Category: business coach

Your Business Doesn’t Stand Out Enough

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Your business is going to be something that you no doubt pride yourself in. it was your baby to begin with, and just like with a baby you will have raised it into the blossoming business it is today. But is it really blossoming? Like with everything you could raise in life, sometimes it just doesn’t turn out the way you want it to, and this couldn’t be more true than it is with business. The more time you spend running a business, the more you realize that nothing is the way that it seems. Nothing will turn out the way you ever thought it would, and things will be changing pretty much constantly. But we think it’s the unpredictability of business that just makes it so exciting. One minute you’re dealing with one problem, and the next you’re expanding your business in ways you didn’t think you could. But, you will often find that your business just doesn’t stand out as much as it could. All of the excitement you feel from expanding your business doesn’t come often, because it’s just so hard for your business to be noticed. Well, this is where this article is going to come in use for you. We’ve got some top tips that will definitely help your business stand out!

Spreading Your Brand

Your brand needs to be everywhere. Your brand needs to be something that people recognize straight away. Think of McDonald’s or Cadbury’s. You’d know the brand anywhere because it has just become so well established. Whilst we’re not saying that everyone is going to notice your brand instantly, you can put the wheels in motion to ensure that eventually, people will begin to notice your business. Just take the simple things that would get your name out there. If you use vans or trucks for work, have your brand printed on it. Even just purchasing a person van and using to drive around and spread the word of your business could pay off. You could have a mini picture advert created that showcased what your business does, and where to find or contact you. People all around you would take in the information, and eventually your brand will be so stuck in their minds that they know who you are. Word will then spread and spread, and your brand will stand out in all of the areas you travel you.

This next tip is both going to help your production, as well as getting your brand to stand out a little bit more. You could give your employees uniforms, and have your brand attached as a badge. It gives your employees a sense of belonging to have the uniform, and if they wear it out in public they will stand out so much more. You can read more about how you can get badges perfect for your uniform through that link. You just need to make sure that your employees are setting a good example when they are wearing the uniform in public. Any antisocial behavior will be tied right to your company, and it can so easily give you a bad name in no time!

Pleasing The People

If you want to stand out then you have to realize that it’s all about pleasing the people. The more people you please, the further your business is going to go. In fact, you’ll get to the point where you realize that everything you do is about pleasing the people. But there are so many different ways you can do it, and so many different ways that it can go wrong, that sometimes it just never goes right. To really please the people you have to really know them. The best way to do that is to interact with your customers as much as possible. Do a bit of market research and find out what it is they like, don’t like, and feel like the market you’re in is missing at the minute. You can then use this information to make sure that you’re truly pleasing the people by giving them the things they really need. You can also show that your business is friendly towards the world as well. This won’t apply to you if you sell services as much, but it will to those of you who sell products. If you just try and be a bit more eco-friendly you’ll realize how many customers you can please. There are so many companies out there who have activists campaigning outside of their factories and warehouses because of how harmful they are to the environment. It’s the little things that you want to try and keep in mind.

Need To Be More Lively

The more lively you are, the more people are going to take notice of you. You can’t just be that business that is kept in the dark because there’s no life to you, but trust us, there are businesses out there. Some companies just don’t have the energy that others do that gets the attention of so many people. So, how do you do this? Well, you have to start by making your brand interesting, even if this means you have to do a bit of a rebrand. You could make everything brighter, including the colors you for your office. You have to have a more inviting looking business for all. The benefits of having a brighter office will be that your employees are more motivated when they do work. It’ll make it less doom and gloom, and you can then make sure that the office environment is fun rather than strict to keep it a light atmosphere.

Everywhere & Anywhere

You definitely need to make sure that you’re everywhere and anywhere if you want your business to stand not more, is that not the point of this article after all? To do that well and truly, we definitely think you should hire a marketing consultant to get you the right campaigns, as well as the right exposure. They might be a little bit pricey, but at least they’ll be worth it in the long run.

How to Build a Winning Sports Agency

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Your dreams of being an all-star professional athlete have been dashed – maybe long ago. However, that doesn’t mean you have to give up working in sports for good. The sports industry is massive: Hundreds of millions of professionals around the world devote their careers to sports, through journalism, event planning, athlete and team management, coaching, data and statistics and more. In fact, more than half of the entire industry is sales.

One of the most enticing non-athletic careers for those devoted to sports is sports management. Sports managers operate the business side of teams, leagues and associations, making sure that everything behind the scenes is right so the athletes can shine. Often, sports managers are involved in creating teams, balancing budgets, crafting marketing campaigns and organizing schedules. Most athletic successes are due as much to the hard work of sports managers as they are to the athletes themselves.

Perhaps the most lucrative way to work as a sports manager is by forming your own sports agency. What does that mean, and how can you do it? Read on to find out.

What a Sports Agency Does

Sports agents represent athletes during contractual agreements. Therefore, it follows that sports agencies transact deals between athletes and teams, sponsors, endorsement companies and any other group that wishes to contract the athletes’ services. For this effort, agents are given a pre-determined percentage of the earnings from those contracts, which can be exceedingly lucrative considering the million-dollar price tags assigned to some major athletes.

Contrary to popular belief, no credentials are mandatory to launch a sports agency; unlike lawyers and law firms, agents and agencies can begin offering services without any specific education or licensing. Still, it is a good idea to get some training in certain business and sports fields, so you know how to best serve your athlete clients. That’s why you should become a sports manager before you open your own sports agency.

How to Become a Sports Manager

Fortunately, the path into the sports management career is well-paved, meaning it isn’t difficult to find the right education and experience fast. First, you need plenty of experience with sports, either as an athlete or functioning as an administrator in some capacity. Then, you should have a bachelor’s degree in a related field, like business administration. These will form the foundation of your knowledge as you hone your sports management skill.

After graduating undergrad, you should begin pursuing internships within the sports industry. During this time, it would also be wise to apply to online sport management master’s programs. Advanced education in this specialization will provide you with the key competencies you’ll need to succeed in this field. Plus, because the program is online, you can continue working in the sports industry, making critical connections that you can use once you begin pursuing sports management positions in earnest – or once you deem it time to build a sports agency of your very own.

How to Build Your Own Agency

Truly, the first step in building your sports agency is all that work you put in beforehand, gaining skills, knowledge and industry contacts. Without this fundamental endeavor, it will be much more difficult to understand your place in the sports industry, make productive decisions for your budding business and grow a clientele of high-performing athletes. Thus, you shouldn’t skip any of the steps toward becoming a sports manager – or else your efforts toward establishing a successful sports agency will be significantly greater.

Next, you should generate a business plan. Your agency, first and foremost, is a business, which means it needs a long-term strategy explaining how it will generate revenue, calculate finances, perform marketing and more. This is where your background in business should come in, but if you lack that, you can use online guides for business plans or rely on a mentor or business partner for this task.

To accumulate a clientele, you should regularly be attending games or meets in your chosen sport. This should familiarize you with the field as it stands – to include players’ strengths and weaknesses and those of your competitors. By being present at sporting events, you can also work on your agency’s visibility and develop a branding strategy that stands out.

Speaking of branding, you should ensure that your agency has an ethos that attracts athletes. To do so, you might consider taking the sports agency exam that pertains to the league in which you will work. Though not required to practice as a sports agent, the exam will lend you professionalism and demonstrate your knowledge and skill in certain arenas.

Becoming a successful, well-known sports agent requires diligence, but more than that, it requires a foundation in sports and sports management. Once you have that, you can go your own way by building a sports agency to call your own.

4 Simple Steps for a More Streamlined Business

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When you started up your own business you realized straight away that there would always be hurdles to navigate every day. Running a smooth and streamlined business is one of your long term goals for the future and you want to start putting workable plans into place. You’re looking for great results and minimal wasted time, money and effort on your part. You want everything to start running like clockwork rather than having a bumpy, disjointed ride every day. The following simple steps will help you to create a more efficient business that functions with very few hiccups and hitches.

  1. Dealing with IT Blunders

How many hours of your time have you wasted trying to figure out an IT malfunction? As much as you want to do everything all by yourself, this isn’t always possible. You might want to look into IT Consulting for Businesses so that you can rely on an external company to proactively monitor your network, servers and systems on a daily basis. You will always feel fully supported no matter what may go wrong, so that you can keep your business up and running every single minute of the day.

 

  1. Implementing the Correct Training

When there are significant gaps in your employee’s training, you will start to notice when things go wrong during your working day. From the very beginning, you need to make sure that your members of staff receive top notch training to equip them for the busy days ahead. Whether you offer training courses or on the job learning, every business will always operate in a unique way. Assess the best method to adopt for your business and you will be sure that everybody in your workforce receives consistent training from the moment they start.

  1. Understanding Your Employees Strengths

Make sure you are using your employees in the areas they excel in; don’t make anybody work on a project they don’t feel comfortable in. As soon as everyone can settle into their role and find their place at work, your business will start operating much more coherently.

  1. Communication is Key

You need to communicate effectively in the workplace otherwise mistakes will start to happen. Whether it’s an important email chain or a meeting with a particular team, you always need to ensure you get your points across clearly and effectively. Once everybody is communicating well on a daily basis you will start to see huge improvements in the day to day running of your company.

When you put these ideas into action, you will soon notice that your business starts to become more productive. Whether you’re producing products at a faster rate or you’re retaining more employees because your training processes are better, there are always areas that you can keep improving upon. You no longer have to sit scratching your head every day when something goes wrong with your software and you won’t run into trouble when communication levels are low. The sooner you can implement these ideas into your business, the quicker you will grow and thrive as a company.

How To Get Great Results From Client Meetings Every Time

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Meeting with clients is an important part of business and it’s really hard to get it right. It’s all about making a great first impression if you’re going to win their business. There are so many things that could put potential clients off dealing with you so the tiniest mistake could ruin your chances of winning their business. If you’ve been struggling to get new clients and they always seem to go quiet after the first meeting, you’re doing something wrong somewhere. But if you just follow these basic rules for client meetings, you can make sure that it goes right the next time around.

Do Your Research

If you turn up to a meeting unprepared, your potential client isn’t going to be too impressed. If you have to ask them a lot of basic questions about their company and their needs, you’re wasting their time and it makes you look unprofessional. That’s why it’s so important that you do a lot of research beforehand. That way, you can show them that you’re serious about doing business with them because you’ve put a bit of time and effort into preparing for the meeting. It also allows you to get straight down to business when you get to the meeting so it’ll be a lot more productive. Never go in unprepared.

Dress The Part

Your clothes say a lot about you and it’s the first thing that somebody will notice about you. If you turn up with your tie halfway down and a giant coffee stain on your shirt, that screams unprofessionalism and they’re not going to be keen on the idea of doing business with you. It’s only a small thing and their opinion of you will be based mainly on your interactions with them but a bad first impression is still hard to shake. Always make sure that you dress the part and take pride in your appearance when you’re meeting with clients. It makes more difference than you realize.

Spruce Up The Office

Your office is a good representation of your business so you need to make sure that it’s in good shape if you’re inviting clients to meet you there. If it has an outdated design, that gives the impression that you aren’t a very forward thinking company. When you’re designing your office, why not go for something more modern like an open plan space instead. You also need to make sure that the office is nice and clean when they arrive. If you aren’t taking care of your office space, how can they be sure that you’re taking care of your customers properly? A dirty office screams laziness and that’s the worst thing that a potential client can think about you.

It’s also important that you have somebody there on reception to greet them and offer them something to drink while they wait for you to come down, and make sure that you don’t make them wait too long.

Get Out Of The Office

Meeting in the office is fine but if you really want to wow them, you need to do something a little bit more special. Why not take them out on a golf tour on the course that hosts the US masters or take them out for a nice lunch somewhere? If you invest time and money taking them out for the day, it’ll leave them with a good lasting impression of your company. It also shows them that you’re serious about winning your business and you’re willing to go the extra mile to impress them.  

Take Notes

Hopefully, if the meeting goes well, you’ll start to agree on the basic terms of your deal. When you follow up on the meeting later on, it makes you look incredibly unprofessional if you keep asking them to clarify things for them. That’s why you should take a lot of notes during your meeting so you’ve got a good record of everything that you discussed. This will help you to pick things up again quickly next time.

Follow Up Properly

It’s important that you follow up properly after your meeting. Give them a call or email them the following day to clarify everything that was talked about and thank them for meeting with you. It’s important that you discuss how you’re going to move forward when you follow up otherwise your relationship might just fizzle out. Try to secure a second meeting if possible so you can keep things moving forward.

Client meetings can be tough and you’ve only got one shot at it so make sure that you’re getting it right every time.

9 Steps You Need to Take to Market Your Company as Well as You Can

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When you want to become more of a success in the world of business, you need to know how you are going to promote and market your company in the best possible way. You can have the best products and services in the industry, but if you aren’t promoting them effectively, you’re not likely to enjoy much in the way of business success. This is why companies across the world place so much emphasis on marketing as much as possible.

Never underestimate the importance marketing can have for a modern company. You have to spend a lot of time and resources on advertising and promoting your company in the best way you possibly can. You have a lot of things you need to consider when it comes to effective marketing for your brand. Check out these 9 amazing steps you are going to need to take in order to market the company in the best way you can.

  1. Understand Your Brand

You’d be surprised how many business owners out there don’t fully understand their brands. You need to know what your business offers people and the image that the company puts forward. How you are viewed by the public plays a major role in the success your business can have. So, before you are able to market the business more effectively, you are going to need to understand how the brand works. Only then can you formulate a successful marketing plan to bring you the best possible success as a small business owner.

  1. Networking is Crucial

Networking is so important in the world of business because it is the best way of building up working relationships and creating more opportunities for the business. There are a lot of different benefits to the world of business networking, and this needs to become a way of life for you. By doing your best to network effectively, it puts you in a position to be able to market your business much better. This is something you need to keep an eye on because you want to be able to market your brand to as many different people as you possibly can.

  1. Try to be Different

One of the key elements of modern business is being different and standing out from the crowd. There are a lot of ways of achieving this, and it is definitely something you want to consider within your marketing. Think about what all the other rival companies are doing, and the way they are opting to do things. How can you do something similar, but do it different? You want to impress clients by being able to do things in a different way, one that perhaps hasn’t been done before. This is why it is important to be able to think outside the box from time to time and come up with new ways of approaching things.

  1. What is Your USP?

All businesses have to have a unique selling point; something that makes them stand out, and makes people want to go to them. There are a lot of factors that play a part in this, and it could be any number of things that helps you be more unique. As mentioned above, it might be doing things differently. Or, it could be offering a product or service other people aren’t offering, or having more competitive prices. It could even be things like philanthropy or amazing customer service. Whatever the reasons, you need to think about what it is that makes you special, and makes your business stand out from the others out there that are similar?

  1. Hire Experts

Hiring experts to take charge of your marketing is so important, and this is something that can really go a long way toward taking the company further. Marketing experts are well-versed in what it takes to mount the perfect strategy, as well as what works for your business and keeping the company onside. There are a lot of things you should consider when it comes time to hire experts, and this is definitely a good way to go about improving the strategy you have in place. Considering PPC management services like these is an excellent way of ensuring your business is on the right track in terms of marketing. There are a lot of things that play a role in marketing effectively, and this is one of the most crucial.

  1. Use Different Elements of Marketing

Another thing you need to keep in mind is the fact that there are so many different marketing elements you might choose to use to help the business grow. Understand the differences between inbound and outbound marketing methods, and the role they play in your business. You also need to take a look at using things like affiliate marketing that can go a long way toward increasing your customer base and helping to grow the brand both nationally and globally.

  1. Protect Your Reputation

A company’s reputation is the most important thing when you are looking at what it takes to improve the marketing of the business. You want to attract people to the brand, and make sure you get their repeat business. And the best way of achieving this is by making sure you look after your reputation and protect the company for the future. There are a few things that are going to make this easier, and one of the big ones is by bringing in a business attorney to make sure the company is legally protected. There are a lot of things that can affect your company’s reputation, and the more you can go about getting this right, the better.

  1. Reinvent Yourself

Reinventing yourself as a business is a massively important part of the process of marketing the company effectively. This is something that plays a big part in helping you attract greater interest from customers, and it keeps you relevant in the modern world as well. The last thing you want is for your company to come across as old-fashioned or out of sync with the world. You need to be en vogue and relevant as much as you possibly can be, and this can come about as a result of reinvention and rebranding. This is a big undertaking for the company, but it is also really important, and you have to do what you can to try to get it right as much as possible. This is why you should map out a plan for rebranding as much as possible.

  1. Have a Strong Online Presence

It is pretty clear that the internet plays a massive role in helping to develop and grow your brand. It also plays an enormous part in helping take the company forward and market in the most effective way you possibly can. There are a lot of things you need to consider when it comes to your company’s online presence, but it is important to try to make it as strong and impressive as possible. There are a lot of things you need to keep in mind that play a part in this, and ensuring you are active on social media as much as possible is really important.

As you can see, these are some of the best steps you can take to promote your business in the best way you possibly can. It is important to make sure you take your company to the next level and think about what you can do to attract more people to the brand. Marketing is the lynchpin of business these days, so you need to have the best possible strategy to help your company.

Office Space Planning Tips

Scott Asai2 Comments

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Office space planning is one of the most difficult things you will encounter related to your business premises. Nevertheless, it can also be one of the most rewarding processes if you get it right. After all, having the ideal layout and making the best utilization of space can reap mass results.

Not only are you being efficient, but your productivity levels will soar and your company will look great as well. As is the case for any type of planning, knowing where to start seems to be the most difficult part. However, once you have read this blog post, you should have a better understanding of office space planning, as well as the inspiration needed to begin thinking about your office’s layout.

One of the first things you need to think about when planning your office space is how your employees work with one and other. Is your business one that is very team orientated? Or do people tend to do most activities on their own? If your business is one whereby teamwork is imperative then having desks lined in a long parallel line won’t be very productive. You need to come up with a design that aids productivity. Nonetheless, if you do operate a business whereby people work solo, it is important that you don’t make people feel isolated. It’s good for all businesses to have a friendly and warm ambiance. It does wonders for productivity because it makes people feel more at ease.

When designing the layout of your offices you also need to consider how easy it is going to be for people to maneuver around. Nobody wants to have to encounter a maze every time they enter your building. There is nothing wrong with a winded or curved path – this can break away from the rigidness that is so often associated with offices and, therefore, can be a highly positive point. However, you don’t want people to have to wind around every single desk or they will end up feeling dizzy by the time they get to the place they were originally going to.

You also need to remember the fact that making the best use of your office space does not mean cramming in as much stuff as possible. There are too many people who make this rookie mistake, which is why enlisting experts like Vertical Interior Design is a good option. Planning your office space does not mean having no space left at all. When you are considering meeting rooms or your employees’ working areas you need to put yourself in their shoes. How would you feel sat at this desk for eight hours a day? If the answer is cramped, uncomfortable, and enclosed, then you know that you need to create some space. If your employees don’t feel at ease, they can easily begin to fluster and their productivity levels suffer dramatically.

If you consider the three main points touched upon in this blog post, then you should have a solid basis for effective office space planning. Just remember to contemplate creating a layout whereby everyone is included, there is enough space for people to feel comfortable, and the pathways are uncomplicated.

Aspects Of Your Business That Will Change As You Expand

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When you first set up a small business, you tend to get stuck in a certain set of ways that you find effective in getting your startup off the ground and your business up and running. However, it’s extremely important to acknowledge that certain aspects of your business and its plan are going to have to change as your business begins to experience success and expand. If you stick with old habits, your company can suffer. Instead, you need to constantly assess what your company requires of you for constant progression and cater to its needs. This will help you to continue experiencing success, rather than peaking early on and then plummeting back down to the ground. Here are just a couple of different areas that you should reassess when your business starts taking off!

Marketing

You will have to engage with marketing from the moment you launch your first product. It is the process that helps the consumer market to be aware of your product and that also helps to encourage the consumer market to spend their disposable income with you rather than with competitors or anyone else. However, as you grow, you’re going to have to take a look at 3 growth hacks for content marketers. The more interest you raise, the more you have to keep on the ball with boosting the perception of what you have to offer. This will create a snowball effect that makes your brand a better known name. Interest gathers interest!

Staffing

First time small business owners tend to take on the majority of the work associated with their start up on their own. They generally take responsibility over almost every single aspect of their company’s set up and launch – whether this entails coming up with a unique and innovative product concept, choosing an appropriate name for their brand, creating an appealing brand aesthetic, or taking out copyright to protect all of this intellectual property. When they require work that they don’t quite understand to be completed, they may then decide to outsource some aspects of your work to freelance individuals or agencies. They will use these other individuals’ skills to manufacture their products, package products, conduct market research, design and set a website up, or various other tasks. If this sounds familiar to you, you’ll find that this could work well for a little while. But when your business really starts to take off and you start to become a renowned or recognizable brand, you are going to receive more exposure, generate more sales, and ultimately struggle if you attempt to continue to carry out all of your work alone. This is generally when you should start seriously considering taking on full or part time permanent staff members. If you fail to do so, you are highly likely to find yourself in one of two situations. The first situation is that you will become overwhelmed with the seemingly endless list of administrative tasks required to keep your company afloat. This will take up a huge bulk of your time and when you’re focusing on keeping your company afloat, you won’t be focussing on moving it forward. This will result in you falling behind when it comes to more progressive areas of your business, such as developing new ranges of products and marketing campaigns. The consumer market will quickly become tired of your current range and take their business elsewhere. The second option is that you will manage to focus on the more progressive aspects of your business, but you will then inevitably fall behind with administrative tasks. You’ll begin to have difficulty replying to customer enquiries or concerns, which could lose you sales and result in a tarnished reputation. You may also fall behind on actually packaging and delivering customer products – again, resulting in lost sales (as customers are likely to cancel their outstanding orders). As you can see, you will begin to have to take on staff and effective staffing is another aspect of your business that will need to change as you experience increased amounts of success

These are just two different areas that will inevitably need to change as your business starts to grow and expand. Change can be extremely positive, so it’s important to embrace it and work it to your company’s benefit!

Understanding the Difference between UI and UX

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UI and UX are both important terms when it comes to web development. However, a lot of people tend to assume that they both mean the same thing. This is not the case, and it is important to understand the differences between the two. Therefore, continue reading to discover more about the difference between a UI developer and a UX developer.

They’re not the same but they work together
UI Design stands for User Interface Design, whereas UX Design stands for User Experience Design. These two concepts are not worlds apart. In fact, they work very closely together and are crucial to the business product. However, it is vital to recognize that the roles of both design concepts are rather distinct, as they concern differing parts of the design discipline and process. UI design is closer to graphic design, albeit a bit more complicated, and UX design is a more technical and analytical field.

UX design
So, let’s begin by taking a look at the latter – UX design. When it comes to this, the designer is primarily concerned with the feel of the product. An expert in UX design will explore the numerous approaches to solving a certain problem that the user has. In broad terms, the designer needs to make sure that there is a logical flow from one step to the next step when it comes to the product, a website, for example. There are several ways a UX designer can do this, with one way being an in-person user test being conducted in order to observe the behavior of someone. For example, they could determine a user is taking a long time to navigate the checkout. This could mean many things, from needing to find the best VPS to speed up the site to needing to simplify the checkout process. The developer is able to generate the best experience for the user, as they have identified both non-verbal and verbal stumbling blocks.

What tools do UX designers use to carry out their task? This includes the likes of InVision, Fireworks, Illustrator, Sketch, and Photoshop. Deliverables include sitemap, storyboards, and wireframes of screens. The sort of thing you can expect a UX designer to say is “it would be a good idea to say ‘thank you’ to the user after they have signed up.”

UI designers
Now, let’s move onto UI designers. Rather than being concerned with the product’s overall feel, a UI designer is more bothered about the way the product is laid out. They link with the UX designer because it is their role to ensure they communicate the path the UX designer has determined is right for the customer. Therefore, they bring the UX designer’s findings to life by designing each page or screen effectively. To give you an example, a UI designer will determine whether to include a slider on a website or dashboard. They also make sure there is a consistent design language and cohesive style.

Finally, the tools that a UI designer uses include Fireworks, Illustrator, Sketch, and Photoshop. Something you may likely hear a UI expert state includes: “It would be better to move the sign up and login links to the top right hand corner.”

So, hopefully you now have a better understanding of the difference between the two design concepts and what is entailed.