November 24, 2024

How to Sell Your Personal Brand as a Real Estate Agent

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When you are working as a real estate agent, a lot of your ability to find and keep clients is based on your personal brand. But it can take time and work to figure out what your brand is and how to really sell it to potential clients. If you can master your personal brand and market it to others, you can make your real estate business as successful as possible.

Use Social Media

One of the best ways for you to connect with your customers is through a social media platform. If you can build an audience on social media, you can interact more with customers and start building up a larger client pool. Make sure to be active on your social media platform and to stay consistent with your brand. Respond quickly to comments and messages so you can build a reputation on social media as well as in person. You can also use social media for targeted advertising based on your location.

Create a Website

In the modern world of real estate you can’t be as successful as possible if you don’t have a website. You also need your website to be well designed, highly functional, and easy to navigate. Visibility is crucial for gaining clients in the real estate industry, and your website is one of the main ways that people will learn about you and start interacting with your brand. Having your website professionally designed can help you to put a professional face on your real estate business.

Choose a Niche

Having a niche is a great way to give your personal brand more meaning. When you are trying to make your brand work for everyone, it is hard to make things happen. But when you know your niche and your audience, you can tailor everything you do to their needs. You can focus on particular kinds of properties or even specific geographical regions or price ranges. With that focus you can better suit the needs of your clients and make more of a name for yourself while you are at it.

As a real estate agent, your personal brand is a huge part of your ability to succeed. When you feel confident that you can reach the people you need in a way that will appeal to them, you can be far more successful. Now is a great time to start developing your personal brand and selling it.

Check out this article on how to prepare for the worst at your business!

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How to Run a Successful Brick-and-Mortar Store in 2022

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With COVID-19 lockdowns and social media shopping, it seems like the past few years have discouraged a lot of brick-and-mortar business owners. However, even though there have been a lot of changes in the last few years, you can still run a successful in-person business. Here are a few steps that can help you to find success at your brick-and-mortar location.

Stand Out

First off, it is necessary that you stand out. One of the most important tasks that you have in order to keep your brick-and-mortar store running is standing out from all your competitors. You want customers to walk into your store and instantly want to come back again. For example, if you own a photo lab, you don’t want your customers to enter your store and wish that they’d just ordered at Costco or Walgreens. You want your customers to think, “I’m never ordering photos anywhere else!” There are lots of different elements that can make you stand out. Of course, the décor and atmosphere of your store will prepare them for a good experience, but ultimately, the quality of your products and the interactions that your customers have with your employees will determine how they feel about your company.

Integrate With an Online Store

Next, you need to integrate your brick-and-mortar business with your online store if you want to be successful with your customers. POS software allows you to seamlessly integrate your online store with your physical store. This will allow you to receive online orders and ship products to different areas to customers that wouldn’t be able to visit your brick-and-mortar store. Having an integrated online store will also help you to gain a greater online audience and following, especially if you have an attractive and functional website.

Make the Most of Social Media

Finally, if you’re not taking advantage of social media to help your brick-and-mortar store, you’re making a big mistake. Social media isn’t only for online exclusive shops, or little Instagram businesses without a storefront. Social media can help you to attract new customers that would have never found your store by passing it on the street. There are millions of users on social media each day that could possibly be exposed to your great products and services, which could increase sales and help your business to be more successful. Social media can also help you to connect with other businesses or creators in your industry, which can expose you to customers or followers in your niche.

So, now that you’ve been reminded that it is still possible to have a successful brick-and-mortar store, even in 2022, don’t let any of your fears hold you back. Remember to make your business stand out, integrate your in-person store with your online store, and make the most of social media to better grow your business. This will help you to grow your audience, improve your sales, and reach goals that you’ve never dreamed of.

Check out this article on how to make your company an attractive place to work!

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How to Prepare Now for a Major Malware Attack

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There are few things more important to your business in today’s digital world than cybersecurity protections. Without cybersecurity protections, your business can be incredibly vulnerable to dangerous attacks that can end up costing your business in major ways. One of the most common types of cybersecurity attacks is the malware attack, where any type of malicious software that has been downloaded begins doing unauthorized tasks on your systems. This can result in things like spying, ransom, remote control of your servers, etc. Here is how you can prepare now for a major malware attack on your business.

Implement Cyber Security Protocols

The very first thing that you need to do to protect your business from a major malware attack is to implement cybersecurity protocols across your company. The only way to prevent cybersecurity attacks is with the proper protocol to ensure your data and systems remain safe. This includes things like requiring strong passwords and dual factor authentication, as well as mandating firewalls, and other protections. Make sure you work with a cybersecurity professional to discuss your options and find out what protocols are the most important to protect in your business from a malware attack.

Back Up Everything

Another important thing that you need to do to protect your business from major malware attacks is to back up everything that you have on your systems. Backups can come in handy in the event of a data breach. These backups will allow you to have a system backup with all the data that you have, ready and able to relaunch as soon as you notice a problem. You should be backing up your servers and systems very often, so that whenever anything changes, you have a new backup that can be used for information or as a backup plan.

Update Your Software Always

The final thing that you need to do to prepare your business for a major malware attack is to update your software frequently. When your software is old, there is more time for hackers and cybercriminals to find the weak points and exploit them to their advantage. One of the major reasons software has upgrades is for better security. By updating your software, you are ensuring that you have the most up to date protections on your computers to keep your business safe from attacks.

There is nothing more catastrophic to a business than a major malware attack. And they are far more common than you may be led to believe. Make sure that you are following these steps to ensure that your business is properly protected from the threat of a malware attack.

Check out this article on how to make your company an attractive place to work!

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Retirement Account Options Businesses Can Choose From

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To keep a competitive edge and attract the best talent to your business, it is important to offer the benefits that your employees want most. Retirement benefits are the second most desired benefit, falling just behind health care benefits. Choosing the best retirement plan for your business will depend on the number of employees and whether your business is a sole proprietorship, an LLC, or a corporation. Here are a few good options to consider.

A SEP-IRA

If you are self-employed, then a SEP-IRA is a great option. Even as a sole-proprietor, you as owner can receive the same benefits that would be offered to employees. The maximum contribution allowed per year is relatively high, sitting at 25% of your annual income or 61,000, whichever is less, in 2022. This creates a double benefit for sole proprietors, who get to make pre-tax contributions and claim any business-funded matching as a deduction. Bottom line, you can save more with a SEP-IRA. The SEP-IRA is also one of the simpler plans administratively, with minimal paperwork and no IRS reporting. However, if you have employees and you choose the SEP-IRA, you must contribute the same amount across the board into each employee’s account, including your own.

A 401(k)

If you want to provide a 401(k) plan for your business, there are several options. The three basic 401(k) plans are Standard profit sharing 401(k)’s, Simple 401(k)’s, and Safe Harbor profit sharing plans. Standard profit sharing 401(k) plans give employers the flexibility to choose their desired level of contributions, including the option to contribute nothing. The downside is that this plan is highly complex, with massive amounts of paperwork and required IRS equality testing. The Simple 401(k) plan is ideal for smaller businesses, with less than 100 employees. While this plan does not require IRS equality testing, it does enforce employer contributions. Finally, the Safe Harbor profit sharing plan was designed to eliminate the need for nondiscrimination testing by enforcing highly structured employer contributions. A safe harbor 401(k) helps you avoid onerous IRS rules.

SIMPLE IRA

While the SIMPLE IRA is easy to set up and maintain, the name is actually an acronym that stands for Savings Incentive Match Plan for Employees. This plan provides free setup, allows for relatively high employee contributions through elective deferrals, and requires relatively low employer matching. The simple IRA is exempt from nondiscrimination testing and is easy to file. All of this means that the SIMPLE IRA is another great option for smaller businesses.

With great options and an abundance of support, offering a retirement plan at your business is simple. And because of the tax exemptions and credits available to businesses, it is an affordable benefit to provide.

Check out this article on how to inspire your employees to perform their best!

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How to Prepare for the Worst at Your Business

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Hope for the best and prepare for the worst. These words of wisdom ring true for most ventures, and it’s smart to take this advice in your business practices as well. It is very easy for many business owners to hope for the best, imagining huge success and growth for their business, but it is harder to get business owners to prepare for the worst. But time and time again it is the businesses that are prepared to get through the bad times that experience the most of the good times. Here are three ways that you can prepare your business for the worst to improve your resilience.

Stay Financially Healthy

The very first step to preparing your business for the worst is just solid business advice regardless, and that is to stay financially healthy. The financial health of your business is one of the many aspects that excites investors and customers about your business. More than that, your financial health is what makes your business viable. After all, if your business loses money consistently, eventually you are going to flop. Make sure you can pay off all debts that you take on and that your business is generating a profit, or at the very least breaking even. You can always work from there.

Backup Your Data

The most important step to preparing your business for the worst in the digital age is backing up your business data. You should have a business backup both in the cloud and on a physical server location. Data should be backed up to a location offsite for the most security. If you are only backing up your data on site then you are leaving yourself more vulnerable, as cybercriminals will know where to be looking for your data and how to find it.

Business Insurance

The final step to preparing your company for the worst is to make sure that you have good business insurance. Business insurance can protect your business from all sorts of issues like theft, bankruptcy, and liability. With business insurance, you can rest easy knowing that if something terrible were to happen, your business is well protected and can survive just fine. If you have a business and do not have business insurance, you must get it ASAP.

There are few things as stressful as owning your own business. When you take your livelihood into your own hands, your chances of success go through the rough, but so do your responsibilities. Make sure that you’re doing these three things to ensure that your business is always prepared for the worst, so that you can keep hoping for the best.

Read this next: How to Form Lasting Connections with New Customers

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How to Keep Up with E-Commerce Competition

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E-commerce has been the major wave for new businesses and entrepreneurs in the past decade. E-commerce is any business model that relies on or solely relies on online transactions as the source of business. E-commerce stores do everything, but mostly you will find your e-commerce success stories are stores that sell physical products online. While e-commerce has made it easier for people to start a business, it also means there is way more competition out there than ever before. Here are three key strategies to help you keep up with e-commerce competition.

Adopt Their Strategies

With marking being one of the largest industries today, we see advertisements all around us. From bus benches, to online to billboards. When marking a particular product, you are sure to have a competitor wanting to market your same products. Send the time to investigate how they reach customers. You can use their methods to attract the same clientele base. You want to have access to the same consumer they are reaching to prove your product is better. This is especially true in E-commerce where you don’t have an in-store opportunity to market your products

Create a Mobile Shopping Experience

How many applications do you have on your phone? Many apps exist today to create a mobile shopping experience. About 47% of consumers use mobile phones to shop online. With the ease of Instagram and Facebook advertisements, mobile phones create a unique platform to market shopping. They provide easy access with shopping just one click away. There are no more cutting out hours to drive to a mall and try on clothing. The key to truly utilizing mobile customers is to craft a mobile shopping experience, much how you would craft an in-person shopping experience.

Improve User Experience

The last key to staying ahead of the competition with your e-commerce business is to improve the user experience, or UX, of your website. User experience is anything that your customers experience or interact with while working with your ecommerce site. If your website is clunky, slow, or not intuitive, then you are behind the curve compared to your competition. Customers will search for the easiest to use and most intuitive e-commerce site to do business with, don’t count yourself out by being clunky.

E-commerce is one of the best possible business models for first time business owners. But e-commerce business also has the struggle of dealing with a lot of competition. Try utilizing these three strategies to ensure that your e-commerce site stands out against the competition.

Check out this article on how to reduce your taxes as a small business

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How to Make Your Company an Attractive Place to Work

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A big part of running a successful business is finding ways to bring in great employees who love to work there. This can take a lot of time and is generally more difficult than you might imagine. But by doing things like offering competitive wages, providing great benefits, and building a positive work culture that truly emphasizes work life balance, you can make your business the kind of place where people really want to work.

Create a Great Benefits Package

The benefits may not be the first thing you think about when you consider what you are offering to your employees, but it may be the most important thing. Because your employees need to have their needs met, benefits can be an important part of why they choose to work with your business at all. Offering great insurance with a few different options, retirement and a generous vacation plan can help you to bring in employees with impressive resumes and a high level of loyalty to your company.

Offer Equity for Compensation

Another great way to bring in great employees is to offer them equity in the company in exchange for their work. This would help them to feel more invested in the company you are building together and give them a greater reason to work for you. The amount of shareholders you are able to have will vary depending on the kind of corporation you register as. For example, an S-corp can only have up to 100 shareholders.

Acknowledge Good Work

Everyone likes to be acknowledged when they have done something useful or impressive. And you should make it a part of your company culture to really celebrate the good work your employees do. You should not only give lip service to their good work but you should also reward employees with bonuses, raises, and other incentives. When prospective employees know that they will be valued at your business, they will be much more likely to seek you out and accept a job offer. Take time to notice what good work is being done and reward employees accordingly.

If you believe in the work you are doing, you should invest in the employees you hire. They will notice the difference and they will then be more willing to do what they need to do to make your company a success. This will create a win-win situation where everyone works together to make things better.

Check out this article on how to reduce your taxes as a small business!

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How to Reduce Your Taxes as a Small Business

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Tax season is nearly upon us, and that means that it’s time to start getting things in order if you haven’t already. There’s a lot that can go into the taxes a small business has to pay, so it’s never a bad idea to get a head start. That’s not the only thing you should be thinking about though. You should also be thinking about what you can do to reduce the amount you have to pay in taxes.

Start a Retirement Plan

Everyone should have a plan for retirement. It’s never a bad idea to start planning for the future. You don’t have to wait until then to realize the benefits of retirement plans, however. Setting up a retirement plan and contributing to it as an employer can be a good way to reduce your business taxes. You can even use it to amp up the contributions to your own retirement as the owner. Maxing out your contributions as both the employer and an employee of your small business could see as much as $58,000 through a SEP IRA going into your retirement account every year.

Offering Health Benefits

Health benefits are becoming an increasingly expected employee benefit. It’s no wonder, given how relatively affordable health care tends to be for employees when it comes through their employer. It’s not just something that can benefit your employees though. Having a health insurance plan that you can offer your employees can help reduce your taxes. Your business may qualify for a tax credit if you offer group health insurance. Think carefully about the sorts of plans that make the most sense for you to offer and how to go about doing it. That way both you and your employees can reap the benefits.

Be Strategic about Hiring

There are a few things you can do when it comes to people who do work for your company to reduce your taxes. For starters, there are tax benefits you get when you hire family members. If you hire a spouse, for example, you don’t need to pay unemployment taxes. You don’t have to pay employment taxes on children you hire either. Then there’s the matter of employees vs independent contractors. If you contract work out to independent contractors, you’re off the hook for employment taxes for them either.

No one likes paying more taxes than necessary, so it’s always good to figure out what you can do to reduce your taxes. In many cases, it comes down to how you choose to spend the money your business brings in. In other cases, it can be strategic employment decisions. Remember, you can always consult a tax professional who specializes in business taxes if you ever have questions or are looking for more ideas on how you can optimize your finances in regards to the taxes your business owes.

Click here for more strategies that can save your business time and money!

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Upgrades That Will Help Your E-Commerce Business Thrive

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Anyone can have a business. But it takes savvy tactics and smart business practices to successfully own an e-commerce business. The e-commerce industry is constantly developing to better meet client needs, so upgrades are important to keep up with competition. Here are a few of the most important upgrades that will help your e-commerce business thrive!

Change the UX

UX refers to the human experience of your website. A website user is a potential customer, and their ability to navigate your website is their experience and impression of your customer. If your website is difficult to navigate, loads slowly, or doesn’t provide what they are looking for, however, you will lose their business. Get inside your user’s mind to find the most simple, logical, and enjoyable shopping experience you can provide for your customers. If you build a great experience, you will attract customers. UX plays a pivotal role in driving conversions.

Add Features to Your App

Adding features to your app will significantly improve your user’s experience and the reach of your company. After all, more than 50% of internet searches are done on a mobile device. Most individuals prefer using their device because they always have it on them, so making your site and app mobile friendly will help to convert customers. Features you should add to your app include a quick registration, product filtering, and multiple payment options. By allowing multiple payment options, including smart wallets, you reduce abandoned carts.

Capitalize Customer Reviews

Over 60% of consumers read customer reviews before buying. The reviews you receive from your customers are vital to your business’s success. You can use them on your website and social media. Use reviews as an opportunity to market your product. When the reviews are positive, they are a great advertising tool for you. Negative reviews should be seen as an opportunity to improve your product and generate a bigger following. Responding to reviews in a positive manner will also make you more personable to the customer base. Upgrade your e-commerce by including customer reviews on your site.

With so many websites competing for your customer’s attention, the most important thing you can do is make your business stand out, and that means staying up to date with the newest innovations in e-commerce technology. Upgrade your users experience, add features to your app, and capitalize on customer reviews to receive the greatest visibility.

Read this next: How to Finance Your New Business Venture

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How to Form Lasting Connections with New Customers

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As a business owner, you obviously want to maintain your past customers, but you also want to make sure that your new customers continue to work with your business in the future. One of the best ways to ensure this is to form lasting connections with your customers in your interactions with them. Here are a few points that will help you to form those connections and relationships in a way that makes your customers feel special and seen. 

Make Their Experience Memorable

First of all, you want to make sure that your customer’s experience with your business is memorable. If they are a walk-in customer at your brick-and-mortar store, take a bit of time to get to know them. Complement the products that they are looking at. Share comments from your own experiences that will humanize you and help you to relate to each other. Of course, customers will remember your business if they are in love with your products, but it is the excellent customer service that they receive that will make their experience unforgettable. 

Stay in Contact

Once you’ve helped a new customer, you want to make sure that you stay in contact with them so they are encouraged to return to your store. There are lots of ways to approach this goal. You can offer a discount code or exclusive access for customers to sign up for your emails or texting services. Getting customers to download your mobile app lets you send them push notifications. The more you are able to stay in contact with your customers, without being overly pushy or annoying, the more likely they are to buy from your store again. 

Listen to Them

When customers make comments about what kinds of products or services they’d like to see from your business, make sure that you keep those in mind. Even if they have complaints about your website or experience, validating those complaints and seeking to remedy them can help persuade your new customers to continue to come back again and again. If your customers see that you’re truly listening to their concerns or suggestions and trying to incorporate them, they’ll feel appreciated and important. 

Forming real, long-lasting connections with your customers will not only help them to return to your business but will also increase the likelihood that they’ll refer someone else to you. Even though this takes extra time and effort, especially if your business is run online, it will be well worth it. Remember to take the time to communicate and connect with your customers and you’ll see how your business will benefit and grow as a result.

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