Author: Pamela Swift

Categories
Home-Based Business

Home Office Ideas to Help Your Business Thrive

Many entrepreneurs have opted for the opportunity to take their business home and work from the privacy of their own house. Although it might seem complicated, there are various home office ideas that will help your business thrive. In addition, businesses that are organized and run from a home office have a lot of promise. The success of the business itself relies on the resourcefulness and motivation of its entrepreneur.

Write down a strategic plan to carry out your business ideas.

Throughout this article, we will discuss numerous simple, yet beneficial tips, in order to help your business reach new levels of success.

Help Your Business Thrive: Home Office Edition

The importance of a plan ahead-of-time could not be emphasized more. As an entrepreneur, you might think that business from a home office could save you money. Moreover, you are thinking no inventory space, no additional rental costs for your office space, no employees to pay. Furthermore, this might just be the fastest way to profit. This could be true if tactical strategies are put in place and your plan has a solid structure.

Whether you are just starting your entrepreneurial career at home, or are transferring your already existing business, the plan and organization should be the same. Transferring or moving your existing business might even be tougher as you will have to adjust old habits to new ones. However, it is all achievable and there is an opportunity for both personal and professional levels of success.

Help Your Business Kick Off the Right Way

Let’s review what we have learned so far! First things first: put a plan together. What should this plan consist of?

The following topics and categories should lead your plan and in return help your business to have a great start and maintain that level:

  • Product focus (choose ‘the’ product to start with, as with choosing just one at the beginning, you can provide the necessary attention it will need)
  • Add variety to your product (mini or side product additions in order to enhance the shoppers’ experience)
  • Customer appreciation (organize deals and sales for your returning customers)
  • Go digital (personal website for your business and advertising via social media)
  • Collaborate with other brands/companies
  • Expand your target audience (maybe your product could be modified into multiple versions of itself, therefore becoming more appealing to a wider audience)

Home Business 101

Tactical thinking for business growth is essential.

When starting a business at home, you should firstly have a product in mind. Our advice is to stick with one product to begin with, allowing you to give it the attention it requires. By focusing on one product, it will be simpler to carry out strategies into the development, presentation, and advertising of the same.

It’s the 21st century and the age of technology, therefore it is essential to go digital. As you run your business from your home office, the idea is to reach customers on a global level. What better way to do so than by creating and running a website from home! Your business website will thoroughly explain your product and mission, and customers can make purchases via this platform. In addition, reach a wider audience by expanding your business through social media channels.

Also, make your product stand out by adding shopping variety for your customers. A good way to gain more traction on your website is to have something different and new to offer to customers. Everyone loves a good deal and a sale, therefore try to come up with coupons that will offer value for the customers’ money. In addition, enhance their shopping experience by adding a mini product besides the original. The busier the traffic on your website, the higher your profit in general.

Creative Elaboration

As many businesses run online today, collaborations are very much in. Partnering up with another brand or product could bring their customers over to you. Collaborating with others also enhances your reach, and gives you a fresh, limited edition perspective and view. Thus, stay creative!

Finally, think about your target audience. Perhaps there is room to expand on this. Evaluate your original plan and analyze your product. This could wake up a new idea where you could create multiple versions of the same product to appeal to a larger demographic.

Home Office

Now that we have discussed the necessary home-office-behind-the-monitor tips to help your business thrive, let’s chat about your home-work space. As crucial as it is to know what you are doing on your laptop when starting your business, the space you work in is just as important. A business thrives as much as the atmosphere and its surroundings allow it to. Therefore, your home office design should radiate positive energy, efficiency, and creative vibes.

Create a workspace that you like spending time in.

Having a separate office space within your home is essential. Designate a room in your house where you will conduct your business. It will not only aid in the organization and professionalism of your business but will help you amp up your strengths as an entrepreneur. Once you enter your workspace, you will be able to take yourself out of the home equation and into work mode. When you thrive, your business thrives.

Moreover, ensure that you have everything you need to run your business in your home office. Having the necessary tools around you will help you maintain your daily drive and focus.

Thriving Business from A Home Office

Take the important steps in order to thrive in the long run.

If you are now reading this conclusion of today’s topic, then you already have the necessary tips that you may implement into your daily business. Before we summarize all the important information we discussed today, our last tip is for our veteran entrepreneurs who are moving their business from a work office to their home office. Changing the space you work at and transferring everything you need is already a big task on its own.

Begin with a solid plan, and you are that much closer to helping your business thrive from a home office. Focus your ideas on the technological aspects and create a space where your goals can prosper. Success will follow.

 

Author’s Bio:

Perry Jones has been a freelance writer for a little over a decade now. Throughout the years, he has enjoyed writing about travel, home design, and décor, moving from country to the next, etc. For the past 2 years, he has been a frequent writer for movingmurdy.com. When he is not writing about the latest top cities to visit, or how to decorate your backyard, Perry gives you successful tips about everything and anything on moving.

Categories
Branding

What exactly is “Competitive Brand Analysis”?

Article by Laura McLoughlin, Glaze Digital

Competitive brand analysis is a method of identifying your direct competitors and ascertaining their marketing strategies while pinpointing their strengths and weaknesses. This may sound like quite a grind, but with the wonders of Facebook, it is a relatively straightforward task! 

Facebook has been with us for a while now but it still remains the first point of contact for marketers aiming to extract audience data and valuable insights. So the aim of this guide is to explain the key elements you need to research in relation to your competitors’ tactics on Facebook and how you can use these to analyse your competitors brand performance.

The four key elements of Facebook marketing are:

Engagement

Engagement is an action someone takes on your Facebook Page or one of your posts, the most common being likes, comments, and shares, but it can also include checking in to your location or tagging your business in a post. These actions matters because they can help extend organic reach. Engagement helps boost your placing in a users news feed by the Facebook algorithm plus likes/shares expose your posts to your audience’s extended network.

Reach: Reach is the number of people that content is seen by on Facebook. This can be by either organic or paid efforts. You can see an overview of the reach by going to your page insights, and if you want more details, you can click on the Reach tab.

Average engagement rate per post: This metric represents the sum of likes, comments and shares on a specific post divided by the number of total posts divided by 100.

Page growth: Although is considered a vanity metric, it shows you how far your content can reach audiences on Facebook, and it helps you create custom audiences for ads campaigns.

There are many tools available that allow you to input this information and produce a report, but as an entrepreneur and small business owner, you may be operating on a limited budget, so for now, tracking the data manually is perfectly suitable.

Here are the key factors to analyse when trying to understand a competitor’s Facebook content strategy:

What type of posts are they publishing?

Figure out the nature of posts they usually share and how is it working well for their brand image.

Which media are they using the most?

What is the ratio of text, photos, videos and links in the content they are sharing on their fan page? If one content format is performing better, take a note of it.

What time do they usually post?

Most brands share content during peak traffic hours. See if that’s the case or they post at regular intervals outside of peak hours.

How frequently are they posting?

Do they share content more than once a day or is it just a few times a week? This tells you how active they are on Facebook.

Which posts receive the most engagement?

It’s not uncommon for digital marketers to run engagement ads on Facebook to “boost” their posts and gather look-alike audiences. This is why it becomes important to check what’s the ratio of their boosted posts vs non-boosted posts and which ones perform better for their audience (and why).

The key points to measure in Facebook engagement, are how well the fans are interacting with the posts your competitors share on their fan page are likes, shares, and comments. If the number of times a post has been shared is high, it’s quite likely that their audience is loving what they post and likes to share it with their friends.

Even though comments are not a direct factor to demonstrate the likeability of a piece of content, it’s still an important factor to consider if the brand does interact with their audience on a regular basis. It also tells how involved the fans are with the brand’s image and fan page and how comfortable they are in sharing their comments with the public. If the brand is paying attention to what their fans are saying, they are most likely working with a sound social media strategy.

So, once you notice their traits and behaviours on their fan page, you can almost replicate that for your audience if you are in the same niche.

As an entrepreneur and business owner it is essential to figure out what other businesses in your niche are doing on social media, it can help you not just brainstorm ideas for your own social content, but it can also give you an insight into the current habits of the audience your business needs to target. It is the most essential step in defining your overall digital marketing strategy, as it can help avoid making the same mistakes your competition may be making putting you ahead of the game.

Categories
Entrepreneurs

Unbundling the Timothy Sykes Scam Debate Among Penny Traders

The penny stock trading market is typically a zero-sum game. It’s highly speculative nature often yields a situation where every trading gain is correlated with a trading loss by a counterparty. Many people find it hard to believe that you can trade penny stocks profitably and consistently. This negativity is a stock-in-trade (pun intended) among traditional stock traders on Wall Street who tend to look down on people trading penny stocks as speculative gamblers.

This piece outlines my personal experience with Timothy Sykes, one of the top penny stock traders and entrepreneurs in the market. I’ll deliver my opinion on whether Timothy Sykes is a scam or legitimate based on my research and experience after signing up for his training programs.

Here’s why the Timothy Sykes scam stories can’t seem to end

There’s a vocally negative sentiment about penny stock on Wall Street. The negative sentiment of Wall Street also seems to be confirmed by a report from the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis (DERA) of the SEC, which suggests that a sample of over 10,000 OTC stocks from 2001 to 2010 returned an average and median annual returns of –27% and –37% respectively. Hence, many people steeped in traditional stock investing will have a hard time believing that anyone can trade penny stocks profitably.

Secondly, Timothy Sykes maintains a lavish lifestyle that contrasts with the rather conservative lifestyle of traditional Wall Street traders. A cardinal rule on Wall Street is the important rule of preservation of capital; hence, Wall Street veterans tend to be mostly risk-averse even though some of them might make a show of being aggressive in their risk-to-return calculations. Timothy lives a successful lifestyle and he has no inhibitions about showing off his fast cars, posh mansions, and sometimes, wads of cash. Many people are averse to public displays of wealth and they tend to think that people with such a lavish lifestyle can’t have earned their money through “hard work”.

Timothy Sykes; Scam or Legitimate? Here’s what I found out

I started trading penny stocks earlier this year and it was an unpleasant experience. It’s either I bought a trending stock, only for it to start crashing the next day or I sold a seemingly dead stock only for it to start rallying. I never did figure out exactly how to apply the “buy low, sell high principle”. I was mostly buying high because I read news about how the stock has made double-digit gains and then being forced to sell low after the price starts falling uncontrollably.

After losing almost half of my initial trading capital, I figured I needed help, and that was how my search led me to Timothy Sykes’ penny stock trading program. Timothy Sykes’ deserves a place in the penny stock trading hall of fame for turning his $12,415 Bar Mitzvah gift money into a multimillion-dollar penny stock trading empire.

Now, Timothy Sykes spends most of his time teaching other people how to succeed as penny stock traders. I was initially skeptical of Tim, but the more I dug into his videos available on YouTube, the more I was convinced that I owed it to myself to give it a trial. Tim offers three levels of stock trading education namely; Tim’s Alert, Pennystocking, and Tim’s Challenge via Profitly.

Tim’s Alert

Tim’s Alert was the cheapest option – it has a price tag of $74.95 per month and there’s a 24% discount if you sign up for the annual plan. Tim’s Alert gives users daily access to the chatroom where you can follow the trading commentaries of Tim and other experienced traders. Subscribers also get a daily watchlist of 5 to 10 stocks – the watchlist is especially important in helping to narrow your focus instead of being paralyzed by the paradox of choice over thousands of stocks. A Tim’s Alert subscription also gives you realtime ProfitDing Trade Alerts that could nudge you about the timing of your trading decisions.

Pennystocking Silver

I upgraded my membership to Pennystocking Silver after using Tim’s Alerts for one month. While Tim’s Alert gives you information about what Tim is doing with penny stocks, Pennystocking Silver educates you. Pennystocking Silver is designed to teach you how to identify winning stocks, set up a trading strategy, conduct technical analysis, and ultimately to make informed trading decisions. Pennystocking Silver costs $149.95 per month and the annual plan delivers a 28% discount. Pennystocking Silver membership gives access to all the features of Tim’s Alerts.

Also, you’ll access a video lesson library with more than 6000 videos. You’ll also benefit from weekly video lessons that Tim holds to share his thoughts on individual stocks and the general market.

Tim’s Challenge

Tim’s Challenge offers a more immersive learning experience with Timothy Sykes. The Challenge is also called Millionaire’s Challenge and it is designed to take you through a journey that will set you on the path to becoming one of Tim’s success stories. Some of Tim’s past students have crossed the $1 million thresholds, Tim Gritanni is widely celebrated for turning $1,500 into $1 million within three years all thanks to Tim’s tutelage.

Interestingly, some of Tim’s students have gone on to set career trading performances that beat Tim’s record as seen in the leaderboard above. Tim’s Challenge will give you exclusive access to the Millionaire’s Chatroom where you can have realtime conversations with Timothy Sykes, other students, and other gurus. You’ll also get a curated intro course of 60 specially selected videos, access to video lessons, and regular webinars.

Tim’s Challenge is an intensive program in which you’ll be forced to become a disciplined trader. However, if you are willing to put in the required hard work, you’ll find out that you’ll become much better at spotting trading opportunities and acting decisively.

Summary

Is Timothy Sykes a scam or a legitimate trading coach? The answer based on my experience is a solid YES, he is a legitimate coach. If you still have reasons to think otherwise, the best course of action would be to sign up for his programs to find out for yourself. Tim’s Alert is a good starting point at $74.95 per month. More importantly, though, you need to understand that penny stock trading is not a get rich scheme, contrary to what some gurus might want you to think. Your trading success is dependent on the size of your initial trading capital, the kind of risks you are willing to take, your skills in creating an informed trading strategy, and your ability to stick to your strategy when entering and exiting trades.

Categories
Recommendations

Bay Area Trends: Property Market Facts and Figures

New trends have appeared in the San Francisco Bay Area. With rising employment across Silicon Valley and surrounds, demand for housing is strong and supply remains a concern. The business, government, and local developers are working hard to provide feasible solutions for the Bay Area. We sat down with one such developer, Danny Haber – the co-founder and CEO of oWOW. We quizzed him about the latest developments in the Bay Area and how his company is working to turn things around.

Question: For those who don’t know can you please give us an update of the latest market trends taking place in the Bay Area?

Answer: ‘Absolutely! As you and your readers are likely aware, the Bay Area has been characterized by a unique set of challenges, notably strong demand and minimal supply. The issue is further compounded by several other challenges such as rising rental prices and high real estate prices. What most people probably don’t know is why this situation currently exists. In the aftermath of the global financial crisis in 2008/2009, the Silicon Valley rebound was phenomenal. This was especially true in 2013, 2014, and 2015. Strong growth in the high-tech sector has facilitated robust demand in the housing market. Regulations and zoning requirements make it difficult for developers to set up multilevel apartment complexes in busy urban enclaves near transportation hubs, and commercial activity. 

Entrenched systems such as Proposition 13 (a state law that strictly limits property tax increases every year) and lack of political will to expedite new home construction and development are but a few of the issues that we have to contend with. Now, there have been some changes between 2018 and 2019, notably falling prices in and around San Jose and San Francisco. This comes as quite a surprise. In November 2019, the number of new listings year-on-year declined. In fact, San Jose’s metro area was characterized by 22.2% fewer listings year-on-year. Notable in the real estate market is the San Francisco/Oakland/Hayward area which now has 17% fewer listings year-on-year. All of this tells us that big changes are afoot and developers need to focus on real-time market realities.’

Question: How does your company fit into the mix?

Answer: ‘oWOW is a small, dynamic, and vertically-integrated real estate development company. We like to think of ourselves as game changers in terms of how we approach the housing crisis in the Bay Area. We’ve identified many opportunities in the market, notably in communities where abandoned buildings, dilapidated buildings, or buildings that simply don’t live up to code exist. We get permission from the authorities to go in and renovate, remodel, and redesign these buildings to make them safe, affordable and enticing to tenants. We focus our energy on a niche section of the market – the middle-income earners. These are the forgotten folks in the greater Bay Area, and it’s surprising as they form the bulk of the economy. By coming in well below market price, we can confidently cater to this section of the market with luxurious apartments. 

The techniques that we employ are different to the norm. We look at the living space in an apartment and say to ourselves how can we make this better for the tenants. When there is a one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment, we get our design teams to come up with exciting solutions to make all of this work. We can transform single bedroom apartments into multi-bedroom apartments for our tenants. Thanks to these MacroUnits, we are able to fulfil expectations with high-class living at cut rate prices. There are several examples of our big projects on the market, including 960 Howard Street, 674 23rd Street, 316 12th Street, and 1919 Market Street. These are affordable spaces where people can live and work in these apartments as they see fit. The price point that we generate is super. Since entrepreneurs can start their businesses from home, this is a dynamic way to live, and the business aspect allows people to pay their rent. The mix of tenants is pretty remarkable, with business owners, educators, and employees of SMBs at all levels.’

Question: Why do you think prices are still so high in the Bay Area and how can developers like yourself change this?

Answer: ‘I think that it really boils down to a standard economic issue: supply and demand. There isn’t enough supply and there is way too much demand. Even though the trends indicate that prices are falling, they are still significantly higher than the national average. San Francisco’s Bay Area is a hot property market, and it has been for many years. Consider that the median listing price for a home in San Jose is $1.1 million, and in the San Francisco area the median price is $1,352,300. You would have to earn over $300,000 minimum to qualify for property ownership in these enclaves. Our big projects are certainly affordable, and we cater to that section of the market that isn’t necessarily a top gun at a Silicon Valley company. 

We combine development, design, and construction so that we can get our modular units to market to power the housing revolution. You may have read about a 640 ft.² shack in San Francisco on the market for around $2 million. These are the types of things that we are certainly working to avoid. All of our work is starting to pay dividends, and thanks to the big investments by major tech companies like Apple, Google, Cisco, Microsoft, Facebook and the like, much more attention is being given to solving the housing crisis to make the Bay Area a more affordable place to live. It’s going to take time and lots of political will to get this done, but we are making progress on building a time.’ 

You can connect with Danny Haber through About.me, and Twitter

Categories
Operations

Liberty Auto Protection Phone Number Offering Vehicle Protection Plans With Great Benefits

Whether you are buying a new car or already own an old one, auto protection plans are something you need to consider thoughtfully both to protect your vehicle and to ensure your own peace of mind.

As we know, all vehicle owners are legally required to have collision coverage. However, the fact is that less than 10 percent of collision insurance plans are ever used. On the other hand, auto protection plans provide coverage for various costly parts of your vehicle. So, when you have some or other type of auto protection plan for your car, you get to save many mighty dollars when those expensive repair needs arise.

The importance of having auto protection coverage is again apparent from the fact that more than 80 percent of auto or vehicle protection policyholders end up using their coverage.

Keep it in mind, however, that auto insurance companies provide different types of coverages. There are comprehensive coverages as well as selective coverages. The first type will normally cover all or most of your vehicle parts whereas, under selective policies, particular components of a vehicle are covered.

So, know your own requirements well before you decide on one or other of these policies. For example, if you’ve had too many flat tires within a relatively short period of time, a road-hazard tire warranty will be beneficial for you. Cars running in areas where roads are covered with too many debris normally face this hazard, so a tire warranty is a good option for car-owners living in such areas.

Again, for older cars, engine coverage is a useful one. The engine is the most important component of a vehicle and by having it insured, you can save yourself from paying many expensive repair bills in the future.

So, just as it is important to choose the right coverage for your car, it is just as important that you choose the right insurance provider—a reliable business with a clean and proven track record. In other words, a company with whom you can rest assured that your rightful claims will be reimbursed without any hassle whatsoever.

Liberty Auto Protection, a BBB accredited business, is one such top company in the auto insurance industry. The company provides a wide range of policies designed to meet the requirements of all kinds of motorists.

Currently, the company offers six different auto protection plans—Elite Exclusionary Plan, Royal Select Plan, Premier Plan, Classic Plain, Powertrain Plan, and the Basic Plan. The Elite Exclusionary Plan covers each and all components of your vehicle save wear and tear items such as upholstery, light bulbs, and paint. On the other end of the spectrum, you’ve got the Basic Plan, mostly suitable for older vehicles, that provides coverage for the engine only.

Depending on your needs, you can choose any of the aforementioned plans for your vehicle. In addition to their track record and great reliability as a business, the Liberty Auto Protection offers some other great benefits as well. These include transferable coverage, an unlimited number of claims during the whole length of the coverage, nationwide coverage at all licensed dealerships or repair facilities and more.

Also, once a repair is done, you don’t need to pay from your pocket and then wait for reimbursement from the company. All you need to do is give a call to the company and once it is authorized that the damaged part is covered, the repair mechanic will be directly paid by the company either by check or via a credit card over the phone.

So, if you feel you need a new auto insurance policy for your vehicle, there is no reason why you shouldn’t get in touch with one of the company representatives and request a free quote. The customer representatives can be reached at Liberty Auto Protection phone number 800-599-9557.