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Which Firefighting Job Should You Choose?

StrategyDriven Professional Development Article | Which Firefighting Job Should You Choose?Firefighting can be an exhilarating career, filled with plenty of opportunities for advancement. There are many different jobs available in a fire department and knowing which one best suits you can help you determine what courses you’d like to pursue during training.

Investigator

Investigators do what the name suggests, investigate the probable cause of a fire. An investigator has typically undergone police training as well as receiving their firefighter certification Texas. If you like detective work and want to keep your fellow firefighters safe, this job may be for you.

Fire Marshal and Deputy Fire Marshal

The fire marshal assesses situations and examines buildings for potential danger. They head up the Fire Prevention Bureau to keep their town and citizens safe. The deputy fire marshal works closely with the fire marshal and sends teams to inspect new buildings to make sure they’re up to code.

Engineer

The engineers on the team are trained to drive the various types of fire engines. They’re also responsible for providing water, maneuvering ladders and setting up equipment.

HazMat

These firefighters are trained in how to handle hazardous materials. If chemicals are involved in a fire, these technicians have the proper equipment and training to handle it safely.

Paramedic

Most firefighters must have a basic EMT certification to help them respond to medical emergencies on the scene. The paramedics have more advanced training and are sent in to cover the most severe medical cases.

Airport Fire Rescue

Firefighters need to be specially trained to fight fires that arise at the airport or on an airplane. Airport fire trucks have special equipment designed to respond well to this location as they need speed, high water-capacity and off-roading capability.

Captain

Once you’ve been in the firefighting work force for a significant amount of time, you have the chance to be promoted to captain. As the captain, you’re in charge of the fire station and you’re responsible for the other firefighters on your team.

Chief

The next step above fire captain is fire chief. They have similar responsibilities as the captain, but farther reaching. Instead of being responsible for one station of firefighters, they are usually in charge of multiple stations.

As you can see, a firefighting career can be diverse and fulfilling. With so many specialty training options, you’ll be able to tailor your career to your strengths. This will allow you to advance quickly through the firefighting ranks.

How To Regain Or Maximize A Market Position

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article |Market Position|How To Regain Or Maximize A Market PositionAs the world begins to get used to no longer living a normal routine-like life, every business has to change how they operate. If you read Forbes or Fortune 500, you will have seen quite a few articles, spelling out the new business world that we are in now. The spread of Covid-19 and the subsequent lockdowns around the world, has shifted how we work, how we think about business and consumerism, and most importantly, who our customers really are. Local SEO has become the highest priority of all, as supply chains and logistics have been massively disrupted and in some cases, halted altogether. Market share and thus positioning has become paramount, as those that fall by the wayside, leave openings to be filled. But just how do you regain lost ground or perhaps, capitalize on a hole in the market?

Stay relevant through blogging

Business blogs are the main way brands stay relevant in today’s fast-paced social media environment. Your content strategy is perhaps the single-most-important part of your market-hold or market-expansion campaign. Writing engaging content doesn’t come naturally to some, and thus business leaders should seriously consider outsourcing in this regard. Working with a trusted digital marketing agency that has a successful content marketing service makes perfect sense. They have a number of options in terms of a content type. They will create good blog posts that have sound SEO techniques, such as in-bound links, off-site links, authoritative linking, keyword and key phrase research and implementation, etc. They will also use expressive imagery, infographics, statistical reports, and educational videos.

Mixing up the content and giving viewers something new every time they click on your posts or links, keeps consumers coming back. They do so for a number of reasons.

  • They see your brand as an educational outlet. They learn something new about the products they like when reading your blog posts.
  • They feel part of something moving, happening and being part of the scene.
  • The visuals are entertaining, and they help them understand your brand.

Dog eat dog

Sadly many companies won’t have made it through 2020 and although this is unfortunate, it’s an opportunity for you. It’s a dog eat dog world, and those that survive do so because they are efficiently ruthless in their acquisition of other companies. Snapping up competitors is highly advised if you can afford it. Sometimes the best way to slay the competition is to simply buy them out and merge them into your brand or perhaps, make them a sister company. Capitalizing on today’s economic uncertainty and utter disarray is going to help you to stabilize your own business’s position in the market.

  • List your competitors and see who is failing.
  • Once you have this list, go through and select which of those companies, you would like to buy the most.
  • Do a little research and find out, which of your rivals are near insolvency and collapse.
  • Make a list of those that are and begin to contact them with the proposition to buying them out.
  • If they agree to talks, start the ball rolling by setting up an initial feel-out meeting.

Be more flexible

One way to regain your position in the market, is to just out-work the competition. Be more flexible in your working hours and allow employees to work longer hours while offering them more wriggle room in the pattern of hours they work. If some employees can work longer hours but they prefer to work at 12am to 9pm, instead of 9 to 5, they should be accommodated for.

It’s most likely, your workforce is largely operating from home anyway. So remote working should be recognized for the benefits it provides.

  • Do tasks need to be completed in unison? In other words, since employees no longer have to rely on colleagues to complete tasks at the same exact time, as you would in the office, could teams work at different times? Maybe your marketing team could work 9 to 5, but your sales team could operate from 5 to 12pm?
  • Could you offer employees time to work on the weekend instead of the weekdays? Maybe one team could work Tuesday to Sunday and another team, the usual 5 working days.

By working longer hours, working on the weekends, you will effectively have a business that doesn’t stop. Normally, the world of work begins on Monday and ends on Friday. Since you have a more flexible approach, there is constant progression of tasks and projects are continually being pushed forward, 7 days a week.

New product

When you need to penetrate into a new market or perhaps maximize your market position, making a new product is always a strong idea. It’s important to contemplate creating a brand new product instead of making a new iteration of an existing product because you want to show your customers and indeed the industry that you are innovating. Innovating companies always stand more chance of retaining loyal customers because they are offering something new. Customers who are loyal, want their favorite brands to make new products in the same sort of style they have become accustomed to.

  • It’s best to shoot for a short timeline to capitalize on a gap in the market. Or, you could release a marketing blitz campaign about your new product. Companies like Samsung do this because they want to wet the appetite of the markets well ahead of time. They release a trailer for a new phone that will take another 12-14 months to release.
  • Allow customers to get in on the product’s nature. Run a social media campaign, giving them multiple choice questions in the form of polls. They’ll feel directly involved in your business and thus, they will encourage the expansion. This confidence will filter out into the markets, and benefits such as increased investor appeal, may be your reward.

The pandemic has brought many companies to their knees and some have ultimately collapsed. Market share and position is thus, the number one urgency for brands around the world. These ideas have been proven to be successful in similar circumstances in the past, so you should consider the benefits they could bring for your business.

4 Guidelines for Starting Your Own Business

StrategyDriven Starting Your Business Article | 4 Guidelines for Starting Your Own BusinessStarting your own business is a complex process that requires careful planning and important financial decisions. Here are a few steps to guide you through your journey and help get your business off the ground.

Reanalyze Your Idea

If you’re interested in starting your own business, you probably already have an idea of what you want to market. However, you’ll need to reanalyze your idea to ensure that it’ll offer something original to the public. Asking yourself questions such as, “Is there a need for this product?” and “Is this product innovative?” will help you determine whether your idea has the capacity to succeed.

Create a Business Plan

Once you’ve decided that your idea has what it takes, you’ll need to draft a business plan to take your business to the next level. Your business plan serves as a roadmap that details the various stages of development, ranging from start-up to eventual advancement. Mapping out your business plan can be a complicated process, so don’t be afraid to reach out for help if you need it. A business coach near me can identify your business’ strengths and weaknesses, instill a sense of professional confidence and ultimately help you reach your goals.

Create a Financial Plan

Starting a business requires an initial investment before you can make a profit. Some of the costs you’ll have to cover include insurance, licenses, rent and utilities. One of the main reasons why small businesses fail early on is because they run out of money before earning a profit. Therefore, creating a financial plan can help you map out how much money you’ll need to launch your business and ensure that you have enough to keep things running smoothly for at least the first year.

Choose a Business Structure

There are four main types of business structures: sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation and limited liability company. A sole proprietorship is the most popular structure, in which you are the only person who owns and runs your business. In contrast, a partnership consists of two or more individuals. A corporation is owned by its shareholders, not individuals, and you won’t be personally held liable for your business’ debts. A limited liability company is similar to a corporation in terms of its protections, but it allows for similar tax benefits as a partnership. It’s important to educate yourself on the various business structures to ensure that you choose the best one for your business.

If your business doesn’t achieve success as quickly as you’d like, don’t be disheartened. Although starting your own business can seem overwhelming at first, following these steps will help you on the path to success.

5 Things Your Business Needs To Focus On In 2021

StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |Business 2021|5 Things Your Business Needs To Focus On In 2021For anyone glancing back over 2019’s plans for 2020, it will become glaringly obvious that flexibility and survival were always going to come naturally for some companies, but for other companies, the very need to survive wasn’t even a consideration.

A Big Learning Curve

If 2020 has taught businesses anything, it’s that you need to be ready to be adaptable and that trusting our employees to work with you rather than against you is vital to the survival of any business -both large and small.

Here are five things that your business needs to be doing in 2021 to weather the storms to come over the next year and, hopefully, set yourself up in a better position to weather any storms in the medium and long-term future too.

Improve Your Website

The switch to online has accelerated in the last 12 months, and any business still relying on that ‘good old fashioned handshake’ to survive is being and will be left out in the cold.

Investing in your website now will improve your chances of survival, employ some professional web development services, and get involved to make sure your website works for your business as well as your customers or clients.

A Resilient Marketing Plan

All marketing strategies for 2020 went down the pan by about March time, and, as shown by the Keep Calm and Travel On campaigns, marketing had to adapt and change within days along with the changing guidelines issues by every country.

In 2021, as a vaccine is rolling out for a lot of the world’s major economies, your marketing department will need to be working overtime to keep up, so keep your marketing plan flexible and resilient, and don’t be afraid to pull campaigns at the last minute if needs be.

A Strong Remote Working Policy

Remote working and working from home has been popular for a few years, but in 2020 that took on a whole new look when hundreds of thousands of workers were forced to take their office home with them.

There’s not much you can do aside from going with the flow, but putting in some strong policies around expectations can help employees feel connected without feeling like they’re being micromanaged and monitored every five seconds of the day.

The Ability To Be Flexible

Flexibility is likely to be the new buzzword of 2021, and for a good reason.

With rolling lockdowns and changing restrictions coming every few weeks, you will need to now an incredible amount of flexibility around employees, time off, and working allowances to keep things going. Still, flexibility isn’t all bad and some employees, especially working dads, may be thriving in this new working atmosphere.

Focus on Talent Acquisition

While many companies will be considering sweeping redundancies in 2021, it’s important not to lose sight of talent acquisition.

If you can find new employees to cover the skillset that would normally take two or three employees, now might be the time to invest in better talent over just more talent.

Quality over quantity.

Four Tips for Creating Your Team’s Rescue Plan

StrategyDriven Risk Management Article |Rescue Plan|Four Tips for Creating Your Team’s Rescue PlanIf you have been given the ultimate task of creating new or developing existing rescue plans, this article is for you. Whether you’ll be the one supervising the site and rescue plan if it’s required, you’ll need to find some innovative ideas to keep your team safe and happy. Having a coherent and appropriate rescue plan will allow your team to have the utmost confidence in you whilst doing their job.

Rescue plans can truly be the crux between life and death, so it is, therefore your responsibility to ensure your plan is kept up to date with plentiful information. It is also your obligation to formulate the plan alongside the guidelines within your state and remember that you cannot simply rely on emergency services when you’re in a time crunch. Here are four ways you could maximise the efficiency and coherency of your rescue plan with thorough preparation.

Safe Equipment

While creating the rescue plan, you must consider the potential hazards of your site and make sure that all safety equipment is safe and ready for use. Safety equipment should be suitable for the job, and there should be enough for everyone on site. It is crucial to ensure that all employees working on site have full access to Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), so everyone has the same opportunity at staying safe on the job. Even if the site may not contain potentially hazardous conditions, if you have to create a rescue plan, PPE is definitely required. All workers should be fully visible in all conditions and therefore require some form of high visibility clothing. They should all have correctly fitting hard hats alongside suitable eye, hand and foot protection. All of these points might seem like gospel, but they are essential at all times on site. So, a reminder doesn’t hurt.

Work Tents

As important as PPE, other forms of site protection should include work tents. It’s important to consider the weather conditions on-site when working, but you should also always plan for the unexpected. Work tents are a great form of emergency protection, acting as a quick fix when required. They can shield from a storm and also act as a method of shade for heat relief. If your rescue team have to maintain focus for long periods, bad or even dangerous weather conditions can fuel the initial problem and make it more difficult to conduct the rescue mission in turn. There are plenty of work tents to choose from, including variability in size, shape and colour. Find a provider that offers a wide range of products, so that you can explore a selection, such as Pelsue. The firm has a range of work tents, and you can explore Pelsue’s products here. Work tents have a multi-purpose function which allows you to join tents both together and to cars by having interlocking flaps. Most tents also have a pop-up feature which is useful when in a rush. As you can tell, innovative tents are essential for a rescue plan.

Prepare a Rescue Team

The core feature of your rescue plan should be a rescue team. Make sure each person in the team know exactly what their role is and when their service might be required in a rescue mission. It’s also important to make them aware of where they can access the potential items required to conduct the rescue appropriately and efficiently. Experts suggest that your rescue team should consist of people who can keep calm under pressure and who are confident enough to continue with the rescue mission if required. You should also ensure that there is a competent and approachable person with effective first aid and rescue material experience. This way, that if a rescue mission is required, everything goes as smoothly as possible.

Keep Everyone in the Loop

It is essential that you let the rest of the team observe these rescue drills. A word of warning about the potential hazards before each working day will prevent high stress among the team. Make them aware of potential hazards on site for peace of mind. While giving them this awareness, allow all team members to ask questions so a full brief is conducted. This will help increase their awareness on-site and become familiar with any potential rescue plans. If the team are in the loop and aware of any potential mistakes and mishaps that can occur, each individual is more likely to know what to do if a rescue mission takes place.

Final Word

It is now up to you to create your rescue plan as efficiently as possible. Make sure you have a rescue team and staff who have a constant awareness of potential hazards. Ensure that you brief team leaders and supervisors about your concerns. It may seem like general knowledge, but make sure that your team have good PPE as well as work tents ready for use on-site.