Performance Anxiety? 3 Tools To Guide Your Company Towards Profit

Many businesses struggle to survive for the long term. According to statistics, about 50 percent of companies fail to survive past their fifth year in existence. Numbers like that can certainly be sobering for entrepreneurs. 

Thankfully, if you are a business owner worried about your company’s performance, there are certain tools you can take advantage of to help improve your business’s long term prospects. Below are three.

Business Analytics Software

Technology is one thing that can certainly help steady the ship that is your company so you can stay profitable. One piece of business tech you should consider investing in is business analytics software. There are four general kinds of data analytics you can perform with your business data. 

Descriptive analytics helps you determine what happened with past business performance. Diagnostic analytics helps determine why you performed that way. Predictive analytics helps you predict how your business will perform in the future. Lastly, prescriptive analytics helps to prescribe actions that can be taken to best improve future performance.

Financial Counseling

Many of the largest companies in the world were started by complete amateurs. Steve Jobs, for example, started Apple out of his parents’ garage. It is not expected that new business owners will be experts at all aspects of running a business. This is why it’s a good idea to sometimes get outside help and input from experts. 




You may, for example, require financial counseling to help you create a better plan for getting your company into the black permanently. Something you may find beneficial is a financial bench marking service. Such a service can help you better match standards in your industry used by successful competitors so you can replicate that success in your own company.

A Solid Business Plan

Every business should have a business plan. Despite this, many entrepreneurs operate without one. Just because you may not need to get a loan from a lender to start your business does not mean you should go without a business plan. 

A business plan can be thought of as a blueprint for how you will make a profit from day to day and achieve your company’s long term goals. If you are failing to make a profit, there are issues you may have overlooked that would have been addressed in a solid business plan.

Just because your company is struggling now does not mean you can’t turn around your fortunes. In certain cases, doing so may require investing in the right tools, obtaining outside help or rethinking your overall plans for making a profit. Many successful business owners went through this process. Don’t be disheartened.

How Your Business Wastes Money When Everything Is Done In-House

Outsourcing specific tasks, operations or processes to a third-party provider seemingly wastes money unnecessarily. Because of this assumption, many companies keep all aspects of their operations in-house in an effort to conserve financial resources. However, a closer look reveals that this may not actually be the case. Your company may save money in various ways by carefully selecting aspects of your operations to outsource to specialists.

The Efficiency of Skilled Experts

Experts and specialists have considerable training and education in complex concepts, tasks and more. Their expertise may enable faster and more effective completion of related tasks than what you may accomplish on your own. 

For example, a tax accountant may be able to prepare your business tax return much faster than you could do. In the process, a professional accountant may identify more opportunities for tax savings. This is only one of many service providers that may provide savings and quality in through their efforts. 




Another example could be a contract manufacturing company that can take some of the stress out of your supply chain customer relationship management or even handle it for you.

The Best US States to Expand a Business To

The US is going through its second longest economic expansion, and businesses across the country are seeing major benefits. The national unemployment rate is less than 4%, and many sectors are seeing booms in employment.

Some US states, however, are more attractive to international business expansion than others, so if you’re expanding your business, here’s which states to consider.

Florida

Florida is known for being a good place to do business, with few regulations, a good college system and low cost of living, with no income taxes. It ranks in the top 10 for venture capital, and ranks quite highly for entrepreneurship and taxes. 

There are 206 patents created per million people. And it’s sunny – which always helps with employee morale.

North Carolina

North Carolina has many business-friendly regulations, making it a top spot for innovation and a good workforce. It has a built a friendly business climate over the last few decades, with low business costs and a young, educated workforce. However, it does also lack anti-discrimination laws and state laws that may deter younger workers.

Washington

Washington has 906 patents created per million people, the third highest ranking in the country, so it’s safe to say the state is entrepreneur-friendly. It’s home to giants including Amazon, Costco, Expedia and Microsoft, and has a strong workforce that thrives on innovation. 




The state has no income tax, but it has a business and occupations tax that can affect some businesses more than others.

Massachusetts

The state of Massachusetts ranks second for patent creation, with 1,005 patents per million people. The state has had a huge influx of business capital in recent years, and always scores highly for education and innovation, as well as quality of life. 

This is partly thanks to its dynamic Boston economy, which is particularly strong in industries including education, healthcare and technology. On the other hand, it also ranks badly for cost of living and business costs.

Texas

Texas scores highly for infrastructure in most polls relating to the best US states for international business. It has strong employment rates and is home to 100 of the 1,000 largest public and private companies in the US, including Dell and ExxonMobil. 

It has no corporate or personal state tax, and has a highly skilled workface thanks to a number of top colleges across the state.

Utah

Proctor & Gamble, Boeing and Home Dept have all recently announced expansions to Utah, where population growth is one of the fastest in the country.

Energy costs in Utah are around 31% below the US national average, while business costs are 10% below national average and employment growth has averaged 0.6% over the last five years. 

It also has a 5% tax rate, which is below nearby states such as Arizona, Idaho and New Mexico. It also ranks well for having a low tax burden on businesses across different industries.

If you’re a global business looking to expand, get in touch with international expansion experts Galvin International for advice and support. 

Why Do Truly Effective Business Owners Tend to Outsource Their Books?

Have you ever wondered why it is that so many successful business owners all over the world tend to have several defining traits in common? You may well have noticed this while also wondering just how many of these traits there are. 

Finally, you may also have attempted to get to the very bottom of the mystery by trying to figure out just which of these traits are the most important ones. As it turns out, there really are several things that a successful business owner does that are worth looking at. 

One of them involves the way that they handle all of the tasks related to bookkeeping.

Bookkeeping is an Important Skill That Should Never Be Underestimated

One thing to keep in mind is that bookkeeping is a complex and very involved skill that should never be underestimated. This is a time consuming but very necessary practice that will keep your business out of legal trouble and safely in the black. 

If you don't have proper bookkeeping skills at your disposal, you need to find a team of experienced individuals that do. But you may not have the means to do so on your own. 

It may be ultimately more cost effective to outsource these skills so that they can be conducted on your behalf without causing you to lose focus on other issues.

Where Can You Go to Get Top Level Bookkeeping Skills for Your Business?

The question now becomes one of just where you can go to get the top notch bookkeeping skills you need for your business. The answer is revealed when you log on to the world wide web. 

This is the place where all of your competitors go to find the very best bookkeeping services. There is no reason why you shouldn't have access to the very same state of the art service that all of your rivals in the industry are currently enjoying. 



By doing business with a site like Growthforce.com, you will be able to get your books in order while continuing to concentrate on your future plans.

What Benefits Will Come from Outsourcing Your Bookkeeping Services?

If you are wondering what kind of benefits you can expect from outsourcing your bookkeeping services, consider this. By doing so, you finally get a guarantee that your books are being handled in the correct fashion. 

Not every business owner is a wizard in the field of accounting. If you are the sole owner and proprietor of your business, you already have a million other tasks to deal with on a daily basis. It's easier than you think to let a small mistake suddenly grow into a huge one that will impact you in a negative manner at tax time.

It's best to avoid this situation. And you can do so by hiring a bookkeeping expert to handle all of your books. This way, you will be reliably informed of every error you make so that it can be quickly corrected. 

You won't face major penalties from the IRS for coming up short on what you owe to them. The sooner you acquire these handy and reliable services, the better for your business.

The Time for You to Outsource Your Bookkeeping Services is Now

If you really want to get the best deal on bookkeeping services, you are well advised to pay a visit to a great new site called growthforce.com. This is the place where you can get the latest news on outsourcing all of your crucial bookkeeping services for a price that you can easily afford. 

It's also the place where you can go to finally free up many crucial hours of your time. Once you have done so, you can now use the extra time to concentrate on your plans for the present and future. Outsourcing your books means boosting your imagination.

7 Key Challenges of Launching a Startup

It may seem daunting to know that 8 out of 10 startups will fail in the first 18 months, but it doesn't have to be. To begin with, many successful startups took a few tries to actually get right. 

Just because an initial startup may fail doesn't mean it doesn't provide valuable experience to get the second or third try up and running. Ultimately, all startups fail because they run out of money. 

What causes them to run out of money is the question. Here are 7 key challenges to launching a startup.

1. Expanding Too Quickly

When people think of growth, they often think of expansion. In truth, those are two very different things. In reality you often have to grow before you expand. Getting an order for 1,000 units of your new product may seem like a windfall, but not if you don't have the production facilities in place to handle an order that size. 

Suddenly having more clients than you can handle sounds ideal, but in reality it can be the death of your business. When you plant a seed, it can be months before you actually see growth. 

That doesn't mean the seed hasn't been busy beneath the surface planting roots that will support the expansion when it happens. Make sure you understand the difference between growth and expansion.

2. Having the Wrong Partners

No one individual can singlehandedly build a successful startup. They need partners that bring something to the table in the form of wisdom, experience, contacts, money or some combination of all. 

What you don't need, however, are partners that bring little to nothing to the table. Your best friend since high school might be your most loyal friend, but that doesn't make them a good business partner. 

Similarly, be careful who you allow to invest in your startup. Most investments come with strings - make sure you have a very clear understanding of what they are before taking any money.

3. Failure to Adequately Judge the Market

No matter what product or service you have to offer, you need someone to buy that product or service. You may find an area you think would be perfect for an upscale coffee shop, but that doesn't mean the residents of that area are going to buy your upscale coffee. 




Before you offer a product or service, you need to ensure there is a market for your product or service. If there isn't one, that doesn't mean all is lost, it simply means you will have to build one.

4. Failure to Build a Market

While you may actually hit on a product idea or service people are genuinely hungry for, it is rare. More often than not, you actually have to convince people they need the product or service you are offering. 

When Starbucks first started selling coffee in the 1970's it was unheard of to spend more than about 50 cents on a cup of coffee. Starbucks actually had to convince the entire world that a cup of coffee was something worth spending upwards of $4 on. They didn't walk into a ready-made market, they built one.

5. Lack of Security

The minute you actually invest something into turning an idea into a reality, you have something to protect. Whether that is your proprietary blend of spices, your manuscript or customer information, you have something that can be stolen. 

Anything that can be stolen needs to be protected or it can signal the end of your business. These days it is important for all businesses - from the smallest startup to the largest corporation - to invest heavily in cybersecurity. 

Small businesses are often in the greatest danger of being hacked because they think they are too small and insignificant to be worth hacking. They are generally wrong.

6. Lack of Proper Insurance

There are any number of catastrophes and cataclysms that can prematurely derail a startup. From fires, floods and other disasters to the death of a partner or investor to costly lawsuits, startups can suddenly find themselves stopped. 

Making sure you have the proper insurance is critical to any startup. In addition, you should always work with a reputable agent from a reputable carrier. It is also important to do periodic reviews of your insurance with your agent to make sure that your coverage is keeping pace with the changing needs of your startup.

7. Burnout

Building a startup into a full-fledged business is a marathon, not a sprint. The tasks involved in building a startup are never-ending and they can easily become overwhelming. 

Generally, the people that actually successfully shepherd a startup into a fully operational business pace themselves and don't lose sight of what is truly important. They take care to maintain their relationships, their physical health and even their outside activities. 

While it may take longer to build a successful company by going at a slower pace, you also give yourself a far better chance of actually seeing the finish line.

Wrapping Up

People who successfully guide a startup to a full-fledged business often seem to anticipate what is going to happen long before it ever does. That's because in one sense they do. 

While this list doesn't cover every potential pitfall of building a startup, the full list of things that can derail them is not actually that long. Savvy entrepreneurs make it their business to know every single thing that can go wrong and generally have a plan in place for dealing with it.

Jasmine Williams covers the good and the bad of today's business and marketing. When she’s not being all serious and busy, she’s usually hunched over a book or dancing in the kitchen, trying hard to maintain rhythm, and delivering some fine cooking (her family says so). Tweet her @JazzyWilliams88

How To Start Your Own Business

If you have been looking around for a good job with long-term prospects and the chance to earn some real money, but you haven’t found anything that will suit you, or you’re having trouble getting an interview, you might want to consider starting up your own business. 

Running your own business will give you freedom and flexibility, and it’s also the best way to make the money that you want. It’s not an easy thing to do well, however, which is why you should do a lot of research before committing. This article will help you to get started.

Don’t Make Excuses

The first important thing to remember is that many people have the idea that they want to start a business but they never actually get round to doing it. 

They just keep coming up with reasons and excuses as to why it’s not the right time or they’ve just got to do this or that before they can begin. The truth is, for many people, there is no ‘right time’ and they just need to get on and do it or it will never happen. 




That’s not to say that you should rush into your own business, but it does mean that once you have everything in place (money and knowledge to begin with), then you should start as soon as you can, rather than wait for a time that may never come.

Speak To Experts

Starting your own business can be daunting, and that could well be the main reason why some people never do it even though they want to. The good news is that there are many experts out there who will be willing to impart their advice to people who want to make something of themselves and start their own business. 

You can find these people online, for example, or even in your local town or village. Not everyone will be willing to help out, but many will; they want to see people who were in their position succeed just as they did. When the time comes, you can pay back this favor by helping other young businesses and offer your own advice.

Speak To Others

It’s just as important to speak to people who aren’t experts in running their own business. These are the people who are potential customers, so it’s essential to know what they think of your products and services, and whether they might use them. 

There is no point in starting a business that no one is going to buy from, so this kind of market research will give you a much better idea about whether you should stick with your initial thoughts or change and decide to sell something else instead.

The best way to know what to sell is to be a solution to a problem that a lot of people have. Stop thinking in terms of things you want to sell and start looking at problems you want to solve. 

Once you have that in mind, you can work on exactly how to do it. Remember, the problem needs to be a widespread one if you intend of making money. Something niche might be fun, but it won’t bring in the cash that you might be looking for.

Have A Budget

It’s so easy to get carried away when starting an exciting new business that you can overspend without even realizing it. Doing so can cause major problems when you run out of money before you’ve bought or set up everything you need to get started. 

This is where a budget will come in extremely useful. When you make a business budget, you can work out exactly what you’re going to spend and where you’re going to spend it. 

Creating it will require research to get all the costs in advance, but it is worth every second of the hard work you’ll put into finding out the details.

When you know how much you are going to spend, you can look at how to finance your startup. It might be a loan, personal savings, or perhaps you would consider these credit cards.

 It all depends on how much you need to spend and how long you will need to pay the money back. There are many options, so financing your business should not be a problem.

Keep Your Day Job

Eventually, you should be able to give up your day job and focus solely on your new business, but if you do that right from the start, you might live to regret it. If you have a job, try to stick with it for the first few months at least. 

If you don’t have a job, then you might want to try to get one; remember, it doesn’t need to relate to your business, it just needs to pay the bills, plus it needs to give you enough time to help your new customers.

When you find that you’re making enough money from your business and you don’t have any spare time to dedicate to it to grow it further, you will need to quit your other job. Until this, it’s a great safety net to allow you to work on your business as you see fit.

Check Out The Competition

Something else that you will need to do when starting your own business is to check out the competition. Who else is selling something similar to you? To start with, looking at what your competitors are doing will give you a good idea about how to start advertising, and perhaps even what promotions you should consider. 

This exercise will also show you how much money you could potentially make, and how popular your goods and services might be. It will be a particularly useful thing to know if you want to speak to an angel investor about helping out with your business.

Make A Business Plan

A business plan is always going to be needed when you start your own business whether you intend to apply for a loan or other credit or not. This plan, when done right, is what will help you to keep on track with your business growth plans; it’s like a road map to success. 

Taking the time to create the perfect business plan (which has to be flexible because in business things change quickly) will keep you on course.

Unsecured Loans – Is It The Right Option to Grow Your Business?

Opting for unsecured business loans is one of the best ways to ensure that you have adequate financing for your business. Unsecured loans are loan without any collateral or security but it does not mean they cannot help you out. 

Such loans are very good when it comes to acquiring financing and it also takes away the additional burden of providing a security or a guarantor- because any might not have any property or asset to provide as security or collateral in the first place. 

Such loans have a lightly higher business loan interest rate than secured loans but if the money is utilized well, then it can be easily used to take care of a lot of business needs and the profit the business makes can be used again to pay back the lender. 

Growing your business will be possible with the right business loan. 

Unsecured loans can be used in a number of ways to grow your business.

Buy larger premises

You might have started your business from one small room but as it starts to expand, that room might not be sufficient anymore, even though it might have a huge emotional value. 

Eventually you have to move on and shift to larger premises which you might have to buy or pay for additional rent. Opt for an unsecured loan to fulfill this purpose.

 Move to a better location where it would be easier for more clients to come and meet you or you could also invest in buying or renting a warehouse, apart from the regular office space you have.

Buy new equipment

There is only so much you can do with old equipment and when there are options for you to buy new equipment to upgrade your workplace, then do not let go off the opportunity. 



New equipment will result in better quality products and it could lessen the production time and this will only keep you ahead of your rivals in the long run. Apply for an unsecured, equipment financing business loan and watch your company go to the next level.

Hire skilled staff

To do better business, you need to produce better quality products and that can only be produced by skilled staff. However, good work would mean you would have to pay more to them as well and you can acquire a loan to pay for the initial money till the profits start coming in. 

Hiring skilled staff would mean your work will be flawless and more nuanced and clients are slowly going to increase in number. Once the sales go up, you can use the profit to pay back the loan.

Fill up the Inventory

The peak season often sees a spike in demand and if you can readily supply to your clients when the others cannot, then you are sure to reap in better profits as well. However, to do that, one needs to keep up production even at a slow time and build up the inventory gradually. 

Acquire an unsecured business loan to carry on with the production even when the business is slow and then when the peak season hits, you will be the first to supply. Pay back the loan with the profits and you will still have enough for yourself, having acquired the client’s trust in return.

Buy Transportation

Many businessmen end up spending tons of money just by having to hire transportation to take their finished goods to the markets or to the supplier which eventually adds up to a lot in the long run. 

Get a loan to buy transportation for yourself instead. Once the loan has been paid off, you will be spending a lot less than your competitors, especially if you have your own garage space.

Invest in Marketing

One of the best ways to ensure that your business grows is to invest in marketing. Let the people know about the kind of work you are doing. Opt for unsecured business lending to invest in marketing strategies and this will definitely makes your sales higher as more people get to know about your business.

Promoting Your Business Through Social Media

It is always hard for new businesses to break through the industry. There are brands that are already more established and more reputable. People need to be sure that they are dealing with brands that they trust all the time. 

There are moments when they would be interested to try out new brands but this is only because of the influencers who encouraged people to try out a certain brand.

As a business owner, what are you supposed to do to promote properly? There are still other things that you have to think about. You need to make sure that your federal tax ID application goes through. Even if you are not a resident of the United States, you can offer your products to the target market there provided that you have an EIN number.

You can refer to Gov Doc filing if you want to know more about how you can apply for your EIN. This is great because you will learn how your personal finances can be protected no matter what the current state of your business is.




If you have already fixed your EIN, you can focus on how you are going to promote your business and your brand through social media. How are you going to do that? These are just a few of the things that you can do:

• Make sure that you choose the social media platform you are going to promote on. There are some people that you can reach better through the social media platform that you choose. Expect that the generation would be younger if you promote through Instagram as compared to promoting through YouTube wherein the users will be more diverse. Your choice will depend on the people that you want to purchase from your brand.
• Find people who can promote your brand for prices that you can afford. You may be tempted to just contact anyone who will promote your business through social media but you need to be careful. The influencers are able to get people to try out your brand. They give your products and your whole company exposure in exchange for a fee or a price. 
• Choose influencers whom you believe can represent your brand in a good way.
• Plan how you are going to advertise your products and your services. You may want to create a social media page wherein you can place all of your items for sale. This will allow people to visit this page whenever they want to check if some of the items they want are still available.
• You can also work with other brands by doing a guest post on their social media page if they could also promote through yours. Businesses can form partnerships and help each other become better. The more that your business grows, the bigger the names of the brands that you will come across and possibly work with.

There are a lot of things that you can do to promote through social media. Do you think you are ready? With LLC forms properly filed, you have nothing to worry about.

Ways to Maximize the Value of Your Company Vehicle

Nowadays, many types of businesses require vehicles to properly operate and function. However, these vehicles shouldn’t be thought of as expenses, instead they should be thought of like investments that are going to provide a maximum return, if you use them correctly. There are a variety of ways to put yourself in this mindset. 

Here are some of the ways that you can maximize the value of your company’s corporate vehicles, whether they be part of a larger fleet or simply a company car for a member of the sales team...

Get data on how it’s used

If your company is using vehicles rather frequently, or if their service is entirely wrapped up in transportation, such as shipping companies. It’s incredibly important to get reliable and comprehensive data about how your vehicles are being used and whether you are losing efficiency in any way from the vehicle or the operation of it. 

This might sound complicated, but there are incredible software solutions in the predictive analytics industry that enable companies to track vehicles and see how much fuel they are using, how many miles they are going, and whether they are in good working order.

Don’t neglect the tax benefits

Your company vehicle isn’t just an investment that should bringing you back money from operations, but it can actually be a great way to make an investment that decreases your tax burden. 

In many states, and for federal taxes, company vehicles can actually be a tax write off that gives you deductions on other types of taxes. Not only is this true for the payments on the vehicle, but also for the added mileage of the vehicle and the gas spent inside of it. 

Talk with your company’s accountant to make sure that you are getting the most of your taxes from the vehicles that your company owns and uses.

Find a good selling solution

Most company vehicles need to be reliable and in great condition. For this reason, most companies won’t gamble on vehicles that are more than a handful of years old, except for fairly minor parts of their operation. 

This means, however, that they will slowly develop a fleet of vehicles that they don’t use. For this reason, it’s important to have a good solution for reselling company vehicles once you are done with them. 

Private retailing is fairly time consuming, but there are companies that provide vehicle reselling services for large fleets of company cars, at an affordable rate.

Wrap it for marketing purposes

If you are a company that is actively working to build a strong brand, then you should look at every aspect of your business as a chance to get that brand out into the world. 

You can do this with your company vehicle by spending a little bit of extra money to wrap it up with a custom decal, for marketing purposes. This essentially turns your company vehicle into a mobile billboard that consistently gets your brand message out into the world wherever your employee goes.

Make employees happy

One of the most important factors of any successful business is drawing in great employees, which takes a variety of things, including perks. Luckily, a company vehicle that is theirs to utilize for their business-related transportation is considered a classic perk for working for a company. 

This means that you can use your company vehicles and place specific trustworthy employees in charge of them, and it will be a move that will improve loyalty and employee satisfaction.

Only use company vehicles for operations that truly need it

At the end of the day, a company vehicle is definitely a decently-sized expense, and one that can add up over time. For this reason, it’s important to take the data that you collect and really consider if each vehicle is needed to run your operation, and if it is bringing you back the same amount of money that you are putting into it.

Using Social Media as a Fertilizer for Your Startup

Small businesses have come to rely on social media marketing because it offers a level field even in competition with big corporations. It comes down to how well you connect with your audience.

Social Strategy

While there is inevitably research involved in finding the right audience, your social strategy should consist of something similar to the following steps:

1. Determine Your Goals: Before you do anything else, establish exactly what you hope to accomplish, whether it's promoting a new product or service or simply growing your most loyal followers.

2. Develop a Concept: This starts with a thorough understanding of both your own brand and how your target audience behaves on social media. Then you can come up with a catchy idea that relates intimately to both.

3. Provide Great Content: How will you express that idea? Video? Funny images? Slogans? Or a combination of approaches? Just be sure every post is original, interesting, and relevant to the campaign.

4. Generate Leads: The power of social media lies in generating new leads for your business. Be sure to make it easy for followers to connect with your websites, phones, chat, or other points of contact.

5. Build Relationships: Posting is only part of the solution. To grow brand recognition in a positive way, you must also interact with and listen to your followers.

6. Acquire Customers: Social leads are only the gateway to the customer journey. Craft a pleasant and efficient sales experience, as well, to make these prospects customers.

7. Experiment and Track Measures: Have the right digital tools to monitor progress on every concept you employ.

In an environment with a lot of competition and occasionally some brilliant ideas, this last step is very important. You need to make an effort to keep up with both your target audience and your competitors. 




One of the keys to success is having the right tools to monitor social activity. You want to know for certain which audiences are engaging with which posts. The tools you choose must make success measurable in plain numbers. These become your guide for optimizing your social skills.

A lot of experimentation and brainstorming may be involved before you hit on the right campaign, but don't get discouraged. There's always room for more great content on social media. 

The trick is to make it so engaging that that your own followers will spread the message for you. Often that's done by connecting them with the big trends that are happening now.

Here are a few examples of social campaigns that got it right at the right time.

Use the News

In the summer of 2017 when everyone was talking about a major solar eclipse that would be visible all across the U.S., Chiquita Banana took advantage. Their marketing campaign featured an eclipse's familiar crescent shape as the Banana Sun.

While they plastered the Banana Sun over other advertising mediums, they had fun with it. A brightly glowing yellow banana was a big hit on social media. The image was shared and retweeted by thousands in the form of .gif files, video clips, screen savers, and more. 

As a result, Chiquita's social media audience blew up with many thousands of new users in the space of three weeks.

Be Trendy

The Netflix show Stranger Things became a big hit with audiences. If you're a fan of the show, you might have noticed something delightfully odd that kept popping up: Kellogg's Eggo waffles, a favorite of the character Eleven. 

Although Kellogg's role was initially inspiration and not product placement, they exploited the popularity of the show in their own advertising, and by the second season had, indeed, negotiated a deal with Netflix.

The show was easy to connect with across social media content through plot updates, video clips, funny images, and virtually anything related to #StrangerThings and Eggos. 

Audiences couldn't get enough of the show or the breakfast treats. Kellogg's social media following grew dramatically over that second season.

Benefits of Social Marketing

How you market is more important than how much. It's a fertile environment because users aren't necessarily interested in the endless corporate advertising of brands they're already too familiar with. Perhaps best of all for entrepreneurs, social media marketing can also be done very affordably, for an ROI that can't be ignored.

Social users are always looking for something fresh and intriguing to connect with. Social networks are about communication, which means prompt responses and an authentic feel. 

These are things that you, as the guiding spirit of your startup, can manage better than a corporate bureaucracy.

All you need is a good idea to sow, and an effective social strategy will help your concept grow your market influence. 

Be consistent, interesting, and post regularly, and audiences will keep coming back to be entertained.

Jasmine Williams covers the good and the bad of today's business and marketing. When she’s not being all serious and busy, she’s usually hunched over a book or dancing in the kitchen, trying hard to maintain rhythm, and delivering some fine cooking (her family says so). Tweet her @JazzyWilliams88

Staying out of the Red: How to Keep Your Business out of Bankruptcy

Just like a person, a business must find a way to pay its bills and keep a sufficient amount of money in the bank. Furthermore, companies also have their own credit scores that go up and down based on its ability to manage money. Good money management can keep a business thriving for years while also keeping it far away from a bankruptcy court.

Don’t Borrow Funds Unnecessarily  

Prior to borrowing money from a bank, friend or other ABL lender, it is important to know how that money will be used. It is also important to know how that money will be repaid and when. An accountant or other financial adviser can help a business owner determine if a loan is an appropriate way to help the company grow.

Don’t Overspend

One of the many problems that most businesses have, especially if they are still in their startup phase is they tend to overspend. The problem with overspending should be obvious, but by doing so, you may not be able to pay for the necessities for your business to survive. 

You have to be able to pay the bills and pay your employees properly. But overspending can be very easy to do. There are going to be times where you have unexpected expenses that come up. 



However, if you budget your money properly, not only should you be able to take care of those unexpected problems, you should be able to take care of all the necessities in your business and still turn over a profit. It is tricky, but if you are able to pull this off in your business, you will be successful in the long run.

Keep Labor Costs in Check

A company’s employees are among its most important asset. While you can attract quality talent by offering higher salaries and other perks, it could have negative consequences for your bottom line. 

Make sure that you pay what your company can afford to spend on human resources even if that means paying your people less than the competition. In some cases, you can make up for a lower salary with more robust health benefits or extra vacation throughout the year.

Don’t Expand Too Fast

Expanding too fast can cause you to overspend money in your business. When you try to expand, you have to be able to anticipate all of the unexpected expenses that may arise. Although opening a second or third location could mean additional revenue, it will also mean additional costs. 

It could also mean that you need to hire managers and other personnel to properly oversee these locations. By growing at a controlled pace, you can increase revenues in a consistent manner and ensure that each location is making enough money to justify its existence.

Make Use of Credit Monitoring Tools

Using tools like CreditRiskMonitor can make it easier for a company to determine where it stands compared to the competition. This may help a business take action to cut costs, pay down its debt faster or otherwise become a leaner organization. 

By taking these steps, it could be easier to secure an investment or otherwise increase its revenue and gross profit.

As a business owner, you want to make sure that your company is as financially healthy as possible. This makes it more likely that the business will be around for the long-term, which may instill greater confidence in employees, suppliers and investors. 

Ultimately, it makes it easier to grow your business from a small business into a regional or national power.