How to Crowd-design your Way to Entrepreneurial Success

You don’t need to seek out the services of a fancy design firm, or risk wasting hours of time communicating with an online freelancer to get the best logo, website and other graphics you need for your business.

In fact, after using an online design marketplace for the first time, you’ll soon realize that the traditional method of requesting samples (which can easily be copy/pasted – ie., stolen) to attempt to identify if a designer has the skill-set you’re looking for – then picking a designer or firm you think might work out – then going through the hassle of waiting on delivery and revisions – potentially ending up with something that you’re not happy with, but which you’re so often expected to pay for nonetheless!…

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Increase Consumer Engagement with Video Conferencing

One of the keys to building a successful business or brand is capturing long-term consumer interest. The best brands in the world know this. Uniqueness plays a huge factor, of course. Finding a need in the market and fulfilling it in a way no one else can or will ensures there will be a long line of customers beating down your door.

Video conferencing

But unless your company is Google or Facebook, then you might be in for some stiff competition. The minute you launch your business, you’re already competing with a ton of other companies doing the same thing you are, with all of you trying to win over a larger slice of the consumer pie.…

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Is It Time to Expand Your Business?

When a business is doing well, it is often tempting to leave things well alone on the basis that if it isn’t broke, why make changes. But this is somewhat short-sighted and many businesses will benefit from expanding in order to grow. So how can you tell when the time is right to embark on a business expansion programme and what the best way to go about it is?

Business growth and expansion

Build Your Customer Base

There are lots of different ways to expand a profitable business but the most obvious one is to build your customer base. Firstly, look at ways to keep your existing customer base happy, perhaps by offering new products and services.…

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The Differences Between Contractor and Permanent Recruitment

The staff make-up of any company is one of the deciding factors of success or failure of the company. It is crucial that the staff profile and expenses are spot on. To achieve this, companies often blend recruiting permanent staff and recruiting contract staff. To properly reap the benefits of both classes of recruitment however, it is important to understand what each one entails.

Contractor vs. permanent recruitment

What is contract recruitment?

Contract recruitment focuses on bringing in workers strictly for a short term assignment. This sort of hiring generally reduces the liability of an organisation as the organisation doesn’t have to offer the contract staff all the full benefits due to a full time employee.…

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3 Ways to Cut Upfront Costs When Starting a Business

Starting your very own new business is an exciting time, but what isn’t so enjoyable is working out how you’re going to pay for everything that you need to get things going. It can cost thousands and thousands in the beginning to get everything up and running as you want, and then all of this will need to be made back later when you’re actually making money.

Cutting startup costs

Ultimately, the less you can spend on getting things going, the better. You’ll earn profits sooner, and things won’t be as difficult in the beginning, as you won’t need as much cash. Here are three cost-cutting tips you should follow when starting up a business:

Be Tight With Your Money

The first point is obvious really.…

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Trends in Unified Communications for 2015 and Beyond (Infographic)

As 2015 heads into its second quarter, many technology experts are wondering what the rest of this year will hold for unified communications. Some authorities in this sector have predicted that IT will change more in the next 18 months than it has in the past decade. Along with that, the rest of 2015 is expected to mirror 2014 in its double-digit cloud-based adoption growth.

Unified Communications (UC)

But first thing first: What is Unified Communications (UC)?

UC is a single product or a set of products that integrate enterprise-class communication services in real-time, presented in a centralized user interface that is consistent across multiple devices.…

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6 Money-Drainers of Small Businesses (and How to Overcome Them)

Is your business seeping cash for no reason? Some expenses are like a dripping faucet: you know it’s there, but it seems insignificant, so you let it go on too long. Others are more like a broken pipe underground, well-hidden but causing massive damage. Here are some places to check for financial leaks so you can stop your biggest money-drainers.

Leakage in your small business finances

Watch Your Staffing Costs

Staffing is a massive cost for most small businesses and a huge area of waste. Underperformers must be replaced quickly, because they prevent you from hiring excellent staff who could be moving your company forward. As your company grows and changes, your staffing needs will rapidly change.…

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People vs. Robots: When Google Translate is The Wrong Choice

As a small business owner you may have already experienced just how global business has become. Many geographical borders that previously made trade virtually impossible, have been transcended by tech and you’re probably finding yourself emailing a freelancer in Belgium, ordering supplies from Taiwan and recording data on software hosted in the US all whilst sipping your (Spanish) local barista’s single origin Guatemalan brew.

Spanish language

Most of the time you’ll manage just fine speaking only English in the Global Village. But there will be times your language arsenal needs to be extended.

For those times, there are plenty of free programs out there, such as Google or King translate.…

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Resources and Knowledge for the Small Business CEO

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How to Crowd-design your Way to Entrepreneurial Success

Increase Consumer Engagement with Video Conferencing