The first-ever woman to compete in a world rally car, Penny Mallory rose to greatness against all odds. Now a speaker and business coach, she explains how becoming mentally tough can boost corporate performance.
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Finding the right candidate for the job is crucial for an array of reasons. For one, recruitment is a timely and costly process that businesses do not want to have to repeat over and over after shaking hands with the wrong candidate. When the true cost of a bad hire can be in excess of thousands of pounds, businesses need candidates that are committed to a long-term career with the company and are driven to succeed.
If you’re an introvert, delivering talks may not be your first choice of how to apply your skills. However, as a business owner, you’ll need to present to your teams, clients or investors whether you like it or not.
Starting a business has never been easier; the Internet in particular and the march of technology means researching a market is within reach for start-ups (even at a global scale), and much of this can be achieved with relatively little money.
When setting up a new business there are many things to think about but probably the first key thing to decide on is what kind of business do you want to set up – which business entity will work best for what you want to achieve?
Nowadays, any person without an IT background, any coding or designing skills can create a website. No wonder so many people decide to start personal sites, create online portfolios and CVs, launch wedding websites, web stores, and implement their business ideas online. The great share of web resources is devoted to infotainment. If you’ve been dreaming about starting your own media, you’ve got pretty good chances to do it successfully.
As a small business involved in overseas trading, there lies a high risk due to fluctuating currency. More specifically, the volatile nature of the marketplace and mitigating factors which directly impact the value of selected currencies, both at home and the trading country. As a small limited company or an overseas contractor, it is vital to actively measure the risk and equip your business against changing exchange rates. Failure to do so could tip your business towards financial difficulty, disrupting company cash flow and the overall profitability of the company, writes Keith Tully of Real Business Rescue.
Most of us dream of at some point in our adult lives, being able to work doing something that we really love. After all, according to the National Office of Statistics, most people spend at least 37.5 hours a week at work. To be doing something that we hate isn’t good for us.
Two brothers, Timothy McElroy and James McElroy founded their business as they struggled to find a dog sitter for their dog. They took inspiration from the likes of Uber and Airbnb to set up their business. Now, HouseMyDog is Europe’s largest online community that enables dog owners to find and book local, trusted dog sitters and walkers. It operates in more than 70 cities across the UK, Ireland, Spain, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Belgium.
Businesses often think of training as a benefit for the employee – a way to build skills and level up in their career. Sometimes this kind of thinking hinders companies, especially small ones, from offering comprehensive training and implementing training programmes. However, this narrow view only harms businesses, big and small, in the long run.
Giving back to the community and giving to charities has become a core part of most small business culture. From the Federation of Small Business (FSB), a ‘Small Business, Big Heart’ was published highlighting the ‘giving back’ attitude of small businesses in the UK. It is, therefore, the time for the Government to deliver on the National Insurance Contributions manifesto promise (NIC’s), which consisted of a year holiday from the NIC’s for small businesses.
Good leadership is vital regardless of the size of the business, but a medium or large business will at least have enough managerial support to mitigate the damage caused by leadership problems. A small business doesn’t have that kind of buffer. With such a small team, a lack of stable direction can have disastrous consequences.
In recent years, YouTube has become an increasingly important marketing tool for businesses. More and more marketers are taking note and increasing their use of YouTube in promoting their businesses. If you are not already using YouTube, you are definitely missing out. You know what they say, if your competitors are doing something, you should investigate and start doing it better. If you are already using YouTube, good job! Keep doing it and do it better than everyone else in your niche.
Productivity is a key yardstick on which business efficiency is measured; the more output achieved, the more revenues and profits are likely to increase. For the most part, improving productivity revolves around having efficient, content and well-managed staff, therefore much of what is done to improve productivity is geared towards ‘people’ matters.
Cat in a Flat founders Kathrin Burckhardt and Julie Barnes feature in our latest success stories, looking at entrepreneurs making a success out of a niche business idea. They discuss having complementary skills, marketing your business effectively, and attracting customers. Cat in a Flat has become an international business allowing customers to find cat sitters for their pets.
If you love food, and you are a people person, starting up a catering business may be a good idea. You can do what you love and make a living from it. It’s true that the catering market is a crowded one, but you can make a business work if you are prepared to do the hard work that is required.
Hiring a freelancer for your small business can be a great alternative to hiring an employee. If your business is expanding and growing you may require additional help, hiring a freelancer can be the solution to your need. Some benefits of hiring freelancers include that you don’t have to offer them employee benefits such as a holiday or sick pay, that they will usually be highly experienced in their field, and if you are not impressed by them you don’t have to work with them past their contract. This will mean that you are more in control with who you work with, as well as saving yourself money over time.
Failing in business at some point is not only inevitable but essential. Failure is the biggest teacher, therefore there is always a lesson to be learnt. Failing at anything can be horrible and it can definitely knock your confidence, however, it’s vital that you get back up. As the small business owner and decision maker, you are allowed to fail, however, it’s your recovery that says everything about you as a leader. You need to make sure that you are leading by example and showing your team how to recover from a failure in business.
Diversity in the workplace can be really beneficial for both the people who work for the business and the business itself. Every major city is multi-cultural, there are people from all over the world that live and work there. For example, London is one of the best cities in the world and it’s full of people from many different backgrounds, cultures, races, genders and sexual orientations. The diversity in the city should, therefore, be reflected in the city’s workplace too. Small businesses, in particular, need to encourage more diversity when it comes to the recruitment process.
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It’s undeniable that there are multiple benefits to training the workforce and upskilling your employees. From retaining good employees to having highly skilled individuals work for you, the benefits are vast. Whether your business has a big budget or a small budget to work with, there are methods of helping your employees add to their skill set. There are certain types of training that will be essential for your employees depending on your business and the role they will have.
