Tag: future

How To Balance Profit And Purpose In Business

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.

Young man in graduation robes facing auditorium, nicholas fainlight preparing for grad school

6 Tips for Getting Ready to Head to Grad School

By Nicholas Fainlight

On June 21, 2018

In Career, Education, Finance, Nicholas Fainlight

Once you’ve been accepted to graduate school, you might think it’s time to relax and that you can approach grad school like you did your undergrad college. However, grad school is vastly different from your previous college experience. You’re studying something much more specialized and are in an even more competitive program. You’ll have to work harder and produce higher level work in order to excel in your grad program. It’s important to remember that grad school is a much more professional environment than undergrad; you’re entirely focused on progressing your career and have a narrowed view of what you want to study. This focus doesn’t mean that grad school can’t be fun, it just mean you need to prepare for it differently than you did undergrad.

Network

Since grad school is all about getting ready for the future, take time to network before and during it. Attend local networking events over the summer and take advantage of any opportunities to connect with people from your school. The sooner you get to know professors and fellow students, the better.

Learn about the school

Once you’ve chosen your grad school, take the time to learn more about it. What’s the town or area around it like? How’s the campus? What are the classes and professors like there? Try to find current students to talk to or blogs to read. It’s never too early to start thinking about what classes you’d like to take or what organizations you’ll get involved with.

Choose where you’ll live

Some grad schools do not offer on-campus housing so it’s up to you to find your own place to stay while in school. Others do offer housing, but it’s often your responsibility to seek out your options and decide where to stay. The last thing you want is to show up on the first day with nowhere to stay.

Increase your knowledge

Before getting to grad school, it’s beneficial to increase your knowledge of the subject you’ll be studying and any other areas that could be useful. Take time to catch up with recent news and developments in your chosen field of study. Refresh yourself on the basics and do some research to find out if there’s any material you should know that you haven’t previously studied.

Get prepared

In addition to being prepared as far as your studies go, making sure you’re practically prepared is important too. Once you decide where you’re living, do you have all the essentials you’ll need for your new home? Do you have clothes that are appropriate for the climate? Are all of your papers in order? Make a list of everything you’ll need and tasks you to complete before starting grad school to be sure you don’t forget anything important.

Create some goals

Finally, set aside time to create a few goals for yourself. You’re entering grad school and need to have a plan for what you’ll do these years and afterwards. Are there specific internships you’d like to apply for? What do you want your career to look like once you’re done with school? Setting long-term goals helps you stay focused and organized during grad school.

Change spilling out of a glass jar, image used for Nicholas Fainlight blog on how saving doesn't have to be hard along with how to get started

Saving Doesn’t Have to Be Hard: 3 Tips to Get You Started

By Nicholas Fainlight

On November 21, 2017

In Career, Finance, Investing, Nicholas Fainlight

The value of saving money is pretty apparent to most people, but the actual process of doing so is a lot more difficult. As human beings we often do not actually want to save up the money we have worked so hard to get. The temptations to spend that money are all around us and it can sometimes be challenging to see the future benefits of saving it. While saving may be more difficult than spending, there are some tips on saving that can take away at least a little of the pain of doing so.

Save money from windfalls

Windfalls of cash do not happen often to the average person, but many can claim the event has occurred at least once in their life. Take the idea of a tax return as an example; most people can relate to this because so many of us elect to have a tax return come our way at the end of the year and end up with a decent sum of money.

When that money does come in, consider banking it rather than spending it. The government and economy might benefit if you spend it, but you as an individual would be better off pocketing as much of it as you can muster. A possible exception to this rule would be if you have significant debt to pay off. Then, using a windfall to get out from debt could be equally beneficial, just remember to save the money you would have used for that debt.

Use the 24-hour rule

Is one day really too long to wait on a purchase? Not when you are using the 24-hour rule to help eliminate wasteful spending. This rule says that before you make a purchase, you must wait at least 24 hours to decide if it is really something you truly need. Establishing this rule for yourself can cut out so much of the wasteful spending many of us are prone to doing. After a single day of cooling off, many purchases will seem completely unnecessary. It can also be beneficial to carefully think about how you’ll use this item, whether it’ll make you feel good for a little bit or if it’s a long term investment.

Unsubscribe from services you do not use

If you have a cable subscription but practically never use it, why do you have cable? Likewise, if you subscribe to any other services that you honestly do not get your money’s worth out of, get rid of them. It may seem like just a few dollars here or there each month, or each year, but subscriptions can add up to serious amounts of money over time. Besides, if you are not getting the intended value out of these subscriptions, then there is really no reason to hang on to them. It is fairly easy to rid yourself of these subscriptions once you put your mind to it. Spend some time today figuring out what you can cut out.