Category Health Check

Entries 11 Total

Lifestyle Businesses Benefit From Online Collaboration

Nov 22, ’10 11:20 AM

Many people assume, quite wrongly, that if you are a lifestyle business there is no need for online collaboration, in any sense. But, online collaboration can be a great way to increase the efficiency of your lifestyle business whilst at the same time providing your customers with exactly what they are looking for. There are…

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Q & A: How can I grow my business.

Nov 7, ’07 3:38 PM

This is not unusual for many small businesses and start-ups, a home business is an ideal way to run your own business.Getting back to her question, there are really four answers: Increase the number of customers - this in turn will increase the your turnover, yielding the extra business you want, while at the same time make your business more recession proof;Increase the order frequency from your existing customers - this could be more difficult, you need to find out if you can replace someone else as supplier, or diversify your offering;Increase the average order value - same as before, offer higher quality or premium service.Increase your own efficiency - outsource more if you can, cut costs this will not grow your turnover, but increase your bottom line, so you can take more money out of the business for yourself.Once you start thinking about these options you will find out what you can do, often it is a combination of things to do.... ST.Disclaimer: As with any of my readers questions, I do not have all the answers and here on my blog I can only give you some ideas, since I know very little about your small business.

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Q & A: What are successful cost-cutting solutions in small business?

Oct 18, ’07 11:49 AM

Let me give you some pointers here, but please remember you can always do more on the cost-cutting front in any small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer- or Personal business, like professional, contractors, freelancer, self-employed, sole-trader and virtual assistants.... Or have it done on a results basis, doesn't cost you time and gets you money back.Do credit control - get your money in lower your bank overdraft cost and charges.This is only a short list of what you can do, but it's a start.

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Bookkeeping for Small Business

Oct 12, ’07 6:33 AM

More important than that, you will learn new things about your business: You may have higher (good) or lower (bad) sales, than you expected?Your cost in your business may be higher (bad) or lower (better) than you expected?Your cash-flow may be better or worse do to the above two points?You may need to outsource some business processes to lower your fixed cost structure, to make your business more recession proof or just more profitable?You may need to ramp up your sales and marketing activities for your small business products or services?You may also have to adjust your SWOT analysis and your business goals?You will be surprised how creative you can be, once you know about and understand a problem in your business plan.... There is no excuse not to do it, all the tools are available for free, for anyone.If you feel the initial process of business planning is too much for you, than get your accountant or bookkeeper to help you to set your cash-flow fore-casting, SWOT analysis with you, doing it online will give you strategic advantages, like you can work with your accountant or bookkeeper in real time in different places, this lowers your cost, no time wasted and is good for the environment.I would like to make one more point here, the aim of all this planning is not to get it spot on - no, the aim is to understand what is happening in your business, that is why you should be doing it.

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Planning Your Small Business And Start-up

Oct 2, ’07 1:09 PM

For me small business planning centers around some very basic questions and I always aim to answer those first: How much is my business going to cost to set-up?What are the monthly running costs of my start-up?Is anyone willing to buy what I have to sell?What other problems or challenges does my business face?What are my best selling points or strength?You may thing that these are all very basic questions and you would be right - but can you really answer them for your small business?... Even if you have no staff to begin with, it will help you to make the right decisions and stay focused.Strength and Weaknesses are "internal" factors where you need to be honest with yourself and write down what you do well and what you do badly - writing it down is almost therapeutic - enabling you base future decisions on these facts, building on your strength, while avoiding your weak spots.Opportunities and Threats are all about "external" factors and deal with issues like your unique differentiators for your products and services in the market place, as well as your competitors, red-tape, funding issues, etc. Again just writing them down will move you forward.Last but not least I find it helpful to have a "Mission Statement" for my business, what do I want to achieve, so my customers, partners and others understand what my business is all about.The "Goals Statement" is more personal, I write down why I run my small business or why I want to start a business.

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Social Impact of Working From Home

Sep 22, ’07 9:32 AM

I would like to list here some challenges I believe our society is facing currently: Child care - in our work dominated society we often outsource most of our child-care, in kindergarten, boarding schools, and other institutions, here our children will not receive the same level of care and love they deserve and need;Care for the Elderly - our lifestyles often separate us from our loved ones and in times of need we are often not able to care for our relatives or friends, because we live in different cities or even countries for example;Environment - many of use spend hours every day alone in cars or on trains - not alone, but still isolated - and contribute to the carbon emissions that change our climate.There are many more examples.... After all, this technology we at WinWeb and others supply makes it possible to work from anywhere, gives you a tremendous amount of freedom to live the life you want, where you want.Let's hope in hundred years from now people will see this era not only as the "Information Age", but also the age when we learned to live a better work/life balance, in tune with our emotional and social needs as individuals, families and society as a whole.

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Small Business Failure – Reason: Funding

Aug 30, ’07 8:17 AM

if you are don't start a business, because you are not ready and whatever you do do not borrow any money from anyone.If you read this and think this is all b*** s*** - and you may be right, of course - let me know why you think you need to borrow money? Maybe we could come up with an idea that would allow you start your small business, without having to borrow money and loosing some of the control in your small business.You can see other reasons for small business and personal business, like contractors, freelancer, self-employed, sole-trader and virtual assistants failures in my Health Check Category, if you can add to this list please do so, I would welcome your comments.

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Small Business Infrastructure For Business Start-Up.

Aug 28, ’07 12:42 PM

WinWeb On-Demand Software Solutions - Anywhere At Anytime.AccountsOffice and OnlineOffice are our two software offerings, which are based on the SaaS - Software as a Services model, to allow for the following key business benefits:• tight inclusion of business advisors from the start,• cultivating outsourcing techniques at the outset, i.e. virtual assistants,• no IT knowledge needed and hassle free operation,• real-time multi-user access from anywhere, increasing mobility.2.... WinWeb Live - Networking Community for Small Business Only.To foster collaboration and outsourcing we have expanded our WinWeb Live™ offering to allow for small business community networking - thus enabling the business owner to make decisions about his / her current needs, with the following benefits:• timeshare virtual assistants for professional results,• offer contracts of work to contractors on a case-by-case basis, • promote the business to a large audience or even locally,• find new work and contracts online4.

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Small Business Failure – Reason: Management Control

Aug 28, ’07 12:41 PM

You can pick and choose what you do work-wise everyday, you can not pick and choose what you should know about and make decisions about - this is your business, not your staffs business - act like it.Am I running my business or is it running "itself"?... When I hire people I always hire people who do something better than I, but you have to stay involved.You can see other reasons for small business and personal business, like contractors, freelancer, self-employed, sole-trader and virtual assistants failures in my Health Check Category, if you can add to this list please do so, I would welcome your comments.

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Small Business Failure – Reason: Cash-Flow

Aug 24, ’07 11:37 AM

Check your cash-flow each time before you make a bigger purchase or hire staff which is not in the plan, you will quiet easily see if you can afford to do it or not.How much reserves does my business have?... On those terms you should get an overdraft, even if you do not need it, so if something unexpected happens you got the cash-flow reserve.The importance of your cash-flow situation can not be overestimated, as long as you can pay your bills you are in business - as the saying goes: Cash Is King!You can see other reasons for small business and personal business, like contractors, freelancer, self-employed, sole-trader and virtual assistants failures in my Health Check Category, if you can add to this list please do so, I would welcome your comments.

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