3 of the Hottest Office Locations for New Businesses in London

Establishing a new business in London? Finding the right space for your startup can be a challenge. Here are three locations to seriously consider.

King’s Cross: Google’s New Home

King’s Cross, together with the wider Midtown area, has been gaining increasing interest over the last year or two from larger companies within the tech industry. Google is due to open its new London HQ here in 2016/17, and between now and then we can expect the area to get plenty of attention from the media and developers alike.

But it’s not all about state-of-the-art business premises for large corporations. King’s Cross is home to a selection of business centres which are set up to accommodate small and new businesses.…

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When the Numbers Don’t Add Up: Three Ways to Improve Your Business Credit Score Quickly

If you find your business becoming rejected and denied for loans left and right, then chances are that your business’ credit score and history are to blame. Obtaining a copy of your current credit report will allow you to quickly see just how bad things have gotten, especially if you have an extensive list of negative accounts and activity within it. Fortunately, there are several effective ways that you can get the ball rolling in the right direction again and eventually improve your business credit score over time.

Business credit report analysis

Identify and Rectify Your Errors

Although the vast majority of the information that is reflected within your business credit report is accurate, it is possible to have an abundance of errors in it, as well.…

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Corporate Certificates of Deposit

When thinking about ways to handle your business finances, your primary focus may be in increasing your profits while reducing your losses. One way to help increase your business profits is to have a solid investment plan.

A great way to invest your company’s funds is in a corporate certificate of deposit.

certificate of deposit

What is a Certificate of Deposit (CD)?

A CD is a savings account that provides a higher rate of return than a standard savings account. Certificates of deposit also tend to be short-term, lasting between six and twenty four months, versus standard accounts which are ongoing. Depending on the type of CD you purchase, you cannot withdraw funds while the CD is active.…

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Improving Front-Office Efficiency: Take a Long, Hard Look at Your Back Office

A bag of popcorn in one hand and your favorite person in the world in tow, when you sit in front of that giant screen, you know what you both will be seeing – the movie, the finished product. Depending on the film’s genre, you can end up screaming your head off in fear, laughing like you’ve never laughed before, or falling in love all over again.

There are four truths at play in the scenario above:

  1. You came to see the movie, and it was what you paid for – on the surface, at least.
  2. The time, effort, technology and talent it collectively took to bring what once was a figment of the imagination to the big screen are what makes or breaks the success of a film.
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How to Explore Overseas Market: Learn from Illy and Estee Lauder

SMB CEOs… want some inspirations on how to explore overseas market? Check out this Singapore Sessions video, featuring a candid talk with Estee Lauder Companies’ Executive Chairman, William P. Lauder, and Illy’s CEO, Andrea Illy.

This session features on how Illy Coffee and Estee Lauder approach the challenges presented by the South East Asian market.

South East Asia is a market promising significant growth, but is surely challenging, especially for coffee and cosmetic products. Fortunately, there is not a single way to market to Asia, which mean that the market favors companies with innovative business model and sound strategy.…

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Apps for a Small Business’ Accounting Needs

Being in the accounting department of a small business doesn’t mean being tucked away in the back corner of the office hammering away on a Dell desktop running Windows XP and an old copy of QuickBooks. No sir, accounting can actually be fun thanks to the help of mobile devices like smartphones and tablets, and some nifty apps as well as long awaited Mac accounting software.

small business owner using mobile accounting apps

The idea of putting accounting-related tasks into a mobile device might seem scary to some accounting pros. But the concept of being able to touch, swipe and manipulate numbers at the stroke of a finger can be pretty liberating.…

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A Case Study in Customer Service: The Name Badge Industry

Great customer service in the name badges industry? It may not sound too exciting at first, but at Meluba Badges we deal with a huge variety of customers, from the sole trader to the largest organisations who all work differently, are looking for a bespoke product supplied quickly and at a competitive price.

name badge

Meeting such a variety of demands with a great product and customer service is what we believe sets us apart, and by following our example, you can set your business apart too!

Understand your customers

Providing great customer service is impossible without first understanding your customer and your place in the market.…

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5 Tips to Having The Best Terms of Service

This is undisputed, really — a growing successful company needs direction, plain and simple. Without it, you’ve got a corporation just going wherever the wind blows, and sometimes that wind will blow clear across the ocean, into a monsoon, with crashing waves, and the ship gets way too torn up to see the light of day. It’s not a pretty sight.

creating terms of service

To avoid the storm, though, you’ve got one concept here acting like your guiding compass: the “Terms of Service” agreement. Let that lead you. With that kind of document, you can rest assured that you’ll always find your way with your company.…

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Broken Data Storage – How to Recover Your Data?

As winter storms strike North America, chances are good that disaster will strike right at the heart of your business.

Hopefully you have surge protection to safe-guard your IT equipment and storage devices…

Hopefully you back up your data so persistently that there’s no chance you won’t be able to do a fast and easy disaster recovery once the storm lifts…

broken hard drive

There’s a lot of things an SMB CEO needs to be hopeful about. If you are like most people, some lessons have to be learned the hard way, and you now find yourself in a position where you have to recover some uber-important data from a dead or otherwise discombobulated storage device – your laptop, PC, thumb drive, SD card, or main server.…

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8 Essential Small Business Sales Apps for 2014

I just received a package delivered by one of the leading International shipping companies. The package needs to clear customs, and thus I obviously need to pay some fees. The company accepts collect-on-delivery (COD) payment, so I took that option. To my surprise, the delivery man requests the fees to be paid in hard cash – or a bank transfer before the delivery is made.

collecting payment using sales apps

I don’t know how about you, but as I rarely have cash at home this arrangement is, by any means, not that convenient for me. I thought, “Why on earth such big business don’t facilitate payment collection via credit cards/debit cards method?”…

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