Regardless of where you work, productivity is essential to excellent work.  Day after day, employees or self-employed business people find themselves in an office. Unbeknown to most people is the reality that office design can either increase or decrease productivity. 
For office design to increase productivity a few minor adjustments can be made to revamp and energise your office space.
Lighting
The most important feature of any office is its lighting.  Poor lighting can cause irritability, headaches, fatigue, etc. The more natural light an office receives, the more relaxed and productive employees are.  Where possible allow natural light to permeate office space.  Alternatively, invest in natural light bulbs.
Colour
A good splash of colour brightens up any room.  Colour preferences vary per employee as does the saturation of the colour.  Either way, increasing colour in office space will improve productivity.
Some suggestions to add colour to an office include pictures, mugs, pens, or other preferred items with the chosen colour.
Nature
Bringing nature into office space by placing a pot plant in an office or on a desk helps with productivity and attention.  Plants or flowers also release oxygen which clears the air of unwanted bacteria.  A breath of fresh fragrant air is a must to increasing productivity.
Declutter
A clean office space and desk go a long way to increasing productivity.  Everything needs to have its own place.  Create a filing system that is easy to follow and efficient.
Ergonomics
Since most employees and business people find themselves sitting in front of a computer for most of the day, ergonomics is vital for productivity.  The computer monitor needs to be comfortable to the eyes and neck.  The chair needs to provide support to the back while the employee’s feet are flat on the floor.  There should be ample space for the employee’s body to move comfortably while working at a desk or on a computer.
Move around
Sitting in one location without taking a break is not conducive to employee health or productivity.  Office space should provide alternative areas for employees to work. A comfortable chair in an office will help an employee sit somewhere else while pondering a specific topic or scenario.
A change of scenery, body position or a break rests the mind which continues to subconsciously mull over the day’s situations or deadlines.
Balance privacy and spontaneity
The temptation to say goodbye to open plan office and hello to booths may be quite high given that most business people or employees desire their conversations to be private.  Don’t get rid of all the openness just yet.  Rather create a culture where people can engage in private Skype, conference or phone calls.
In the same breath, provide employees with nooks or small lounges near the coffee bar or other similar conversation starter points.  This will encourage employees to engage in spontaneous brainstorming and conversation while providing a place to sit comfortably with a cup of steaming coffee.

Entertaining clients forms a crucial part of creating a lasting first impression.  A client’s time with you needs to be memorable.  When your meeting concludes, they should leave impressed and prepared to do business with you.
Entertaining clients successfully may take considerable effort and time; however, it is well worth it to secure business and establish your company as reputable. 
Preparation is king
Preparation is your ground work.  Everything rides on how well you know your client and how prepared you are for potential mishaps or scenarios.
Find out what your client likes and dislikes; if they have any allergies; their preferred dining experience or other outings.  The more you know about your client, the more attention you can pay to the finer details of your meeting. 
Plan for potential problems.  Does your client need to be collected from the airport?  Think about what you need to do to ensure that your client arrives at your rendezvous on time without any mishaps.  Where necessary provide a chauffeur, GPS coordinates, etc.
Book your reservation in advance.  Make sure that you specify the location of the table you want according to your client’s preferences and meeting purposes.
Familiarity ensures smoothness
When it comes to entertaining clients successfully, your networking skills and circles come into play.  This is when you use your contacts with a concierge, top chef, maître ’de, top receptionist or manager. These contacts will be able to pull the necessary strings to ensure your meeting is ideal.
Have a selection of reputable restaurants at your disposal.  The restaurants you frequently take clients too will have a higher rapport with you thus ensuring quality service. 
When you book your reservation, be sure to deal directly with the manager or maitre’ de to assist you in both your booking and other requirements.  The manager will assist you in placing a specific meal order, ensure food allergies are taken into consideration when preparing the order and so on.
While you book your reservation and plan the meeting with the manager, request your preferred server.  These are the people you know will give you excellent service.  Be sure to tip your server generously for their special attention to you and your client.
Attention to detail
As you prepare to successfully entertain your client, attention to detail is imperative. Request a personal visit from the chef at a certain point in your business meeting – a pleasant surprise for your client. Ensure that your table has hors d’eourves ready upon your arrival.  Paying the bill in advance is another finishing touch since it permits you and your client to leave the restaurant or event at your preference.
Marry food and entertainment
What is better than food and entertainment?  Up your entertainment a notch or two by combining your dining with an orchestra, a visit to the opera, or a more adventurous excursion.  Whatever your decision, ensure your client is well informed of any dress codes or necessary items.

 
There are only two ways to make a living in this world – working for someone else or working for yourself.
 
If you're an employee, unless something serious goes wrong, you have a reasonable expectation of stability, certainty and knowledge of where your next paycheck is coming from. Depending on your employer, you may have good benefits and potential to advance in your career. The risk-reward ratio of a salaried job is low to medium and suits the majority of people just fine. But, as the saying goes, nobody ever got rich working for a salary.
 
As a self-employed person or small-business owner, however, you are entirely responsible for your own income – and, if you have employees, for their income, too. There's always the chance that you will be wildly successful, but that possibility is tempered by the very real risk of failure, sudden changes in the market, and a host of other risks. The risk-reward ratio is high and, for a small percentage of people, worth it.
 
Accept that you will undergo stress
 
If you're considering working for yourself or starting your own company because you're tired of working long hours, many rounds of golf with clients, or getting up at whatever time of day you feel like it, prepare yourself for failure right now. Because, as any successful small-business owner will tell you, it's going to take a massive amount of very hard work, long hours, and the ever-present risk of losing it all. It can be a very high-stress venture and knowing how to deal with that risk could make the difference between pushing through the lean times and packing it all in for a nice, stable salary. Your first step is to accept the fact that you are going to experience stress and prepare yourself to deal with it.
 
Focus on what's in front of you
 
It's always a good idea to have a plan A, B, and C in place to deal with foreseeable contingencies; however, it's impossible to foresee every scenario, so don't spend all your time planning for what might go wrong. Have one or maybe two backup plans in place, then focus on what you're trying to achieve – after all, the cost of reward is risk. Deal with each problem as it arises – don't spend fruitless time worrying about what may happen. At the same time, don't put off dealing with an issue for too long; both of these habits will cause you far too much unnecessary stress.
 
Have a release valve
 
For some self-employed people it's a daily walk with the dog, for others it's a weekly art class. Whatever it is, everyone, no matter how busy, needs time away from work to allow the mind to shut off, focus on other things and remember that there really is more to life than work. Unfortunately, for too many people that ends up being the instant gratification of alcohol or drugs, so take the time to find something worthwhile. Before you even choose the name of your new company, find something that can serve as your release valve and stick with it – you'll thank yourself later for it!
 

Sales, specials, discounts and one-time offers are often a quick, simple way to boost your business. They help you attract new customers, offer long-time customers a reward for their loyalty, and encourage occasional customer’s incentive to buy more items. An added bonus, sales can help you move excess stock that's taking up valuable space earmarked for new products.
 
Reduced price offers are, however, risky business. Offer too big a discount and you won't make any profit; offer too little discount and it hardly seems like a deal. Here are three ways to tackle a special to help maximise your profits.
 
1 Crunch the Numbers
 
The first thing to do is to work out the golden median – what discount will allow you to still make a profit but will seem like a worthwhile deal to customers? This is where a good understanding of your income, expenditure and cost of sales comes into play. Depending on how big your profit margin is, you could potentially offer a significant deal. If it is a small margin, you need to be careful to take into account the hidden costs of the product, like warehousing costs, shipping, and other money already spent. Don't be afraid to ask your accountant to help you work out the figures.
 
2 Find creative ways to offer a deal
 
It's not just about slashing prices. Sometimes, you could gain more effect by offering a bundled deal, where two complementary items are sold together for a small discount, but in a way that showcases the benefit of having both. Alternatively, you could offer discounts for quantity – buy three, get a fourth free, or buy bulk for a discounted rate.
 
You could also offer discounted rates to specific groups. For example, a retail store offering senior citizens certain items at cost price on one day a week would encourage them to buy several additional non-discounted items during their shopping. Another situation, an internet service provider could offer registered university students a certain amount of data per month for free. It pays to be cautious with these kinds of deals, though – they should be limited time offers, as long-term discounting could cause you more harm than good.
 
For service-oriented businesses, you could consider offering certain customers a retainer deal – they get up to a maximum amount of hours or service from your company for a fixed rate every month, which can certainly help in the quieter, leaner months of the year.
 
3 Go seasonal
 
Depending on what you're selling, you could consider offering seasonal deals. A clothing retailer catering to school kids could offer special deals at various times of the year – back to school or beginning of the vacation. A service-based operator could offer an annual discount to long-term customers at a quieter time of the year to encourage additional business.
 
Lastly, a little tip – be very careful of offering reduced prices when your cash flow is tight. You could end up doing yourself more harm than good. It may seem like a great way to drum up extra sales, but unless you are sure of making that profit, it could be too big a risk for your business.

You have a great idea for a small business. You've done all the research, you know there's a need for your product or service and you even have a few great marketing ideas. Unfortunately, you're not exactly a financial genius. You know profit is a good thing and loss not so much. However, when people start asking anything more complicated than are you making any money, you're at a bit of a loss.
 
Even if you employ a top-notch accountant to deal with money matters, it helps to know what position your company is in. To help demystify small business finances, let's look at the basics – P&L and the balance sheet.
 
Profit and Loss Statement
 
At its simplest definition, profit is what is left over after you subtract your costs from your income. From this point, it becomes a matter of going into detail. What are the costs? Are they recurring or once-off? Do you have a single type of income or are there various categories – for example, a property company could get income from rentals, property sales, or investments. Each of these is a different kind of income, or revenue that needs to be shown as its own item on the statement, but counted together, they are all income. Costs could include salaries, consumables, marketing and a host of others.
 
Loss, however, is not the same as costs, or expenses. Loss happens when income minus expenditure results in a negative figure – in other words, when you've made less money than you've spent. This could be because of any number of factors, including unexpected expenses, failure to make enough sales, or a sudden increase in costs. At the same time, loss can be deceptive – for example, just because you haven't sold your inventory doesn't mean it doesn't have value. That's where the balance sheet comes in.
 
Balance Sheet
 
A balance sheet shows your company's overall situation when it comes to assets and liabilities. Assets are anything you own, including income received, property, inventory, investments, equipment, anything that has any kind of value that you owner. Liabilities are anything that causes a drain on your finances. This can include normal operating costs, maintenance fees, even depreciation in the value of fixed assets. The balance sheet takes all these factors into account to show the total balance of equity in your company.
 
Of course, the deeper into company finances you go, the more complex it can seem, but if you can get a handle on these two important statements, you are well on your way to being in control of your own company finances.
 
 

​There is any number of reasons why you could need to know what your business is worth – applying for a business loan, deciding to expand, or to sell out at a profit. You might even be a buyer looking to invest in or purchase a small business, wanting to find out whether it's worth it or not. But how do you accurately assess the value of your business?
 
There's more to it than just looking at your profit margins. We're taking a look at three important things to look at when assessing the value of a small business.
 
Financial Value
 
The first, and probably most logical, place to start is the financial value of the business. This is reasonably straightforward to calculate, although it is advisable to use the services of a good accountant or financial manager to make sure everything is taken into account. The simple calculation is Assets – Liabilities to get the fixed value, plus average profit over the last three years to gauge potential income.
 
Market Value
 
Market value has less to do with its financial value and more to do with whether it has potential to grow beyond its current position. There are several questions you can ask to determine market value:
 
Where does your business sit in relation to other, similar businesses in the market? Who is your target market and what are they doing at the moment? Does your product or service have any unique selling points that could attract investors or buyers? What is the potential for growth in the market generally and this company specifically? If there room for growth or is the market saturated? Look at other, companies of similar size to find out how they have fared in the last year – has there been a significant number of closures in the industry or is it booming?
 
These questions aren't going to give you a financial value, but will help you gauge whether it is worth selling, investing in or buying this kind of company.
 
Reputational Value
 
Even in difficult market conditions, some companies have such a good reputation for customer service, product excellence, market presence, and goodwill that they are a good choice for any investor. Such companies tend to have repeat business based on their positive reputation and relationships with customers.
 
Fortunately, it is a lot easier to find information on a company's reputation than it used to be, say, twenty years ago. With social media, online reviews, publicly available reporting information and even something as simple as email, it is reasonably easy to find out if the company has a good – or bad – reputation.
 
It is always extremely risky to take on a company with a bad reputation, although it is possible to publicize the fact that the company is under new management and that things will change. Counter-intuitively, it can also be extremely risky to take on a company with an impeccable reputation; there is always the possibility that the reputation relies heavily on some seemingly magic combination of factors that could shift under new management.
 
Whether you're the current business owner, a prospective investor or someone looking to buy a business, remember this – the value of a company lies in more than just the money it makes, and a savvy investor will take that to heart.

Best Business Practice – Learning From the Best


Every day, thousands of start-up companies are born. The majority of them will fail, but a few will succeed and it's all because they followed a few simple strategies that are followed by large, successful corporations.  If you're thinking of opening your own small business, or already own one, try these tips to help you grow your business in the right direction.


Management


Whether you're a one-man operation or a small group, effective management is essential for success. For the single-person operation, make sure you manage your time, efforts, resources and relationships with clients well. If you have a few employees, be certain that you are managing them to the best of their ability – ensuring you have people with the right skills for the job, making certain their talents are being used to your best benefit, and keeping an eye on how their time is being used. If you aren't maximising the time they spend at your offices, you need to reconsider how they work.


Service


No matter how big or small, delivering the best possible customer service is absolutely vital. For a large company, one or two disgruntled customers can be managed, placated, or even written off if there's no pleasing the customer. For a small business, the loss of one or two repeat customers can be disastrous. Define your customer service strategy, make sure you and your client understand what will be delivered, how it will be delivered, and when it will be delivered – then stick to that!


Finances


Especially if you're quite busy, it's easy to let the finances slide. Sure, you may be sending out invoices and getting money in, but is that money being properly managed? Are your bills, taxes and salaries being paid on time and accurately? Is there any way you could be investing some of that money to help it grow? If you have plans to expand and need a business loan from your bank, do you have clear cash-flow projections, income and expenditure analysis? Unless you are a financial whizz-kid and are able to not only do your work, manage your company and keep all the finances perfectly in order, you may need an accountant – even a part-time or freelance one.


Skills transfer


One of the greatest risks with a small company is specialisation. The more niche your product or service, the more difficult it is to find the right people to do the work. And even if you find those people, there's no guarantee they will be around forever and if they leave, they take not only their skills, but everything they've learned with them. This can cause a massive skills shortage for your company. Make sure that all knowledge gained within your company is shared, written down, kept alive, so that it can be passed on and not lost along with a prized employee.


Marketing


Effective marketing is absolutely critical for any small business. If nobody knows you exist, they won't be able to use you – it's really that simple. You don't need to spend millions on that marketing, though. Look at current marketing that works – use social media to its best advantage, be present in your marketplace, keep your brand story alive and active. If you find something that works, use it – just don't use it to death, and don't use just that idea.


Keeping a small business running takes plenty of effort, but it can be done. Use these techniques to help make sure your business works, and you could see your company grow beyond your dreams.

The Affordable Care Act, also referred to as Obamacare, is the Obama administration’s tool to address problems within the existing healthcare sector, making affordable healthcare accessible to more Americans through reducing the cost of insurance. But what is the impact of the Affordable Care Act on small businesses? Consideration must be given to lawful requirements and the penalties for not adhering to them, as well as being aware of help available.

Defining a small business

A small business is defined as one that has 50 or less Full Time Equivalent employees. The ACA states that a FTE Employee works 30 hours a week. As this is not a standard for full time hours, businesses need to have a formula in place to calculate their full time employees taking into consideration that part time workers need to be included in the total. Adding one employee could tip the scales resulting in a small business changing status. Businesses could then face penalties if healthcare is not provided to employees. 

Documentation requirements

The requirements of the Affordable Care Act affect all businesses whether small or large in terms of how health benefits are viewed, provided to employees and reported. Understanding the requirements of the ACA on your business is the most important step towards compliance. Without a clear understanding, you may miss your responsibilities incurring unnecessary fines. Accurate and consistent record keeping, and monitoring of hours worked to ensure employees are classified correctly is essential. Organisations must keep documentation of employee eligibility for healthcare, as well as employee’s awareness of their eligibility. This can be done either through electronic signature receipt or manual distribution of documentation with a signed receipt.

Healthcare Plan Options

As a small business there are options available to offer employees healthcare. The Small Business Health Options Program allows small businesses access to more affordable health plans. Also, businesses with less than 25 FTE employees can apply for tax credits to assist with the cost of providing healthcare for employees. Remember a large business must provide, as a minimum, a Minimum Essential Coverage Plan (MEC) and maximum employee contributions vary in some states.

Benefits of providing healthcare

While small businesses are not liable to fines for not providing healthcare, it is important to consider the benefits of doing so. Providing healthcare can lead to greater employee job satisfaction, increasing staff loyalty, and giving the business a competitive edge for hiring skilled and effective employees.  
 
Who can help?
​
Businesses can employ a qualified consultant to ensure preparations are made. Advice is also available from the National Federation of Independent Business, Small Business Majority and the IRS. 

Supply Chain Risk Management is critical for every business, no matter how small.  In fact, small businesses might have more flexibility in dealing with and predicting risks as their operations are usually less complex. A billion-dollar company asking a supplier for a million parts per week might quickly find themselves out of luck should the supplier experience a failure or disruption.  Small businesses can develop alternative strategies and use their nimbleness to their advantage in the event of a supply chain disruption.
Here are a few ways to manage risk in your supply chain.
Use Multiple Suppliers
Often, businesses will solicit bids from several suppliers, inquiring about x number of parts and selecting the one with the lowest price. This can be great for the bottom line. However, a business might be overlooking the risks they are taking when they rely on one supplier for a certain product. 
Often it might be a better idea to have most of x product to come from the preferred company and a smaller percent, 10-20%, come from another supplier.  This may increase the costs overall, but it will allow more flexibility when things go wrong.
One option this arrangement presents is if the main supplier has a difficulty such as a warehouse fire, your company has an existing contract with another supplier. This other contract could be temporarily increased or renegotiated to ensure the product continues to flow smoothly. This is a much better approach than frantically calling new suppliers when your existing supplier has a disruption.  In that case, the new suppliers might hesitate to work with a new customer or might give unfavorable terms because they know you are desperate. 
Have Contingency Plans
Many companies are only worried about the initial plan and once it is running smoothly they see no need to worry about it again. This can have disastrous consequences when something unexpected happens and the business is not prepared.  Most mistakes happen when the information is limited and time is of the essence.
A more logical approach would be to spend some time thinking about hypothetical contingencies.  The idea is that these will provide a blueprint for figuring out how to react and overcome supply chain interruptions.
For example, your company can go over alternative ways to import products should a natural disaster occur. If you normally ship by boat from manufacturing facilities in China, exploring potential airfreight services would be a useful contingency exercise.  Even establishing a contact with multiple companies can make recovering from a supply chain interruption easier.