Life is a tad bit harder with the recession biting hard and with jobs being harder to come by, more and more people are getting desperate with their financial needs. Blogging the whole day, well time to get healthy and stretch out from time to time for too much sitting down can get some stuff accumulating in your belly. This being the case, there are many who forget that they should be watching over their health more now than ever. The stresses that build up everyday need to vent and what better way to get it all out than with some exercises that not only gives your whole body the necessary pump but the mind enough time to clear itself as you work away the flub that has accumulated all those years in the office.
Even with a job, constant exercise is necessary to maintain a healthy life and how can you expect to get back ion your toes when your health is on the rocks. have a lot of time on your hands, dedicate some of it for exercise routines that gets you healthy and keeps you healthy for the time when you may be called upon again by corporate life to serve in its offices!!
Baby Businesses
Having had my little baby accessories business for about a year, I somehow managed to elude what I perceived as the trappings of a “proper business”, scraping by quite happily, but admittedly inefficiently.
I sold my adorably useful goods at village fairs or simply by word of mouth through friends and family. Things were good, easy, manageable, and my modest home double-dutied as office, warehouse, call centre, shop front and so on – that is until I accepted an unprecedented massive order, and at the same time, received the happy, but stunning news that our cosy family of three would soon be a family of four.
At this point, my imminently sensible husband put his foot down and demanded that my little cottage industry had to move on, and I had to get my act together quickly. So, together, we went through the rigorous list of things to do, which were all terribly serious and had ominous names like “business plan” and “company formations”. In truth, I didn’t know the difference between a “limited” vs an “offshore” company (did that mean glamorously embezzled funds in the Cayman Islands?).
But one thing was obvious- I needed professional help fast. Setting up a proper company was obviously the first step, and we found help in the form of a few online companies. One of them was offering by far the most reasonable rates for setting up a company fairly quickly.
For the financials, as well as help in preparing a good business plan, we found another extremely useful site. For basic steps, tips and advice in starting a business on your own, I found the site www.sba.gov very constructive as well.
So welcome aboard fellow Mums!!!
Managing your staff’s home-career balance
One big issue in the workplace these days is attaining balance between work and family life. And this goes not only for employees and rank-and-file staff, but also for management and company executives. In most cases, it doesn’t really make much of a difference whether one is in a large company, or running a small business. Companies have come to realize that they have to work out schemes by which employees can balance their careers with their personal lives.
At first, it may not be clear enough, but after a closer look, it rings true that the best employee is the happy employee. Productivity is best when employees are able to focus on the tasks at hand, and not when they’re worried about domestic and personal issues.
Large companies, with established human resources departments, usually come up with company programmes that espouse such a balance. However, whether programmes like these successful would depend on various factors.
Check out your competitor
Studying your competitor is one of the most important responsibilities of an entrepreneur. By gaining knowledge about a competitor they will be more equipped to handle the competition. But how do you go about this function especially if you have limited financial resources?
Company formation and business solutions experts agree that it doesn’t necessarily have to be expensive to study the competition. Some of the competition-studying tactics that can be done are:
• Study the competitor’s website
• Talk to the competition (depending on the sector, this is possible but you must follow certain etiquettes)
• Ask friends and associates
• Investigate the competitor’s SEC papers
• Use Google or Yahoo!
Start-ups need long-term vision
The usual problem of trying to find funding and finance to set up a business is no longer the biggest barrier to enterprise. This was the finding of a poll of early stage start-ups that overwhelmingly rated credit management as the biggest obstacle.
The study was carried out by the Better Payment Practice Group (BPPG) as it polled over 200 small enterprises about the difficulties they have experienced in starting and operating a business into a thriving success.
A similar small business enquiry made by Enterprise Insight, the group behind the forthcoming Enterprise Week, also found out that half of young entrepreneurs with a good idea failed to bring it to reality because they had trouble in accessing funds.
But the BPPG respondents revealed that credit management problems hampered their start-up and expansion ventures more than any other factor. Over 35 per cent of respondents said they suffered because of poor credit management, while just 19 per cent said that accessing capital is the biggest obstacle in their business.
Meanwhile, a smaller number of entrepreneurs said that the biggest barrier that they faced was knowing how to get their idea off the ground. This is then followed by those who suffered from finding it difficult to find ongoing business support.
According to the BPPG “Although business owners know from experience the restrictions that cash flow problems can place on a new or growing business, the survey highlights that employees and budding entrepreneurs do not realise the importance of credit management.”
The group is urging entrepreneurs to consider the long-term vision of their enterprise dream and this could be achieved by listening to established company owners and business managers.