Virtual Office vs. Co-working Space: Which One is For You?

Answering the question in the title is like comparing a cherry to an avocado. While both belong to the same family, they’re very different and appeal to varying taste buds! Virtual offices and coworking spaces often get lumped together and confused for being essentially the same concepts.

However, as you’ll soon learn, each have significant differences and appeal to an entirely different type of entrepreneur.

Businessman in a virtual office

Virtual Offices

A virtual office space is much different cost-wise than a traditional brick-and-mortar leasing scenario. Businesses who rent them obviously benefit from having a legitimate business address in a commercial office space, as opposed to a home-based address with a residential address.…

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3 Blogging Tips for Small Businesses to Try

If you’re running a small business, you’re likely trying to figure out how to accomplish all your goals and get everything done for your business without losing your sanity. So when you hear that you should also be blogging on top of everything else, you might be wondering how you’re supposed to find the time and what the real benefit of these efforts will be. And while blogging is generally a very long-term marketing effort, it’s something that’s very important for the longevity of your business.’

Small business blogging

So to help make this task a little easier on you and your business efforts, here are three blogging tips for your small business to try.…

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7 Little-Known Tax Deductions for Small Businesses

Many small businesses dread filing their quarterly taxes, but deductions help owners lower their tax burden. In addition to the standard deductions that most businesses take, there are lesser-known write-offs that can reduce tax bills even further.

Small business tax deductions

1. Home Office

If you run your business out of a dedicated home office, you may be able to take the home office deduction. The catch with this deduction is that the space must be used exclusively for business purposes.

There are two ways to deduct a home office:

  • Deduct actual expenses. You’ll need to have records for the cost of painting, repairs, utilities, rent, insurance and other expenses you want to write-off.
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Continuous Learning: Are There Any Benefits to Online Education?

Continuous learning should the the mantra for every CEO.  With the convenience offered by the Internet, CEOs can no longer make any excuses not to expand their skills and skill-sets.  If you are one of those top-notch CEOs who continuously developing yourself personally and professionally, or a CEO who want your employees to grow internally, then you should consider eLearning.

CEO engaging on Elearning

Elearning has gained traction as a preferable method of education, especially since the quality has improved significantly in line with technological advancements. Online learning is an easily accessible option which aligns with societal trends, where people seek mobile solutions to further their understanding of topics.…

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SMB Marketing: The Trends to Follow for Big Success

Ask pretty much any SMB owner/operator what their greatest desire is, and most would say, “More business.” Now, maybe you’re not one of them. Maybe you’re thinking you have all the business you can handle. But chances are, you could always use more business or at the very least, you want to keep business steady. And since there’s no crystal ball telling you exactly how and where to find new customers, your best bet it to know, understand and implement the latest trends in SMB marketing.

Adopting digital marketing trends

Here are 3 of the top digital marketing trends of 2018 and how they can drive big success for your business.…

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How to Build Culture With Remote Teams

Culture is a hot button topic in today’s business world. Culture is the ideology of a business and what comprises its personality. It’s the entire ecosystem, and how people interact within in. It follows the idea that, in an encouraging environment built to sustain the organization, employees are much more likely to be happy, stay at the company longer, and do better work.

Remote working

And as modern workplaces continue to evolve, workplace culture is becoming even more important.

Remote work is another uphill trend. According to one survey of more than 15,000 adults, 43% stated that they’d done some form of remote work in the last year.…

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Improving Behind-the-Scenes Communication in Retail

There are lots of reasons people still love and will always love going to stores: The ability to interact with products hands on. The opportunity to have unique and exciting experiences. The social elements of shopping with friends, family or even strangers.

Shopping scene at a pop-up shop

But there is one element that most distinguishes physical retail from online retail and still defines why people shop in stores – human staff. Working with friendly and knowledgeable employees is the easiest way to get the products, services, and overall sales experience you most want. Having stellar staff is one of the biggest assets today’s stores have to offer consumers.…

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Boost Your E-Commerce Game With These 6 Strategies

Does your sales strategy have a well-articulated e-commerce component?

Perhaps you don’t have a choice. If your company doesn’t have a physical office or product from which to hawk goods or services, e-commerce is necessarily the be-all-end-all of its sales strategy. This is a much more common arrangement than many realize.

Ecommerce strategy

For now, most consumer-facing businesses maintain some sort of physical presence out in the world, whether that means a dedicated storefront, a mobile stall, a truck or van, or some combination of these and other vectors.

But these physical points-of-sale increasingly aren’t enough to keep discerning customers happy. Even the most staid businesses now recognize the importance of a hybrid approach: a sales strategy that blends the humanity and tangibility of in-person transactions with the scale and reach of e-commerce.…

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How to Choose a Reliable SEO Provider

If you’re running a business online, then it’s likely you have a website (rather than just being present on 3rd party platforms). If you don’t have a website, then it’s likely it’s a consideration, and with good reason.

Hiring a SEO specialist

Not only does building a website give your brand a strong online identity, it can also introduce you to customers that wouldn’t be able to visit a bricks and mortar business. It can also be a great stepping stone for those looking to gain a customer base quickly, which is often the case for small businesses.

For a website to be effective, it must be built in the right way.…

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What to Know Before Subcontracting Your Project to a Freelancer

Subcontracting is a lucrative opportunity to scale your business up without incurring the overheads associated with it. A freelancer who executes all projects by herself may only be able to take on fifty or sixty hours of work each week.

Subcontracting to a freelancer

On the other hand, subcontracting these projects to other third party vendors can help her execute a larger number of projects. So while the margins in each of these projects may go down, it is possible to make this up with higher volumes.

But subcontracting can be tricky business. Clients work with freelancers who they trust and can rely upon to get work done.…

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