Author: Scott Asai

Helping people develop their leadership skills to advance in their career

Cyber Attack! Your Steps To Freedom

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One of the main threats against us in this day and age is a cyber attack. Even if you don’t use your laptop or computer for work reasons, it is still imperative that you ensure it is correctly protected from an attack. Otherwise, you could end up losing a lot of your personal data and giving hackers access to your various online accounts.

Unfortunately, hackers and viruses are becoming a lot more sophisticated now, and it is easier than ever to get into our computers, even if you do have the most up-to-date protection on your system. So, as well as knowing how to stay protected, you also need to be aware of what you need to do in the event of an attack. Here are the steps you should take to freedom!

Contain The Attack

First of all, you need to make sure that the attack doesn’t get out of hand. To do this, you need to make sure that it is correctly contained. If your affected computer laptop is part of a network, you should disconnect it from any connected devices so that the virus doesn’t spread between them all. As well as disconnecting it from other devices, you should also take it offline. It’s important that you manually turn off the WiFi rather than doing so through software.

Seek Professional Help

Once you have isolated your computer, you should then seek some expert help. Take the infected computer or laptop to an IT firm, such as Windward Technology, as they will be able to heal the machine. IT firms can get to the route of the attack and remove any viruses from computers. Not only that, though, but they can help you recover any lost files or data if anything was lost during the attack. However, you should note that recovering lost files might not always be possible, so don’t get your hopes up!

Download All Programs From A Reputable Source

Once you get your computer or laptop back from the experts, it will have been wiped completely and there will no longer be your usual programs and software on it. So, you will need to download it all again. Ideally, you will have kept the original CD discs if you used them in the first place so that you can reinstall them. If not, you will need to download them from the internet. When you do this, always make sure that you download from a reputable source or else you could end up with another virus on your device!

Backup Your System

It is absolutely crucial that you always backup your system. That way, you can always retrieve healthy files if you are ever a victim of a cyber attack again. Ideally, you should aim to backup your system and all its files every couple of months so that you have a recent record.

Being involved in a cyber attack can be incredibly scary but, as you can see, getting back to a healthy computer isn’t too difficult!

The Costs Of Opening A Medical Clinic

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There are lots of perks to setting up a private medical clinic. It can be more profitable in the long run and more stress-free – you get to choose your workload and the types of treatment you offer. The biggest obstacle faced when starting a medical clinic is the upfront cost of setting it up. After the cost of university and medical school, few people are able to then justify taking out a massive loan to start a business. Whilst you will make a substantial return in the future, it’s important to effectively budget when considering starting up a clinic. Many doctors go into a partnership with someone who can split the costs and handle the business side. Here are just a few of the costs that need to be covered to get your medical business off the ground.  

Insurance

Physicians starting their own clinic are required by law to take out malpractice insurance. This can be anywhere between $4k to $70k a year depending on the state. Insurers such as Towergate provide these insurance scheme – it’s worth comparing rates. If you’re taking on staff, you may need to also take out employer’s liability insurance. Property insurance can also be beneficial for covering your premises against damage and theft.

Leasing space

Most people starting up a clinic will rent or lease out space. It’s possible to buy your own space, but this is obviously more costly upfront. The cost will depend on the size and location of the property you need.

Renovations

You’ll most likely want to refurnish the place to feel more like a clinic if it wasn’t already one before. Renovation companies like Perfect Practice specialize in remodeling medical clinics. Costs can vary widely here too ranging from $15k to $50k depending on the scale of the project.

Equipment

You’ll next want to kit out your clinic with the necessary machines such as computers and X-ray machines and furniture such as beds and chairs. You can expect to pay up to $50k on all this equipment. That said, you can save upfront costs by leasing equipment or buying second-hand. Most used equipment is likely to be fully functional, although you’ll want to thoroughly assess the condition of it first (especially computers and machines).

Staff

If you’re taking on employees, you’ll need to be able to provide them with a regular wage. Some clinics can operate with one physician, but you’ll still want medical assistants and receptionists. If you keep patients in overnight, you’ll definitely need extra staff to offer round the clock assistance. As mentioned already, you’ll also need employer’s liability insurance if you’re hiring staff.

Marketing

To let people know about your services, you’ll need to do some marketing. This could include paying to design a website, printing off flyers, create radio ads and possibly even getting news coverage with the help of a PR company.

Admin

As your clinic is also a business, you’ll need to handle various business-related admin including keeping clear records of taxes, billing patients correctly and organizing HR-related matters such as creating rotas and keeping on top of staff holiday and sickness. This will require extra software as well as potentially hiring staff to handle it. As mentioned earlier, it’s wise to go into a partnership with someone business-oriented who can help organize all this, allowing you to focus on patient care and organization of the medical side.

A Web Presence Which Runs Like Clockwork

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You’re probably sick of hearing about the importance of a web presence. It’s all anyone seems to talk about, right? Well, unlucky for you, that’s what we’re going to talk about here, too. But, before you click away in exasperation, consider why there are so many articles out there about this. Because it MATTERS, of course. Without tackling this, you won’t see any success. There’s no escaping that fact. So, suck it up, and prepare to learn even more about the online aspect of your business.

The chances are that you’ve heard a thing or two about SEO by now. It is the not-so-secret key to a successful web presence. Using backlinks, and URLs for other informative sites, you and those pesky search engines can become best of friends.

But, there is another secret to SEO which you may not have heard as much about. For the most part, that’s because the workings of this aspect are a mystery. But, uploading schedules and relevance also seem to play a role in how high your site ranks. Those who upload intermittently fail to impress the likes of Google. With that in mind, then, you should update and upload often. And, we’re going to look at how you can do it.

Hand over the reins

If you’re groaning about having enough to do already, fear not. By turning to the IT Support offered by companies like Capstone IT, you won’t have to worry about this at all. For a monthly fee, they’ll ensure everything on your website is taken care of. And, that includes updating on a regular basis if you need them to. Of course, when it comes to actual content, this will need to be a collaboration. But, once you’ve come up with the ideas, they’ll do all the hard stuff for you. If you have the cash to spare, this may be a step worth taking.

Develop a regular routine

If you are taking the task yourself, it’s crucial you develop regular uploading days. For one, uploading at the same time each week seems to please the big guys. Plus, it allows you to keep on top of the issue. Go through your planner, and highlight the days on which you need to upload something online. This could be on your website or social media page. It doesn’t matter. You merely need to let people know that you’re out there, and you’re active.

Schedule posts

Of course, you won’t always be able to make time on those particular days. But, whenever you have a free moment, you should use it wisely by creating content of some kind. You can schedule posts on social media, and on your website. So, whenever you have an hour or so free, get something written. Having a decent backlog will save you having to worry. It’ll also ensure you always get something up when you’re supposed to. In no time, you should see your views skyrocket as you win favor with those in charge.

The Critical Reasons Your Business Isn’t Smashing It’s Targets

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Profit targets and production goals are an essential part of running a successful business. This is because they provide a goal to aim to, something that you can use to keep everyone motivated and focused on what needs to be done. The problem is, not every business meets their targets every time, something that hints they aren’t on the path to long-term success.  Read on to find out more.

Target setting

First, a word on target setting. Very occasionally targets are not reached not because there is an issue per say within the company, but because the actual goals themselves are unrealistic.

That is why it is so vital to always create targets that are challenging but also actually achievable. Something you can learn more about here. Otherwise, you run the risk of always failing and seriously demotivating your staff and providing a poor impression to your investors, unnecessarily.

Employees

If you are under the impression that your employees are not critical in helping your business achieve its targets, then you are sadly mistaken. In fact, unless you do absolutely everything yourself you will need to be able to trust your employees to get things done in a correct and timely manner. This is something that means recruitment and retention are vital to any businesses long-term success.

With this in mind, steer clear of using agencies wherever possible and advertise posts in quality publications. Also, if you can give people a trial before employing them on a full-time basis, as then both you and they can see whether the role they are in will suit them and whether they want to stay long term.

Online strategy

Next, as so much marketing, advertising, and selling is done online, a major reason that your business may not be meeting the targets you have set is that your online strategy isn’t up to par. This is a critical danger to your business because so many people research a product and brand online before buying, so if you are proving a poor impression, you will be losing sales hand-over-foot.

To deal with this, there are some basic tactics that you can use to improve your online business strategy. These include having a clear recognizable brand, posting quality content, and driving traffic to your site. The latter being something you can consult this blog post to find out more about. Just remember what your business does online matters just as much, if not more than real-world!

Processes

Take a look at your processes efficiency.

Last of all, another significant reason why your business may not have met their production or profit targets is that the processes you are using are wasteful. That is, they waste time and/or resources unnecessarily. All things that cost the business money and make it harder to be in profit.

Deal with this by reviewing process in the office and on the production side of things. Automate IT tasks wherever possible to save time too. You may even consider having a professional audit conducted to help you see where the redundancies in your system are. Then you can modify these to save time and money, making it much easier for your business to smash its targets and be a success in the future.

Unbalanced: When Your Work Life Is Taking Over

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We hear the term work-life balance a lot these days, but how many of us really achieve it? Probably not enough! In fact, there are still far too many folks that are drained and unmotivated from a life dominated by work efforts and worries. However, help is at hand, as you can follow the tactics below to achieve a better work-life balance. Read on to find out more.

Banish overtime

Staying at the office till 10pm regularly is not only unnecessary it’s dangerous. Do you want to know why? Well, it’s unnecessary because if you are having to put in working days longer than 9 hours on a regular basis, there is something wrong with the business. Maybe they need more staff, or someone else in the team isn’t pulling their weight, but this responsibility should not always be resting on you.

It’s dangerous because, how long do you think you can keep it for without becoming exhausted and demoralized? Even if it’s the most exciting job in the world, people need downtime, rest, and time to spend with their families and friends. Without this, you have a ticket to stress and medical problems that will do neither you nor your company any good in the long term. Leave on time at least 4 nights a week, no arguments!

Streamline processes

Next, a way that you can reduce the dominance of work over the rest of your life is to look at a way of streamlining processes. This streamlining applies to many different too, as you can improve the way things are done in production, in the office, and even on the road.

In particular, look at the way you are using IT within your company, and whether you can minimize the stages and time spent on performing functions in programs like Excel. To do this, you can speak to a from specializing in professional Excel consulting as they will be able to help you get the most from your data, without having to spend hours and hours pouring over it.

Also, take a look at the communion culture in your business as email and instant messages are areas that can often suck up a lot of time unnecessarily.

Use a no message policy if someone is in the same room or building as you. The reason being that it’s way clearer and less time consuming to have that person explain the issue face to face than send 10-20 messages back and forth to get one point clarified.

Have a personal goal to work to

Last, of all, something that can really help you get a good work-life balance is ensuring that you have something to focus on outside of work. A great way to do this is to set yourself a goal in your personal life.

You may pick something that relates to health and fitness, or you can choose to learn a new skill like sailing or speaking French. You may even choose to spend more time with friends and family as your goal. Something that will definitely contribute to a much better work-life balance moving forward.

Trust The Process: Does The Type Of Your Startup Matter?

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Being an action oriented person I’m not afraid of starting things.

Pros: get stuff done, make tangible progress and don’t overanalyze before taking action.

Cons: don’t always do the market research, making money isn’t the priority and I get bored quickly.

What I learned as an employee at my former company is: the size of the market/demand makes all the difference.

At the same time I realized you can be unethical, yet still make a profit.

The reason I left the last company I worked for is because of how they treated people (me included).

Starting a test prep company wasn’t something I was passionate about doing, but understanding the market size (online education is a $100 Billion industry) and realizing how I would run a company culturally I pulled the trigger a few months ago.

Here are the core values that guide us:

Relationships First – by valuing our relationships with employees and customers first, we will create long, genuine relationships that are about more than making a profit. I am partners with my tutors. They don’t work for me. I work for them. Without them I have no business.

Be Unique – acknowledge and express the unique contributions your strengths and style can make. “It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.” I leverage the strengths of the people around me.

Be Efficient – we will constantly evaluate our work processes and priorities to work smarter. We make a better system together. Constantly communication means you value other’s opinions.

Create Freedom – our decision making will help our employees and customers get it done, their way. Giving people autonomy means you trust them. Without trust you have nothing.

Constant Growth – we will encourage our employees and customers to constantly challenge themselves to continue setting goals and pursue learning opportunities. Focus on leadership development. Period.

The reason I share these core values is because I believe they can be transferred to any type of business. Having a serial entrepreneur mindset it’s only a matter of time before I find a new idea to implement, but what I’m experiencing in my current venture is: keep your eyes on the long-term success of the company and make decisions accordingly.

For example, a big part of my business is forming school partnerships because they are the gatekeepers to parents of high school students. The process of prospecting includes: cold emails, follow up communication, phone calls, sending proposals, finalizing agreements, contacting parents, supporting tutors, repeat.

Whenever I get impatient and want results yesterday, I remind myself relationships are at the heart of what I do and they take time to build. I can’t predict the future, but I can say with confidence I trust the process.

In ways, this endeavor is an experiment of sorts. Implement the “why” and “how” you run a business and once you identify the “what” you plug them in.

Speedy Strategies to a Profitable Ecommerce Business

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Ecommerce can be a hugely profitable business – if done right. With hundreds of millions of people shopping online every year, it’s a huge market to target, and with the right offer, products and service, nothing is stopping you from establishing yourself.

However, the process of buying in inventory and building a website can be long and drawn out when you’re just starting out – but it doesn’t have to be this way. The following strategies should help you get to a better place in a faster period of time – let’s take a look at everything you need to know.

Sell products over inventory.

A lot of people think that starting an ecommerce business involves stocking up on lots of inventory and storing it somewhere until you sell it. But it doesn’t have to be this way, and in many cases, it’s possible to start out using a tactic called arbitrage. This term is used to describe the process of selling someone else’s product, with you acting as a kind of middleman.

Let’s say that a product is on sale to the public for $20, and the dealer or manufacturer charges you $10. All you need to do is pay the source $10, and they take care of all the shipping for you – and you take the margin. Not only does it allow you to make money quickly, but it also reduces your storage costs – you can efficiently run your ecommerce store without ever seeing the product.

Get the tech right

Assuming you have a great product to sell – and a market that craves it – the only thing stopping you from making some money is the quality of your website. There’s a lot to think about, from finding a host to building the site itself – not to mention all the technical aspects of SEO, UX and conversion rate optimization. If all this sounds overwhelming, don’t panic – there is help available.

First of all, the platform you use can take away a lot of the pain, for a small monthly fee. Sites like Shopify, WooCommerce and BigCommerce are all easy to use and perfect for beginners. You should also try and find a company that specializes in ecommerce hosting to help you get an edge over the competition in terms of speed and scalability. And if you need further help with your online marketing – with SEO, for example – then learning the basics and outsourcing to a third party firm gets you results fast.

Believe in your niche.

Technically, you can sell anything online. But the reality is that it takes time to learn, understand, and develop some passion for a product or a niche. You are far better off starting out with physical products you are already aware of and have a love for – it’s that simple.

Do what you love, and use your passion to impress your audience, create excitement, and earn a lot more money in a lot less time as a result. One thing to remember before we go, however – don’t try and sell things that aren’t popular right now, as it’s very much like flogging a dead horse. Check Amazon bestsellers, and places like watchcount.com to find out the hot products in your niche, and you’ll have a much higher chance of success.

The ‘Premium Mindset’ Needed For Running Luxury Tourist Experiences

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When it comes to running a business concerned with providing luxury experiences for clients, it’s important to get things right. Your client expects a certain degree of premium service, meaning that anything to subvert these expectations can be problematic for your brand. If you must charge the premium prices in order to attract a certain type of client for your quality experience, then you must also provide fantastic value for money.

We’re here to help you begin, develop and maintain your luxury brand with a set of important business priorities to get you started. This will be focused on the client perspective, hopefully enlightening a few things they are looking out for in your effort to become relevant in the field.

Personal

Clients want to feel important when they’re investing in a premium product or service. This doesn’t mean they desire to feel better than anyone else, they just want to feel significant. Remember, not all premium clients are affluent. They could be those who have saved up their funding in order to experience your offerings. For this reason, offering the personal approach to customer service is key. Hiring well-dressed assistants with great interpersonal charm and a memory for first or surnames (client desire depending,) allows them to build a rapport and charm with your customer. This can go the extra mile in securing repeat business.

Maintenance

Your service should run without a hitch. Let’s use the example of a luxury yacht rental or experience being the service you offer. Breakdowns, especially when the clients are on board, could be considered a shocking faux pas and drive your stock value plummeting. Hiring a maintenance team worth their salt (even invest in the best,) is important, as well as utilizing better and more competently designed equipment. For example, tuned diesel kits compatible with Yachts found here http://www.truckcomputertune.us/ could increase the lifespan of your equipment, and increase its reliability around consumers.

Consistency

Premium experiences need to keep consistency as their core tenet. If you’re willing to charge for an experience time and time again, you must make sure every time you offer that service it’s as good as your best time. You are only ever as good as the reputation you have most recently been given, and so to recall repeat business you must listen to feedback, improve where necessary and run towards the big decisions with a sense of wisdom and ability. Often in premium industries time is limited. Consumers expect their suggestions and demands to be listened to thoroughly, and enacted quickly. If you can keep this ability within your power, you’ll experience a boom in profits, repeat business and the fostering of brand loyalty.

With these tips, you’ll find that your offering truly stands head and shoulders above the market. Using the personal, reliably and consistent touch, your offering will begin to distinguish itself above the competition, as as you return investments to your firm your portfolio of services will increase. We wish you the best of luck in your premium endeavors.

The Price You Pay

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Anyone coming of age in the current working climate should know that there are significant changes afoot. Remote or freelance work is now the norm as more and more people break away from the 9-5. In many ways, this is an exciting change. Instead of settling for jobs which are less than ideal, the next generation can control their work/life balance. And, we all know that’s the best way to happiness.

But, with this freedom comes new responsibilities. Instead of being able to sit back and let a boss make difficult decisions, those going it alone have to step up to the plate. You’ll need to decide everything, from the jobs you accept, to the price you charge for them. And, pricing is exactly what we’re going to look at here. It’s a tough subject. Get it wrong, and you’ll fail to make a living. Worse, you could tarnish your reputation. In the freelance world, that’s a definite no-go. To ensure it doesn’t happen, follow these pointers when choosing a price plan.

Costs and labor

If you don’t know where to start when it comes to pricing, it’s worth estimating how much production costs you, and also thinking about the labor. Add up every expense you spend on each project. That includes printing costs, materials, and even a part of your internet bill if it features. Charging this much would mean that you cover costs but don’t make a profit, so you need to think, also, about your labor. Most freelancers charge more for larger jobs. If you spend eight hours on something, think about how much you can pay yourself per hour. Then, add this to your expenses to work out a rough price bracket.

Read available resources

No matter what your freelancing gig, you can be sure there’s a multitude of resources out there to help you here. The internet helps us all share these experiences in untested waters. Graphic designers talk about how much to charge. Journalists and illustrators do the same. Sites like SEO Jet even provide a good guide for those branching into SEO. You name it; there’s help out there for you. All you need to do is look for it, and learn from what you find.

Know your competition’s pricing

It’s also essential to know how much your competition charges. In fact, this is the most practical help you’ll find. Bear in mind, though, that it may not be best to charge the exact same prices. Instead, think about ways to produce a competitive pricing strategy compared to what they offer. This is the best way to set yourself above the rest. That said, don’t do this to the detriment of your profit. Bear in mind the pricing you developed when estimating costs and labor. Then, develop a competitive price list based on what you’ve found. If your overall price is over that of your competition, think about small ways to reduce it. Cheaper materials, for example, or finding faster ways to work.

Smart Ways to Grow your Business: The Power of Backlinks

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It is a known fact that backlinks are directly related to the amount of traffic that you have on your website. The more authoritative sites that you have linking to your site, the better rankings you’ll have and ultimately, the more traffic you’ll get. Quality backlinks should be your first focus. You may feel as though backlinks are hard to get, but they shouldn’t be and there are plenty of ways for you to earn backlinks so that you can benefit from everything that they have to offer.

Take Skip The Line Backlinks for example. They are able to offer you a huge range of backlink and SEO services, so you don’t have to build your links manually and risk low-quality alternatives.

Backlinks on Your Own Site

If you want to get the best result out of your site then you will need to use the right anchor text when linking on your site. You will want to have your own keyword and anchor text but you don’t want to have the keyword alone. The Google Penguin update targets those who do this and for that reason, you’ll only see a ranking increase over the short-term.

Backlinks on Other Sites

High authority backlinks are very important but they are also very tricky. You have to make sure that the link that you have can provide value to another site as well. It’s true that you can’t control what text another company will use, but you can still hope for the best by getting press in sites that are well-read. For example, you could ask the leaders in your company to post on guest-sites and when you have a company announcement, you can even send a press-release to other sites that are relevant and even popular with bloggers. This is one of the best ways for you to grow your business, but you need to show people why your post will benefit the readers of that site, and in exchange, you’ll get a backlink.

If you have an email list or if you have some social media pages then it’s important that you post on these accounts. It’s also important that you include links to other companies when your content talks about them or even other influencers.

Growing your Business

Ultimately, the best way for you to get backlinks would be for you to create high-quality content and to connect with other businesses. If you do this however, there is no guarantee that you will be able to get the best result out of your backlinks because you can’t predict how they will link to you or even if they will altogether. For this reason, it helps to choose a reputable company who is experienced in backlink building so that they can help you through the whole process.

Backlinks really are one of the best ways for you to establish your business online and it could be the ticket you need to ensure your own success. Building a business has never been easier, and you’d be surprised at how much it could make a difference to your own site traffic.