Nicholas Fainlight is an aspiring finance professional.

Tag: finances

Overrated Business Tips To Forget

Overrated Business Tips to Forget

Wherever you go, people provide unsolicited guidance on how to grow, run, or start a business. Out of the pointers they offer, some are valuable, and you must observe them. However, others are misinterpreted, outdated, or just plain wrong for the business you’re running. Here are some overrated business tips to forget.

1. Your Service or Product Must Be Unique

Businesspersons are often advised to outline what makes them stand out. However, it is not necessary to find an exclusive approach to achieve corporate success. A subtle change may improve the entire experience.

2. Customers Are Always Right

Do you need to make the customers happy? Yes. However, if your main goal is to please people, you may end up in a world of unnecessary suffering. It’s best to pay attention to the things that bring you a long-term profit, not the things that take your energy and time.

3. Do Not Start a Business With Your Friend

Many people think it’s a bad idea to start an enterprise with a friend, but that’s not true—friends whose expertise supplements each other may build a thriving business. Establishing a company may be straining to the relationship; however, the benefits of operating with a person you trust may be worth it.

4. Promote Your Business on Facebook

Companies have acknowledged that paid advertising is the only path to increase your Facebook image, which is still one of the world’s best social platforms. However, it is not always the top place to use up your advertising budget. There are other more effective means to reach your audience for a much lower price per lead, for instance, on platforms like Pinterest.

5. Concentrate on Your Site Instead of Building the Brand

It is important to have a brand that reverberates with ideal customers. However, investing all energy and time in the “perfect” site is not how to make it.

6. Never Reject an Opportunity

It is tempting to “do it all” and take all opportunities that cross your path at the beginning of your business. Saying “yes” to all opportunities in your corporate encounters will stifle your time and dilute your brand.

7. Gather as Much Cash as Possible

Each business needs cash to start and grow; however, not all businesses must seek that through financiers. While funding may help some companies grow significantly, other lifestyle corporations are at an advantage without it.
Finally, despite all the advice that entrepreneurs receive, they should filter what is right for their business.

How To Balance Profit And Purpose In Business

How To Balance Profit And Purpose In Business

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.

Person's hand holding a locked phone above a blue background, Nicholas Fainlight keep financial accounts secure

How to Make Sure Your Financial Accounts are Secure

Whether you like it or not, most of your financial information is available online. While some people avoid using online banking or payment options, most people do. You can pay your credit cards online, check your bank balance, pay off other loans, or manage your retirement accounts. Many people have these apps on their phones and download other financial apps to help them save money or monitor their credit score. These options are incredibly convenient and can help you make informed financial choices and get help if any issues arise, but it can also lead to security issues. However, there are steps you can take to make your financial accounts secure.

Make sure it’s safe

The first step to take when making sure your financial accounts are secure is verifying that the app or website you’re using is actually safe. If you’re considering downloading an app, first look at reviews to make sure people aren’t having a lot of issues with it. Also check out the terms and conditions and find information on how they’re actually protecting your information. Most banks and financial apps are FDIC-insured, which means you can be reimbursed for money up to a quarter of a million dollars. Avoid following any suspicious links as well; only use your institution’s official website when entering account information.

Create complex log-in information

A lot of people reuse usernames and passwords amongst their accounts. However, when it comes to your financial accounts, you need variation. Create unique usernames for each account and randomly generate your passwords. Do not use any information over if you can avoid it. Then, write down your login information on a tangible copy and keep it somewhere secure in your home; avoid keeping any of this information on your phone, no matter how secure you think it is.

Regularly update your passwords

Even with variation, you’ll need to regularly update your passwords. Some people could access your information, but wait to use it. Regularly updating passwords helps make your accounts more secure and greatly reduces the possibility of your information being stolen.

Use a secure connection

If you’re on a public computer or even using a public WiFi connection, avoid checking your financial accounts. It’s much easier than you think to hack into public WiFi and subsequently get onto people’s computers; always use private, secure WiFi when checking important accounts online. Do not save your information in your browser for easier logins in the future. Just memorize your passwords or only access your accounts when you have the information written in front of you.

Monitor your accounts

Finally, once you’ve taken proper precautions with your accounts, continue to monitor them. Instead of waiting for your monthly statement, check your credit card and banking accounts at least once a week to make sure no fraudulent charges were made. While banks have become increasing good at detecting fraud, there is still risk. Always look over charges made to your accounts and make sure every transfer of money and every purchase was actually made by you or another family member who shares the account information.

Nicholas Fainlight How to use Credit Cards the Smart Way

How to Use Credit Cards the Smart Way

Credit cards are something we’re likely all familiar with. You’ve probably gone shopping to a larger store and had the salesperson ask if you want to open a credit card account specific to that store. It’s likely you always brush it off, knowing you don’t shop there that often or don’t want to deal with more debt. However, many people open credit cards, whether a store card or a regular one. The average household in America carries nearly $6,000 of credit card debt. Other studies show that about a third of Americans have at least one credit card.

You’ve probably heard horror stories of people getting into insane amounts of credit card debt they’re never able to pay off. Many people completely swear off of credit cards and believe they’re sure ways to get sucked into overwhelming debt. However, if you handle credit cards in a smart way, you won’t have to worry about dealing with outrageous amounts of debt. Here are tips on using credit cards and actually benefiting from them.

Online shopping

One of the best uses for credit cards can be to use exclusively for online shopping or somewhere else you think information could get compromised, such as a small stand or other place that appears to have low security. All too often, we make online purchases and then see that our account information has been compromised. It’s much easier to freeze and cancel credit cards and get the purchases taken off your statement than it is to do the same with getting money back into your bank account. By using a credit card for a purchase you would have made anyway, you can protect yourself from fraud.

Designated purchase

Sometimes, credit cards can be useful for a designated purchase. You might receive a lower car insurance rate if you set up an automatic payment, but don’t want to save your bank information, using a credit card becomes a great alternative. It’s also easier to track spending if the only purchase you’re making on that card is one kind.

Gain rewards

You can easily find credit cards that claim they have incredible rewards programs. Nearly every card now offers some type of reward. It’s important to avoid being drawn into promises of rewards and going for every card offered; take the time to research different cards and find out which ones offer the best rewards for you. Then, use that card regularly to make purchases you can afford and build rewards that are actually beneficial.

Build credit

A very smart reason to use credit cards is because they allow you to easily build your credit. By regularly using a credit card and not making late payments, you’re able to improve your credit score. This benefit is especially useful to younger people who don’t have any kind of credit score and need to create one in order to make larger purchases or rent an apartment. Spend smartly and avoid creating debt so you can improve your credit score.

Pay on time

Finally, the smartest way to use your credit card is by paying it off on time. If you carry a balance over from month-to-month, you’ll likely have to pay large amounts of interest, often around 20 percent of whatever the balance is. If you can’t pay off a large purchase in a month (or very shortly after), do not use your credit card. The problem with credit cards is people avoid paying off the balance each month, so it just accumulates and interest builds, which results in outrageous amounts of debt and you paying more than you spent in the first place.

A credit card isn’t something you have to be scared to use, as long as you’re following these tips and being smart in your spending. It could actually be something that benefits you.

Person skydiving in a clear blue sky, image used for Nicholas Fainlight blog on risk in finance

The Importance of Risk When It Comes to Finance

Person skydiving in a clear blue sky, image used for Nicholas Fainlight blog on risk in finance

Risk is involved in every aspect of life. The risk of taking your first steps is falling; the risk of asking a person on a date is rejection; the risk of interviewing for a job is failure; the risk of parallel parking is hitting another vehicle. So, it is guaranteed that creating a business or investing in something financially, as well as physically, involves considerable risk.

What is risk? According to Google, risk is the possibility that something unpleasant or unwelcome will happen. However, according to the business dictionary, risk is a probability of damage, liability, loss, or any other negative occurrence that is caused externally.

From a finance point of view, risk is the probability that an investment’s return will be less than expected. However, risk also offers the chance of reward. For example, a reward could be an increased return compared to a lower expectation. Financial risk is comprised of multiple categories: basic risk, capital risk, delivery risk, exchange risk, interest rate risk, political risk, settlement risk, underwriting risk, and much more.

Examining financial risk includes looking at daily finance operations, such as cash flow, transactions made by the business, and the business’ financial systems set in place. You may consider things like which clients owe the company, how the company plans to retrieve the money, insurance, and its coverage, as well as whether the business can extend credit to customers and how.

When calculating financial risk, external factors like interest rates and foreign exchange rates should be considered. Those factors can affect company competitiveness with services produced abroad; changes in interest rates and exchange rates can immediately affect debt repayments.

All businesses should extensively discuss risk management within the business’ strategic management. Doing so allows the company to identify and tackle any risks before they become an issue, which will in turn aid the chances of reaching defined business goals.

Once the risks have been pinpointed, there are several ways to address them: accept it, transfer it, reduce it, and eliminate it. Acceptance of a risk might happen if the costs are too high to handle it in any other way. The risk could be dealt with by transferring, which typically takes place with the company insurance. Reducing a risk is merely introducing safety measures to keep the risks from occurring, and eliminating the risk could be something like changing the production process. Once the risks have been determined and the type of management has been decided, take steps to put the measures into place.

Risk management is not a one time kind of deal; it requires consistent monitoring and should often be reviewed to ensure the management approach is successful. Set the plan in stone by creating a risk management policy that will identify the company’s approach to risk, and it’s management. The CEO’s and the board should all be on the same page before moving to the management policy phase.

All choices in life and business involve risk to some extent. By understanding what risk is and how to manage it, business and employees are more likely to meet their financial goals.

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