Are you stuck in a dead-end job and keep looking for a way out? Or maybe have an unquenchable entrepreneurial spirit.

In either case, starting a small business may the perfect option for you.

But make sure you know how to build a company from day one. If not, you may be setting yourself up for failure before you begin. 

Cover these bases and your business will be built to last: 

Think Like a Customer 

Too many businesses start off by thinking of what they can gain. But before you even begin, make sure you think like a customer. 

What problem will your business be solving for a customer? The first level of research should answer the question of what good or service you can provide that fulfills a need.

Research The Marketplace

Have the perfect answer to a customer need? Great, now it is time to study the marketplace. 

If you start your business and then learn more about the competition you have the cart before the horse. In order to create a business plan and operating structure, you need to learn more about both your potential customer base as well as the competition. 

If you are looking to work on the local level you may want to go speak with the local business organizations. And in every case, you should make sure you research using digital tools. 

Legal Hurdles 

If this is your first time in starting a business you may want to consult a lawyer. A lawyer and an accountant will help you structure the legalities of your business. 

You will also need to consider the permits and licenses required in your location.

In addition, don’t forget the basics of liabilities and insurance. Whether you need insurance to protect your clients or your business from lawsuits, think ahead for your requirements.

Financing 

Every business needs a plan. Whether you seek a loan from a local bank or finance the venture on your own, a business plan will provide a playbook for your costs.

A business plan and a plan for financing isn’t something that is set in stone. But it should provide an idea of your initial expenditures and a realistic set of goals for the performance of your business. 

Staffing and Help  

You may need to use contract labor or hire staff to service your customers. Make sure you integrate human resources, training, development, and payroll in your plan. 

Operational supports like a pay stub generator will help you cover the basics of staffing and payroll with ease.  

How To Build a Company? Start at Home

Before you think about expensive overhead and office expenses, make sure you consider the option of starting your company in your home. 

You may be surprised to realize that many billion dollar companies actually started in a garage. Starting allows you to stay nimble and keep costs low.

Any success in how to build a company requires laying a solid foundation to grow from. 

But even starting a business from home can have some obstacles. Come learn about the two crucial things you need to set up your home business.

One of the key pillars of every successful business is a great communication strategy. When navigating the great jungle known as “business communications” do your best to avoid these common pitfalls that cost businesses millions of dollars annually.

Practicing One-Dimensional Communication

Communication between both customers and employees should always be a back and forth exchange. Almost all of us have worked for hierarchical businesses and organizations that shared this control based leadership structure where supervisors only deliberate tasks to the employees under them, but neither give time for their employees to provide feedback, nor a comfortable way to do so. Sometimes senior employees even condemn those under them, when they question methodologies or the way in which tasks are being executed. Despite the long history and wide spread use of this type of communication around the world, we know that this system only bolsters employee frustration, fosters a lack of trust and results in greater employee turnover.

A company that exemplifies what quality two-dimensional communication should be is Credit Karma. Credit Karma operates with an “open door policy” where the CEO allows any employee, regardless of status, to come in his office and tell him how they think the company is doing, this strategy has increased their morale and employee trust, because it demonstrates that their voices are being heard and the CEO is just another member of the team.

Breaking the mold and adopting a 2-dimensional communication style early in your business is great way to start off strong and build a company that makes its employees feel valued.

Using an Outdated Communication System

According to a Microsoft study, 91% of customers say they would cut ties with businesses that used outdated technology. It is important that your business stays current and integrates new technology to increase productivity and aleve traditional pain points in business. With poor communication costing businesses millions of dollars every year, it is important to make sure you’re using the best communication tools available, to insure that your company’s ability to communicate is one of your strengths, rather than weaknesses.

Three ways you can update your communication system are:

1. Implementing an instant messaging tool allowing every employee to instantly message any other employee no matter where they are or what device they are using. A great tool you could use for this is Google Hangouts.
2. Implementing Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phones as a replacement for traditional landlines. Doing this removes all of the downtime and revenue lost due to high maintenance costs and regular malfunctions associated with legacy phone systems. VoIP phone systems allow for wireless communication experiences, which only require a good internet connection, which means no wires, drastically reduced maintenance costs, little to no downtime,  and more revenue.
3. Implementing a unified communications system (UCaaS) which combines instant messaging, VoIP phones and video calling, to create a seamless cloud communications suite. This suite also offers virtual meetings and conference calls, allowing you to stay connected with both the team and your customers even if they are remote. Cloud communications company, 8×8, has developed a popular UCaaS solution which is known to improve business communication efficiency.

Using the Wrong Communication Tool

The tool you choose each time you communicate should be based on ‘who’ you are conversing with, but more importantly ‘what’ you are communicating.

For example, you wouldn’t want to present a new product idea to the CEO via email, because your tone, goals and overall message would likely get obfuscated due to the limitations of email. A presentation like that would better be communicated in person or via video conference.

When communicating with an employee or customer you have a wide array of tools you can choose from. Email, text message, video chat,mobile phone, even Facetime. When deciding which tool to use to connect with customers, you need to consider:

1. Which means of communication does your customer use the most.
2. Which tool does your customer prefer to use when interacting with your business.
3. What your customer wants to communicate: customer service, reviews, etc
4. What is the financial cost of using that tool compared to other alternatives.

The tool you choose should align with all of those factors.It should allow the customer to use what they feel most comfortable with, be an effective medium for communicating their particular message, and be the most cost effective tool that accomplishes those things. That logic should naturally translate over when deciding what communication tools to use internally. If you haven’t considered all four of those factors when you purchased you last communication tool, you may likely be losing money.

Centralizing the Control of Information

Senior employees should withhold as little information as possible related to the tasks being executed by employees under them. As the senior or executive member of your team, working in that position for a longtime, it is often easy for  your confidence to develop into arrogance and for you to start to believe you are the only one capable of executing certain tasks. Subsequently, you begin to feel that lower ranked members of your team don’t need to know information related to those tasks. While in some industries such as the defense sector, the intentional withholding of information may be a requirement, in most industries this is not necessary, and often limits productivity, innovation, efficiency, employee trust and overall transparency.

Sharing as much information with employees, as possible will actually promote productivity, innovation and transparency. Sharing info promotes productivity by allowing employees to have more insight into the ‘why’of their jobs and allows them to be motivated by knowing exactly how their specific job is important and how it impacts the company as a whole. Sharing info promotes innovation because regardless of what position or title they hold, everyone has unique skills, talent and insight they can bring to the table. And sharing as much info with them as possible allows them the chance to identify areas in the company workflow that only they have the specific skillset to improve, which they wouldn’t have been able to do without the information being readily available to them. To sum it all up, the more information that is shared the more employees will trust the organization and feel as though they are able to unify under the company’s goals. Companies like Buffer, are the perfect example of why being open and transparent is the way to go.

Now you should be well on your way to successfully navigating the business communication jungle. Avoiding these common communication blunders will give you a leg up on your competition who have to learn the hard way, while also allowing your business to grow even faster as a result of improving your communication.

As the New Year approaches we all want to optimise our chances of success, and one of the most important for the majority of creative ventures is that of having a captivating web presence.  Notice, the term “presence” rather than website, as in today’s world, the majority of the ways in which we interact are via social media rather than static websites.

Furthermore, with advances in aspects such as AI and gartner master data management, we are becoming more empowered to deliver tailored and automated services that are much more relevant to the individual user.

Whilst social media is huge, and ever expanding, your website acts as a positioning platform and the base of your digital triangle.  Yes, you can use a variety of interesting platforms to tour your creative wares (e.g. Etsy) yet your website is the hub that everything links back to.

In this article, we’re therefore going to look at how to create a more captivating website:

1. SPEED

The back end of a website, meaning the technology and code that delivers the content and design onto a computer screen are of critical importance to the performance of your website, yet they are often overlooked.  The key metric, when it comes down to the back end is that of speed and efficiency.

See, you can have the most beautifully crafted website, yet if it’s slow to load most people aren’t going to stick around to see it.  In fact, research demonstrates that you have roughly three seconds for your entire site to load before people click off.

Of course, with the introduction of 5G coming in 2019, slow internet speeds are in the mostpart becoming a thing of the past, yet, there are still plenty of people in rural communities that don’t have access to lightning fast broadband.  

It’s therefore worth considering how quickly your website loads, as speed will captivate a lot more users, on the basis they cannot engage with something that they have to wait to load.

2.  CONTENT ARCHITECTURE

If we think of web design as akin to building a house, the architect draws up the plans to ensure your house is functional and convenient – for instance, they are likely to build a walk in wardrobe in the master bedroom rather than the downstairs toilet, as it just makes more sense.  

Similarly, when it comes to content architecture you need to make sure that everything is laid out in a sensical way that makes it easy for users to find what they are looking for.

3.  AESTHETICS

Staying with the metaphor of building a house, the design of your website extends beyond the paint and wallpaper you choose – it has to be functional just as much as it has to be attractive.

When it comes to your website, you want to ensure you don’t have a distracting design that detracts from your content.  You want your content to be the primary focus where the design aspects around the content are there to compliment it.