Dare to explore.

Learning from a Pandemic – 4 Lessons Covid-19 Taught the Business World

The global pandemic has affected virtually everyone worldwide, whether it be physically, emotionally, and mentally. There is almost no aspect in our lives that hasn’t been impacted by Covid-19, and the business world is no exception.

As we continue to battle the novel virus around us, we can already look back on the last several months as a learning experience. The world grappled with an event, unlike anything we’ve seen in our lifetime. With that comes lessons to help us in the future.

Reviews for Corporate Business Solutions understands the impact Covid-19 has had on your business. We take a look at some lessons we’ve already learned from the pandemic, and how we can adjust in the future.

Have a Risk Management Plan Ready

Although there are many instances, like what we’re currently going through, that you can’t plan for, you can have a plan for potential difficulties your business will likely face. Every business will have at least one hardship it must overcome as it grows, no matter the company’s size.

First, identify possible risks you’re likely to face as your business grows. It could be an employee quitting or getting fired, you getting sick and being off work, or hazardous challenges like a fire in the building. These are a few examples that a risk management plan should go over.

Employer-Employee Relationships Are Crucial

For many businesses worldwide, the only way they could continue to operate is if their employees took their offices home. Remote working puts your relationship with your employees to the test. You must have trust and faith in each individual to continue to perform as they would in the office.

These relationships stem past trust – they also include empathy. We’ve learned that showing compassion in difficult times is essential in any relationship, especially when mental health is involved. Moving forward, being empathetic to an employee’s situation will go a long way to maintain that positive relationship.

Personal Development and Growth Never Stops

It doesn’t matter if you run the business or have an employee who just started; you are always growing. With an ever-changing world, what we knew one day could be different tomorrow. Personal development and growth are something that should never end, just because you’ve reached the top of the ladder.

Be Resourceful and Flexible

One of the first things Covid-19 taught the business world is the importance of being flexible and resourceful. Many companies would have gone under if they didn’t change their tactics. Closing your doors doesn’t mean your business has to end.

Take the fitness industry as an example. With gyms and studios abruptly closing, personal trainers and group instructors got creative and moved everything online. Since we have the tools to do so today, the transition from in-person to online classes was relatively simple. However, this is still an excellent example of being resourceful and flexible. Many trainers would have lost their jobs if they didn’t think quickly and switch to online sessions.

 

Use these lessons above to help your business in the future. As we continue to battle with Covid-19, let these lessons remind us that change can bring about positive things.

Like your reflection.

Keep Your Health Top Focus: 7 Simple Ways to Be Healthier at Work

Just because you sit in an office for eight to nine hours a day, that doesn’t mean your life is unhealthy. In fact, with simple, small changes, you can keep your health a top priority while you work.

According to the World Health Organization, a sedentary (physically inactive), life is the leading cause of disease and disability. Lack of physical activity can lead to many issues, including obesity, mental illness, and cardiovascular disease.

Luckily, even the smallest changes in the office can help keep your health in check. Corporate Business Solutions has seven simple ways to be healthier at work.

Pack Your Lunch

It’s your lunch break, and you didn’t bring anything to work. What do you do? Chances are you race over to the nearest fast food joint. Although now and then there is nothing wrong with this, you’re better off to bring your own lunch. That way, you control what you eat, and it will save you money down the road.

Use the Stairs

If you work at a multi-story building, opt for the stairs over the elevator. This simple decision can help you reach the recommended minimum amount of physical activity each week.

Store the Lunchroom with Healthy Options

Instead of handy a candy vending machine in the breakroom, provide healthier alternatives for everyone to try. Swap out the bag of chips for a piece of fruit. Provide flavored water instead of cans of pop.

If the only option available is junk food, of course, that’s what people will go for. However, if you provide healthier options, it’s a step in the right direction to promote a healthier lifestyle.

Stretch Every Hour

Sitting for hours on end won’t do you any good. When you sit for too long, it ends up tightening your hip flexors and hamstrings. These tight muscles can cause lower back pain, make it difficult to walk or stand, and make your life very uncomfortable. When you can, take a moment to stand up, move your body for a few moments before getting back to work.

Stay Hydrated

Dehydration wreaks havoc on our bodies and our minds. Lack of water can cause sleepiness, difficulty concentrating, and even headaches. Avoid dehydration by having a water bottle at your desk all the time. Once it’s empty, fill it up, so your water is readily available. You can even download apps that remind you to drink water throughout the day.

Take Five Minutes to Yourself

Yes, you’re at the office, which means you’re supposed to be working. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t take a few moments to relax your brain and focus on yourself. Taking five minutes to do a quick meditation session at your desk can help you refocus and recharge your mind. Plus, meditation is an excellent way to center yourself and appreciate your surroundings.

Start an Office Workout

Even a five-minute workout session is better than nothing. Adding in a simple workout routine is an excellent step to increase your overall health. Physical activity is known to improve not just your physical health but your mental health as well.

Implement the above seven tips to help keep you healthy while working all day. Don’t let sitting for hours on end cause you to have a sedentary life. These simple adjustments will go a long way for your health.

Worried About the Survival of Your Company? 5 Tips to Revive a Struggling Business

How often do you hear this – over half of new businesses will fail in their first year. That’s a scary statistic. However, it isn’t entirely true.

The recent numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) show that in the first two years of operation, 20 percent of businesses will close. That number increases as the years go on, but it does show that you have a fighting chance.

Every business will go through some rough periods. Unfortunately, some companies can survive those difficult times while others end up closing their doors for good.

Is your company during those difficult moments and wondering how you’ll move forward? CBS-CBS.com has a few tips to help you revive your struggling business.

Take a Step Back to Identify the Issue

Before you can begin moving forward, you need to identify the problem. If you try to revamp your entire company without first determining where the issue truly lies, you could end up in the same position relatively quickly.

Look at when you were the most profitable compared to right now. What has changed since then? It could be the market is changing, and your company hasn’t, your management style shifted, or maybe it’s the economy, and your customers can’t afford to spend right now. Once you have that reason, then you can develop a plan.

Revamp Your Marketing Plan

When’s the last time you’ve taken a look at your marketing plan and seen those analytics behind it? Sometimes, all you need to do is freshen up your marketing strategy to engage with your current clients and reach new ones.

Adjust Your Business Model

Adjusting your business model can bring business back to life. However, it isn’t an easy task. As the world changes year after year, your business must adapt to these changes. If you’re still doing the same thing you did for the last few years and noticed a decline, it could be time to adjust your business model to keep up with modern times.

Boost Internal Moral

What happens behind the scenes of business eventually spews out into the public. That means, if your company culture is negative, your customers will soon pick up on that.

The consumer often wants to support companies that provide a happy, healthy, and encouraging work environment. If your team struggles to work together or simply don’t want to come to work, a morale boost could be what your struggling business needs to thrive once again.

Make Cuts

In some circumstances, cutting costs can help a business get back to thriving. Maybe you were once spending extra dollars on luxuries to make life a bit easier for you as the owner. If those additional costs are coming at the expense of your success, it’s time to make some cuts.

In other circumstances, though, making cuts is only a band-aid solution and not addressing the root issue. However, making cuts could give you the time to determine the actual problem that needs fixing.

Failure to control costs is one of the primary reasons a business fails. If you are aiming to have a 10 percent profit, that means you have to run your business so that your expenses equal 90 percent of every dollar you take in.  You need to create what is called a managerial accounting system that pays yourself first. You are entitled to the salary of what it would reasonably cost to run the company if you were hiring someone to run it for you as well as your predetermined profitability.  Together, your salary, plus your planned profit becomes the Total Ownership Return. By paying yourself first rather than getting paid what is left over after all the expenses are paid, it will create the internal management discipline to make the necessary decisions to cut costs so that your business can pay your what you deserve while becoming a profitable business for the long-term.

The tips above could help you get your business back to where it used to be and even more profitable than before.

Your Checklist for Running a Successful Business

Are you dreaming of running a company? Maybe you want to work your way through the corporate ladder, or you’d instead start something from scratch. If you’re looking at opening up a business, we’re here to help.

At Corporate Business Solutions Reviews, we understand the stress of starting a new venture. As exciting as it is to run a company, it does come with additional pressure on top of everything else. We created a checklist to help guide you on your journey of opening and operating a successful business.

Do You Have an Idea?

You can turn almost any idea into a business, but that doesn’t mean you should. Just because it could be a business doesn’t mean it will be a successful one.

When determining your idea, it should answer one fundamental question: does my idea solve a consumer problem?

Conduct a SWOT Analysis

Every business owner should know about a SWOT analysis and utilize this tool. A SWOT analysis covers four major sections of running a business:

  • Strength
  • Weakness
  • Opportunity
  • Threat

By conducting a SWOT analysis on your business idea and even yourself, you’ll be able to pinpoint what you need to work on, what you’re good at if the concept provides an opportunity and the competition around you.

Define Your Target Audience

So, you have your business idea and have concluded that it will be a successful business. Now, it’s time to define your target audience.

The target audience is those who are your ideal customer or client. A person’s age, gender, location, occupation, and even values are all characteristics to help definite your ideal client.

Create a Business Plan

Your next step is to create a business plan. It’s this plan that will guide you during the beginning of your company. Also, your business plan is a proposal to investors if you need capital to get you going.

All the points mentioned above are an excellent addition to your business plan. Add in other things like potential running costs, marketing plan, short-term and long-term goals, mission statement, and key operations.

Your Mission Statement

We mentioned a mission statement in the point above, and it’s important enough to talk about it on its own. The mission statement is a few sentences that describe the core values of your company. It explains why someone should go to you and how they’ll benefit from that decision.

Have a Support System

Although this may not seem like an important point to mention, it’s one that every business owner should have. Running a company, especially a start-up, is stressful. Having that support system allows you to talk out stressors and keep your mental health in check. Too much stress can cause serious harm to your mental and physical well being.

Define Your Critical Variables

Every business owner begins a new business with enthusiasm and passion for the chance to own and grow his business.  Business doesn’t fail for a lack of passion, they most often fail because the business owner fails to run the business by the numbers.  You need to develop a set of KPI’s, or Key Performance Indicators, which will allow you to evaluate your business with the metrics to evaluate how you are performing before it’s too late to make needed adjustments.  Your accountant is just a scorekeeper.  You need to be the head coach who has all the needed information to make the needed adjustments to win the game of business!

Take the Plunge

Once you have your plan ready to go and a support system rooting you on, it’s time to take the plunge. If you’ve prepared yourself as much as you can, the only thing standing in your way will be yourself.

Part of starting and running a business is taking those calculated risks and being confident in your decision. Many of the points above will also help you in the years to come as you run a successful business.

Are You on YouTube? Why Your Company Should Utilize the Popular Platform

YouTube still dominates the online world as being one of, if not the top social media platform available. On average, two billion users log on to YouTube every month. That’s roughly one-fourth of the world population.

When put into that perspective, YouTube is an incredible market that every business could and should utilize. However, not many companies think about the upside of YouTube and miss out on the opportunity to grow their business.

Have you thought about using YouTube for your small business? We have five points from reviews for Corporate Business Solutions to show why you need a YouTube channel today.

Reach an Audience in a Unique Way

As you create your marketing strategy and search for different tricks and tips to help, you’ll often come across information on Instagram, Facebook, and having a website. Although those are all excellent additions to your marketing plan that you should have, it shouldn’t stop there.

YouTube offers a unique way of reaching out to your current audience and beyond. With how popular it is and how many users log on each month, you’re bound to reach people interested in what you have to offer.

Create a Lasting Relationship With Your Viewers

If you want to really connect with your clients, YouTube allows you to achieve that. You can bring them into the day-to-day that they wouldn’t usually see. Through your videos, you can showcase the fun side of putting together a product or service that could be surprising to your viewers.

YouTube also offers a chance for customer engagement. You can ask questions on your videos and have the viewers respond in the comments below. Your next video could then be your response to those questions. Doing this can boost your engagement and build those crucial relationships with your clients.

Provide Support

For companies that sell products or offer services, utilizing YouTube is huge. To start, you can upload videos that show someone how to use a specific product. If they’re struggling with it or something goes wrong, they can reference your video. It adds another element to the customer experience.

Companies that offer services, whether it be a trainer running classes or service at someone’s house, you can upload videos that show what goes on behind the scenes.

Showcase Customer Testimonials

Another advantage of YouTube is uploading customer testimonial videos. Words are a great starting point, but if you can get someone on camera talking about their experience, it adds to the authenticity of the testimonial.

You can fake words; however, you can’t fake the person on the screen, sharing the true story of their experience with your company.

Potential Revenue Source

Did you know you can make money from YouTube? Although it may take a while to get there, it is possible. With the ads, you see on videos, that could bring you in a couple of bucks here and there. Even if you’re not focusing on the revenue side of it, this perk could bring in disposable cash for anything extra you wouldn’t buy before.

Start a free YouTube channel today to access the additional possibilities it could provide for your business.

6 Entrepreneurial Skills You Should Master Right Away

Anyone can be an entrepreneur if you think about it. If you have an idea, a plan, and the means to make it work, you could become an entrepreneur.

Just because you can be one doesn’t mean you’ll be successful at it.

Successful entrepreneurs have particular skills that they’ve either mastered or are highly developed. It’s these types of traits that drive them to push the boundaries and reach every goal they set out.

At CBS-CBS.com, we know how important it is to have the resources to get you where you want to be. That is why we created a list of the top six entrepreneurial skills you’ll want to master right away.

Time Management

As an entrepreneur, you’re wearing multiple hats in a day. If you struggle to manage your time efficiently, you’ll become overwhelmed with all of your tasks. You may even miss important deadlines and meetings.

Many small business owners starting still have a full-time job on top of their startup. Everyone has the same 24 hours in a day. It’s up to you in how you use them.

Determination and Motivation

Entrepreneurs rarely walk away from what they started because it didn’t work the first, second, even fifth time. Instead, they take what they learn, apply it to a new strategy, and continue to persevere. They are determined.

Having determination allows you to take on challenges head-on to reach their goals. It’s also their determination that motivates them to stay the course.

Marketing and Social Media

You’ll spend a lot of your time marketing your business; otherwise, how will people know you exist?

The marketing world is challenging to maneuver. That is why this is an essential skill to develop quickly to help your business succeed.

Customer Service

At some point, you’ll have to handle customers and clients. Maybe, later on, you’ll hire someone to do that for you. However, as you start, you’ll take on the role of customer service.

Handling customers is more than merely talking to them. It’s a unique skill to have under your belt. It’s these skills that help put out fires and keep upset clients coming back happy.

Ready to Learn

Although this may not seem like a skill, entrepreneurs must keep learning no matter what.

Successful entrepreneurs set aside their pride and admit when they need more education on a subject. Not only that, they learn from every discussion, failure, success, and hiccups they have on their journey.

Ability to Listen

The ability to listen is a considerable skill one needs as an entrepreneur. It is this skill that wraps everything together.

Whether it’s through interactions with customers, employees, or a potential business partner, you need to spend time listening to them speak. Give people a chance to speak and respond in ways that keep the conversation on the topic, rather than turning it back to you.

Having the ability to listen is a deceivingly tricky skill to master. Individual responses may seem fine to you but are offensive or condescending to someone else. Practicing empathetic listening will be a tremendous asset to know.

Add these six skills to your to-do list as an entrepreneur. As you develop them and continue to grow, watch how they change the way you think, listen, speak, and work.

6 Tips to Stay Organized as a Small Business Owner

There are many skills a small business owner has that aid in the success of their business. From perseverance to communication, each ability provides value to you and your business.

One of those skills is organization.

Companies must stay organized. Lack of organization often leads to issues, missed dates, and potentially losing out on clients and sales. No business wants to go through this.

Improve your organizational skills to be the best small business owner you can be. Our Corporate Business Solutions consultants have six tips to help you improve your organizational skills.

Plan Your Days and Weeks in Advance

Planning is the key to stay organized. It’s a way to know what you need to accomplish and by when. A good tip is to spend the first few moments of your workday planning out what your priorities are, what’s next up, and what are things you’d like to achieve but can wait. Don’t forget to plan out later in the week to see upcoming appointments and deadlines.

Planning takes us into our next tip…

Prioritize Your To-Do List

Everyone can benefit from prioritizing their lives. When you prioritize, you’re putting the pressing matters at the top of your list. These are the items you have to get done that day.

If you think about it, why would you spend hours working on a project that isn’t needed until next week if you have a deadline coming up in a couple of days? Once you complete the priority items, then you can make your way to the other tasks.

Declutter Your Office and Desk

A cluttered space isn’t doing you any good. Although there’s a mentality that a cluttered office is a sign of a busy person, it isn’t a sign of proper organization.

Having a clean working space not only looks good and allows you to work smoothly, but it’s also a way to ease stress and keep you motivated.

Label Storage and Folders

Have you ever spent more time than needed looking for a particular file? Even if it’s 30 extra seconds browsing through each folder to find the one you need, that adds up in a year. Not only that, but it also adds more stress to your life.

Help keep essential documents organized by labeling storage containers and folders. Spending a few extra minutes setting up will save you time and stress down the road.

Learn About Time Management

Time management is a crucial element of staying organized. You can plan everything out correctly, but if you don’t manage your time, that plan won’t help you much.

Managing your time efficiently helps boost productivity, efficiency, organization (think less scrambling around), and makes your life overall less stressful.

Use Cloud-Based Services

Are you still stuck with things like paper receipts? Unless you’re good at filing them right away, consider software that takes a snapshot of the receipt and stores it virtually. It’s a way to reduce clutter and keep your finances organized.

Cloud-based services are an excellent way to keep employees linked together. You can have calendars that select people to see and edit, or have a running document with tasks to achieve in the week.

Staying organized is an essential task of managing a business. Without it, even the smallest task can quickly become overwhelming and cause problems.

Master your organizational skills to keep you and your business successful and stress-free.

Develop the Perfect Marketing Strategy with Our 6 Points

Pretty much every business needs a marketing strategy. It’s this plan that helps spread the word of what you’re doing, reach new clients, and build your business into a thriving empire.

A solid marketing strategy includes multiple elements. From social media to designing your website, each method you use to reach clients should fall under your marketing plan.

Where do you start, though?

Developing this plan isn’t always the easiest. That’s why at reviews for Corporate Business Solutions, we put together six points to get you started.

Lay Out Your Starting Point

You have to start somewhere, and it’s best to know where you’re beginning from. This first step is likely the easiest as you’re laying out your current situation.

Write out all products and services you offer, your current target audience, your social media following, niche, and what sets you apart from your competitors. After you have your starting point, you can proceed to the next step.

Narrow Down Your Business Goals

Before anything, you must have business goals. Short-term and long-term goals keep you on the right path that is best for your company. Without them, reaching your end goal (a successful business) will look like a zigzag that can cause confusion and disarray.

Create SMART goals – specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound. These goals help hold you accountable and are practical enough for your business to achieve. Once you have those, you’ll use your marketing strategy to help reach them.

Create a SWOT Analysis

Have you heard of a SWOT analysis before? If not, it’s time to become familiar with it.

SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis are what showcase your strengths, weaknesses, and factors that affect you reaching your goals. It’s a chance for you to brainstorm points that help you understand yourself and your business a bit better.

Define Your Target Audience

You can almost guarantee that any marketing strategy tips you read; it will include defining your target audience. That’s because this is a crucial step.

Throw away the idea that you can appeal to every single individual on this planet. It’s just not possible. Instead, you want to focus on a specific group. Using what you’ve laid out so far with the steps above, define your group by personal characteristics, geographic location, career, interests, and anything else you deem essential.

Set a Budget

Although there are many free ways to market your business, there will come the point when you need to invest a few dollars. Without a budget, those few dollars can quickly get out of control.

Set a realistic budget for what your business finances are like. Include elements like social media ads, radio, television, print, highway signs, and any other features you may utilize.

Brainstorm Marketing Ideas

Once you have the specifics nailed down, you can start to brainstorm ideas. Enjoy this process as it’s your chance to be creative.

Plan out ideas that you are likely to use. Write out the details of each design. Once you have a plan, break it down to see if it ties into your marketing plan you’ve worked on. Does this idea help you reach your defined business goals?

Your marketing strategy is a way to boost your business and reach the goals you layout for your company. Don’t forget about this vital element of running a business. Taking the time now will offer great rewards in the future.

Affiliate Marketing Program – Why It May Be Worth Introducing

Have you ever logged onto your social media account to see someone posing with a new product, telling you how awesome it is? If you look at the description, chances are they have a discount code you can use to get a percentage off.

This is a style of affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing is an excellent way to get the word out about your products and services to a broader audience – more than you likely could with regular marketing. It’s a massive market worth over $12 billion and shows no signs of slowing down.

So, how does affiliate marketing work, and is it worth setting up for your business? Our Corporate Business Solutions reviews break down affiliate marketing and why it’s worth considering.

Affiliate Marketing 101 – How It Works

At its core, affiliate marketing is when you have someone who advertises your products and services to their following. It can be through their social media accounts, blog posts, YouTube channels, and other platforms that reach a following.

A typical affiliate will either purchase your product at a discounted price or receive something small for free to begin. Then, they share their personal experience with your product, which would draw in others to try it themselves.

An affiliate would have his or her discount code that they would share with their followers. You often see the discount code as their name for 15 percent off the purchase price. It’s enough to entice someone to buy, but not too steep that you’re losing money. When someone uses this code, the affiliate will gain a small commission from the sale (think of it as their paycheque for bringing you in more sales).

It doesn’t have to be a discount code, though. You can also provide the affiliate with a unique URL that they share with their followers. When someone uses said link to make a purchase or sign up for a service, the affiliate will receive a commission that way.

Is It Worth Having an Affiliate Marketing Program?

For starters, affiliate marketing is probably one of the least expensive forms of advertisement out there (besides word of mouth, which is free). The great thing about it is that you only pay the affiliate when a sale is made. If the affiliate doesn’t generate any leads, you don’t pay a cent.

Another benefit is that your affiliate marketer reaches his or her established audience. There’s a decent chance that many of their following doesn’t know about your business. As the affiliate shares posts about your products and services, your brand awareness increases. It’s a way for you to reach a wider audience, gain new clientele, and establish relationships you may otherwise not have gotten.

Of course, one of the main benefits of affiliate marketing is a boost in sales. Even after you pay out the small commission, you’re still increasing your sales. Not only that, because you’ve gotten the word out to a new client, but you also increase your chance of having a repeat customer and having them share with their following too.

Affiliate marketing is a win-win for both sides. The affiliate earns a few bucks as you gain brand awareness, customers, and sales.

If you go this route, create criteria for who can be an affiliate of your brand. You’ll want trustworthy people that will help positively promote your business.

Is The Time Right To Exit My Business?

Every business owner needs to acknowledge that they will want to leave their business at some stage. Therefore, thinking of a business exit strategy from the very beginning couldn’t be more important. Many things need to be borne in mind when exit planning, but perhaps the most vital has to be timing considerations.

Here at CBS-CBS.com, our consultants know how important it is to think well in advance about how to exit a business as early as possible. Therefore, we’ll take a look at how to know when the time is right to exit a business.

The Lifecycle Of Your Business

Whatever kind of business you have, it has its own lifecycle. Knowing where your company is within its own lifecycle is key since this will impact in a major way on how sellable your business is. While there isn’t a single perfect time for selling a business, if you know the exact stage that your business is at, you can ascertain an accurate valuation and, therefore, build a sales pitch that will convince potential buyers. For example, if your high growth business is under a year old, you might require more time in order to progress towards a mature stage, while businesses that are already in their mature stage could require diversification if its value is to increase and its appeal is to extend to a wider pool of buyers.

Is The Time Of Year Right For Selling Your Business?

When you’re timing your business sale, its seasonality shouldn’t be overlooked. For example, if you consider e-commerce enterprises, most notice a significant increase in sales around the busier shopping period from October to January. In the case of some e-commerce websites, this may account for more than half of the company’s annual revenue.

While it may feel natural to sell your business right after this especially lucrative time of year, however, it’s important to consider whether any buyer would be interested in acquiring the company in February but having to wait for 8 months until real returns start to come in. This would have a material impact on how much the buyer would be willing to pay for the company.

With this in mind, timing your exit around lucrative periods is vital.

Is It The Right Choice For Your Business?

Timing is essential to successful sales. There are numerous factors that come into play and, therefore, you need to make sure that you don’t just sell for the right reason, but that you sell at the right time too. Selling your business under duress or too quickly is almost certainly going to end up getting you a low sale price. In general, the longer you’re able to keep your business, the better the chances of your business having a fully-developed exit plan, and the greater the value you can achieve when you sell it.

When it comes to timing your business exit, it’s important to take professional advice. The Corporate Business Solutions team is on hand to answer your questions and help you to draw up an effective strategy for the long-term.