3 Tips For The Perfect Home Office Setup

Business

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.

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5 Business Applications For Nitrogen Generators

Business

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.

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3 Ways To Drive More Referral Traffic To Your Website

Business Tech

While getting any kind of traffic to your website can be beneficial, there are certain types of traffic that your business might prefer, either from a technical standpoint or just from an internal standpoint. For many businesses, one of the best forms of traffic to get to their website is referral traffic.

When you get referral traffic, this means that someone else out there on the Internet thought that your website or business so so great that they wanted to share it on their own website, social media, blog or other platform. Not only is this an honor, but it can also bring a lot more domain authority to your own website if you get referrals from the right places.

To help you learn how you can increase this type of traffic coming to you, here are three ways to drive more referral traffic to your website. 

Start Guest Blogging

One great way to get some referral traffic to your website is to build up a relationship with other bloggers or website owners and create some content that’s posted on their channels as a guest blog. 

To have this strategy be most effective, NeilPatel.com recommends that you make sure you’re having the content published under your name, that you’re writing about something you’re an expert on, and that you’ve found the right blog or website to get your content published on. If you’re able to get all three of these things aligned, guest blogging could bring a lot of clout and traffic to your website. 

Work With Influencers

Another way you can get more referral traffic to your website is by working with influencers. There are so many people online who have huge followings, be it on their blogs, social media profiles, and more. By teaming up with someone like this, they could bring a lot of awareness to your website.

When looking for the right influencers to work with, Guy Sheetrit, a contributor to Search Engine Journal, advises that you try to establish connections with influencers that not only have a lot of followers, but who also get a lot of engagement. This will increase your chances of seeing some growth to your website from this partnership. 

Be An Active Participant On Industry Blogs and Forums

One relatively easy way that you can begin seeing some more referral traffic come to your website, according to Michael Kiel, a contributor to HubSpot.com, is to participate in the comment section of industry blogs or forums. 

By building up a reputation for your company as someone who offers quality comments, advice, or insight to others within your field, you could then see a lot of people coming straight to your website from the comment sections you’ve been active on. 

If you’re wanting to bring some more referral traffic to your website, consider using the tips mentioned above to show you how you can do just that.

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Steering Towards Commercial Modular Buildings

Business

If you own a small business but cannot find a location for your office(s), then commercial modular buildings could well be the perfect solution to your puzzle. Most small companies aim at possessing the classic physical address but are hindered by the cost of getting one. Nonetheless, if you are a developing business owner, you know how beneficial it is to consider a physical location. Whether you are aiming to move your business out of your private home or maybe you want a separate address and location for tax purposes, getting a physical location will play an essential role in this process. The use of commercial modular buildings is regarded as a wise company decision. It is a good move for your business, as it aims to save money that can be used for investment or even company advertisement.

The majority of business owners stress about modular offices -seeing them as unprofessional. The usual assumption is that modular offices will appear poorly built and cheap, and that clients will see the location of the company and ultimately have a pessimistic impression of the business as a whole. Luckily, advancements in this sector have led to the construction of high-quality modular offices and building.

Some benefits of modular buildings are discussed below.

Space

By moving your business and work equipment out of your private home, you create more space in your house, and, as a result, you have a warehouse to store all your business stock and goods.

Meeting Place

In case you have hired employees for your company, owning a modular office will prove useful when the time comes to hold business-related meetings, as it provides you with adequate space and a suitable environment for work.

As previously stated, modular offices are an effective way to save money if your business does not receive many visits from clients.

Once you have decided to set up your modular office with the likes of smart-space.co.uk, then there are a few tweaks you can make to enhance the interior of your office and make it look more professional. To begin with, investing in furniture can help spruce up this interior. If you happen to be on a strict budget, you can purchase used furniture from a thrift store that is still likely to be in good condition. You can make the place more welcoming with the upgrade of a carpet in the office too. Clients will not be able to identify whether the furniture was bought from a thrift store or not.

Ensure that you have a waiting space for your clients and customers to sit in, do this even if you do not expect frequent visits. Offering beverages such as soda, coffee, tea, or water is a sign of professional courtesy and will make your clients more comfortable.

Commercial modular buildings can be a smart business construction solution so long as the contractor has a good record, either in meeting or exceeding building standards.

Modular buildings are a good idea not only for businesses but also for schools, churches, or any other organizations that need temporary offices in remote locations.

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Top 3 Marketing Strategies for Start-ups

Business

Marketing Strategies

Marketing Strategies

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.

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Tips for Running a Successful Fitness Club

Business Sports

You’ve finally got your dream business of running your own fitness center. You get to spend all day teaching others about the exercises that you love to do. However, there are more factors to consider as a business owner that contribute to running a successful fitness club. In this short article, we’re going to look at some necessary components you’ll need to have at your fitness center to ensure that people stay active with your business.


Have a Fun-Filled Environment of Acceptance

As a gym owner, you must know that you’re the tone that sets how your gym members treat one another. You should provide a comfortable environment for members of all walks of life to come and enjoy the activity of fitness. It doesn’t matter if a member’s goal is to deadlift 800 pounds or to lose 200 pounds, you want to set an example of creating an environment of acceptance. When people come to your gym and feel as they belong, they’ll invite more friends to come along with them. Concern for the comfort of members applies to their physical comfort as well; your gym should be adequately climate controlled all-year round. Simply put, air conditioning service in San Diego will be essential and the same goes for heating repair in Minneapolis.


Manageable Prices

Pricing and managing memberships can be a difficult task for any gym owner. It may seem like you got things straight when you only have a handful of members, but once your memberships start to explode, it can be difficult to keep up with the demand. For this reason, you should have a clear system set up to handle the management of your members so that new members can join with ease. Your pricing scale should be competitive to other local gyms in the area which have similar equipment as your own.

Keep Things Clean

Cleanliness is very important when it comes to owning a gym. Since members will be sweating and using equipment, it can be a breeding ground for some unsightly odors. However, you should do your best to maintain a clean and odor-free environment. This not only includes the gym, but also the bathrooms and changing rooms. People just like to be in clean atmospheres and you should use that fact to your advantage.


Provide the Extras Your Clients Need

To gain loyal members, you want to think from the customer perspective as much as possible. Think about the things that they can use to help their experience at your gym become even better. You can offer post-workout drinks and snacks, fresh towels to use in the showers, shower products, and cold water bottles. Think about these extras as investing in your clients to ensure they absolutely love your gym every single time they walk through the doors.

Offer Free Classes

Whether it’s martial arts or yoga, people love to try out new forms of fitness. It’s a great idea to get various instructors in your doors to offer a variety of fitness courses. We suggest offering beginner level courses for free. This will give a great introductory experience for your gym members. Then, you can always offer more advanced courses at a fee. This will ensure you only get interested members who want to devote time to learning about a specific type of fitness activity.

As you can see, running a successful fitness club can be done with various methods. We highly encourage you to try and implement as many of the above suggestions as possible. Always take the time to think about what your customers want as that is the best way to figure out what to do next to be even more successful than you already are.

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How Easy Is It to Start a Restaurant in 2019

Business

According to The Statistics Portal, Statista, food and drinks sales in the US in 2017 amounted to almost $800 billion, up from $379 billion in 2000. These statistics are proof that the restaurant and food service industry is growing and thus a restaurant would be a good business invest in. But how easy is it to open a restaurant in 2019? Consider the following:

Skills and Experience

To run a successful restaurant you have to be an experienced chef, or at least someone who knows their way around a restaurant’s kitchen. Without that experience, it will be hard not only to choose your ingredients but also to plan your business. If you are not an experienced chef, you have two options. One, you can invest in training.  Two, you can hire an experienced chef. A chef will cost around $20 to $40 per hour. 

Start Up Cost

When opening a restaurant, you will require money to buy furniture and kitchen essentials such as refrigerators, dishwashing machines, cooking pots, ovens and tableware. Additionally, you will require permits and licenses, and these too cost money. A small restaurant will cost roughly $250,000 and the cost can go up to $1 million or more if you are looking for something hi-tech. However, according to an article on Forbes, one investor opened his restaurant for $13,000. 

How large an investment you make depends on your target customers and how creative you can get. If you don’t have a big budget, you could start small and then look into restaurant financing to expand your operations. The Lending Express company’s resource on loans for restaurants highlights instances when you may require a loan for your restaurant. This is a company that offers help to business owners by linking them up with potential lenders. 

Marketing

Marketing a business in 2019 is pretty easy especially if you know your way around the internet. Many people these days are using search engines and social media to find places to eat as well as food delivery services. To market your business on social media, you simply have to create a page or profile, get people to like and follow your pages and keep them engaged by sharing interesting food related content. You can also use your page to share information on discounts and new items on the menu. To appear on search engines, create a website for your restaurant and don’t forget to indicate your address. Then, make a point of publishing restaurant and food related content often. YouTube videos and social media giveaways can also help in marketing your business. Finally, update your business information on Google My Business, Yelp, TripAdvisor and Yahoo Local Listings. However, don’t focus on online marketing only. Some offline advertising can help too. 

Location

The best location for your restaurant will depend on your target audience. You can build your own restaurant, buy an existing one, rent a space in a building, or even buy and operate from a food truck. 

While everything else can be easy, remember it is your menu that will keep your customers coming back. Therefore, if you choose to open a restaurant, have something unique to offer. 

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5 Ways to Improve Your Customer Relationships

Business

Having a good relationship with your customers is essential if you want to be successful and achieve growth in your business. Improving your customer relationships should be high up there on your list of priorities when running your own business as it can either be the key to success or the key to your demise. There are many different features and software that are now available to help you improve your customer relationships, establish customer loyalty and satisfaction.

Customisation 

Customers like to feel special as this makes them feel appreciated and will make them more loyal to your company. A great way to go about this is to customise and personalise each of your customers experience with you. This can include sending individual emails out to your customers that address them by name so that they know you are making the effort to email them directly. 

You should also consider sending your loyal customers a newsletter using software like Mailchimp to keep them up to date on developments in your business. 

Build Trust by Being More Transparent 

It is important that your customers trust you and one of the main ways to build this trust is by being transparent. While many businesses tend to keep their operations secret, you can build trust with your customers by letting them see what happens behind closed doors. This way, they have a greater understanding of what it is you do and what your staff are doing daily. 

You should consider inviting them to your business headquarters and give your customers a chance to have a look around where you work and give them a guided tour. This will help your clients feel special and appreciative while giving them a better understanding of how your business functions. However, it also gives you the opportunity to build a personal relationship with your customers as you can spend time talking to them and getting to know them better. This personal relationship is often lacking in modern day business negotiations so can make for a great added extra. 

It Is About More Than Just the Sale 

Sometimes businesses make the mistake of focussing too much on just the sale transaction and neglect the opportunities available to improve their customer relationships. While it is important that sales staff meet targets and keep the sales coming in, sometimes being too pushy with customers can make customers feel like you don’t really care about them and just want their business. It is important to show your customers that you do care about them as just because they aren’t interested in buying your services or products today, this doesn’t mean they won’t be in the future. 

Sometimes a customer will come back to you later when they have had some time to consider the purchase, so it is important that you make a good impression even if you aren’t making a sale right there and then. 

By focusing more on the overall customer experience when they interact with your business in any way, you can ensure that you are developing positive relationships with your customers. 

Offer Interesting and Helpful Content 

A lot of the internet is now full of content that is used to entice online traffic, in the hope of turning views into sales. Therefore, it is important that you carefully consider the sort of content your customers will find the most helpful and relevant. Offering information that may help them is a bonus reason why they should choose your business over any of your competitors. 

You should also make sure that your content stands out and is interesting enough to hold your customers’ attention. According to Mail Online, the internet age has made us have shorter attention spans due to ‘information overload’. Therefore, it is more important than ever before to offer interesting content on your website so that you hold the attention of visitors and customers. 

Monitor and Review Feedback  

Potential customers are likely to research your company before they do business with you in the form of previous customer reviews. Therefore, it is important that you ask previous customers to review their experiences with you and show these reviews online for people to see. This will help with transparency, as well as offer a way for you to brag about how good you are! 

However, not all reviews are going to be 100 percent positive, so be sure to respond to all feedback to show you keep on top of customer issues. 

Customer relationships are key to your success as a company, as the happier your customers are, the more likely they are to use your business again, and they may also discuss their positive experience with their friends as a way of a recommendation. So, make sure you consider customer relations as important as customer sales.

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Does Your Small Business Need a Lift?

Business

How well is your small business faring these days?

If you are seeing some troubles with your business, you do not want to wait too long to tackle them.

Money Will Oftentimes Be the Number One Challenge

For many, enough money around will oftentimes be the number one challenge they face.

That said do not feel as if you don’t have any options should money be tight these days.

One avenue you might want to travel down would be attempting to access a line of credit.

By seeing which provider is best suited to help you, you move closer to getting a big weight off your shoulders.

In searching to find the right line of credit provider, be sure you do your homework. The last thing you want or need is getting involved with a company not looking out for your best interests.

With this in mind, do some background research on any provider you think about trying to get credit from.

Among the things you’d want to learn about them:

· How long in business?

· What kind of track record they have when it comes to working with small businesses such as yours.

· If they have a top-notch record of customer service with small business owners

By doing your research, you could get that line of credit you need sooner than later.

Finances May Not Be Your Only Need

As important as money is to run a small business, you may have some other needs that you do not want to overlook right now.

For example, how much time and effort are you putting into marketing your brand?

Some small business owners are very adept at marketing their companies. For others, it can be a big mess.

If you do not have the time or expertise for that matter to promote your brand, it would behoove you to find those who can.

One option is to look for an SEO agency.

If you are not familiar with search engine optimization, know that it can do wonders for you.

The right SEO pros can help you with the following:

· Stellar content for your website

· Making sure you use keywords that rank high on Google with such content

· Quality backlinks

· Driving traffic to your website

· Promoting your brand on social media

· Better referral marketing

Those are but a few of the things SEO pros can bring to the table for you and your business.

Last, it is important to promote your business outside of SEO and other such options.

One that should come to mind for you is networking dates, trade shows, community events and more.

By showing consumers what you have to offer, you can be lifting your brand to new heights.

Look at the beginning of the year to see which events locally and in other locales are worth your time to attend. When you set aside time and money to be there, you open the doors to potential business.

When you have a sound business plan in place, chances are that plan will be lifting you and your brand to success.

So, does your small business need a lift before it is too late?

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Important Tips For The First-Time Manager

Business

There are numerous situations in which people just end up promoted to a management position because of the skills that they show at their job. Unfortunately, being good at a job does not mean you are going to be a really effective manager. This makes people have to learn so many new things that can easily become overwhelming. Because of this, German Trujillo Manrique highlights the following really important tips that first-time managers have to always think about.

Always Keep Learning

If you are promoted to the management position even if you have no management training, there is a pretty good possibility that upper management knows it. This means you are often given the benefit of a doubt and room to learn.

One thing that is not often highlighted about management is that you always need to keep learning. This is practically the only way to keep thriving. You have to be patient and build the skill level in practically all management areas. A great way to do this is to get help from mentors.

Start with learning all that you can about time management and how to deal with the stress associated with the new position. This can do wonders to help you to effectively manage whatever happens.

Work With Your Team

Because of the overwhelming nature of being a first-time manager, it is common to see beginner managers break contact with the team. This is one of the worst things that can be done. You cannot simply use a management strategy that you see somewhere and expect great results. This is because what works great for an organization or an individual does not necessarily work in other situations.

Remember that the manager is the liaison between employees and upper managers. This means that you have to take into account what both of these sides say, with the main purpose being adaptability. The way in which you communicate with the team and other important people in the company dictates results.

Some of the things you absolutely have to remember include:

  • Make sure services are properly budgeted and funded.

  • Never ignore problems and try to solve them as soon as possible.

  • Do create urgency when it is needed.

  • Analyze past practices. You want to question them and see how they can be improved.

  • Do research absolutely all things associated with the issues that appear.

  • Make decisions and stick to them.

  • Take initiative.

Offer Constructive Feedback

As a manager, you need to offer feedback. However, if something goes bad, so many first-time managers fail to talk as they are afraid critique will make them less popular. Management has nothing to do with popularity. It is vital that you offer both negative and positive feedback. Whenever a project is over, you need to discuss positives and negatives. A failure to do this can easily lead to two unwanted situations:

  • Staff members only receive negative feedback so they end up feeling like nothing they do is right.

  • Staff members only receive positive feedback so they gain false confidence.

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