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How You Can Save Your Business Money by Cutting Down on Paper

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StrategyDriven Tactical Execution ArticleIt may have escaped your notice, but UK businesses are gradually changing how they deal with the paper trail. Offices around the nation are looking at ways to reduce the need for paper mills to order pulp (which makes paper) that comes from the cutting of small trees and the remnants of harvesting larger ones. This way, forestry across the UK stays where it is, which looks more appealing and helps clean the air across the country too.

Here are a few ways that your business can reconsider how it manages its paper use and what options there might be.

Intentionally Going Thinner and Lighter

Just like with our waistlines, aiming for a lighter, thinner version is a good choice when it comes to paper usage in the office. It needs the cooperation of the office manager who handles paper orders from the photocopier right down to the little notepads to pull it off. Cutting down the environmental impact from your business’ paper use is as easy as cutting down the paper stock thickness to use less volume.

It’s also worth noting that paper which comes with a special coating over it, or has been treated to be reflective, also uses different types of thicker paper to achieve this result. The greater use of this kind of paper product is impactful too.

Lower Storage Costs for Paper Files

With the use of thinner paper stock, paper files that are necessary for businesses to keep on-hand are thinner. With each page being a lower GSM stock (as recommended above), files get thinner overall. Fewer metal storage cabinets are needed, and you need less space to store them and access them too. A filing clerk is no longer needed either when there’s fewer files to manage.

Think Before Printing Out

Pausing to consider whether a printout really needs to be produced is a great way to reduce paper usage. The mindless printing of multiple copies of a seldom accessed paper version is not helpful to reduce paper usage or the costs of it. Where copies are needed, consider printing on both sides and train staff on how to set up their software and printer to achieve this result. Alternatively, the company could look at tablets for teams to use and access digital versions of reports for reference purposes.

Paper copies fade over time and are a poor way to keep records in the wake of the complete digitisation of software. Set standards for employees where staff are rewarded for reducing paper usage, which cuts the environmental impact and office costs.

Fewer Photocopies

Taking fewer photocopies is another way to reduce costs both in paper usage and maintenance expenses for the photocopier machine. Distracting staff by having to monitor repair staff when they have to attend to fix a copier machine is a time suck. The greater the use of the photocopier, the more often it’s likely to run into trouble too.

There are always more ways to cut down on paper usage to save money. You can a look at the GoCanvas.com website to learn more about how much paper usage is costing your company and how you can set up your business to operate more efficiently and less expensively.

Going digital saves businesses money in many areas. They are no longer reliant on a paper trail for most activities and the company operates more smoothly as a result. It’s also easier to look up key information online when necessary because putting hands on the paper file is no longer needed.

Top 5 Ways to Improve Your Business

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship ArticleWhether you’re a small business owner looking for advice on how to boost your business, or a professional working for a large business wondering how to make an impact, understanding the different ways businesses can improve is important. There are a number of tips and tricks to do with marketing, sales and the more technical side to businesses that can aid growth, but in many cases, improving businesses can be much simpler than that. Here, we’re taking a closer look at the top five ways to improve your business.

Invest In Your Business

The best way to improve your business is simply to invest in it. You don’t need to have a huge budget in order to do this, and there are many low-cost ways that you can make a better working environment and a better business as a whole. For example, consider looking into sales or automating your marketing for an effective solution. If you do want to invest a little bit of cash, but don’t quite have it to hand, then consider taking out a loan from a bank or something similar to Wizzcash short term loans. This will give you a little helping hand to help you boost your business when you need it.

Set Goals

A simple way to improve your business is to know what you want to achieve, and work out how to achieve those set goals. This way, you know that your business is consistently striving towards something, meaning you will continue to improve your processes and work environment as you go.

Monitor Trends

Events around the world, no matter how big or small, could have an impact on your business. Staying up to date with your industry and even the current economic, social and political environments around you can help you to improve the way your business runs. Monitoring trends doesn’t have to be difficult either – just open your eyes and ears to your local community and this will be done for you.

Boost Employee Motivation

While getting the sales in and ensuring that all work is complete might be at the top of your list as a business owner in order to ensure that you are getting a profit, the best way to do this is through employee motivation. This is one of the most overlooked aspects of businesses, but generally, those who look after their employees will see their staff turnovers decline and see your business begin to boom. There are a number of ways that you can do this, such as regular staff events, rewarding hard-working employees, recognising achievements and encouraging personal and professional development.

Know Your Limits

One thing that many business owners tend to forget is their limits. As they are fuelled with the idea of success, they can quickly wear themselves out and hit bigger hurdles than they may have imagined along the way. Know your personal limits as a business owner, employ the right staff around you to help hold up their end of the business that they may be experts in, and manage your resources in a much better way, and your business will begin to fly.

Cashing In On Your Passion: Turning Your Blog Into a Business

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Blogging is now a huge deal in the online world, and it’s fair to say that readers can’t get enough of the ‘written by the people, for the people’ format. Their honest content and down to earth style is seen as a breath of fresh air after years of glossy magazines with airbrushed models and columns written by journalists. The companies of the world have tapped into just how influential bloggers can be, which gives aspiring writers and bloggers the opportunity to earn money doing something they love. Many have even been able to turn it into a well paying full-time career. If you’ve been blogging for a while but want to push it to the next level and start earning some cash with your passion, here are a few things to bear in mind.

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Look Into Ways To Monetize

You can monetise blogs in a number of ways. The first and most obvious is Google AdSense, it’s completely free to set up, and there’s no hassle involved. The ads sit in your blog’s sidebar, and you get a little bit of money every time someone clicks on one. The main issue here is that unless you have a very large following, it probably isn’t going to make you a millionaire (or even enough to pay the bills) however it’s a little bit of extra income that can gained with no additional effort from you. Getting as many views and traffic to your posts as you can will bump these earnings up, so good promotion is essential. This information on Search Engine Optimization from Ignite Digital states that harnessing the power of search engines is one of the best ways to gain traffic. Along with Adsense, there are other affiliate schemes which work similarly, so do some research and find out which would suit your blog best. You usually insert a banner ad or a link within the text of your posts which earn you money for clicks, or a percentage of any sales made. The main way bloggers earn the majority of their income is through sponsored posts. These usually offer a generous payment in return for a link or mention, the only problem is they can be unpredictable. Because you have to wait for companies to contact you, you will probably find that some months you get a lot of work and others are quieter. If you plan on quitting your day job, you could do some freelance writing work from home during these times. This is useful as the work is almost always there, and you can pick and choose how many projects you take on.

Pay Tax

Once you start to earn money as a blogger, you are classed as self-employed, meaning you will need to pay tax on your profits. The exact process you will go through all depends on the country you live in- but it’s something that you will have to do. As they say, only two things in life are certain- death and paying taxes! Keep good records, if you spend any money on your blog as a business such as investing in equipment these can be deducted when it comes to tax time. Self-assessment is usually quite simple to do yourself, but you can always hire an accountant if you’re unsure.

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Boost Your Domain Authority

Because blogging is competitive when it comes to sponsored opportunities, you need to do all you can to appeal to these companies. Domain authority is one way to go about this, this is a metric which can show how much influence your blog has online. Companies will want to work with influential sites, and so this is something you can work on. Getting backlinks from other good websites can boost this, you can do this by asking other bloggers if you can publish a guest post for them. Include a link back to your site at the end and you get a good backlink. Putting out high quality and regular content on your blog will also help with this.

Can You Look Professional Without Paying Professional Prices For Your Office?

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Many things have changed in the world of business, but a few things have stayed the same. Indeed, automation has taken over the scene like wildfire; each employee must be worth their weight in gold, the technology we use is incredibly fast, adaptive and able to do many things online which you once could only do in person. However, the look, feel and image a business headquarters projects, can make or break you. Offices around the world have been updating to keep up with the demand of modern employees who want the work environment to be fluid and encouraging. It’s also key that investors and potential partners get to view your office as a sign of trust and high standards. But how should one go about remodeling a business office? With a little common sense and understanding human behavior, your office can be redesigned to increase productivity and boost morale levels for a healthier work environment.

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Personalizing is the key

Think about it, when you’re at home and working in your office, you feel more inclined to go the extra mile. It’s because you feel right at home, and the room you’re in reflects your personality. The best office spaces aren’t merely functional and efficient; they also capture the spirit of the person and company work in them. If you have a mascot or perhaps your logo, hang it up in the main office area. It’s kind of like planting your flag, whereby your employees will subconsciously treat the work area with more respect. It shows they’re part of a team, and that this spot is theirs and everyone’s little corner of the world, each sharing a common goal. You might also find that having your company colors flourish throughout the office, such as the color of the chairs, computer screens, or even just the pens and pads, can have a positive effect of inclusion.

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Refurnish where you can

Nobody wants to live in a stale and pale environment, let alone work in one day after day. Renovate the office by buying chairs, tables, and desks. You may find that equipment leasing is the best option to quickly and affordably change the look of your office. You can lease some of the trendiest office furniture going around, with correct posture chairs, wide executive chairs for the boardroom, and nice wide tables, so employees don’t feel crowded at their workstations. Refurnish where you can, so if you see the sofa in the reception room getting worn out, replace it with something that’s more in tune with where your business is heading now. By updating the work environment to the current attitude of your company, you also show anyone who visits, that you’re mindful of how you present yourself to both customers and clients.

Artwork and plants

Don’t be afraid to buy plants to put in the corners of your office. Natural greens from vegetation have been proven to make for a better work habitat. Hang up painting you like, to inject a bit of art and creativity to the professional setting. Employees should feel as if they’re not being pressured by the dullness and brutalist approach of most modern commercial buildings.

When you’re looking for that professional image, you should also look for a good deal. Updating your office isn’t just about buying the latest equipment, it’s about cultivating a healthy and productive work environment.

Starting A Business? Utilising Experts Can Help!

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When you start your own business, you are putting yourself in a position of ‘jack of all trades’. As a one-man-band, you are effectively doing it all yourself until you get enough traction in your company to bring in more people to help you with your business growth. Not every business owner wants to handle every area of their business, and contrary to popular belief, this is okay! It’s not a failure to want to concentrate on your own strengths and to do this, you need to know where the experts are. Part of your business plan will include a portion on expansion and to be able to facilitate this, you need to be able to focus on the areas of your business that are strengths for you. It’s not a bad thing to know your weaknesses as a business owner, but if you don’t own those weaknesses from the beginning you could find yourself drowning before you’ve even begun.

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The best way to ensure that your company doesn’t fall at the first hurdle is to explore outsourcing. Most entrepreneurs are aware that they have a plethora of talents, if they didn’t they wouldn’t have what is required to get a business off the ground. However, this doesn’t mean that you have every single tool at your disposal to make your company a success. You may not be at the point yet where your company is ready to expand, but that doesn’t mean you won’t have the budget to pay the experts to help you! The hard work of starting a business doesn’t end with a successful launch, it only starts at that point. Not being able to do it all in your company means you need to know where to look to find help. There are many pieces of a business that get outsourced, and the most common are IT, marketing and human resources. If you aren’t aware of how you can outsource, you can read this more in-depth article for more information.

When you start a business, you have to take in as much advice as possible so that you can be a success. Business growth starts with asking for help and it’s that help that can keep your business afloat. When you get advised to outsource some of your business processes, you can feel like some of your company is being taken off of you. Taking steps toward outsourcing can be a long process while you decide how to manage your business. As a progressive entrepreneur, playing to your strengths is the smartest business strategy you can implement. The thing is, to be able to concentrate on your strengths you have to allow outsourcing to happen.

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Knowing when you should outsource your daily, time-consuming activities is difficult. If you have a team in-house who are ready to take on the work, timing your outsourcing will centre around you and your staff being unable to continue with the workload. You want your business to grow, but if you have no time left in the day to pursue the growth, then consider outsourcing. You don’t need to have absolute control over everything in your business, so read this article here and learn how to delegate tasks effectively. There is a lot of advice online that can tell you when the optimal times to outsource is, but popular advice says that outsourcing from the very beginning is the best idea. You could start by outsourcing your payroll processes to an external accountant or finance company, and grow into other ventures from there.

We mentioned earlier that IT, human resources and marketing are the most common business elements that are outsourced and the chances are you are already outsourcing your finances. Any task in your business that you haven’t got the time to dedicate your attention to can be outsourced. Using a digital marketing agency to handle your campaigns instead of managing them yourself can be hugely beneficial and money very well spent. Marketing is such a big deal for businesses, as you have the choice of print marketing, digital marketing, email marketing and mobile marketing at your fingertips. You need to spend time on business growth and all of these marketing elements are going to be a big part of that growth. If you hand over your marketing campaigns to an outside company, you end up with a whole team of people working for you that you have allocated your budget to. The beauty of this is that you are not going to be the one to manage personalities, salaries or ego as you have taken that outside of your office. All you have to do is approve the campaigns that your outsourced marketing team comes up with.

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When you are choosing which areas of your business you should outsource, you should ensure that you are doing it for the right reasons. Your area of expertise may not lie in data management and analysis, nor would it lie with data protection, so outsourcing your IT services to a company that specialise in those areas is a smart decision to make. Business management is all about knowing where your strengths lie and capitalising on those. You can pay outside companies to be strong in the areas that you are not and this is something very important to remember. Finding the right IT companies, HR companies and marketing companies to work on your behalf is rather like interviewing individual staff. You have to know your long-term aims and goals before you can go ahead and sift through the many businesses that offer those services.

The key to finding the right businesses to work with will come from recommendations, reviews and personal experiences of those in the same niche of business that you are in. If a trusted mentor tells you to use a particular company because of their efficiency and value for money, it’s worth looking into. It doesn’t necessarily mean they will be the right company for you, but it’s always good to trust the word of someone you know. Once you’ve found the right providers for the work you need, it’s time to check and recheck references and draw up contracts. You must be sure to effectively communicate your expectations to the companies that you want to outsource to. What you have in mind may be completely different to what a new, trendy company has in mind. You have to be clear about the service you want to pay for and as time goes on, a relationship can be built. It isn’t easy to let go of control of parts of your company that you have grown and nurtured, but the only way to keep that vision successful is to trust that there are people out there who have more expertise than you do.

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The last thing you need to do as a business owner is let go. The control that you have to hand over is not simple, but the collaboration of working with other companies can open so many more doors for you. You need experts on your side in all fields to be able to be a success, and it’s less about the logic and more about the mindset behind it. You may be the only person who knows exactly what your business needs, but it takes a village to achieve that vision with you. There’s no need to run everything yourself when as a team, you can get your business to the heights you’d like it to be.