Category: Tools and Information

How to Pay Yourself as a Business Owner | Business News Daily

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As a business owner with a thousand responsibilities and your own company expenses to think about, factoring in how to pay your own salary can easily fall to the back burner. But when it comes to optimizing your business’s financial performance, retaining top employees, and building a long-lasting, successful company, how you choose to pay your own salary matters.

Your business’s structure will be a major factor, and experts like Alice Brendin, a B2B marketing entrepreneur and small business advisor, said it’s important to include your own pay in the budget as soon as you can afford to do so. By prioritizing your own salary structure, you can set your company up for long term success.

How to pay yourself as a business owner

According to the IRS, business owners should pay themselves a “reasonable salary.” But how do you determine what’s reasonable?

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This sleek new L.A. commuter train is pollution-free | Fast Company

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On a cold day, a new train puffs out clouds that look like smoke, just like a traditional steam engine. But the train—which runs on hydrogen fuel cells, not coal—doesn’t create any climate emissions or air pollution. The only exhaust is water vapor.

The sleek blue train is the first of its kind in North America. Called a ZEMU, (zero-emissions multiple unit), it will soon begin carrying passengers between two cities east of Los Angeles, connecting commuters to other trains that travel to downtown L.A.

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3 Downsides of Venture Capital—And How to Avoid Them | All Business

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Raising money for your business can be great. Many entrepreneurs see it as validation that they’ve “made it.” While it is a good sign that a professional investor has kicked the tires on your company and is willing to invest their money, there are some downsides to venture capital that might mean that raising venture funds is not the right path for you.

Sure, there are many advantages of securing a round of investment from a “value-add” partner. It can open the doors to important introductions, kick-start a business into high growth, and even refocus a business for success. But not all venture funding stories have such happy endings. There are, in fact, times when a business might encounter more negatives than positives when accepting venture funds.

To avoid this path, there are potential scenarios in which venture capital is a major drawback:

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Microloans for Small Business: Learn What’s Available and Whether to Apply | All Business

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When you own a small business, you’ll have a variety of obstacles to deal with and needs to meet. The one near-constant, however, is financing.

Like it or not, you need money to make money, and one of the biggest reasons why small businesses fail is their inability to deal with cash flow issues. Even successful businesses that have plenty of revenue sometimes hit a fatal cash crunch at the wrong time. To combat this ongoing issue, business owners sometimes turn to business loans and other financing products, which can make sense if you have a plan in place to pay back your funding plus interest. One overlooked financing product, however, is the microloan.

Most business owners are familiar with the term microloan, even if they’ve never considered one themselves. The concept of microlending has transformed entrepreneurship in countries and markets where the barrier to entry is sometimes as little as a few hundred dollars—though that hardly seems like a useful sum to most U.S.-based businesses.

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AI Will Change Everything in Your Small Business | Small Business Trends

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AI will fundamentally change the landscape of various industries. Still, many small business owners are slow to adapt and are ignoring this new technology.

My guest on The Small Business Radio Show, KP Reddy who is the author of “Creating the Intangible Enterprise”, an AI expert, founder and CEO of Shadow Ventures. With a background in civil engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, KP has become a global authority in AEC environments, AI, robotics, automation, mobile applications, and cloud computing.

KP is also the author “What You Know About Startups is Wrong”, debunking eleven popular myths about what defines a top entrepreneur. His extensive experience includes founding and exiting three technology companies to NASDAQ and NYSE,

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Google Pixel 9 vs. Pixel 8: Do you really need to upgrade? | Digital Trends

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Google has unveiled its 2024 smartphone lineup, including the Pixel 9, Pixel 9 Pro, Pixel 9 Pro XL, and Pixel 9 Pro Fold. Google has really pulled out all the stops this year, producing a big stable of phones with gorgeous designs, much improved battery lives, and the customarily amazing cameras we’ve come to expect from Google’s phones. They really are the top Google phones for this year.

But while they may have exceeded last year’s Pixels, are they a must-upgrade? If you currently have a Pixel 8, you might be considering upgrading to the Pixel 9 — but should you? We have the answers for you, so you can make the best choice. Read on below.

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Becoming A Better Salesperson And Securing More Deals | The Startup Magazine

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In the sales industry, staying ahead is not just a strategy; it’s a necessity. With the constant competition, it’s crucial to keep evolving. Even if you have years of experience, you might find it challenging without a new set of selling tips. But remember, it’s all about staying ahead of the game.

Here, you can discover all of the top-selling tips and advice to become a better salesperson and complete more deals.

Use AI to receive instant recommendations

In sales, it is good to move fast with sales. While you need to ensure the decision you are making is wise, it is good to move fast. Otherwise, you might lose the opportunity to someone else. Hence, it is savvy to receive instant recommendations from AI.

Using ZoomInfo Copilot, salespeople can use AI to receive instant prospect recommendations to speed up ideas and get on with making sales quicker. Instead of waiting around for company listings and other calls, you can receive instant help to get on with your sales.

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How To Make Money As A Content Creator | The Startup Magazine

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We live in a time when one of the most sought-after career opportunities is to be a content creator. In fact, according to Influencer Marketing Hub, around 200 million people consider themselves content creators, however less than a third have it as their full-time career. There are more content creator career opportunities than ever to create content and generate an income from it, but you need to know what you’re doing.

In a market that’s highly saturated you need to think of ways you can stand out and have people want to engage with what you create. In this article, we take a look at some top ways you can make money as a content creator and either have it as a veritable side income or as a main job in the long run. Keep on reading to find out more.

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How to Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile in 6 Easy Steps | Entrepreneur

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With more than 1 billion users in 200 countries worldwide, LinkedIn is currently the largest professional networking platform. So, whether for professional networking or job search purposes, it’s more important than ever to customize and optimize your LinkedIn profile. Similar to advertising, visitors to your profile page will likely spend just a few precious seconds to form an opinion, so it’s imperative that everything is clear, concise and on-message. Fortunately, LinkedIn has a robust feature set that enables a lot of customization. Unfortunately, many on the platform overlook key parts of their profile, in some cases not including them at all and often not optimizing what’s there.

As you craft your LinkedIn profile, the fundamental objective to keep in mind is that you want to clearly articulate four things in a concise and quick-to-digest manner: who you are, what you are doing professionally, what you have done and what you are looking for — especially for those who are job hunting. You should remove anything that does not contribute to any of these points

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How to Keep Your Apps Up to Date | Entrepreneur

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I never considered the importance of app accessibility until I found myself struggling to zoom in on every app I was using. Whether I was reading the fine print in my banking app or verifying my identity for a flight, the lack of accessible design was a constant frustration.

This personal experience reassured me of the critical nature of user interface and user experience. I started investigating how we can improve our customers’ journeys during the identity verification process.

Mobile applications now allow users to check in for a flight, access a bank account, apply for a visa, and much more. The user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) determine the smoothness of these processes.

Although UI and UX are crucial, they still need improvement, especially in identity verification. Enhancing these aspects is essential for businesses aiming to optimize user experience and operational efficiency

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