AUTHOR ARCHIVES :

Attracting the Perfect Client with a Healthy, Happy Office

Have you ever seen a workplace drenched in filth? It’s no pretty sight. Just picture this – you’re a high-flying business professional travelling to a new office to meet a client.

Having left your mansion, jumped into your private jet and made your way to the office, you arrive at a rundown junk heap of a place. It’s filled with all the hallmarks of poor hygiene – tatty walls, cracked paint, limp desks and limper employees.

Filthy office

What’s the first thing you do at a sight like that? You hop back onto your private jet and head home. That business won’t be seeing a playboy billionaire like you anytime soon.…

Continue reading →

A Reluctantly Offered Guide to the Latest English Business Jargon

Do you feel empowered to move the needle by leveraging your company’s core competency? Does your business make hay for its shareholders? If English isn’t your first language, then many of these expressions might be confusing. After all, if your company manufactures medical devices, why would someone ask whether you’re “making hay?”

Business jargon confuses staffs

Jargon is the enemy of good writing and good communication. As an English teacher, you may wish that it would disappear. Unfortunately, until business jargon is abolished forever, non-native English speakers who work for global companies have no choice but to learn it. If you want to get certified to teach English overseas, there’s a good chance that you’ll take a job teaching Business English.…

Continue reading →

5 Strategies for Growing Your Insurance Agency

Owning and operating your own business is challenging, and running an insurance agency is no exception. Whatever type of insurance your agency specializes in, it is important to work to continuously grow your client base and profits. To stay competitive in the insurance world, businesses must find ways to outshine the competition and to provide one of a kind service. Here are five tips for growing your insurance agency into a successful and reputable business.

Growing your insurance agency

Get More Education

While becoming an insurance agent generally requires a minimum of a high school diploma and an insurance license, those who have the most success in the field pursue higher education.…

Continue reading →

How to Interpret MBA Salary Data

It should come as no surprise to anyone that earning a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree opens the door to a new realm of opportunities. A 2010 study in the Journal of Education for Business found that the MBA graduates saw a 41 percent increase in their overall pay in the first year after graduation and an additional 56 percent increase within five years. Looking at those numbers, it’s easy for one to expect that putting in the time and effort to get an advanced business degree is the first step on the path to a six-figure salary.

MBA Salary Guide

In fact, it’s the promise of greater earning power that compels many prospective students to take the plunge and enroll in an MBA program.…

Continue reading →

Common Mistakes to Avoid When Writing a Business Plan

For years you’ve toyed with the idea of starting your own business. You’ve fancied yourself as an entrepreneur and you’re ready to make the move from a corporate pencil pusher to a business owner. You’re excited to get started and have found the inspiration needed to begin the process of transitioning out of the daily grind and into the excitement of small business ownership. The only problem, you don’t know where to start!

Business planning

Any small business owner will tell you that the first step to business ownership is writing a business plan. A clear and persuasive business plan provides you with a blueprint that will guide you in building a successful business.…

Continue reading →

Becoming a Financial Daredevil – Three Top Tips to Save Your Business Cash

Daredevils are terrifying, aren’t they?

Here’s the most recent example – this February, a group of French tightrope walkers made their way from one hot air balloon to another, suspended several thousand feet in the air. Although they were hooked up with parachutes should they fall, the risk inherent in being that high is enough to give you palpitations just thinking about it.

And yet, in the world of business, these same daredevils would probably suffer a panic attack looking at the financial risks that some SMEs take. Indeed, finances are a tightrope that even the most adept stunt-person would struggle to maintain their balance on.…

Continue reading →

Delegation Skills – The Difference Between a Good Manager and a Great One

Of all the skills you’ll use as a manager, delegation is one of the most valuable. It’s also one of the most underused and underdeveloped management skills. Just 30 percent of managers claim to be able to delegate effectively – and of those 30 percent, only one-third have earned the praise of their subordinates regarding their delegation skills.

Delegating works

A Bachelor of Arts in Management can help you get your foot in the door career-wise, but if you aspire to be a truly great manager, polish your delegation skills while you study for your degree. Strong delegation skills help you make the most of your team’s resources.…

Continue reading →

3 Great Online Business Ideas You Can Implement Right Away

The idea of starting an “online” business is one that’s no longer the foreign concept it was less than a decade ago. However, with that said, so few of you have the intestinal fortitude to move forward and “leap into the fire” to become a “Webpreneur”. There are so many great ways to go ahead and start making real money online. All that’s required is the courage and resilience to do something that the other 95% of the world doesn’t (or did but failed miserably.)

Online business setup

Regardless of your current status; successful business owner, highly motivated career-person, recent graduate – or just unhappy and sick of working 9-5 for the boss(hole) and having “too much month at the end of the money” – quote from the original “Lifestyle Coach”, Business Philosopher, and professional mentor to Tony Robbins, Mr.…

Continue reading →

Economy, the Government and Your SMB: What to Expect This Year

The economic situation in this country and various government reforms are two factors that you have absolutely no control over as a business owner. One could make the argument that you can’t control your customers either, but that isn’t really true.

Marketing and customer service can always be controlled. Most of us would like to have as many customers as possible, but you can limit how many you do business with too, if you like.

Both the uncertain economy and government changes are the two big issues facing us in the coming months.

Business and economic outlook in 2014

Leading into 2014, there’s a glimmer of hope for the first time in years.…

Continue reading →

How to Take Advantage of Business Finance to Grow Your Company

As we all know, cash flow is incredibly important for all businesses, without a positive cash flow companies are very often forced to cease trading.

The early years of a company are critical, many companies aren’t concerned with growing the business and just want to keep it afloat in these early stages. With a bit of extra finance it can smooth the progress from start-up to a steadily growing company.

Business growth funding

Finance options

When starting out business owners have a few options when it comes to raising finance, they can go through formal routes such as banks or finding investors, or they can raise money through personal finance using short terms products like a logbook loan or credit cards.…

Continue reading →