Business Portfolio

A business portfolio is the asset of your company. It is a collection of work you have done that exemplifies your skills to the clients and clear out all their quandaries about your work. To win the belief of the customer, it is important to showcase your best work in a clean and creative way. Well creating a unique business portfolio is not as tough, especially when you know your work is fantastic and able to hit the mind of the client. But the way you present it matters a lot, don’t worry, you don’t need to climb a mountain for this because here we have some out of the box ideas that help you design a kick-ass business portfolio. So, are you ready to dig into the pool of ideas? Yes, let’s get started.

Put Yourself In Someone’s Else Shoes: To create an attractive and impressive business portfolio it is important to first put yourself in someone’s else shoes as it gives you better understanding. You should always remember that your business portfolio is the voice of your brand that speaks about your work, so, you have to be a bit crazy, creative and clean while showcasing your work.
Signify Your Versatility: Every client wants to work with a company that able enough to think on their feet or in simple words the one who can quickly adapt changes and make the right decision. So, while designing your business portfolio exhibit the different projects that you have worked on. It helps to hit the nail on the head.
Showcase At Least Five Of Your Projects: Winning the heart of the customer is not a cakewalk. Thus, you have to go some extra miles for this. While exhibiting your work make sure you include five of your important and best of the best projects that works like a charm and win their trust.
Keep Your Business Portfolio Update: Change is the only constant so you have to learn to embrace it. Thus, it is good if you change or update your portfolio after a while as it shows your improvement to the clients. Moreover updated portfolio gives existing customers a reason to take a look again because of the new design.

With these simple tricks, meet your aim and get the best outcomes in the near future. In case you think there is something missing because of what you are not getting the expected outcomes, so, you should never afraid to take professional support.

Working on Cars

If your hobby is working on cars, you may want to consider turning it into a career with a car repair franchise. Starting any type of business can be confusing and costly. However, a franchise allows you to get assistance from a nationally owned company that has been in the industry for a long time.

With a well-known car repair company, you get the advantage that comes with a strong brand and customer base. Still, there are steps for you to take to help you get the franchise off the ground.

Select the Type of Car Franchise You Want to Open

A varying degree of franchises in the repair industry exists for you to give car owners the services they want and need. Start by choosing ones that fit your prior experience. If you have no experience, research the one in which you are most interested. Typically, franchise owners receive comprehensive training before opening the doors, so being an expert is not required.

Write a Business Plan

Your business plan is one of the most important steps toward owning a franchise. Details such as an overview of the automotive industry, marketing, finances, staffing and how you plan to run the business are essential. Not only will the plan serve as a guide for running your business, but it is also a useful tool for obtaining financing. Surprises are to be expected in the business world, but a business plan can offer solutions to overcome challenges sooner.

Scout Site Locations

Location, location, location. Finding the ideal spot for your franchise can make a world of difference. The franchisor will assist you with sourcing a location. Some might even help you negotiate a favorable lease. Find out how zoning laws can affect where you can open a car repair shop in certain area.

Get Licenses, Permits and Insurances

Making sure you have all the licenses and permits necessary to operate legally is very important. This information should be readily available from the state motor vehicle department where you plan to open shop. There are also federal standards such as OSHA that will apply. Plan on buying insurance for liability coverage as well as other policies related to the automotive industry.

Once you buy all the necessary equipment, hire certified technicians and advertise, you are ready for the grand opening. These basic steps will put you on a path of hard work and great rewards.

Ideal Results

There are plenty of benefits that come with laminating your documents. Some of these advantages include:

Enhancing and preserving the color and contrast of the images
You have professional looking documents
Lamination protects the documents thus they last for a long time even with frequent handling
The process is easy, and you achieve immediate results

Laminating tips

Whether you have a home or office laminating machine, you need to use it correctly for you to obtain perfect results. Some of the tips you need to consider include:

Use the right pouch: This seems like a no-brainer, but you will be worried by the number of people that fail to achieve perfect laminating results due to failure to use the right pouch. If you have a high-quality machine, the chances are that the unit has different pouches. For ideal results, use the right pouch for the product you are looking to laminate.

You also should place the document at the right area. To be on the safe side, leave a 2mm border around the entire document.

Properly warm up the machine: Different machines require different heating temperatures for them to work efficiently. The cool thing is that they all come with manuals from where you can refer on the right temperature to use. If you aren’t sure, check the manual and set your unit.

Properly laminate irregular surfaces: While most of the documents to be laminated come in regular shapes, there are a few that feature irregular shapes. When laminating these documents be cautious. As rule of thumb, send them through the machine twice. This is to avoid wrinkling.

Clean the machine: Just like any other unit in your home or office, you need to regularly clean the laminating machine for it to work effectively. When cleaning it, pay attention to the rollers. The best way of cleaning the unit is heating up the machine to its normal laminating temperature and then pass a non-glossy piece of paper through it as you are laminating.

Leave a seal: Once you are done laminating a document, cut it appropriately to give it a professional look. The best way of going about it is leaving a seal around the edges of the document.

Conclusion

These are tips to consider when laminating your documents. For the unit to give you the service you deserve, buy a high-quality machine. The unit will not only give you professional looking documents, but it also will last for a long time.

Choosing a Business Coach

Are you thinking of starting a new business? Or are you trying to resolve certain issues related to your existing business? No matter what type of problems you may have, we suggest that you look for a good business coach. While choosing one, make sure that you go with a professional who is an expert in his field. If you have no idea how to hire one, you can read our tips that we have described below.

Evaluate your strengths and weaknesses

First of all, you may want to look at yourself. What you need to do is acknowledge your strengths and weaknesses. In addition, you should consider your expectations for your business since they are essential factors to help you know what you need from your business coach.

Know your budget

You may also want to know your budget so you can find out the amount you can spend on your coach. Aside from the budget, make sure you have enough time for the coach. For instance, some coaches want their clients to give at least 2 hours per week for learning. Aside from this, some professionals are expensive while others are not.

Personality of the coach

Ideally, you may want to look for a professional business coach whose personality matches yours. The fact of the matter is that the job of the coach is to encourage you a bit so you can get to greater heights. As a matter of fact, if you are unable to have a good relationship with the professional due to personality differences, you may not be able to get the most out of him. In your first meeting with the coach, make sure you find out if you two can work together. If you don’t get the response you desired, we suggest that you keep looking for the best professional.

The website of the coach

You should go to the website of the coach and spend at least 15 minutes on the site. This idea is to know if the site is well maintained. If the site has not been updated for ages, this is not a good sign.

Linking sites

You should do a quick site search to find out the number of sites that link to the website of your desired coach. This will give you an idea of how long the site has been around as well as the credibility of the site.

Make a list of a few coaches

As soon as you have shortlisted a few good pros, you should contact them one by one. You should ask them some important questions. Actually, you may want to work with a pro that has a significant amount of experience. You don’t want to hire a coach who has just received his credentials.

Online Sales

If the metrics for your sales team needs improvement, now is the time to consider online sales training courses. You might have immediate goals for improving skills and sales techniques. Changing stagnant sales processes could be an issue. Either way, training programs can deliver what you need and help to improve your company’s bottom line.

Here are a few things to consider before signing up the team.

Assess Skills Deficit and Learning Needs

Many courses are available to target specific skills. Therefore, it is best to access the areas in which your team needs help. It is a waste of resources in time and money if course material does not match what will actually improve sales goals. Training needs might also vary among team members. Some might need courses on closing deals; others may need to learn new ways of creating lead generation.

Unless learning deficits are assessed before class, you will not be able to measure whether the course improved certain practices. Identifying these areas enables you to tailor content to individual and group needs. Consider using a pre-training skills assessment to lay the foundation and narrow course selection.

Align Training with Your Industry

Sales training cannot be summarized as a one-size fits all program. You want a team trained to sell your company’s products and/or services. To do this, sales personnel need to understand the industry and the target market. Training should match what is important to the industry.

Presenting materials that are not adapted to your industry is another waste of time and money. Specific challenges can directly contribute to dismal sales numbers. Make sure the training program you select has relevance with examples, case studies, role play, exercises and anything else that is tailored to your industry.

Continue to Provide Sales Tools

After your sales team leaves the training room, they must face the real world of implementing what they learned. Offer management support to ensure they can apply the new skills. Provide practical tools such as conversation guides and checklists to help make selling easier.

Look for opportunities to reinforce their training and keep the doors of communication open. A follow-up survey is also helpful to determine if concerns were adequately addressed.

The bottom line is getting results through the sales team and for your company. Efforts to improve the sales team with online training becomes lost if courses did not they cannot apply what was covered. For lasting changes and improvements, behaviors should resemble something different from what existed before class.

Richuals

The times they are a’changing. But… they’ve always been a’changing. Change, after all, is the only constant in our lives. In part because of technological advances, it can seem that the rapidity with which change occurs is overwhelming. We are over-loaded, over-informed, over-committed and under-rested. Amid the madness created by this culture of chaos, and the confusion spawned by the nanosecond lifestyles, an oxymoronic need for constancy has arisen. That constancy can easily come in the form of “richuals,” ceremonies and celebrations that lend purpose to life and life to purpose, especially at work.

WHY RICHUALS?
The suggestions here will, ideally, create constancy in terms of value–and not only around the traditional reasons for rituals: comings and goings, births and deaths, entries and exits of one sort or another. The richuals in this collection are designed to enrich the workplace and the many communities in which it resides. (The spelling is deliberately designed to suggest “enrichment” in conjunction with “rituals.”) Richuals are repeated actions that inspire anticipation; they are collective undertakings infused with fun, gratitude, and opportunities to do unto others. These activities can offset stress, isolation, and the disquieting feeling that we may not be “giving back” as much as we should or could.

Within the workplace, richuals help to define the culture, to reunite those divided by temporal, spatial, and cyberspace distances. Designed for people with too much to do and too little time in which to do it all, richuals are simple, easy to implement and user-friendly. They represent a convenient means of translating desire into action.

Whether you are interested in building teams, building partnerships, or building buildings for the homeless, richuals will help you forge the bonds that improve your spirits, improve your relationships, and even–in a small way–improve the community in which you live and work. You will find empowerment, stability, and esprit as you work with your corps on these undertakings. You will find joy in the ceremonies that celebrate our commonalities and cherish the differences that make us unique. That joy can be trusted.

With enriching rituals–rites that have been woven into the corporate fabric–we find missions more meaningful, goals more personalized, values more valuable and continuity more pride-inducing.

WHO?
Richuals can be initiated by anyone, at any level of the organization. You may wish to make the rituals program official by publicizing a program of once-a-week richualing. You can take the micro approach–use the richuals at Monday staff meetings or as an energizer for dress-down Fridays. You may wish to set up a team like the Joy Club they have at Ben & Jerry’s, where “fun” and “work” are often synonymous terms. Or, you can take the macro approach–use the richuals department-wide or even organization-wide. Inform customers of your efforts and maybe even the local media. Involve as many people as possible, for a richual shared is a joy doubled.

WHEN?
We recommend you do one richual a week. If you follow the sequence to be presented in future articles, then the ritual becomes the doing of richuals. Or, you may prefer to select a richual at random and use it for a particular occasion, such as National Volunteers Week in January or Quality Month in October. You may even find one you like so well that you do the same richual every single week of the year. The “Small Change” idea (#1), for example, can easily become a richual unto itself 52 times a year.

What Steps Should I Take To Make My Company More Successful?

Business owners who are addicted to success should know that there are many ways that they can realize this objective. To get on the road to optimized success right now, consider the value of implementing some or all of the following business tips:

1. Utilize Content Marketing Services.

One great way that you can make your company more successful is utilizing content marketing services. These services are helpful because they will empower you to attain and maintain a strong, positive, influential online presence that gets more people intrigued with your brand. Digital firms typically employ content writers who can put together compelling, creative blog posts and web articles that will demonstrate the unique value of your product or service line. Also note that content marketing services will now also include video production work. This inclusion in offerings is immensely important because people are more likely to watch a video than read an article when in the online realm.

2. Make Employee Development A Must.

In addition to utilizing content marketing services, make sure that you hop on the employee development bandwagon. This approach is incredibly effective because it shows your staff members that you value their work and want them to grow. Once they understand that this is your approach and perspective, they will almost always become more loyal to your company. The end result is a staff that consistently operates in excellence. One simple way to put the employee development process in motion is by regularly having one-on-one meetings with each staff member. During these meetings, you can ask them about things like whether they have all of the materials they need to work effectively.

3. Update Your Broadband Equipment.

One final technique you can implement to keep your business growing is updating your broadband equipment. If you’re using outdated equipment, you run the risk of compromising your internet connection. When this happens, your employees may have difficulties with completing their daily tasks and assisting customers. If you’re in need of new broadband products like the hybrid coupler, note that the professionals of Werlatone can assist you.

Start Making Your Company More Successful Now!

If you’re ready to make your company more successful this year, know that you can. Three techniques you can use to optimize success include utilizing content marketing strategies, making employee development a must, and updating your broadband equipment. Start using these techniques now so your organization can obtain optimal levels of success!

How to Maintain Safety in an Industrial Environment

Industrial environments are risky because inefficiencies can lead to costly situations. The most effective way to keep a lab safe is by developing highly efficient strategies and routines that suit the conditions in specific environments.

Invest in Proper Safety Accessories

Because different chemicals have unique properties, most products can ruin objects and harm workers if commercial-grade accessories aren’t used. All chemicals have labels that describe the components that are used in the formula, and workers must always study this information so that ideal solutions can be selected to ensure safety. Mild chemicals should always be handled while wearing durable gloves. Whenever very hazardous materials and chemicals are poured, heavy duty accessories that can withstand harsh temperatures should be used.

Rely on Practical Business Apps

When the conditions of an industrial project change, every worker must get accurate information so that inefficiencies won’t occur. Since there are various applications that include strategic management tools, a manager can easily give various workers important information about industrial policies and procedures by using a mobile phone.

Business apps that give managers opportunities to post objectives can dramatically increase safety throughout various phases of a project. Also, if needed, a manager can include various safety strategies as some of the objectives so that workers will always take the proper steps to maintain a safe environment.

Organize All Equipment

Spills and other risky situations usually happen when lab crews don’t use equipment properly. This is why organization is important because chemicals typically contaminate an environment while labs are cluttered. In order to organize equipment for industrial projects, strategically place label all chemicals. Then, place various gadgets in key locations so that industrial employees can easily grab everything without spilling hazardous chemicals.

In an typical industrial environment, the working conditions can dramatically impact safety, so a business must have ideal maintenance and cleaning strategies for various zones. Because catalyst solutions require advanced cleaning routines, a professional must tackle projects that involve catalysts. When scouting catalyst options for important projects, always consider a business that specializes in professional catalyst cleaning services.

Exit Your Business

Honey bees are truly fascinating. They offer various lessons in organisational theory. The queen bee may be considered the head of the colony and yet, interestingly, she may have little or no “say” in how she is replaced. If she dies or goes missing, the hive create a new queen. Actually they create a number of potential queen larvae and the first one to mature kills all the others. However, the hive may also decide that the queen is too old or is failing and needs to be replaced and so they create a new queen. Or conditions may be so favourable that they decide to split the hive and they create a new queen and the old queen has to find a new home. In each case, it is the hive that “decides” on the fate of the queen, not the queen.

It makes you wonder, doesn’t it, what would business be like if the workers decided when it was time to replace the leader? Of course, creating a new leader in business is not as simple as feeding a larva royal jelly…

Just like the queen bee, though, there are four ways that a business owner can exit a business. These four exit routes we will call the four Ds (rhymes with Bees).

Firstly, just like the queen bee you could Die in Service. It may not be the option of choice but if the time comes you won’t care much about what happens next (probably). And therein lies the problem – what happens to the business afterwards?

It can be left to your family to sort out and if they don’t have the desire or capability to deal with your business then it’s going to be difficult for them and your loyal employees. You may have made provision for this situation with an insurance policy, shareholder’s agreement and interim management provision, but it’s not ideal for the morale of your employees. Of course, even with the best laid plans, it might happen anyway, so it’s always best to be prepared with insurance, documentation and contingency plans in place. However, by choice, I assume this isn’t the exit most people are looking to achieve.

The second option is Dissolution. That is, at some point you decide to retire and you decide to close the business. All the hard work you’ve put in to building it up will have been for nothing as your legacy disappears. What’s more, if you have employees they would lose their livelihood. While this may be preferable to death in service, I would suggest, as it involves a conscious choice, it still seems a pretty sad way to exit.

The third is Disbursement – that is lobby someone to buy it from you. It could be your management team, a supplier, customer or competitor or just someone who fancies running your business. This could be the biggest pay day you’ll ever have. It could also be the most disappointing pay day you’ll ever have if you don’t put the necessary preparation in to making your business attractive to a buyer.

There are a number of factors that go into making the sale of your business as lucrative as possible. Firstly, and perhaps obviously, the stronger your business is financially, the more it will be worth. That means good margins (for your industry), strong cashflow and evidence of growth and growth potential. It also means having good financial management systems in place: a budget (that is used), a cashflow forecast, a capital plan, an inventory plan, a marketing plan, a salary plan, etc.

Secondly it means that the business is not reliant on the owner for its leadership. In other words, there is a management team in place. Businesses that rely upon their owner to be there to manage the day-to-day operations typically command a sale price of 3-40 times lower than ones with a management team in place.

Talking of over-reliance, if the business is reliant on one, or a limited number, of key employees, customers or suppliers, it will also put a dent in the sale valuation.

These are all things that you have control over. As are a strong recurring income and high customer satisfaction ratings. But they do take time to develop, largely because you can’t do it all at once. In addition, once you have developed strengths in these areas you will get a higher valuation if you have historical data over a number of years to prove it. So a lucrative exit can take 5 years to achieve.

However, having brokered a sale, lucrative or otherwise, that’s not the end of the story. You could be asked to stay on with buy out clauses, particularly if you are still heavily involved in the business. That period can be depressing. It can be even more depressing when you fail to achieve the buy-out targets and so you never receive the final payments.

And the negatives may not end there. Once you finally do exit the business, it can be pretty disheartening to watch your business flounder and fail in the hands of a new owner or management team that just didn’t understand how to make the business work. It happens more often than you’d imagine.

Social Media Streaming and How It Is Changing the Corporate World


It seems that everyone has a social media account today. Ask anyone between the ages of 13 and 35 and you�re likely to hear that they have multiple pages – one for each popular networking platform. With so much presence online, it�s no wonder that retailers and service providers are looking to take their advertisements and outreach online.

Internet advertisement isn�t the only way of doing this. Some of today�s most successful brands are using a tool that is available to nearly anyone and can make reaching prospective clients and consumers easier than ever before. This tool is the digital audiovisual broadcast, specifically those hosted by networking websites.

What Is Streaming Video?

BBC tells us that streamed media is any audiovisual content that is viewed or listened to live and in real time, rather than downloaded to the computer or device to enjoy later. This can consist of nearly any type of media, including videos, music and sound files and more. There are myriad online locations from which these files may be transmitted, but all of them are essentially internet-based broadcasts.

With the advent of the Facebook live stream video and other social media streaming platforms, people can reach out to one another in real time more easily than ever before. Communications companies such as BlueJeans strive to help clients understand how they can put this asset to work for them. There are as many applications for this resource as users can imagine. Just because it�s hosted by social media sites doesn�t mean it�s only purpose is socialization; the modern business owner can find many applications for it, as well!

Professional Applications

The most advantageous aspect of Facebook live video and other social media streaming services is that they are easy to tailor to the needs of businesses of any size. Whether it�s a small, independent entrepreneur reaching out to their clients or a major corporation making marketing moves, streaming video can assist in their efforts.

Both Social Media Examiner and Forbes have something to say on the matter of putting Facebook and other social media sites to work for today�s business needs. Some of these include:

  • Answering questions submitted beforehand during live sessions. This encourages viewership, as consumers may want the information as quickly as possible, especially if the response involves new products or services. Streams are a great way to introduce new content with an air of exclusivity while remaining publicly accessible.
  • Taking care of business, all at once. Replying to individual customer concerns, questions or messages can be time consuming. Streamed sessions allow representatives to respond to many issues at once and hold conversations with viewers that hold the interest of more people at once than previously possible in traditional advertisement.
  • Engaging directly with interested parties. So many brands today tease new products, offer advice on product use or service follow-ups or otherwise provide content to their viewers during broadcasts. In some formats, employees can also dialogue with viewers directly, providing a more personal touch and engaging customers fully.
  • Collecting and providing feedback on a real-time basis. This is important for improving products and services and consumer satisfaction.
  • Trend appeal. As mentioned previously, a large majority of the population already use social networks. With this built-in audience, it makes perfect business sense to meet these potential customers where they are and bring advertisement to the places where they already frequent.

There are many uses for social networking in the modern world, and that is certainly true of today�s marketing scene. With a consumer base that is relatively young overall, trend-wise technology and publicity tools are important for continuing corporate success. No tool is more trendy or easier to use than these websites and their included features.

Looking Forward to the Future

It is a virtual certainty that this resource will only continue to grow in popularity and preference among professionals as time move forward. With increasingly fast and reliable internet connections, higher quality videos will be made available and this rise in quality will create greater consumer satisfaction with that content. Once only available on a peer-to-peer basis, real-time content can now be broadcast to a wide audience which only grows as technology improves. Modern brands can advertise and reach out to potential customers on a large scale, making more positive impact on their target demographics than ever before.

Today�s business owner would be foolish not to reach out and take hold of the outreach tools that are now so accessible. Introducing these modern techniques into the advertising arsenal has had a positive effect on numerous businesses around the world, and will continue to do so in the years to come. Brands who have already put the features of these sites to work for them know this well, and those who are looking to improve need only look to the success of their peers in meeting their clients where they already are.