Are You Ready to Become a Reseller? Important Questions to Ask  

Becoming a technology reseller can prove to be a lucrative business opportunity. However, while it’s a viable business option, it’s not always an easy one — and not every entrepreneur or business is well positioned to offer technology solutions to clients.

As you begin to explore the possibility of becoming a reseller, ask yourself a few important questions to evaluate your business’s readiness to jump into the reselling fray. Your answers to these questions can help you determine if you should pursue opportunities now, or do some work developing your business before you move forward.

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Question #1: Have You Fully Evaluated Potential Vendor Partner Programs?

Every vendor partner offers a different reseller partner program. The key term to remember, though, is partner. Don’t focus exclusively on compensation and reward programs (although they are a concern) but also consider how well the vendor partner works with you to support your business and help you grow while offering the highest possible level of service to your clients.  Your vendor partner should be working side-by-side with you at all times, offering resources and support for training and development as well as assistance closing deals.

When evaluating potential vendor partner programs, you should also consider the advantages of a particular vendor over others. Can you identify the “wow” factor that creates a better experience for your customers? What are the competitive advantages that a vendor offers? Your reseller partner should be able to articulate these advantages, specifically as they relate to your target market. Without the ability to identify these points, you will struggle to build your business, and may not see the success you hope for.

Question #2: Do You Have the Staff and Experience to Successfully Resell Technology?

Growth and change are constants in the tech world, and as a reseller, you need to be able to keep up with those changes. However, on a day-to-day basis, your customers are going to expect assistance and support, from the beginning of the purchase process through maintenance and growth.

The question then becomes one of whether or not you have the expertise and knowledge necessary to provide the services that your customers need, and if you need help, can you get it? Some Cisco distributor partners, for example, offer Cisco tech support to their authorized resellers, helping them as they get client businesses set up. If you don’t have access to resources and support, can you get your own team up to speed yourself? Are you prepared to hire experts who can fulfill those important roles? A successful reseller isn’t just an order taker. You will be a partner to your customers, and you need to be ready to fill that role.

 Question #3: Do You Understand Your Competition?

Competitive analysis is an important part of any business, but it’s perhaps even more important in the realm of reselling. Customers are turning to you for expertise, so what do you have to offer that other resellers don’t? Understanding your competition can help you measure market demand and find ways to better serve your customers. What are people asking for that they can’t find? How can you fill those roles? Remember that it’s better to do a few things exceptionally well than to provide mediocre service in more areas. It’s almost impossible to be an expert in all areas as a reseller, so determine your strengths and use them to determine your business focus and plans.

Question #4: Do You Have a Business Plan?

Working with the right vendor partner can help your business get off the ground and remain profitable, but you need to develop a business plan. Do you have a pricing strategy? Have you considered the effect on non-billable hours and other costs of doing business? Do you know how you will manage your workload and staff? Considering these factors ahead of time can not only help you secure a partnership agreement, but can prevent unpleasant surprises down the road. Unless you have a plan that considers all aspects of your business, you aren’t ready to become a reseller.

Again, reselling technology equipment is a potentially lucrative business. As with any business, though, you need to ask important questions and assess your own readiness to move forward, so you remain profitable and avoid unnecessary challenges.

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4 Ways to Find the Best Payment Gateway for Your Business  

No matter the type of industry you’re in these days, it’s necessary to provide your customers with multiple payment options if you want to generate as many sales as possible. While cash is still used (typically for small, regular transactions), many people now prefer to pay online or via cell phones so that they can use their credit or debit card, PayPal account, or the like.

However, if you’re just about to launch a home-based business, or want to start accepting more forms of payment, it can be challenging trying to decide which mobile payment processing provider to choose out of all the options on the market. If you want some tips on finding the best firm for your needs, read on for four things you should consider today.

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Know Your Specific Needs and Goals

Firstly, before you think about signing with a payment gateway, you need to be clear about your organization’s specific needs and goals. While there are dozens and dozens of different merchant services firms to choose from, they don’t all provide the same services to their customers — and similarly, not all customers need the same services.

For example, some businesses might be after a simple merchant account with the bare minimum of features, while others may require extra functionality, such as the ability to process payments on a smartphone; inventory management capabilities; or the incorporation of loyalty programs.

If you’re to find the right company for you, you need to first be clear on things such as the “must have” facilities you need, plus where and how a payment system will be integrated into your operations.

Furthermore, it pays to examine whether or not the payment processing firm you’re interested in actually accepts all forms of payment, as not all of them will. In this day and age it is helpful if your payment gateway can accept debit cards, Diners Club credit cards, American Express credit cards, and PayPal transactions.

Analyze Pricing

Next, price is of course going to be one of the biggest determining factors in your choice of providers. When you compare options, remember that different companies structure their fees in different ways. As a result, you need to closely analyze pricing to see what will be the best value for your needs.

Some firms charge a flat fee per transaction, no matter how many payments are put through the system in a given period (generally either monthly or annually); while others have a variable fee that is based on the number of transactions which need to be processed. Others again have monthly payment plans which differ according to the level of overall transaction value.

Keep in mind too that some providers charge a start-up fee when you join up, while others may not but then might expect you to commit to a 12-month contract. Similarly, some companies charge cancellation fees, while others offer month-by-month services with no minimum periods to be worried about.

It also pays to examine whether or not the merchant services firms you’re interested in ever charge any potential extra fees. These can include things like:

  • System-integration costs for installing their software in your system
  • Charges if you change your point-of-sale system and need an update
  • Fees for accessing customer support
  • Withdrawal charges each time you want to transfer funds over to your bank account

 Examine Security

Another thing to factor in when deciding on a payment gateway is how secure each firm is. With hackers across the globe coming up with new techniques to break into websites and get access to sensitive customer data all the time, digital security is imperative.

When you analyze firms, ask them to provide information on their security protocols. The most closely-guarded gateways typically have precautions such as:

  • CVV2 verification
  • Data encryption
  • Billing address security
  • Complex encryption algorithms
  • Support for top-level SSL certificates

Check the Availability of Customer Support 

Lastly, it’s very important to make sure that you sign up with a firm who makes customer support available to its clients when they need it. While you hope that transactions and systems always run smoothly, sometimes issues just do occur. When this happens, you need to be able to get in touch with your merchant services provider for assistance.

It is a good idea to choose a company which provides 24-hour a day customer support, 365 days per year. This should be via a variety of communication methods, including phone calls, emails, and live chat conversations, so that you can select the most convenient way to get in touch.

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Why Hire a Message Taking Service?

A Message Taking Service can save you valuable time

Photo by CC user Vera Kratochvil on http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/

Competition has risen drastically in almost every industry over the past few years. After the market crash of 2008, millions of people found themselves out of a job. In order to get back on their feet, many people instead decided to launch their own businesses. The government began to offer a series of incentives and offers to entrepreneurs in the form of tax incentives and subsidies. As a result, over the past five or six years, hundreds of new businesses have been launched throughout the United Kingdom.

Many markets have already become saturated. There are viable alternatives available for virtually every product you might want. As a result, perhaps the only way by which a small business can distinguish its service is by offering superior customer support. Customers want to feel valued. They want to know that the money they are paying was worth it, which is why it is important for you to provide quality support and after-sales service.

However, setting up a customer support department is not as easy as it looks. Most small business owners do not have the capital or the resources to allocate space in their office to set up a separate customer support department. A vast majority of small businesses only operate with a handful of employees. Your customers will obviously expect support around the clock. You will need to purchase telephones, set up a live chat option on your website and reply to customers’ emails regularly. But it’s unlikely that one of your employees will be available via phone at all times. In many cases, you might end up missing calls just because employees were busy or not in the office.

Hiring a Message Taking Service

There are companies that can take messages on your behalf whilst you are busy working. If you want to offer prompt service to your customers, hiring a message taking service is an excellent idea. A message taking service can ensure that no calls are ever missed. The company will answer all telephone calls and take down any messages from consumers. Obviously, it’s important not to show that the services were outsourced. That’s why the message taking service will make it seem as if the call is being handled by a member of the company only. There are certain customer queries that just can’t wait, which is why the company will deliver all messages to your email, fax or SMS.

The Benefits

Even though you may not realise it at first, hiring a message taking service is an excellent option. For small business owners, the benefits will become clear in the long run. Customers will begin to rely on the after-sales support and service offered by your company. It will also free you from the hassle of having an employee sit by the phone at all times, allowing you to work on improving your services and products to make your company grow.

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Building Productivity in Your Business, Five Steps to Success

If you had to ask people what contributed most to the success of a business, what do you think they would say? People would probably list things like reputation, quality of service, workplace culture, advertising spend and word of mouth referrals as key indicators of a business’ success. If we had to list any one thing that contributes to the success of a business we would say one thing: productivity.

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After all, if you look at traits such as reputation or quality, they all rely on people being productive in order for them to happen.

You don’t get anywhere when you don’t do anything, and so we believe that a huge part of your success comes down to how productive you are. In order to get your business thriving we have outlined three key tips to get your business to a state of higher productivity.

Step One – Get the most important (or nasty) tasks done first

We all know what it feels like when you get to work in the morning, and staring you in the face is that task that you put off yesterday because you really didn’t feel like doing it. Don’t you wish you had just gotten it out of the way?

A key thing to know about getting work done is that if it’s unpleasant or important (or unpleasant AND important) you need to get it done, pronto. That way you will have attacked the task when you’re fresh and ready to go in the morning and you’ll have more time to spend on other tasks during the day. Plus, you won’t have the weight of an important task hanging over you like a guillotine.

Win win, really.

Step Two – Manage time like a boss

When you are a business owner you need to manage your time well, which includes managing the time of your employees as well, so make sure you can prioritise it. Strong time management will trickle down into other areas of your business, which will be sure to help your business and employees to be more productive.

Step Three – Don’t multitask

While you might think you’re working like a pro checking your emails and balancing out a couple of editing documents, all the while chatting online to a prospective client, the fact is that you’re not spending enough time on any of these tasks. An unwavering focus on one task at a time (with proper time management) will be the best way to manage your workload, and make sure that each task is getting the attention it needs..

Step Four – Get it done

Sometimes you won’t want to do certain things, and this is just part of being employed. While procrastination is an easy pitfall and it can be difficult to stay focussed on an unpleasant project, allowing things to build up will be much worse in the long term.

Step Five – Keep your eye on the prize 

Make sure you always having something to work towards. If you are a Melbourne business with the aim to expand into other states or territories, then you need to be looking ahead and investigating your options. Take a look at http://www.servcorp.com.au/en/virtual-offices/prices-locations/brisbane/ to see the various virtual offices on offer. If you become overwhelmed, hiring a business coach who can help you to grow can pay for itself in the long term, so don’t be scared to look for help in boosting your business potential.

Don’t forget to work on building a strong work culture and focus on developing a plan that you can adjust and change to suit your business as it grows. A company’s strength is in the productivity of its employees, and making sure they have the structure and ease to work effectively will quickly boost your business’ potential.

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How to Succeed as a Business Entrepreneur – 6 Top Ways

Having taken the primary and most important step, which was to set the wheels of your business project into motion, the next step would be to discover new ways to make it grow and prosper successfully. 

It is important to realize that you need to dedicate your heart and soul to the initiative for it to receive a great number of responses.

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The most important thought you would need to inculcate is that this would be a result of all the hard work, the creativity and the love that you put in to bring the project to life. So be ready to breathe it, eat it, dream it and live it!

Make it a point to read some quotes every day. Motivational quotes have the power to influence your mindset and allow you to function effectively!

Here are six important pointers to help you become a successful business entrepreneur!

  • Become more vocal

It is imperative that you break out from that shell of yours and become more social. No better time than now to begin engaging with others who are in the same place as you. The best form of help is self-help.

So let’s start there. Make it a point to get to know different people, and tell them about your new project. Speak freely and with confidence. Make it an engaging conversation. Allow them to pass criticism and pick it up from there. When they see the fire and passion in your voice, they will begin to take you more seriously

  • Marketing Online

Another way to spread the word effectively is talk about on the internet. Create a website that elaborately depicts your project in an intricate, catchy yet professional way. Outline your project details effectively and highlight the essentials. Spread the word by sharing the website page on your social media accounts.

You could use your friends’ and family’s help by asking them to do the same as well. Build a strong front by exploring various such upcoming start-ups and mutually help each other to grow together.

  • Lend a Helping Hand

Remember that there are probably many out there like you trying to come up with their own business ideas, and so it’s much easier when you engage with such people. Don’t hesitate to offer them help and let them know when you come across new, innovative ways to sell your project. This will always come in handy because this way you get to learn so much and have a diverse exposure to all kinds of people and projects.

Also, when you lead a helping hand, you can be sure to receive the same when you need it!

  • Good Strategy and Testing

Come up with a good enough strategy to outline your project, beginning from the initial to final steps of development of the project, making sure you’ve kept in mind all the little details. It must be a fool-proof strategy, and you must be able to work out any shortcomings. Investing into franchises is a great way not to only make money but to start a business in the future.

The final step before delivering the product to the public would be to test it amongst close friends who would appreciate and criticize you at the same time. Absorb the good and work on the negatives.

  • Come Up With Good Customer Service

This is the next big thing which would help your business grow! Put in place a team which dedicates itself to satisfy the needs of your customers. This is highly necessary if you want good reviews and expansion of your business. This will go a long way to getting contacts as well.

  • Believe In Yourself

This is the first and last thing on your mind when you work on your project every day. Trust yourself to make right choices and stand by it. It all works out for the best when you believe in yourself and in your dreams.

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Making The Right Choices When You’re Trading

Making The Right Choices When You're Trading can make the difference between winning and losing

Photo by CC user Kbrose on Wikimedia Commons

You must be sure that you are right in the midst of decision making process. You must decide when, what and how to trade. You also must go through the right learning and unlearning process. While many of us might be talking about how and when and what to trade, we should also know when not to trade and when to get out of the market.

Over the next few lines we will try and have a look at some time tested and proven theorems which could help you in making the right choices when you’re trading. This will help you to move away from a state of mind which often is referred to as “analysis paralysis”.

It Is All About Experience

If you believe that you can become an expert in trading overnight then you are in for some rude shocks. Trading in commodities, indices, and currencies is a learning process and therefore experience is the biggest teacher. Therefore you must believe in learning the tricks of the trade step by step and gather as much experience as you possibly can before heading over to CMC Markets. It would not be a bad idea to keep a trading journal where you should note down each and every significant event as it happens daily. This certainly will help you to identify the areas where you are making mistakes. You will make mistakes for sure but experience is all about learning from the mistakes and not repeating it again.

Do Not Bite More Than You Can Chew

When you are in trading you certainly make use of various types of indicators. It is quite obvious that you could be cluttered with information and each one might interpret these indicators in their own way. You should find out ways and means by which you keep the number of indicators as low as possible. This is important because the more you clutter your decision making process, the more you are likely to make mistakes. Hence you must believe in keeping it simple and straight. This again will happen only with experience and therefore this point and the previous one are closely interlinked.

You Should How To Recover From Mistakes

There are hardly any traders who have not incurred losses and their success story is not all smooth sailing. You must therefore find out ways and means by which you can convert mistakes into learning grounds and learn to profit from it over a period of time. Many people often become paralyzed when they make losses and you should not be one of them if you wish to make it big. You must sit down and analyze the reasons for failure and take lessons from it rather than being stunned into inaction.

Intuition Has A Role To Play

Though many theoretical experts may have a different take on this, it has been proven time and again that your intuition can help you a lot in making the correct trading decision. If you make wrong use of it you could end up in a state of failure. Intuition is something that comes with experience. This is often referred to as expert intuition. You must also try and develop long term intuition. This is about intuition being driven by the brain which works in the background. This could be of strategic importance at times.

At times you might be at a loss to understand as to how your intuition made you take the decision. However, having said this it is important to understand that intuition does not work in thin air. It has to be backed by logic and figures and there should be some basis for it. There have been instances where intuition has enabled traders to take smart and fast decisions.

Importance Of Playing Learning Games

It is important to train the brain so that it is able to think correctly and think fast. You must therefore understand the importance of playing learning games. You will be playing in a demo environment and hence the risk of losing money can be ruled out. You could try and look for games which could help in speeding up the brain and its thinking capacity.

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Color Yourself a Better Business Owner with the Right Software

Using the right software for your enterprise can make you a Better Business Owner
Photo by CC user Joonspoon via Wikimedia Commons

What sets your tanning salon apart from competitors?

In many cases, you have better facilities, top-notch customer service, reasonable prices, and the ability to get customers in-and-out in an orderly manner.

If that last trait mentioned is a bit of an issue for your business, are you doing something about it?

When the assembly line if you will begins to slow down, you will not only get upset customers, but your financial well-being as a business owner can be hampered.

In order to avoid having that happen, having the right technology in place to move things along proves critical.

Keep Your Business Moving Forward

No matter what type of small business you run, production is the name of the game.

For example, if you running a tanning salon, you can’t have customers waiting endless times to use the booths. Customers must not be allowed to paying whenever they get around to it at their convenience. Lastly, you need to make sure all of your equipment is in tip-top shape.

So, how do you go about all these requirements, plus many more that come with being a small business head?

For the tanning salon owner in particular, he or she must make sure that the business is clicking on all cylinders. Disruptions in the normal everyday process can hamper business, perhaps even turn off customers.

If you decide to look into using tanning salon software, you want a program that offers the following:

  1. Scheduling – About as important as anything else you will do in running your salon, keeping clients scheduled on-time is important. As mentioned a moment ago, disruptions in the normal daily slate can lead to a backlog, one that can ultimately end up costing you dollars. With the right software in place, you are able to allow clientele to schedule the best time for them to come in for a session. Your software should also allow you to remind them via text or email of their pending visit, thereby greatly reducing the chances they will miss out on a slated appointment;
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  3. Convenience from afar – The ease with which both you and the clientele can coordinate schedules goes beyond just a regular computer. The right software will give you the ability to use a mobile device to check-in. Whether you are down the street from the salon or miles away, you can know exactly what the daily slate of appointments looks like. This eliminates unnecessary calls and emails going back-and-forth between the different parties;
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  5. Handling payments – The right software also helps you when it comes time for customers to pay their bills. Whether they pay by cash, credit card or check, making the checkout process easy is something every business owner wants for his or her company. When customers have a hard time paying (in terms of delays in sales being brought up etc.) they can be turned off by your business. If it happens one too many times, you may not see them again;
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  7. Overseeing your supply needs – Whether running a tanning salon or any kind of business that involves customers, services and products, ordering supplies on a regular basis is a necessity. As a result, you want to make sure your inventory needs are never cut short. If they are, you could once again have some unhappy clientele on your hands. By having software to automatically place and follow up on supply orders for you, you’ve removed yet one more obstacle to overseeing your business on a daily basis.

 

As you search for the best software out there, remember to review each and every provider, checking to see which one likely best fits your needs and financial means.

While you can do this via Internet searches, also check with those in the business (you may even be friends with some competitors) to see what line of software works best for them in their day-to-day business operations.

Running one’s own business is something countless people dream of over and over again.

When you have the right technology in place for your business dreams, those dreams can soon become a reality.

Is it time to color yourself a better business owner?

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Does Your Business Need Some Healthcare 101?

Think of this post as a course in American healthcare 101...

Photo by CC user 115089924@N02 on Flickr

With Obamacare having grabbed the headlines in recent years, many businesses (and individuals for that matter) have had to adjust how they go about doing things when it comes to healthcare.

The days of turning a blind eye to having health insurance are all but gone, especially given the fines now in place for those opting not to be covered.

With that being the case, both businesses and individuals need to be cognizant of the latest in healthcare rules and regulations, knowing how they are impacted with and without health insurance in 2016 and beyond.

One of the ways to better familiarize yourself with all the latest in healthcare initiatives is by turning to experts in the industry.

Learn from Those Who Truly Know

So that you can have a better grasp of what is going on in the healthcare world, turning to people with the necessary knowledge on health care topics at LeadingAuthorities.com or other such experts, you will be able to be more educated on this important part of life.

Such experts can brief both businesses and individuals on the healthcare field in general, where attention is still desperately needed to improve matters, what lawmakers and others are looking at in terms of potential rule changes, and how Obamacare is and isn’t assisting both patients and medical professionals now and potentially in the future.

Whether one turns to experts or not; business owners, medical professionals and consumers can all learn more about the importance of healthcare reform these last several years.

Breaking it down, here’s how the following can gain more knowledge:

 

  • Business owners – When it was announced several years ago that Obamacare was a done deal, many in the business community (especially smaller businesses) began to fret. What would they be responsible for as far as making sure their employees were covered? Would mandatory coverage perhaps lead to laying off employees or asking some of them to go from full-time to part-time? Would exorbitant costs ultimately lead to businesses going under? To this day, many business owners remain concerned about where health insurance is headed. For those who run businesses, having experts in the field come in and give a talk about the current state of affairs can certainly be beneficial;
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  • Consumers – Even though many consumers (in the millions) lost their health insurance several years ago due to the beginning of Obamacare, millions of others gained healthcare coverage for the first time. That said many consumers still to this day struggle with affording their health insurance costs. If you’re one of those individuals (especially if you have a family to cover), it is important to learn about the different options on the table for you. If you decided to forgo health insurance, keep in mind that you will be find on a yearly basis. What started out as a fine of less than $100 just a few years ago is now several hundred dollars and growing yearly. Hearing from experts in the healthcare industry, especially as it relates to where costs and coverages may be headed, can assist individuals in what is best for them to do moving forward;
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  • Medical professionals – For those in the medical profession, they are just as impacted as anyone else by the recent changes in health insurance. It is important to note that some (mostly doctors) have stated they might have to give up their practices to either retire early or go into other areas of the medical profession. Once again, doctors, nurses and others in the medical field are well-served by knowing as much about the current state of health insurance nationwide as anyone.

As the healthcare industry (especially as it pertains to health insurance) continues to evolve, millions of people would be wise to learn as much as possible about what is going on.

If they choose not to, they could be blindsided by higher costs and more regulations as time moves on.

With professionals out there who are well-versed in what is going on in the medical field, look to them today to see how they can help you individually or as a professional better understand the complicated world that is healthcare 101.

 

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What Makes Your Home Business Attractive?

So that your home business can thrive, what are you doing to attractive new customers?

Some home business owners will turn to as much advertising and marketing as their budgets will allow. In doing so, they can demonstrate the lure of their products and/or services.

Others, meantime, opt for a heavy dose of stellar customer service to win new customers. Show a new customer how much better your service is than the competition’s, allowing you to win them over for years to come.

Knowing what makes your home business attractive is not something you can sleep on. In fact, it should be something you make a priority of.

That said take some time to re-evaluate what truly makes your home business attractive, allowing you to capitalize on that now and in the years to come.

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Truly Understanding Success

So that you can better understand what makes your home business tick, start by re-evaluating the entire process.

Okay, you may think that you do not have the time for such actions, but wouldn’t your business be better off if you did take the time and effort?

To start with, compare you revenue numbers from a year ago at this time.

Are they ahead of where they were last year? Are you essentially about where you were ago? The last and worst scenario, are you behind now from where you were a year ago at this time? Even if you are ahead of where you were at this point in 2015, don’t rest on your laurels. Complacency for any business, especially one that is typically a one-person show and operating with less financial capital than the big boys, can be a recipe for trouble.

In the event your numbers are down from a year ago, determining the reason or reasons for this is not a choice, it is a necessity.

While it could be any number of reasons, one could be your company’s overall organizational skills (or lack thereof them).

Don’t Lack for Website Skills

One area where you do not want to be lacking in organization is your website.

As a home business owner, stop and think for a moment where you would be without a top-notch website.

A solid website should be organized, informative, authoritative, well-promoted, and something that allows you to distance yourself from the immediate competition.

When it comes to organizing the site, how much of your time and effort goes into making sure it looks clean and gives customers (present or potential ones) everything they need at their fingertips.

Some customers may want to use your site to download and order purchase items, something a tradebit or other similar sites can easily provide.

Others may simply want to come to your site to gain more information on the industry with which you are a part of.

No matter the reason, you and your website can’t afford to drop the ball.

Another area of importance is properly promoting your site, especially on social networks.

If you do not already, make sure you display your respective social media icons (the sites you have accounts for) somewhere on the front page of your site. This allows you to demonstrate that you not only have a social media footprint as a home business owner, but that it is also important to you.

Also keep in mind that your website is essentially the best mouthpiece you have as a home business owner.

That said you should always look at your site as a money-making vehicle, along with being informative for consumers.

There are countless home businesses operating nationwide these days, so the opportunities are literally endless for the millions of people involved in these.

Taking the time to really get to know what separates your home business from the competition is more important than you might think.

Always devote some time and energy to making sure your business is not taking anything for granted, along with always looking to improve things.

As any smart home business owner can tell you, he or she didn’t strike it rich overnight.

In many cases, it takes hours and hours of hard work and dedication to turn a decent profit.

Will you be one of those successful home business stories?

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Boost Your Business Power with Better Software

Making your business as productive as can be might seem sometimes like it takes all of your will power and then some.

From promoting your brand to making sure all your bills are up to speed, running a business is no easy matter.

That said what if you could expedite the way you go about handling all your billing and scheduling needs? Would that make life easier on you and your employees (for those who are not running one-person businesses)?

Well, there are options out there to do just that if you know where to look.

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Bring More Efficiency to Your Operation

In order for you to stay on par or even surpass the competition, your customer service efforts must always be top-notch.

For example, if you run a medical practice, you know how chaotic matters can get in a short amount of time. Products from brands like Revenuexl.com and others can give your medical practice the extra push it needs to meet patient demands.

Among the ways to better improve your office efficiency:

  • Listen – First and foremost, listen to what your patients are saying to you. One of the greatest frustrations patients can have is they feel like they’re talking to the wall, essentially meaning they are getting nowhere with medical questions, billing inquiries etc. In order to do your best to remove this frustration, keep an open dialogue with each and every patient, doing your best to answer their questions and solve any issues they are having;
  • Software – Are you one of those medical offices that will still rely on folders and folders of paperwork instead of going to the Internet for the information you need? As more medical practices have learned in recent years, transferring those mounds and mounds of data to computers typically makes for faster and better patient quality. The key to finding the right software provider is making sure they have a credible history of serving their customers. You are likely not an I.T. expert by trade, so any software provider you opt for should be able to answer any and all questions you have regarding your online needs with their product or products. The software will not only allow you to transition away from all that paperwork in those folders, but it will also speed up the process of getting patients scheduled, checked-in and more. Lastly, think about what might happen if your office was hit by a fire, flood, earthquake etc. Would all those paper files be gone before you know it? If so, do you have backup information on each and every patient that you serve? In all likelihood, you would have a serious problem on your hands. By doing all your patient information and billing etc. online, you simply need to back-up the data, meaning you have Plan B in place if you suffer a major computer data breach and/or loss of information;
  • Billing – Those who run home businesses know all too well how important regular billing is. If home business owners did not bill their clients on time, they’d have trouble getting the payments due them. If that happens, the home business can run into financial issues, including paying its own bills. Medical practices are no different; staff needs to get paid as a result of the care and services they provide the general public. When you have your efforts trained on online software instead of doing billing the old-fashioned way, the process generally moves much quicker. Being able to go into the computer at a moment’s notice and see what level of health insurance a patient has, along with the co-pay charge at the time of an office visit etc. makes for a more expedient process for all involved. Finally, some patients will delay making their required payments for one reason or another. As a result, your office is tasked with sending out payment reminders so that your finances do not take a hit. With the proper software in place, you can send out automatic reminders to nudge patients along in paying you. No phone calls are needed when a software program can do all the work.

When you consider going electronic with all your data needs, you boost your business power in many ways.

Most importantly, you and your customers will benefit from all that software has to offer.

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