A softphone is a software program that simulates the functions of a phone, allowing you to make and receive phone calls over the internet using your personal computer, tablet or smartphone. Softphones are an important component to VoIP phone services, giving you a business phone number without the need for a traditional desk phone. How... The post Softphone: Definition, Costs & Providers appeared first on Fit Small Business. from https://fitsmallbusiness.com/softphone-apps/
0 Comments
Closing costs are the extra expenses that buyers and sellers pay on top of the purchase price at settlement of a real estate transaction. Closing costs include mortgage origination fees, discount points, appraisal fees, and more. Average closing costs on the median home sales price of $230,000 are 2 percent to 5 percent, or $4,600... The post Closing Costs: Definition, Types & Average Amounts appeared first on Fit Small Business. from https://fitsmallbusiness.com/closing-costs/ Getting a business loan from a bank can be a nightmare even if you’re well-qualified, because they’re slow and require tons of paperwork. Short-term lenders can make getting a small business loan easier. In this article, we review the rates, terms, and qualifications of the two best short-term loans for business: Kabbage vs. OnDeck Capital.... The post Kabbage vs OnDeck Capital: Who Offers the Best Business Loans? appeared first on Fit Small Business. from https://fitsmallbusiness.com/kabbage-vs-ondeck-capital/ Guest Article One of the most frequent questions across this country, when I am talking to small business owners, is, “How do I hire the right person?” Looking for the right person to hire can be the most expensive and damaging process in your business. Your employees are the lifeblood of your organization. They are often customer facing and affect your bottom line in various ways. What we as business owners should be searching for are “core employees”. A core employee is defined as an employee who has been with you for two or more years. Once someone has been with you for two or more years, you pretty much know what to expect from them, they know what to expect from you, and efficiency increases. The more core employees that you have, the better your organization functions. The trick is to streamline your hiring practices to pinpoint great partners to work with. It all starts with your job description. Many businesses don’t create job descriptions or have minimal descriptions and throw in the catch-all statement, “And other duties as assigned.” The problem with this practice is that we never truly define what we are searching for and we likely create legal issues for our businesses. If you don’t actually explain what you want your employee to do, how do you expect them to perform the job? We must list every recurring function of the job. Is it possible to list EVERY function your employee has? No. But if that function becomes a recurring function, we should list it in the description. A great job description will include the essential functions of the position as well as the ergonomic, environmental, and physical needs of the position. Ergonomically, are you requiring the employee to stand for 6 hours a day? Maybe they need to sit for 6 hours a day? It needs to be in the job description. We can’t assume that the applicant will automatically know what you need from the position and can perform those functions. We need to list the environmental factors that could affect our employee as well. Will they be working in an environment that could be dusty? Will they be working in an environment where ear protection is needed because of noise? What about working in an extremely quiet environment. Your employee knowing the environmental factors is a big part of having happy well-adjusted partners. The physical requirements of a job can be tricky. In blue-collar environments, businesses usually do a good job of spelling out the risks. But in our white collar jobs, we forget tasks that could require our employees to have physical requirements. For instance, what if you have a dental clinic and your dental assistant has the responsibility of light patient care. What if your dental patient passes out when the assistant brings in the tools for cleaning? They would need to assist that patient which would require that they lift heavier weight on an infrequent basis. So we should definitely put that in their job description. A great job description is probably three to four pages long and includes a magical statement at the end of it; “Can you perform the essential function of the job?” By having your employee sign this description, it shows that you were clear about the job responsibilities and that they had an opportunity to share with you any issues they would have. This gives your business added protection legally and helps create more “core employees”. The biggest secret to creating more core employees is to interview employees who are functioning well in your business and create job descriptions that mirror their attributes. We want to hire new employees that have the same aspirations as our successful employees. Their success will leave clues to what we are seeking. For instance, if you have an employee that succeeds in your organization because they prefer to work in an open environment with little supervision, we should look to build that into the description for another employee we are hiring. Take these simple steps and let’s create more core employees and grow the business! About the author Oginga Carr is a Certified High-Performance Coach and HR consultant. He works with businesses on how to structure themselves from an HR perspective to create high performing organizations.
The post High-Performance Hiring Practices appeared first on Succeed As Your Own Boss. from https://succeedasyourownboss.com/high-performance-hiring-practices/ A conference bridge is a software program allowing you to hold meetings using your computer or phone. They can be used with either a smartphone, regular phone or any internet-connected device with a microphone. Services range in price from free to $90 per account with features and setup requirements varying by provider. How a Conference... The post Conference Bridge: Cost, Features & Providers appeared first on Fit Small Business. from https://fitsmallbusiness.com/conference-bridge/ Buying a business is a big undertaking, and getting a loan to buy a business can be the most complicated part. Banks set high standards that both you and the business have to meet before you’re approved. We’ll show you how to get the loan to buy a business that’s best for your personal situation.... The post How to Get a Loan to Buy a Business in 2018 appeared first on Fit Small Business. from https://fitsmallbusiness.com/how-to-get-a-loan-to-buy-a-business/ Net Operating (NOI) is a calculation of the income generated by a real estate investment. It measures the amount of cash flow generated by an investment property after operating expenses, but before principal and interest payments, capital expenditures, depreciation, and amortization. Investors use NOI to determine the value and profitability of an income-producing property. What... The post Net Operating Income (NOI) for Real Estate Investors: How to Calculate & NOI Formula appeared first on Fit Small Business. from https://fitsmallbusiness.com/net-operating-income-noi-formula-calculate/ Invoice factoring is a type of accounts receivable financing that converts outstanding invoices due within 90 days into immediate cash for your small business. The factoring company will typically pay you in two installments for your invoice: an advance of 80 percent to 85 percent of your invoice and the remaining 20 percent (minus fees)... The post What Invoice Factoring Is & How It Works appeared first on Fit Small Business. from https://fitsmallbusiness.com/how-invoice-factoring-works/ Whether you’re a startup or taking your business to the next level, there are different types of business insurance you may need. The most common are general liability and commercial property insurance, which can be bundled together in a business owners policy (BOP). The costs of a BOP range from $500 to $3,500 per year.... The post Business Insurance: The Ultimate Guide for Small Businesses appeared first on Fit Small Business. from https://fitsmallbusiness.com/business-insurance/ When someone mentions social media as a marketing tool, most people think of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. But newsflash, YouTube is the second most searched site online. Video converts better than any other type of content right now and it’s cheaper to produce than every before so as a small business—YouTube could be a game changer for your business. Posting videos on YouTube is a great way to boost visibility for your brand and highlight your expertise.
If you want to capitalize using YouTube Video here are 7 suggestions to promote your video content once your start publishing to YouTube.
The most popular YouTube channels are those that have consistently updated content. If you want to use video as a marketing tool, you need to have a publishing schedule of content.
Repurpose FB Live Videos. Cut down webinars and post them as a series of videos. Create explainer videos, or create short tutorials that are 2 minutes or less. Consider creating a CEO profile video with 20 interesting facts about you. You can interview your team, post customer testimonials.
Your video descriptions should be short, informative, and include lots of keywords. Describe your video in a sentence or two and include a link to your small business website for people who want to learn more.
Titles are weighed heavily in YouTube searches so don’t give your videos a non-descriptive titles. People search YouTube with keywords and phrases that describe what they’re looking for. Try titles that are obvious like, “How to write a business plan.”
When you upload videos to YouTube, there are 15 categories to choose from, and you can add dozens of relevant tags. It’s a good idea to use the tags that YouTube suggests, since they know what people commonly search for. You can also manually add extra tags I’m a big fan of use pleural and singular words for example, dog, doggy, dogs, puppy, puppies, older dogs
Make sure your calls to action are included in the video itself. Possible CTAs can include contacting you for more information, subscribing to your YouTube channel, sharing your video, and always invite people to leave comments at some point during your video. Likes and shares are nice, but comments are gold. Be sure to monitor and respond to all feedback, and try to personalize any responses.
Using annotations can be helpful for those who will see your video and not be able to hear it. This is really good if you want to share the video on Facebook as well. You can go too far with it though, resist adding annotative pop-ups to your videos. However, enabling subtitles on your YouTube videos is fairly straightforward—just turn on auto-captioning and edit the output for accuracy. Hearing-impaired visitors will appreciate your thoughtfulness. Anyone else can easily turn it off. YouTube is a great marketing channel, but you shouldn’t start something that you can’t keep up. I would record at least 20 videos in advance to build up an archive of content before launching your channel. Repurpose video content for mobile too, those videos should be longer than :10-:15 seconds. Video is great, turn your phone vertically, hit the record button and get started. The post How to Leverage YouTube To Promote Your Business appeared first on Succeed As Your Own Boss. from https://succeedasyourownboss.com/how-to-leverage-youtube-to-promote-your-business/ |
AuthorHello I am Teri Crawford 26 years old living in Toronto, Canada. I have recently finished my MBA and planning to start my own business. Archives
November 2018
Categories |