Startup Business Myths You Should Know

We all know that starting a business is not that simple. Other than thinking about the things we need to know and to prepare, there is the constant anxiety that maybe you might not get to start the work on time.

It is even made worse when you are suddenly thrust with paperwork. For instance, contracts and documents you need to prepare to register your company as a legitimate business. Good thing, services like InfoTrack’s electronic contract for sale is available for business owners. It allows you to easily order important documents, edit certain contract clauses, and then upload for signing. Plus, it is definitely one problem ticked off the checklist.

But what about other startup business problems? Well, you will be happy to know that some of these are myths that can hinder you in continuing with your venture. Here, let us take a look at some of them:

Myth 1: You will need plenty of capital.

Contrary to what most people think, you do not actually need a big capital to start a business. Yes, you will still need to shell out money to start operating, but there are ways to make a lean start up business.

One of the things you can do is to micro test your product or service in small batches. This is the best way to get your business going without spending too much or shocking you with sales numbers. Do it slow and steady, and you will get to your numbers eventually.

Myth 2: You should start a business at the right time.

The question here is really: when is the best time to start a business? Is it when you still have a full-time job? Makes sense because you will at least have a fall-back. Is it when you still have a lot of funds to use while you are perfecting your product or service? Well, we did just say you can test them incrementally.

The thing is, right now is the best time to start. Some companies, like Microsoft, were founded during bad periods like the recession. So there really is no perfect time to start, better do it now.

Myth 3: You need to be fully prepared and have detailed plans.

Part of what delays your progress is your need to prepare a detailed business plan. That is all well and good, but you do not actually need one that is fully detailed.

Young entrepreneurs sometimes burden themselves for months to create the perfect business plan. The thing is, markets change constantly, so the months you spent on that plan could have been used for jump starting your business already. The best thing to do is to enumerate bullet points, goals you want to achieve for a short duration of time. Give yourself 3 months and then re-evaluate if you need to tick off some or add more.

Myth 4: You need to have the most innovative product.

Most entrepreneurs nowadays think outside of the box, so it is understandable why some people labour to think of new and innovative products or services. But truthfully, instead of trying to develop the coolest product, you should just ask yourself if someone will actually buy them.

Regardless of how cool or innovative it is, if it is not sellable, then it is completely useless to be the only duck in the pond.

Myth 5: You will have to hire employees.

The overhead costs will be expensive if you hire staff immediately after starting your business. But you also should not take all the tasks for yourself. The best way to remedy this is to get freelancers who are willing to work for you. Virtual work mates are becoming the norm lately, mostly because it is cost effective and they are always online ready to give updates.

Consider delegating the tasks to freelancers, at least until you have the funds to hire more than just your relatives to work with you.

These myths have been debunked by some of the leading businesses in different industries. While some things may not apply to a lot of people, it might comfort you to know that you will always have time to study your material and test things out.

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Can You Really Make Money From e-Commerce?

E-commerce websites are hugely popular, and a lot of people who want to generate passive income or who wish to establish themselves as online business owners will think about diving into the world of e-commerce.

But is it really all that people make it out to be, and can you really make money from an e-commerce platform?

There Are Costs Involved.

Running an e-commerce store doesn’t come free or cheap. In fact, many people think that, just because they’re operating their storefront online, they won’t have to incur a lot of costs, but this isn’t the case. First, you’ll need to purchase a high quality hosting plan for your website from a provider like certahosting.co.uk. The right hosting plan will not only be as affordable for you as possible while giving you the features you need, including bandwidth and storage, but it will also ensure that your e-commerce website will be up and running without interruption 24/7 so that you can generate profits from sales. In addition to hosting your website, you also need to factor in the costs of managing your e-commerce business, marketing it to the masses, and shipping your products to customers who purchase them.

Your Offer Will Need to Convert.

Coming up with a product that you find interesting and valuable is not enough. You need to test the market to see if there is enough interest in what you have to offer. Otherwise, you will not make any sales. Remember, an e-commerce website is only successful if it is able to convert visitors into purchasers, and conversions are based upon the quality of your offerings, not just the quality of your website.

Test out your idea with your blog. Write about your niche and about the products that you are planning on selling. Add a few Amazon affiliate links to your bog and see if you start to generate traffic from search engines, as well as profits through your affiliate links. You can then purchase some Google ads to really gauge if there is a market for your products and then take it a step further to create your own e-commerce site on which you can sell your products directly, rather than going through an affiliate program.

It Only Works If Profit Margins Are High.

Many e-commerce beginners make the mistake of pricing their items too low and causing costs, such as technology costs, staffing costs, advertising and shipping fees, etc. to result in low profit margins. In order to sustain your business, you need to know how to price your items to make the most profits while keeping customers happy.

Ultimately, you can really make money from your e-commerce website, but you should expect that you will need to put in a lot of time and energy before you start seeing profits. You will first need to determine what products will be in demand and what e-commerce platform will give you the best chance at success. Then you will need to maintain your e-commerce website and consistently market it to your target audience.

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Two Things To Know About Forex Charts

Too often in the world of trading, new investors rush into a trading system without having the basic skills, like reading forex charts, mastered. Maybe they heard about forex trading as an exciting new way to turn a quick profit, or maybe they are just trying out different investment options as they learn how trading works in general. But in order to get the most out of forex trading, it’s important to gain an understanding of things like reading forex charts, so that you can accurately use the trading system in order to turn a profit.

Think of this way: if you tried to play baseball without knowing what a bat was, or what to do with it, you wouldn’t get very far, would you? A forex chart is an essential tool to master, so let’s examine two very important things you need to know about reading them.

1. What do you want?

When you trade a currency pair, they are always listed the same way. The base currency is listed first. That’s the currency that you are buying or selling – for example, if your trade size, or face value, is 1,000 on the GBPJPY pair, you’re buying 1,000 GBP.

The price that is shown on the chart, then, is how many of the terms currency, or the second currency listed (JPY for our example) you can buy with one of the base currency. So if the price on our GBPJPY pair is listed at 1.4321, this means you could physically go to a currency exchange location right now, hand over one British pound, and receive 1.4321 Yen in return.

So, knowing that, what do you want? If you are buying the pair, you want the pair to go up. You want the base currency to become stronger than the terms currency. The more Yen you can buy with that single GBP, the stronger your GBP is, and that means that you just came out ahead. So if you’re buying the trade, watch for that 1.4321 to increase in order to turn a profit.

If you are selling the currency pair, you want the currency to decrease. You need the GBP to be worth less and the Yen to be worth more to make a profit in selling.

2. Understand Bid price vs. Ask price.

Most forex charts show the bid price more prominently. This is the lower price, and is how much you’ll sell the trade at if you sell. The ask price (or offer price) is always higher, and is how much you’ll buy at.

Understanding these two prices helps forex traders place stop orders, which is an essential money management tool. It allows you to automate your buying and selling. In a fast moving market such as forex trading, there’s almost no other way to turn a profit. So, a “stop bid” is an order placed to buy if a currency rises above a specific price, or to sell if it dips below a specific price. You may also see the “stop bid” option listed on charts as “stop if offered”.

There are quite a few other things that need to be understood about forex charts, such as time zones, entry time frames, and correspondence to candlesticks; but just knowing these two things can make a huge difference for your forex trading. Once you understand what you are looking for, and what you’ll actually be paying out or earning when you buy or sell, the rest takes only a little bit of time to get used to.

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What Your Marketing Team Needs From You

As the owner of an up-and-coming startup, there is no doubt that you are keen to get everything right. And that is just as well. After all, businesses like yours thrive only when the people in charge work hard to achieve the proper results. The fact of the matter is, there is much involved in the process of setting up a business. One of the main factors in any startup venture is the marketing. Much has been written previously on the nature of marketing. How it does and doesn’t work is a matter of much debate and controversy. But let’s take a moment now to look at the more practical side of things. What exactly does your marketing team need from you in order to be able to succeed?

This might sound like a strange question, but there is a certain level of preparedness which you need to get to for your marketing team to do their job well. Let’s take a look at the vital ingredients necessary for getting to that point:

Strong Brand Identity.

Of course, this first one is something which you will work in partnership with your team on. Nonetheless, as the executive, all final decisions come down to you. Before your marketing team get started on any particular campaign, they need to know what they are working with. They need to be able to relate with your brand on an intuitive level. If they can’t, then it is unlikely that your audience will, either. With that in mind, work hard to ensure that you have a strong brand identity before you even begin. If it needs works, be sure to do that first. This is the real hard work, but it is vital and it needs to be done properly.

Reliable Online Presence.

If this seems like something which is inessential, think again. These days, there is hardly any marketing strategy which won’t make some use of your online presence. The way your business appears online makes a huge difference to how effective your marketing is. To that end, get your IT team to build a reliable online presence that your marketing team can work with. The most important part of this is your website. It is probably best to use website as a service providers. These are professionals who carry out the entire job of setting up and maintaining your website for you. This means that your time is freed up to do more of what you need to do. It also makes your marketing team’s job a much simpler and more effective one.

Resources.

Finally, remember to provide your marketers with everything they need on a basic level. Arguably, the most important resource in their world is time. With enough time, your team should be able to build a marketing campaign which really lasts and serves your startup well. However, if they don’t have everything they need, it can easily go wrong. Be sure to take care of their resources for them. That way, they are sure to take care of your business for you.

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Commercial Fleets: How You Can Maximise Efficiency

When you first started managing an automotive fleet for your company, the chaos of having such a big responsibility was probably a lot to take in. Now that you’ve gotten used to it, you may feel like you’ve got into a fairly comfortable routine. Still, when you’re in charge of a vehicle fleet, you should always be looking for new ways to improve efficiency.

Here are some great steps to take:

My first pointer is to figure out how large of a fleet you actually need, and to downsize it if needs be. I know that downsizing at all may sound a little backwards to you. Less vehicles diminishes the volumes that suppliers were previously able to send you, right? While this is true to some degree, there are few established fleets out there which couldn’t do with a little downsizing. You probably have at least a few vehicles which aren’t meeting your original criteria, and have been left in the dust by some of your more reliable vehicles. Holding onto these will only make your inventory and fleet costs swell. Provided you can keep up with quotas, you should seriously consider downsizing your fleet.

If there’s one sure-fire way to improve the performance of an entire fleet, then it’s fitting all your vehicles with some GPS tracking software. With one of these programs, you’ll be able to see exactly where all of your vehicles are at any time. I’m sure you can imagine the ways this would make the operation smoother. A GPS fleet management system will also allow you and your management to track the performance of your drivers, and see who’s running late or taking diverted routes more than others. Other factors you’ll be able to track can also tell you something about the condition of the vehicles you’re using. When the drivers know that their performance is being monitored, you’re sure to see an immediate lift in your fleet’s overall efficiency.

It may sound strange, but one of the best ways to improve fleet efficiency is to pass the whole thing off to an experienced fleet manager. Seen as you’ve raised the company and the fleet from the ground up, you’re probably a little hostile to the idea of passing on such an important task. While that kind of dedication is commendable, it could be doing more harm than good. Fleets can be very volatile, and require a sharp and constantly available mind to manage them properly. If you try to juggle other aspects of the business with managing a fleet of vehicles, you’ll quickly start to feel indispensable when you’re working with the fleet. This will drag you steadily away from other, perhaps more important parts of your venture. Take the reins every now and then, by all means. However, if you want to maximise efficiency, hire a fleet manager.

I hope that this post has helped you towards managing a much more efficient fleet. When it comes to logistical functions, efficiency is the one thing that always counts!

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Here’s How To Turn Your Small Startup Office Space Into A Creative Environment

When you start a new business, one of your primary goals is to keep all costs down. That usually means starting small when you need to move into an office. All entrepreneurs dream of having large, spacious office environments. But, the truth is most startups cannot afford such luxuries.

As a result, they end up with offices that are somewhat “cozy”! The trouble with small office spaces is they can sometimes stifle creativity. And that’s not a good thing when you’re trying to make a name for yourself!

The good news is you can easily make your small startup office space more creative than it is. How? By trying out the following recommendations, of course!

Add some vibrant color accents.

Most offices will have white walls and ceilings. They might even have neutral colored carpets like beige or gray. As you can imagine, such neutral accents don’t do much to promote creativity! Did you know that with a few simple color changes, you can make your office space more vibrant?

For instance, you could remove the drywall on a large section of wall and expose the brickwork. Doing so creates an impressive feature wall and a new focal point in your office. You could also paint your heaters and HVAC units bright colors like red or blue. Another option is to have plain desks with chairs that boast vibrant tones!

Have height-adjustable desks.

It’s likely that you and your staff will be working at desks most of the time at your office. In a small room, desks can often take up a lot of floor space. That leaves little room for maneuverability!

One thing you could do is give each person an adjustable height desk. Why? Well, they could raise their desks and work on their feet when space is at a premium. Or if they want to quit sitting down for a while. Plus, when desks get raised, it’s easy to store chairs underneath them.

Store seldom-used items off-site.

It’s likely your business will amass equipment and “things” that won’t get used regularly. Instead of stacking those items in your small office space, why not store them off-site.

Some companies will collect and store your items in storage facilities. When you need them, you can have those firms deliver them back to your office. Sure, you will end up having less stuff in your office. But, the fact there are fewer items there will make the environment feel more creative.

Make your office look more natural.

Plants are the kinds of things you will see in your home and garden. So why aren’t they found in offices? There is research to prove that office plants can help people be more creative and productive at work. They also make your office look more appealing to staff and visitors alike.

Create a designated chill-out zone.

Last, but not least, people sometimes need a break to get those creative juices flowing. One thing you could do is create a “chill-out zone” in your office.

It could be a dedicated room or just a small corner of your office. The aim is to create a comfortable and work-free zone for your staff. People can sit down and read a book, play video games or even relax there.

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Getting Started With Paid Facebook Ads

by Joanna Mastrocola, Content Marketer at Alignable

I bet you never thought peaches could go viral. Well, tell that to the The Peach Truck, a food truck that sells peaches at pop up events across the South. Although peaches are delicious and nutritious, they aren’t necessarily the type of goody you would expect snackers to go bananas for. However, the Peach Truck, which also runs a peach delivery service, understood that by advertising what made their company so unique (a completely fresh, farm to table snacking experience) they would instantly hook snackers all across the U.S. The local business used Facebook ads to help their small, pop-up peach stand go viral, experiencing a 2.3x sales growth and 40x return on investment after running its Freestone Tour Facebook campaign. Using their own rustic images of sweet Georgia peaches, they were able to grab the attention of consumers all across the U.S., resulting in new customers waiting in long lines when the pop-up shop appeared in their neighborhood.

Paid Facebook ads are one of the most effective and powerful tools that businesses can use to target a precise user base, whether that user is at home or on the go. At a fraction of the cost of traditional advertising, Facebook ads are built right into a user’s newsfeed so these ads become an overall part of the Facebook experience. With the right eye-catching imagery, videos, and text, these ads are difficult to ignore. The best part? Facebook ad campaigns are simple to create and easy to maintain so acquiring new customers through Facebook is pretty painless.

Ready to showcase your local business to your precise target customers? Let’s get down to business:

Step 1 – Go to the Ads Manager.

You can find the ads manager by clicking navigating to your business’ Facebook page, and look for “Promote” → “Go to Ads Manager”

The first step in creating the ad is determining your campaign objective. Your campaign objective is the overall goal you hope to achieve by running the Facebook ad campaign. The ads manager provides you with a list of objectives. If you aren’t sure which one to choose, hover your mouse over each option, and Facebook will give you a bit more context as to what that objective category is all about.

For this example, I am going to select “Reach People Near Your Business” as my objective, since I want to get my ad in front of as many nearby prospects as possible. Once you select the category, you’ll need to select which page this ad is for. If you have multiple business pages linked to your personal account, select the one you are working on. I am creating a paid ad for my wedding business, Seize the Day Wedding Planners, so I will select that account. Note: To create an ad for a Facebook business page, the page must be published. So if you just recently created your account and are waiting to publish until you were finished, make sure you go back and click publish.

Once you select your business, you will need to create a campaign name. Each campaign can have multiple ad sets. The ad sets are the ads within the campaign that help you to achieve your ad goal. If you have customers in a wide variety of demographics, you will likely create multiple ad sets within the campaign, each set optimized for a different target audience.

Click “Create Ad Account”. Select the Account Country, Currency, and Time Zone.

Step 2 – Define the Audience, Budget, and Schedule.

Once you add your country, currency, and time zone, you will be asked to determine your target area. Enter the street address for where you are targeting customers; if you have a local shop, then start there. The map will automatically adjust to show you how many users are within a 1-mile radius of your address. You can adjust that radius to make it as large, or as small, as you would like. There are a few analytics on this page that are important to notice. You are given the estimated number of users in your area that you could potentially reach with your ad. You’re also provided with an estimated daily reach. This is an estimation, based on the performance of other ads from nearby businesses, of how many users you will reach daily.

Select the age of your target audience, which is minimum and maximum age of users that you think will find your ad relevant. For my wedding planning business, I will make this range from 18-64, because these are the users who will use my services or will have family and friends that will find my business relevant. If the content you are promoting will work for this wide of an age range, that’s perfect. If your business is more specific, you can always create two separate ad sets, one for your younger prospects and one for your older prospects.

Next, select the gender of your audience. This part can get tricky because although both men and women will find my business useful, the content I show men and women will be different. For this ad, I will select women. For the second ad set, I will select men. If you don’t want to segment based on gender, select “all” which means that both men and women will be exposed to your ad.

Step 3 – Set Your Ad Placement, Budget, and Schedule.

You have a few different options when determining your ad placement. You can either select:

Automatic (the recommended option): Facebook will place your ads automatically in the places they will reach the most people, at the best price. For example: If you reach more people for less money on Instagram, (now owned by Facebook) Facebook will automatically take more of your budget to put toward Instagram, and put less toward desktop, mobile, etc.
Choose your placements: Here you can select where you want your ads to appear. If you select mobile, you can also segment based on the whether users have Android or iOS devices. This might be helpful if you are advertising an app that only works on android, or are selling custom accessories that only fit on IOS devices.

Once you have determined your ad placement, you’ll want to set a budget. As of May 2016, the minimum daily budget you can create for your ad set is $1.00 and must be at least 2 times your cost per click bid (CPC). For example, if you have a $1.00 CPC, your daily budget must be at least $2.00.

You can schedule your ads to run continuously from the day you create your ad set or you can specify a start and end date.

Finally, give your ad set a name. Then name you select should represent either the audience, scheduling, or the ads inside of it. For example: This ad set will be named ” Local Females 18-64″ so I can quickly differentiate it from the other ad sets I create within this campaign.

Step 4 – Formatting and Design.

There are two options for the setup of your ad:

Single image or video: This means your ad will be comprised of only one image or video
Multiple images in one ad: This type of ad, also called a carousel ad, means that there are multiple images featured in one add that users can scroll through before they click.

For both ad styles, you can choose whether users who click on your ad are brought to your Facebook page or to a specific URL (like your website homepage, product page, etc.).

If you select single image or video you will have a few different media options.

For each of these options, Facebook will give you some best practices for video length, image size, etc. If you do not have a good image for your ad, Facebook provides you with some free stock images you can use. Although these images are a great option in a pinch, you are always better off using your own, vibrant images of people using and interacting with your product/services.

You’ll want to add text to your ad so that users know what they will be getting from you, as well as a headline and a call to action (CTA) button. The call to action button will represent the ideal next step you want users to take. In my example, the CTA will direct users to a scheduling page where they can set up some time to learn more about our services and get their free custom wedding plan. In the ad text, I also mention this free custom plan for Facebook users enhancing the likelihood that they will actually click. This is important because this isn’t just an advertisement for my business; rather, it provides users with a valuable offer that they must take an action to redeem.

Once you select the media content for your ad, you can preview how it will look on both desktop and mobile.

If you select multiple images in one ad, Facebook will automatically show the best performing pictures in the series first, enhancing the likelihood that the ad will be clicked on. If you would rather your images be shown in the order they were uploaded, you can turn off this default.

Text in the ads with multiple images will be a little different than the text you use in a single image or video ad. This is because the extra media this type of ad showcases creates new, additional information that needs to be explained. For my wedding business, I will make each image a different part of the process, showcasing aspects of some of my clients weddings. The text will make it clear that these are images from weddings my business has planned. This advertisement includes text, a header, and a CTA.

For more information on Facebook’s ad guidelines, click here. It is worth noting that Facebook does have a 20% text rule, meaning that the total image cannot be comprised of more than 20% text. Facebook is experimenting with this rule, recently determining that if an image has more than 20% text, the ad will be seen by fewer users.

Once you have finished editing your ad, click the green Place Order button on the bottom right corner of the screen.

Once this is done and your ad is live, you can manage, edit, and check the results for your campaign in the Ads Manager.

You’ve officially learned how to create a paid Facebook ad. Now it’s time to publish those ads, check the analytics, tweak as necessary, and watch your network of customers grow!

 

Joanna Mastrocola is Content Marketer at Alignable, network for local business owners, who is successfully growing the company’s organic website traffic and social media reach to grow the business. She has experience blogging, creating content and crafting targeted marketing campaigns. Daughter of an entrepreneur, Joanna was also a marketer for Bradford Carpet One Floor & Home, owned by her dad.

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