Managing your office cleaning – 6 tips
An office is the last bastion of appearance that a business has, and if your place of work looks anything other than spotless, then you need a commercial cleaner. The fact of the matter is that office cleaning is an extremely important part of office management, as it is proven that staff work better under clean and tidy conditions. The footfall through any office is going to be a lot more than in a domestic setting, so you can’t treat office cleaners in the same way that you would use a house cleaning service. If you are looking to up your game on the way in which you manage the office cleaners, then it is a good idea to have a few things in mind before you wade in. Have a look over the following ideas for some tips and tricks.
For a start, when you are looking for a commercial cleaner, you should simply ask the people around you. You will likely have your office in a block of other offices, and if not, then it is more than likely that there will be offices nearby. A recommendation from another company is a great way to ensure that you are getting a cleaning company that are up to the job, and the standards that you expect. Be sure to only talk to businesses that are nearby however, as there is little use in finding a great cleaning company that are miles away and can’t get to your office easily.
The prices that you are charged for the cleaning should reflect how well you feel the place is cleaned. You will find that the price points between different cleaning services are rarely that far apart, but the fact is that over the years, the savings that could seem small will amount to much larger figures. If you are in a position where you can make a saving, and you feel like the cleaning quality will not be too dramatically affected, then it is well worth looking in to.
The times that you have your best cleaning team round will be a big part of how the cleaning is done at your office. Larger jobs like carpet cleaning and upholstery cleaning should be set aside for weekends, when deep cleaning can take place without getting in the way of the use of the office. If you are in a position where your carpets are sodden or sticky after shampooing, or steam cleaning, then you won’t want clients walking over them. Most commercial cleaning happens in the evenings after office hours any way, but you need to think about how often you need it as well.
The personality of a cleaner who will need to interact with your staff is a big part of making sure that the job goes well, so ensure that you are able to find someone who is going to be happy to talk to people, but aware that they are not to distract anyone form their work.
You need to keep up on your checks over the cleaning services, so that they do not slide in to a lesser state of cleaning efficiency after being impressive initially. If you are able to, you should do tests, like checking higher surfaces for dust after they have been, or putting some scrunched up paper behind a door, to see if they have been through enough to find and remove it.
As a part of this, you need to ensure that either you are supplying, or they are using up to date equipment, as otherwise you will not be getting as good a clean as you need.
Organization is another main aspect, cleaners can’t always manage office stuff so it’s up to the company to make a policy on tidiness. A clean appearance can breed a healthy environment for people to grow and brainstorm too. These aspects might not seem so important when you are starting out but will gain importance as time goes on. Organization can more than half the amount of time spent on cleaning alone. As it is easy to move stuff around and retrieve them. Cleaning standards must be set to a high with equipment and cleaning solutions available at all times. Staff moral can witness an upswing too for people who work in clean places. Your employees need to look at the company and be proud to call it their home that’s why cleaning it can make them happy and extremely productive at the same time.
Read MoreCreative Tips for financing your start up business
Starting up a business is getting easier these days and we have compiled a list of ways you can finance your first endeavours. The first attempt is usually the hardest in the business world as resourcefulness is something that is learned over time. The old fashioned way used to be business loans which can be very hard to get. You might have had to give detailed forecasts of how you foresee your business growing. This can be a pain to do and more often than not has very little accuracy. Nowadays there are plenty of options for entrepreneurs. Some of them are:
Crowdsourcing: Crowdsourcing has becomes extremely important these days and is fast becoming the best way for entrepreneurs to fund their endeavours. Every day you can see new inventions and ideas portrayed through Indiegogo and Kickstarter. You can raise money for rewards or by selling products. If your campaign successfully goes viral you stand the chance to raise millions. A great example is Pebble smartwatch. Be sure to note how much money you get to keep. Most often when you don’t reach your goal the money is returned to the donors.
Angel Investors: Angel investing options have been there for decades but are now more prominent. You can get great amount of seed funding through angel investors by presenting just your idea alone. Angel investing firms can be found all over the world. Companies like Sydney Angels, New York Angels etc are well known. With angel investors an important point to note is that you most often will lose an equity stake even before you have begun. This can vary from 10 to 30% depending upon the investor. Angels do a good job of accelerating the rate with which you find resources too.
Preselling Products: This is way of raising money is becoming more frequent these days. If you have a pre-existing website that generates traffic for a subject that is linked with your new product you can even get a lot of presales going for your product. It’s sort of like a Kickstarter milestone but here the onus is completely on you. Preselling can be rewarding as well as slightly risky because you need to be able to deliver on time and anticipate the inventory size.
Good old F&F: Family and Friends are a boots trappers dream. This is a good way to start but make sure you progress enough with the capital you get to fund yourself through one of the other means mentioned here. This is vital for the survival of your business. Also when you constantly borrow from friends and family, it can take a toll on you mentally if you need to repay them. Try to borrow as little as you can from as few as possible.
Business Grants: This method’s potency is often underestimated. It’s similar to getting grants as a student but this time you will be pitching to business innovation and research institutes. You need to read the fine prints of these grants as some of them may make you give up some or all of the intellectual property you develop. This process is time consuming and unlike others can require a ton of paperwork. If you are eligible it’s definitely good to have a look.
Asset Sale: If you are really focused on your business or idea then you may even want to sell assets you own to finance your new endeavours. You can sell your expensive car and adopt a frugal approach which will give you a lot of capital in the short term. You can support marketing activities this way too. You can sell or rent your property too and travel whilst you work, this is a great way to learn and meet you people.
There are always enough and more ways you can finance your business. Other ways like home loans, credit cards and the likes, can also be of use depending upon the circumstance. Make sure you do not sell your soul and read all the fine print involved in every step of the way. This is important as your financier may end up owning more of the company than you even before you have produced a single product. You need smart partners and investors. If you are looking for 2nd round funding then Venture Capitalists can provide substantially large sums that can help you grow your business rapidly. Bootstrapping initially can help you retail all the power but VCs can require you to relinquish some of that so make sure you tread carefully.
Tips on selling your business
Planning an exit strategy for your business can be vital for many reasons. Early planning has an umpteen number of benefits. If you are looking to raise capital for instance, having a plan in mind can give your investors a reasonable idea about the strategy. The conditions for sale can arise in many strange circumstances, such as at dinner with some likeminded people. Hence, you always have to be well prepared to make sure you are ready to get the while churning when you or your board make the call to sell. We’ve put together some pointers for you to consider when selling your business.
Firstly, make sure you and your management team stand together and stand strong. If your business is solely centred on you, then it’s not very attractive for potential buyers. If some of your star players or all are staying behind then it’s a great incentive for prospective buyers.
Timing is pretty important to so start planning the sale a year or two in advance. This will give you time to get all your information straight. You can even get an appraiser in to find an accurate valuation. This will help you gauge the offers on the table accurately.
Make sure you do your homework about the buyers so that you never ever waste time trying to sell to someone who isn’t serious in the first place. Sort out the internal mechanics too so that your employees don’t panic and any sale rumours. Make the situation abundantly clear to them. Any level of clarity on issues can help.
Get your statistics, books and financials in order. If you are able to clearly present your sales, customer, brand and infrastructure data it can go a long way in making you attractive. Smart buyers can take into consideration all the stuff you have planned for the future too. Make sure you present all the plans you have for the future.
Clear the shelf of any non-trading entities when presenting your company. You might have investment properties and things tied to your business, especially if it’s owned and run by you primarily.
Try not to bank on just a handful of bidders. At the end of the day, your business is just about worth the highest bid, so make sure you present it to many prospects. Your strategy, core values, products and prospects might align with companies that you wouldn’t even consider sometimes. Hence it’s better to put your cards on the table. Competition will also help drive the price up.
When you negotiate always try to be flexible but only if the bare minimum requirement is met. Never accept offers that are a reflection of what the books say now. Instead find a buyer who will pay for what it can be worth in the future. A reasonable balance needs to be found.
Following this make sure you get offers and agreements in writing. Stuff like confidentiality agreements and non-disclosures are essential to make sure everything is carried out within the law. You wouldn’t want any board members or outsiders tricking you. Competitors too sometimes can enter the process just to see if they can buy you out at a good price or take a look at your internal workings.
Patience is key to getting a good price for your life’s hard work. You would not want to be the person that took his or her time to build a great company but grew impatient during the sales process. Remember some people are in it to save as much money as they can so make sure you wait it out and stick by your principles and forecasts, till you match or beat the price you have in mind.
If you don’t have much experience in paperwork or even negotiation, you can hire a broker too. This will free up plenty of valuable time for you to focus on the running of the actual business, especially if the planning process started years in advance. Brokers can set up escrow accounts to make the process even more reliable.
Handling the profits of your sale is also extremely important as it acts as a stepping stone to what you want to do in the future. Tax consequences can be complicated based on where you live. Make sure you have a thorough understanding of the capital gains. The reason for selling the business will more often than not help you with how you spend what you earn. You can always try to keep some shares in the company at all times.
Read MoreHow to Make your Business a Success
Even if you start a business based on your passion, the essence of business is to earn a profit. So you have to discover approaches to kick off income promptly. Continuously find better approaches to keep costs low. All the trade stream in 
the world is useless on the off chance that it’s not positive income, which implies you need to acquire more money than you pay out. To do this, you have to keep your expenses and costs low. We’ve touched on this sometime recently, particularly regarding furnishing a startup.
Tips on How to Make your Business a Success
The primary thought is to never pay retail, and search for utilized or previously owned things to outfit your office or your retail space. Paying sellers in advance additionally gives you influence at arranging better costs. Particularly in this financial environment, where credit is at a premium, merchants are more ready than any other time in recent memory to discover innovative approaches to funding exchanges, and that is a pattern will probably proceed after some time.
So do some additional work and research now to find how proprietors and sellers are discovering approaches to work out arrangements, and you just may hit on entire better approaches for working together.Consider the point of view of your gathering of people. Just on the grounds that you have a solid charge of a subject doesn’t mean the general population you are addressing have the same information as you. Attempt to consider how another person will comprehend what you are attempting to convey, especially on the off chance that they do not have the specialized information around a subject that you have. Whenever arranging, dependably overestimate costs and belittle incomes. This would prepare you for the worst case scenario so nothing in the circumstances can surprise you.
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Avoiding Common Mistakes in Managing a Small Business
Starting a business is not easy, but maintaining that business is the next step, and it is harder to manage than the first one. Still, if you know the common potholes as well as mistakes that business owners make, then you would be better-equipped to evade 
them. An excessive number of business visionaries concentrate on getting their image just before they begin to create leads. That is precisely the wrong approach to business. Leads are constantly more vital than your image, so don’t squander cash getting your image comfortable. You can be spending that same cash to purchase new clients.
Tips for Avoiding Common Mistakes in Managing a Small Business
Before long, you’ll find you can assemble your image starting from the earliest stage, versus putting in years and hundreds of a large number of dollars building it starting from the top. Try not to assume you’ll even survive that long, in light of the fact that without leads, you won’t. Discover approaches to exponentially expand benefits. In business, there are some key drivers that affect benefits. On the off chance that you can ace them while holding your expenses under wraps, you will maintain an effective business.
It’s as basic as getting more leads, changing over more leads into clients, expanding the number of times those clients purchase from you, expanding the normal cost purpose of your deals and expanding your overall revenues. Do any of those, while likewise holding costs down, you will see more benefits. Do every one of them and you will see your business truly take off. Starting a business and making sure it survives is not as hard as you might have imagined. Still, it is not easy either, so you need to make sure that you know what you are doing before you start it.
