you can market your food better, is to show how your packaging has shifted dramatically. If you sell snack food, then consider ditching the box and the plastic wrap, and just for good food grade tube packaging. The tube can be sealed and the inside can be covered in a protective paper that has been sterilized. This means that your food is going to be protected, you can get a lot of your product into the internal space, and it will be safe. Tubes are also very strong so there is less likely chance for external penetration and thus, contamination.

The good things

The best things about any food product is the lasting benefits it will give you. So you should be targeting the vitamins and minerals that are present in your product when it comes to this line of marketing. Customers want to know, what kinds of vitamins they will be eating and thus, what kinds of things will happen to them personally. For example, vitamin D is well known to help with our immune system growing stronger. Vitamin E is known to make our skin smoother and stronger as well. Vitamin C helps our bones to be tougher, etc. All of this is something that must be repeated over and over and over! Take a look at Yakult, the Japanese yogurt drink company. They have never ever stopped talking about the digestive rebalance their product gives and thus, they have stayed at the forefront of our minds when we consider a healthy drink option.

The food marketing industry is going to revamp its course of action. Rather than trying to be too viral, they will want to brand products in a healthy, long-life and sustainable prism. Customers will be impressed that a food company is doing it’s share to make the world a better place. So invest in green production strategies so you can boast about your decreasing carbon footprint in your ads.

Top 7 Tips to Ensure Employee Satisfaction in Your Real Estate Brokerage

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Employee Satisfaction|Top 7 Tips to Ensure Employee Satisfaction in Your Real Estate BrokerageIf you want to attract the best of the best real estate agents to your brokerage, it’s crucial to ensure employee satisfaction. Indeed, even the best recruitment strategies will fail if you people keep leaving your brokerage every few months. With a high turnover rate, a prospective candidate might think that you aren’t taking good care of your people. Ultimately, this affects your reputation and can make people hesitant to apply.

In short, a good recruitment strategy must include good employee satisfaction and retention plans as well. For those in need of ideas to bolster real estate recruitment, getbrokerkit.com can help. Meanwhile, if you need tips to ensure employee satisfaction, here are just a few:

Listen to Their Concerns

Before you can solve a problem, you need to know what it is. The best way to find out is to go straight to those who are experiencing them: your employees. Ask them to identify their concerns and be as detailed as possible. This way, you can address the issues completely and prevent them from recurring. If you need help formulating questions, there are different kinds of survey software that can help in this regard.

It’s also ideal to have everyone rate their overall satisfaction with their jobs, even those in management and senior positions. In addition, ask them to provide suggestions that can help improve their rating. Then, make a reasonable effort to make these things happen.

Keep Everyone Updated

Communication is a two-way street. In the same way that you listen to your employees, you should also take the time to keep everyone updated about what’s happening in the brokerage. For example, if there’s an economic crisis, your people would appreciate knowing about your response plan. Even if the status quo won’t be affected, hearing from the higher-ups in the brokerage can provide a measure of peace of mind.

The bottomline here is to provide regular company updates. It doesn’t even have to be an all-hands meeting every single time. An email containing the latest news about the company—whether it’s good or bad—can do a lot in terms of transparency.

Develop a Recognition System

People want to be appreciated for their hard work. If your real estate agents exceed their targets or meet them before the deadline, find a way to recognize and reward the hard work. The same goes for every other employee in your brokerage who goes above and beyond their tasks. This will help boost morale and confidence, which in turn has a direct effect on productivity and job satisfaction.

Remember that recognition can come in many forms. You can award cash bonuses, vacation tickets, and other gifts to your high-performing employees if you have the budget for it. Still, even a genuine message of appreciation can mean a lot to someone.

Encourage Socialization

One of the most important components of happiness is human interaction. Indeed, even introverts need to socialize to help dispel bouts of loneliness and feelings of isolation.

In the workplace, you can encourage socialization through small celebrations. It could be for birthdays, a company milestone, or even a “just because” reason. It’s also a good idea to provide areas where your people can gather to take breaks and engage in conversation.

Outside the office, consider activities such as a mini sports fest or a volunteer program in the community. These can help promote camaraderie and a sense of belonging. Volunteering, in particular, can foster a sense of fulfillment and even boost your brokerage’s positive reputation.

Give Them Opportunities to Use Their Skills

For greater engagement, provide opportunities in which your employees can use their skills and interests. For example, if you have someone in your team who is passionate about tabletop games, why not hold a game night with them as the game master?

Remember that your employees have hobbies and activities outside work. Show your support for these endeavors and see how much happier they can be in your brokerage!

Help Them Improve

When your employees are equipped with all the right skills, they can do their jobs more efficiently. This is a win-win situation for the brokerage (which will experience a boost in earnings) and your employees (who will be happier and more satisfied). Continuous learning can also help prevent feelings of being stuck. Last but not the least, employees will also be more inclined to stay loyal to a company that’s concerned not just with profits but also with people development.

Promote Health and Wellness

Here’s a fact: healthy employees are happy employees. Real estate agents may often be on the go and are thus not as prone to a sedentary office lifestyle, but what about their mental and emotional health? In addition, you still have other employees in the office that you need to think about.

Fortunately, there are simple solutions that can help you promote health and wellness in the office. You can allocate 30 minutes a day for “deskcercise,” or perhaps you can sponsor the gym memberships of your employees. If you can, provide access to healthy meals and snacks. Paid sick days and vacation days can also go a long way in preventing stress.

Remember that if your current employees aren’t happy with your brokerage, it will be difficult to convince others to join your team. Meanwhile, if your employees are satisfied and feel valued, it will be easier to attract the cream of the crop.
Keep these tips in mind to ensure employee satisfaction and boost your brokerage’s recruitment efforts!

Everything You Need to Know About Timeshare Maintenance Fees

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StrategyDriven Practices for Professionals Article |Timeshare Fees|Everything You Need to Know About Timeshare Maintenance FeesIf you have a timeshare, you are familiar with its maintenance fees. These are fees that are collected either monthly or annually to maintain the resort property. They go towards paying for insurance, utilities, upgrading the resort, or enhancing amenities for the resort. They may also be used for employee wages. Put simply, the maintenance fees are what ensure that the property is in mint condition whenever you pop in for your vacation. A good analogy would be that of servicing a car to keep it running smoothly. Let us expound more on what you need to know about timeshare maintenance fees.

The Fees are not Fixed

Timeshare maintenance fees are not fixed. They differ from one resort to the next. They will tend to vary depending on the size and type of the resort property. The maintenance charges are usually divided among the different owners of a particular timeshare.

According to a report issued by the American Resort Development Authority in 2019, the average maintenance fee per interval was $1000 in 2018 although the amount people were charged was dependent on the size of the property. The report also showed that maintenance fees are on the rise.

Here are some of the factors that contribute to the increased maintenance fees are:

  • In some cases, the management fees can start on the lower side as a way to attract potential buyers. The timeshare resort then gradually increases the prices once more people have acquired timeshares. You could look at it as a form of an introductory discount to you.
  • The resort may have underestimated how much it would cost to run the property. They increase the fees to cover some costs that they may have failed to inculcate earlier.
  • In some instances, there is an element of greed; some may take advantage of the owners’ legal obligation to pay the maintenance fees.

Can you make money from timeshares?

Timeshares are not investments. They are certainly not something that you buy with the hope of making money from them. They are a product that you buy to use. Nevertheless, there are some avenues that you could employ to lighten the load of maintenance fees. One such thing is renting out the timeshare. With timeshares, there are times when you are not in a position to use them. What better way to offset the maintenance fees than rent it out? You could use an agency that will help you advertise, manage the guests and also process the transactions.

Do timeshare maintenance fees vary depending on the week and the season you have the timeshare for?

All the timeshare owners of property pay the same maintenance fees. The fees are then pooled together to cover all the necessary costs. The time or season in which you have bought the timeshare; be it a high demand season or a low demand season, is not a factor in how much you pay in maintenance fees. Your fees will always be similar to other timeshare owners of the same unit.

Timeshare Inheritance

After many beautiful and memorable vacations, you may be considering giving your kids the timeshare so that they can continue to make more memories. But in many cases, the kids or any other heirs are not willing to take on the responsibility of paying the maintenance fees. Your children may have very different lifestyles and therefore not want to inherit your timeshare and the associated maintenance fees. So, how do you ensure that you do not transfer the unwanted timeshare maintenance fees to them? Timeshare contracts normally have a perpetuity clause that states that the timeshare is only valid if the original owner is alive but once they are deceased, the timeshare will be passed to the deceased estate. This way, the inheritors of the estate will be liable for the annual maintenance fees.

This passes the financial burden to the inheritors of the deceased’s estate. In such a case, if the inheritors do not wish to take the responsibility of timeshare ownership, they could consider declining the timeshare inheritance. They could do this by sending a letter to the timeshare resort to notify them that the owner is deceased and will no longer be needing the timeshare. However, the estate is relieved of the timeshare liabilities only if all the pending maintenance fees are paid.

What Happens When You Can’t Afford to Pay the Maintenance Fees?

When you purchase a timeshare, you enter a legally binding contract in which you agree to pay the maintenance fees for the duration of the timeshare ownership. When you stop paying, you generally default on the ownership of the timeshare. You will not be able to use the vacation destination plus defaulting on maintenance fees could also damage your credit score. The timeshare company could also charge you late fees and interests. Some resorts also go the extra mile of taking timeshare owners to court to compel them to pay bills that are past due.

When the maintenance fees become cumbersome, your safest option is to forfeit responsibly.

You could gift the timeshare to a friend or family member if you can. You could also use the services of a well-established and trusted timeshare cancellation company to help you sell. You can look into the reviews covering top companies like Lonestar Transfer to evaluate if this is the right option for you. Take your time to check on the costs, services, and what other customers are saying. By forfeiting your timeshare responsibly, you will prevent legal and financial issues in the future.

Can Timeshare maintenance Fees be Claimed on Taxes?

Timeshare maintenance fees are generally not tax-deductible but there are some other costs you can write off. Talk to your accountant as there could be other elements of timeshare and tax options. There are elements such as interest expenses that you could claim.

Wrap up

In conclusion, it is vital to understand timeshare maintenance fees before you buy one. It will help you avoid getting stuck with a property that will bloat your finances. You should always seek legal help before you sign any timeshare contract. It is also good to seek help if you are looking for a timeshare exit.