Data. It's the lifeblood of any small business - it can be everything from customer orders to your 5-year plan to expand your business. What would you do if you suddenly lost all your data? Would you have a backup in place or would you lose months or even years of hard work? 1. Why is Data Backup So Important? Every small business should have a data backup option available to … [Read more...]
3 Financial Concerns Every Breadwinning Woman Should Have
As women continue to push through gender constraints within the workplace, many are breaking through the glass ceiling to reach powerful positions within companies -- and often with a salary to match. While, admittedly, an income gap problem remains to be solved, this doesn't change the fact that women are now significant contributors to household incomes. In fact, over half … [Read more...]
How to Choose the Right Promotional Merchandise to Market Your Business
A well-chosen piece of promotional merchandise can be a great way to reach out to potential customers (and influencers) to make them aware of your brand. As a general rule, you want your promotional item to be practical, inspirational, and/or fun. Practical Items If you’re going to offer an item to be used once and then discarded, then ideally, it should be recyclable. If … [Read more...]
4 Little Known Entrepreneurial Lessons from the Ski Slopes
I needed a break from my business. Being an entrepreneur is not as glamorous as my employed-self assumed it would be. You work longer hours, take fewer holidays, and don’t get invited to enough of those cocktail networking events in Hawaii that you had envisioned. So, my husband and I flew away from it all and journeyed from tropical South Africa to the French Alps. Nothing … [Read more...]
How to Educate for Success within HR
HR – It’s time to tear down the wall. Our job is to build up people not walls, so let’s dig into our why and purpose. Prejudice of all kinds exists, whether it be race, gender, sexual orientation, or difference of thought. Our goal is to let this go. We need to let go of all the things that weigh us down because we can’t help anyone if we're carrying such a heavy … [Read more...]
How to Build a Success Mindset
Do you know the real secret to business success? As a business mentor, I am always having conversations with women about their dreams to start a business. I love hearing all of their amazing ideas, and many of the women I speak with have done an impressive amount of research. But, when planning what they need to get their businesses up and running, I’ve found that they … [Read more...]
Can’t Go It Alone?
Consider this. Changes don’t occur in a vacuum. To be successful, you must involve the right people at the right time. Follow these steps to identify and engage the right stakeholders. 1. Identify Project Stakeholders Stakeholders are your key customers and suppliers. This can include: Aanyone who relies on the output of what’s being changed Anyone whose support or … [Read more...]
Getting the Most from a Diverse, Mixed-Age Team
Recently, a colleague asked me about my company’s diverse, mixed-age work environment — known for being upbeat, effective, and welcoming for all our employees. She was truly skeptical that people across so many backgrounds and generations could work together so effectively. Until she brought it up, this was an issue I’d never really thought much about. My company began with … [Read more...]
How a Magazine Can Help Increase Your Sales
As a business, you should always be ready to go that extra mile when it comes to improving sales. Owning a business magazine or starting your own business magazine can be an excellent sales booster. A business magazine makes it easy to market products, and providing a visual presentation is always better that simply using words. When people who read at least one magazine per … [Read more...]
I Don’t Know and That’s Okay
Just because someone has money doesn’t mean they understand finance. Money plays an important role for everyone in the developed world, but financial literacy is unevenly distributed. Business schools offer the only formal education on the topic, but they generally can’t connect the subject matter to the real world or the students’ personal lives. People are drawn to … [Read more...]