Business Plus Baby

Starting a business has been made much easier by the huge number of online tools available. Many are very affordable and mean you can carry out activities that used to require a programmer even if you have no coding skills.

The flip side of this is that the sheer range of tools you could choose from is overwhelming. Read on to find out the top ten tools you’re likely to need, plus some suggestions of products to try.

Email marketing service

This is first in the list because it’s a crucial part of your marketing strategy, whether your business is online or bricks-and-mortar. Why? Because you need to keep in touch with your prospects and customers, and – despite all the hype about social media – email is still the most cost-effective way to do this. The best place to start is to write down what you want to be able to do with your email service, plus your budget, then find a tool that meets this need. Many small businesses start with Mailchimp’s free service but there are great alternatives including Constant Contact, Get Response, ConvertKit and Aweber.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

You need a customer database with your customers’ names, addresses and a record of what they’ve bought and when you’ve had contact with them. This is what a customer relationship management does at its most basic, but it can do much more, including marketing automation. You can begin with an Excel spreadsheet, but you’ll probably want to move on to a tool like Capsule CRM before too long. You could also look at tools like Hubspot.

Organization / project management tools

Need to stay on top of your to do list? Try Todoist, or if your needs are more project management that to do list, try Trello or Asana.

Social media scheduling and analytics tool

There’s no doubt about it, social media can be a huge time-suck. Tools like Buffer and Hootsuite can help (if used effectively), and they also provide reports on your social media stats, so you can see how many likes, shares and comments your social media posts have achieved.

Google analytics

If you don’t have Google Analytics set up on your website, go do it now! It’s almost certainly your best tool for tracking visits and views to your website, as well as where your traffic is coming from.

SEO tools

And speaking of traffic, there are many search engine optimization tools you can use to make sure your content gets seen, such as WordPress plugins Yoast and All in One SEO pack.

Data management platform

Larger businesses that handle a lot of data could well need master data management tools such as Profisee.

Automation

Often, these tools will need to ‘speak’ to one another. The good news is that you can set this up using tools such as Zapier and IFTTT (If this, then that).

Accounts and finance tools

It goes without saying that you’ll need to keep on top of your finances. Take a look at Xero, Freshbooks and Wave.

File sharing

And finally, remote working means that many of us need to share files across long distances. Check out services like Dropbox and Google Drive for this.

When you have your own business to look after, it is hugely important to make sure that you do not overlook any of the major or even minor details. Most first-time entrepreneurs find themselves struck by just how much there is to focus on, and the way in which you generally need to be as though you are in all places at once. This is something you get used to in time, however you do need to practise the art of getting good at costing. Costing is one of the most important things you will ever do, as it keeps you in the black and ensures that you are not going to let your business run into the ground. But it is so easy to overlook the essentials here, and a basic reminder of some of them is always going to be helpful. Let’s do that now, to give you a helping hand.

Simplify

If you want to be able to keep your costs down and to be clearer of the costs you do have, you can achieve both of these aims by working to simplify the processes within your business. There might be many processes which you are able to simplify, and you might be wondering where to start. The truth is – it doesn’t matter, so long as you are doing it and you are approaching it in the right way from the word go. The simpler your processes are, the fewer items of machinery you need, the less you have to worry about overspending, and the easier it will be to keep track of everything. It is definitely worth your while keeping things simple and basic, even if it seems as though you want it to be more complex at times.

Details

The more you are able to focus on the details, the more likely it is that you can cost your business effectively, and without overlooking anything which might covertly be costing you a lot of money in the long run. The details means looking at everything from your paperclips and your warehouse’s CNC milling machines right up to the computers in the office and the benefits you might be providing your employees with. It all counts, and the sooner you accept that the sooner you will be able to keep your business in the best possible shape. Pay attention to details if you want your company to be truly cost-effective in the long run.

Shop Around

For every little or big thing you need in your business, you can save money by simply shopping around and ensuring that you don’t get taken in by false deals and promises. There are a lot of companies out there who try to profit from the ignorance of new entrepreneurs. Don’t be that kind of business owner. Try to be savvy and consider whether you really need their specific product, or whether you can go elsewhere and get the same or better for less money.

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According to a top senior financial advisor at Wilkins Finance, more and more female entrepreneurs opt for day trading as a profession as it offers a number of benefits. This changes the way online trading is done as, in the past, it was only seen as a profession for male entrepreneurs. With more females, especially new mothers and those having more than one child to take care of, in the online trading world, it is about to become a very interesting way of making money. That being said, what are the main benefits of being a mother and choosing online or day trading as a way of earning an income?

Convenience

Raising kids while working is a huge task to take on. If you contribute to the household by also making money as well as having to take care of children, the task becomes even greater. Online trading, however, makes it easier and much more convenient as you can trade in the comfort of your own home. All you need is a stable internet connection and an online trading account. Thus, you are at home with your kids while earning an income.

Pricing

With traditional ways of trading, your brokerage fees will be much higher. While making use of an online account when day trading, you can save on fees and even negotiate charges with your broker. That gives you extra cash saved up to stay up-to-date with the expenses of raising your children.

 Monitoring

As you won’t be in an office environment, you are able to monitor your trades, even when you are not in front of your computer. When it is time to take the kids out to the park, you can receive notifications on your mobile phone or make use of brokerage apps to keep an eye on what goes on in the trading world.

Communication

All mothers know how hard it is to talk on a mobile phone for hours when your kids are demanding your attention. Day trading with an online account gives you the ability to make use of email and messaging when you have a query about your trades, thus saving you time and eliminating the hassle of talking to your broker with kids at your side.

Control

When it comes to parenthood, control is a major decisive of everyday life. While day trading as a stay-at-home mother, you can incorporate control over your kids as well as over your online trading account by means of push notifications on your mobile, reminders when trading should take place as well as charts as to when markets are high or low.

Banking

As a mother, things can become quite hectic when you need to run errands and go to places such as a bank. If you have an online trading account with a broker, you can rest assured that your funds are in good hands and will be ready for your withdrawal when you have the time to do so.

 Understanding

Apart from the fact that you need to have a trading background or extensive knowledge thereof to make this your job, you will have a better understanding of how capital is spent. A huge benefit of this over the long haul is that you can educate your children about what you do as they grow older. This will help them understand how to work with money, how to make money and how to save it. This alone is something every parent should think about as their children grow into adults.

Yes, day trading takes up a lot of your time and you have to invest a lot of extra to make a success of it. As a mother, you need to make use of schedules and divide up your day into sections if you want to make your trading venture a success as well as have enough time to take care of your children.

Never the less, with the above-mentioned benefits of day trading as a mother, you can clearly see that this is a highly lucrative way of making money to take care of the ones you love most while still seeing them grow up to be as successful as you are now.

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Creating your first business website can be very exciting. Whether you build it yourself or hire a developer to do it for you, just having a website is enough. You are happy it launched online successfully and people can visit it anytime. After this honeymoon period, business owners want more out of their website and web hosting. They want leads, traffic and sales. All of a sudden, your website isn’t loading fast enough or can’t handle all the traffic you’re attracting. Many of these issues can be solved by moving from regular hosting to managed wordpress hosting. In this post, we’ll cover the main reasons your business should consider managed wordpress hosting solutions.

Receive Premium Support For Your Website

As you learn more, managed WordPress hosting accounts come with premium support for your business website. Business owners understand that their website can impact their leads and sales dramatically. Especially if you are an online company, everything relies on your website working properly. You need to have a support team that is dedicated to your website in case anything goes wrong. If you don’t have developers or engineers in-house, then a managed support team could be the perfect way to learn more about the issue and solve it quickly. Since the support team would be dedicated to servicing WordPress sites specifically, you would get some of the best support possible for your website.

Custom Configurations On Servers For Speed

Secondly, a managed WordPress hosting has custom configurations that lead to higher speeds. Of course, your business website should be working as fast as possible. In these packages, the company can tweak server settings and configurations to optimize the speed of your website. These enhancements can include server level caching, resource administration or backend maintenance. When your business website is hosted on a server that is optimized for WordPress, the overall speed of the website will improve significantly.

Instant Scalability To Meet Your Website Needs

Additionally, switching to managed hosting for WordPress would offer the ability to scale at any time. In business, you can become a success or sensation overnight. You may have put weeks, months or years into that moment. With a managed hosting environment, your website will be ready and able to serve all the additional requests. The admins would allow the site to utilize more resources to scale to the traffic requirements. This could be a huge benefit if you business gets featured in the media and people start visiting all at once. The ability to scale your hosting is a great reason that managed WordPress hosting is a good option.

Keep Your Site Maintained On Day-To-Day Basis

While you run your business, a managed WordPress provider can take care of all the daily activities related to maintaining your website. Many managed hosts will ensure that your site gets backed up daily, its updates are installed and themes are working properly. This gives you peace of mind that your website technical functions are all taken care of. If something were to happen, you would have a back up of the site and the ability to restore to the last stable version in the database. It’s always great to have a backup for business. It’s one of the great reasons that managed WordPress hosts are worth the extra cost.

Bulk Up On WordPress Security

Due to managed WordPress hosts experience, they can offer higher end security practices specific to your website’s platform. Being open source, WordPress has had its fair share of vulnerabilities and risks to watch out for. With a managed host, you have more knowledge to protect your website. They typically run security checks for malware or malicious code. Also, they disable features or known risks where hackers have gotten into WordPress in the past. Moreover, they can watch out for any direct DDoS attacks on your site specifically. If you plan on taking your business website security seriously, a managed host can add more to your protection.

For businesses, WordPress managed hosting can make all the difference as a website grows. In the beginning, you can take advantage of the premium WordPress support. You will have an instant jump in speed and performance because of the custom configurations. Then, you can focus on driving more traffic to your website as the providers take care of scaling the resources and maintaining the site’s daily requirements. On top of that, they can help bulk up your WordPress security to keep your business online and safe. If your business can afford the additional cost to have a managed WordPress hosting package, you should strongly considers these reasons to sign up for these solutions.

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Making your home a B&B might initially seem simple. After all, you wouldn’t need to implement the kind of large-scale infrastructure required by a major hotel. However, you could still inadvertently deceive yourself about how many changes you need put in place before opening that B&B.

Then there’s the question of running that B&B in a way that keeps visitors – and, thus, much-needed revenue – arriving in large numbers. Here are some tips and tricks particularly conducive to success.

Objectively assess your home’s suitability as a B&B

You might love your own home, but you need to be as objective as possible when judging whether it would make a good B&B. One way you could do this is, as advised by TripSavvy, sleeping in each room for a night. This can help you discern how different guests would feel when using your B&B.

In spending time in those rooms, you could notice nuisances – street noises, perhaps, or a poor view from some of the windows – that would trouble guests, but to which you have become immune.

Check the quality of the furnishings

Guests will take issue – in online reviews, for example – if your home’s furnishings have largely deteriorated in condition. Therefore, remember to thoroughly vet the condition of those furnishings.

So, do those pillows look good? Are the beds sagging – and, apparently, in need of new mattresses? Meanwhile, if the floor feels cold to the touch of your feet, you might want to cover some of that surface with a small rug. Little additions like this can go a pleasingly long way.

Allow for en-suite baths wherever possible

In B&Bs, it’s customary for guests to have a bath that is not only private but also en-suite – in other words, located where a guest can reach it without needing to go through a space shared with other guests. A bath can be private but not en-suite if it is based outside a guest’s room.

However, don’t worry too much if you can’t find a way to allocate a private bath to each room. Guests might not be concerned as long as a bathroom can still be shared adequately.

Take measures to rein in health or safety risks

It would definitely blight your B&B’s reputation if, due to slackening on the hygiene front, that establishment sees food poisoning break out. Fire is another risk to a B&B; therefore, remember to check what fire regulations apply wherever your B&B will be located.

If a fire does flare up at your B&B, this could cut your electricity and, thus, plunge the building into darkness. Saga provides advice for how you could implement emergency lighting beforehand.

Think about how you will promote the B&B

Once your home has been kitted out for use as a B&B, how can you draw people to it? There are various promotional channels open to you – and don’t overlook how much a channel manager from eviivo can help B&B owners to effectively utilise many of them.

Images: Pixabay and Kaboompics