Avoiding Credit Card Fraud
Safeguarding your business against fraud is important, particularly if your business is accepting credit cards. Credit card fraud is something that can never be eliminated, but rather something that must be managed.
Bidding for US Government Contracts
The US government awards billions of dollars of business contracts for various projects, and their goal is to try and award 23% of the value to small business. If those projects are in your industry, gaining a contract is a great way to not only grow your business, but to enhance your reputation as well.
Building Business Resilience
If you are struggling to find customers due to an unexpected crisis, the need to avoid running out of money is critical to keep the business trading to buy time to recover. Here are some ways to create a stronger business.
Building Your Competitive Advantage
A competitive advantage is what you are better at doing than anyone else. The smarter you can be about developing and promoting your competitive advantage, the better placed your business will be to succeed.
Building Credibility and Authenticity to Compete
At the very start of a new business, the first customers are often the hardest to get. Potential customers may be using a competitor and must be convinced to switch, or they are aware you’re a new business and don’t want to be the ‘first’ customer.
Identity Theft and Reputational Fraud
Fraud doesn’t always mean a direct financial loss. It could be identity theft or reputational damage from online activity you can’t control which damages your credibility.
Calculating the Cost to Start Up
It’s often a good idea to determine how much money you’ll need to start your business, long before you intend to launch. Think of it as a reality check, as even if your business is the best idea ever, it’ll only succeed if you can find the funds to get going.
Calculating Your Break-Even Point
If you’re confident there’s a genuine demand for your potential product or service (and at the price you want), the next step is to work out how much you need to sell each month to make a profit (your ‘break-even’).
Choosing a Business Model
Deciding on a business model is one of the most important decisions you’ll need to make as a small business owner. The trick is finding those that suits your business best, that will make money and help to grow your business.
Collaboration and Partnering
Joining with other businesses to pursue common goals is growing in popularity as a smart way to increase capability, share resources, costs and risks. The internet, sub-contracting and being able to access talent from around the world has made this even easier.
Cost Optimization
Reducing direct costs can dramatically increase your profit on each sale while eliminating unnecessary business overhead. Here are some things to consider for optimizing operational costs.
Developing New Ways to Do Business Online
Most of your customers will probably use the internet in some form to either research buying decisions or make a purchase. It’s also likely there is at least one competitor who is offering a new way of buying or trading which customers prefer.
Four Reality Checks Your Business Will Succeed
Although the only real way to find out if your business idea will work is to actually start your business, there are a number of things you can do to help research your business idea before you take the leap.
Four Signs Your Business Is Set to Expand
Growing your business is one thing — but building it to scale is another by managing increased capacity (hopefully in response to user demand) and profit without adding heavy and costly infrastructure.
Improving Your Cash Flow
The aim of all small business owners should be to have more money coming in than going out. From shortening your cash cycles to managing debt, there are several methods for getting on top of your cash flow.