Although the filing and payment deadline for most 2020 federal tax returns has passed, taxpayers should start preparing for next year’s tax season in order to ensure they get the most out of their return and avoid any big tax time surprises.
Optima Tax Relief provides helpful tips on what taxpayers should do to prepare for next year’s tax filing deadline:
Make sure to file a tax return or request an extension of time to file by the tax deadline.
Individuals who owe a tax liability but fail to file their return on time or request an extension could face a failure-to-file penalty.
Taxpayers are reminded that an extension of time is not an extension of time to pay.
Taxpayers typically have until October 15, 2021, to file their taxes, however, taxes are still due by the initial tax deadline.
Pay as much as possible by the tax deadline due date.
Individuals that are filing a return or requesting an extension should still attempt to pay their tax bill in full by the tax deadline to avoid any interest and penalties.
People who fail to pay their tax bill by the tax deadline will face a failure-to-pay penalty.
The IRS website provides additional information for taxpayers who are unable to pay taxes they owe.
Set up a payment plan as soon as possible.
Taxpayers who do not have the ability to pay their tax liability in full by the tax deadline do not have to wait for a tax bill to request a payment plan.
Taxpayers can apply for a payment plan on the IRS website or speak with a tax professional to help assist with the negotiation process with the IRS.
Taxpayers can also submit a payment plan request in writing using Form 9465, Installment Agreement Request.
Optima Tax Relief provides tips on what Taxpayers can do if they Filed on time but can’t pay back their Tax Balance was last modified: July 7th, 2021 by Addison Yes
Every business aims to increase production and reduce operating costs to the barest minimum. Electricity usage plays a crucial role in every business operation irrespective of the company’s sector. So, the higher the electricity utilized by a company, the higher the payment for the electricity bill.
However, energy cost payable varies, and usage is subject to weather conditions. For instance, during winter, when the weather is cold and snowy, air-conditioning, refrigerators, and other cooling appliances usage drop drastically due to the cold weather, thus reducing the electricity bill. But the situation changes inversely during summer due to a high level of heat.
To reduce your business electricity cost during summer, here are some tips to help you achieve your goal.
1. Install Daylight Control
Daylight control is a technological device that uses sensors to adjust electric lighting in response to available daylight. This device reduces electrical bulb energy consumption, and it is suitable for a business situated in areas where sunlight is prevalent. With daylight control installed within your business premises, you will be able to minimize energy usage and cut down energy costs payable by at least 20% – 80%.
In addition, if you newly install daylight control, ensure you check if it is compatible with your bulbs. However, if you have previously installed one before, check them out to see if they are still in good condition.
2. Change The Air-conditioning Filters
When the weather is hot during summer, your air-conditioning needs to be in good shape due to rising heat. To minimize the cost of air-conditioning, always prioritize maintenance by changing the filter when the need arises. The continuous usage of a damaged filter usually causes the air-conditioning unit to overwork, leading to increased energy usage to power the appliance. In addition, if your business is situated in an area prone to dirt or dust, ensure you change the air-conditioning filter at least once per month.
3. Change your energy provider
A lot of businesses use the same energy provider for many years, without realizing that they may be spending thousands of pounds monthly when there are cheaper options out there. The energy market is highly competitive and each company tries to offer the best price to their clients. Take advantage of this fact using this link and compare the pricing you are currently on with what other companies are offering. You might just be able to save a couple of pounds by just changing your energy provider.
4. Nothing Compares To Natural Air
The primary purpose of installing cooling appliances such as air-conditioning and ceiling fans is to cool down the hot atmosphere, especially during the summer when the sun is more burning. If your company location is close to areas where the climate is cool at night and breezy during the day, using natural air to reduce heat is not a bad idea to conserve energy.
To reduce your energy cost and consumption, open your windows during the day, using natural ventilation to cool down the atmosphere without relying solely on air-conditioning and ceiling fans. Using natural ventilation is costless and healthier for the body system than air-conditioning other appliances.
5. Check out for insulation
Insulation is when air from outside enters the building, and conditioned air escapes through cracks. If your office space is insulated, it can be challenging to identify, making it difficult to ventilate. Always check through for any form of roof leakages to identify leaking spots. Eliminating the flow of air from outside and inside will keep your electricity consumption and cost at bay.
6. Unplug unused devices
During working hours or close of business, ensure that devices that are not in use are correctly unplugged from their respective outlets. Depending on the company’s nature of business, only devices needed for daily operation should remain plugged. In a situation where some appliances or equipment will have to remain plugged consistently, you can reduce their energy consumption by using power strips. The use of power strips ensures that power consumption by devices is minimal when not in use.
Every business needs electricity to sustain its operations. However, as a profit-oriented establishment, there is a need to block loopholes and manage cost-effectively. During summer, the weather becomes hotter compared to spring, autumn, and fall. To make the atmosphere around the business facility cooler, heat-controlling appliances such as ceiling fans and air conditioners must be in good condition.
Following the tips outlined in this piece, you can effectively minimize your business energy cost all summer and reap the benefits of reduced energy consumption. Apart from saving you so much money, it’s also so much better for the environment.
Want To Lower Your Business Electricity Bill This Summer? Find Out How was last modified: July 18th, 2024 by Charlene Brown
The full impact of COVID has been devastating and as well as the obvious changes to our lives, such as social distancing, not seeing family and friends for long periods and being required to wear facemasks, the job market has also seen significant shifts.
When the pandemic first began to impact the economy, the government instructed people to work from home wherever this was possible. Where this was not possible, many businesses had no choice but to furlough staff and close their business or run their business in a different way.
One positive that has come from the need for businesses to adapt, is that more businesses have explored the ways that technology can help them to run more efficiently or to enable them to diversify their products and services.
Many businesses have seen that there are many benefits to having home-based employees, from reducing the cost of running business premises, to giving employees more flexibility in their work-life balance. One job that has arguably changed forever is the role of Executive Assistant, one that traditionally involved working in close physical proximity to the executive that is being assisted.
Throughout the pandemic, this type of role has had to adapt quickly, by utilizing online solutions to provide support while working in separate locations to the exec. For businesses that already had a good technology infrastructure to enable home working, the changes were less disruptive. However, for many companies, setting up the right IT frameworks to enable employees such as executive assistants to work from home was one of the biggest challenges they faced.
The impact on the skills required for Executive Assistants
With many EA roles now being performed from home, there is an increased demand for people with good IT skills. Executive Assistants have always been required to have good office management skills and to be proficient with the relevant business systems but now they need to be up to speed with more types of software.
For example, project management software is integral to collaborating with execs and their management teams, in the place of having physical meetings. Also, being proficient in arranging video calls through software tools such as Zoom, or Microsoft Teams is also important with many businesses encouraging employees to work from home as much as possible and to avoid physical meetings.
Therefore, Executive Assistants looking for new roles, or to continue to be able to perform to a high standard, need to have the right experience and qualifications to suit the new world of more digitally-reliant working processes.
Completing executive assistant courses can help people to develop the necessary skills that enable them to proficiently use all of the technology tools that are required for modern day exec support. There are a wide range of different courses that are available to complete online, that will help people to get offered a role as an Executive Assistant.
Businesses use different types of online collaboration and project management tools but some of the most common ones include Monday, Asana, Slack, Google Docs and Microsoft Teams. Becoming as familiar as possible with these tools will give you a big advantage over other job applicants, so try to practice using them and discover all of the main features for each one.
During an interview, you may be asked about your knowledge about some of these online solutions, so if you can demonstrate in your answer that you have an in-depth understanding, then you will certainly improve your chances of being offered the role.
Now you know how the role has changed in the last two years, you can acquire the necessary skills and knowledge to be more successful as an Executive Assistant.
How COVID has Changed Executive Assistant Roles Forever was last modified: June 21st, 2024 by Jason Mood
In this digital world, having an Instagram presence is very crucial for promoting your brand or content. And to influence people on Instagram, you need to have a large following and increased engagement rate on your Instagram profile. Several tools and growth services can streamline the process of content creation, post scheduling, increasing followers, and gaining engagement on Instagram.
Two of the most competitive growth services are Kicksta and Sprout Social. Both the tools focus on increasing followers on Instagram. And both of them are the best sites to buy Instagram likes to improve engagement rate. So which one should you choose? Check out the comprehensive comparison between Kicksta and Sprout Social given below to pick the best Instagram growth tool for yourself. Let’s get started!
Product Features
Sprout Social
For social media management, Sprout Social offers several services such as –
In-depth social media audit
Advance scheduling and post automation
Social media content calendar
Data analytics and reporting
Besides these services, it also provides major tools required to gain engagement on Instagram. It is compatible with a lot of different social media networks and helps in increasing your followers at every platform.
Kicksta
Kicksta is an Instagram growth service and the best site to buy Instagram likes, comments, and followers. These tools are also crucial to gain engagement on Instagram. Some features of Kicksta include –
Smart targeting algorithm – Kicksta’s AI-powered technology helps to get high-quality followers on Instagram.
Automation – Kicksta automates finding similar Instagram profiles along with auto-engaging of the target audience.
Social Sprout offers three different pricing plans –
The standard plan at $99/ month/user – this plan allows the user to connect up to five social accounts. Here, you can get a content calendar, publishing tools, an all-in-one social inbox, comprehensive reporting, profile, and keyword monitoring. You also get some paid promotion tools to boost your profile.
The professional plan costs around $149/month/user – this plan allows the user to connect ten social profiles. It offers custom workflow, content tagging, detailed analytics reports, helpdesk integration, and optimal post scheduling.
The advanced plan costs around $249/month/user – with this plan you can connect the ten social profiles. Along with this, you get access to automation tools like Chabot, digital assets library, custom URL tracking, message spike alerts, and automated inbox rule builder.
Kicksta
Kicksta follows a ‘pay for what you use’ model. In this model, the user can cancel the subscription at any time. And the money for the remaining days on the scheduled subscription will be refunded back. There are two subscription plans offered by Kicksta –
The standard plan costs around $49/month/user. This plan assures moderate growth speed with automation tools. The user can target up to ten new accounts.
The premium plan costs around $149/month/user. This plan assures four times faster gain in genuine and real Instagram followers. It also provides more engagement rate with the automation tools. Additional services include live chat support, email support, advanced targeting options, and blacklist capabilities.
Data Analytics and Reporting
Sprout Social
In terms of data analytics, Sprout Social offers plenty of reporting features. For example, this tool compares your post-performance with your competitor’s post. Additionally, it tracks team productivity and task performance. If you opt for upgraded plans, Sprout Social offers custom reports, interactive charts, and graphical representations along with advanced filtering. All of these tools are excellent in gaining engagement on Instagram.
Kicksta
Kicksta provides insightful insights on profile performance and individual post-performance with the help of graphs and numbers. All the data can be accessed easily from the user-friendly analytics dashboard. In addition to this, Kicksta also allows the user to analyze their engagement rate and followers gained during a particular time frame.
Which among the two is best?
Considering all the key factors that are required to gain engagement on Instagram with quality followers, Sprout Social wins them all. Although Kicksta is also an excellent tool to get genuine Instagram followers. Perhaps it is one of the best sites to buy Instagram likes, comments, and followers. However, its limited features and data analytical tools do not match the level of Sprout Social.
Another factor that makes Sprout Social a much better growth tool is its ability to generate traffic to your website using social media posts and marketing. Additionally, flawless user experience, customer support, and excellent product features make Social Sprout the number one choice.
Conclusion
Choosing the best social media management tool is a very challenging task. There are several factors involved that decide which tool is the best for maximum social media growth. While both Kicksta and Sprout Social provide unique features to get genuine Instagram followers, Sprout Social beats it in terms of superior automation tools, improved product features, and data analytics. Although the pricing plan of Social Sprout is slightly expensive as compared to Kicksta. It is the best out of the two when it comes to growing your Instagram.
Kicksta vs Sprout Social was last modified: June 30th, 2021 by Jeremy Collins
One of the tried-and-true methods of generating leads is by having an excellent eye-catching banner. As a bonus, not only can they be effective, but they are incredibly cost-efficient and can be designed yourself. However, even though banners can be created with relative ease, mistakes can turn a great marketing tool into a bad idea. Here are 5 common mistakes to avoid when designing your banner.
Spelling Errors
Your banner should not have an essay’s worth of text on it. Short, simple, and to the point should be the focus of any text on the banner. This means that all text should be free from spelling and grammatical errors. As there is so little text on a banner, any mistakes stick out like a sore thumb. Any errors picked up by customers can easily lead to assumptions that the business is unprofessional. Be sure to proofread all text before the banner is published. To that extent, there are several online text editors that are free and can be a lifesaver.
No Contact Information
You have spent hours looking up current UI/UX trends and even tried to dive into the psychology of your target audience. You have spent just as long designing your banner, and it’s a work of art. But you have committed a cardinal sin and included no contact information. One of the key reasons to create a banner is to generate positive leads. No contact information, no leads. It is as simple as that.
Complicated Message
Returning to the importance of the text on the banner, whatever the message is that you want to convey, it must be simple and only take a few seconds to get across. When thinking about how to make a banner for a sales campaign, for example, take a moment to think about what the message is you want to get across. If the message comes across with multiple meanings it will need to be reworked. Keeping text as simple as possible can help in this regard.
Design is Crowded
Having too much information and complex graphics can lead to the banner being a failure. When it comes to designing your banner, be mindful that not all information is needed or helpful. For example, customer testimonials, business history, or sales records might not be the best information for a banner. Including such information can easily confuse your customer.
Sizing
Be sure to size your banner appropriately. In general, this does require you to have a good idea of where and when the banner will be placed. This also requires careful consideration of where elements will be placed to make sure the contents are readable.
It is hard to argue how beneficial a great banner can be to specific campaigns, but as has been highlighted above errors can be made that detract from the overall effectiveness. Avoiding the above-mentioned errors can certainly help businesses to generate positive leads.
5 Common Mistakes to avoid when designing a Banner was last modified: June 27th, 2023 by Edward Roesch
The first year of a small business can make or break it, and indeed, many businesses fail within their first 12 months. The tips below can help you spend that first year building a strong foundation and hope to reduce the likelihood that you will not succeed.
Prioritize Your Finances
If you’re already paying off some debts, consider whether low interest personal loans could help you pay them off at a better rate. You may be able to get these from a private lender.
You need to track your finances carefully, understand how your revenue differs from your profit, and have a plan in place in case you run low on money. For the first item, you should keep your business and personal accounts separate. If you aren’t good with money and numbers, you might want to pay a bookkeeper, accountant, or an outsourced CFO to do this for you. For the second item, keep in mind that while you might be generating a certain amount of revenue, you need to subtract your expenses from that to figure out what your profit is.
Finally, you might want to get your own finances in order so that if you need to inject a little cash into your new venture, you are able to do so. This could be especially important if you don’t qualify for a business loan.
Have a Solid Plan
Technically, you only need a business plan if you are seeking funding from investors or you are trying to get a business loan. However, the truth is that writing out a detailed plan will benefit any small venture. The reason for this is that it forces you to ask and answer so many questions, and this can be a great way to identify weaknesses in your market research, pricing, mission, plan for growth or any other areas. It can help you stay focused as well, especially if you have a tendency to run after new ideas that occur to you. You can also think about and practice how you pitch the goods or services that you offer to others.
Work With Others
There are many different ways for you to do this. First, you should be networking. This lets people know what you do, but it can also be a way to find potential mentors or partners. You should also think of working with others to pay people to do the things you aren’t as good at. For example, it may be cheaper, in the long run, to hire an attorney to look over contracts or other legal documents than to find out later where you have gone wrong.
Eventually, you might want to hire employees. Even if you don’t need to do this in your first year, you can think ahead about what kind of a culture you want to create within your company and how you can empower your employees to work effectively and independently. Reading some books on leadership and management can help you better prepare for this role.
What to Do in Your First Year of Business was last modified: May 17th, 2023 by JJ Watt
Fact: any contact center can benefit from automation. Generally, contact centers are the part of the business that most benefit from automation.
Bringing down costsis often the main motivation, and that’s especially important for SMEs.
But the impact of automated inbound call center services actually runs a lot deeper than that. The other benefits may be less obvious… but that can have as big an impact on a company’s success.
1. Automation can improve the customer experience
If you say ‘automation’ in the call center context, many people think about systems which save money, but which also create horrible experiences for customers.
It doesn’t need to be that way!
Automation can have a major positive impact on how your customer interacts with your brand.
Take Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) for example. CTI can automatically identify customers when they call in.
It means they don’t start the call explaining who they are to an agent
They don’t need to dig out some long-forgotten customer reference number
CTI is a small example. Another example is an Inbound call center solution, which can streamline the process of handling incoming calls efficiently. This solution can intelligently route calls to the most appropriate agents based on the customer’s needs and history, further reducing wait times and improving overall customer satisfaction. Automation also enables more ambitious call center services like virtual queueing. Virtual queuing is one of the best ways to reduce waiting time and means your customers don’t get stuck listening to hold music.
One more example – automated outbound SMS. Sending customers an SMS with whatever information they need might mean they don’t even need to wait for an agent. That’s a simple bit of automation that’s guaranteed to reduce call volume and make life a whole lot easier for customers!
2. Automation can improve the *agent* experience
Call centers are bad at retaining staff. Why is that?
One problem that’s common to practically every customer service team is this: they hire people who are bubbly, fun and chatty. After all, that’s the kind of person you want helping customers.
But – most of the work those people end up doing is data entry. And how many people are a good fit for both data entry work and customer service?
Not many.
Here’s how automation can help.
It’s actually pretty simple to automate data entry. In the last point we talked about CTI. Well, CTI means your systems know who your callers are, and can find them in your call center CRM.
And if your system knows who’s calling, it can record information about their call.
There are a ton of examples like this. Automating tickets, automating follow-ups, automating scheduling… the goal is to automate all the boring stuff that no agent wants to do.
That leaves them free to focus on having great interactions.
3. Automation means clean and shiny data
While we’re thinking about data entry, let’s think about where it goes wrong.
The main issue is human error. Take this blog post – it’s written by a startlingly talented professional, but I’m sure there are a few typos in the mix…
Meanwhile, it’s almost unthinkable for an automated system to make a data entry mistake.
Therefore, if you can automate large swathes of data entry, you’ll get cleaner customer data. What’s more, you can automatically update data across *any* number of systems.
Here’s an everyday example. An important customer gets in touch to discuss an ongoing issue which the agent is fully able to resolve for them.
No automation? Then the agent will need to update the call log, lose the ticket in your Helpdesk software and make a note in the CRM.
Yes automation? The agent only needs to close the Helpdesk tickets – that information is automatically replicated everywhere else.
4. Automation makes you far more flexible
Is there anything more important to the long-term health of a contact center than flexibility? Probably not.
Flexibility means reviewing and improving the way you work… but there’s a catch!
If you change the way you work, you have to retrain staff. That costs money and it costs time. It can also be quite frustrating for agents if they;re forever playing catch-up.
But how would it be if your processes are mostly automated? Surely then they’re easy to update?
Yes! In theory… butin practice it 100% depends on how involved the contact center is in designing its own processes.
Here’s a crazy fact: under a quarter of contact centers enjoy full collaboration in the design of their own processes.
It’s for this reason that planners are turning to No-Code automation to bring their ideal call center services to life.
Because there’s no coding required, a non-tech person in the contact center can design and implement the processes they’ve always wanted – and that’s the ticket for an incredible amount of flexibility!
5. Automation can create super personalized services
This is counter-intuitive, right? The more you automate, the more you can personalize services.
Here’s why.
With automation in the mix, you can design services for every eventuality. You can draw from every piece of data you have about customers and feed that into the service you provide.
Take call routing. The first step in a really personalized service because your ACD system will receive information from surrounding systems. That influences the routing decisions it makes.
What about automatic follow-up actions like SMS or email? You could even be totally proactive by automatically contacting customers with known issues.
And let’s not neglect those cost savings!
Back to where we started. All of the benefits we’ve covered here will, in their own ways, contribute to a healthier bottom line. Some, like clean data, reduce costs. Others, like greater staff and customer retention have a massive cumulative impact on costs.
OIt’s benefits like that which make automation such a must-have for modern call center services!
5 ways SMEs Benefit from Automated Call Center Services was last modified: August 22nd, 2024 by Lemuel Operario
The creative process cannot be constant or incessant. People whose activity involves the creation of something new or unique are normally incapable of generating worthwhile ideas non-stop. They need time to recharge emotionally and renew mental energy. They need inspiration, which is a key to remaining creatively productive.
If you create content for your blog, business website, or YouTube channel, the chances are you’re familiar with the feeling of despair that emerges in your time of creative stupor. You may already have a topic to discuss, you may know what points you want to highlight, you may even know where to find royalty free sound effects for your video, but still can fail to get around to your project. There may be times when generating nice ideas and translating them into reality can be a real ordeal. But such temporary creative halts shouldn’t prevent you from producing engaging thumb-stopping content for your audience.
Below are some simple recommendations that can help you out in your time of need.
Get Inspired
There is no point in reveling in your inertia and waiting for inspiration to come. You should draw it from familiar sources. There are tools that allow you to download a video for your reference to gain ideas and study it for inspiration.
First things first, check out the content recently made by the bloggers you consider successful or visit your rival’s business blogs for inspiration. Keeping abreast of the trends that dominate your areas of interest also can help you a lot. Learn what’s new in your industry, scroll through the news feeds to catch up on what you might have missed and take note of the most discussed topics or trending news. You can use this all to your advantage and finally come up with a new great video for your vlog.
Consider Your Audience
There is no point in reminding you how important your audience is. Any content you produce would be dead and meaningless unless viewed and appreciated by your target audience. It’s not necessary to ask your subscribers for ideas and inspiration (unless you feel like doing it.) In fact, if you’re lucky enough to have active subscribers that actively engage with your content, you may expect them to offer the best ideas for your upcoming video even without being asked.
What also won’t hurt is viewing again those videos that your audience enjoyed the most. And the best place to search for a new portion of inspiration for your new video is the Comments section or, possibly, your private messages. You can look through the fresh comments to learn what in particular interested your viewers or, vice versa, didn’t satisfy them. Your previous videos might have raised some questions with your audience or sparked heated discussions. You may want to expand on the topics discussed earlier or make a new video where you’ll be answering the questions or covering the most trending topics.
Groups and Communities
If you’re a member of a certain community or have a group on a social media platform like Facebook, you may try and look for inspiration there. Lots of people that do or like the same things as you can lead you in the right direction by simply mentioning some facts or touching on some trending topics. Surrounding yourself with creative and like-minded people can really do you some good. Within such groups and communities, they tend to cultivate the beneficial atmosphere of creative pressure and competition, which may spur you to come up with new ideas and topics on your own.
Broaden Your Horizons
Constant self-development and honing in on your professional achievements can be an inexhaustible source of inspiration for any artist. Those vloggers who evaluate their work, identify weaknesses and strengths, and take care to improve on their content tend to be more productive than their lackadaisical counterparts. And to be able to keep track of your progress, you should be ready to polish up your skills and enhance your knowledge. You should be well-versed not only in the topics you’re covering, but also video production and the art of blogging. To that end, you may want to sign up for online courses to boost your communication, presenting, or oratory skills. You can also get more experienced in using video editing tools or familiarize yourself with the latest vlogging trends if you find the right educational course.
And you can always learn from the best! Check out the vlogs of other influencers. Chances are good that many influencers in your area of expertise have powerful content that will inspire you to create better and more useful videos.
Where to Look for Ideas for Your New Video was last modified: December 22nd, 2021 by James Nagel
Waking up every day to tackle the requirements of a job description that no longer interests nor fulfills you can put you in an upsetting position.
Despite how many people would have it said, the prospect of work does not have to be consistently stress-inducing, particularly if you find yourself doing a job you find truly meaningful.
Most employees do not actively despise their jobs, however, yet not hating work is a vastly different concept to feeling positively fulfilled by it.
If this is beginning to sound relatable, it might be worth thinking about the wealth of opportunities offered up through a STEM career.
What’s so Great About STEM?
The subjects of science, technology, engineering, and math can often provide the means by which real change is brought about in society, so it might be argued that there is no shortage in the way of fulfilling career prospects to be explored in the field.
From healthcare solutions and data analysis to chemical engineering and academia, positive change is usually driven by dedicated individuals who, at one point, might have no idea how fulfilling their career would turn out to eventually be!
If you happen to possess an unrelenting desire to get yourself to the forefront of technological innovation, or even just a little interest in why a cool electronic gadget works the way it does, you likely own a similar mindset to the one belonging to the modern inventor.
The number of industries that STEM graduates can thrive in is close to unbelievable, so whatever your particular skill set happens to be, there will probably be an opening with your name written all over it.
What do You Need to Succeed?
Suppose you can take an analytical approach to solve problems. In that case, you thrive on working in a team of like-minded colleagues, and you have a great understanding of math and science, then you will no doubt find an area of work in which you can fully apply your diverse range of skills.
An appetite for learning and a desire to develop your professional skills at every possible turn can also be incredibly helpful. Standing at the limits of human knowledge as a simple part of your day job will quite possibly require you to keep your brain thirsting for more information.
If you ever find yourself lost in the pages of a spellbinding new science article, this is great news, as possessing a natural affinity for seeking out modern technological developments and discoveries can mean you have a curious mind. Curiosity, communication, and the ability to always ask “how?” and “why?” can sometimes be the tools that build the best answers to familiar problems.
Changing Direction Through Online Learning
In recent years, moving online has been the flavor of the day in many aspects of modern life; and education is no different.
Online learning can offer hopeful students a top-class education, complete with all the flexibility and freedom they require to complete the course in their own time.
This can be an exciting prospect for anyone who wishes to take up a STEM education alongside their current career, which may not have been a possibility in the past.
Advanced degrees are also available for people who have a decent amount of experience in the relevant fields. Sometimes, a qualification is all that is needed to open up brand new avenues of career possibilities.
To get an idea of what to expect from a high-quality online degree, you may want to check out an engineering management blog, as this can give you some first-hand insight into the matter.
Which Career Path is Right for You?
Individuals skilled in STEM subjects will undoubtedly possess a host of transferrable skills that will apply to a range of fields, so it might be worth thinking about which of life’s many dimensions has you most interested, as this can help narrow down your search. A few ideas might include:
The Natural World -If the natural world captures your attention with its enigmatic allure, a job as a conservation biologist can be an immensely fulfilling pursuit. Biology is a diverse field that spills over into a host of essential industries, including healthcare and ecology.
Big Data – The ever-growing data mine that is the digital realm can be an interesting area to explore for anyone with a love for numbers and an analytical brain. If you can recognize a pattern in a thunderstorm of information, you may be able to start seeing solutions to problems that were hidden in plain sight all along.
Engineering – Have you ever taken apart a product to see if you could put it back together? If so, you may have the traits necessary to start a promising career in engineering. From building airplanes and bridges to cars and computers, engineers are often at the cutting-edge of technology.
Finance – Investment banking can provide a highly lucrative job for a math fanatic, as can consultancy, and since mathematics is also the language of the universe, a job as a physicist might also be ideal.
It might even be worth taking a look around your immediate vicinity and seeing which gadgets you have lying around because if they interest you or help you out in anyway, it is useful to note that a STEM graduate possibly had a hand or two in making them a reality.
There are many more fields worth exploring, and ultimately what makes your career a fulfilling one will be down to what you personally value the most out of work. For many, a job they love doing will add new meaning and purpose to the way in which they define the regular working day.
Nurturing Your STEM Skillset
Nurturing any skillset takes perseverance and time, and you can start doing so right now! Reading as much as possible is one of the many keys to success, from books to blogs and everything in between.
Another great way to nurture any given skillset is get involved with the community, forums and online community pages can be good in this area, and you might always make some lasting connections that can help you on your journey towards a new and more fulfilling career.
Finding a Fulfilling Career Through STEM was last modified: June 14th, 2021 by Carol Trehearn
Deciding to start a business is going out on a limb and taking a leap of faith. It’s exciting, it’s scary, it’s a risk, and it’s also full of potential. If you’re ready to take that all on, then don’t hesitate. Starting a business often means longer hours and increased stress, especially in the early stages.
To keep up with the demands of entrepreneurship, managing your health is crucial. A tdee calculator can help you understand your daily energy needs, ensuring you stay energized and focused on your business goals.
There are tricks and tips to help you make your business successful and the financial gain is something that you’ll be proud of, eventually. If you still aren’t confident in the idea, here are four good reasons you should start a business.
4 Good Reasons Why You Should Start A Business
Starting a business may be the purpose you’ve been searching for your whole life. You might not see it in the beginning and certainly not during the hard months of bringing it all together. But, there will come a day when you will see the fruit of your hard work.
Getting started is also not as hard as you may be led to believe. Filling your legal documents and getting the proper registration and business licenses are relatively simple. If you don’t have the time or want to have a professional help you, there are companies for that. Read the incfile review to weigh out whether their service will work for you. These types of companies are great for those new to the process and those that simply don’t have the time or knowledge.
Now that you know how simple the paperwork is, here are a few other reasons why you should start a business.
1. Motivating
When you’re working for someone else, finding motivation can be like trying to find a single grain of sand. You know within yourself that even when you do your best; the person benefiting from your efforts and talents isn’t you. That isn’t to say that employers are monsters (if all goes well you’ll be an employer soon enough). Rather, it is the reality of not being your own boss. Your talents aren’t being used to grow yourself and your own business when you work for someone else.
Owning your own business will motivate you and push you to do and be the best that you can. You’re doing it for yourself at that point. There is no security net like you would have with a salaried job.
2. Financial Independence
Another reason to start your business is the financial independence that it will afford you. Once you’ve established a reputation and built a clientele, you’ll start to see good returns on your investment. There is also the control of your paycheck. You can decide on how much you’re going to make. This is something you wouldn’t have in a traditional career path.
Something you should take note of is the potential to scale your yearly income. When you own your own business, there is no limit to what the company can bring each day, week, month, or year. Your business can go from a small home-based operation to large cooperation with branches around the world.
3. Enhance Creativity
One thing you will find is an increase in your creativity. When issues come up, you’ll find yourself problem-solving in some of the most creative ways. You’ll also see your business with a child’s eyes. A lot of the projects you’ll come up with are things you’d have never considered working at your current job.
You’ll want to create and find ways to make your business stand out. This is a wonderful benefit.
4. Control Your Life and Schedule
Probably the best reason to start your own business is freedom. You will have complete control of your life and schedule. You can work when you want, take breaks when you need, and overall schedule your daily life in a way that works best for you. You’ll have the freedom to do a lot more of the things that you are interested in. This is why many are choosing to be their own boss.
Keep in mind that how you structure your business is a fundamental part of starting your company. Depending on your products, services or objectives this may vary completely.
Knowing that each day brings with it new challenges, new victories, creative avenues, and the chance to be better than you were the day before, why wouldn’t you start your own business. Truthfully, it is for people that have a drive and want to be the captain of their own path. Starting your own business will help you mature and you’ll discover skills you’ve been blind to. Once you find your purpose in your life and career, it’s hard to return to working for someone else. Go out there and just start.
4 Good Reasons Why Starting A Business Might Be The Right Thing For You was last modified: April 27th, 2024 by Charlene Brown
As a business owner, it is prudent to operate in a way that is aligned with the prevailing business climate. One such way to do this is to consistently upgrade the technology you use in your product life cycle and the use of Chatbots is a worthy avenue to pursue. They are not a new technology but their popularity has increased because of the results they have yielded.
Let’s take the Publix weekly ad as our case study. Say you want to order a ready-made meal under $10. You have a number of options; the chicken tender whole sub for $6.99, or simply fresh salads at $7 for two, among others. You have to browse through all the pages to see if there’s anything else within your range and that may take a while. A chatbot becomes handy because it can be programmed to ask you all the relevant questions and offer you the best option in a few seconds.
There are a number of benefits to using chatbots and we will give you some of them below.
1. Instant Customer Service
Chatbots are available 24/7/365, therefore queries or questions raised by your customers are immediately attended to. They are not subject to human emotion as well, hence where an agent or the customer may lose their patience, the chatbot is consistent in how it works. The chatbot being always online also means that your customer will not experience any delays, leading to their increased satisfaction. Considering that the chatbot is limited in the detail it gives, it can pass on information to agents to further handle a query for the customer. How much communication it gives is dependent on how you have programmed it.
2. Data Collection for Marketing
A chatbot can be set up in such a way as to collect customer information while they are being assisted. This way, you can make up mailing lists for potential customers and have a higher chance of making a connection with them. The chatbot is able to pull up customer purchase or browsing history on your website or app. This allows it to make product suggestions that are suited to the customer’s interests. This process will also make it easier when sending the customer marketing information via email as it will be based on their interests only, removing the irritation of receiving irrelevant mail.
Research has shown that a lot of queries received from customers are general and can well be handled by chatbot software instead of human service agents. The more complex issues can then be directed to agents.
4. They Meet Customer Expectations
A properly designed chatbot with the right language and appropriate responses will deliver exceptional customer service. Customers want to be assisted immediately with as little fuss as possible, and the chatbot can deliver on this mandate. Purchases can also be finalized on the chatbot, reducing the need to leave the chat and go back to another page on the website. Streamlining this process means it works faster, leading to better customer satisfaction.
There are many other benefits to using chatbots; you will need to make it as relatable as possible. Tailor it to your market and ensure it uses the language your customers will understand.
80% of Businesses in 2021 Want Chatbots – Here is Why was last modified: January 31st, 2024 by Cecilia Zisengwe
If you are researching a certain product, or just trying out one – a video is probably out there giving you all you need to know. A popular way to convey information or prospective customers is through an explainer video.
What is an Explainer Video?
The explainer video of a company highlights their product, service and business ideas in a compelling and creative way which appeals to a wider audience.
With the era of social media the production companies host these videos on larger platforms such as Instagram and Facebook along with other networks on landing pages and websites homepage.
The videos are used to connect potential clients which leads to increase in conversion rates of sales and more product purchases.
Explainer Video Structure
The average timing for such videos is 60-120 seconds or 180 maximum if the discussed product is complex and these must be marketed on well-known sites. A video must explain the problem and how your product will help solve the issue. The next step should be distinguishing your product with the competitions in the market and give a social proof to justify why.
What Makes a Good Explainer Video?
A good video must be well structured and reviewed so it can reach a maximum audience, it should be having:
Short time duration
Keep it short and to the context, explainer videos are usually long but the shorter and to the point it is the more beneficial and attractive it is.
High quality
The quality should be high in production and in content so it effectively communicates brands value.
Strong call to action
Explainer videos should clearly state what they want their intended audience to do after watching.
Focused on problem-solving
Match with the brand and its audience.
Different Kinds of Explainer Videos
Depending on your work field and company the video may be shooting on, the method is the same but the approach might be different. 3 main categories for explainer videos are
Company Overviews
When shooting a company related video, you might want to get everything out but it is better not to drag on for too long because no customer prefers lengthy videos. In this it is important to dictate; certification, awards, portfolio, working details and the clients you are working with
Hybrid, Meet the Team Videos
These videos with company culture are different as the customers get to know the brand better and help humanize the company. For such explainer videos it is better to go for animated videos as they are easy to update but you may choose the option that’s best for you. This is where you can mix some company and culture overview.
Product and Service Overview
Brands that sell only a single product or offer one type of service, usually produce an explainer video about the core product rather than an overview of the company. These are produced in more than an explanatory video and are more in depth for commercial purpose.
Although the video doesn’t share much about the company, the viewers are still able to know the brand commitment and information regarding the product.
Benefits of an Explainer Video
Videos are no doubt one of the fastest ways to learn about a company and the products with services they offer without losing interest. Here’s a breakdown of why explainer videos can be helpful for your Production Company and sales department:
Videos saves time
They are easy to share and access
Keeps the viewer entertained and gets message across
Explainer videos are brand recognition
How to Produce an Explainer Video?
Just like any video production, your explainer video needs to follow the same steps for production. However the process may differ on what type of video you are shooting. It is better to reach out tovideo producer companies and agencies to help you grow through the process.
Explainer videos take a considerable amount of coordination, talent, and skill to pull off. During the pre-production phase; it all starts at the script level, so make sure you get your structure down and take all necessary key points for the production. During the production the video animation or live starts to come real and post production is where all final cuts are edited and then marketed.
Partnering with a professional videographer and video production company can streamline the entire process, ensuring your explainer video is not just well-executed, but also highly effective in delivering your message and achieving your goals.” – Founder of Tetra Films, a video production company based in Vancouver.
Final Thoughts
Explainer videos are not only time savers but the perfect to address your audience and work your way up in the market. With the perfect brand recognition and use of modern technology it is easy to compete, solve problems with your product and raise more audience for it. Get your concept right and deal with a reliable company while keeping the structure in mind to get the best video made.
Explainer Video Production was last modified: September 25th, 2023 by Austin Dease
A registration on Pinterest gives you free access to share and discover interests. It is a social media network focused on visuals of people’s lifestyles, tastes, interests, DIY’s, facts, graphics, exotic locations, and anything that can be visually represented on this planet. Users can share their interesting photographs or videos by pinning them on their boards or on other boards. Pinterest also has a Pinterest lens similar to Google Lens, which allows you to discover ideas related to the thing you point your camera to. With surpassing 400 million monthly live users in 2020, Pinterest is a serious online business platform. So it is valid to think about a Pinterest growth service to grow your business on the third-largest digital network of America. And, Pinterest claiming 459 million users makes it a guaranteed growth destination for creators to reap their online business by Pinterest marketing.
What originated as a visual experience for displaying interest in inspiring arts, cooking recipes, fashion styles in clothing, DIY’s, and other interests of females has gone to the imaginative numbers of interests Pinterest caters to mankind today. From scriptures and arts of the medieval period to the information on the conceptual flying cars, Pinterest offers every kind of interest one can have.
Pinterest marketing potential
The footfall of buyers from Pinterest to the marketer site is very exciting with more than 90% being first-timers. Pinterest claims the male users have reached nearly 50% recently. Pinterest’s fourth-quarter shareholder report of 2020 displayed tremendous growth outside the US. In 2020, global monthly active users showed an increase of 46% from the previous year. In the US alone the increase was 11%, representing 98 million users monthly active in 2020.
The coming generations like Millenials and Gen Z tend to see and understand things more with videos and images, ensuring the value of this platform automatically rises. With features like Pinterest Lens, users can discover over 2.5 billion objects. Such interesting figures, and 87% of pinners claiming to purchase through the platform, show the humongous marketing potential of Pinterest. So, let’s dive into Pinterest marketing and what you need to succeed.
1. Create a Business Profile
The very first step for marketing on Pinterest is to create a business profile. Pinterest provides one of the simplest interfaces to backlink your website for people to find more about your products. You can make a business profile by clicking on Join as a business while signing up. Fill in the remaining details and you’re ready for marketing from your Pinterest business account.
2. Understanding the search
Pinterest is less of a regular social media and more of an image search engine. Like, you can search for a red wallet and a series of multiple pins will appear from the influencers, big fashion brands, retailers, magazines, and other user’s boards. Unlike other search engines where you go to the next page, you can keep scrolling down until you find your preferred pin. Furthermore, writing accurate details in the description of your pins guides your customers better to your linked website.
3. Pinterest Boards
The boards hold your collection of pins. For your label, your collection of boards helps you organize your pins categorically, so your followers can access and follow their interests. Likewise for a motorbike modification company, creating a board on self-bike repair is a specialized zone for bike enthusiasts. As A Result, these enthusiasts will spend more time on your boards and therefore good marketing is done for your company.
4. The Pins
Pins are the most essential and founding bricks of Pinterest. Whenever you search for anything on Pinterest, basically all the images displayed are pins. These founding elements are the first thing attracting your targeted customers to this platform and guide them to your web page. Every pin can say a specific thing about an e-commerce online store, a person, or any company. For this reason, it becomes quintessential to make your pins unique and inviting with communicative details.
How to do Marketing on Pinterest
Since you have understood the need and fundamentals of marketing on Pinterest, let’s move ahead to understand how to do it. After setting up a business profile you need to optimize it to imitate your brand value and aesthetics.
1. Optimization
For this, you should understand that aesthetics is the key here. Having a distinctive and alluring display will hold the potential of maximum conversion through Pinterest. Setting an eye-catching cover image that displays similar pastel colors on your company’s website reflects a singular identity of two platforms. Further, optimizing by following a theme that sync’s all the boards with accurate descriptions on each pin.
2. Utilize pins
Your visitors should have the ease of saving an image onto their boards. You can install Pinterest’s save button and allow people to do so. For a blogger, pins are the gateways to drive traffic to their website. Similarly, a handmade online shop displaying information and the price of their products is a classic example. You can also use rich pins once you’ve validated your website on Pinterest. Rich pins are linked to your source site. If anything is changed on the source website, rich pins update information automatically.
3. Pin wisely
You can’t randomly post a quotation or an image with a link and think it is great marketing done for your brand. It’s important to plan out the content strategy to achieve a set goal. Like actively sharing educational content can be a driving force to your business. For example, a pickle company actively sharing guided methods to make homemade pickles with illustrations will educate people on the topic. Resulting in people regularly visiting the company boards and hence increasing the leads and chance of more sales.
Conclusion
Since its launch as a closed beta in 2010, Pinterest has come a long way in building a strong reputation in digital marketing by 2021. As stated by Pinterest, because of the pandemic, usage rose to 36% on their platform to juggle between new part-time jobs. With 95% of the top searches still unbranded on this network speaks a lot about the untapped potential of Pinterest marketing. On this positive note, I wish you to reap by exploring and establishing your digital presence.
Pinterest Marketing in 2021: What it is and How to Do It was last modified: June 8th, 2021 by Amy Fischer
Small businesses drive economies around the world. In essence, small businesses are what defines the line between the community and corporation, and if you’re running one of them, you’ll probably need some top-tier tools to help you out.
We’ll list our top ten tools for running a small business will make your life and your job easier in 2021:
Monday is a management platform that makes managing your small business a walk in the park. It comes with all the features and services you need to manage and coordinate your projects.
It offers a top-shelf CRM, project, sales, and task management, software design and development, and a range of other things any small business can benefit from.
It’s a one-stop shop for all your management needs. What makes it stand out among the sea of other management tools is that it’s very easy to use, feature-rich, and very affordable.
Proofing is a very complex practice that is all but mandatory in modern business. Waiting for feedback from the rest of your business, your higher-ups, or your clients isn’t laborious – it’s an unnecessary waste of time.
With Filestage, the proofing process is streamlined to such a degree where teams can get instant replies and feedback that they require to go on with their work. Think of Filestage as the connective tissue between two departments that need to cooperate.
It streamlines communication and connects the two so that both get time-stamped approval as fast as possible, process and progress tracking, and a laid-out organization and framework of the workflow.
Outgrow is an interactive marketing platform that lets marketers and digital agencies create quizzes, calculators, chatbots, and assessments, polls, and giveaways to boost their marketing efforts. These interactive content types help companies generate nearly 30% more new leads and increase their social footprint. Moreover, interactive content like quizzes engages customers twice as compared to static content.
Outgrow stands out because it is easy to use and requires no coding knowledge. It offers 1000+ templates to choose from and robust analytics and automation powers to make your marketing campaigns a success.
Finally, Outgrow provides free COVID-19 offers and other affordable plans for freelancers, small businesses, and big corporates.
As the coronavirus descends into 2021, many businesses have moved out of the office into their home. It has led to a rise in time tracking tools such as Traqq.
Even when people are out of the office, you can still know what they’re up to, how much time that is taking, and how you can help them do it better and faster.
Time tracking for teams tools such as Traqq are necessary for managing remote teams, which most teams are nowadays.
Traqq allows you to monitor without even monitoring, as the automatic system will take screenshots, screen recording, monitor app, and web use without requiring constant input.
Web scraping is one of the most common business practices of 2021, as it allows small businesses to build big databases. In this data-driven world, staying on top of your competition is a priority, and web scraping is one of the best ways to do so.
Octoparse brings the process of web scraping to small businesses, allowing you to collect data on your competition, monitor trends, and improve your business from the inside.
The benefit of Octoparse is that it provides web scraping to every small business, requires little to no setup, and absolutely no complex coding.
Appypie is an interesting platform that allows you to develop custom solutions, apps, and tools without prior coding or development knowledge. While the power of this system is limited, it handles most of the needs small businesses have with relative ease.
Appypie stands out among the crowd of custom solution creation platforms because it’s very easy to use, fully customizable, and adaptable to any small business environment.
This no-code application development platform is affordable and scalable, so it perfectly fits the needs of small businesses without breaking the bank.
eCommerce is one of the most buzzing industries of 2021, and it’s gaining the attention of small businesses at an increasing rate. 2021 has seen more small businesses enter the world of eCommerce than ever.
Litextension is a service for eCommerce businesses looking to migrate from one eCommerce platform to another. Litextension makes quick work of the migration process and works well for small businesses or the agencies managing the eCommerce stores in question.
Marketing can make or break a business. If a business has good marketing, it will likely push out of the sea of failing small businesses and carve out a slice of the market share pie for themselves.
Now, small businesses usually have limited budgets and limited tools to market themselves, so what do they do?
Well, Moosend is a fantastic marketing platform for all small businesses. It comes with all of the tools that you or your marketing team need to make your business that much more appealing to the average consumer and spread the word about it.
Furthermore, Moosend is a very scalable solution, meaning you can adapt it to your business no matter how large or small it is. For small businesses considering Moosend but looking at options comparing it with TinyEmail can be helpful. Moosend vs TinyEmail dives into their features and scalability, helping decide the best fit.
Finding leads can get tricky, especially if you’re working on a smaller scale. You don’t want dozens of useless leads – you want some that will provide favorable results.
Well, if you’re in this position, you might want to take a look at Leadfuze, the premier prospecting tool for small businesses.
Leadfuze is a search engine for leads, which allows smaller businesses that don’t have huge in-house HR teams to find the correct leads, verify information across a huge database, and seamlessly integrate within your existing framework.
Fleep is a communication and file-sharing platform for small businesses. It allows you to connect teams within one simple, centralized application to communicate, trade files, and share progress. Fleep is a great way to streamline not just communication but coordination in the office space.
Another thing that makes Fleep a must-have tool in any small business arsenal is that it’s affordable, and integrating it within your existing framework is simple due to its easy-to-use GUI and adaptability.
Indy is a comprehensive project management software that includes everything you need to stay on top of your projects, from marketing to management to billing.
You can keep track of different tasks for multiple projects by assigning filters or moving tasks from one project to another. The tasks tool also allows you to assign tags, making it easy to see at a glance which project has the most tasks remaining.
The deadline and reminders feature ensures you also deliver your work on time. At the end of the week or month, you can link your hours to an invoice by adding your hourly rate before sending the document to a client.
In order for your business to remain competitive in today’s marketplace, you need a robust IT strategy that modernizes operations and keeps you lean. As part of this strategy, you need an IT support team by your side. But with so many different services to choose from, you’ll have to be selective in the companies you work with
The “Why” Behind IT Support
Small business owners often fall for the assumption that IT support services are just for big companies with massive budgets. But that’s simply not true. There are plenty of ways for small and medium-sized businesses to benefit from a partnership with the right IT support service, including:
● Better security. The right IT support staff keeps your entire system running smoothly. Not only that, but they ensure you have a reliable backup system in place to keep you protected in a worst-case scenario.
● Higher ROI. IT support saves you both time and money. The result is a beefier profit margin. While the upfront costs of hiring an IT support service are more expensive than a DIY approach, the long-term ROI is clear. With less downtime, greater reliability, and significant time savings, hiring an IT support service is a clear and obvious choice.
● Enhanced customer service. More uptime and reliability lead to happier and more satisfied customers. Subsequently, this produces better customer retention rates and stronger loyalty. This lowers your costs across the board and simultaneously gives your business a stronger foundation for future growth.
● Better use of time. When it’s all said and done, an IT support service allows you to spend less time worrying about what could go wrong and more time focusing on the other core tasks and responsibilities on your to-do list.
At the end of the day, having the right IT support service in place allows you to maximize your company’s efficiency and produce happy and satisfied clients that trust you to meet their needs. This rings especially true in industries like healthcare, where seamless operations and data security are paramount. Medical IT support ensures that your systems are not only running smoothly but also compliant with stringent regulations, ultimately fostering trust and confidence among both patients and staff.
4 Tips for Selecting the Right IT Support Service
With so many different IT support services to choose from, here are a few factors that are absolutely worth considering.
1. Location
Physical location may or may not matter very much – it just depends on the services you need. For example, if your company will provide services like VoIP or cloud hosting, the location of the servers can have an effect on the quality of your services. It’s also important to think about location if you plan to expand into a different country in the future. (Make sure they have the capacity to support you.)
2. Types of Support
Many IT support companies will offer varying levels of service. This may include:
● Pay-as-you-go support. Good for companies with smaller budgets that only need occasional support.
● Break-fix support. The managed services providers on an as-needed basis and bills you only for the work performed.
● Managed service support. The most comprehensive type of support. Ideal for businesses that want a totally hands-off, white-glove approach.
3. Response Times
When you have an IT issue, the last thing you want to do is spend hours or days waiting for your support provider to come out and troubleshoot the issue. Depending on the problem, you could be losing thousands of dollars every few minutes. Time is of the essence.
As you consider IT support services, consider if they make any guarantees around response times. For example, PalmTech Computer Solutions promises to have a qualified technician working on resolving the IT problems within one hour or less for all managed services contracts. That’s a huge benefit (both in terms of cost savings and peace of mind).
You may find different services can benefit your business. A live chat Outsourcing firm can ensure high quality responses for your operation.
4. Costs
Finally, consider the cost. Every IT support service operates on a unique payscale. Some companies require long-term contracts and monthly retainer fees, while other companies let you pay as you go with no long-term commitment. There are benefits to both types of agreements, so make sure you’re taking all relevant factors into account. Depending on what stage your business is in, it may make more sense to sign a long-term agreement and cut costs. Other businesses like the pay-as-you-go structure because of the flexibility and scalability. Use Revolution IT for flat rate IT services, this is the leading IT support provider in Auckland and offers comprehensive solutions to businesses seeking reliable and effective IT support services.
Putting it All Together
Your business doesn’t just need an IT support service – it needs the right IT support service. As you search for the perfect partner, take factors like location, support services, response time, and costs into account. If nothing else, your thorough due diligence will leave you with the confidence and peace of mind that you made the right choice.
4 Tips to Help You Choose the Right IT Support Service for Your Business was last modified: April 3rd, 2024 by Alex Sanders
In most areas of the country, driving remains the most reliable and most efficient way to get from one place to another. But even if you’re experienced and careful, there’s a chance you could end up in a car accident; in fact, there are more than 35,000 motor vehicle deaths in the United States each year and tens of thousands of accidents that only result in minor injury.
The good news is that most car accidents are preventable – but you have to understand and respect the causes of those car accidents.
One of the most common causes of accidents is also one of the most preventable: distracted driving. When traveling at high speeds, taking your eyes off the road even for a second can render you incapable of responding to a sudden change in your surroundings. For example, if you look at your phone for a second while driving on the highway and a person in front of you slams on the brakes, you might be incapable of stopping in time. Avoid distractions at all costs, keeping your attention on the road and the drivers around you.
We trust the manufacturers of our vehicles to equip them with everything they need to drive reliably and safely – but even small manufacturer defects can lead to major accidents. Unfortunately, there isn’t much you can do about this to proactively prevent accidents. Choose reliable manufacturers with a strong reputation – and if there’s a recall for your vehicle, take care of it immediately.
3. Intoxicated driving
Despite widespread knowledge that drinking and driving is a major public health hazard, people still drink and drive. Alcohol and other drugs impair your ability to respond in a timely and appropriate manner. They may also impair your perceptions and judgment.
If you’ve consumed alcohol recently, or other drugs that affect your perceptions, you’re best off getting a designated driver to take you home. “A DUI lawyer can help prevent devastating car accidents caused by intoxicated driving – don’t let a moment of impairment lead to a lifetime of regret.” – Meltzer & Bell, DUI Lawyer
4. Fatigued driving
Most people know that alcohol can affect your driving, but those same people may underestimate the effects of fatigued driving. If you’re especially tired, your perceptions can be as distorted as they would be after a heavy round of drinking. Get a ride home or take some time to nap before attempting to drive when tired.
5. Inclement weather
Bad weather can limit visibility, reduce traction on the road, and affect your vehicle’s maneuverability, all of which lead to higher rates of car accidents. In cases of severe bad weather, such as thick fog or a major blizzard, it’s a good idea to stay home and not drive at all. Even in cases of mild bad weather, like a thunderstorm or moderate snowfall, you’ll want to exercise caution, giving yourself extra stopping distance and keeping your headlights on at all times.
6. Speeding
Speeding is a leading cause of car accidents for several reasons. First, it affects your maneuverability, making it difficult to handle sharp turns and making it more likely you’ll lose control of the vehicle. Second, it increases your stopping distance, giving you less time to react to sudden changes in front of you. It also increases the force of collision, so accidents involving speeding have higher fatality and injury rates. Remain at or under the speed limit and reduce your speed further when necessary.
7. Ignoring traffic signs/laws
Traffic signs and laws exist for a reason: to keep you and other drivers safe. Reckless driving, running a red light, merging without a turn signal, or failing to yield may seem inconsequential in the moment, but they can sharply increase your risk of an accident. Obey these signs and laws at all times.
8. Poor road conditions
Bad roads can also lead to accidents. Major potholes or bumps can cause you to lose control if you’re not careful. Avoid construction sites when possible and pay attention to your surroundings to minimize risk here.
9. Lack of maintenance
If you don’t keep your vehicle well-maintained, it can be harder to control – and may break down unexpectedly. At least annually, you should have your vehicle inspected (and repaired if/when necessary). If you have trouble getting compensation for an injury that happened at work, you may want to contact this Fort Worth Workers Compensation Lawyer.
Understanding Other Drivers
You may be a safe, attentive, and obedient driver on the road, but you’re still just one of many variables that interact (and could potentially lead to an accident). In addition to driving cautiously and obeying the law, it’s important to observe and proactively respond to the drivers around you. Don’t be afraid to pull off to the side of the road or take an alternative route if it means getting out of the way of a reckless driver.
The 9 Most Common Causes of Car Accidents (and How to Prevent Them) was last modified: June 26th, 2024 by Alex Sanders
