Tag: business Page 2 of 3

Why Recruiting Is Vital For Startups

On June 28, 2021

In Career, Leadership, Nicholas Fainlight, postgraduate

Although the recruitment process is a challenging and demanding task for startups, it helps them get the right people for the job. The success of the business is dependent on the initial team brought on board. They also define the company’s culture as it grows and develops over the years. Below are reasons why recruiting is vital for startups.

It Helps the Employer Understand the Employment Laws

Employment laws give the employer information about employment requirements to follow when recruiting. Ignorance of these laws introduces other risks in the business that may cause a closure. If one is not sure of recruitment laws, hiring a professional recruitment team can help employers understand the process.

The Right Team is Selected

Recruitment helps the employer select the right people for specific jobs. A startup may experience challenges due to budget limitations and the need to minimize the cost. A strong team will know how to deal with them and come up with an amicable solution—finding people with the same mindset for the company helps in establishing trust with the management that no matter what happens, the team is intact and focused.

Recruitment Acts as a Marketing Strategy

A startup can sell its brand to the public through recruitment. Taking this opportunity and publicizing job opportunities and their requirements to the people shows the organization’s transparency for people to build trust. In the end, the business grows as the brand is gaining popularity.

It Provides Consistency

The recruitment process in the early stages of a business paves the way for the following recruitment. The management should have a standardized recruitment process to ensure every individual work in the company is measurable. A consistent criterion removes biases, discrimination and reduces risks for security.

It Helps Organizations Write Accurate Job Descriptions

Recruitment helps the management clearly and accurately write the job description indicating the primary and the secondary duties, qualifications, and salary range. This information makes it easy to recruit employees that fulfill the job description.

Startup recruitment is a process to ensure the business has the right team to move to the next level and become competitive in the market. Although the process may be challenging and costly, it is worth it in the end. Take time and go through the highlighted reasons why recruitment is essential and search for more online.

A Few Reasons Why Some Startups Fail

By Nicholas Fainlight

On February 19, 2021

In Career, Finance, Investing, Leadership, Nicholas Fainlight

Every new startup faces risks of failure, but, as an entrepreneur, it’s up to you to minimize those risks as much as possible. One way you can do this is by taking the time to understand why startups do fail. In doing so, you can take steps to avoid those common pitfalls.

Failing to Fulfill a Need
While your product might be fascinating or utilize the latest technological advances, it will gather dust on shelves if it’s not fulfilling a need. Products that solve problems in new and more efficient ways are the ones that attract consumers. Your goal should be to convince consumers that they can’t live without your product.

Failing at Providing Good Customer Service
Another weakness of new entrepreneurs is failing to recognize the importance of providing good customer service. In today’s digital world, customer experiences are instantly shared and consumed online. This creates a force for developing brand reputations over which businesses seemingly have no control. In fact, your only control over your business’ reputation is in how you promote customer satisfaction.

Failing to Hire the Right People
You can’t be present for every interaction each consumer has with your business. Instead, your own employees will collectively become the face of your business. Employees that seem uninterested or rude will lead to customer dissatisfaction and fewer consumers will visit your business. Your goal should be to hire individuals with a passion for your products or for the field of interest your business operates within. Additionally, they should be knowledgeable about your industry and passionate about performing well in their jobs.

Failing to Generate Capital
From the moment you launch your business, you’ll have to create a cycle of growth and reinvestment. This requires generating enough capital on a continuous basis to provide you with surplus cash to invest back into your business. Whether the capital is used for marketing, enhancing the business, or meeting growing customer demands, you should continue to reinvest in your business. If you’re not generating the capital to meet these demands, your business will likely fail in a very short time.

While addressing these issues won’t guarantee success, your actions can increase your chances for success. In addition to avoiding these common mistakes, you must also dedicate yourself to succeeding. While talent will take you far, perseverance has the power to take you all of the way.

How To Balance Profit And Purpose In Business

By Nicholas Fainlight

On January 28, 2021

In Career, Education, Finance, fitness, health, Investing, Leadership, Nicholas Fainlight, postgraduate, Technology, Uncategorized

Entrepreneurs need to build business empires while still staying committed to their purpose. A significant number of business people struggle to commit to their purpose while still keeping their enterprises profitable. Businesses need to demonstrate their contribution to humanity while still growing their profit margins. Here are ways businesses can balance profit and purpose.

Go Green

In the past few years, many businesses have shown their commitment to adopting more sustainable production methods. No matter the size, every organization can play a role in reducing its environmental footprint. Surprisingly, the current generation prefers to buy green products. Therefore, companies that will demonstrate high sustainability credentials will gain numerous customers who want to buy green.

For instance, manufacturers can reduce carbon emissions by sourcing closer to home. When raw materials are transported for short distances, it helps cut both transport costs and carbon emissions. Besides, leaders who have a passion for conserving the environment can shift to renewable energy sources.

Find an Inspiration

Walk away from your comfort zone and start doing something new that challenges you. Learn from these things and find inspiration in them

Leverage Technology

Technology is changing every aspect of life, including how consumers interact with brands and how they buy products and services. For example, online sales have doubled in the past five years. Additionally, organizations are using machines to understand customer needs better. This means that businesses must stay on top of the latest innovations to remain competitive in their respective industries.

Share Your Success

Entrepreneurship is a murky journey characterized by ups and downs. Therefore, successive entrepreneurs should consider sharing their experiences with novice business people. When you balance profit and purpose, your impact is significant and tangible, and more consumers will want to be associated with your business.

Understand Your Purpose

Purpose goes beyond providing high-quality goods and services to consumers. It also means that your business prioritizes the common good of the community. For example, some companies such as Unilever have already developed a unique living plan to track their progress of minimizing their environmental footprint. Business leaders should devote time to learn about societal impact and how to improve it.

To change business operations to meet new expectations requires exceptional and visionary leadership. In today’s versatile business world, leaders who will adopt agility will be in a better position to achieve long-term success.

Leaping Across A Professional Rut

By Nicholas Fainlight

On January 7, 2021

In Career, Nicholas Fainlight

Everybody has hit a rut from time to time. Any length of professional practice of any activity will result in hitting physical and mental walls. How do we break through those walls? How do we climb out of our ruts? As professionals, we must be capable and aware of recognizing ruts and how to respond to them.

One of the first ways of leaping across the struggles of daily performance is to mix up how you may do things. Mixing up your schedule, figuring out new ways of looking at the same issues, or even integrating new technology into the routine — these are all effective and efficient ways of getting through a tough spot.

Realize in the midst of our professional careers, we are not alone. There have been a multitude of others that have come before us who also have struggled with the same issues. Utilize their experience! Read up from experts who have suffered burnout, been stuck in ruts, and somehow figured their way out of them. Start by reaching out to friends, family, or colleagues, when comfortable, and try to see how they would approach the problem. Recognizing those who have gone before us, and those that go through it with us, is integral in breaking out of ruts.

An outline, game-plan, or goal sheet is another productive way of breaking old habits or worn patterns. It allows you to chart out big ideas and see the whole picture in a way that might have not been seen before. Try putting new ideas into your outlines and see how that changes things. You won’t be able to break out until you’re ready to break in new ideas and thoughts. Take an active effort in seeing things from a new perspective.

Recognize that life works on a spectrum. What you may consider “bad” other individuals consider “great” — it is all relative. Use that relativity as your jumping point across your rut. Start small, and do what you can do at that moment. Take small steps, and steps that you know will lead you to your end-goal, no matter how long it may take. Leaping takes a bit of faith, however, that’s exactly what getting out of a rut takes. A leap of faith.

4 Hard Truths About Business

By Nicholas Fainlight

On December 4, 2020

In Career, Finance, Investing, Nicholas Fainlight

In business, being honest is crucial to everyone’s success and prosperity. Having the truths laid out in front of you can be incredibly disheartening, but it can also provide you with excellent insights, preparation, and ideas for furthering your business yourself.

Being honest with each other is the first step to being honest with ourselves, and to that end here are some hard but powerful truths about starting a business.

Crazy is Good

Risk-taking is one of the most important things that entrepreneurs can do. Risk is something most people tend to avoid, but without a healthy risk there isn’t much to be gained.

What’s more, many entrepreneurs aim for ‘market disruption’ – flipping the table of industry standards in order to form a new standard. A new standard that they will be the leaders of. These are crazy things to pursue, but they are the foundation of good entrepreneurship.

Your Chances are Bad

Nearly every trust-fund baby with half a clue will be trying to do the exact same things that you will be doing. But these kinds of established or well-funded entrepreneurs likely have less risk because of their positions.

This makes your chances far worse – you won’t have as many chances at success as many others. And there are many, MANY other entrepreneurs out there.

Embrace Failure

Success will take time and effort, as well as a few attempts. The likelihood of achieving success with your first business idea, no matter how much of a golden goose it seems, is incredibly slim.

Embrace the experience of watching a business fail, and learn everything you can as you go through it. Learning from failure, embracing it, is the most important trait of successful entrepreneurs.

Money Only Means So Much

Hitting it rich shouldn’t be your only goal in business. Ironically, if you pursue other things while being an entrepreneur, you might be more successful than if money was your only drive.

Being driven, motivated, and dedicated to your business is absolutely critical, and you should focus on developing other motivations – whether it’s the business itself, the people it supports, or having something that allows you to exercise your brain.

Boosting Sales Through Blogging

By Nicholas Fainlight

On November 4, 2020

In Career, Nicholas Fainlight, Uncategorized

The world of social media is a big and broad one. However, there are some constants out there. One of them is blogging, which remains a highly useful and relevant way of boosting your sales.

So, what are the benefits of blogging, and how is it worth the time and investment? Here are some thoughts.

Expert Positioning

Blogging gives you a chance to discuss a highly relevant topic in your industry, share your expertise, and give advice on a particular topic. This is about much more than just showing off or looking smart, as it gives you a chance to subtly demonstrate your expertise. This means that you can position yourself as a leader in your field and ensure that people will return to you or your business if they require your industry’s services.

Search Engine Optimization & Social Network Placement

Here’s a simple truth when it comes to Google: Search Engine Optimization is critical. This means that you must do everything in your power to create content that is useful, engaging, and relevant to your line of work.

Blogging is fantastic for that. Google loves frequently updated content, so the more content you can create, the higher your SEO will rank. This means that people who are looking for your line of work are more likely to find your blog, and this makes it more likely that they will find your website.

Furthermore, creating good content makes it more likely that your content will be shared on social networks by others. This is a great way of getting more exposure, and potentially increasing your sales.

Effective (and subtle) Calls To Action

When creating good content, you shouldn’t be overly sales-oriented. Indeed, broadly speaking, you shouldn’t sell too frequently on your blog, as this turns people off and makes them less likely to read your content.

However, that’s not to say that you shouldn’t have a Call to Action. This means that every blog entry should conclude with some sort of action the user should take, and an easy way to commit that action. It may be “read more” or “subscribe to our email list,” but every blog entry should conclude with a specific action that a user should take.

Social Media Marketing Through Instagram

By Nicholas Fainlight

On September 16, 2020

In Career, Investing, Nicholas Fainlight, postgraduate, Technology

Marketers using TikTok should consider switching to Instagram. The social media platform now offers Instagram Reels, which has many of TikTok’s features, including a way for new creators to find a following. Instagram’s Explore algorithm makes it notoriously difficult for marketers to have their Stories found. Brands can share their Reel to their Stories and their Profile’s Reels tab. Instagram users will also see Reels on their Explore page.

TikTok may not be around for long. A potential ban is leaving TikTok influencers asking their fans to follow them on other platforms. President Trump already signed an executive order barring U.S. companies from doing business with TikTok after Sept. 20th. American companies that violate the order could face a fine of up to a $1 million fine.

Marketers can get on Instagram Reels now and take advantage of new Instagram users influencers bring and the already one billion active users each month. Reportedly, Mark Zuckerberg is trying to lure popular TikTok influencers to switch to Instagram, which Facebook owns. Facebook has deep pockets too, deeper than TikTok, which is trying to keep influencers with incentives. Facebook’s rumored offer of bankrolling video clip production for influential creators to post their content exclusively on Instagram reels will be hard for TikTok to beat.

Only 28 percent of marketing professionals use Instagram. Expect this number to rise once Instagram Reels catches on as a way to reach a young audience with 15-second video clips with catchy music. Businesses have a chance to show off their fun side with authentic content on Reels. Humanizing a brand is an ideal way to build genuine relationships with their fan base. Features like Instagram Reels let brands showcase their personality.

Other marketers are considering educational content for their Reels. As Reels were released early in certain countries, brands have been sharing recipes and providing helpful tips. Sephora France already has popular makeup tutorial Reels. They encourage engagement by asking viewers about their favorite eye shadow color.

Marketers who start using Instagram Reels early on will find the competition is low in the U.S. market. With many influencers jumping ship from TikTok to Instagram Reels, it’s a great time for brands to find influencers to develop branded Instagram Reels.

Tips To Help You Be Better At Networking

By Nicholas Fainlight

On August 18, 2020

In Career, Education, Finance, Nicholas Fainlight, postgraduate

Whether you’re running a business or trying to work your way up the corporate ladder, networking is something you’re likely going to have to engage with at some point in your career. Networking helps us meet other likeminded individuals that can help us strengthen our businesses and careers as well as learn more about success and failure. Of course, networking isn’t always easy. Most people aren’t fond of walking into a room and introducing themselves to a bunch of people they’ve never met, especially if they’re all intelligent and skilled business professionals. If you’re someone who struggles with networking or are going to your first networking event, here are a few tips to make things a little easier.

Be Informal

While you might have the urge to be as professional as possible, it’s important that you show potential customers and business partners the human side of you. If you be yourself, it’s more likely that a person will enjoy your company and then want to work with you. Of course, that isn’t to say you can’t talk about your career or business – sometimes people will decide to ask you about it and it’s perfectly acceptable to have that conversation. You just want to be sure you don’t come off too strong and that it isn’t all business, otherwise they may think you’re just trying to get a new customer.

Don’t Have A One Way Conversation

One of the most important aspects of networking is actually having a conversation – that means letting the other person talk while you listen intently, and then responding properly. While you may feel the urge to talk their ear off about you and your business, it’s important that conversations aren’t one way otherwise they may lose interest in you quickly. It’s also important that you don’t let them be the only one talking. Conversational skills are extremely important when it comes to networking, and if you’re shy then you won’t stand out.

Follow Up

If you feel that you’ve had a good time networking with someone, it’s important that the relationship doesn’t end when the conversation does. Be sure to ask them for their contact info. If they give it to you, it likely means that they also enjoyed your time together and chances are they’d be willing to get together again, which could lead to potential partnerships down the line. Everyone likes to connect differently, so make sure you’re available in various forms – phone numbers, emails, LinkedIn pages, Twitter – it’ll be different for everyone. Once you have this information, be sure to reach out the next time there’s a similar event to let them know that you’ll be there and that you should connect.

TED Talks Every College Student Should Hear

By Nicholas Fainlight

On May 26, 2020

In Finance, Investing, Nicholas Fainlight, postgraduate

Graduating from college is an exciting, uncertain time. For many grads, there is a world of uncertainty about achieving success in their desired field, even for those who have already secured employment. Today, there a number of ways to be inspired, from self-help books and mindfulness apps to inspirational public speakers. Perhaps the most well-renowned source of expert opinions comes from the TED organization.

TED talks stem from a conference focused on technology, engineering, and design. It has gradually evolved into short speeches written by professionals, for professionals. The aim of the original founders still holds true today – to spread inspiring, thoughtful messages about a variety of topics in a nonpartisan, nonpolitical way. Thousands of TED talks later, audiences around the world have access to a unique library full of insightful tips and tricks about navigating through life.

For college grads who have anxiety about entering our current job climate, there are many good speeches reminding them of the value of living in the moment. One example is Andy Puddicombe’s lessons about meditation and taking a break from everything for ten whole minutes a day. Sian Leah Beilock offers tips on getting out of our own heads when faced with a stressful situation. Remind ourselves that we are flawed human beings and let ourselves relax about the things we will instinctively know how to handle.

Many college students remain undecided about career aspirations, despite having chosen majors. It helps to be reminded that it’s ok to not have it all figured out just because you’ve graduated. Emilie Wapnick explains that it’s completely normal to have multiple interests, even ones that might be fleeting. Not many people have one true calling. She encourages people to seek out their interests, even if it veers away from any pre-set plan. Life is short and it’s important to not have regrets down the road.

For people who think that work means an unpleasant, daily grind, Scott Dinsmore reminds us all that work can be something that you love. While it may be true that not everyone is awarded the same freedom of choice, if you are lucky enough to find a job you truly enjoy, don’t turn it down because of other seemingly important societal reasons. As an added bonus, by doing what you love you have the power to inspire others as well.

6 Benefits of Frequently Changing Companies Early In Your Career

By Nicholas Fainlight

On April 24, 2019

In Career, Nicholas Fainlight, postgraduate

The average worker in the United States holds approximately 11 jobs during their lifetime, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. This number is likely to increase by several jobs for younger workers, who seem less committed to longevity with their employers. This change in how long someone stays with a company is a direct result of there being plenty of opportunities to choose from in addition to healthy competition amongst companies to offer employees the best salaries and benefits. That said, here are some of the key reasons it pays to switch jobs early in your career.

Acquire more skills

One of the greatest benefits of switching jobs is learning new skills, according to Pay Scale. These are crucial and transferrable skills, such as writing, negotiating, making decisions, and solving problems, that can help you get better jobs in the future.

Avoid career burnout

When you stay at a job too long early in your career, you’ll tend to become more mechanical in how you perform tasks. In fact, Forbes further explains that your ideas will tend to diminish the longer you stick with one job.

Helps self esteem

Face it, as a talented professional, you have various goals you want to achieve during your career. You have a better chance of reaching them by switching jobs more frequently when you’re first starting out. For one thing, you’ll become exposed to more challenging tasks as you advance into higher-level positions. You’ll also experience a greater sense of accomplishment.

Enhances industry scope

It’s a good feeling when you can perform your job efficiently and get recognized for your efforts. Unfortunately, if you stay in a job too long, you risk falling behind on new trends or happenings in your industry, according to Forbes.

Expands your network

The more jobs you have when you’re young, the greater number of contacts you’ll make. These are people who can mentor you or help you advance into executive roles in the future. These business contacts can also be a launching pad for future business endeavors if you have a predilection toward entrepreneurship.

Increases pay and benefits

Often times, people get stuck in careers because there’s no room to move up. This issue tends to stymie both career growth and income. Although you’ll have to gauge various salaries and benefits in your industry, you can often get significant bumps in salary when you make both lateral or upward progressions in new jobs.