AUTHOR ARCHIVES :

Faith In Manufacturing Jobs On The Decline

Although the American economy has grown by about 2 million jobs this year, none of them are in the manufacturing sector. This is alarming news–not just for manufacturing workers, but for the economy at large.

American manufacturing worker

Why is this such bad news? After all, consumer spending has leveled out, and unemployment continues to fall. Even gas prices are relatively low. Aren’t these signs that the economy is strong enough to weather any possible economic “storms” on the horizon? Well, not exactly.

Despite these indicators, people’s faith in the economy is pretty low. Fears about job security are high, reflecting a generally pessimistic attitude among the nation.…

Continue reading →

4 Ways Big Data Has Changed Fleet Management Forever

Fleet management is no simple task; it’s tough to balance vehicle acquisition, repairs & maintenance, as well as disposals. All of that’s even before you consider the knowledge and effort it takes to be in full compliance with regulations and state laws. Without fixed parts, fleet management is a complex and ever-changing process.

Fleet management

Fortunately, today’s fleet managers have a distinct advantage: big data. The advances made possible by big data have ushered a new era of fleet management. Today we’ll examine four ways that big data forever changed the world of fleet management.

1. Improved Efficiency

Naturally, one of the most important aspects of fleet management is the ability to ensure drivers are on the right route at the right time.…

Continue reading →

How to be the Company Everyone Wants to Work For

It is important to motivate and engage employees in order to achieve success within your business. It encourages them to go the extra mile, contribute more ideas and work harder to achieve your business objectives. The ability to motivate a team is one of the greatest skills an entrepreneur can possess.

Successful leadership

When the subject of motivation comes up it is usually linked to money- pay, bonus and rewards. However, these are not the only ways to motivate employees and sometimes, thinking outside of the box can have a more positive effect. If someone dislikes their job they are still going to feel the same whether they earn £25,000 or £27,000, it won’t make much difference.…

Continue reading →

Why It Pays In Spades To Recognize And Reward Your Top Performers

The importance of rewarding employees for high performance has long been recognized as a powerful management strategy to stimulate better morale and boost greater retention in an organization.

Employee reward

When properly executed, employee recognition programs not only positively impact recipients, but also influence their peers. While some may be incentivized to win awards themselves, others may simply appreciate that they are part of an organization that honors and respects its best workers.

Why Employee Recognition Programs Work

The psychology behind why employee recognition programs work is simple: people like to feel appreciated for the good work that they do. At the end of the day, employees aren’t just thrilled at the reward itself but at the fact that the company they worked for recognized their hard work.…

Continue reading →

A Guide to Setting Up Your Own Consultancy

Internet has made remote collaboration a possibility. It is possible for businesses to outsource components of their work to third party consultants. This is beneficial in two ways.

Firstly, businesses save costs due to fewer overheads in terms of office space and salary. Secondly, third party consultants specialize in certain aspects of business which makes them a lot more productive and efficient in executing tasks.

Business consulting

Consulting is quite often the way that professionals in 9-to-5 jobs dabble with entrepreneurship for the first time.

Setting up your consulting firm can be confusing at first. In this article, we will take a broad look at the various steps that go into launching your own consulting firm.…

Continue reading →

Why Upselling Clients Works for Web Design Agencies

Do you concentrate the majority of your efforts on attracting new clients to your agency? If so, we need to ask why? It’s often not the most cost effective way of securing new business. You should think about paying more attention to upselling clients you already have.

Upselling

They already know that you provide an excellent service, so you do not have to spend time convincing them. The problem is that your agency has already put its ecommerce web design skills to use creating a website that works, for the client. They are not going to want to keep upgrading on a regular basis.…

Continue reading →

Four Ways To Help Your Designer Perfect Your Product Label (Infographic)

If you’re an entrepreneur with a product launch coming up, it makes great sense to bring in a professional to design your first product label. A professional will be able to create a design of an extremely high standard, and they may have experience of product labels already, making the process far simpler.

Wine labels

It’s important to bear in mind that designers can’t create product labels unless they have access to certain information about the brand, the product, its target audience and other features it has. You can’t just throw a brand name and a vague demographic at a designer and hope they’ll come up with a label design that will win over potential customers!…

Continue reading →

Four Outlets for Outsourcing: Save Time, Money, and Sanity

The cogs that make up the business machine are often too much to handle for a small group let alone a sole proprietor. There simply isn’t enough time in the day.

The suggested solution is to manage your energy.

Outsourcing

Energy is a finite source – time will keep ticking. You wish you could do it all but you can’t. This leads to an expansion of the business which comes with new headaches to be had in the hiring and management process. Those energy reserves are certainly getting low now.

The solution? It’s time to outsource for the big wins.

Logistics

Logistics, the management of delivering the product, accounts for a sizeable time and money chunk of business operations.…

Continue reading →

How to Launch Your Own Business Selling Art

The global art market is not in the greatest shape. The worldwide sale of art rose a modest 1.7% in the past year and is now valued at around $45 billion. This follows a seven percent drop in sales between 2014 and 2015. If you are an artist, or at least someone interested in launching a business selling art, this may not seem like the right time.

Sell art online

In reality though, this could be the most opportune moment to launch your business in the art world. The TEFAF art market report quoted earlier in this article estimates that nearly $28 billion of the total $45 billion came from private sales.…

Continue reading →

5 Reasons Why Good Communication With Your Employees Will Boost Your Business (and How To Do It)

When you communicate well with your employees, work relationships are generally hunky-dory. Good communication enables you to build good relationships with your staff. With good working relationships, any problems tend to get aired sooner rather than later, allowing you to nip potential problems in the bud. If you don’t bother putting in the effort to communicate with your employees, you could be hurting your business more than you think.

Good business communication

So, what is good communication? At its most basic level, communication is the imparting or exchanging of information by speaking, writing, or using some other medium. That can include email, text and chat applications.…

Continue reading →