The Rise of Social Leadership

Social media is becoming a key leadership skill. Social media represents a real opportunity for leaders – a place where they can engage with employees, customers and peers alike. To create a personal brand, keep up to date and to lead with transparency and authenticity.

Social leadership

On a practical level, most leaders can’t engage face to face with the people that work for them. It just isn’t possible. But social media allows leaders to connect directly, regardless of geography and time zones.

We know that there is a digital skills gap here in the UK. Leaders who use social media can provide a role model for the digital and social skills that employees need.…

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3 Ways To Make Your Business Meetings More Productive

The last things anyone wants is to leave a meeting feeling like they haven’t accomplished anything. Or worse, feeling like they’ve taken a step backward or are more confused than ever. If this seems to be frequently happening within your company, it’s time you reassess how you handle meetings and implement ways to improve these meetings.

Productive meeting

While having a room set aside for meetings can be helpful, it’s what happens in those rooms that’s going to have the most impact on their ultimate success. So to help you with this, here are three ways you can make your business meetings more productive.…

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How to Choose a Trusted Importer of Record

When you’re a technology reseller shipping sensitive equipment overseas, the receiving country will most likely require you to partner with an Importer of Record. Without a local, tax-paying customer on the other side of the transaction taking responsibility for the goods, a trusted importer gives authorities the peace of mind that the goods are safe. As well, it keeps their backs covered in case something should go awry.

Importer of record

Receiving clearance for your package however is only one aspect of what some competent global distributions services can do for you. The strongest companies will alleviate many of the major pain point associated with the importing and exporting process, save you money, save you energy, and ensure your goods arrive where they’re supposed to in a timely fashion.…

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Target The Competition With Better Sales Leads: Here are 4 Must-Dos

When you’re a small or medium-sized business, the competition can seem daunting. They have millions to spend on advertising campaigns and massive sales teams that can reach out to generate more B2B sales leads than you could possibly imagine.

Small business wins sales leads

Don’t be cowed by big business – as an SMB, you may have advantages you haven’t thought of that can help you beat the big companies to the punch, or win over their existing clients. Their clients could be a prime target for your lead campaigns if you develop an effective strategy for winning them over.

Below are the core concepts your lead generation campaign must include to win over new customers.…

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SMB CEOs: You Need More Than Just Health Insurance

There’s been a lot of talk about health insurance in America lately. Is the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) staying? Is it going? If it goes, what, if anything, will replace it, and when will those changes kick in? Will Congress ever make up its mind?

Health insurance for CEO

Plenty of people are worried about the state of their healthcare lately, and for good reason. It can be hard to think about other things when the state of health insurance seems so tenuous, but taking care of yourself doesn’t begin and end with health insurance. You need other types of insurance as well: dental insurance for yourself, and life insurance for you and your family’s peace of mind.…

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How to Evaluate New Business Opportunities With SEO

Shopify recently launched ‘Exchange’, a marketplace that allows owners of eCommerce businesses to buy and sell their stores. One of the key components of buying a business is evaluating if the opportunity exists to turn it around so that you could recover your investment and make a profit on your purchase. Perhaps you already own a string of businesses in the industry that the seller is operating in – this gives you the leverage to make use of your existing customer base to drive traffic and revenue.

Opportunity evaluation

In a majority of the other cases though, the true business opportunity lies with identifying ineffective marketing strategies deployed by the former owner that you could fix to trigger growth.…

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6 Simple Ways to Boost Employee Morale

Happy employees create a more productive, positive work environment. When morale is low, workers have little reason to give their best performance.

Happy employees

Whether your company is going through a rough time or you just want to forge a better work environment, these six simple things can help boost employee morale and productivity.

1. Make an Effort to Appreciate Employees

Appreciate your employees, and they will be more inclined to stick around. Recognize birthdays, and send gifts for important life events, like weddings and births.

When employees feel cared for and appreciated, they will give more to your cause.

Remember, your employees are the lifeline of your business.…

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Aspiring Entrepreneurs Can Now Get Additional Startup Funds Through Government Grants Offered

One of the major problems upcoming entrepreneurs face is a shortage of funds to effectively chase their dreams.

Fortunately, the problem of lack of financing that most upcoming businesses face has been minimised thanks to government’s new found willingness to help start-ups by providing financial assistance through grants.

Government grant funding

But first, what is a government grant?

You can think of a grant as money awarded by the government to finance your business. But unlike other financing options, you don’t have to pay back the sum received as a grant. The fact that the sum received via a government grant is something that you don’t need to pay back makes it a very tempting offer.…

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Ximble Review: Fast and Simple Employee Scheduling Software

Managing your employee schedule is one of the important tasks that you may need to handle. It involves a lot of responsibilities to handle. Rescheduling, vacations, and assignments are some of the major tasks you need to take care of. Almost all organizations invest a lot in these operations.

How about a software that can make these tasks simpler and faster?

Ximble screenshot

Ximble Employee Scheduling Software is one of the able software tools that are capable of doing it.

Ximble – An Overview

As you have understood it already, Ximble is an Employee Scheduling App that can be used for employee scheduling and time tracking.…

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What Linux Malware Attacks Mean for SMBs

Recently, hackers attempted to steal data from a North American casino by hacking a fish tank connected to the internet. Once this device was compromised by the hackers, they were able to get onto the network of the casino and find other vulnerabilities.

Linux malware attacks

Not so funny after all

Now stories like this may sound like a joke, but they should worry the leaders of small–medium businesses. The operating system controlling this fish tank is likely to be the same software that controls the TVs, printers and even kettles that they have connected to the internet, or will want to – or have to even – connect in the future.…

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