If you own your business and have worked hard to get it running you know how much time and energy you have to put in every hour, every day.  If you have a family it’s even harder, you have to try to balance the needs of your family and your business.

Trying to grow your business and stay connected with your family can sometimes seem like an impossible feat.  If you stop to spend some time with your family you may feel like you’ll miss an opportunity and if you don’t spend time with your family there are a whole host of issues that can arise.

So how do you handle both?  There are no magic answers unfortunately, or all of us who have kids and work to keep our businesses successful wouldn’t be so stressed out!

Some simple tips from you from About.com:

• Prioritize – I know this advice sounds like a no brainer and consciously we all know this but it’s sometimes to stick to that priority list.  I know myself that sometimes when I prioritize things, including spending time with my family, I let those little things get in the way of that priority.  I’ll be sitting in my office, looking at my “to do” list and instead of sticking my my priority list I decide to get some of those easy items wiped off of my list.  Yes I make my “to do” list shorter but I have just wasted valuable time I could have spent with my family.  This is an easy concept in theory but I personally know how hard it is to stick to.

• Turn off your phone – Another hard thing to follow.  When you’re spending time with your family, set some dedicated time aside where you actually turn off your phone.  Yes, you are trying to run a business, and even grow that business but turning your phone off for a couple of dedicated hours isn’t going to hurt your business in the long run.  In fact it will give you time to connect with your family without the easy distraction of the phone ringing or that little beep to let you know you’ve got mail.  Obviously this should be planned out, in your calendar so that you can try to minimize impact on your business as well.

• Get enough sleep – You may be wondering what sleep has to do with work/life balance, particularly how to balance work and family.  It doesn’t.  It has to do with you and how effective you are with your business and your family if you don’t take care of yourself.  Getting enough sleep and taking care of your health helps keep you in the game, mentally and physically and not wasting time being sick or exhausted.  I struggle with this one sometimes, when I finally get home I have to wrestle kids into bed, get things prepared for the next day and take care of household chores.  There’s always one more thing to do before I can relax, but hitting the sack in time will help you in the long run, even if you didn’t get the chance to fold that last load of laundry or answer one more email.

• Take every moment you can – there are days when I don’t get home until my youngest son is fast asleep.  When that happens I often sneak into his room, look down on him and take a moment to reflect on how precious he is and important to me he is.  I kiss him goodnight and sneak back out to say hello to the husband I’ve neglected that day.  My point – take every moment you can to reconnect with your family, whether it’s a brief reflection, a quick date with your partner or Sunday afternoon at the park.  These little moments recharge you like nothing else can.

Like I said, there is no magic fix or eye opening advice that I can give you, only common sense and perseverance.  Running a business is hard enough, throw in a family and the balls in the air you’re juggling increase immensely.  Some days you’ll feel like you’re dropping every one and others you’ll feel like you can manage it all.  Relish the days you feel like you can do it all and forget the days you feel like you can’t.  Being flexible will be essential in your management of work/life balance, and learning what works or doesn’t as you go.

Keep juggling and remember that you don’t have to be all things at the same time.  Prioritizing your different “roles” throughout the day will help you stay sane on those busy days!

This blog is brought to you by the Moss team at Liquid Capital, contact them today to see how they can help you grow your business http://www.moss.liquidcapitalcorp.com/

When you’re first starting out with your endeavor it can be hard to get financing through traditional methods, which can be frustrating and disheartening.  Don’t let that kill your dreams.

Alternative financing options is a very viable option to explore to help you build your business.  Get your products moving, while you focus on your business Liquid Capital can focus on the hassle of collections.

Success requires growth, and growth requires funding.  That’s where we come in!

For more information and exciting growth opportunities contact Liquid Capital today!

This blog is brought to you by the Moss team at Liquid Capital, contact them today to see how they can help you grow your business http://www.moss.liquidcapitalcorp.com/

I ask because of a recent personal experience of mine that I wanted to share with you that struck me as a great success story on customer experience.

I was on my way for a week long camping trip with family and friends when we stopped at a small meat shop in the middle of nowhere, in Hedley BC.  Doug’s Homestead is a hundred kilometres from anywhere, on a lone road with a brief scattering of buildings here and there.  From the outside it looks like nothing, no reason to stop, no reason to even pay attention to the small building.

We did stop, because the friend I was with had stopped the year before for their amazing beef jerky.  We walked into the store, just barely making it into the door.  Peering around the many people standing in front of the counter we soon realized the beef jerky case was completely empty, not even a crumb remained.  You`d think we would have simply turned and walked out the door we had just come in from.

Not the case.  In fact, no sooner had I made the disappointing discovery we would not be chewing on fantastic beef jerky then my attention was completely captured by what was happening before me.  The lady behind the counter was serving up their homemade pepperoni, having customers guess the price based on the weight of one piece of the pepperoni they had chosen.  The customer would yell out their guess, the whole room waited with baited breathe, and the server shouted out the price.  An answering shout would go out from the crowd based on how close the guess was.

The people in the store were having fun and as I stood in line, I had the chance to look around me to see the other tasty offerings.  I ended up buying 6 sticks of garlic pepperoni, homemade chocolate chip cookies and some candies for the kids when all I really came for was beef jerky.

When we finally reached the cashier we asked about the beef jerky.  The lady behind the till replied `We open at 9, it`s sold out by 9:30“.

So how can a tiny little store, in the middle of nowhere, be filled to the rafters with customers, sell out a product every day half an hour after opening and be so successful that word of mouth spreads so effectively?  I came in for one thing and left with an entirely different purchase, and was happy to spend my money there.  I left satisfied and excited to come back next year on our yearly trek to the middle of nowhere.

THAT is what I call customer experience.  Not only get your customers into your door, but keep them there.  Have some method to interest them enough to give you the opportunity to sell your other products and services.  Have them leave with a smile on their face ready and willing to tell anyone who will listen about the incredible experience they just had.  Best of all, keep them coming back!

This blog is brought to you by the Moss team at Liquid Capital, contact them today to see how they can help you grow your business http://www.moss.liquidcapitalcorp.com/.

Have you ever dealt with that difficult person in a busy grocery store line up or hear them complaining while you’re trying to enjoy a nice dinner out?  There are difficult people everywhere, and much of the time you can simply tune them out or quickly forget about them.

But what if they’re your employee?  It’s a common gut reaction to ignore the behaviour and hope it just goes away.  I don’t know many people who love that kind of conflict, me included.  Looking the other way in the grocery store is ok; it’s a different story if you are a business owner with a difficult employee.

This topic is dear to me since I just recently had to deal with this issue myself (No, I wasn’t the difficult one!) I pride myself at being able to deal with any situation, but in my recent situation I actually researched some tips to make sure I was thinking of everything.

I want to share some of the tips I found worked for me (If you want more information about any of the tips, or our services give us a shout at 1-888-816-0054)

• Are they worth keeping? Keep in mind that the employee I was dealing with was producing the work I wanted, it was more the behaviours I found unacceptable (negative talking, poor customer service in some instances, a bad habit of complaining about everything).  You should evaluate if the employee in question is to be frank, worth saving.

• Don’t ignore the problem:  as much as you may wish it is not likely to go away, and if you have more than one person in your employee don’t be fooled that the situation isn’t affecting others.

• Intervention is necessary:  Once you come to terms that the issue must be dealt with you need to start carefully planning out how you are going to approach the person, what  actions you want to see happen and what outcome you desire.

• See for yourself: If you haven’t personally seen the bad behaviour you should take the time to do some research yourself to confirm the validity of the issue and specific instances and behaviours that you find unacceptable

• Focus on solutions: When you finally meet with the person it is very easy to get caught up in the bad behaviours and not put enough focus on the desired outcomes.  While you should provide specific details of the unacceptable behaviour, instances it has occurred and clear expectations that the behaviour is unacceptable it is also important to help the employee find those solutions.  You don’t want to take their problems on, you want to help them identify a plan of action they will do to get back on track while offering your support to that end.

The above suggestions sound easy and they truly are…once you set your mind to dealing with the issue head on and following it through.  As a business owner you want to offer the best products and service you can, having the right employees will help you achieve that.

This blog is brought to you by the Moss team at Liquid Capital, contact them today to see how they can help you grow your business http://www.moss.liquidcapitalcorp.com/.

• Growing your customer base or pounding the pavement to get more customers.  You can achieve this by actively working on referrals, cold-calling potential clients, networking, advertising in local papers, or trade publications.  You can create a website; work with a professional to expand your web presence.

• Grow your share of wallet  instead of working on increasing your customer base, work on your existing customer base and gaining more business from them

• Offer new products or services – by expanding the services you provide or the products you sell you can grow your business, both by obtaining new business and having an expanded offering for your existing customer base.

These are the just three of the many ways you can grow your business to the next level.

The challenge you may face with all of the above suggestions is that all three require cash flow to be able to achieve success.

It’s important to plan for cash flow for growth.  If you are just building your business or wanting to take your business to the next level chances are you don’t have a lot of extra money in the bank just waiting to spend on expansion.  Likely you are working hard to stay afloat with your finances.

A viable option may be to seek to finance your expansions.  Two ways you can do this are:

1. Traditional banks: usually requires you to have assets and great financial stability, with a good credit score.
2. Alternative financing: You can arrange short term or longer term financing options such as factoring, accounts receivable financing, etc.  This option is an option if you don’t have the necessary stringent requirements that the more traditional financing companies require.

Financing can put money into your pocket to make it possible to grow your business

This blog is brought to you by the Moss team at Liquid Capital, contact them today to see how they can help you grow your business http://www.moss.liquidcapitalcorp.com/.

When you are interacting with someone else, a genuine smile does so many things!  It builds rapport and trust and makes the person you are speaking to have more favourable feelings about you.

For those of you who deal with customers face to face smiling has been proven to build trust.  Research has also found that people tend to respond with a smile, it’s truly contagious!

If you only interact with customers via phone, don’t discount the benefits of smiling.  Studies show that people can tell if you are smiling when speaking to you on the phone.  It changes the tone of your voice and makes people respond more positively to you.  (HP.com, discovery.com)

For those of you who only deal with customers online or in writing, keep smiling anyway, there are health benefits!

Now not just any smile will do, it must be as genuine as possible (or appear to be).  Some tips I found at philstar.com:

• A slow smile is more credible, especially women (think Margaret Thatcher)
• A big warm smile brought on slowly will do wonders, it appears sincere and personalized
• Flooding smile – instead of spreading your lips into an instant smile, look at the person for a moment, take them in,  then let a big, warm, responsive smile spread over your face – it will engulf the person in warmth, making them feel truly welcome

Ted.com had this fantastic quote, and video:

“When you smile you don’t only appear to be more likable and courteous, you appear to be more competent.” (Ron Gutman)

http://www.ted.com/talks/ron_gutman_the_hidden_power_of_smiling.html

So want to build that rapport with your customers to keep them coming back?  It can all start with a smile.

This blog is brought to you by the Moss team at http://www.moss.liquidcapitalcorp.com/, check them out for all of your alternative financing needs.

It is much easier when you start your business and don’t have any employees because you don’t have to think about this (and you certainly aren’t taking much time off yourself usually!).  When you grow your business and begin to hire people there are so many factors you must consider.

In Canada every province differs slightly in the amount you must pay in vacation pay and the amount of time they’re entitled to take off as vacation.

I found a list at Payworks.ca:

As an employer you can schedule employee vacations according to what works for your operations as long you allow time in the period the vacation is earned. (Finding a great compromise to suit both your business needs and your employees is the ideal)

Summer time is a busy time for both business and people wanting time off to soak up the sun, so I hope this information is useful to you when trying to determine entitlements.

This blog is brought to you by the Moss team at http://www.moss.liquidcapitalcorp.com/, check them out for all of your alternative financing needs.

You sign up for your local networking opportunities to build your own business, which is good.  How about if you could make money simply by referring people when the opportunity presented itself? You could make the time spent networking for your own business work even more in your favour by with earnings by referral.

At Liquid Capital we have a referral program, that for any referral resulting in a sale earns a 10% commission.

So let’s talk about my story from last blog again for a moment.  I want to renew my mortgage, my friend, who actively networks, hands me some referrals for mortgage brokers.  I require the service anyway, but my friend has just made it easier for me.

Think about if this mortgage broker gave a commission for a successful sale based on the referral?

A hypothetical, if my scenario provided the same referral program Liquid Capital offers:

• I needed the service
• My friend provided the referral
• I went with the company referred and completed my sale
• A commission
• Win – Win!

Liquid Capital provides alternate financing options for businesses that cannot get traditional bank loans for whatever reason.  In the course of networking I am sure that this situation would occur frequently, particularly in the current economic climate we find ourselves in.

Interested in finding out more about Liquid Capital’s referral program?  Contact Tracey Carlson, at tcarlson@liquidcapitalcorp.com

This blog is brought to you by the Moss team at http://www.moss.liquidcapitalcorp.com/, check them out for all of your alternative financing needs.

If you have just started out or are looking to refresh your sales leads a good way to generate these new leads is through networking.   While advertising is a good method to get the name of your business and what you do out there, networking can build a longer lasting effect.

Networking opens up a whole world of “word of mouth” marketing opportunities.  Just as an example of how effective it can be, recently I was talking to a friend about my upcoming mortgage renewal and before I could even finish the sentence “I have to do some research…” she handed me several names and numbers of mortgage brokers in our area.  She is a member of several networking groups, such as BNI, where she meets frequently with other local entrepreneurs and business contacts.  Mortgages are completely out of the realm of my friends consulting business yet she threw at least five names my way to get the best deal.

Think about those mortgage brokers.  Just by coming to those networking functions and talking to my friend (who likes to talk!) they benefitted with new sales leads.  In fact, they also received her mortgage renewal.  Just by stopping at her side, providing a card and passing along their business interests.

Another great place to look for networking opportunities are through your local board of trade, better business bureau or Chamber of Commerce.

There are also online communities, such as Linkedin that provide networking opportunities on a more global scale if you prefer online forums to in person meetings.

Networking generally costs little but time but the outcomes can generate business and long term business relationships.  This can benefit you professionally and personally.  The fantastic thing about word of mouth is that it spreads quickly, whether through existing clients, friends, family or business networking connections.  The trick is to make sure it is positive feedback and referrals coming your way, so make sure to make great first impressions (and second impressions, and third,…)

So check out your local business networking opportunities and start getting your name and what you have to offer out there to the masses!

This blog is brought to you by the Moss team at http://www.moss.liquidcapitalcorp.com/, check them out for all of your alternative financing needs.

Too much work and not enough staff or room currently to get it accomplished?  One thing to consider is outsourcing some of your work.  Before you make that decision, research is essential.  I wanted to share some benefits that I found when researching the topic:

From About.com:

• It allows you to focus on core business without spreading your finances or resources too thin, particularly as you grow your business

• Cost savings is a benefit of outsourcing, when you don’t have to spend money on training, administration of and resourcing on complicated or time consuming tasks that could be outsourced at a reasonable cost

• A reduction in overhead – you don’t have to get bigger space to house something like a telemarketing or customer service department, you could outsource this to companies that specialize in these types of services, it saves you time and space and you continue to grow your company

• You have flexibility, if you run a business that has seasonal fluctuations, or want to run a marketing campaign for the short term, outsourcing allows you to do that effectively

There are many more advantages of outsourcing some of the functions of your business, I hope if you are considering this that you don’t just read this blog but do your research to find out if outsourcing is right for you, and if it is, to find the best way to do so.

This blog is brought to you by the Moss team at http://www.moss.liquidcapitalcorp.com/, check them out for all of your alternative financing needs.