Business Life Archives - Page 21 of 186

Businesses Must Not Neglect Employees’ Health

April 20, 2016 by Thomas

Do you ever stop to think about how much time and money you have invested in your employees?

Whether you run a company with just a handful of workers or one with dozens and dozens of people under your employ, your team is critical to your success.

If you have employees that are healthy and raring to go day after day, you stand a good chance of being a successful, long-running business.

On the other hand, a staff where some employees are missing work regularly due to sickness and injuries, well that can be a recipe for disaster.

So, which is it for your company?

Help Your Workers Practice Better Health

Even though you can’t (and shouldn’t) babysit your employees once they leave the office each day, it is important that they lead relatively healthy lives outside your presence.

Sure, some will smoke on a regular basis. Others, meantime, never turn down junk food or the ability to not exercise. Some are even accident prone.

No matter what kind of employees you have, you want them to be relatively healthy for several reasons.

First, you hopefully are an employee who cares about the well-being of his or her team.

Secondly, healthy employees tend to do better on the job, not to mention show up for work more times than not.

Third, healthy workers typically have a better attitude about now just the responsibilities of their jobs, but life in general.

So, what are you doing to be as sure as you can that your team is relatively fit and happy?

Incentives Typically Work in the Workplace

Giving them incentives to be as healthy as possible is certainly a good start.

Among the areas to focus on:

Healthy habits – First and foremost, your workplace (just like schools, hospitals and other public gathering places) can be a breeding ground for germs. Do your best to encourage workers to show up for work as healthy as they can be. This means not coming into work when one is sneezing, coughing, running a fever etc. Having allergies is one thing; bringing the next bad cold into the office to infect others is totally different. Be insistent that workers not come to the office when they’re battling colds, the flu, and other such illnesses. It doesn’t take long for one person to spread the illness around the office;
Knowing how to help others – While you hope and pray that you never will have a major health incident in your workplace, all too many business owners have seen otherwise. Knowing CPR, how to treat injuries on the job etc. is important for both employer and employee. If the majority (or all) of your employees do not formally know CPR, find CPR in your area and get them trained. You never know when one of your workers or even a client/customer visiting your office could develop chest pains and other related problems. Being able to deliver CPR on the spot until medical professionals arrive could mean the difference between life and death;
Fitness does matter – Remember earlier when told that you can’t babysit your workers 24/7/365? While that is true, it does not mean you can’t or shouldn’t encourage them to be relatively fit. More businesses are doing their part these days by helping employees get and stay fit. You can consider offering fitness memberships to your team or even allowing them to workout at a fitness facility in your building (oftentimes, buildings where a number of companies call home will have a fitness area available to workers). Another option is having company workouts. Know, you all don’t have to go and see which employee can lift the most weights or do the most push-ups. Outings after work or on the weekends to go bowling, bike riding, hiking etc. can be great physical excursions, not to mention more bonding for the company.

No matter what option/s you choose to keep your team as healthy as possible, do it in a productive and professional manner.

While you can’t force employees to be as fit or as healthy as you may like, always tout the positive, letting them know why this can help them and others over time.

If you haven’t thought too much in the past about the importance of employee health, change that train of thought.

Have a healthier outlook on the men and women helping you stay in business.

Photo credit: BigStockPhoto.com

About the Author: Dave Thomas covers business topics on the web.

Make It Your Business to Get All Available Deductions

April 13, 2016 by Thomas

Running your own business comes when joys and heartaches. The key is to avoid too much of the latter.

With that being the case, recording and paying taxes as a business owner can be one of life’s biggest headaches.

If you’re self-employed and have no employees under you, life is much easier when it comes to your tax responsibilities.

On the other side, making sure you take the right amount of money out for employees and meeting your other tax responsibilities as a business owner, well, it can sometimes seem downright taxing.

Don’t Make Running a Business Taxing

In running your own business, be sure that you not only are meeting all your tax requirements, but that you are receiving the deductions entitled to you.

For those individuals working out of their homes full-time, there are myriad of deductions one qualifies for, though many oftentimes forget or quite frankly do not know what is and isn’t acceptable to the IRS.

If you’re one of those self-employed folks working out of a private residence, note the following:

Your home is deductible…. up to a point – Working out of your home does allow for some deductions, but don’t expect to cover the entire residence from top to bottom. If you set aside a room etc. as your work area, you can use that as a deduction (estimate the square footage involved). What you can’t do is try and deduct the entire residence;
Your home office supplies – Assuming that your business needs office supplies, those can be used as deductions. Make sure you save the receipts for items you purchase. If you end up getting a new computer, fax machine, printer or other such office item, you can also deduct those. The key is always to save the paperwork from such purchases, especially if you need to show at a later date that you did in fact buy such items;
Your client meetings – When you mix and mingle with clients, you can deduct such meetings (that is up to a point). Meals and mileage to and from such meetings is fine, but don’t try and deduct a gift you may have bought them etc. Stretching things too far could run you the risk of an IRS audit, so it is definitely in your best interests to record and be honest about your deductions. If you do have legal questions or in fact do get audited, a New York tax attorney or one closer to you can assist you with how to proceed;
Your health insurance – Unless you have been under a rock for the last three or so years, you know about the governmental requirement that the majority of Americans be covered by health insurance. As a result, make sure you not only have coverage, but look to see if you are eligible for a tax credit. The whole idea behind Obamacare was to make health insurance affordable for the majority of the country. When it comes to medical items, you also can deduct a portion of your doctor visits (including mileage to and from) and prescriptions or other such purchases;
Your retirement planning – If you are wise, you have been putting away money over the years for retirement. In doing so, you are planning for that day and time when you will not be working, most likely getting by on Social Security income. Whether you have an IRA or other such retirement vehicle, try and contribute as much as possible to it yearly. This then allows you to record deductions from the money you put into the plan. While there are caps on how much individuals may invest in their retirement portfolios, doing it now and getting the deductions makes it well worth it.

When it comes to doing your taxes as a self-employed business owner, they don’t have to seem as frightening as they might first appear.

Getting organized now, keeping all your necessary receipts, and knowing who to turn to in the event of a dispute and/or audit, can make all the difference in the world.

If doing your taxes seems a bit taxing to you, put organization and the help of others to work for you.

Photo credit: BigStockPhoto.com

About the Author: Dave Thomas writes about business topics on the web.

Picture More Business When You Use Video

April 6, 2016 by Thomas

How often does your brand turn to video in order to spread its message?

If the answer is infrequently or even never, then you definitely might want to reconsider such thoughts.

When it comes right down to it, video can do myriad of positive things for your brand.

So, are you ready to give it a try?

Put Your Brand in a Positive Light

Start by looking at what resources you will need to put together not just one, but a series of videos tied to your brand.

One of the necessary resources will of course be someone to shoot the production. The question then is, do you do it in-house or do you outsource such needs to providers like a video production Orlando and others in the business?

If you opt for the first choice, you can save your business some money. In the event you want to outsource the video needs, while you will be spending additional money, you stand a better chance of getting a higher quality video production. That is unless of course you have hired someone (or even a team) of video production experts.

From there, you need to determine what your video message will say.

You may opt to make it rather simple, touting your product or service as the best one out there for the consumer.

On the other hand, you may choose to profile your company itself, including your team of employees.

Lastly, you might go in the direction of a video that demonstrates current happenings in your respective industry.

Whatever the choice may be; put 100 percent time and effort behind it, knowing that you are giving your brand a chance to shine in front of countless eyes.

Another important piece of the puzzle is how you can set your video/videos apart from the competition.

Differentiate Your Brand from the Competition

With more businesses turning to videos these days, it is important in your particular industry that you differentiate your brand from others.

You can do that by not only featuring your product or service, but also one or more of your employees.

Face it; your business probably doesn’t have the depth or financial pockets to go the direction of some more famous brands such as Progressive, AT&T, KFC and others, all of which generally have one character playing the lead role time and time again. That respective character ultimately comes into so many homes (commercials, magazines etc.) that they become a household fixture (at least their image does).

So, how best to feature one or more of your staff and still drive your brand’s message home?

Make sure you have someone on your team that is not only personable, but comfortable in front of a camera.

You probably know as well as anyone else that not everyone in your office is cool and collected when asked to perform in front of others, be it a talk or even a commercial.

Also make sure you to give any video productions you do plenty of social media love.

Just as you would hopefully promote your blog posts and other written initiatives on social networking sites, it is important to do likewise with videos.

There are myriad of sites that can help you with promotional needs, most notably Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

As it relates to YouTube, many companies have opted for this site, a site that has only grown leaps and bounds in recent years when it comes to videos.

You should keep your brand videos short and sweet, getting your message out without putting the viewer to sleep or wanting to leave, never come back to your brand again.

So, are you ready to picture more business when it comes to using video?

Properly done videos can play a key role in helping you promote and ultimately sell your brand to consumers.

If video has not been part of your marketing strategy up to this point, give it some strong thought moving forward.

There is a good chance that you will see video not only promoting your brand, but helping it ring-in revenue.

Photo credit: BigStockPhoto.com

About the Author: Dave Thomas covers business and marketing topics on the web.

10 Mac Apps for Blogging Productivity

April 6, 2016 by Jessy Troy

Running a blog is so much more work than people assume. The assumption is the bigger it gets, the more work is involved. But that isn’t close to being true; building it to a point where people are regularly visiting is just as much work as maintaining it once it gets there.

For some people it becomes a full time job, and one that doesn’t pay nearly enough for the first couple of years.

You have to squeeze everything you can out of every single moment spent working on your blog. Not just on the content, but general management such as social, reader engagement, research, outreach, SEO, marketing, hosting issues, backups, and more. For Mac users, these tools can help make the process of running a blog infinitely easier to handle, and save a lot of time.

WriteRoom

Writing is easy. Writing without distractions if you are like me is next to impossible without help. There is so much waiting just in a browser window to pull our attention away, and before long a post that should have taken thirty minutes is verging on ninety. WriteRoom creates a fullscreen writing page that is sparse, simple, and made to force your brain to behave.

It has a black screen with green text to reduce eye strain, and nothing else that might cause you to look away from the words you are writing. It costs $9.99, but it practically pays for itself with the time you save. And time is money, as they say.

First Site Guide lists more writing tools you can find handy! That list is pretty impressive!

Writer

Want something a bit more thorough? Writer is another MacOS application that is also compatible with Apple and Android mobile and tablet devices.

It creates a clean, white page with black text, and has additional features like Night Mode and an integrated document library. It costs more as a consequence, at $19.99. But if you want Swipe Preview controls and device syncing on their own cloud, it is a great deal.

Blogo

If you have WordPress and want to knock a few bucks off the price, Blogo is $14.99 and has many of the same features. You can moderate, reply to and delete comments, create shortcuts, and manage multiple blogs at once.

Plus the post scheduling, and image resizing/editing that could give it a real edge over other apps. It might still be a little too basic for some, but if you want a clean blogging platform that has plenty of functions, this should fit the bill nicely.

Todoist

Todoist is the tool I use most in both my personal and professional life. At first sight it is a basic to do list. But if you look deeper, it is a whole organizational system. Create projects and build task lists, giving them deadline, recurring dates, and priority. Set reminders, and sync across all devices.

I have a project set for content ideas, and build my editorial calendar right in the app so I can keep it organized with all other tasks. It is a real lifesaver, and the premium cost annually is peanuts.

SnagIt

This is one of my new favorite tools, even if it comes with a bit more of a price tag than I am used to paying. SnagIt is a screenshot and screencast capture app that lets you effortlessly create visual content to share with your readers. I make screencaps, infographics and tutorial videos, which can be edited and enhanced right there in the app.

It costs $49.95, with additional S&H if you choose to get a boxed copy as well as the digital download. But it is more advanced than free to cheaper screencapture tools, and more appropriate if you want to keep content at a pro level.

You can backup all your screenshots and screencasts either locally or in the cloud. The latter option is recommended by me personally because I am a fan of storing all my work in the cloud and access the database from my business trips, home, work, etc. You can learn more about cloud storage here.

Canva

Infographics are amazing, and they to this day provide me with the greatest traffic and social engagement of any other form of visual content I use. But man are they time consuming to create! I can spend literally weeks trying to create a thorough and high quality infographic with a lot of information, especially when presenting case studies alongside statistics.

At least it used to take that long, until I gave in and tried Canva. Originally I had thought all generator tools were pointless because they made cookie cutter content that would be less effective. But I was wrong; Canva is a fantastic tool that makes infographic creation faster and the results even higher quality.

You can even use it to create posters to decorate your workplace for more motivation and inspiration.

Toggl

Finally, the most important way to remain productive is to properly manage your time. That means managing your breaks, as well. Toggl is a super simple time tracking tool that works on the Pomodoro technique.

You work for a stretch, then take a break. Work for another stretch, then take another break. It will make you more productive, and keep you from burning out.

Leechblock

If you need to write in a browser but want to block distracting websites, Leechblock is a pretty good option. It provides customizable controls that let you either block sites like Facebook and YouTube during times you should be working, or blocks them after you have spent a certain amount of time there.

As a self confessed addict who can get lost down the Reddit and YouTube rabbit holes on a daily basis, this has been an important productivity tool in my own life. It is available as a Firefox addon

StayFocusd

Similar to Leechblock, this is an extension for Chrome that works in much the same way. What makes it handy on its own is the ability to set the “Nuclear Option”. This will block all sites you have listed as restricted for a period of one or more hours, depending on your preferences.

You can also set it to not allow you to switch it off until the end of the block time, by not letting you access the extensions menu in your settings.

Desk PM

Desk PM won the Best App of 2014 award, and for good reason. You can write from the first note taking process to the publishing and monitoring step right from the app, with compatibility with several blogging platforms.

They have basic tools like word and character count that you would expect from any word processing tool, but with greater features such as post scheduling. At $19.99 it is a really impressive blogging tool. Especially given the high price tag for platforms dealing with high volume blogs.

Any tools to add to the list? Let us know in the comments!

Make It Your Business to Go Paperless

March 30, 2016 by Thomas

Have you sat down recently to see what your small business is ultimately costing you as far as expenses?

If the answer to that question is no, it probably would not be a bad idea to schedule some time to do just that. In the end, you may find yourself saving some money over the long run, money that could help keep you in business for years to come.

As many business owners can tell you, it is oftentimes the expenses of running a company that weight on them most.

So, where can you look into cutting expenses to keep your small business moving along smoothly?

Do an Inventory of Your Expenses

Start by breaking down your costs (including if you have staff), seeing where you might save some money.

This includes:

Employees – Oftentimes the most expensive component in running a business, your help typically doesn’t come cheap. That said having employees takes a huge burden off of you when running a small business. Even if you are a really small business that relies on just an assistant, he or she can prove more than worth their weight in gold over time. If money is tight (yet you still need help), you can look to reimburse the employee or employees in other ways besides income. Partial or full healthcare benefits, providing them with discounts to other area merchants, allowing them to work from home (saves them commuting time and gas bills etc.) are some ways to compensate for lower salaries. Most importantly, weigh the true costs of not having others help you. Those costs in added time away from your family, additional stress etc. can certainly give you reason to want assistance in running your business;
Supplies – How often do you run the numbers in what it costs you as far as office expenses? You may be surprised to learn just how much money you truly are shelling out in terms of supplies etc. More businesses are going paperless (or at least attempting to) not only to save money, but expedite how they deal with clients. Instead of there being a long and expensive paper trail, your business can ultimately save money and have faster and more precise contact with clients through technology. Whether you run a medical office or another form of business, getting information to your customers via electronic means is a win-win for both parties. This is also true when it comes to billing clients. Instead of the cumbersome paper trail, everything can be neatly viewed online. When ordering supplies yourself, you should also do as much online as possible, saving you and the vendor time and money;
Teleconferencing – While in-person meetings with clients are sometimes necessary (don’t underestimate the value of such interactions), doing teleconferences has benefits too. Instead of having to run in and out of your office meeting with this person and that person, doing it over the computer, by phone etc. can save you time and money in the long run. If you run your business from home, set up an area in your residence where you can shield yourself from distractions, allowing you to do Skype and other video conference calls with customers. This saves you the hassles of being stuck in traffic and spending gas money driving all over town to meet with clients. In many cases, you will discover your customers prefer this mode of communication too;
Deductions – Given tax season is in full bloom, have you made sure to deduct everything but the kitchen sink for your 2015 returns? Oftentimes, small business owners will miss key deductions, deductions that ultimately end up costing them money. Take the time now to do a thorough review of your 2015 taxes, looking for any possible missed deductions. You might be surprised to see the money you are literally leaving on the table.

From paperless projects at work to making your meetings with clients more productive, there are many ways your small business can save on expenses in 2016 and beyond.

The goal is to take the time to find those savings, knowing that it is a worthwhile investment over the long run.

So, as a small business owner in 2016, how are you saving money?

Photo credit: BigStockPhoto.com

About the Author: Dave Thomas covers business and marketing topics on the web.

Needing Designs on a Better Website?

March 23, 2016 by Thomas

Is it about time that your business website got some spring cleaning?

For too many business owners, their websites almost become an afterthought following years in the business or even when starting up. Unfortunately, such thinking can lead to missed revenue and a low Google ranking.

So, what designs will you move forward with now and down the road to make sure your website is a proven winner?

Look and Feel of Success

You first need to start with realizing that your business website can always use some improving.

From there, what kind of improvements might you need?

Among the areas to focus on:

Design – First and foremost, is your site eye-catching, a site that will keep returning customers and those you are looking to land coming to your site again and again? The design of your site goes a long way in determining how inspired consumers will be to keep returning. Whether you opt for phoenix web design or numerous other choices, make the best selection the first time around. When you find the right designed from day one, you spend less time and effort getting your designs the way you want them, ultimately saving money over time;
Content – What goes on your site certainly matters too. If you toss up any content (without determining why it should be on the site in the first place), you risk several things. First, lackluster content is a problem because your website traffic is likely to be minimal at best. Secondly, your search engine ranking will suffer as a result, leaving your site way down the list when consumers search for your respective product or service. Be sure the content is not only authoritative and informative, but also is free of major gaffes. You also need to have content that consumers (and other businesses for that matter) will want to share with the public. When they do that, your traffic is likely to pick up, giving you the ability to drive more business in your direction;
Imagery – As important as your content is, having nothing other than content is about as exciting as watching paint dry. Colorful images should dot your site’s landscape. You would also be well-served to include some relevant videos. Having a company video about what your team does and how your brand stands apart from competitors is a great tool to have. Also look to include as many people-friendly images and videos as possible. When making videos, be sure they are exciting (include some music in the background while you are at it). A five-minute webinar with a person sitting there reading a script will put viewers to sleep in record time;
Podcasts – If you haven’t taken notice, podcasts are becoming more and more of an attraction to business websites. Companies see the value in making short podcasts available to the public, especially ones that are informative on trends in respective industries, how products or services impact the lives of consumers, what the future is for a respective market etc. You can even consider including short commercial breaks in the podcasts, though keep them to a minimum. In offering these, you can attract advertisers and increase your advertising dollars;
Accessibility – How accessible your website is (especially contacting you, your department managers etc.) is also something you should never overlook. When a consumer pulls up a business site, they might very well have questions, issues etc. they want to discuss. In doing so, they need easy access to a contact email or phone number. Better yet, if you have myriad of departments in your business, be sure to list those in charge of each unit (email, office phone etc.). This is better than having a general office email or phone number for consumers to have to contact. When a consumer can go directly to the individual they need, it saves them time and also saves your office team time.

Your website is oftentimes the bread and butter of your brand, so don’t underestimate how powerful of a tool it can be.

If your site has been lacking that punch as of late, put a focus on needing designs on a better one.

Photo credit: BigStockPhoto.com

About the Author: Dave Thomas covers business topics on the web.