Cryptocurrency is digital currency that operates independently of governments or a central bank. It is encrypted so as to regulate the generation of coins and verify transfers of funds.

You’ve likely heard of the most important ones: Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Ethereum. There are also Litecoin, Dash, Ripple, and IOTA, as well as others.

If you have been struggling to raise funds for your startup, trading in cryptocurrency could provide a solution for you. If you’d like to know more, keep reading.

 

RELATED ARTICLE: CFD TRADING: WHAT IT IS AND HOW TO USE IT TO FUND YOUR BUSINESS

 

How Does It Work?

Cryptocurrencies are based on what is called “blockchain” technology, Bitcoin’s major contribution to the field. Blockchain technology minimizes the risk of hacking. That’s because multiple servers continuously record every transaction that has ever been executed.

However, while some cryptocurrencies operate with integrity, others are little more than Ponzi schemes.  If you choose to trade in cryptocurrency, therefore, do your homework first, and make sure you understand the risks.

 

Minimize Your Initial Risks by Starting Small

With most brokers these days, trading in Bitcoin is limited to large sums, excluding small traders from the market. One of the reasons for this is that the price of Bitcoin has shot up since its inception, hovering now around $4,000 for one coin. Compare this to its price at the end of 2013, when it traded for around $650 to $800, and you’ll understand the current excitement around it.

These days, however, some brokers are making it possible for almost anyone to start trading in Bitcoin, sometimes with as little as $10. Keep in mind that with small sums you’re not likely to reap huge gains with your initial outings. However, with only a small amount invested, you’ll be able to cautiously gauge the market while you ramp up your activities toward greater profits.

Then, too, unlike with trading in foreign currencies, you can trade cryptocurrencies 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This allows you to trade them whenever you have a spare moment.

 

Where Is the Market Going from Here?

The price of Bitcoin continues to rise, and some investors and traders predict it will go as high as $5,000 per coin by 2018.

As a matter of fact, Ronnie Moas of Standpoint Research is quoted as having said: “It would not shock me to see cryptocurrencies go to 4%” of global investment assets.

He continues, “Before anyone laughs at me for suggesting that something like that could happen—just look at what happened [in bitcoin] in the last five years. People who put in $10,000 made $1 million already. It happened already and I think it will happen one more time. We are in the 15th minute of a 90-minute soccer game—and it could go to overtime.”

 

 

Manage Your Position

Most brokers charge only for the spread. That is, they charge on the difference between the asking price and the bid price.

Some brokers even allow you to trade with no overnight fee. This means that you can keep your position with Bitcoin for however long you like. You can even speculate for long-term growth if you want to.

Be sure to set up your account so that you have negative balance protection, too. This will limit your risks to the amount you invest in the trade.

 

 

More About How to Control Your Risks

When you trade in cryptocurrencies, there is no expiry time. Therefore, it is your decision when you will get out of the trade. If you are not comfortable with monitoring your trade all the time, however, you can use the “position auto closing” function. This feature will close your trade whenever it reaches certain profit or loss that you specify.

For example, you can set your trade to close when it reaches a specified percentage of profit or loss. Or you can set it to close at a certain dollar amount, either profit or loss. You can mix and match these functions, as well. For instance, you could set to your trade to close when it reaches a profit of $60 or if the price of an asset drops below 30%.

 

Boon or Bane?

Depending on who’s talking, cryptocurrency is either the herald of a Utopian future or a financial bubble that’s sure to crash. But if you’re looking to achieve some quick returns to fund your startup and you’re not too risk-averse, trading in the cryptocurrency market may well be the answer to your prayers.

If you’re like most business owners, managing resources in your company is not an easy task. And when resources seem scarce, effective marketing can fall by the wayside.

You’re probably looking for ways in which to promote your company and at the same time reduce costs. Have you ever considered reconfiguring your business model to become more efficient? Believe it or not, much of your daily routine, including managing internal human resources, can be reduced to well managed computerized activities.

And if you can free up your time and resources in these ways, you will be able to focus on developing a cost-effective and compelling marketing plan.

There are solutions available. INTIS telecom, for instance, has developed unique software that can help you to manage your business.

 

RELATED ARTICLE: BUILDING YOUR BRAND: WHAT EVERY ENTREPRENEUR SHOULD KNOW

 

Managing Your Business by SMS

SMS stands for “short message service.” Most of us use SMS routinely when we send texts to our friends and family. But have you ever considered that you can also use SMS for your business?

One of the ways in which you can do this is by requesting feedback in SMS form from your employees and customers. Instant feedback will help you to refine your products and services on the go.

You’ll provide better customer service for your clients and customers in this way. When you can answer customers’ comments, queries, and concerns within minutes instead of within days or weeks, they’ll feel more rapport with you and your company. In this way, SMS can represent a happy marriage between customer service and effective marketing.

Additionally, your employees will feel well taken care of when they know that they can reach you at a moment’s notice. You can provide them with the guidance they need, even when you’re traveling. You’ll have more peace of mind, too, just knowing that you can reach your employees—and they can reach you—at a moment’s notice.

With SMS you can share business ideas with your team and optimize your business model on the go. Your business need never again suffer from a lack of your attention.

 

Use SMS for Marketing, Too

Smartphones now outnumber standard computers by 4 to 1. What does this mean in terms of your marketing? It means that your customers are nearly always on their phones. And if you want customers to pay attention to your marketing, that’s where your marketing messages need to be.

This is where SMS comes in.

Just as SMS makes it easy for your customers to reach you, so also does it make it easy for you to reach them. What’s more, a text message will most likely be seen as a friendly suggestion rather than an intrusion. Again, you’re keeping things cordial and sociable with SMS, and your customers’ loyalty to your brand will be sure to grow as a result.

And the best part? Marketing by SMS is far less expensive than most other methods.

 

 

A Multi-Purpose SMS

In the world of rapidly evolving technologies, SMS is a new tool that will help you to save time on routine business tasks. What’s more, it can make your marketing efforts more successful, too.

If this sounds like something your business could use, look for a telecom company that will help you to set your SMS system up in ways that work for you. You will need a telecom company that can be flexible in terms of setup as well as give you payment terms that suit your budget.

 

Keep in mind that you’ll want a service that provides you with mobile marketing advantages as well as ways to stay in touch with your team.

Business has always been a matter of intelligence. Free up your creativity and curiosity by using SMS to take care of your routine tasks. And give your marketing a boost, too, by adding SMS to your marketing plans.

So you’re looking to take your first tentative steps into the world of online business? Or perhaps you’re already selling in a physical store and want to make the switch to ecommerce instead?

From industry growth to payment gateways, this article looks at the most recent trends of 2017 and predicts how you can stay ahead of the pack in the industry this coming year.

 

RELATED ARTICLE: 6 TIPS FOR STARTING AN ECOMMERCE BUSINESS

 

#1: The ecommerce industry is still growing, but it’s more competitive than ever.

As a small business owner, you should be prepared to face a lot of competition in the online marketplace.

Don’t go into online business with your rose-tinted glasses on. You will have to work hard to cut through the noise, get noticed and offer products at a price at which people want to buy them.

The increasingly fickle and price-conscious online shopper will force you to streamline your business operations. You’ll need to be able to mark up your product offering at a competitive rate while still maintaining a healthy profit margin.

Of course, the competitive landscape and potential to make a profit will vary depending on your product niche and industry vertical.

 

#2: Drop shipping can be a real growth-hacker.

If you’re looking to expand your online product range or get your ecommerce store set up fast—and with little investment—drop shipping may just become your best friend.

Drop shipping involves goods that are sold directly from the manufacturer (or wholesaler) to the customer. When you drop ship, you do not need to hold inventory or worry about the logistics of shipping.

This means that you can start a business or expand your stock with next to no investment.

Many online entrepreneurs are taking to drop shipping, as it allows them to earn money from ecommerce while traveling around the world with no strings attached. Could this be something that your small business also needs to embrace?

 

3#: A multi-platform marketing strategy is the most effective.

Social media. Email marketing. Pay-per-click. Affiliate marketing. SEO. SEM.

All the buzzwords circulating online can cause a business owner to get a little overwhelmed. What is the best way to market your brand?

In 2018, it will be more important than ever to adopt a multi-platform approach that is adaptable and encompasses many of the marketing concepts you’ve been hearing about. Recent studies have shown that campaigns of different types, such as search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC), work best when operating side-by-side.

In other words, you need to be a jack-of-all-trades, with an un-siloed approach to digital marketing, in order to harness the power of online marketing for your business.

 

#4: The phrase “customer is king” has never been so apt.

With crowd-sourced data and review sites leaving your business open to the criticism (and praise) of the general public, you need to ensure that your customer experience is close to perfect, or your brand’s reputation could be damaged.

However, if you treat your customers right, they will treat you right. One way to ensure a positive customer experience is transparency with your customers. For example, be honest at the checkout process about how long the product will take to arrive, and give customers a chance to send in reviews, pictures, and product suggestions.

 

 

#5: Build your online store the fast way.

Rather than starting from scratch with a new website, use an online store builder that already has a lot of the essential SEO and marketing features built into its core. Otherwise, you will just waste time and money developing and designing stuff that is already available in app or plug-in form. What’s more, you might even miss the boat on a great ecommerce opportunity.

There are many great ecommerce sites out there for you to choose from, and most of the market leaders have free trial periods you can try before you invest.  Most of the big ecommerce platforms are also community-centric. They have online help forums and 24-hour support in case you encounter any problems. These measures are massively reassuring to small businesses who can’t afford expensive IT management contracts.

Want to see it in action? Check out this post about Shopify, including some useful ecommerce hacks to get you started with your own online store.

 

6#: Easy payments are essential.

credit: pexels

As discussed, the modern online shopper is extremely price sensitive and more than happy to find a competing company to get what they want if your store doesn’t live up to their expectations.

By offering multiple payment methods you will open your store up to customers on a global scale. This factor alone will boost your conversion rate significantly.

To satisfy diverse preferences, ensure that people can pay with credit cards, debit cards and PayPal. Looking forward to 2018, stay ahead of the pack by offering BPay, mobile wallet and Bitcoin payments as well.

The ecommerce market changes rapidly and the expectations of online consumers are increasing.  What steps are you taking to prepare your online business for the hurdles of 2018? Let us know in the comments.

 

 About the Author

Patrick Foster, ecommerce entrepreneur & writer

Part tech geek, part entrepreneur, with a real penchant for blogging. When I’m not coaching business owners, I am writing about topics in the industry to spread my knowledge. I love helping others to be successful!

Keeping your workforce fully trained and educated in all aspects of their job and industry can often be a time-consuming and costly affair. But with E-learning, it doesn’t have to be.

Whether you’re a small start-up or an experienced business with multiple departments and hundreds of employees, training your workforce isn’t a simple task.

With such a wide range of tasks and problems that occur daily in the typical workplace, you need to have full confidence that your employees are prepared for anything. As the business owner, you need to ensure that everybody who works for you has all the training they need to be up to standard.

Consider the benefits of E-learning and how it helps both the employer and the employee.

 

E-Learning Saves Time

Time is the most valuable resource a business has. So when employees have to spend time away from work for training, especially when they need multiple courses, it can be a big problem.

Startups in particular simply can’t afford it. But even big companies lose money when a quarter of the workforce is away from their job.

That’s where E-learning comes in. It can provide a fast and reliable replacement for the typical training courses available on the market today.

With E-learning, employees don’t need to take time from their work hours. Instead, they can complete courses on their own time, at their own speed. This arrangement gives both the business and the employee a greater return.

 

RELATED ARTICLE: HOW INVESTING IN TECHNOLOGY TRAINING CAN BENEFIT BUSINESS

 

E-Learning Provides Flexibility

Let’s face it. People work at different rates. Traditional training courses often don’t account for this fact.

When an instructor tries to teach a group of up to thirty people at one time, often in only one or two days, the results are less than optimum. On the other hand, E-learning allows the user to take individual courses at their own pace, in their home where they’re much more comfortable. This can often provide greater results.

With courses as modestly priced as they are, you’d be nuts not to give E-learning a chance. When you see how effective it can be, you’ll be hooked. You’ll be able to sign your employees up for all kinds of courses, from fire safety to driver awareness. Your employees will be effectively trained and your business will be as compliant with the law as it can possibly be.

 

 

You Will Love the Cost

According to a recent case study in the UK, McDonald’s saved £5 million over 2 years (that’s roughly $6.5 million) by utilizing E-learning. At the same time, they saw a 10% growth in sales—because of the training.

E-learning drastically reduces the costs of learning and development for businesses. That’s because the effects are immediate. Think of it. Not only do employees need less time away from work, but also they don’t need trainers. In addition, since the course work is all electronic, course materials cost practically nothing. All an employee needs is a laptop, a PC, a tablet, or even a smartphone. Further, no one needs to travel or spend money on lodging, because E-learning can take place anywhere and at any time.

Simply put, E-learning makes it possible for lots of businesses to train their employees in ways that they otherwise would not be able to afford.

 

 

Your Business Will Be More Profitable

The courses you’ll find with E-learning these days are of high quality. Therefore, they will lead to improved profitability for your business. That’s because, with better training, your employees will conduct their work at a higher standard than they would otherwise.

Additionally, employees often offer a better work attitude with E-learning, because they know they’re benefiting, too. After all, they are improving their own futures with training and certifications.  And your business will continue to benefit, as well, as they apply their new-found knowledge to their job processes.

Bottom line, you’ll have a smarter and more aware workforce, and your business will grow at a greater rate.

Freight bill factoring can help freight and trucking companies to manage the intensive cash expenditures of their day-to-day operations.

The nature of the transport industry is such that customers pay for services rendered only after they have received the goods. Oftentimes, the customer will take weeks or even months to address the invoice and pay the balance owing. In many cases, this causes stress on cash flow management that can hinder operational efficiency. Trucking companies that are affected by these factors can benefit enormously from receiving advance funding on account receivables.

 

RELATED ARTICLE: 3 STEPS TO GETTING YOUR INVOICES PAID FASTER

 

What Is Freight Bill Factoring?

Freight bill factoring is one of the easiest, most reliable, and cost-effective ways to manage cash flow for your trucking or freight company. Factoring is the practice of selling account receivables at a discount in exchange for immediate funds.  A freight bill factoring company will effectively buy your invoices for freight that you’ve already delivered. They then collect the money when your customer pays the invoice, and they retain a small fee from you in exchange.

Large fleets and established freight companies with deep pockets may have the financial resources to better manage cash flow issues. However, smaller operations and growing businesses often encounter up-front expenses without adequate funds to make payment when due. These operating expenses often include:

• cash for fuel
• fleet repairs
• tire purchases
• rental/loan payments
• driver payments
• myriad other maintenance and overhead expenses

 

Freight Bill Factoring Stabilizes Cash Flow

While your company might have to wait 30, 60 or 90 days to close out an invoice, you still need to pay your expenses daily.

This creates a funding problem for transportation, mail carrier, and haulage companies, which can be extremely difficult to overcome without improved and stable cash flow. Financing from large banks or financial institutions is invariably not an option for trucking companies. That’s mainly because conventional lenders consider the transportation industry to be volatile and therefore high risk.

Further, since new carriers or freight companies are seldom able to demonstrate profitability or show proof of their past performance, they fail to qualify for commercial operating lines of credit.

This is why many trucking companies are looking to factoring their bills as a cash-flow solution. If your freight business is growing and your clients are credit-worthy, a freight bill factoring company such as Accutrac Capital will buy your outstanding invoices for as little as 1.59% in fees.

 

Convert Your Receivables into Cash

With freight bill factoring, you can convert your slow receivables into cash, which will provide you with a convenient and flexible financing line, which is itself directly related to your ongoing sales. This means that the more you invoice to reputable clients, the more funding will be available to you.

 

 

Factoring your freight bills is a fairly simple process. Once you establish an agreement with an invoice financing company, they can arrange services to fit your needs. Accutrac Capital, for example, offers one-time flat-fee factoring starting from 1.59%. They also have a factoring line of credit designed for larger operations. In addition, they provide flex factoring for trucking companies that expect faster turnaround on their invoices.

 

If your growing trucking company requires a bit of leeway while you’re waiting for invoices to be paid, consider freight bill factoring. Further, think of factoring as a regular extension of your accounts receivable process. With freight bill factoring you’ll have access to improved, flexible, and dependable cash flow solutions.

While most folks consider promotional materials a luxury more than a necessity, there is good reason to believe that promotional materials do a lot more to build brand awareness than is typically believed.

Fortune 500 companies and startup companies alike spend millions of dollars each year on promotional items. T-shirts, key chains, letter openers, and other objects are the usual suspects. Why do they bother?

Interestingly, there is research into how and why these items are most effective. As it turns out, they’re most likely to be the most successful in increasing brand awareness when people use them in places where they do most of their business decision-making.

 

RELATED ARTICLE: MARKETING TACTICS TO GET EXISTING CUSTOMERS TO SPEND MORE

 

Why Are Promotional Materials so Effective?

As a technique of marketing, promotional products work on the concept of gift giving and reciprocity. Company-branded promotional items remind your customers of your brand. Importantly, they also cause your customers to feel just a tiny bit obligated to you. Because you gave them a gift, they feel compelled to reciprocate in some way. They may not even consciously realize this. But as a result, they might purchase your company’s products or services. Or maybe they will just say nice things about your company on social media.

That’s why each year, businesses spend millions of dollars devising creative ways to market materials. Promotional items can be obvious objects of interest like t-shirts, coffee mugs, and key chains. Or they can be not so obvious ones like stress balls, toys, and cookies. The market for promotional items is growing, largely because of how effective they still are for building confidence in your brand and increasing awareness and recognition.

In addition, promotional items like stress balls introduce a tactile component to the process of association. This can further help customers to remember you when they need a product or service your company sells.

Unique Promotional Items Help Your Company Stand Out

T-shirts, business cards, baseball caps, and key chains will always be popular promotional items. However, the industry is homing in on other items that are surprisingly effective for marketing brands. Companies like Next Trend Designs have found a niche by marketing their products to a wide variety firms in various industries.

For instance, they suggest sending contractors out with a company-branded tape measure and screwdriver. This is a great way for companies that specialize in installations to market their company. It builds customer confidence in their brand.

On the other hand, company pens and pencils make great items for employees to use during their day-to-day business. Desk accessories like mugs, glasses, and calendars show prospective clients that your company has invested in its image and is proud of what they do.

Even better, sometimes employees are willing to wear company-branded apparel. This can be more effective in marketing terms than two-minute radio slots or newspaper advertising.

 

 

Promotional Items Are for Small Businesses, Too

For years, larger businesses have invested in promotional branding, but now more than ever it’s important for smaller businesses to do the same. For sports fans, there are good number of items that can be used for promotional materials. One of the most popular is company-branded golf balls. Nothing says your company values the business of a golf enthusiast like a set of company-branded golf balls.

One study conducted on the efficacy of promotional products determined that 66% of the individuals who had been given promotional products were able to remember the name of the company better. Promotional items also delivered a better return on investment than radio or billboard advertising and ranked alongside television and print, in terms of the quality of return. Indeed, promotional items are a classic method for increasing brand awareness, and in a world that continues to evolve from the corporeal into the digital, they remain an effective method of advertising.

I get it: You’ve read your fair share of online  articles about B2B marketing strategies, haven’t you?

And if I’m guessing right, most of those write-ups are generic—borderline useless. You can’t imagine why anyone would even take the time to write such a piece.

Don’t worry. This article isn’t one of those.

If you’re sick and tired of reading pointless articles about B2B marketing that trick you into reading them by claiming they’re “must-read guides,” then you’re in the right place.

I’m going to share with you a 3-step B2B marketing strategy that you can use to grow your customer base. If you take the time to implement and use the steps detailed in this guide, I promise you’ll get positive results out of your marketing endeavors one way or the other.

Let’s hop right in.

 

RELATED ARTICLE: B2B DREAMS: ATTRACTING THE RIGHT CUSTOMERS TO YOUR NEW COMPANY

 

Step 1: Scrape data from directory sites to get leads.

The YellowPages is the best thing since sliced bread for business owners and marketers who are looking for clients in a B2B setting.

Not only does the website have bazillions of people visiting them on a monthly basis (Similarweb says they have about 40 to 50 million unique monthly visitors), but the platform also houses truckloads of businesses in their database.

Don’t believe me?

Allow me to show you a glimpse of what the platform has to offer.

 

First example: digital marketing agencies in LA

For the sake of example, I’ll look for digital marketing agencies in Los Angeles, CA.

Here’s what you’ll see after you click YP’s search button.

 

In the first page alone, I’m seeing 30 businesses listed.

 

 

Now here’s the kicker.

 

 

Next example: massage spa

I tried entering another type of business (massage spa), and I still saw numerous results.

 

 

While I doubt that all of the business listed are real (some of them are probably closed already), I’m sure you’ll agree that a good number of the businesses listed here are still alive and kicking.

 

Now put all that info to good use.

That being said, if you go to YP to scrape the website and contact information of your target business, you’ll be able to come up with a list of people to target real fast.

Once you have your list ready, you can start sending outreach messages to business owners. Depending on your take on what B2B selling is all about, this might or might not be a good tactic for you to try. If you’re more comfortable with pure inbound marketing, as opposed to inbound mixed with outbound, then scraping the YellowPages and then reaching out cold is probably not a good fit for you.

Just remember, there is more to scraping data from the internet than just using it to come up with a list of people to reach out to. The benefits of web scraping are far overreaching. Not only can you use web scraping to find leads, but you can also use it to study your competitors’ marketing strategies, get better insights on how people in your target audience are reacting to offers, or extract data from websites.

At this point, you should already have a list of businesses you can reach out to. However, before you do that, I urge you to do step number 2 first.

 

Step 2: Use Twitter to establish your personal brand.

Before you reach out to others, especially to business owners, do what you need to do to have an established brand. With all the spammers on the internet, almost everyone tends to be wary of anyone who’s reaching out to them. If they do their research and see that the person who contacted them has little or no clout, then they would likely dismiss that person as a spammer. Therefore, they would ignore the person.

Of course, you do not want to be ignored by the business owners whom you’ll reach out to. That would not do at all for your B2B marketing plan.

After all, what good will the list that you’ve put together in step number 1 be if none of them will reply to your outreach message, right?

Well, it’s a good thing there’s Twitter.

Establishing your brand through Twitter is fairly simple to pull off, since there are Twitter automation tools that you can use to increase your Twitter following.

There are a couple of nifty things that these automation tools can do for you. Narrow.io’s features allow you to follow and unfollow people automatically. It also “likes” other people’s posts if those posts have keywords that you added in your account settings.

 

 

 

With these two features alone, you’ll be able to grow your Twitter followers (therefore establishing your brand, to some extent), without you having to spend countless hours on Twitter. You just need to set the Twitter automation tool once, and you’re pretty much ready to go.

 

 

Step 3: Start your outreach.

At this point, you should already have two very crucial ingredients to your client acquisition endeavor:

1) A list of prospects that you can reach out to, and

2) An established enough brand as evidenced by your Twitter profile having thousands of followers.

Now that you have these two points readied, it’s time for you to put your B2B marketing plan into action by reaching out to your list of prospects.

There are several angles you can take when reaching out to your leads. You can either offer them freebies to get them to open up to you, you can straight up pitch your services on your first email (rarely should you do this), or you can contact them offering to collaborate with them on a project of some sort (among other things).

 

Some guidelines for creating your outreach message.

Because there’s no way I can predict which approach you’ll take, allow me to share with you some guidelines that you need to consider when creating your outreach messages.

If you do these things you’ll get better conversion rates:

1. Talk about how the recipients can benefit from you. Not how awesome you are.
2. Keep your message as concise as possible.
3. Make sure that your message have these elements: a) How they can benefit from you, b) A short statement telling why they can trust you, and c) A clear statement telling them what exactly it is that you want them to do. When you have these points in your message, your chances of getting a reply drastically increase.

 

But wait. There’s more.

Another tip I’d like to share with you is how you can use an automatic email finding tool to find a person’s email in a matter of seconds.

VoilaNorbert is one such tool.

You have only to enter your prospect’s name and their domain name, and the tool will automatically find their email for you.

 

Here’s an example.

 

 

Here’s what you’ll see when you click the green “Go Ahead, Norbert” button.

 

Pretty awesome, huh?

When you have tools like these in your B2B marketing arsenal, you’ll be able to do your outreach twice as fast.

Whether you’re pitching a guest post, straight up selling your services, or trying to build a strategic partnership with your prospects, you’ll get better results out of your outreach methods with the points above.

 

What’s next?

What are some of the most straightforward yet highly effective B2B marketing strategies that you’ve used so far?

If you have ideas and strategies that you’d like to share, then please add them in the comments section below. Cheers!

Image Source: Max Pixel

If you’re in the real estate business, house decorating is probably second nature to you. You’re likely quite familiar with what it takes to stage a home for sale. However, the following house decorating tips could help you give any home a special touch, helping it to sell more quickly.

Because what is a house without a decoration? When done right, the way you arrange things can help you create a certain illusion within a room, such as to make it appear bigger or feel more intimate. If you want to set the beautifying process of the various rooms in a house in motion but don’t know how or where to start, these decorating tips should help.

 

RELATED ARTICLE: 10 HOME ACCESSORIES EVERY FEMALE ENTREPRENEUR NEEDS AROUND HER

 

Personality Is the Heart of a Home’s Design

The first critical step to staging or decorating a house is to clean and declutter. It will make it easier for you to see the real structure of the room and decide which old furniture you would like to get rid of.

Don’t let yourself get overwhelmed. Start with a room that you use frequently or is dear to your heart. For many people, a bedroom is a great ground zero. According to a study, people spend at least a third of their time when they are at home inside the bedroom. It is also the place where the owner’s personality will be most accentuated and so it will be a tremendous help for your next step, which is to pick a house decorating theme.

 

Tie It with Colors

Focusing on color choices may get you closer to the theme. Moreover, colors are known to affect the mood. People who like to get up early may find it more appealing to wake up in a room with lighter palette shades and more translucent decorations. On the other hand, deeper tones may satisfy those who tend to sleep late.

Aside from inspiring a lively and carefree mood, bright colors can make a room to appear bigger or wider. However, dark colors create intimacy, calmness, and warmth.

Colors have tone, temperature, and contrast. A slight change in any of these three factors can greatly affect a color’s feel. The most vital principle in choosing a color is to understand what state of mind you want to achieve in a particular room and avoid colors that incite a sad or tired feeling.

 

The Art of Decorating

The next step is to choose the accessories that will complete the look of your room or house. As you are choosing furniture or accent points, it might be a good idea to resist the urge to match everything. Of course, you should have the color of your choice in mind. But instead of buying everything in the same color, think of other colors that can complement your current choice. For example, if you choose the color white, a range of other pastel shades may make the room feel livelier than would several shades of white.

 

 

Flowers as an Accent Point or Centerpiece

Use flowers to avoid a lifeless, generic look.

Roses, specifically, are the flower of choice for many people. They are especially appealing for people who suffer from allergies as roses make little to no airborne pollen. Plus, they look wonderful and come in a variety of types and colors. If you are trying to accentuate a room in your house using roses, here are some creative, ingenious ideas to try, courtesy of the folks at Roses Only.

 

Mason Jars

Mason jars filled with roses can be an attractive accent point to living rooms, bathrooms, and kitchen. They look great sitting on top of a table or under a mirror.

Image Source: Flickr

 

 

Potpourri

Potpourri is a mix of dried flower petals and spices. Not only will it make your house look elegant and classy, it will also make it smell nice.

 

Image Source: Pixabay

 

Hanging Garden

Great for outdoors, a hanging garden is a popular choice for decorating a front porch. The upkeep is easy, and you can score some creativity points by using quirky pots and planters, or even a woven basket.

 

Wall Vines

Running out of house decorating ideas for your own bedroom? This one may be a little bit outside-of-the-box, but it surely will capture the eye. Fresh or dried, it’s your choice!

Image Source: Google Images

 

Wreath

Do you think wreaths are only for the holidays? Not so. If you think your doorway looks too bland, adding a wreath or a garland might not be a bad idea. Try it. A beautiful pink rose wreath will absolutely not remind you of Christmas.

Image Source: Pixabay

 

Centerpiece Arrangement

A table will come alive with the help of a centerpiece. Whether it is for a dinner party or simply a house decorating touch to make you smile as you enter the kitchen, the beauty of a flower arrangement is utterly undeniable.

 

Image Source: Pixabay

 

Incorporating flowers in the process of house decorating can be done in many ways; the sky’s the limit. As it has been proven that home design is one of the sources of happiness for humans, what are you still doing sitting there? Go buy a bouquet or box of roses and have the first of many more smiles to come.

Worldwide, revenue from classified ads is now close to the $100 billion mark and continues to grow steadily. Meanwhile, it is pushing the one-time print business into a massive digital undertaking, reports the AIM group. A recent 3-month research project called the Classified Advertising Report shows that classifieds generate $92.1 billion in revenue worldwide. What’s more, margins hover as high as 80% in some countries.

The 58-page report includes more than 30 “sites and apps worth watching” around the world. Its revenue estimates are based on research in 22 countries, including the US, Canada, the UK, and a number of South American, Asian, and European countries.

Can your small classified ads company grab a share of this massive market?

 

RELATED ARTICLE: THE POWER OF ONLINE CLASSIFIED ADS & USED CARS

 

Notable Facts about Classified Ads Worldwide

In the US, Amazon, the leading international e-commerce company, has launched a preliminary move into the classifieds market in an attempt to compete with smaller successful ventures. At the same time, classified ads in Canada continue to grow as the economy shifts. Smaller companies such as Kijiji.ca have begun to grow and operate on pace with larger entities.

The German media group Axel Springer said that revenues from its classified advertising activities and its growing digital publishing divisions have raised operating profits by nearly 17 percent in the first 3 months of this year. The publisher of Bild, Germany’s largest newspaper, said revenue from classified ads increased in the first quarter by 6.7% over the first quarter of last year. This increase gave them a whopping $836 million in revenue.

Meanwhile, Schibsted, formerly a Norwegian newspaper publisher, has generated 36 percent of the company’s total revenues from digital sources. This is more than 3 times the average of the newspaper industry worldwide.

 

 

Classified Ads Benefit from New Technologies

 

Investment companies are investing millions of dollars in existing classified companies, particularly where new markets are emerging. Some notable highlights from the report are listed below:

 

• The transition from print to digital continues. Digital revenues in 2014 were estimated at 77% of the total, or $75.7 billion of the total. Now, however, they comprise nearly 90% of the total, with values well over $100 billion.

 

• Investment firms are paying particular attention to the classified vertical. General Atlantic, Fidelity Growth Partners, Hellman & Friedman, and Tiger Global, among others, held positions in a number of listed companies.

 

• Trends in the classified ads world that continue to drive revenues in major ways include continued mobile growth and the use of Big Data. Then, too, the crossover between classifieds and e-commerce adds to the booming market, as do growing niche services. Additionally, the use of instant messaging by classified sites facilitates real-time conversations and encourages even more growth.

 

• “Facebay” refers to local flea market-style trading groups on Facebook. Some of these groups are now beginning to operate as substantial businesses.

 

Can Small Classified Ads Companies Hope to Compete?

Another point to consider is the massive number of small upstart classified ad companies that are emerging. Starting an online classified ad platform is a fine vision with a great deal of value creation potential. However, can any of them build enough traffic to become a true horizontal platform and compete with successful early adapters?  Will these new companies be able to displace the entrenched incumbents?  Competing in classifieds is a challenge. Only time will tell whether these small fish will be able to find space in this large pond.

Summer is upon us. It’s time to energize your team and pull out all the stops to maximize opportunities for your business.

Your staff is your business’s most important resource. Energize your team to bring out the best in the individuals who work for you. When you do, your company will achieve improved performance overall.

 

RELATED ARTICLE: LAUNCHING YOUR DREAM BUSINESS? HERE ARE SOME TIPS

 

1. Celebrate Wins

It is all too easy to brush over achievements and automatically work towards the next goal. It’s even easier to forget why a goal was important, which can remove all meaning from the task. When success is celebrated, everyone is reminded that their ability to reach one specific goal indicates just how close they are to achieving even greater goals.

Bring your staff together during morning meetings to energize your team. Use that time to express appreciation and recognition. Taking a moment to encourage and change the team’s mind-set from “work” to “celebration” will create renewed positive energy in the work place.

 

2. Delegate Effectively

Every successful leader is measured by the success of their team. You have to know when to delegate down so you can progress up. Therefore, maximize every opportunity to improve the business’s profits by utilizing some of your most valuable assets: your employees. Employees who feel valued and part of something important will develop greater self-confidence. This can only benefit of your business.

However, it’s all about delegating successfully. Ensure you provide your employees with detailed task instructions. Then, check on their progress and help them develop their skills where needed. Always acknowledge them for accepting new responsibilities and express gratitude for their efforts.

 

 

3. Encourage New Ideas

Help your business innovate by creating a culture in which all employees are actively encouraged to put ideas forward. An incredibly powerful way to bring out the best in people is by unlocking their creative side. Allocate time to hear new ideas through small sessions of brainstorming. Then, explore, test and refine those ideas.

Growing a business and achieving targets takes hard work and ambition from everyone involved. Therefore, providing adequate resources to develop and implement ideas worth acting upon is key. The team will feel involved in the improvements and rewarded for their creative thinking. Encouraging new ideas is a great way to energize your team.

 

4. Engage with Each Individual

How well do you know each of your employees? How well do they know you? Get to know your staff and their objectives by sharing your vision and hopes for the business. If everyone is aware of the collective vision, it will empower each individual and lead to greater motivation and enthusiasm to achieve results.

Take the time to really get to know each member of your staff. Learn what their hopes are personally and professionally. Professional goals can be achieved by offering training in the areas individuals are interested in. By doing so you are fostering a work place environment in which they feel appreciated and valued.

However, while setting up a training program is incredibly important, it can be costly. Some businesses have benefited from a cash injection to help with the initial setup and running costs of such a venture. You could look into applying for a small business loan to supplement your plans. This initial investment will pay off once your staff members feel more empowered to realize their full potential and help grow the business.

 

5. Introduce Change

When your team is lacking energy and enthusiasm, it’s time to energize your team by introducing change. Small changes are sometimes more effective than drastic changes which could have a negative effect on morale.

Make it simple for yourself and encourage change by listening to opinions and introducing a suggestion box. Small changes can be made to the work place environment, the sales process or the rewards systems to rejuvenate team spirit. People struggle to grow if they are constantly doing what they have always done. Therefore, they need guidance and leadership. Help your staff develop new skills by giving them new challenging tasks.

 

 

6. Reward Excellence

Why do we work so hard? One of the greatest needs for us all is that of feeling appreciated for our efforts. As you may agree, rewarding great work is important, especially for those who stand out from the crowd and go the extra mile. It’s important to feed ambition through recognition and ultimately encourage other individuals to follow. Moreover, make sure that your employees understand how to earn rewards and set reasonable and transparent performance standards.

Ensuring that rewards are given for excellence builds stronger loyalty. And don’t forget that rewards can be in many forms. Just remember to establish a strong structure for personal development. Then, offer a clear progression route so that employees can take charge and seek the benefits.