Author: Pamela Swift

Categories
Entrepreneurs

7 Reasons Why Women Make Better Entrepreneurs

Contributed by Usman Raza

You don’t have to be a man to be a successful entrepreneur; women are as equally great or are better entrepreneurs. In the past, entrepreneurship was once considered a man’s domain; but in today’s society you’ll find that many (although not enough) of them are run by women too. According to the National Association of Women Business Owners, more than 9 million U.S. firms are now owned by women, employing nearly 8 million people and generating $1.5 trillion in sales. Although our society has evolved and more women are embracing entrepreneurship, they often face challenges and are still looked down on when it comes to running a business.

Despite the challenges and mishaps, women remain strong and continue to grow in number as years pass by. From lawyer firms to tech and fashion to beauty; women start businesses in many categories. No matter what line of business women entrepreneurs are in, they see that there are many changes that need to happen in the specific field. Women entrepreneurs strive to bring those needed and refreshing changes to it. And because of this; women tend to bring a brand new perspective, attitude and skill set toward business like creativity and organizational skills, which often helps make them better entrepreneurs.

Below are 7 reasons why women make better entrepreneurs than men:

Women are more honest.

Let’s be honest (ha); women are not afraid to open up and talk about their fears or sharing their failings because they have a less ego attached to the success or failure of the business. Women typically rather address issues firsthand than ignore them. In short, women are more open and honest about what is going-on and that makes it easier for others to help.

Women are not afraid to ask for help.

Women entrepreneurs are not afraid to ask others for help and constantly ask questions when they need it. As a result, this helps to prevent numerous problems from occurring because help was asked for. Getting help from others not only gets the job done right but also allows entrepreneurs to grow and learn more.

Women possess strong communication skills and social intelligence.

Women show more empathy, which allows them to form and make more connections with those surrounding them in their work. While most men are working only for the financial aspect, quite a few women work to take pride in helping others as well. Because of this, many women entrepreneurs have the ability to create long lasting relationships in their business.

Women are perfectionists.

Women entrepreneurs make sure the job is done right. They believe taking their time is way better than rushing to get it done – this allows them to produce much high-quality results.

Women value relationships and well-being more than business.

Unlike men, wealth is not their primary focus. Women entrepreneurs will always put the health and wellbeing of their spouse and family as their main priority. If they have to choose between the business and the family, the family always wins. Men typically prioritizes business first then health and wellbeing in order to support the family down the line. Many times, because of this, by the time the business is financially successful the family may have moved on because they were not a priority.

Women are great multitaskers and are very organized.

Naturally, women can handle more than one task at a time, while still keeping organized. Because of this, many women entrepreneurs can work on various areas of the job at once without any trouble.

Women possess creativity.

Women have creative minds – they often think outside of the box to create things that will help to provide better services and make unique products.

Author: Usman Raza is freelance writer, marketing specialist at SnoringAids and co-founder of Christian Marketing Experts. When not working, he’s probably spending time with his family. Follow him on Facebook @usmanraza40 and Twitter @usmanintrotech

Categories
Work Life

Top 4 Tips to Organize and Manage Your Time When Working from Home

Working from home is a dream that many people have had for decades. That dream has come true for many in today’s modern world. There are quite a few jobs out there that you can do from home now, from being a freelance writer to starting your own photography business. Once you have that business, however, you often find that organization and time management becomes a problem, as working from home is quite a bit different from working outside of the home. Here are a few tips for organizing and managing your time when working from home.

Leave the House 

While you will want to do most of your work from your home office, sometimes it can help to get out of the house for a while. Take your laptop to the local coffee shop and work there for the day. If you are in the video business and have your own crew and equipment, you should check into a video studio rental for a day. Leaving the house for an hour or two, or even the whole day to work can help you to separate your work and personal space.

Always get Dressed

The saying, “you need to dress for success,” you heard growing it is never truer than when running a business from the comfort of your own home. Taking a shower and getting dressed in normal clothes just like you would do when you were heading outside of the home to go to work is important. There have been experiments done that prove that clothes make you feel better about yourself and that the more time you take on your appearance, the more of the get it done attitude you will have.

Invest in a Home Office

While it may be tempting to pile up in blankets on the bed with the laptop or curl up on the couch and watch Netflix while you work, it’s not a good idea. You need to invest in your future by purchasing the stuff needed to make yourself a comfortable home office. It’s best to go with an ergonomic chair and other types of furniture for your office. It’s important for your workspace to promote your health and spur you to action.

Know When to Stop Working 

While you may hear success stories from others about working 80 to 90 hours a week nonstop so that their businesses could soar. However, what you usually don’t hear is that these same people do take time off. To be productive in what you do, you have to get some rest and downtime. There is nothing wrong with stopping working for a few hours to take a walk or binge watch Netflix. Just remember you do have work to do and do the majority of it before you take that break.

These are just a few tips out there for helping you get organized and develop good time management skills when you are working from home. From working outside of the home, a couple of days a week to knowing when it’s time to call it quits, these tips will help your work at home business be the success you have always dreamed it would be.

Categories
Human Resource

3 HR-Related Regulations Every Business Owner Needs to Know

Human Resources (HR) departments serve a valuable role for business owners who are intent on achieving higher levels of success. For starters, they are a gatekeeper of sorts, making sure only the best applicants possible receive consideration for hire by first scanning their resumes and screening their backgrounds, sometimes even holding the initial interview so, by the time they make it to you, they are fairly vetted.

Then, once new staff is hired and brought on board, HR is responsible for ensuring that the rising starsare adequately trained, that their benefits and compensation packages are in order, and—perhaps most importantly—that they’re happy in their roles and achieving their peak levels of performance, bothfor themselves and the company as a whole.

But setting up and running an effective HR department also involves knowing what individuals in these roles can and what they cannot do so that you’re compliant with the rules and laws governing employee practices. How do you know that? While a complete answer would take thousands of pages, you can begin by knowing more about these three classes of regulations.

  1. Hiring and Firing Regulations

“Discrimination” is a word we hear a lot about these days and one which can do a lot of damage to your business if you participate in these types of practices. Sometimes this damage comes financially, which can occur if you are taken to court for discriminatory business practices and lose, and other times it comes in the form of a tarnished reputation, hurting your business in a more indirect, yet equally as powerful manner.

Each governmental body has their own laws in this regard, so the key is knowing what they are for your business’s geographical area.In the U.S., for instance, hiring and firing regulations are dictated by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, but if you live in the U.K., you have different discrimination guidelines, many of which you can find on Gov.UK.

If you’re not in either of these locations, simply Google “hiring laws and regulations” + “your location” and you will receive search results for your particular area.

  1. Pay-Related Regulations

Your pay-related regulations also depend largely on where your business is located. For example, if you operate within the United States, the U.S. Department of Labor has an entire Employment Law Guide which covers minimum wages and overtime pay requirements, many of which vary by state.

This guide also discusses otherpay-related topics, likeregulations for youth workers, which change depending on their age. Violate any of these regulations and you could be fined as much as $10,000. Do it a second time and you can be incarcerated.

And if your business is located in Australia, your pay requirements are different yet. For instance, one that is relatively new is that you much have Single Touch Payroll by July 1, 2018 if you have more than 20 staff and July 1, 2019 if you have fewer.

Roubler explains that Single Touch Payroll is “a change in the way businesses report their PAYG and super contributions to the Australian Taxation Office.” While enforcement is expected to be somewhat lax during the first 12 months, failure to comply after that point can result in you being penalized.

  1. Regulations About Benefits

Do you have to offer benefits to your employees? If you don’t already know the answer to this question, you want to find out so that you’re in compliance with your local laws.

Within the U.S., these laws are dictated by the Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration and include direction on what is expected in regard to employees’ retirement and health care benefits. In the U.K., there are requirements regarding when you have to enroll your staff in a workplace pension plan and, in Australia, these are dictated by the National Employment Standards.

Businesses that Cross Borders

What do you do when you have a business that crosses borders, employing staff in various locations around the world? Certainly, this happens more and more nowadays with many jobs conducted online. However, the answer to this question is not as simple as one would like as New to HR explains that “a fully global employment law does not exist.”

With each geographic location having different rules and different meanings for basic terms, it can make knowing what to do in this situation rather complex. So, if you’re unsure what your obligations are to employees in different regions, you may want to consult with an attorney or other legal expert who specializes in labor law. Ideally, he or she should have experience with global businesses that have faced similar situations themselves.

As you can see, HR-related regulations vary greatly depending on where your business is located and are rather complex in nature. Thus, knowing what these regulations are—and following them—is critical to not only having an effective HR department, but also to creating a company that is free from possible penalties.

Categories
Starting Up

Essential Things You Need To Do Once You Open A Business

Starting your own business, whether it’s one that you start from home, a small commercial office space or a retail store can be a dream come true. Rather than working to buy your boss a better vacation, you now get to build your own wealth and do things your own way. 

Your biggest challenge will be how to set up your business in the best possible way so that you can compete in your niche. Fortunately, you’re on a well-traveled road and there is a lot of information available about how to start and run a successful business.  

Let’s take a look at some of the basic things that all entrepreneurs need to do once they open up a business. 

Create an Online Presence 

If you have opened up a virtual business, then you have already done this. However, if you have opened up a brick-and-mortar business, then this is something you need to do as soon as you open your doors. Don’t just rely on walk-in traffic or the ad you placed in your local newspaper or in the Yellow Pages. You will also need an online presence to market your business.   

Here are 3 tips to develop an online presence: 

1. Get fast internet:  

You will need fast internet to build and maintain your online infrastructure. If you work with one that crawls and has customer service that hangs up on you, you’ll get frustrated. Work that should take five minutes of work could take up to a half hour to get done because most of the time will be spent waiting for pages to load.  

Don’t make the mistake of simply picking any internet provider that you may be familiar with because they advertise heavily in your area. Although many broadband internet providers can give you fast speed, you will definitely get your money’s worth if you do some research and find an i3 broadband provider who can deliver up to 1 Gb of speed. 

2. Use cloud computing: 

You don’t need to worry about buying a server and setting up a small network. Nor do you need to shop for software. A cloud service provider can help you meet your hardware and software needs without the cost of setting up your own computer network or hiring an IT professional. What’s more, you will have the same functionality as a large business in your niche. 

3. Build your website presence: 

First, build a website so customers can learn more about your business and even buy products or place service orders online.  

Next, create a blog so that you can regularly create content to establish your authority in your field.  

Finally, develop a social media presence so that you can build relationships with other business owners and your customers. 

Consistently Improve Your Product or Service 

Although you already have a product or service when you start your business, use the idea of Kaizen, a Japanese management philosophy of improvement. 

This common Japanese word itself simply means “good change.” However, it has been adopted by Japanese management philosophers to discuss a mindset that focuses on making continuous improvement. 

So, if you sell your own product, be on the lookout for ways to improve it. If you sell other people’s products, find ways to expand your product line or how you sell products. And if you provide services, think of tweaks you can make based on feedback that will help you deliver an even better service. 

Develop a Budget 

Whether you do your own finances or outsource all your bookkeeping and accounting, you need to create a budget so that you avoid cash flow problems by overspending. 

You will also need a budget for specific aspects of your business. For instance, you will need an advertising budget to consistently market and promote your business. While there are free ways to grow your business, these usually take a long time to work. You will get faster results by also paying for ways to get customers.

In closing, it’s important to remember that any business is fragile. Things fluctuate. Sometimes, you will be having magnificent sales; and at other times, you may worry about how to keep the doors open. You can’t simply set it up and have it run perfectly once you’ve figured out your main business processes. You have to stay on top of your goals and consistently solve all business problems that arise. 

Categories
Branding

Entrepreneur Priorities – Reputation Beats Money Every Time

There are five currencies and money is the least important of the five.

The other four currencies are; time, knowledge, reputation and contacts.

Employees’ Priorities

Employees exchange their time for money. The employer pays the employee $20 per hour, and in that hour the employee earns $50 for the company. Everyone’s happy.

Entrepreneurs’ Priorities

Entrepreneurs don’t sell their time for cash. Time is much too valuable to be sold for a depreciating currency. Entrepreneurs spend their time learning and building their reputations.

Reputation is the precursor to acquiring contacts and earning money. A client earned through a good reputation could be worth millions over the next five years. You could never buy connections like that.

The 5 Currencies Explained

Time is limited. There are 24 hours in a day, and that’s it. You can’t put time into a savings account, but you can exchange it for knowledge.

Sometimes you can sell your knowledge directly, but it is more common to use what you know to grow your reputation.

As you share your knowledge and use it to help others, your reputation grows, and people start to take notice of you – Your contact list grows.

Some contacts will buy your products and increase your bank balance.

Reputation is the crucial step.

Growing Your Reputation

In 2018, you can’t make anyone buy your services. The days of push-marketing are over, and if you even try it, you come across as a snake-oil salesman.

Social Media Marketing

Social media alone will grow your rep as much as buying new socks.

You need to use your knowledge to help people in a visible format, and social media channels can be used to amplify what you are doing. However, people use Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook to be sociable and they are not tuned into business mode, and only a few will click to visit your website and learn more.

Website Marketing

Your website is your crucial marketing channel. It’s where people find out about you and what you can do for them. Only on your site can interested visitors sign up to receive email. You own your site, whereas you can never own a Facebook page. Your domain name and website are the basis of your online credibility and reputation.

You can share your knowledge in blog posts to establish your credentials. Share everything you know. You will be the person who is seen as the expert, and even if someone reads your blog from end to end, you will still know more than they do.

How to Set Up Your First Website

There are three steps to getting your site live:

  1. Choose a URL/web address
  2. Choose your web hosting company and package
  3. Install and set up WordPress

When you have a few pages up is the time to think about social media and other promotional strategies.

1.       Choosing Your Web Address

Your web address must be easy to remember. Aim for two words run together or a unique word you can use in your branding like Lyft or Viber.

Many sites let you search for available names and then sell your search data on to domain speculators so they can buy the address you are interested in an attempt to sell it to you at an inflated price.

When you are buying a domain name, you should only search for available names on a site that guarantees they will not sell on your search details.

Screenshot source

The screenshot above is from LCN, a UK company that offers free privacy protection (You have to pay for your domain each year). If you pay for your web address for ten years, you get ten years privacy protection as well as a discount on the domain name itself.

2.       Choose Your Web Hosting

Basic shared hosting will suffice initially, but choose a reputable hosting company and avoid the big names because they have poor customer satisfaction ratings. Look at InMotion or Siteground shared hosting plans for a reliable hosting package. Check out these Suitcase Entrepreneur tips on web hosting.

3.       Install WordPress

Almost every host has a one-click install facility that lets you install WordPress on your domain name in a few seconds. Read this guide on setting up WordPress from Neil Patel.

The Short Version

You are no longer an employee, and you have new priorities. Your reputation in the years ahead is more important than cash in your pocket today.

You **need** a website to establish your entrepreneurial credibility and then to grow your reputation among your future clients.

You can use social channels to reach more people, but the value there is in having a website to direct those interested parties to.