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Business

5 Money Mistakes To Avoid When Starting A New Business

Cash flow is the vital life force for any new business or start up. Industry specialists and financial advisors say that too many new businesses nowadays run out of money before they’ve even gotten started. Most of the time, these are simple, rooky mistakes that could have been prevented if the business owner were more prescient about the financial fragility of their new company. These missteps run the gamut, from being too overly ambitious, having too expensive of taste and not forgoing certain expenses in order to hold on to capital for a rainy day or a fiscal cliff. Well, that rainy day or fiscal cliff can come sooner than many small business owners think if they are not careful. Here are 5 money mistakes to avoid when starting a new business.

Buying expensive office furniture. Many new business owners feel the need to get the shiniest, newest and most expensive office equipment. Tables, chairs, computers and more, bought new, can cost a fortune if you are trying to fill a whole office space. Just because you are a brand new business doesn’t mean you need the top of the line office accessories. You are fresh, young business and clients will understand, or perhaps even respect, that you care more about the bottom line opposed to designer office furniture. The best thing you can do is to buy used, at auction, or at liquidation sales. You can also check out different office furniture suppliers to find the best deals.

March 21, 2013

Business

How To Start Cutting Costs For Your Home Based Business

Do you have a home-based business? If so, we think that’s great. Not only does it speak to your sense of ambition, but also your creativity and focus. Although there are some real benefits that come with working at home (like being able to enjoy the comforts of working in such familiar surroundings), it requires a lot of time, energy and effort (continually) to make it successful.

That’s a big part of what this article is about. We know that in order for your business to thrive, you need as many resources as possible and one of the main ones is money. And so, if you are looking for some ideas on how to start cutting costs as it relates to your home-based business, we have five great ones for you right here:

Focus on what you need (more than what you want). As long as your company is up and running, there will be things for sale that will catch your eye. However, just because you want something, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you need it (or need it right now). Owning the latest Windows software or the newest computer is usually not going to affect your daily performance so, if it’s not a dire need, wait until it makes financial (and good business sense) to purchase it.

March 9, 2013

Business

The High Cost Of Employee Turnover For Your Business

When a company’s level of success is measured, one of the things that is definitely taken into high consideration is its employee turnover rate. Although it can’t be helped that there will be times when someone has to be released or leaves to go to another job, when there is a high amount of people who fit into this category, it can send a message that there are some internal challenges within a business that need to be thoroughly addressed.

Aside from the company structure issues that may come with employee turnover, it can also cause a bit of financial stress because there are many costs that incur whenever someone leaves. Here are a list of five main ways that turnover affects a business:

Work doesn’t get done as effectively. When you hire someone to do a certain job and they are no longer present to do it, this means that either someone else has to take up the slack or the work will not be done until another individual can be placed into the position. Either way this slows productivity down and as we all know, “time is money”. The less people there are who can work, the less work that gets done in a timely fashion.

February 24, 2013

Business

Poor Employee Performance – How Much Does It Cost Your Business?

In today’s recession economy it is important to stretch every dollar your business spends to its absolute limit. It’s fairly easy to do this when it comes to product manufacturing, shipping costs and utility bills, but what about when it comes to the cost of your employees? You can determine how much profit an employee brings into the company through the work they do, or how much they cost you to maintain with their benefits package and your tax burden. But how can you determine if a subpar employee is costing your business money? People will make mistakes, but what if they continue to occur? Or what if there are other, more subtle ways that employee is impacting your business. If you have more than ten people in your business, chances are at least one of them is a poor employee. So how much is poor employee performance costing your business?

There is one easy way to quantify this, by looking at the added time these employees require. And it’s not just the extra time they have to put in, but it’s the extra time your managers put in handling these hard cases. If you’re the direct manager, you know what this takes. You’d much rather be raising up your quality employees, helping them along their successful trajectory. Instead you’re stuck in the doldrums with the weak link. According to some recent surveys, there is a very real cost to this strategy. Managers are spending more than 15% of their time pushing and prodding poor employees. That’s almost one full day out of the week wasted on a poor performer. What could you be generating with that time?

February 24, 2013

Business

How Much Are Negative Business Reviews Costing Your Business?

What happens if people don’t love you on Yelp? Online peer reviews have become the go to resource for consumers who want to find specific information about a company they might do business with. If you want to find out if a restaurant is affordable, makes good food and has excellent service, you can go to a number of online guides to see how high their ranking is, which is usually done by stars or a number system. The higher your business is in the rankings, the better your chances of a possible customer finding your business. These sites have become make it or break it vehicles for many restaurants, retailers and more. Businesses are quickly having to reshape their practices to increase their ratings online. Moreover, an abundance of negative public commentary can be even more scathing. One slip up that wasn’t to the customers liking and it can test the survival of your business. But how much are negative business reviews really costing your business?

A whopping 83% of consumers say that reviews influence their buying decisions. Also, travelers are up to 3 times more likely to book a hotel room that has 5 stars. Online reviews can cost your business more than you think. In today’s cutthroat, competitive market place, unfavorable online peer reviews can actually kill your business. Most of these poor reviews are prompted by people who are unhappy with the functionality or price of a certain product and also the quality of food at a particular restaurant. More and more, businesses have to do better quality control and restrict their hiring process. One nasty comment by a waiter and a customer might go home to complain about it on the multitude of review websites that will be read by thousands of people online. Another statistic says that 69 percent of people have just as much confidence in trusting an online review as they do a personal recommendation.

February 22, 2013

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