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How to Fund Your Small Business

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Getting funding isn’t easy in any economic climate, especially right now when businesses are more competitive than ever. Unfortunately, no matter how brilliant your ideas are, they need money to come to fruition. Remember, a business is still a business, no matter how small or passion-driven. You need capital to pay your staff, buy equipment, promote your brand, and survive day to day. While there’s no single best way to get funded, you’ll find that some methods might suit your business model or goals more, so it’s important to study all your options carefully. 

Whether you’re a tech start-up, artisanal café, or a boutique agency, here are a few ways to get started with funding.

From Your Own Pockets

You might have heard of the term “bootstrapping” when it comes to the world of development, but it applies to businesses, too. Chron defines a bootstrap company as one that operates on minimal investment or financial dependency, and is typically started with minimal upfront investment from the founder’s own money. The biggest advantage of this method is that it avoids making loan repayments that end up eating up cash. 

Of course, there’s also the risk of having limited resources. So, consider having multiple streams of income that you can use to fund your business, like taking on freelance gigs or keeping your day job. If your schedule doesn’t permit either of those, then this method is best combined with some of the other types of funding below. 

Friends and Family

One effective way to gain capital is to get your friends and family in on your business. After all, who better to support your vision than your loved ones? However, be aware that things can get messy when you mix work with personal relationships. Should the business fail, you risk damaging your connections and losing their trust.

Therefore, make sure that there is a clear structure that dictates the guidelines of the funding, especially with regard to interest and borrowing rates. Have a third party outside of your relationship to oversee the process, and seek legal advice before inking any deals.

Get Crowdfunding

For start-ups, crowdfunding has become the go-to way to pay. This method drives power back to consumers by allowing absolutely anyone to pitch in for ideas they believe in. On the business owners’ side, it lets them to avoid having to deal with venture capitalists or drowning in a sea of debt.

Though it’s similar to peer-to-peer lending, it does not require repayment. Sometimes, a company would instead pledge free products, discounts, or other benefits in return to make sure that the supportive public doesn’t go unrewarded. Tech writers on Digital Trends list some of the most popular crowdfunding platforms, such as Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and Gofundme.

Apply for a Small Business Grant or Loan

For those who’d rather not give away a piece of their business, applying for a grant or a loan is a viable choice. The main difference between the two is that a loan requires you to pay for the money you borrow, while a grant does not. 

There are various institutions from whom you can apply for grants, such as state governments and private groups. However, the application process can be a job in itself. From looking for opportunities to solidifying your business model, there are many steps you need to take to make sure you’re qualified. Of course, the effort is more than worth it if you happen to succeed. 

Similarly, a loan comes with strict lending standards and qualifications you need to meet. Businesses that are just starting out might have difficulty applying for a loan, since most banks would require some form of cash flow for at least a year to prove that you can repay the money borrowed. But for businesses that have had at least a year of revenue and transaction history, then SBA loans, term loans, and business lines of credit are all possible options — provided that you read and understand the terms of the loan well. There are various factors to keep in mind, such as banks’ interest rates. FXCM’s article ‘How Central Banks Control Interest Rates’ details how exactly they work, and it is important to understand so you don’t come out with a bad deal. Fortunately, with today’s improved economic conditions and increase in competition, more lenders are willing to slash interest rates for small business loans. This doesn’t mean it’s easy, but if a bank approves you, then you’re more likely to get a lower interest rate in favor of scaling up your business. 

Angel Investors

Business writer Katharine Paljug states that angel investors are also called informal or seed investors, usually backing promising business in their early stages. Along with funding, they are also likely to provide mentorship and advice.

But although they may sound like a gift straight from heaven, they have their fair share of barriers. Like we previously discussed here on Strategics 360, it’s imperative that your product or service is unique and offers something that customers can’t get anywhere else. This is especially true for these investors who tend to be extremely selective about where they put their money. However, if you can hammer down your business plan and are transparent with your projections, it’s possible to grow your relationship with an angel investor from there.

4 Ways Small Businesses Can Entice Entry-Level Employees

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Recruiting is a challenge for small businesses, particularly those that compete with enterprise for talent.  

According to Inc., competing with bigger companies is one of the top four recruiting challenges a small business faces.

That challenge becomes even more daunting when seeking candidates for entry-level positions. 

Due to the nature of these lower-level positions, plus the stigma of working for a small company, it can be difficult to attract the top candidates.

There are three main strategies your small business can use to attract entry-level talent:

  • Build your brand online
  • Tout the benefits of working for a smaller company
  • Align your company’s strengths with the candidates’ interests
  • Seek outside resources

Using these strategies to earn an advantage against larger competition and increase interest for your company’s entry-level positions.

1. Polish Your Digital Reputation

Job seekers mainly turn to online sources to learn about a company and its culture. To adapt to this behavior, you small business’s digital presence needs to be both updated and appealing.

The first place to start is your website. Your website is your calling card – candidates will associate their impressions of your website with the overall impression of your brand. 

A website that is outdated, aesthetically flat, or nonresponsive produces a negative impression of your company and turns off job seekers. 

Invest in professional assistance, such as a web design firm, if you don’t have the in-house resources to build your website.

You also need to ensure that your company maintains a strong social media presence. While LinkedIn is typically the main business social recruitment platform, candidates will also review Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube profiles to learn more about your company’s culture. 

Post regularly about daily life company. Short, succinct videos are effective and provide insight about how a job seeker fits in with your team.

Finally, set up a company profile on job search sites such as Indeed and Glassdoor and encourage current and former employees to rate your company and share information about the employment experience. 

Source

The more content you have on these platforms, the more clarity you provide candidates about the employment experience at your company. Be sure to monitor the reviews to perform any reputation management if someone shares a negative experience.

2. Promote the Benefits of Working at a Small Business

There are a lot of misconceptions about working for a small business. 

The comparison they face against large businesses and enterprises are tough to compete with. For example, large businesses simply have more resources for salary, mobility, and benefits. 

Small businesses, though, generally measure higher for employee happiness.

Your small business should actively promote the benefits of working for a small company. While every workplace is different, some of the common small company benefits are:

  • Collegial atmosphere: A tighter-knit team works in close proximity, which can foster a closer bond between employees. 
  • Collaboration: Smaller companies provide the ability to call a huddle with the entire team at any given time, making brainstorming and feedback easier.
  • Diverse experience: Employees may have multiple different responsibilities in a small company, as opposed to being siloed into one role.

3. Play to Candidates’ Interests

Every generation has different preferences and expectations for their ideal workplaces. Millennials, for example, value freedom and relationships with colleagues. These preferences don’t directly translate to their immediate successors may not resonate with their immediate successors, Gen Y, who value opportunity for advancement.

Source

There is, though, areas of common preference between the age groups that can help you mold your company culture to attract and retain new talent for entry-level positions.

A few areas of appeal in today’s workplace include:

  • Flexibility/work-life balance
  • Opportunity for advancement or recognition
  • Mentoring/coaching (professional and personal)

Try to identify small perks and advantages of your company that make it unique for the particular group you are targeting for your entry-level roles. These can be small perks, but may make your company more attractive over larger firms.

4. Don’t Be Afraid to Consult an Expert

Small businesses may also struggle to hire entry-level employees simply because they don’t have as many HR or recruiting resources as larger firms.

Larger companies often have presences on college campuses, which helps them attract young candidates before they even hit the market. They also often have software and other resources at their disposal that help them streamline their hiring processes.

If your small business is struggling to keep up with hiring in general, it may benefit from an outside expert. Recruiting agencies are helpful resources that have expertise targeting your ideal candidates. 

Staffing firms, on the other hand, can help provide you with short-term or contractual employees for product pushes or to fill resources gaps. 

Small Steps Pay Big Dividends

Competing with large companies for entry-level employees can seem daunting, but many large companies are rigid when it comes to attracting talent. 

Your small business can take advantage of this by positioning yourself as an appealing alternative to enterprise culture. 

Take risks and be creative building your digital brand, tout the benefits of a smaller workplace, research and play to candidate preferences, and review expert resources if needed. 

Your efforts don’t have to be elaborate or expensive, but they can still have exemplary return on investment when it comes to recruiting and keeping entry-level talent.

Riley Panko is a Senior Content Writer at Clutch, a B2B research and reviews platform in Washington, D.C. She leads the team’s HR services research. 

Grow Your Business with Banner Designing Software

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It takes something to get a business going. You just can’t open a business and hope it does well. The heart and sweat must be poured into it to make it a success. Above all, you must advertise the business and its aspects to the world and look for ways to increase the visibility of the business. If budget is a concern, you can always take help of banner advertising and realizing the true potential of the business. You can design attractive banner ads and post them into different channels, and this will help the business grow its base.  

Here are ways in which to grow the business with software for banner designing – 

Create banners of your choice 

Businesses must feel lucky to have the support of a feature-rich tool or software for designing banner of choices. They can create banner ads as attractive as needed to get an edge in the market. The tool is very easy to operate, and it does not even require much of technical knowledge. The software comes with visual signs and features to guide users through designing processes. It won’t take much of effort in creating the type of banner ads required to support the advertising of the business. This will help realize the true potential of the business easily. 

Create multiple designs and choose the best one 

The software we are discussing is rich in features and businesses can leverage it to create multiple designs in an effortless way. Any design is a reality with the choice of colours, shapes, texture, art, etc. being added easily. With multiple designs at hand, it becomes easy to choose the best one and ditch the rest one. For doing all this, there won’t be the need to hire a team and spend needlessly. When a tool can do all this, why should a company be bothered to invest in the manpower. 

Save time and money with banner ads

The concept of banner designing is just amazing for small businesses with low advertising budget. They needn’t put up a team of graphic designers and artists for creating many mock-ups of the design for their banner. There is the software which makes it extremely easy to create lovely banner ads with a few clicks only. The tool is responsive and fast, can be accessed from any device and provides ease of banner ad designing. Any business can benefit from its features and realize its advertising potential even without having to spend a lot of money.  

Add effects and visuals of choice 

The best thing about banner designing software is that it lets anyone add text and arches effect to beautify the banner ads easily. It’s simple to upload images, add shapes, insert clip arts, rotate text, change background and save design. With a huge library of themes and templates, getting ideas and inspirations for design won’t be an issue for sure. For that reason, businesses can trust this software and achieve their advertising goals in a cost-effective and smooth banner possible.

Author Bio  

Nitesh Ranjan is a keen tech blogger with interest in diverse technologies that impact human lives. He currently works with a company that develops product designing tools. You can benefit from these tools for designing any product of choice. 

5 Landing Page Mistakes That Affect Your Conversion Rate

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High-converting landing pages are essential to fuel your inbound marketing strategy. They are not only a significant lead generation tool, but also help in strengthening your brand image. Designing captivating landing pages is also vital to beat the cut-throat competition that your business faces today. 

You can’t afford to ignore the challenges of the continually growing digital landscape as doing that will kill your conversions. You have to go an extra mile to stand out from the crowd. In other words, when every firm is accessible to customers online, you have to put additional efforts to convert your organic traffic into leads. You have to design incredibly attractive landing pages to grab the attention of the visitors. 

You get only a couple of seconds to persuade a visitor to take action or to convert them when they enter your landing page. And if you fail to make the best use of those few seconds, you will lose a lead. 

An inbound marketer does a lot of hard work to divert traffic to their website, but they don’t always succeed in generating enough leads from that traffic. One of the most important reasons behind that is poor landing pages. 

If you are also unable to generate leads due to awful landing pages, you must work towards improving them. 

Here are some common landing page mistakes that you must avoid to increase the conversion rate. 

Poor Headlines 

When a visitor arrives on your landing page, you have only 4-to-5 seconds to convince them to take action. Poor headlines can reduce that time further by failing to capture the attention of the visitors. The first thing that a visitor observes in your landing page is the headline, and if it doesn’t impress them, you most probably end up losing a lead. 

So it’s essential to spend sufficient time in creating meaningful yet captivating headlines that can encourage visitors to go through the rest of the information on the landing page and then take the required action. 

Your headline should give the most valuable information to visitors in a clear and concise manner. 

Poor Design And Visual Clutter 

The design and visual appeal of your landing page are highly crucial to draw the attention of the visitors. Awful design and unattractive visuals can irritate the users, thereby encouraging them to leave your landing page. 

Create a design that talks volumes about your brand and reflects its personality. You should also avoid visual clutter because it distracts the visitors from focusing on the main point. So choose the right colours, fonts, and graphics while designing landing pages. 

Unattractive Images & Videos 

Images and videos play a crucial role in encouraging your visitors to stay on your landing page. But if they are unattractive and fail to convey the information to visitors, they will lose their relevance. So, pick attention drawing images and videos for your landing pages to make them more functional. 

Complicated Forms 

Whether you are looking forward to gathering readers for your eBook or you want to increase subscribers to your blog, you should always try to simplify the process of accessing your product for the users. If you ask them to fill an extremely complicated form, not everyone will indulge in that process, which will affect your conversion rate. 

In short, if you want your landing page visitors to fill a form to access your product, make sure you keep it simple. 

Bad Call-to-Action 

A good call-to-action helps in generating great expectations in visitors. The kind of words you use can raise their interest in your products, so pick your call-to-action phrases carefully. 

For example, if you are offering an eBook, using a CTA like “grab your eBook” or “read your eBook,” can increase your conversion rate multiple times when compared to a generic CTA like “download the eBook.” In this particular example, you are trying to connect your visitors with your product by using the word “your.” It makes them feel that it’s a product meant for them. 

So, if you want to experience increased conversion, improve credibility, enhance brand awareness, and generate information from your landing pages, make sure that you avoid above mistakes. 

Defining & Presenting the Right KPIs

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Key performance indicators (KPIs) are metrics that measure how successful your company is at accomplishing a goal or objective. They are the strongest indicator of whether or not your business is successful. The challenge is knowing which metrics are the most effective for achieving your goals, as well as how to present those metrics to the key stakeholders in your organization.

Defining the Right KPIs

There is no “one-KPI-fits-all” solution when it comes to defining your company’s key performance indicators. KPIs should be tailored specifically to your business model and objectives, so you can get a solid understanding of the health of your company by simply looking at the status of your KPIs. If your KPIs are on track, your business is as well.

Steps to Building Custom KPIs For Your Business

  1. Evaluate your goals and objectives: What is the purpose of your company? What determines whether or not you are successful? The answer to these questions can help you better understand what metrics will help you reach your goals.
  2. Focus on between 4 and 10 KPIs: There are so nearly infinite things in your business that can be measured, but less is more when it comes to monitoring KPIs. These should be the metrics that are the most critical towards your success. If you track too many, it can become overwhelming and pointless.
  3. Reassess and review: Be critical of your KPIs and check to make sure that monitoring them is a good use of your time. They should be moving the needle and improving your company’s performance. If they aren’t, it may be time to think of some better KPIs.

Presenting Your KPIs

Data presentation matters. In order for a data analyst’s recommendations or analysis to generate real action, they need to be heard (and understood) by stakeholders. When information is not presented clearly and effectively, it may be hard for business-minded people to understand the importance and value of the data in front of them. The goal of KPI presentation, then, should be to make data understandable and easily comprehensible. 

The Psychology of Data Visualization

Data visualization allows you to maximize pre-attentive processing and quickly absorb complex information. When you are looking at a chart or graph, your brain will automatically identify unique elements and patterns. On the other hand, numbers on a spreadsheet require the viewer to actively analyze and examine to find key insights, which can be mentally exhausting.

Data visualization takes those seemingly random numbers and turns them into aesthetically pleasing visuals. You can tell a narrative with your data and integrate already learned information for quicker and more established connections. This connects your short and long-term memory, which helps you more permanently remember the information.

3-Step Process for Processing Information

  1. Visual Sensory Register: Information first processes through here, which is part of pre-attentive processing. Before you are even aware you are processing information, certain things will stand out and objects may be unconsciously grouped together.
  2. Short-Term Memory: Your short-term memory has a limited capacity. Anything that is not considered useful is discarded, so you can only retain about 3-9 “chunks” of visual information.
  3. Long-Term Memory: Your long-term memory retains meaningful information, not the precise details.

Tips for Communicating KPIs

  1. Keep it simple: Don’t overwhelm your audience with data. A clear and concise message is easier to comprehend and remember.
  2. Choose the appropriate chart: Not all chart types will accomplish the same goal or tell the same story. That’s why it’s important to take some time to understand the different chart types so you can select the best option for your visualization. This infographic can help you choose the right chart for your KPIs:
  1. Use color with intention: Color is a crucial element of data visualization design. It can simplify complex graphs, influence the feel of the data, or add contextual depth to data. It’s important to be consistent with your color choices and use plenty of contrast to make your visualizations easy to read and understand.
  2. Tell a story: It’s easier for stakeholders to understand the data if you accompany it with a narrative and helpful context. They should be able to quickly sum up what action needs to be taken based on what they learned from the information you presented.

Author Bio: Samantha Marsh is the Marketing Content Coordinator for iDashboards, a data visualization software company on a mission to transform reporting into meaningful dashboards.