Category Archives: Biz Tips and Advice

Learning necessary skills, tips and advice in managing or developing your business.

Get Organized: Simple Steps to an Orderly Office

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People starting out and entering the business world are aware they are entering a realm that will require their utmost attention to details.

Especially the solo business owner. Organization of your office must be set in place and controlled to maintain your peak productivity, efficiency and peace of mind.

The business professional must be able to easily manage the following ;

  • Space, set up and lay out of the office for maximum and efficient use of lighting, traffic, noise and comfort.
  • Time, manage time efficiently to maintain productivity, develop action plans, define priorities, schedule and address new and old tasks, delegate tasks and activities.
  • Paper, know how to respond and deal with incoming materials for filing, storage and toss plus maintain and protect confidentiality.
  • Clutter, prevent the accumulation of clutter and retain continuous order.
  • Storage, design and organize storage for the business.

Stay Organized in your Home Business

Procrastination and ignoring these areas will result in developing high stress, inefficiency and sense of being overwhelmed. Learning the self-discipline to maintain order in the office environment will relieve you of stress and make your job more enjoyable.

Fortunately, there are answers all around you on the internet, in town or in the city and even people you may know that you can ask or visit to help solve which ever current trouble area you may be having at the time. There are always answers and is just a matter of looking around and asking.

    Tips to Plan your Order

    The following are some tips for the business owner and learning to use research of your available tools, advice and strategies will help boost productivity, efficiency and success;

    Hate-to-Do List, tasks that are not enjoyable should be done and out of the way first. This will help break the habit of procrastination.

    To Do List, prioritize this particular list in order of importance for business related duties.

    Shopping, use second hand furniture to save yourself money until you can afford the new.

    Storage, use old school lockers, second hand items, shelves, stackable totes and crates in the closet to handle inventory and materials.

    Paper, a filing system should be in place for fast and easy access, set a filing hour or designate a family member to help. Check legalities on storage of business information before destroying. Save on paper with digitizing documents and sending as email attachments. Keep copies of all documents.

    Alarm clock, use an alarm clock to set specific time for a specific task as a reminder.

    Planner, leave yourself notes of unfinished tasks, and reminders. Learn to plan ahead.

    Financials, A key filing system needs to be in place to effectively operate your business within your budget. Maintaining up-to-date financial information will help you efficiently manage your cashflow and know immediately if you can take advantage of any opportunities that may rise, or introduce new products to boost incoming cash flow. Safeguard all your financial information with paper copies (hard copy) and digital copies. Finances are the ‘backbone‘ of your business.

    You, take care of yourself as you are the business operator, and need to maintain your health. Maintain healthy eating and sleeping habits, and learn to schedule leisure activities just like a business appointment. Mark it in your Planner! 🙂

    Success follows the Order

    The toast to your business success will rise as long as you the business owner are able to conduct yourself in a orderly fashion, and maintain control over the business environment thus maintaining your own productivity and self content.

    Careful planning, and scheduling of your various business duties will help keep your stress levels to a minimum. Do remember to give yourself ‘breaks’ where you can focus on exercise or meditation for self-care plus take a snack break.

    healthy vegetable sandwich with fruit as side dish

    The shopping for all the office equipment, files, communication tools, and other office furniture and accessories will help bring a sense of freedom, and again, Peace. You will ‘know’ where to find whatever is needed in an instant.

    A good secretary is trained in the office environment and can easily further organize the office for efficiency and productivity, for her/his own duties. Communication between you two will always meet needs of both parties.

    Learning in Motion

    learning to organize home office tools and accessories
    Extra Learning Resources

    10 Highly Organized Home Office Ideas

    17 Office Essentials to Set up an Efficient Home Office

    Plan Your Office Design With RoomSketcher


    I hope you found this article informative and gained some new insight. Please feel free to leave your Comments and Share! your new found knowledge with others. Nothing wrong with a good conversation. 😉

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    AIC| An Informal Cornr, all rights reserved. Ginsense writes articles on business skills, development, health, science, technology and society and enjoys advocating for independence, security and a better world for all of us.

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    How to avoid common M&A pitfalls

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    Guest Posted by Sean Ferrell

    contracts in business mergers and acquisitions

    When it comes to mergers and acquisitions (M&A), both buyers and sellers have their work cut out for them. Although 325,000 mergers and acquisitions valued at more than $34.9 trillion have taken place over the last 40 years, these deals don’t come without risk. In fact, 60 percent of 2500 M&A deals made between 1993 and 2010 resulted in a destruction of shareholder value. And nobody wants that.

    Importance of Business Acumen

    That means all parties should be informed and aware of common mistakes made in M&A negotiations. Buyers, for example, tend to get caught up in the excitement of chasing a deal instead of focusing on the financial, legal, and technological value of the company they’re trying to acquire. Sellers, on the other hand may only look at the money they’re being offered, paying little or no attention to how their startup is likely to fit into the bigger company’s style. For additional pitfalls both buyers and sellers should avoid in M&A deals, take a look at the following infographic.

    merger-aquisitions-pitfalls-to-avoid
    Merger and Acquisitions Infographic

    About the author

    Teo Spengler earned a J.D. from U.C. Berkeley’s Boalt Hall (now University of California, Berkeley, School of Law). As an assistant attorney general in Juneau, she practiced before the Alaska Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court before opening a plaintiff’s personal injury practice in San Francisco. She also holds both a M.A. and a M.F.A. in creative writing. Her work has appeared in numerous online publications including USA Today, Legal Zoom, Legal Beagle, Pearson, and numerous attorney websites. Spengler splits her time between San Francisco and France’s Basque Country.

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    How would you like your Bill served?

    Biz Tips and Advice, , , , , , , , ,
    bills in the mail box

    A business owner and customer sit down together for a meal and moan about paying their bills, each from their own perspective. They agree about the joys of receiving their monthly bills whether by snail mail, or email, if you’ve gone the paperless route. By the end of the moment they wonder, ‘how would you like your Bill served’?

    So many bills! Telephone, mobile phone, vehicle, satellite dish, internet, mortgage, insurance, etc., and the list goes on! Well, for those who can afford these ‘privileges’, will see these bills every month. What if a change occurred in delivery of our bills?

    Business Plans and Tools

    A business development and management course I had taken taught putting together a business plan. One of the steps requires annual cash flow projections showing a slight increase, of prices each year and keeping up with potential of rising inflation and/or our competitors. This helps to see, and/or, realize the potential success, of the business project at hand aka the financial forecasting exercise.

    Research is done by marketing firms and businesses to check out ‘trends‘ and/or discover new customer insights. These reports are tools that help businesses adjust and improve their own marketing efforts, to their existing, and/or, for new customers yet still make a profit, to continue operations of their business. It is a great practice and tool, for all business owners.

    Customers Collective Buying Power

    Now, at the other end, we have our customers. As a customer myself of different services, I have come to realize that many businesses earn over the top profits, with the amounts of monies paid each month.

    Our governments have control over infrastructure and delivery of some of these services, such as Hydro and we know that our electricity bills, are skyrocketing, least in Canada. This adds a financial burden to many struggling to stay afloat of homelessness, unemployment, etc., since wages aren’t keeping up. What is up with that? Oh! Got to love this quote.

    J.O.B.
    Just Over Broke

    A business needs customers to operate. The monies from every customer especially when gathered together, and drawing upon a customers ‘collective‘ buying power, add up. We are the ‘target market‘. Prices continue rising and we continue paying even though we’re at the edge of broke. I must add another quote that’s awesome, bear with me please. 🙂

    ‘I’m not Greedy if I ask for only $1 from the whole population‘

    Examining that quote about not being greedy, can you imagine how much money can be gathered, from the whole population? For Canada, there’s near 34 MILLION people. Now, reassemble that number with the amount of one of your bills but lesser number of people, say, 12,500.  Take the amount of your bill and multiply that with that number –> 12,500 x $XXX =

    Simplified Home Finance Management                                                                 learning to keep records of your bills

    Business planning requires answering the question about ‘market share‘ meaning, how many customers needed, to make a profit? Do you see the amount of monies a business can collect from their ‘target market‘?

    Oh! the Businesses will cry Foul!

    Can you hear the business owner protesting? Alright, yes, the business owner has bills and financial responsibilities of his own. S/he will have to pay off equipment costs, business loan debts, staff, business licenses, rent, memberships, equipment maintenance and/or replacement, insurance of one kind or other, etc., and it adds up.

    One beauty about business plans, is they can pinpoint, to almost the nearest dollar, what exactly a business will be required to spend aka ‘expenditures‘. They can’t foresee all future obstacles, that may cause disruptions, of their services and/or products but it’s recommended, to be prepared.

    Fair, Unfair and Outright Greed

    The prices of many of our gadgets, utilities, services and needs will vary. As customers, we constantly seek out the lower price, to free up and further our own spending power. Some people say the government enrich themselves, off the backs of the People.

    We see and hear about our government high salaries are paid with the Public tax monies, using Public tax monies to pay for ‘government business needs‘ (airplanes, chauffeurs, hotels, meals,rent) always wanting more, raising taxes, creating claw backs … Greed just seems to runs rampant in government office these days, yeah?

    Customers don’t just stop at governments either. They will look at business owners and discuss the outrageous price hikes of various products and conclude, greed is the driving factor. The struggle to keep food on the table, heat, water, daycare, telephone, satellite dish, internet, the costs keep rising. Do business owners genuinely appreciate their customers these days?

    Changing the Billing Model

    The many businesses that exist, looking to improve their operations and/or, to attract more customers, can just look at their own ‘personal emotions‘ about having to  pay bills, to find an opportunity, to change their marketing efforts. We can create our own ‘mover and shaker‘ experiences for customers.

    A few simple ‘incentives‘ a business owner could offer customers and build ‘popularity‘ could be, the following

    • offer a one year FREE service for sending in referrals (but no conditions, such as must be new paying customer, that’s asking for unrealistic guarantee )
    • offer one month HALF price or FREE month (i.e., Christmas month)
    • offer a ‘once-a-month deduct your bill‘ customer day
    • offer once a year billing

    The point is to realize, customers are struggling to make ends meet too. Rather than viewing them as a ‘money tree‘ and ripe, for harvesting them for every dollar. Take a step back and see, how can a business make their life easier, and, grow loyal customers?

    Learning in Action

    Extra Reading

    Giving Incentives for Referrals 

    13 Tips: Getting the Most out Attending a Trade Show or Trade Event

    10 Online Customer Attraction Techniques You Should Zone in on in 2015

    I hope you found this article informative and gained some new insight. Please feel free to share with others! Use the ‘Ask a Question’ form to make a request on a topic of your own interest. I hope you visit again for more informative articles coming soon.

     AIC| An Informal Cornr, all rights reserved. Ginsense writes articles on business skills and development, health, science, technology and society, and enjoys advocating for social justice, security, and, a better world for all of us.

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