Archives for December 2013

Benefits of Outsourcing IT Support for Small Business

Benefits of Outsourcing IT Support for Small Business
Yesterday I went to a store to buy an electronic toy that cost about $100. When I went to the checkout the clerk told me their computer systems were down. Either I would have to wait for up to 30 minutes for them to fix it or come back later. What? Who has time to wait for 30 min or go back again in this busy Christmas season? Needless to say he lost my sales along with the sales from many other customers like me. Such is the important of having reliable computer system in your business. When it works well it can help businesses tremendously, but when it goes down it can result in lost sales, unhappy customers and lost productivity.

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Why your Business Needs to have a Website

Why your business mush have a website
As a small business owner if you have not yet created a website then you have been leaving in cave for some time or just don’t care about improving your business and sales. The internet revolution of the last decade has enabled all kinds of businesses to develop web presence. It is becoming easier to create and operate websites to the point where even 10 year old can do it within hours. It used to cost thousands of dollars several years ago to create a presence on the web. That is not the case anymore. You can setup and operate a website for as little as hundred dollars now. So why do you need to have a website?

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Flash Marketing – The Power of One Day Events

Flash marketing
Few marketing events provide as much return on investment as flash event where you select a theme and arrange entertaining and engaging program to match the theme housed within an elegant venue. You can find examples of this type of events during new product launches or major corporate announcements. The surprise factor resulting from the event theme can generate lot of buzz and media coverage. The more out of ordinary and intriguing the event the better media coverage and higher return on your investment you will receive.

The key to success for this type of events is to plan in advance and create a theme that highlights the message you are trying to deliver. In addition, you need to have a surprise for the participants and media so that when they finally come across it their mouths are wide open and can’t stop posting the pictures on social media and they keep telling their friends about it long after the event is over. So, how can you plan and execute such an event? Read on to find the tips.

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Recycling – Good for Environment, Good for Business

Recycling
Recycling is one of those initiatives everyone agrees is wants to do, yet few fail to follow through. They believe it takes too much effort and, in some cases, costs more than it is worth to do. This is a wrong assumption. While no one can argue about the benefits of recycling to the environment, its benefits to the business bottom line are equally convincing.

Majority of large corporations have adopted recycling. After all, they have many resources available to do this. Small businesses, on the other hand, have been somewhat reluctant due to apparent lack of resources and perceived high cost. While the will has always been strong among small business owners, many have been unable to make a commitment to recycling for these reasons. But as I will show below this does not have to be the case. Here are few compelling benefits recycling provides to businesses, large and small.

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How to Create Optimal Floor Plan for Restaurants

How to create optimal floor plan for restaurants
If you had to choose between a restaurant with a nice, quiet ambience with privacy versus a restaurant where people are bumping into each other amid noisy atmosphere where would you take your date for dinner? This is the difference floor plan can make. A good floor plan can create a sense of privacy and quietness in the restaurant. It can also increase the productivity and sales at any restaurant. That’s why you have to pay careful attention to how various sections of the restaurant are laid out.

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Running a Successful Internet Cafe Business

Internet cafe
If you want to start your own business, perhaps you should consider the internet cafe sweepstakes business.  The internet cafe business has proven to be lucrative for number of people.  One reason for this is that everyone likes to do things that are fun and exciting and internet café provides just that. The internet sweepstakes business involves internet cafe games that are an engaging way for people to make money. These businesses provide opportunity for people to meet new people and bond.

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Tips for Organizing Your Office to Improve Productivity

Tips for organizing your office
Imagine this scenario. You are working in your home office. A client had sent you a contract worth $100,000 to sign and the deadline to send it back is today. You have to read the contract, verify and send it back or lose this biggest contract you will sign for the year. Unfortunately, you just cannot find the contract anywhere. You are trying to call the client to send a duplicate, but he is out on vacation and cannot be reached. What do you do?

For many people who are not organized this scenario plays all too often leading to lost documents and missed opportunities. Good news is it doesn’t take long or much effort to organize your office and be able to find anything you need in a quick second. All you have to do is spend some initial time to get everything in place and then keep at it on a daily basis. Here are some tips on how to organize your office to improve your productivity.

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How can Small Business Attract Young Employees

Apprentice Programs
When it comes to hiring employees what do business owners value more – experience or fresh ideas? In other words hiring experienced employees or young ones? Both can be useful in their own right. Experience can help avoid mistakes that someone would make when he doesn’t quite understand all nuances of business. On the other hand fresh ideas are the lifeblood of any business. Without them businesses will not be able to compete in this hypercompetitive world. Many business owners are on the fence about hiring young employees because they think that they are not quite reliable. They tend to make mistakes hurting the business in terms of lost customers and sales. However, as I will discuss below hiring young employees does have its advantages.

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Where Did All the Tech Jobs Go?

Technology Jobs
There are two sectors of the economy that are supposed to be impervious to unemployment – healthcare and information technology. Tech jobs are supposed to be a constant employment source given the proliferation of mobile computing and the growth of cloud computing. The rise in technical schools, technology boot camps, and IT certifications makes it seem as if the field of technology is only on the upward path.

Overall profits reported by technology companies in the last few years also indicate steady growth in information technology. While not moving as fast as the dot com bubble of the 1990s, industry earnings doubled between 2008 and 2012 and reached over $182 billion in 2012. All predictions had previously indicated that 2013 would also see growth. The forecast was for 7 to 10 percent growth for the entire industry. So many were surprised in 2013 when powerhouse companies such as IBM, Cisco, and even Zynga laid off thousands of workers worldwide. The reasons cited were lack of growth, falling stock prices, a need to restructure, and shift to focus on core products. Two startups blamed the market, stating that buyers weren’t ready for their offerings.

Read on to see the worst offenders in IT job losses and the reasons given by the companies.

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Small Business Owners – Get the Most out of Trade Shows with These Tips

Get the most out of trade shows with these tips
Trade shows are a great place to market your business and get new customer leads. You have many of your potential customers in place, who are there for the purpose of looking at new products and businesses. They have even paid to come there. What could be a better place to showcasing what you have to offer to these customers?

While you can achieve great benefits from these trade shows it takes considerable planning and effort to showcase your business and products. You also need to keep in mind that there are many other businesses, like yours, who are also there for the same purpose. You need to make sure you are ready to spend time and effort required to attend these shows before making a commitment. By following these tips on what to do before, during and after the show you will be able to get your money’s worth, and more from trade shows.

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