Starting your own business is regarded as an expensive career move, with countless articles all discussing how important it is to have strong financing when you begin. Although having ample finances is definitely a benefit, you can start your new business without it, all it takes is some clever planning.
After all, for most people having a pile of disposable income just laying around isn’t all that common, and while we can borrow and/or take out loans, some people prefer not to. Fortunately, there’s many ways to pursue your dreams of being your own boss while on a tight budget, regardless of what industry you’re going into.
Take it Slow
For a lot of people, the temptation to go all-in straight away is great, to the point that you start paying for lavish extras rather than essentials. Often this leads to failure. Instead of charging in, take your time and plan, look to see where it’s best to spend money (if you need to) early on — if it won’t help gain interest, then it isn’t worth the expense. That being said, even if it can help generate interest, make sure to do it in the most cost effective way possible. For example, instead of paying hundreds for a new website, simply create a free website using Wix or WordPress; it’ll still look professional, but it’ll come without the steep price tag. Then, once you’re comfortable with financing, you can pay for the design, url, etc.
Pre-owned is Okay
A lot of new business owners also fall into the trap of believing that any equipment they need has to be brand new. Even though it’s a nice idea, some industries have hefty fees attached to equipment, like the construction industry, and so brand new isn’t attainable. To ensure you can get set up and remain safe, you need to utilise the services of companies that specialise in second hand inventory. You need a pallet rack? Get a second hand pallet racking solution. Most of the time, you’ll be able to purchase items second hand, but if you can’t, then make sure to use the slow approach we previously mentioned to find the lowest prices available for what you need.
Be Hands-on
In an ideal world, new startups would hit the ground running, with various employees and departments helping to keep the machine well oiled. Sadly, real life doesn’t work out that way. This is why it pays for you to be as hands-on as possible and dip into the different components of your business. If you’re not good at marketing, educate yourself on the latest trends and start getting involved, if you don’t understand legal regulations, seek outside help, and so on. Being uneducated and lacking experience isn’t a valid enough excuse when you have a tight budget to stick to. There’s plenty of sites out there that can walk you through those first steps, so you should be able to tide yourself over until you can afford employees to balance out your workload.
Data breaches are becoming increasingly common – and damaging – as the need for companies to store data where it’s accessible online conflicts with the need to keep that same data safe from prying eyes. Here are some of the biggest breaches in the past couple of years.
Facebook
Facebook’s March data breach was one of the most infamous of 2018. A company known as Cambridge Analytica was discovered using an app that scraped user data from the social media platform. Initially, Cambridge Analytica claimed that only 30 million users were affected but Facebook was later able to confirm the number as at least 87 million. Even this number may be too low.
As if the Cambridge Analytica scandal wasn’t bad enough, other apps were also found to be scavenging data from the site. Facebook suffered an even more embarrassing breach later in the year when it was revealed that a glitch in the site’s own software was leaving user data exposed. This was hastily corrected but it’s not known how many Facebook users may have had their data compromised.
Lord & Taylor and Saks
Lord & Taylor came under fire a couple of years ago after a major data breach. A raft of credit card details and names was discovered up for sale on a hacker platform by a security firm. The information was traced back to two high-end department stores: Lord & Taylor and Saks. Both stores had suffered a total system compromise and anyone who’d used a payment card at either store was apt to have had their data stolen. Over five million customers were affected and one person initiated a class action lawsuit against Lord & Taylor on behalf of those whose financial details had been compromised.
MyHeritage
Online geneology sites are all the rage – but handing over so much personal data should give users pause, especially following the data breach at MyHeritage. In June of 2018, a file was found on a private server outside the company containing the emails and hashed passwords of every user who’d registered since the previous October.
This incident shows why making an effort to get the best IT support for your business should not be ignored. You really cannot afford to cut corners. It also highlights the importance of storing only encrypted passwords and keeping user data separate from login information. Because MyHeritage stored hashed passwords, the attackers could not log into the users’ accounts. They also lacked access to the geneological data — in fact, it appears that all they had was the email addresses. Any data breach for a company like MyHeritage is bad news, however.
Sacramento Bee
In one of the most dramatic data breaches of recent times, attackers seized control of two databases owned by the Sacramento Bee newspaper. One contained the personal details of the paper’s subscribers. Perhaps even more disturbingly, the other database consisted of voter registration data provided by the Government. The hackers demanded a huge ransom for the data, which the paper refused to pay. Instead, they took the step of deleting both databases from their servers so that a similar attack could not occur in the future. This was bolting the stable door after the horse was gone, however, as the attackers promptly publicised the information online.
Ticketfly
The Ticketfly attack is another example of a data breach where the initial motivation was blackmail rather than simple data theft. Ticketfly is an online ticketing service engaged in selling tickets for concerts and sporting events. Their website was hacked and taken down for over a week, disrupting their operation and making sales impossible. Things went from bad to worse when the attackers demanded a ransom and Ticketfly refused. The attackers responded by uploading the personal details of Ticketfly staff and users to the hacked website where they were publicly visible.
Avoiding data breaches is a matter of good security. Ensure that you and your staff are up to date on the latest social engineering tactics and that all your computer systems are properly updated, patched and protected by security software. There is no excuse for poor security in the current day and age and the impact of a data breach could be very grave indeed. In fact, a lot of businesses underestimate the consequences. However, just think about the reputational damage and the money lost because of fraud losses, fines, and the cost of fixing the vulnerability and repairing your reputation. So, no matter whether your business is big or small, prioritizing security is of huge importance.
There’s no doubt that growth is an essential part of any business. After all, a business that always stays in one place is always going to be limited in what it can achieve. The last thing you want is for your business to stagnate and the only way to avoid this is to keep pushing forward. This raises one incredibly important question. The question is: how? How can you actually go about growing and expanding your business? Well, it turns out that there are a whole lot of different ways to do this, it’s just a matter of finding the right ways to go about it. With that in mind, here are just a few that you might want to consider.
New products
The most obvious way that you can go about expanding your business is by moving into new products and demographics. After all, while narrowing your perspective can be incredibly valuable when your business is first starting out, it can also be somewhat limiting in terms of the kind of scope that your business can achieve. The key is to look carefully at what kinds of new products fit with your business as it exists. It’s far easier to fit products into your business that already relate to it than it is to try and morph the entire business around completely new markets.
Logistics
Logistics are at the heart of pretty much any successful business whether you realize it or not. The difference between a small startup and a larger business is whether or not the logistics are in your hands. Sure, logistics come with a whole lot of added challenges from fleet management to the required maintenance of a lot of heavy-duty equipment but bringing that stuff in-house can massively increase the efficiency of your business as a whole. Just remember to consider the ways that things like your staffing needs are going to grow alongside the adoption of this element to your business.
A marketing department
When you’re running a tiny startup from home it’s often pretty easy to take care of a lot of the marketing stuff in your business on your own. Even if you don’t decide to handle it yourself, you can always outsource it to external agencies. However, as your business grows, your marketing tends to become a much more resource-heavy affair. Because of that, it’s often worth having an in-house marketing department. That way you don’t have to worry about explaining your business to external professionals or spending huge amounts of your time trying to take care of it yourself.
When you’re trying to grow your business, one of the most important words that you should keep in the forefront of your mind at all times is “sustainable.” Growing your business is great but if you’re trying to do it too quickly without a focus on sustainability then the added pressure it creates can cause serious issues and can even result in your business completely collapsing under its own weight. Ambition is great, just don’t let it get the better of you.
One of the main things you will want to do as a business is making sure that all of your expenses are justified. You will keep track of how much your office space is costing, the marketing campaign that you are running, and even the stationery—knowing that everything on the list has more pros than cons. And that they make the right impact on your business.
A vehicle that is attached to your business, a company car, can be a very valuable thing no matter what industry you are in. Before you sign on the dotted line, here are some considerations for you.
If you have a few employees, then it is often the case to remain competitive companies will offer certain perks. If you can offer a company car, it helps both you and them. There are lots of savings to be had when it comes to taxes too. One of the key points is that happy employees are productive employees, and if you can offer these kinds of benefits, the openings at your company will be much more coveted. Giving you a wider range of applicants.
Marketing
Vehicles can be a creative form of marketing. When your staff is driving to and from the office, or to clients, your brand can be wrapped on the car. It is typical practice for this to be done on vans and delivery services, but you can take advantage of the possibilities and use a car too. Having your logo and website on the car may pique someone’s curiosity and entice new clients and website traffic.
Client Meetings
If you don’t provide services like pest control, food delivery, or home services, you can still use the vehicle for carpooling to a client office, training location, or other. Rather than having multiple staff heading to the same location on a mix of public transport, and cars you can make sure all your people travel together. Of course, you’re going to want to make sure there is more than one driver amongst them so that people can take it in turns on long journeys. And remember that you may be responsible for things like how to beat a traffic ticket, insurance for the fleet and the general upkeep too.
Cost Efficiency
While there are many costs involved like repair work and insurance, you can have the fuel as the responsibility of the driver. Most companies will choose to lease a vehicle rather than buy one. This is a great idea because you don’t need to worry about depreciation, the cost of replacing when required, reselling, or other. There is a range of tax advantages for leasing a company car. And you can deduct these costs from your yearly tax too.
Having a company car can make you seem like a larger organisation and more professional in the eyes of clients. And it is often these details that make people more likely to want to do business with a company. So as well as tax perks, you can improve your reputation too.
Have you ever felt as though your life was just becoming far too complicated, to the point where you barely have a moment to pause, catch your breath, and get a deeper sense of perspective on things?
If you have felt that way, you’re definitely not alone. Various polls consistently seem to show that people are becoming more stressed, more anxious, and are feeling more overwhelmed as time goes on, even in spite of the various striking conveniences that characterise life in the modern era.
A big part of the problem seems to be the fact that there is just too much to keep track of, and too much to get done – meaning that simplicity is often lost in a vortex of activity and chaos.
Here are a few effective tips for simplifying your life and rediscovering a sense of balance.
Outsource some of the tasks that you have to deal with on a regular basis
Pretty much irrespective of what your particular circumstances are in life, there are no doubt a least a few activities that you’ve got to engage in on a regular basis, that nonetheless take up a lot of your energy, time, and attention.
Instead of becoming completely bogged down while trying to juggle these sorts of tasks alongside the various other obligations of everyday life, why not outsource some of those things to third parties?
If you’re a landlord, contacting a property management agency like GRG Property Management, Inc, for example, might well save you from all sorts of headaches, while simultaneously making it quite likely that the job will get done to a higher and more efficient standard.
Make a point of focusing your attention on one thing at a time
You should probably expect that you’ll always feel overwhelmed and stressed, regardless of how taxing your everyday routines actually are, if you are trying to multitask and juggle a variety of different jobs and chores at the exact same time.
Research has quite clearly found that multitasking – or rather, trying to multitask – make people more stressed and anxious, while simultaneously making them less effective at what they are trying to do.
Focusing your attention on one thing at a time, on the other hand, can potentially make you significantly calmer and more optimistic, while also allowing you to get things done more quickly and efficiently.
Be more selective about the kind of information you take in
If there is one thing that there is absolutely no shortage of these days, it’s information – ranging from news articles, to opinions shared freely on social media, to TV shows and films, YouTube videos, Wikipedia pages, and plenty more besides.
The thing is, if you constantly have huge amounts of information flooding your awareness at every waking moment, you’re bound to feel overwhelmed, and to lack the sense that you’re in control of things.
In addition to the fact that information overload can weigh you down, it’s also true that taking in too much negative information can really darken your mood and outlook.
To simplify your life, be more selective about the kind of information you take in. Firstly, try to limit information overload. Secondly, try to take in more information that uplifts you in some way, than information that brings you down.
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