What Businesses Can Learn from Sports

Lead Your Tribe

The following is a guest post by Piyush Patel, author of the forthcoming Lead Your Tribe, Love Your Work. If you’d like to contribute a guest post to Money Q&A, be sure to check out our guest posting guidelines. Sitting down around a table at the popular Bottega restaurant in Napa Valley, my executive team and I settled in for an evening of celebration. The last few months were a flurry of long hours, bug squashing and improving on our new streaming video platform. It felt good to take a step back and celebrated their hard work and a job well done. This was about two years before Netflix offered their own streaming-only plan, so it was venturing into an … Read more

4 Things Businesses Should Include in a Terms of Service Agreement

Not Sure Which Business Is Right For You?

While no one reads the terms of service agreement for many service providers—such as social media networks—creating an airtight agreement will protect your business from many future legal headaches.

What to Include in a Terms of Service Agreement

Here are four things businesses should include in a terms of service agreement.

Provide a Definition of Your Service or Product

Not Sure Which Business Is Right For You?This is something that essentially every kind of business—big or small—will want to include in its terms of service. By providing a definition of your product or service that is easy to understand, and can only be interpreted one way, you are mitigating any claim that someone was deceived by your product. In some ways, this is another form of small business insurance—as it removes ambiguity about what the customer can expect in return from your company.

Define Intellectual Property Rights

Many companies have their own intellectual property that they use to provide services to customers. Oftentimes, those customers actually produce intellectual property of their own through that proprietary service. Amazon is one example of a company that allows its customers to use its property to produce their own copyrighted materials.

If your company also operates in this way, you need to make it explicit that you maintain the rights to all your proprietary software or services. While it’s unlikely, someone might potentially try to take you to court if you don’t make it totally clear that using the service gives them no ownership over it.

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How a Business Mentor Can Improve the Financial Health of a Business

Should I Get a Small Business Loan?

Are you a business owner who is looking for a way to improve the financial health of your business? If so, hiring a business mentor has the potential to help you achieve this important financial goal. Below are some of the ways a business mentor can improve the financial health of a business. You Will Avoid Common Financial Mistakes Avoiding mistakes that are costly for your business is just as important as making good decisions that make money for your business. Once again, an accomplished business mentor like Tai Lopez will show you how to identify and avoid many of the common financial mistakes that are made by business owners who take their eye off the ball. A mentor like … Read more

Combine Vulnerability and Credibility for a Powerful Marketing Message

Women Rocking Business by Sage Lavine

The following is a guest post by Sage Lavine, author of “Women Rocking Business“. If you’d like to guest post on Money Q&A, check out our Guest Post Guidelines.

A Note from Hank: Sage’s experience coaching over 100,000 women entrepreneurs shows in her new book that explains why the ability to express vulnerability is a key strength for women in business. In particular, women seeking to build businesses can leverage this gift to win faithful followers, and attract loyal, paying clients.

Ladies, have you ever felt like you have to hide the very quality that makes you a caring, sensitive individual – your vulnerability – in order to succeed?

If so, you are not alone. Even the most powerful women often believe they can’t express certain emotions and aspects of their personality on the job for fear of being perceived as weak, ineffective or wishy-washy.

Women Rocking Business by Sage LavineNot true. As a CEO and a coach of women entrepreneurs, I can firmly attest that the ability to express vulnerability is a key strength for women. In particular, women seeking to build businesses can leverage this gift to win faithful followers, and attract loyal, paying clients.

The world is hungry for more vulnerability, for leaders who’ve stopped claiming to be perfect, who don’t wear a mask and who own up to their own imperfect humanness. When you allow yourself to display your vulnerable side – especially as it relates to the product or service you are offering – people will tune in and pay attention because you’ve been there, too. You know how they feel.

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Why Looking After Your Business Finances Is Important

Looking After Your Business Finances

Keeping on top of your personal finances is hugely important if you want to enjoy a secure future without financial pressures and avoid getting into bad situations. The same is true when it comes to the business finances of any business you run.

If you have a small company, you may think everything is okay as long as you aren’t clearly making a loss or encountering serious cash flow problems. However, if you are not doing enough to control your finances, you are losing out on a lot of benefits as well as exposing your business (and by extension your income) to uncertainty and risk.

Looking After Your Business Finances

Looking After Your Business Finances

Here we look at why good financial control is important in a business of any size:

Planning

When you have a firm understanding of exactly where money is going within your business and have good processes in place for financial management, it is far easier to plan for things that you want to do to help your business grow.

Whether it is expanding to a new location, hiring more people, or launching a new marketing campaign, without a good grasp of what your business’ financial state is you can’t really make good plans. Good financial management makes forecasting for the future not only possible but worthwhile, enabling you to make decisions and strategize more effectively.

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Business Accounting Made Easy with Xero Software

Business Accounting Made Easy with Xero Accounting Software

XeroWhether you’re a seasoned business owner or an eager entrepreneur in the midst of setting up your own business, staying organized in every area of your business should be one of your top priorities. Xero accounting software can help you build your business and take it to the next level.

If you haven’t yet heard of or tried Xero’s software for small business owners, then you should seriously consider adding it to your repertoire of organizational programs.

Business Accounting Made Easy with Xero Accounting Software

Here are a few reasons why Xero makes business owners’ lives so much easier:

What is Xero? 

Xero was originally founded in 2006 in New Zealand as a cloud-based software program for small business leaders to more efficiently manage their operations and employees. In 2014 and 2015, Forbes recognized Xero as the “World’s Most Innovative Growth Company”.

Since then, Xero’s subscriber base has grown to over 862,000 entrepreneurs and small business owners around the world. The company operates in over 180 countries, and more business owners are signing up each day.

On-the-Go Efficiency for Small Business Owners

Xero is designed for busy business owners who want an easier way to manage their company’s operations from anywhere, whether they’re Ubering to the airport, at a café in a foreign country, or sitting in their home office. The Xero app is available for Apple devices and Android devices, it syncs with a variety of business apps that you might already be using in your business operations, and Xero’s in-app features are numerous.

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