How to start a small business on a budget

So you've come up an idea, something that either consumers are demanding or are in need of. Kudos to you but where do you go from here? The following article provides you with a rough outline to help you wrap your head around what needs to be done next.

One

It all starts with a well thought-out business plan and budget. This is the key to growing a small business. Preparation, preparation and preparation. At first it may seem that’s all you’re doing. You need to remember that strong foundations lead to a strong business. You’ll need to be a reasoned planner, this may be your baby but you need to think clearly and logically.

Two

You’ll need a marketing objective that is reasonable. There is nothing worse than a goal that is based on wishful thinking. It’s silly to think that you can get by without marketing. You are a new business. People don’t know who you are, what you do and why they should be investing their hard earned money into your business. Your marketing objective should be based on creating awareness but also needs to be broken into specific and measurable goals.

Three

Allocation, where will your revenue be invested? It can’t all go into your pocket, your business needs constant investment to stay afloat. Some of the normal categories of running a small business include; liability insurance, telephone bill, office supplies, computer, employee pay etc. Some business may have storage facilities hired, Fort Knox Storage for example, that will also need to be paid for. As your business grows so will these expenses.

Four

Set a salary for yourself. Do not simply take the remaining amount of money and transfer it to your personal bank account. Be smart, have a rainy day fund. This is also known as your retained earnings, it’s a god send in times of economic downfall.

Five

You have a budget for a reason, stick to it! Business is not about “feel”. It’s about the numbers, they won’t lie to you. Intuition is based on experience and fact. Don’t confuse intuition with your emotions that never ends well.

Six

It never hurts to have someone double check your work. Have a professional look over your business plan and budget with a fine toothed comb. A professional will insure that the quality of the business plan is at the corporate level it needs to be. Have the other person a) check the financial numbers, and b) check the business strategy to see if it's sensible. This is just old-fashioned common sense. This last tip really shouldn’t be a surprise.

Basic information about Bank account types for the layman – A knowledgebase

We all have bank accounts as per our requirements. Those who are in service industry have their salary account, those who are in self service they are maintaining multi accounts like savings, recurring accounts in one bank or more than one bank.

So, bank accounts are important in our life, so I was thinking to explore this topic as per my knowledge and information. In this content you will get to know the information on basic bank accounts.

Savings account:

This is your current account where you can make your regular transactions. A salary account is also one savings account. But in salary accounts you need not keep any minimum amount while opening it. In maximum cases salary accounts will be a zero balance account. But in case of general savings account you need to maintain a minimum amount and also need to pay an amount while opening the same. This depends on the respective bank.

Recurring account:

A recurring account is a good option for small investors for a short span of time. This is a monthly deposit scheme where a sudden amount you need to keep for a period of time. The monthly payable amount will be same and after completing the period the bank will give you the total amount including your deposited amount and interest. The interest rate will be varying as per the deposit period and also the finance department of the respective country.

Now to open a recurring account you must have a savings account in that respective bank otherwise you are not allowed to open the same. And after completing the recurring deposit period the matured amount will get credited to your respective savings account.

Fixed deposit account:

For a fixed deposit you can go for any period but your interest rate will vary according to the time. In fixed deposit the interest rates sometimes vary from bank to bank but every country does have their individual interest structure.

Fixed deposit schemes are very effective for both short and long-term investors. In this deposit scheme the deposited can earn interest monthly, quarterly or even half yearly also. But if you will take the interest after completing the period then your total interest amount will be higher than the rest because cumulative interest rate is applicable here.

For opening fixed deposit schemes you have to open a savings account with the respective bank because here also after maturity your total amount including interest amount will get credited to your savings account.

The above mentioned rules and process will get changed from time to time as per the finance department of the respective country.

Measuring the ROI of Your Social Media Campaign

Social media marketing is rapidly becoming one of the most popular ways to get your name out to the general public. Without the ability to market to people via the social media websites, it can be rather difficult to get the attention of anyone at all. At the same time, it is important that you have a way to measure the success of your social media marketing operation. You need something that you can point to as proof that it is working for you.

Learn How to Measure It

A lot of people try to make social media into some kind of special case. They start to believe that just because it is social media that it deserves some sort of special treatment in terms of how the success of it is measured. In reality, most people just need to take the tried and true approaches that have been done before. By doing this, one can easily see if there social media marketing is working or not. Just measure things like favorites, retweets, and likes. Those are the basis of how well the public is responding to the things you are putting online.

How Does It Show Up On the Balance Sheet

If you hire people to work on your social media marketing for you, that is clearly going to show up on the balance sheet as costs that you have to pay them for the work they are doing. However, there are other ways in which the social media marketing can show up on your balance sheet, and not all of them are a negative. There are some that are actually quite positive. For example, if you drive more customers in the doors after your social media marketing, then that is clearly something that has been a net positive for you.

How to Show the Data to Management

Management is concerned with the bottom line at all times, as they should be. When displaying the data to those in charge, it is a good idea to try to show them the marketing success in a way that they can understand. If you do this, expect that management will look at the numbers and see where things have worked out. They are then likely to allocate more money to the project. They just have to have it shown to them in a simplified manner.

Simply drawing up the cost per impression and other statistics can help management to get a better grasp on what is happening with the project. Use the data to convince management that you deserve more money to continue to fund this project. That should be the goal that you are striving for.

Social media marketing is perhaps the most important type of marketing that we have these days. It is great when a business realizes this and does all that it can to put funding towards it. They have more active engagement with customers, and everyone wins as a result.

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