Category Archives: CBS-CBS.com

Struggling With Your Business Instagram Game? 6 Tips to Optimize Your Profile

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It’s no secret that for a business to succeed, you most likely need to have a social media presence. Consumers typically search online for a company before going there, and their social media account often is the first to pop up.

Instagram has become a top priority for many companies and their marketing strategy. Posting pictures and behind-the-scene videos of the company can do wonders in promoting what you’re doing.

Don’t miss out on more opportunities by not having an Instagram account. You’ll be surprised by how much it can provide for you.

At Corporate Business Solutions Consultants, we have six points to optimize your Instagram profile for a successful social media strategy.

Choose a High-Quality Profile Picture

Don’t make the mistake of thinking your profile picture doesn’t matter, because it really does. You want something that represents what your brand is. If you have a logo, that is always a good place to start.

The profile picture should speak to who you are. That way, when someone sees that photo somewhere on their feed, they know right away it’s you without looking at your name.

Not only that, make sure the picture is high-quality and not pixelated.

Put Descriptive Words in Your Bio

The bio on your profile is a place for your creativity to shine. Have some fun with it (while still being professional and relevant to your business).

Add keywords that relate to your company. You don’t have a lot of space, so spend some time narrowing down what your business is to a few short lines.

Instagram also added the use of hashtags and tagging other profiles. This is something you should take advantage of. Adding hashtags allows people to follow those related to your brand.

Make Your Own Hashtag

While you’re at it, create your own hashtag for your company. The great thing about hashtags is that anyone that uses them in a post, you’ll be able to see those photos and videos. If you make a hashtag for your business, customers can follow it and get all of the related content in one spot.

Add Your Website

Chances are you have a website for your business. If you don’t, you need to invest in one. Websites are critical for consumers to get valuable information before deciding if they like your business.

Your Instagram profile has a spot for websites that you’ll want to add. Once you have that, you can use their analytics to track how many people use that link to visit your website.

Keep Things Tidy

Because of the limited space on your profile, try to keep it as tidy as possible. Having paragraphs of words or filling it with nothing but emojis can get distracting and hard to follow.

Your profile is meant to be short, sweet, and to the point. So, add line breaks and keep your sentences short. Utilize emojis, but watch that you don’t go overboard.

Incorporate a Call to Action\

Having a call to action is always a good idea. A call to action helps prompt viewers to perform an action you want them to do. For example, if you have something on your website you want people to see, tell them to click on your website link.

The above six points can help get you on the path of having a killer Instagram profile that stands out. Make your account successful. Spend time creating a solid, relevant and creative profile.

Feeling Disconnected From Your Team? 6 Ideas to Help Boost the Office Morale

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Whether you’ve been in business for decades or only a few months, you quickly learn that it’s your team that holds the company together.

Research has proven that office morale affects productivity, and it’s easy to see why. If you don’t enjoy going to work and being around your coworkers or employees, it’s challenging to try and get any work done. You’ll likely be counting down the hours until your day is done.

Are you in need of boosting morale at your workplace? Corporate Business Solutions Consultants have a few tricks up their sleeve to help you out.

Start With a Positive Work-Life Balance

Boosting office morale doesn’t have to be simply rewards, games, or team meetings to discuss issues. Promoting a positive work-life balance can do wonders for people. People need time away from the office, emails, coworkers, phone calls, and everything else work related to unwind and decompress.

Starting with something small as having no emails after a particular time policy can make a huge difference right there.

Interact With the Team Outside the Office

Have you ever seen coworkers or employees outside of the office? They’re likely quite different than what you see at work.

Take some time to meet with people outside of the office now and then. You may be surprised by the relationships and connections you develop that can keep a positive vibe in the office.

Recognize a Job Well Done Publicly

There are ways that you can publicly acknowledge a job well done without making others feel left out or embarrassing anyone. It can be as simple as saying an excellent job at coffee break, taking a few seconds to showcase hard work at the next meeting, or making a note in an email.

If you want to go this route, though, ensure that you take the time to recognize everyone’s hard work, so no one feels left out.

Don’t Sweep Things Under the Rug

As uncomfortable as confrontation may be, it’s necessary to ensure that any issues that arise at work (that are work-related) are appropriately dealt with. As hard as everyone works to boost morale and create a positive work environment, issues will pop up.

Not dealing with problems tends to only cause them to bubble into even bigger ones, and that never ends well.

Be Mindful of Everyone’s Schedule

No one likes a boss that doesn’t care about everyone’s schedules and makes people work on a Sunday afternoon. Allowing employees to still maintain their schedules even if it does mean leaving for an appointment in the afternoon can go a long way.

If someone keeps purposely scheduling personal items during work continually, then you may have a problem.

Ask For Feedback

Some of the best things a team can do are learn from one another. Bouncing ideas around to help boost morale (as it’s them that are affected), can bring forward fresh new ideas that could make a drastic difference at work.

Now and then, hold a meeting that talks about office feelings and what everyone can do to keep the office a place people want to be at.

The more you can do to keep the workplace morale high, the better the business will run. Always remember – the team keeps the company running smoothly.

5 Tip to Help You Reinvent Your Business During the Pandemic

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There’s no denying that our world has drastically changed in the past couple of months. You could even go as far as to say that our work lives have changed as well.

How so? Well, many companies were forced to adopt a remote-working policy to cope with the pandemic or, ultimately, close doors. If you’re faced with that situation, wouldn’t you want to go the route that kept your business alive?

Has the pandemic made you take a step back and evaluate your business model? If so, the following five tips from CBS-CBS.com reviews may help you reinvent your company.

Make a Note of What Was Successful

You most likely have particular aspects of your business that works. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be able to operate. As you reinvent yourself, don’t completely shy away from what’s made you successful.

Make a note of all aspects of your company you’re happy with and has gotten you to this point. This isn’t to say you don’t touch them. However, it can help put things into perspective and also find ways to fine-tune them to be even more successful.

Make a Note of What Wasn’t Successful

On the other hand, you want to make a note of what wasn’t working. Every business will have some aspect of it that they could improve on. Those are the ones you want to focus on as you reinvent yourself.

Parts that need tweaking may not be obvious, so take time to genuinely evaluate your company. Even the simplest of things, like your hours of operation or your customer service policies, can make a significant impact on your success.

Start Brainstorming and Get Creative

Spend a day brainstorming different ways you can boost your business. Let yourself get creative here. You don’t want to restrict your creativity just yet. Any idea that pops into your head write it down. Later on, once you have a good list of ideas, then you can be more critical of them.

Discuss it Without Fresh Eyes

As the owner, you tend to be biased to your business, and rightfully so. It’s hard to take that step back and see where you need to improve on. Not only that, once you have your ideas for improvement list, but you may also think each point is the key to success when maybe it’s not.

Having a fresh set of eyes and ears to discuss things that can provide you with a valuable perspective you don’t have.  That’s the benefit of bringing in a professional business consultant to give you an objective, third-party view.  Business consultants also can share with you ideas that have worked in other businesses to save you from making the mistake of implementing an idea that is likely to fail.

Make a Plan

A big mistake to make is thinking your idea is the key to everything, and it’s time to dive in headfirst. What if that idea blows up, then what?

Make a plan before implementing any changes. Spend some time testing it out to ensure whatever you have planned will work. Start small and work your way up. You have a better chance of succeeding that way.

Reinventing a business isn’t an easy task to take on. Not every reinvention will be successful, either. However, the more time you spend thinking, brainstorming, and researching, the more set up you’ll be for a successful reinvention.

Working From Home? 7 Tips to Help You Stay Motivated

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In the past several months, many have had to quickly adjust to working from home rather than the office. Although at the start, it doesn’t seem too bad, you quickly realize the challenges behind not being in the office.

One of the hardest parts of working from home is finding the motivation and dedication to get the job done. You don’t have your boss around the corner, making sure you complete your day. It relies solely on just you.

To help you out, try these tested out tips provided by reviews for Corporate Business Solutions.

Maintain Your Same Work Schedule

One of the best things you can do for yourself as you work from home is to maintain the same schedule. That means, if your workday started at eight in the morning, you’d want to do just that at home.

Keep Your Same Routine

Although this ties in with maintaining your same work schedule, keep your same daily routine as well. When did you take your coffee and lunch breaks? What was your morning routine like? How did you unwind after coming home from work? Keep doing the same things to help keep you in the working mindset.

Dress for Success

Have you ever heard the saying about dressing for success? What we wear has a significant impact on how we feel about and portray ourselves. As tempting as it is to crawl out of bed and start working while in your pajamas, getting dressed in your regular work clothes will help you more in the long run.

Have a Designated Workspace

Even if you don’t have an office with a closed door, you should still have somewhere in your house that is meant as your workspace. That way, you can keep all your work-related items in the same area and stay organized.

Reward Yourself

It may seem silly, but give yourself rewards for a successful workday. Did you have a big project that was on a tight deadline? Maybe you finally sent that email you’ve been dreading all week. Give yourself a pat on the back, go have a snack, put on one of your favorite television shows, and take a relaxing break.

You deserved it.

Purge Yourself From Distractions

Although there are distractions basically everywhere you go, there are even more of them at your house. If you have housework to do or groceries to grab, those will be in the back of your mind.

Other distractions include your cell phone, television and surfing the web on your home computer. If you struggle with online distractions, consider a way to keep applications locked at a particular time, or set yourself a timer for when you need to get back to work.

Make Time for Relationships

One of the hardest parts of working from home is feeling isolated from the outside world (especially during our current events). As you spend so much time at home, take moments to call or video chat with your friends and family. Head outside for a walk and say hi to your neighbors. Whatever you do to help keep your relationships up and not feel isolated, include those.

There we have it – seven tips that often can help one adjust to working from home. Give these points a try for your next workday and see how different you feel.

4 Exit Planning Steps To Get Your Business Prepared

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A lot of business owners know they should have an exit plan in place, but fail to develop one. This is a major problem. All owners should ensure they have a plan for exiting their business in place from the start of their enterprise.

With an exit strategy in place, you’ll be able to keep your business moving in the right direction since you’ll be aligning constantly with the long-term goals you’ve set. An exit strategy also ensures there’s a trigger event to signal the time has come to get out. Without one, you’ll just carry on without ever knowing when the time has come to stop.

There is one thing to note, though. Your exit strategy will certainly change with time, so it has to be reviewed often. Writing down your exit strategy then re-reading it and reviewing it every 6 months to make updates is the best solution.

With this in mind, the team at CBS-CBS.com outlines these simple steps to help prepare your business exit strategy.

1. Sourcing A Buyer

One thing that many business owners fail to consider is how to find a buyer for their company. A lot of owners just naturally assume somebody out there will be interested in purchasing their business, but this is a big mistake. In fact, only a quarter of all saleable companies exit.

One critical element of your exit strategy is to keep a list of prospective buyers. They may be businesses or individuals who have shown an interest previously in buying the business. They may even be competitors who have an interest in acquiring the business once the time has come.

2. Reoccurring Revenue

Revenue represents a key element of a business exit strategy. It isn’t only about the amount of revenue you have, it’s also about the form it takes when it arrives. Subscription-based services and products producing predictable and reoccurring revenue present an attractive proposition to prospective buyers.

Automatically billing in advance is a wise strategy. If all revenue has been set up to be recurring payments, your business will be an extremely attractive option for purchase.

3. A Strong Pattern Of Growth

A business that has displayed strong patterns of growth will be attractive to potential buyers. Predictable and steady financial growth couldn’t be more important. As long as erratic growth swings can be avoided, some tips that are explained easily won’t affect your business’s appeal to purchasers.

4. Standard Procedures Of Operation

If your business doesn’t have a written set of operating procedures, developing them now is vital. Your business should reach the point where should you have a sudden accident and be unable to run your operation yourself, the company would be able to carry on running with no disruptions. Detailing everything from your core values, management practices, mission, vision, and execution strategy to your marketing and sales plans will ensure that prospective buyers have no difficulty in taking over your business.

Every small business owner will have to exit at some future point, and it’s foolish to assume somebody will be ready to buy it when the time is right. If you follow these four steps, you’ll have the best chance of making a successful sale once you’re ready to make the move.

Could Flexible Working Cause A Lack Of Community In The Workplace?

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Flexible working is becoming more commonplace. There has been a greater demand for a transformed work culture in this day and age due to the belief that a smarter and more modern approach will foster better business productivity while supporting a healthy work/life balance for employees.

It seems clear that the flexible work scenario isn’t going anywhere any time soon, and it comes in many forms. From flexible daily hours to home working and compressed working weeks, this style of employment is especially appealing to today’s workforce. So much so, that it has been suggested that in just a few years, the dominant form of employment will be flexible working.

The Benefits Of Flexible Working

It’s easy to see why flexible working is such a popular choice. There are well-established benefits associated with allowing workers to work more flexibly, and positive correlations with a higher level of commitment to the organization as well as better job satisfaction. When family commitments can be accommodated, the stress of commuting can be reduced and workload aligned to the energy cycles of the individual, employees are empowered and feel they have greater control over their working environment and schedule.

For the employer too, the evidence suggests flexible working can reduce staff turnover while also helping in the recruitment of top talent. It also helps to keep a successful team intact while enhancing the company’s image overall.

Yet, there are some disadvantages too that are often overlooked.

The Downside Of A Flexible Work Schedule

Flexible working can lead to the “always-on culture” which can be detrimental to an organization and its employees. Checking emails and responding to them out of office hours, and being available for work at any hour of the day or night may be a way to enhance effectiveness and efficiency, but it can also cause high levels of stress among workers that can impact negatively on psychological and physical health.

Nurturing A Positive Work Community And Environment

When a team can work together closely within the time and space they can generate the best creative energy. Being physically together permits intimacy, clarity, and spontaneity that, in turn, nourishes conviction, confidence, and understanding.

The answer to this is to have more flexibility about flexibility. Flexible working’s outcome should be a set of agreed targets that both employee and employer are on board with, that cover a mix of personal and professional priorities.

So, how do you go about implementing this practice within your organization? If you read Corporate Business Solutions reviews you’ll see that getting the right business consulting help can make an enormous difference to your company’s success.

Our team is well-positioned to give you the essential advice that you need to take your business forward into the future with modern and flexible working practices that reap all of the benefits of this way of operating but that avoid the potential pitfalls of a loss of community and an uncreative, incohesive working environment.

Would Selling Your Company To Its Employees Be A Good Exit Strategy?

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If you’ve built up a successful business, deciding whether or not to sell it is a difficult choice to make. Yet, every business owner must have their exit strategy firmly in place.

You’re sure to already know the classic exit strategy options – finding strategic buyers, an equity sale, or possibly going public for a larger small business. Some owners decide that they’ll just wind down their business entirely. There is, however, a different option – the ESOP or Employee Stock Ownership Plan. This could be the perfect exit strategy if you want your business to stay rooted in its locality and its staff meaningfully employed.

What Is An ESOP?

In simple terms, an ESOP is a tool that can be used by a retiring business owner to sell their company to its employees. They are becoming more popular worldwide thanks to the many benefits that they provide. The Corporate Business Solutions team will explain some of those advantages here.

A Flexible Timeline For Exit

Everyone knows that most Baby Boomers aren’t retiring when they get to 65 anymore. They enjoy working and are happy to carry on as long as they remain in good health. This trend looks set to continue for many more years to come since more people today are seeing their work as an extension to their personal life.

ESOPs allow business owners to carry on playing an important role in their business, but with added flexibility to begin reducing their value within it by transferring value to its employees. With a long transition period, the owner can educate and mentor key people to take over their new roles.

Not only does an ESOP enable a more flexible departure, but it also enables owners to start accessing their retirement capital via the liquidity of transferred shares to employees.

Getting Money Out

Every exit plan hinges on being able to turn the business as an illiquid asset into cash. For your employees to purchase shares in the company, it has to be valued professionally at FMV (Fair Market Value).

As long as the company is currently profitable and looks set to continue in that vein, your employees are unlikely to mind paying fair prices for share. Although some owners believe their employees won’t be able to afford to purchase their company, they find many different financing tools are available that facilitate the process.

Lasting Legacy

Studies have shown that a lot of owners of small businesses end up regretting the sale of their company a short while after the deal is closed. Some even regret the decision when they got the price they wanted for the sale.

A major reason for regretting the decision is that their exit plan has failed to address issues such as legacy and succession. For a lot of business owners, it’s very important to be reassured that the values and culture they put in place will carry on once they have left.

An ESOP helps to ensure the business moves forward with those people who have already shared the owner’s values and vision. More importantly, research has shown that ownership by employees also results in better business outcomes such as improved engagement, retention, and productivity.

Would An ESOP Suit Me?

Not every business owner will find employee stock ownership the right solution since it requires a willingness for financial information to be shared and a more participative management style. However, for those business owners who are keen to have a more flexible timeline for their exit, to obtain a fair price for their sale and a way of leaving their legacy intact, the idea of an ESOP is certainly worth exploring.

Will A Facilitator For Strategic Planning Help Your Business?

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Planning strategy planning sessions for your business can be a real challenge, and that’s why a strategic planning facilitator could prove to be indispensable. When you need some specialist support and advice, a facilitator can come to the rescue, helping you to get the most out of each session.

How can a facilitator be helpful? Corporate Business Solutions consultants outline just a few of the reasons why.

A Facilitator Will Enable Your Contribution And Participation

Rather than leading a planning session, a facilitator will enable you to participate. You cannot participate fully in any session if you’re leading it, so this is a major benefit. A facilitator is also an expert in their field. They have developed a process that maximizing the effort and time you put in and know which questions to ask to produce optimal results. While it’s technically possible to lead your strategy meetings, it’s best not to take any risks with the future of your organization.

Getting To The Heart Of The Matter

As a facilitator is neutral they can ask tough questions on your behalf without any misconceptions or expectations. Even if you think the questions they ask are irrelevant or pointless, these questions often get right to the heart of what is most important. As a facilitator is coming in from outside, they can ask the perfect questions at the perfect time and in the perfect way to ensure the success of your business.

Having someone to lead your organization through the strategic planning process who is neutral is vital to getting your business to the place it needs to be. Your choices won’t impact the facilitator and that means they’re able to approach sessions without any bias.

Setting The Tone

A facilitator will set the tone for a planning meeting and can show you’re committed and serious about strategy development. It shows you’ve made not only a financial commitment but also an emotional commitment to ensuring the session gives your company the best possible level of value.

It isn’t easy to manage a planning session and its facilitation if you’re trying to involve yourself in the conversation too. A facilitator will put pauses into the discussion at strategic moments while controlling the agenda to ensure the best possible outcome for the team.

People Management

Facilitators are used to managing people with all kinds of personalities. It’s their special skill and they use it to ensure there is balanced conversation throughout the session. They ensure everyone can offer their contribution and that it’s as easy as possible to move on with your strategy.

A facilitator can also act as a catalyst to keep things moving forward and getting change initiatives underway. They help to move the organization forward more quickly, rather than living with legacy conversations and decisions that never seem to get dealt with.

Alignment And Clarity – The Key To A High-Performing Team

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All businesses, regardless of their size or industry require a high-performing team to ensure their long-term success. Many company leaders have recognized that one of the best ways to ensure that their workforce achieves their best daily is to maintain alignment and clarity in all ventures. How does this work in practice? The answer lies in regular strategic planning meetings that bring business leaders together with their key team members in a positive atmosphere of cooperation and discussion.

The expert team here at CBS-CBS.com believes that strategic planning meetings are vital in this respect. Not only are such meetings important for drawing up an effective strategy in the first place, but they’re also essential for re-evaluating, honing, and reinforcing that plan to ensure it remains relevant and successful in its aims.

Holding regular meetings to create, re-evaluate and reinforce the strategic plan for your organization helps you to generate both alignment and clarity amongst team members – the two key elements that have been identified as vital to allowing the workforce to achieve its best. So, what does drawing up your business’ strategic plan involve?

How Does Strategic Planning For Alignment And Clarity Work?

The starting point to achieve greater alignment and clarity amongst your workforce through your strategic plan is to assess where your company is right now. The next step is to look at where the business is heading, all the time engaging your team throughout the process. This allows greater alignment and clarity to be achieved simply by taking on board their ideas and suggestions and involving them in the creation of the plan. As a result, your workforce will enjoy greater alignment and clarity for better goal achievement and higher performance overall.

Why Does A Strategic Plan Improve Alignment And Clarity?

When you follow this process, your team will be able to evaluate both opportunities and risks and to discuss them in full and frank detail in a meeting setting. This brings everything out in the open, allowing team members to raise their concerns and issues in a positive environment so everyone can have a greater focus on the things that matter. Ultimately, it allows your team to follow through a process of discussing priority items while also deciding consciously what they shouldn’t do under the current circumstances.

The Benefits Of Professional Advice

Business leaders often feel as if they’re ground down by daily with the day-to-day operation of their company. There is a lot to bear in mind with the daily running of an organization, and strategic planning can so easily fall by the wayside and be overlooked. This is where a team of talented consultants like those at Corporate Business Solutions can prove to be extremely helpful. With the right management consultancy advice, you will be well-placed to identify your company’s most important priorities and to align your team with the best ways to reach your business goals. As a result, you can all achieve more and increase your organization’s profitability in the long-run.

 

 

Build Your Company’s Wealth With Effective Strategic Tax Planning

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A key element of building up and preserving your company’s wealth is strategic tax planning. For many, tax is their biggest expense. It, therefore, couldn’t be more important to focus on saving money when it comes to paying taxes. Why waste money on tax that you legally aren’t obliged to pay? This is where strategic tax planning comes into its own. So, how can you retain more wealth? Let’s take a closer look.

Why Lower Your Taxes?

The two ways you can put more money in your company’s pocket are to make more or to spend less. While you can put a lot of effort and time into promoting your company with no guarantees of success, you can, instead, focus on your strategic tax planning to guarantee better tax efficiency. A lot of people try to find ways of making more money, but a financial defense in the form of spending less is actually a better course of action.

How Does Strategic Tax Planning Help?

When you adopt strategic tax planning measures, you can keep more of the money your business makes. So, it makes sense to seize every available opportunity to save on the amount of tax you payout. There are many ways you can harness the power of legal Acts to write off expenses and to deduct payments that will reduce your tax burden considerably. Skilled tax planning consultants, such as the team at Corporate Business Solutions can advise you where these savings can be made.

How Does Wealth Management Work Alongside Strategic Tax Planning?

Wealth management and strategic tax planning work together for your business to yield maximum results. When you lower your company’s tax burden, you can achieve higher profits. As a result, you enjoy greater wealth. Experienced tax planning consultants can help you to use tax codes so that they work for you rather than against you.  With the greater profits that you reap, you can then plow that money back into your business, helping you to grow and expand, and, ultimately, to become even more profitable in the long-term.

Seeking Professional Advice

Many business owners, especially those running small businesses, view taxes as a necessary evil. They have a lot to do and a lot to think about when it comes to running an organization. Often, tax payments sit on the back burner and just get paid year after year. However, we all know that taxes are a major expense for any organization. This is why it makes sense to switch your focus and to put more effort and energy into strategic tax planning so that you can save money where it can most easily be saved. With the right tax planning advice, you can immediately reduce your tax burden and, so, instantly increase your company’s profitability. The Corporate Business Solutions team is here to offer you an expert strategic tax planning service that will lower the amount of tax you pay and boost your company’s profits in one fell swoop.