How Solo Practitioners Can Maintain PCI Compliance

When attorneys accepts credit card payments, there is an obligation to keep the client’s information secure. They are expected to have safety measures and policies in place to help prevent the card information from being compromised. Like any other business that processes, stores or transmits credit card data, a solo practicing attorney is expected to be PCI compliant.

PCI compliant credit card transaction processing

To be PCI compliant, an attorney must follow strict Payment Card Industry security standards. These requirements apply no matter the size of the company, the number of transactions or the amount of those transactions. Maintaining this compliance, however, can be an issue for some businesses, and fewer than a third of companies included in a 2015 Verizon PCI compliance report were found to still be fully compliant less than a year after successful validation.…

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Trade Shows: How to Save Time and Make Sales

Every industry has at least one must-attend event each year, from b2b conferences, to industry showcases and trade shows. What makes these events important to your business is the potential to increase both brand awareness and generate lead sales.

Trade show lounge

Exhibiting events are an exciting growth opportunity for any business with as many as 81% of attendees at a trade event having buying authority. By running a successfully engaging stand, you might make a huge difference in future sales for your business. So, how to do you attract these potential buyers?

You do this by avoiding time wasting activities and working your exhibition stand in a smarter way.…

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New Year’s Resolution: Get Serious About Creating an Interactive Social Media Presence

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Microsoft Office . All opinions are 100% mine.

Your social media efforts toward branding your business and creating bank-busting profits haven’t been working out like you’d expect up til now. Has it?

Using instagram

Otherwise, you probably wouldn’t be reading an article about making this oh-so-important branding aspect of your business a major priority this year.

So few businesses out there capitalize on the ever-important tasks of interacting with their customers on social media. Either solely choosing to use their social accounts to plug their blog posts and cross-promote their other channels.…

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4 Financial Lessons Small Businesses Can Learn From Political Campaigns

Many politicians come from the world of business, so it’s unsurprising when they want to run the government like a corporation once they’re elected. But what happens when we reverse that pattern? Is there anything small businesses can learn from political campaigns? In fact, small businesses can learn some important financial lessons from those.

Vote buttons

Try these strategies to boost your business’ financial prowess.

1. Know The Prime Times

Politicians don’t try to advertise during the Super Bowl. That would be financially untenable and impractical, even if the ad reached a lot of people. Simply put, it could destroy a candidate’s budget in a heartbeat.…

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3 Tips for Creating the Ultimate Conference Room

At your business, you likely have a conference room that you use for many different occasions. From meeting with clients to training your employees and holding discussions with large groups, a conference room can have many purposes and functions.

Business meeting in a conference room

However, creating a space that serves each one of these areas well can be a challenge, especially for small businesses who have other pressing matters to deal with. But regardless, you need to have a professional-looking space to conduct business.

To help with this, here are three tips for creating the ultimate conference room that will convey the professionalism of your company.…

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3 Tips for Using Proposals to Increase your Sales

Depending on the type of business you have, implementing proposals into your sales strategy could be a great way for you to boost your numbers and find more sales success. However, you’ve got to have great proposals in order to find the maximum amount of impact by using this tactic. And while some may think creating a proposal to be an easy task, nothing could be further from the truth.

Deal on a business proposal

So to help those thinking about increasing their sales using proposals, here are three tips for finding the most success.

Edit Yourself

From a sales standpoint, it’s often hard to edit all the information you want to use in order to persuade someone into completing a sale.…

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Worker’s Compensation in Canada: Understanding Your Rights and Responsibilities

It seems that there are a number of Canadians who don’t know the extent of their rights when it comes to the topic of workers compensation.

Worker

Employment law specialists such as Loya & Associates normally have all the angles covered when it comes to getting you what you deserve under your employment rights and it also helps if you can gain a better understanding yourself of your rights and responsibilities.

The Workers Compensation System

One of the main points to remember is the fact that workers compensation law should always be viewed as a separate and distinct area of law.

This has always been the case and as lawyers in this specific field of expertise will already know, applying principles from other areas of law may not produce the correct answer to a relevant compensation question.…

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5 Reasons You Should be Offering Mobile Apps

It’s been a while since mobile phones were used solely for making calls and sending text messages. These days most of us use them for all manner of everyday processes and entertainments.

Shopping using smartphone

But as retailers, what’s so great about mobile apps and why might they be useful in helping you reach out to new and existing customers? Let’s take a look.

1. Customers want them

Perhaps the most obvious reason why a retailer might aim to design and deliver a mobile app is because customers are generally becoming more inclined to shop via their smartphones and tablets.

It is worth realising that not everyone who has a smartphone is suddenly ready to use retail apps on a regular basis but, and here’s the point really, many of those who do will end up engaging with them in a major way.…

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12 Amazing and Different Marketing Ideas for Your Small Business

How can a local business win new customers in a noisy market place?

Anyone who has ever run their own small business understands how difficult it can be to get attention after that initial grand opening.

Marketing comes in so many forms and any business owner who wants to stay ahead of the competition needs to have a campaign that keeps them in the minds of their potential customers.

How can a local business drive attention to their store without breaking the bank?

Read on for 12 amazing marketing ideas that will help put you on the map and stamp you firmly in your customers’ memory:

1) Funny / Strange Top 10 List

You might create this on a Facebook page, a blog post, a series of Tweets, or even take out a large ad in the newspaper.…

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5 Tips for Adult Learners Returning to Education to Boost their Careers

In the wake of November’s spending review, the adult education sector breathed a sigh of relief as George Osborne announced core funding would be protected. The government had been expected to cut funding to the already fragile sector which has endured years of setbacks and is undergoing an area review.

Businessman learning in a further education course

While some return to education in later life to nurture a skill or hobby, gaining extra qualifications can increase financial worth and improve chances of promotion. The news of funding protection was, therefore, a boost for those adults who are seeking further education (FE) as an opportunity to enhance their careers.…

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