Business Beginner

As a small business owner it is crucial to ensure affordable and comprehensive coverage options for your employees. But picking the right health insurance provider and plans can be intimidating and confusing to say the least. I know from experience that it can be a complete headache so I was very pleased to discover the new UnitedHealthcare Small Business website. They created a simplified and convenient site that allows you to learn about health insurance plans, get quotes, and purchase plans that are the best fit for your 2-50 employee company and your valued employees. Their industry-leading digital shopping step-by-step process let's you avoid that headache and instead give you some real peace of mind. I've also personally been a member of  UnitedHealthcare  for the past 2+ years so I know from firsthand experience that their policy prices and coverage are exceptional. It's a company I've always been able to rely on and now they have even more additional support fe...

Money is without a doubt one of our greatest stressors. So, perhaps it’s no surprise that a time of year that focuses solely on our earnings and expenditures and requires us to answer to Uncle Sam can be a bit overwhelming. Small business owners have the added pressure of prepping their business’s taxes and making sure that all the necessary information is in place so that their employees can prepare their personal taxes. If it’s all starting to feel like too much, here are a few tips to help lighten the load:  Get Help  Whether it’s asking an employee to reorganize a troublesome filing system, using W2 software to prep those documents for employees, or calling a trusted CPA to prepare your return, when it comes to taxes it is always ok to ask for help. Just because your taxes have to be done each year, doesn’t make it an easy process. There are many papers to gather and numbers to crunch, and being the top dog of your business doesn’t mean you have to do it all yourself. T...

You can be forgiven for thinking that with the digital revolution fingering every part of our lives, that offline marketing is dead. Old-fashioned, old-hat and passé, why on earth would you want leaflets and business cards, brochures and banners? Because they are still worthwhile offline marketing techniques that connect people with your business.  These five affordable offline marketing tips, brought to you by Colour Graphics , will make you question and reconsider your approach to marketing. Are your marketing activities hitting all the right notes?  #1 Network  The first thing that came to mind when you read the sub-heading was spending hours at a hosted session, attempting to strike up conversations with everyone in the room. And failing, miserably.  However, networking is another work for conversation and rather than attending mass networking events where everyone else seems to know each other, have a conversation with people who would be willing to buy or tria...

Do you ever feel like you're banging your head against the wall when it comes to marketing your small business?  In today's always connected world, the fact is all brands have to be smarter in the way they look at marketing. There's not a day that goes by that a new marketing technique or tip is dropped in your lap promising you a “ revolutionary way to market your small business ”. Excited by the possibilities you try it out only to find out your business struggles to reach its marketing goals. It's time to stop over- thinking the process & start doing something that's all too natural.  "Approximately 65% of our conversation consist of stories” estimates scientist & writer Jeremy Hsu. Everyday we tell stories about ourselves & others. Stories are in our blood as we've been telling them since the caveman days. We remember & learn subjects best through stories. When it comes down to it, human beings are storytelling animals. Our natural stren...

Exceeding business goals can be a real challenge, whether it's sales targets or production quotas. Most business objectives have been carefully calculated, and processes for realizing them have to pass through many hands. People tend to rely on their gut instincts and take gambles, or put in long hours that leave them exhausted. But given each quarter is a three-month window for improvement, the adage " work smarter , not harder" applies. Here are 5 tips to exceeding quarterly goals that you should explore from day one.  1. Get a Data-driven Quarterly Projection  Don't base your plans on guesses or sheer optimism. Your first step should be utilizing historical data to get some scheduling expectations based on past performance for all involved teams and departments. Analyze instances of both what went wrong and what worked. Come up with some "what if" solutions that make sense for sustaining momentum, and get managers on board. Try to come up with day-by-day...

One of the best ways to make money is to avoid spending it in the first place. It can be hard to find ways to cut costs without passing up opportunities, but there are a few methods that consistently work. They all take a little bit of effort, but that effort can pay big dividends in the long run.  1. Use HR Software  Labor is always expensive, so it's a good place to start when the time comes to cut costs. The best way to do that is to automate processes to reduce the amount of work needed to do a job. The Human Resources department is a great candidate for this, since there are a variety of modern software programs that can automate large parts of the process.  The average HR worker spends most of his or her day on administrative tasks, like tracking payroll and attendance. Doing it by hand can take a long time, but using human resources software means the computer can handle most of the bookkeeping—with minimal human oversight. That cuts down on labor time and allows...