Home Business Articles

Business is all about balancing risk and reward - at that is particularly true when it comes to financing growth. Typically, many New Zealand home and small business owners are risk-averse (and wisely so), but one of the biggest reasons business owners give for their businesses failing to thrive is lack of capital. This week's guaranteed-under-two-minute read delves into some of the options and offers some advice if you're needing to invest in the business to help get it off the ground or to the next level.

Article of the week
We've heard it said that the place most businesses start looking for capital is the three "F"s": friends, family and fools. You'll find some realistic, sensible advice and a comparison of some of the options here.

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Do you want to attract more customers, keep your current ones and increase your bottom line? If you answered "yes" to any of those, professional speaker Lydia Ramsey has some surpringly simple yet sure-fire suggestions.

Do you want to grow your business this year, attract more customers, keep your current ones and increase your bottom line?

If you answered "yes" to any of those, here are my top ten business etiquette recommendations for you.

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What are some of the avenues available to home and small businesses for raising the necessary finance? What are the benefits and drawbacks of each?

When your business needs money to get off the ground, develop a product, or create a strategic plan, where can you turn?

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2011 was a tough year for many businesses, and even if there's a glimmer of hope that 2012 will be better, it might not all be plain sailing. Sue Hirst helps you prepare to cope with the ups and downs.

Most successful business people I’ve spoken with believe 2012 will be tough for some business sectors. Whatever sector you’re in, it pays to recognize and mitigate risks and capitalise on opportunities.

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Ever wondered why some team dynamics just click? It is possible to create effective dynamics by selecting for particular characteristics and psychometric profiles.

When things don’t work, it is obvious to all and it often has a profound effect on the people involved, as well as the project or objective to be achieved. 

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An Australian snack maker marketing its Nucking Futs product to pubs and nightclubs across the Tasman, is unlikely to struggle with registering its trademark in New Zealand – but trademarks that tread a fine moral line remain high risk here. Intellectual property expert Theodore Ducas elaborates.

Current trademark legislation in New Zealand makes decisions around marginal moral issues very subjective.

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Stay up with the play - here are some trends to watch out for in 2012, Make sure you are tailoring your business to take advantage of them!

I recently read an insightful paper written by Paul Diamond of Vistage and distributed by The Executive Connection, an international leadership organization.

Here’s a summary of this priceless advice for those who want to capitalise on current trends: “Business as usual” is undergoing a transformation due to changing consumer tastes and economic pressures.

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Do your clients take you seriously? What can you do to make sure they do?

One of the biggest disadvantages of working for oneself from home has traditionally been that home businesses have been seen as something less than a "real" business.

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Have you already started thinking about what you want to achieve this year, or is that a 'later on job'? Whatever the case, we can help you create a winning plan for your business in 2012.

If you fail to plan. you plan to fail

Everyone in business knows that it is good advice to write a plan. Yet many of us don't know where to start and quickly get too busy at the beginning of each new year to set aside the time to get anything useful committed to paper, let alone actually implemented.

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Imagine… A platform of only business owners and business professionals that has over 140 million members and growing daily; where the average income per member is US$120,000. And the best part? Almost no-one is using this to its full potential.

What is LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is a business directory that specialises in finding businesses, talent, and opportunities. It is therefore a place to discover businesses and for others to discover you: A place to discover talent: for recruiting, outsourcing, partnering with or consulting. In short, people who can help your business.

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Publicity can be a low-cost way to promote your business and build credibility. Here are some tips that should have editors eating out of your hand!

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LinkedIn is not only a social media website, but mainly a directory of businesses where people search for talent, businesses and opportunities. Talent searches are for the purposes of recruiting, outsourcing, partnering with or consulting. In short, people who can help your business.

There are three keys to success on LinkedIn:

1.    An optimised profile that gives you exposure in search results and pre-sells to your clients

2.    A LinkedIn Group which will also pre-sell to your clients and leads, and subscribing to other groups similar to yours

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Good financial management throughout the year gives you a clear picture of how your business is doing, helps you set financial goals and plan budgets and makes handling the necessary administration for your financial year-end easier.

A home business often does not need much more than a cashbook in place to record income and expenses, and having an effective, easy-to-use computerised one will make all your administrative tasks - such as GST returns and preparation of end-of-year reports for your accountant - much quicker and easier.

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After packaging and pricing your product or service it is time to find clients. Hannah du Plessis outlines your next step...

Get clients to call you with your marketing materials

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Have you ever thought that it is too hard to make money with your business? That you just need more clients to make ends meet? Is finding new clients the big problem in your business?

There are three things you need to do to attract a consistent flow of steady clients to you:

Planning

Your business marketing needs to be on auto-pilot. You need to automatically attract all the clients you ever need. But how do you do that? You need to have a marketing plan.

Consistency

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When most people want a website, they go to a web designer. However, good web designers create beautiful websites, but you need to provide the content yourself.

Do you know what you’re doing when it comes to content? The results will show in the number of sales you make. Are you getting enough hits to make a sale? Are you converting your hits into prospects and your prospects into customers? Are you making at least one sale per day?

If not, your content is obviously not working.

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The leadership challenge is essentially concerned with the extent to which a leader can influence the factors driving performance. Every day we see articles with examples suggesting leaders can make a difference to the success of businesses. So what do we mean by the term ‘leader’?

Firstly leadership and management are two terms that are often confused so what is the difference between them? Two suggested definitions are:

Good leadership is about coping with change. Leaders establish direction by developing a vision of the future; they align people by communicating the vision and inspiring them to overcome hurdles.

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The start of the school holidays can make balancing a business and home life difficult. We have some tips and tools to help.

The start of the school holidays can make balancing a business and home life difficult, especially if you have younger children in the home or out-of-town visitors coming to stay, but it can also be very rewarding. The key thing is to stay relaxed and allow yourself as much flexibility as possible.

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Will the festive season provide a refreshing rest from your home business, will it be business as usual, or will you suffer a double whammy with a blow to your back pocket following hard on the heels of a stressful juggling act? Relax! A little planning goes a long way ...

For some home businesses, Christmas is a peak trading period - but for the majority, the end of year break can be a great time to catch up with friends and family and may also provide a much-needed opportunity to concentrate on working on the business rather than in it.

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Having recently attended a highly valuable SEO Workshop, I've learnt some new and fantastic tricks that will help you immediately make a significant difference to your website ranking on Google and other search engines. I'd like to share these with you below...

DIY Website Optimization Lessons

Top tips for optimizing your website: 

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