Category: Tips and Tools

Photo credit: Frank Winkler

Finding a vehicle that suits all your family needs as well as your professional requirements is tough, especially when you have a budget to stick to. What instantly springs to mind in terms of size, flexibility with space and the ability to drive long distances is a Range Rover, but they’ve always been priced way too high to be a reality. That was until I discovered the new Evoque, and I for one can’t wait to test-drive one of these. Initially I would look at a Range Rover Evogue lease, so that I could test different elements of my weekly schedule and see if it meets all our needs as a family, but looking at the specification, it’s hard to see how it could fail. Here are a few top features that make this the perfect all-round vehicle.

The price

Let’s not forget the main benefit of the Evoque – the price! Okay, so it’s slightly shorter and lower than the full-size Rover, but unless they’re sat side by side, it’s incredibly difficult to tell the difference due to the excellent design. It’s thousands less to buy, but if you look at long-term leasing one instead, you’re talking as little as £320 over a 24-month period – far less than a finance payment, and don’t forget that over the years the price will come down to reflect depreciation.

The style

As I said above, the overall look and feel of the Evoque has been so well executed that it feels like you’re getting a full-size classic Rover. However, while the larger model remains sophisticated, the Evoque has a much sportier feel without damaging any of those luxury elements. It’s slightly sleeker too, making it more comfortable to drive if you’re not used to larger vehicles and this is your first family car.

The technology

With every new model of vehicle comes a technology upgrade, and by leasing a newer car rather than buying a much older one for the same price, you’ll reap the benefits of these engineering developments. With everything from an 8-inch touchscreen system with the usability of a smartphone, to the park-assist and built-in sat-nav, there aren’t many emergencies this car can’t help you out of.

The comfort

One of the main reasons people opt for a Range Rover is the level of comfort that’s guaranteed. That level of high-end luxury used to come with a huge cost, but these days all that quality craftsmanship is contained in the much more cost-effective and practical Evoque, so it’s perfect for longer journey with the kids or while sat in a commuter queue.

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The safety

Finally, safety is key for any vehicle, whether it’s for the family or not, and the Evoque certainly won’t let you down here. Everything from the air bags that are on all sides to child safety locks, traction control and in-vehicle assistance are all fitted as standard, but on bespoke models you can even add blind spot sensors.

Are you thinking of leasing or buying a Range Rover?

What do you want people to notice when they first step into your restaurant? Probably it is the ambience, the classy décor, the well turned out staff, and the quality furniture. What you do not want them to see is damaged furniture and furnishings beginning to suffer from the passage of time. Sooner or later all your furnishings will need to be replaced, but the longer you can put that day off by preventing damage, the better it will be for your business.

Customers

A lot of the damage that is done is caused by the customers. There is a limit to how much you can interfere with what your customers do without turning into the British sitcom character Basil Fawlty, but you can try to limit the damage.

Leaning back on a chair is the quickest way to damage the legs. Keeping the distance to the next table to the minimum comfortable gap will discourage this. Alternatively, staff could politely ask a customer if he (it usually is a he) is uncomfortable to draw attention to what is happening.

Wobbling chairs are not only annoying but are likely to scratch floors because the most frequent cause is the loss of a glider. Check chairs regularly for a full complement. When purchasing commercial restaurant chairs get good quality items and, if they use gliders, make sure you get plenty of spares.

Staff

Staff members need to be properly trained to avoid damage to furnishings and floors. When cleaning floors the chairs will probably be lifted upside down onto the tables. Ensure that this is done carefully and that the chairs are replaced gently on the floor.

Not standing on chairs or tables is a basic healthy and safety requirement and alternative means to reach high places should be provided.

Environment

A lot of the damage that happens is the result of the fact that this is, after all, a restaurant. If you have chosen your furniture for its aesthetic properties, you may have to take special care that it can withstand the work it is required to do.

Wood can swell, contract, and split if it is warmed and cooled too rapidly. Avoid placing natural wood furniture in the close vicinity of heat sources, such as ovens, direct sunlight, and open fires. Provide hot plates to prevent hot items being placed directly on vulnerable table tops, causing heat stains and damage.

Drinks will inevitably be spilled. Choose surfaces that can be wiped clean. If chairs have fabric seats, they should be stain resistant or easy to remove and wash.

If furniture gets moved around during a serving session, make sure that it is moved back to its proper place as soon as possible. Be especially alert to customers taking indoor furniture outside.

Protect Your Investment

High-quality furniture is an important part of your business investment. Constant vigilance is a small price to pay for getting the maximum life out of it, protecting your assets and keeping your restaurant an attractive place to dine for many years to come.

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Photo: Kaboompics

As a software developer, the owner of a software company, or the leader of a marketing team in charge of generating brand awareness for the software company, there’s one thing you all have in common – you want more downloads, more installs, more copies sold, more subscriptions, more ad views, more everything. Well, one proven way to turn what you already have into more is to use your current user base to get new customers and users. The best way to do that is to somehow motivate your current users to recommend your software to other people. With that said, here are five of the best ways to convince your current licensees and users to suggest your product to others:

1. Use Software Escrow to Safely Give Licensees Source Code

This is often the last thing that developers think about after they’ve published their software. Are you going to give every licensee access to the program’s source code automatically? Will you make a download link available upon request? The problem with giving out source code to every customer like candy is that it is obviously the inner workings of the app, so it can be stolen and copied by future competitors.

In a sense, when you start giving the source code to every customer, there’s a good chance that a few of them will share it or upload it to the web somewhere. Once that happens, it’s only a matter of time before someone is using your source code to enhance their own app or create a clone of yours. On the other side of the pendulum, it’s completely understandable that licensees want access to the source code, especially in the case of businesses who depend on your software to continue operating as usual. A good way to share your source code with licensees upon request is to host it securely using a software escrow service online.

2. Start a Referral Program with Incentives

This is usually the first step that software companies take when trying to increase the amount of referrals they’re getting. Of course, it seems to be the most obvious route to getting instant referrals – just promise your user base something good in exchange for each referral. The cool part is that you have complete control over what the incentive is, so you can decide what each new user is worth to you and set up a simple yet profitable affiliate program based on that data.

The key to making your b2c referral program successful is to make it well-known and make the referral rewards worthwhile. Many companies make the mistake of hiding their referral programs in the fine print and as a result they’re barely ever used. Send out a weekly newsletter to your users and be sure to mention the referral program every time in large text. Also, send out special offers via email and add a menu option within the app or software to make the referral program more prominent within the UI of your product.

3. Provide Excellent and Responsive Support

Great customer support experiences are common conversation pieces. People like to talk about the time they were helped by an excellent company when their friends or family members are asking for recommendations. Naturally, the best way to position yourself for referrals is to make your company the first thing that comes off the tip of the tongue when a person talks about your industry. Aside from developing a stellar product that speaks for itself, accompanying that with superb support and service is the best way to give your brand the word-of-mouth edge.

Providing extremely responsive and knowledgeable customer support should be one of the highest priorities for any company in any industry, especially in competitive software niches where your competitors may be doing a much better job of responding and addressing user concerns.

4. Offer Exclusive Discounts and Bonuses

This goes back to enhancing the referral program that you’ll be launching and promoting. Think of something really special and exclusive that you could offer users in exchange for a referral. Ideally, you’ll want it to be a digital product or upgrade that you can produce and distribute without spending too much overhead but which provides abundant value to the user. Something very desirable that regular users can’t get their hands on, unless they’re able to muster up a referral.

Setting up the “only way to get this is via referral” technique is a lot like cornering interested licensees into practically begging one of their friends to sign up. It’s also a good idea to offer different levels of bonuses for those who are able to get multiple referrals, so there would be more incentive to continue promoting the brand.

5. Honor New Feature Requests

Finally, don’t forget that the users themselves are the ones who will be in charge of referring your software to others, so treat them with courtesy and respect when they ask for a simple feature addition or amendment. While you’ll have to take into consideration the wishes of the user base as a whole, and the practicality of implementing certain features, most of the time you should be able to reasonably accommodate the request with something that will impress the person(s) who asked for it. In the end, it’s the little things, like adding a special button or menu option that someone asked for, that will not only impress your users enough to suggest your product but will also gradually enhance the feature set.

Growing a Good Reputation Organically

Ultimately, there are no special gimmicks or tricks that you can use to grow your user base and get more referrals. The above recommendations are proven fundamentals that you can put into place to ensure your current user base is satisfied and motivated to recommend your software. That being said, it’s good to go ahead and acknowledge that referrals will only make up a percentage of your new downloads and installs, so no matter how hard you push the referral game, you still have to allocate efforts to other forms of advertisement and distribution.

The MacBook was first released by Apple in 2006 and has become an indispensable tool for many creative types ever since. Most MacBook owners, however, use only a small proportion of their device’s functions, ploughing the same furrows day after day without getting the full benefit of Apple’s wizardry.

This is a shame, as MacBooks have lots of functionalities that can save time, cut corners and even get people out of trouble! Here are a few examples to show how clever the average MacBook is, as well as some amazing facts about it.

Your MacBook can read you a bedtime story

If your eyes are tired, or you’re busy cooking but need to schlep through yet another work report, you can get your MacBook to read it to you as you drop off or chop vegetables. You just need to highlight the text you want, choose “edit”, then “speech”, then “start speaking”. This could save you a lot of time in the evenings, as well as save your eyes if you’re fed up with squinting at small fonts.

You can hide your pages in a second

We’ve all been there; you’re either at work, sneakily checking up on your friend’s ongoing drama on Facebook, or ordering your significant other a special present, when you feel like you’re being watched. If you need to hide a page in a flash, all you need to do is hit Command and H and the page will instantly be hidden. Phew.

Photo: FirmBee

You mustn’t smoke near your MacBook – ever

Hopefully you don’t smoke anyway, but if you do, keep your cigarettes away from your MacBook. Apple’s own repair teams will refuse to work on your device if it has traces of tar or cigarette smoke in it, as the company deems it to be contaminated with a hazardous substance. It’s possible that if you’re looking for MacBook repair in Miami you’ll be able to find somewhere a bit more relaxed about second-hand smoke, though.

The MacBook’s predecessor sent the first email from space

In 1991, the first email from space came from the Mac Portable, an early version of the MacBook. The astronauts onboard the STS-43 Atlantis used specialized AppleLink software to get the message across.

Apple was the pioneer of wireless tech

Apple was the first company to break the reliance on wires. Beforehand, even laptops had to be connected to phone lines. This wireless tech came out of the iBook, another of the MacBook’s precursors.

The word’s priciest laptop

Apple has produced the most expensive laptop in the world – the MacBook Air Platinum. As the name suggests, this laptop is made from solid platinum and retailed for around $486,616!

You can sign your documents without a pen

It’s annoying when you need to print off a document just so you can sign it, scan it and then email it. What’s more annoying is that there’s a lot of documents that need to be signed, especially if you run or own a business. Thankfully, the MacBook lets you sign your name using the trackpad, then stores it for insertion into whichever documents you’ll need to sign in the future. Job’s a good-un!

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There must be a reason why customers choose to do their business with one company rather than another, right? As an entrepreneur, you need to figure out what it is that prompts these choices so that you can persuade all those potential customers to come and spend their money at your company.

The best way to persuade people to use your company is to make sure that it is offering everything that they want. But then that poses the question, what do customers really want? We’ve done our research, and we think these are the things that make people tick.

They Want You To Listen To Them

We all want to be listened to, right? This is certainly the case for your customers! So, if you are in an industry in which you need to pitch your company to customers in a face-to-face manner, you need to always listen to them and what it is they want. Make sure that you don’t always launch straight into a sales pitch whenever you chat to potential customers. They can see right through this, and they definitely won’t be impressed. Instead, take the time to give them a chance to voice their views before trying to nail the hard sell.

They Want Their Security Taken Seriously

Lots of businesses now interact with businesses online and buy their products and services from online stores. Hopefully, you already have a strong online presence to compete with all the other competition on the Internet! But that’s not enough – you also need to make sure your online security is up to scratch so that customers are always protected when on your site and purchasing your goods. If you need to upgrade your current security, it will be worth investing in payments API, especially if most of your revenue comes from online sales. Once you improve your reputation as a secure online business, you will find that you start to attract a lot more customers.

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They Want You To Know Your Stuff

Are you the most knowledgeable company in your sector or industry? You should be, as most customers will only do business with the company who is an expert in their particular area. So you should expect potential customers to try and look for various clues that will give away just how knowledgeable you, your employees, and your overall company are. Make sure that you plug any gaps in your knowledge!

They Want You To Explain The Purchasing Process

No one wants to be confused when all they are trying to do is buy an item. Various different tax figures and prolonged purchasing processes can really get on people’s nerves. So, firstly, make sure that buying your product is quick and easy, even if it is all done online. Secondly, ensure that you fully explain what the final price will be. This should include all of the additional taxes that might be added on.

As you can see, customers don’t expect the earth. They just want you to be transparent with them!