Contributed Post | Mike McRitchie | Resume and LinkedIn Profile Writer | Telecom Marketing Content Writer

This Is Why You Don’t Have To Be A CEO To Start A Company

November 13, 2018 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

How to startup a company When it comes to the world of startups, it can be so intimidating to get started. But this isn’t usually something that the entrepreneurial world does. It’s more often than not something that you get into your own mind. Because you may dream of becoming an entrepreneur, but you may not feel as if you are skilled enough. Or experienced enough. Or qualified enough for the job! But these are all things that are going to be in your own mind – not what others are telling you. It’s easy to see why you would think that you need to be all of these things. Because big-time entrepreneurs seem so skilled and awesome – that you can feel inadequate in comparison.

If the main reason you’re stopping yourself from starting a business, and you’re holding yourself back, is because you think that you’re not a big-time hotspot business person, then it’s time to set that straight. Because you can. You can quite easily start your own company and take it to the levels that you’ve always dreamt of WITHOUT having run a company before in the past. As long as you really want to make this work, you can. So if you really need the confidence to get started with your own company, here’s how you can make it work.

Passion Is Important

So, to begin with, you need to realize just how important passion is. And mindset. The two can really work to make you successful. It doesn’t matter if you have never built a company before. Because you’re passion for what you’re building and your positive, can-do mindset, is going to make sure that you win.

You’ll Learn Along The Way

And another really important thing to remember is that you are going to learn SO much on this journey. You may be green, to begin with, but you will change and grow so rapidly. It won’t take long for you to pick things up. When you do something that doesn’t work, you learn from it. And when you don’t know how to do something, you’ll look it up and learn how to. So remember that.

Training & Courses Will Help

But then also, you’re not also just going to learn from your failures or by picking bits of advice up here and there. You might also want to think about get further training and take courses. Maybe you will even want to do something more specific, like Cybersecurity Analyst Training to push your knowledge further. Specific training will be particularly important if it’s related to what your company does.

And Hire Experts

Plus, if you know that you don’t know how to do something in particular, and you really don’t want to learn how to do it, you don’t have to. Because you can hire people to do it for you. Remember, you might be starting a business, but you do not have to do it all alone. Instead, you can look to hire experts that are going to help you to really do well in the areas that you are weak at, so that your business becomes better.

Drive Will Take You Far

And never underestimate your drive, determination, and ambition. Because this grit can get you far. When you really want something, you will get it. You will push yourself, you will grow, and you will make sure that you get there. So experience isn’t even in the equation here.

Your Ingenuity Could Work

Now, it is really easy to think that you already have to be a business genius to start a company. But you really don’t. Instead, you’re likely to find that you, just as you are, are the reason for your success. Being yourself in business is so important. And if you want to put yourself out there, you may find that your customers can relate to you for just being a normal person. So here, you will find that your inexperience actually works in your favor.

It’s About The Product, Not You

And finally, it’s so important for you to remember that this isn’t about you. It’s not about what you’ve done in the past and what you know. It’s about the product and the business. It’s about the customers and what they want. So if you KNOW that you can make great products, and you know that you can serve your audience with what they want and need, then that’s all that matters. Because everything else will fall into place.

Building Your Future: How to Start a Storage Unit Business from Scratch

November 13, 2018 by Contributed Post 1 Comment

Storage Unit Business

A storage unit business provides lucrative income with no inventory, minimal overhead, and low operational costs. Here’s how you can start one of your own.

You’re sick of punching the clock day in and day out only to receive an income that you feel doesn’t reflect your worth – what you truly bring to the table. Now just may be the perfect time to create your own “table” – in other words, hire yourself.

If you’re thinking about entering the storage unit business in particular, you’re on the right track.

After all, research shows the storage leasing industry in the United States has skyrocketed by nearly 4% during the past five years, reaching a revenue of $37 billion in 2018.

So, why exactly is the storage unit industry so hot right now? Because a storage unit business provides lucrative income with no inventory, minimal overhead, and low operational costs.

We’ve compiled a guide for starting your own storage unit business from scratch so you can enjoy a piece of the pie this year. Let’s get started!

Psychographic and Demographic Market Research

Before you start your storage unit business, you need to conduct psychographic and demographic market research to find out the answers to a couple of questions:

In what areas are people interested in using storage unit services?
What kinds of incomes will households need to earn to afford to rent storage units?

As a general rule of thumb, people who live in the suburbs are more likely to want to lease storage units compared with those in rural or urban areas. But, businesses of all sizes may be interested in renting these units to securely store their extra business documents.

Whether you’re catering to business owners or homeowners, note that your customers will choose you only if your storage units are in a secure location and are easily accessible when they need them. The more research you do beforehand, the better you’ll understand the industry and where your units should ideally go before you commit money and time to this industry.

Who is Your Competition?

How much competition you’ll face in the storage unit business largely depends on where your units are located. However, as a general rule of thumb, here are a few top brands you may come across in your search for competitors:

Public Storage
Sovran Self Storage
Extra Space Storage
U-Haul
Life Storage
CubeSmart

These companies stand out in the industry for several reasons:

How long they’ve been in the business
Their publicity and marketing strategies
Their quantity of units
Their units’ locations
Their security and safety measures

Areas, where these companies’ storage units are already located, may be good places to set up your units, as these areas likely feature huge demand. You’ll simply need to focus on making your offerings competitive in terms of price in these areas.

Also, you can feel free to have more than one business location in a single area if you feel the area is thriving enough to support both locations.

Storage Unit Business Planning

As soon as you know where you would like to set up your units permanently, it’s time to construct a business plan.

For instance, maybe you’d like a part-time business that you can run from home starting out. That’s perfectly fine, as you can simply grow your company over time.

Of course, if you want to start out big, then that’s fine, too. Just be sure to determine where you see yourself in five years from now and map out a plan for getting there.

What Are Your Start-Up Costs?

You now know how you’d like to approach your storage unit business and where your units should go. Now, you must estimate your company’s start-up costs, also known as sunk costs.

Keep in mind that your start-up expenses are not the same as the costs of maintaining your business long term. The start-up costs you’ll need to raise money or obtain financing for include the following:

The purchase of land
The construction of a building
Promotional materials
Website design
Unexpected expenses

When it comes to constructing a building, note that you don’t necessarily have to create a brick-and-mortar facility.

Instead, you could use used shipping containers, which are available through companies like Equipment Management Services. These containers offer the benefit of being easy to maintain, strong, affordable, and convenient.

As a general rule of thumb, about $35 to $40 per square foot (plus site improvements) is what you’ll need to erect your business facility. It may take you a year and a half to a couple of years to fully realize your full revenue potential, especially if you’re in a competitive market.

The Legal Side of Your Business

This side of your business is also important to consider, as you may end up facing customers who want to sue you. In addition, you might need to produce reports for regulatory authorities.

A certified public accountant can help you to set up the most appropriate legal entity for your business. Your options include a Limited Liability Company (LLC), corporation, partnership, and sole proprietorship.

When choosing your entity, you should take a number of factors into consideration. These include the following:

The ease of setting up a certain legal entity
Taxation issues
The flexibility of the structure based on your business needs
The liability protection you’ll receive

Most business owners prefer the LLC option, as this legal entity allows you to keep yourself separate from your business. This means that if your business does end up facing a lawsuit in the future, the suit won’t necessarily impact you personally, as your personal assets will remain protected. Also, you can enjoy a taxation benefit, as you will pay tax on your personal income return.

If you choose to form a storage unit corporation, you’ll basically have a more formal, less flexible version of an LLC. To create a corporation, you’ll need multiple owners.

However, you could create a certain form of a corporation called an S corporation with a single owner. With this structure, you can reduce your self-employment tax liability. The downside is that you can’t grow past a certain point.

Another form of corporation you may want to consider is the C Corporation, which is more formal than the S Corporation.

A major disadvantage of this structure, though, is that every owner is taxed apart from the company, thus resulting in double taxation. Still, a C Corporation is ideal if you plan to build several facilities and thus will need to attract venture capital or private investors’ funds to your company.

What about Insurance?

Another way you can protect yourself before embarking on the road to storage unit business ownership is to secure insurance. Here is a rundown on a few types of insurance policies that may be worth looking into for your entity:

General insurance
Liability insurance
Workers’ compensation insurance
Insurance covering employment practices liability
Property insurance
Equipment insurance
Insurance for errors and omission
Insurance for payment protection

If you’re not quite sure which type of insurance to buy, an insurance broker or agent can point you in the right direction.

Market Your Company

This is one of the most important parts of starting your storage unit company from scratch. After all, you can’t expect prospective customers to know about you if you don’t market yourself.

For starters, be sure to advertise your unit company in your local newspaper or magazine. TV and radio ads may also be helpful for getting the word out there about your new venture.

You’ll also need to create a website, which is why we mentioned earlier about including website design costs as part of your start-up costs.

Of course, in addition to designing a site, you’ll need to find a company to host it. Then, you’ll need to use a search engine optimization (SEO) expert to make sure your website achieves as high of a ranking as possible on search engine result pages.

In line with this, be sure your business is present on social media websites, such as Google Plus, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. This will help you to further publicize and promote your company.

Other handy marketing tactics include installing billboards or flexi banners in strategic locations.

It may also behoove you to take part in or sponsor local events to show that you are a major supporter of the local community.

In addition, make sure that your company is present in online directories. An SEO consultant can help with this as well.

How We Can Help

If you’re interested in starting a storage unit business, I can help. I have a wealth of experience in helping people to take their careers or businesses to the next level.

Get in touch with me to find out more about how our business advice and branding services can help you to achieve your entrepreneurial goals long term.

Get Paid Fast: How To Make Sure You Get Paid On Time Everytime

November 12, 2018 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

Getting paid

Are you having trouble with your invoiced payments? You can’t run a business if you can’t get paid fast. Here’s what to do to get paid on time everytime.

On paper, the premise of freelance work is simple. You provide a job or service, and you receive a fixed payment for it. Right?

However, if you’re among the 57 million freelancers working in America, the formula may not be so simple. From unpaid invoices to late payments to miscommunication issues with your clients, it’s frustrating to chase down your funds.

If you run a business, you need to get paid fast- on time, every time. Let’s get into the top tips for success.

Understand Why The Payments Are Late

To identify a solution, you first need to target the problem. In other words, what exactly is going on?

There could be a couple of scenarios at play here. On the one hand, a long-time client may make a one-time mistake. This is normal, as we’re all busy humans with full schedules.

On the other hand, if you’re working with someone new and a late payment happens, there’s a very good chance of this history repeating itself.

It’s also important to identify if you are part of the problem. For example, are you being too nonchalant with how you expect payments? Are you sending invoices weeks after completing the work?

Identify and Specify Your Payment Requirements

When you work as an independent contractor or freelancer, it’s usually up to you to determine what the payment calendar and schedule looks like.

This means you need to identify the cost of time and labor and specify how and when you expect to get paid.

You need to specify these requirements and expectations from the beginning of your working relationship. Don’t expect your clients to read your mind. After all, it’s usually not their top concern to think about when their contractors receive payment.

Get It In Writing

Before you even begin any contract work with a company, its best to have both a verbal and written understanding about the work, payment, and communication.

This is where many people start with upfront deposits. It’s not uncommon to request a 50$ deposit prior to beginning work. This provides both the freelancer and the company to put some skin in the game.

Furthermore, a legal contract protects you in the event of your client skipping out or underpaying you. Setting up a contract may require consulting with a lawyer, but this is usually worth the financial peace of mind.

Encourage Incentives

Some freelancers incentivize their customers by offering small discounts for paying ‘in full’ or even making early payments.

This is, of course, at your discretion, but it can serve two purposes. On the one hand, you establish a protocol for increasing your chance of getting paid on time (or even early). For two, you’re rewarding customer loyalty, and that can improve your reputation and overall business structure.

However, don’t assume that clients will know about these incentives. Make sure that you show the price differences, send out flyers or make a note when drafting out your invoices. You want the incentives to be obvious and enticing!

Finally, you can also offer incentives for different modes of payment (such as using an electric check instead of a credit card).

Automate Your Payments

If you truly want to eliminate late payments, it’s worth considering whether you should automate your billing system. In doing this, you automatically process your payments without the hassle of manually invoicing and sending out reminders.

Fortunately, the process of how to use automation software is fairly straightforward. You will input the vendor’s name, contact information, and tax ID number.

From there, you can verify payments, monitor changes, create audits, and essentially streamline your accounts.

This is usually advantageous if you work with clients in providing recurring services. If you have many clients on the books, it’s easy for you to get overwhelmed or even forgetful about the services your render.

Automating will help you save time- and it could help you earn faster money without all the headaches of reminding your clients.

Have Protocol For Late Payment Management

Payment still not received? You need to establish authority and ownership by taking action.

Once the invoice or payment is overdue, you need to send out a reminder within 48 hours to the company. Still no word? Send out another.

At that point, you need to remind your customer that you do retain the legal rights to charge interest on their debts.

Yes, you may hear excuses, and you’ll need to learn how to deal with those. Customers will blame other colleagues. They’ll tell you about their financial problems. They may even try to coerce you into a lower rate.

If needed, you may have to locate a reputable debt collection agency and tell your consumer that to establish your intentions.

In other words? Don’t just ignore the problem and hope that it goes away on its own. While some customers occasionally forget to make a payment, this shouldn’t be a pattern.

It’s normal for first-time entrepreneurs to doubt their work or skills, but that doesn’t mean you should overlook your worth.

After all, you have expenses to pay and a business to run. Don’t feel nervous to take further action for those who disregard your business practices.

Final Thoughts On How To Get Paid Fast

No matter how amazing your business is, it’s not worth any of the work if you aren’t receiving the compensation you deserve.

You deserve to get paid fast and on time without questions or concerns. You and your business are both valuable, and you need customers who can and will validate you for that!

Interested in learning more about improving your career or creating the business of your dreams? Contact me today!

You’re Turning Off Your Leads. Here’s How To Make Them Feel Sexy Again

November 12, 2018 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

Picture the scene. You’ve gone to a monumental amount of effort to recruit new leads and then they bounce. Apart from being a waste of time, it’s a damning indictment of the company. New customers should never pick up their things and leave, not during the honeymoon period.

The sad thing is shoppers get turned off all the time and businesses don’t care. “On to the next one,” they say and plow on regardless. But, the problem is it’s tricky to switch them back on again once they’re off. And, if you do it all the time, there won’t be any fresh leads and your profits will drop.

Every firm should focus on making them feel wanted, and here’s how to do it.

Eliminate Voicemail

A prospective customer has been given the pitch and they feel a million dollars. Then, they call the number on the website and no one answers. Well, they can’t be too special if they only get the automated voicemail. It’s a small thing, but a dedicated phone line like this legal answering service is an excellent way to show them you care. There is a person on the line 24-hours a day; if that’s not customer service, then what is?

Follow Up

Again, a sales rep has reeled off the spiel and told them they’re the greatest thing since sliced bread. But, low and behold, no one has been in touch to talk about a follow-up. Creating a lead is only one aspect of the job; the next is to secure their interest. To do this, contact them via phone, email or social media the very next day. Don’t give them time to rethink. Also, never neglect them after the sale. Send them their latest, tailored offers and the monthly newsletter to make sure they are part of the family.

Don’t Assume It’s About Money

Someone says they aren’t interested yet you think differently. And, the truth is they are on the cusp, you just haven’t given them cause to invest. So, you give them what you assume everybody wants: a price cut. Money is important but it isn’t the end of the world for customers. To choose you over a rival, they need to know you will solve their problems and won’t throw cash around at every opportunity. Try this five-step approach if you need a starting point.

Try Not To Put Them On Hold

There is nothing more annoying than being on hold for ages. You feel as if you’re never going to get to the bottom of the problem. Sometimes, it’s inevitable that you’ll need to hold the line to find a solution, but it’s how you go about it which is the key. For starters, always ask them if it’s okay before queuing the music. Also, explain why you’re doing it so they don’t think you’re trying to pass the buck. Finally, go back to them every five minutes to detail the process.

The above sound like four straightforward tips, yet it’s incredible how many companies are caught red-handed. Is your business one of them?

How To Painlessly Free Up Time As An Entrepreneur

November 12, 2018 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

It’s not easy being an entrepreneur, but it’s possible that it doesn’t have to be quite as difficult as many make for themselves. With so many tasks to take care of, it can forever feel like you’re behind schedule. But there are many business owners who walk straight into the madness, rather than try to find ways to free up some of their time, and make things more manageable. If you’re in that position, then take a read of the tips below, where we highlight some ways to free up time without compromising the quality of your work.

Time Management for Entrepreneurs

Get Rid of the Fluff

It’s easy to get carried away with ideas when you’re a business owner. A new one can pop into your head, and before you know it, it’s been tacked on to the ‘to do’ list. But it’s worth remembering that every new idea adds more work to your schedule, and the longer your schedule is, the less you’ll get done. So take the time to figure out the imperative tasks from the expendable ones. You might want to do everything, but you can’t. So leave the “good but non-essential” tasks until you really do have time.

Work With Other Companies

You won’t be able to do everything yourself because of time limitations, but even if you could, it probably wouldn’t be a good idea. You are not an expert at everything, after all. As such, it’s worthwhile looking at outsourcing some of your tasks to third-party companies, who will be able to manage them on behalf, and in the process free up time for you to work on other tasks. There’s no shortage of jobs that other companies can handle for you. You can outsource your customer contact services, accounting, and your marketing, for instance. You’ll have more hours in the day, and can rest assured that your important jobs are in good hands.

Monitor How You Spend Your Time

If you’re looking around at the end of the day and wondering where the time went, then you might want to consider investigating how you’re spending your time. It’s possible that you’re wasting more time than you realized. If you’re setting an hour’s meeting every morning, for instance, then you’re probably not making the most of your time. So just for one day, look at where your time is being spent. If there’s a couple of tasks that are taking up more time than you like, then find ways to make them more conducive to a productive workday.

Develop a Routine

A routine might not be the most exciting in the world, but at least you can say that they’re effective. If you get into the habit of waking up at a certain time, setting specific work hours, and so on, then you’ll find that you’re naturally in greater control of your time. It’s just about finding the routine that works for you.

Take the tips above, and you’ll soon find that your workday is much more productive.