If you have a passion for textiles and you want to break into the industry with your very own business then this is a post for you. I was inspired to write this by my very good friend Misha Kaura who started from nothing and grew her textiles business into very successful company. Misha always loved fabrics and textiles and I always had a feeling that this would be the career path which she took. Misha had to learn it all on her own and I am very proud of the textile guru that she has become. If you want to follow in Misha’s footsteps then here are some tips which she has shared about getting into the industry. 

Getting to Know

The first step before you even think about launching a business is to get to know the industry and how it operates. As simple as this sounds, this is going to be your foundation for building your business and you must gain an understanding of fabrics, textiles, and what designs people are looking for, as well as pricing structures. 

Understand the Market 

You are also going to have to invest some of your time in learning about the market which you are about to enter into. This involves losing at customer trends and logistics of an operation. A great idea here is to try and get a position within a textiles company so that you can learn the ropes and see how it operates. You have to understand both the market and how a business can succeed within it. 

Speaking to Sellers

Aim to speak to as many raw product vendors, designers and sellers of fabrics who you will be buying from in the future. Learn about lead times, order sizes, contracts and try to make as many contacts as possible. Your business is going to rely heavily on buying at great prices which is why now is the time to focus on forging relationships. 

Location 

Once you have done your homework and decided that you are going to launch your business it is time to start thinking about location. Given that you won’t require a high street shop you can look for more out of the way locations here, which will help to reduce costs. Consider the utilities which you will need such as strong electrical currents and water, as well as accessibility. 

Cash Flow 

There is little point in launching your business and tying up all your cashflow with the purchase of a single fabric so you need to start trying to learn how to keep production going without putting all of your capital in one place. Which fabrics will sell quickest? Can you use a credit system with suppliers? Key questions which you have to answer that will help you to keep more liquid cash in the business. 

These are just  the starting points of getting yourself into the textiles industry. 

Being a business owner is tough work. Especially if you’re a small business owner and have your entire life wrapped up in the ultimate success of your work, it’s important that you do everything in your power to ensure that your venture doesn’t fail.

While you can’t protect yourself against all the possible ways for your business to flounder, there are things you can do to help reduce the amount of risk you’re willing to take on. So to help you do this, here are three preventative measures you can take for the security of your business’s future. 

Create Backup Plans For When Technology Fails

For many modern businesses, so much of your success is based on your ability to use technology to your advantage. The only problem with this is that almost all pieces of technology require energy and electricity in order to run. So if these systems go down, whether it’s because they’ve overheated or you lose power for some other reason, it can severely hinder your ability to be successful with your business.

To combat this, Marc Davis, a contributor to Investopedia.com, recommends that you create backup plans for when technology fails. This can and should include things like backup batteries, communication failsafes, document protection, and more. 

Get The Right Insurance

Another preventative measure that you should take as a business owner is to ensure that your business is properly protected with the right insurance coverage. 

According to Bert Markgraf, a contributor to Chron Small Business, by having the right insurance policies in place for your business, you take a lot of the risk off of your business and place it on the insurance companies instead. Ideally, your business should have insurance for things like damage to your property or equipment, liability for your products or services, and injuries to both your employees and any customers or clients you work with. 

Protect Yourself Financially

To keep your business above water financially, it’s smart to know how to best protect yourself, your investment, and the money you make from your business venture.

To help you with this, Donna Stone, a contributor to TheBusinessWomanMedia.com, recommends that you take preventative steps by having strong contracts drawn up on your behalf, creating conservative budgets, having a solid process for collecting payments, and enlarging your margins as much as possible. 

While these preventative measures won’t be able to completely ensure that your business doesn’t run into financial trouble, having these things in place can help reduce that risk and hedge your bet for yourself. 

If you’re wanting to take some steps today that will help ensure that your business has a bright future to look forward to, consider using the tips mentioned above to start crafting some preventative measures you can implement.

Building a business website that draws in viewers is the goal, and you’re responsible for filling in all the blank space in between.  A weak or sloppy site design will hinder your business from progression, as the digital realm is such a dominant part of today’s general culture.  

If you’re a small business owner, the job of designing your business website will likely fall on your shoulders.  Don’t freak out. There is more than enough info available online to guide you through to a well crafted end result.  

Start expanding your competence in web design now, and check out a brief look at some helpful tips for designing a successful business website.  

Engage visitors immediately

You need to design your business website in such a way that visitors are immediately intrigued and engaged in the content they find.  It’s not all about bells and whistles, rather what your target audience is truly seeking to find. 

Delve into the specifics of how to create an enticing homepage for your business website.  Apply the design tactics you discover, and watch the response of web users shift for the better.  

Make communication easy for visitors

Communication will help your business build a meaningful rapport with your target audience.  Your business website should make communication easy for web users. Use plugins within your design to allow visitors to ask questions, arrange services, or share their experiences.  

Mobile friendly sites reign supreme

The mobile presence on the web is no longer something to be ignored, and your website won’t do much good without mobile optimization.  Breaking down the subject of mobile optimization means that you need to figure out what design elements make your website easier to use/view on a mobile device.  

For instance, your display should easily adjust to various screen sizes.  Also, give users the ability to easily manipulate the moving parts of your site.  Don’t make the buttons too tiny.  

Include social media in your design

Social media is a huge part of the consumer presence online.  Tapping into the heart of the social web will provide priceless visibility for your business.  Add social media sharing icons to your business website design, and choose their placement with strategy in mind.  

Add a blog section for more content 

Your business website won’t be complete without a “Blog” section to give users something to latch on to as they browse.  Fill your blog with posts that are relevant to the industry in which your business operates.  

Learn how to incorporate the concepts of SEO within the text and design of your business blog, and your content will be much more effective at reaching the right audience.  Search engine optimization focuses on giving Google’s search bots what they seek, so your content is presented to the right viewers.

While working from home can be a blessing, it can also be hard to know how to separate your work and home life when everything takes place in the same location. To help with this, many people find that having a home office, one that really creates a boundary from the rest of their home, can make things much easier. However, setting up the perfect home office isn’t always as simple as you might think.

So to help ensure that the space you create for your professional life gives you everything that you’re needing, here are three tips for the perfect home office setup. 

Make Lighting A Primary Concern

One of the most important things to think about when creating the perfect home office is lighting. Because you’ll likely be working in this space for long hours during both day and night, you want to be sure that you’ll have plenty of lighting options.

According to Shannon Belew, a contributor to The Balance Small Business, you should try to bring as much natural light as possible into your home office space. Not only will this help make things easier to see, but it can also help to improve your mood and productivity. 

In addition to natural lighting, install various other forms of lighting as well, including both overhead lighting and task lighting. By having all of these options, you’ll always be able to find the perfect light to work in, regardless of the type of work you’re doing. 

Get Comfortable With Ergonomics

Another key to a functional and productive home office is comfort. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that you should work from your bed or bring in a big, soft couch. Rather, you should make furniture choices based on what’s going to be ergonomically best for you and your body.

Coral Nafie, a contributor to The Spruce, shares that not only do you want a desk chair that is adjustable to you and gives your body the support you need, but all other furniture and accessories you have in your office should be customizable, including things like your keyboard, desk height, monitors and more. 

Make It A Place You Enjoy Going

Everyone gets those days where they’d rather be doing anything else other than working. And for those who work from home, days like this can be filled with distractions in every other room of your house. 

To combat this, Michelle Pippin, a contributor to Fit Small Business, advises that you try your best to make your home office a place that you enjoy going to and working in. Even the smallest details, like the scent of the room or what music you have playing, can make a big difference in wanting to go to work versus wanting to avoid work. 

If you need a home office to work in but haven’t found the perfect way to set it up yet, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you with just that.

Most people aren’t aware of just how important nitrogen is to our everyday lives.  Nitrogen is a primary gas present alongside oxygen in our atmosphere.  

Nitrogen generators work to isolate the nitrogen that is naturally present in the air.  Then the generators compress the gas for convenient industrial usage.  

Check out a brief look into some of the practical business applications for nitrogen generators, and add a new tidbit of knowledge to your repertoire.

Nitrogen is used in food preservation

When you open a bag of potato chips, there should always be a little pop.  You should know that it’s not just regular old air that’s pumped into your chip baggies. Industrial nitrogen generators pump N2 into their baggies to preserve the crisp crunch of the product.  

Nitrogen is also used to keep your fruit fresh and crisp for the long journey from the orchard to your mouth.  When nitrogen is pumped into the fruits, it displaces the oxygen, so the fruit’s decomposition process is stalled. 

Laser-cutting and metal fabrication

Nitrogen is easier on metals like steel and aluminum.  In practical application, using N2 for laser cutting means that there’s less heat generated.  When less heat is generated, a cooler cut is made. A cooler cut means that professionals are able to make cleaner edges.  

In metal fabrication, N2 is an excellent contributor to the annealing process of steel.  Annealing is a process used to make steel more malleable for shaping and crafting.  Annealing may also be used to repair deformations or cracks in prefabricated metal.  

Tank blanketing for explosive prevention

Tank blanketing isn’t the act of placing a blanket on a metal tank.  The process is a bit more complicated, as N2 is pumped into a storage tank to offer added protection from the degrading effects of oxygen.  

Nitrogen is a gas that has low reactivity with other gases/substances, making it extremely useful for expelling the risk of explosive situations.  Oxygen, however, has high reactivity. Pure oxygen is highly flammable.  

Grain elevator explosion prevention 

Grain silos and elevators make for a perfect storage area.  Unfortunately, they make for an extremely ignitable situation.  

Adding nitrogen to the mix eliminates the chance of the grain dust being lit up by a random heated spark.  The farming industry is especially grateful for the availability of on-site nitrogen generation. 

Bottling drinks uses compressed nitrogen 

You typically think of CO2 when you think of why your bottle fizzes or pops when you open it, but CO2 isn’t the only way to keep drinks fresh.  Nitrogen generation can replace the use of CO2, and it will save production money.

Unlike well-established corporations and big-name enterprises, start–up businesses face many challenges and difficulties. At the top of this list is the struggle to remain financially healthy while generating the necessary revenue to stay afloat. After all, smaller companies often have to work with limited resources, and as such, need to minimise costs without sacrificing the quality of the products and services offered.

Fortunately, adopting effective advertising techniques doesn’t necessarily require a substantial investment of money. These days, you can generate the awareness and exposure that you need on a shoestring budget. To this end, here are a few marketing strategies that all start–ups should consider.

Take your business to the social media platform

In the digital age of today’s modern world, more and more companies are using social networking websites as a means to build brand awareness. It presents the opportunity to tap into a broader market without the costs that would typically be associated with the results that it can potentially yield. As such, it makes sense to take advantage of the social media platform too, as it provides lower risks and higher rewards for marketing your business.

Join a business mixer when the opportunity presents itself

While this marketing strategy might appear to be antiquated when compared to more modern methods of advertising, it’s still widely used today by many successful companies. After all, it allows them to promote their products and services and provide insight to potential customers with no more than a small investment of time and resources in promotional materials like exhibition display stands. Better still, it also allows companies to mingle with each other, providing an opportunity for mutual growth and success. These days, you can even do follow up meetings online which saves everyone time with services like Agora.

Enhance your online presence with SEO

If you’ve been generating online content, whether in a literary or video format, then you should enhance your presence on the internet further by using SEO or search engine optimisation. While it may sound a little complex and complicated, it’s essentially a process whereby you tweak content published online to increase the chances of attracting more visitors and traffic to your website.

Keep in mind, however, that while this may be a cost-effective approach, it’s also a lot of work. But the long-term results that it can yield are well worth the effort and shouldn’t be ignored, especially for entrepreneurs and business owners who are working on a tight budget.

It’s not an easy feat to manage a start–up successfully. In fact, it can be a massive undertaking just to keep it afloat with the financial challenges that it continually faces. But just because it’s difficult, it doesn’t mean that it’s impossible to achieve the desired results. And by adopting the marketing strategies mentioned above, not only will you be able to create the kind of exposure that can build brand awareness and reach your target market, but more importantly do so without having to shell out a small fortune in the process.