Networking can play a big role in growing your business, but finding the right event and then making meaningful connections often doesn’t come as easily as we would like. Like any skill, becoming good at networking requires research and plenty of practice. Work the below practices into your networking routine, and you’ll be on your way to making the connections you need to achieve your business dreams.
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Entrepreneurs are always trying to maximize their time, and squeeze as much work out of their hours as possible. Often, this goal results in working long hours, cutting sleep and constant multitasking – practices that often prove to be ineffective. Instead of burning the midnight oil and sacrificing your personal life for the sake of your business, try picking up the below habits to boost your productivity while also improving your quality of life.
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The thought may have hit you fairly recently, or you may have had this desire for years, but recently, you’ve been contemplating what life would be like if you were your own boss, calling your own shots and running your own business. But how do you know if you’re ready to make the leap or not? Below, we’ve listed out a few tell tale signs that you may be ready to step out on your own. If you identify with the majority of them, it may be time to start getting your business plan together.
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Entrepreneurs, especially those who own start-ups, are known for sacrificing sleep for work. Sometimes, a couple short sleeps – or even sleepless nights – are warranted in order to create a successful company. But for too many business owners, little to no sleep isn’t an exception – it’s the norm.
The more the importance of sleep is studied, the more we find it’s simply not worth skipping or cutting short. You may have more time to work if you forgo sleep, but studies also show that you’ll be a less inspiring leader, you’ll make more ill-informed decisions, and you’ll be more likely to contract a cold or other illness, which will ultimately take time away from your work. In fact, by getting the National Sleep Foundation recommended 7-9 hours a night, you’ll be happier and more creative. So how exactly does a busy entrepreneur with an endless to-do list get enough good, quality rest to fulfill his/her full potential? Read on to find out how you can prioritize fitting quality hours of sleep into your schedule.
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Over half of businesses located in the great states of America can be found in the home. For some – whether it’s attributed to having toddlers not in school or because social interaction is key to their personalities – a home office would be considered a nightmare. For others – roughly around 52% – working from home is part of the American dream. To that we say, to each his own. However, we do have an opinion on how it should be handled and if you’re getting ready to work from home full-time or just building a home office for the occasional overflow of jobs, make sure to keep this list handy.
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You’ve had the idea. You’ve received the capital and resources to make that idea into a reality. You’ve started the business and hired the employees and have provided the service or product for a while now. You’re at the point when you’re established in the small business world. You’ve got a foundation. Your roots are strong in the ground and now it’s time to grow, to branch out. Expansion. It’s the word that every small business owner strives for. Whether that means it’s time to hire, time to move, to add to the product or service line, it means you can officially call yourself a success. But just like when you started out, growing requires a plan. It requires a list of things you need to do to make sure the branches you extend are as strong as your roots. Below are some tips to help you expand smartly and successfully.
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SBA 504 Refinance Case Study
A decade ago, Susan bought the property where her business is located for $800,000. At that time, she paid 25% and took out a $600,000 loan at 5.5% with a 20-year amortization. Her current payment is $4127 monthly. This means after a decade of payments, she still owes $450,000. Her business has been successful, but she is netting less than before due to inflation and competition. Over the years, she has had to borrow on various loans and credit cards to purchase business assets or meet cash flow needs. If we determine that she owes $100,000 on various lines and cards and her payments are approximately $2,000 monthly, then her debt appears as below:
While recently chowing down on too many pounds of crawfish, a conversation sparked up with the guy who runs the local crawfish hut famous for their spicy mudbugs. Crawfish season generally begins in March – depending on how mild the previous winter was – and ends on July 4th weekend. So, curiosity sprang up on where crawfish hut/shack/truck owners go and what they do in the off-season. The answer? “I go back to my regular job and work the nine to five.” Rather than quenching the curiosity, it only sparked more questions. What profession allows a 4 to 5 month break? Is this the case for other seasonal businesses like ice cream trucks, sno cone shacks, ski lifts, etc.? How much revenue do they have to pull in to stay float in the off-season?
After digging in, we found how these men and women stay successful and there are only a few minor differences from the year-round businesses.
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When you added your work e-mail to your new iPhone, did a part of you feel like you were throwing away any chance at peace and quiet ever again? That little chirp coming in every few minutes stating that someone or something else requires your undivided attention is enough to make your eye twitch and your blood pressure spike. But in your industry, it’s a necessary evil. You have to be on top of things; but in order to have the most productive day, the most intense focus, the best work results, you have to practice expert time management skills and that includes managing how much time you spend with e-mail.
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We often find ourselves using family analogies when discussing our small businesses. In the case of discussing how to market to existing customers, we want to use you – the small business owner – as the parent figure. You’ve just had a new baby girl. You spent months preparing for this baby and you want to give her all your attention and care. But she’s not your first baby. You have another one who just turned 5. If you’re focusing all attention, expense, and effort on the new baby, what happens to the 5-year old? You see where this is going.
As a small business owner, you might have a tendency to focus all your attention on growing your client base. But in the meantime, your existing one starts to feel the neglect. There has to be a balance in the focus. So we’ve provided some tips on great ways to continue the marketing effort on attention on existing customers.
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By polling several hundred HR departments across the country, Smallbizdaily.com discovered that turnover and employee engagement are the top challenges they tackle every year.
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“I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced with the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.” – Steve Jobs
One of the most famous Steve Jobs quotes references the time he was pushed out of what was once his own company, Apple. While being fired marked the beginning of “one of the most creative periods of his life,” it probably didn’t feel like it in the moment. Stomach-churning, ego-wrecking failure is often a part of the entrepreneurial life. What marks those entrepreneurs that find a way to turn that failure into a business success is the ability to stop focusing on the fact that they did not succeed, and instead view the failure as an opportunity to learn, grow and become a smarter, better business owner than before. This is because failure forces you to … [Read more…]
