Tag: Workplace Wisdom

Starting your own business can be hugely exciting and rewarding, but it can also be absolutely terrifying. You need to learn fast, make use of every tool and resource available to you and plan your path forward with care.

We’ve put together some useful tips for setting up a business from scratch. Good luck!

Step 1: Developing the concept

The key to setting up your own business and making a success of it is to base everything around a really good business concept. You need an idea, product, service or gap in the market that you believe you can commercialise, one that you think people really want or need – and you need to be passionate about it. Once you have your idea, you can start to test its plausibility, looking at everything from whether the product works to whether there is a market for it and whether you can make a profit from it. Need inspiration? Alan Hall on Forbes.com guides you through a six-step process to developing a world-class business idea – it’s well worth a read.

Step 2: Making the business plan watertight

Now that you have an idea and an inkling of how to turn that idea into a profitable business, you need to get everything on paper in the form of a business plan. You need a name for your company and a clear idea of how you will structure it. You need to register as a business, register for tax and cover all the legal essentials at the very start, as well as drawing up a clear plan and a set of goals for how you will run your business and what you hope it will achieve.

Startups.co.uk’s 10 steps to starting a business is invaluable reading for any entrepreneur, covering everything from applying for funding and choosing the right business structure to coming up with a name, finding an accountant and even creating a logo.

Step 3: People and premises

Many entrepreneurs start their businesses from home, without anyone working for them. Whether this works for you depends on whether you need other people to turn your idea into a business, or whether you can run everything solo for a while.

Set everything up as professionally as possible. This means setting aside a room in your house (if possible) as a dedicated office space, buying good quality office furniture and making sure you’re set up with everything you need to run a professional business.

Avoid distractions. Unfortunately, this can be very tricky with kids running about, the phone constantly ringing, and people at the door, but you need to try to separate work and home (even though you are at home).

Consider working one day a week or more in professional premises. If you need to hold a meeting with important clients or avoid the distractions of the home and get some solid work done, making use of co-working facilities one day a week could be the ideal solution. You get to work alongside other professionals in a dedicated office space, where everything you need is easily accessible, so it can be great for your productivity.

Get a professional address. Getting your post delivered to a professional address, such as one near a major city, can be great for your company’s credibility. Similarly, having a professional receptionist answer your calls can be a big boost for your brand’s image, and it can save you from being constantly distracted by the phone ringing – and you can be sure you’ll never miss an important message.

Thinking about your office space

Recognising when it’s time for your business to evolve and grow is crucial to its success, so as a business owner, you need to be flexible and make changes when they are needed. If you find you can’t avoid distractions working at home, if you are sick of holding meetings in your living room, or you want to start employing staff, it’s time to consider a change.

Committing to a long and potentially expensive lease on office space is likely to be too big a step for your fledgling company, but luckily, there are a couple of more suitable solutions. As we’ve mentioned previously, co-working spaces can be ideal for freelancers, sole traders and small teams. This kind of environment is a great place to innovate, network and collaborate, as well as benefit from a full range of facilities, from professional meeting spaces to conferencing equipment.

Start-ups, entrepreneurs and established businesses are increasingly naming the benefits co-working can bring to new businesses. Citing the “nearly immeasurable amounts of value for new businesses” co-working provides, Rameet Chawla, founder of Fueled, an award-winning design and development company based in London and New York, speaks of the many benefits of co-working.

“A great co-working space is a collection of minds inspired by the brand that brought them together. As a member, you benefit from the brand that creates the space, the ethos it aspires to, and the people it attracts,” Chawla writes on Entrepreneur.

Virtual offices can be good options for those wanting a professional address and call answering, as well as occasional access to professional facilities like meeting rooms.

In fact, virtual offices enable businesses to look significantly more professional and greater professionalism can quickly equate to more business and higher turnover. As well as giving businesses a prestigious business address, virtual offices provide professional services, including:

• Telephone answering
• Mail handling
• Customised services
• Networking opportunities

Cost savings

A virtual office can also help businesses save money, as you only pay for what you need, so you do not have to worry about paying for traditional office expenses that you are not going to regularly use, such as rent, utilities and equipment.

Similar to co-working centres, the benefits of virtual offices are regularly cited. As the CEO Suite writes:

“Virtual office space can be highly beneficial for nearly any business, of any size, as well as home-based business executives on the move. It will provide your business with immediate presence in an untapped market, at a fraction of the cost of a traditional office.”

For those who are ready to take a slightly bigger step, serviced offices could be the right direction to go in. A serviced office helps entrepreneurs avoid setup costs and delays, as they’re ready to use from the day you walk in the door. If you can’t wait to start growing and expanding, this kind of setup has everything you need to hit the ground running.

Step 4: Setting and reviewing goals

To measure and mark how well your new business is doing, you should set realistic goals and targets at the start. Don’t be afraid to revisit and review these as time passes, as it’s important to constantly reevaluate what you’re doing, how you’re doing it and how well it’s working.

The steps above are just a broad overview of the many different tasks and processes involved in setting up your own business. For a more in-depth look, check out the Forbes.com guide to starting your own company. It takes time, perseverance, resilience and a good deal of determination to succeed – but you can do it!

For high-quality, flexible and professional co-working in Leeds, WorkWell provides excellent co-working premises, designed to help businesses of all sizes grow. Similarly, WorkWell offers high-quality virtual offices, aimed at giving your business a more professional edge.

For more advice and tips on setting up your own business, as well as finding the right office space in which to do it, subscribe to the WorkWell blog.

 You’ve just graduated, you’re bursting with creative ideas and enthusiasm, and you’re all ready to start your own business. But where do you start, and how can you be sure that you’re making the most sensible decisions at the right time? In your eagerness to get a new business off the ground, it’s all too easy to rush in – but, as we noted in a blog offering advice for start-ups, this is when mistakes happen.

To make the best use of the time you spent at university and to ensure you start your business off in the right way, follow these tips…

Don’t wait forever for the perfect opportunity.

While it’s very important to plan and do your homework before starting a business, it would be a mistake to wait around forever for the ideal opportunity to come along. If you try, you can come up with a million excuses not to make the leap now – from a slight downturn in the economy to your financial situation. If you have the idea and your plan is sound, be brave and seize now as the opportunity now.

Create a watertight business plan.

This is one of the first pieces of business advice any experienced business owner will give you – to come up with a sound and thorough plan for how you will start and run your business. It should lay out every single detail, no matter how small, about how your business will run, for everyday operations and the long-term plan. Be as meticulous as you can, and really put some effort into identifying and resolving theoretical problems and obstacles you could encounter.

Get the paperwork done.

Before you can start some of the fun bits, like marketing your new venture, you need to lay all of the right foundations. For example, you need to register your business for tax, register your intellectual property, and, as our blog about starting a business in Leeds highlighted, apply for funding if you need it. It may be dull, but it needs doing.

Ideas are great, but they’re nothing without implementation.

Some people are born dreamers, and of course, original thinking is key to coming up with a new idea or a twist on an established concept. However, you also need to be able to implement your big ideas. For every idea you dream up, make plans for making it happen – and be realistic! So many new businesses fail because ambition and creativity just don’t match up with the logistical and financial realities of implementing the initial concepts.

Don’t run before you can walk.

Too many budding entrepreneurs think they need to sign up for long leases on office space and start hiring people before they’ve even built up a customer base. Starting a business may be risky, but taking on this level of financial commitment before the business is off the ground is a risk too far. Find working solutions that suit the needs of your business now, such as a virtual office, which allows you to work from home but have calls and mail received, a prestigious address and access to meeting rooms and other facilities if you need them. Alternatively, you could make use of a shared workspace, which can be great for stimulating creative, innovative thinking and making invaluable contacts. What makes both shared workspace and a virtual office good for start-ups is that they require less financial outlay and they’re flexible – so they can adapt to the needs of your business now and as it starts to grow.

If you need any more advice about the different kinds of office space and how they can work for you as an entrepreneur, subscribe to the WorkWell blog or download our Co-working Starter Pack.

Did you know Leeds is the largest centre for financial and business services outside London? Did you also know that more than 300 recruitment agencies now operate in Leeds? Or perhaps you weren’t aware that the Leeds City Region has a workforce of 1.9 million and a business base of over 106,000 companies, collectively generating five per cent of England’s total economic output?

Our point…Leeds is a thriving business community, the commercial hub of the North, a truly inspiring entrepreneurial city. Playing such a vital role in the UK’s commercial and economic landscape, the savviest of businesses are keen to be associated with the pulsating city of Leeds. It’s the businesses that are void of such an admirable association that run the risk of being commercially left behind.

In short, a business in West Yorkshire without a Leeds business address could be unnecessarily held back. We say ‘unnecessarily’ because almost every business can benefit from a credible business address, such as a Leeds postcode, thanks to the unique opportunities virtual offices create.

Whilst Leeds’ business community might be flying, those entrepreneurs, small business owners, freelancers and SMEs without a professional address could be seriously missing out.

An SEO no-no

You might not think a physical address would affect Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), after all, what’s great about the internet is that it creates a globalised, boundary-free world, right?

Not exactly!

As Work Webb Net notes, search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing use the address a business has on their website to provide their results to people who make search queries to find a service or product.

“When your website is void of a physical address, you don’t have much chance of being found online for your services. It’s a big SEO no-no,” writes Work Webb Net.

Consequently, a business working remotely from a home office in a secluded village in the Yorkshire Dales could be seriously missing out if they don’t have a lucrative business address present on its website.

Professionalism

Having a business address in a city like Leeds creates a professional impression for companies of any shape, size or form. By contrast, a business with a home address, a P.O. Box, or no address at all, crafts a significantly less professional impression and could even be viewed as being an organisation that is dodgy, unreliable and unprofessional.

Creates consistency

Another element that could be holding the Leeds business address community back is the lack of consistency: operating without a ‘proper’ business address generates.

Having a professional business address that is placed on a company’s website, on business cards, and marketing materials creates an element of consistency, which is also synonymous with professionalism.

Meetings

Holding a meeting in a busy coffee shop in the centre of Leeds, struggling to be heard above the constant whir of noise, is not conducive to a professional business meeting and is certainly a challenge facing businesses in Leeds, or anywhere else for that matter, that don’t have a professional business address.

Renting a virtual office overcomes the dilemma of the coffee shop meetings, as it enables businesses to gain a physical address to hold professional meetings that are free of crowds and noise and are equipped with essential office items, such as projectors, Wi-Fi connection, office furniture and refreshments.

Location matters

A virtual office is virtual, so its location doesn’t matter. Wrong!

As we wrote in our blog titled ‘Why location matters for your virtual office’, when it comes to where a business is based, location is vitally important as prospective clients will “instantly spot” whether your office is near a major city or somewhere they have never heard of.

Having an address in a city like Leeds will give the impression to both existing and prospective clients that your business is based near a successful, thriving city that is close to major transport networks and links, sending a powerful message to clients that your business is equally as successful, buoyant and ‘going places.’

So don’t let your business in Leeds fall by the wayside by failing to give it a professional address. Give it some ‘remote control’ and make sure it remains competitive in the flourishing city of Leeds by treating it to a virtual office and an exclusive business address.

WorkWell offers premier serviced and virtual office space on the outskirts of Leeds and central Harrogate. As well as having all your calls answered within three rings, your business will benefit from a sought-after business address just outside the city of Leeds. Get in touch today to learn more about our virtual offices!

 

Working at home can give you great freedom and the chance to set your own hours, control your own working patterns and essentially – be your own boss. You aren’t tied to your desk, you have more flexibility for other things outside of work, and there’s no one looking over your shoulder.

All these are fantastic benefits of being a freelancer or sole trader working from a home office, but they can also lead to a productivity-draining downside. When you manage your own time, it’s very easy to slip into bad habits and procrastination. Your home and social life can bleed into your work time, so you never get as much done as you’d like. Working alone, there’s no one else to pick up the slack, so boosting productivity and efficiency is your sole responsibility.

Eight top productivity tips for working at home

Luckily, there are lots of things you can do to avoid distractions and get more done in your home office. Let’s start with the layout of the office itself…

1. Have a dedicated workspace – preferably with a closing door! Some people think that all they need is a table or even just a laptop to work at home. Yes, you can technically do your work while sitting on the sofa or at the kitchen table, but you definitely won’t be as productive as you need to be. Such an unprofessional setup won’t help your mindset, you won’t have easy access to all the equipment you need, and importantly, there will be constant distractions, from phone calls to that pile of dirty dishes crying out to be cleaned up, interrupting your work. You need a dedicated workspace, even if it’s just a desk in a spare bedroom where you can set everything up the way you like it and shut the door on everything non-work-related.
2. Clean, organise and de-clutter your workspace. A clean, ordered workspace will help you to organise your workflow and your processes, and a spring clean is a great way to kick off your new super-productive way of working. Don’t forget to let lots of natural light in, add in a plant or two and give yourself a nice view or even just a painting to look at – these will boost your mood and energy levels and help you with your workday.  For more tips on organising your home office space, read our blog about organising a home office.
3. Eliminate unnecessary distractions. The more distractions you can cut out of your day, the more you can focus and concentrate on the task at hand. One thing that can massively disrupt your workday is the phone ringing, as well as deliveries at the front door. You can get rid of these distractions, but still get all of your essential calls, messages and mail, by making use of a virtual office, as we wrote about in our blog about the benefits of a virtual office. Virtual offices offer professional reception and call answering services, so you’ll never miss a crucial call, and also have the extra advantage of giving you the credibility boost of a professional postal address. Without the phone ringing every two minutes, you’re bound to boost your output and achieve more of your daily goals.

As All Business Expert writes:

“A business virtual office supplies an affordable and brilliant option for even the smallest budgets to operate a business like a major operation.”

4. Track your time. Time is, in many ways, one of the biggest enemies of the home worker. It’s so easy to lose track of how long a task takes you to complete, or to lose minutes or even hours on procrastination and distraction. Productivity expert Anne McGurty, quoted in an article on Forbes.com, recommends setting a fixed work routine to help you manage your time. She says:

“Working from home takes self-discipline, and that means getting things done in the right time,”

“One way to keep your day on schedule is to set a daily start and stop time for working. The structure of a routine will help you avoid procrastination and boost your productivity.”

“If you’re always wondering where the time went, consider using one of the many free online apps, such as RescueTime, to help you track your activities.”

You may also want to consider adopting new work patterns, such as the Pomodoro technique. This involves using a timer app to work in chunks of 25 minutes at a time, with a 5-minute break. It is designed to encourage maximum focus and keep energy and creativity high – this article on Lifehack.org can tell you more about the technique and help you figure out if it’s right for you.

5. List and prioritise your tasks every morning. To keep focused during your working day, make a list of everything you need to do that day before you start. Make sure you’re realistic in how much you can actually get done, or you’ll constantly feel dissatisfied at the end of each day.
6. Invest in the right equipment. In order to work like a professional, you need to have a professional set up – this is one of the tips advised by Zenhabits.net, which looks at how to balance productivity with staying sane.  This means spending some money on the equipment you need, from a decent wireless printer (that doesn’t require minutes of wrangling before it works) to a comfortable chair with the right back support.
7. Drink lots of water and eat proper meals at proper times. This is all part of keeping to a routine and also keeping yourself motivated, in a good mood and full of energy. If you want to be productive, it’s important to look after yourself.
8. Consider co-working. Sometimes, it can be a real motivation boost to be in an environment of fellow professionals, all innovating and working hard. Even if you’re happy in your home office, it can be helpful to spend a few hours a week in a co-working office space – you never know, you may even make some important new contacts!

For more advice on maximising productivity and efficiency, no matter what kind of office space you work in, subscribe to the  WorkWell blog for regular updates, top tips and useful information.

On 22 and 23 July 2016, athletics stars from around the world met at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park for one of the world’s biggest athletics events – the iconic IAAF Diamond League.

While we watch in awe as the best athletes across the globe compete at the iconic stadium, WorkWell, a top-quality and well-facilitated Yorkshire business centre, explores what tricks business owners can learn from top athletes.

1. Resilience

Top business leaders are resilient. Top athletes are resilient. In fact, one of the key symbols of business proficiency and effectiveness is the ability to be resilient. A business owner with resilience will bounce back quicker from setbacks. They will overcome problems with tenacity, and they will keep their team moving in the right direction.

In his business advice book ‘How the Mighty Fail’, Jim Collins identifies resilience as a key skill of a business leader. This resilience helps get businesses through tough times. Resilient business leaders and professionals embrace flexible business structures and adapt quickly to changes. They are not afraid to take calculated risks to achieve innovation and success.

As this ‘Ready To Manage’ blog post ‘Resilience Factor in Leadership’ points out:

“Resiliency is sometimes seen as the ability to cope with stress and life’s challenges, and to draw upon the emotional reserves that have been built up for the tough times.”

Resilience is also a key word in athletics. When faced with opponents, intense physical challenges, injuries, difficult competitions, and more, a top athlete needs to adapt well in the face of such challenges and ‘bounce back’ from such penetrating trials. Top athletes need to be resilient. As the saying goes, “you only fail when you give up the battle”. As discussed in our last blog post, ‘Do business mistakes make us stronger?’, tenacity, courage, and accountability are all key characteristics of great business leaders and successful entrepreneurs.

2. Commitment

If there is one quality a top athlete possesses, it is commitment. From sticking to meticulous training schedules to eating the right food, the world’s best athletes are truly committed to their sport. This enduring commitment is how they got to the top in the first place.

To be at the top of their game, business owners should show the same levels of commitment as top athletes. Being committed to your business and your team has many positive consequences. It not only helps drive your business forward but will also inspire the rest of your team, encouraging them to show similar levels of commitment.

As Forbes writes:

“By proving your commitment to the brand and your role, you will not only earn the respect of your team, but will also instil that same hardworking energy among your staff. It is important to show your commitment not only to the work at hand, but also to your promises.”

3. Confidence

According to sports psychologist, consultant and author, Dr Jim Taylor, “confidence is the single most important mental factor in sports.” Being confident and having confidence in themselves means athletes believe in their ability to achieve their goals.

Dr Taylor goes one step further, stating that athletes require prime confidence.

“Prime confidence is a deep, lasting, and resilient belief in one’s ability. With prime confidence, you are able to stay confident even when you’re not performing well. Prime confidence keeps you positive, motivated, intense, focused, and emotionally in control when you need it”.

Another trick business leaders can learn from top athletes is how to utilise this prime confidence to their advantage. From having the confidence to adopt flexible business structures, to possessing the confidence that your business idea will work and then having the confidence to make it work, prime confidence helps business owners to stay positive, motivated, intense, focused, and emotionally in control: all key symbols in business success.

Top athletes who became successful entrepreneurs

Given the reciprocated qualities between athletes and entrepreneurs, it is hardly surprising that many of the world’s best athletes went on to become business leaders and entrepreneurs.

Take, for example, Oscar De La Hoya. Boxing’s ‘Golden Boy’ won five titles in different weight classes and in 1992 was crowned an Olympic Gold Medallist. The boxer-come-businessman now owns a management company (Golden Boy Promotions), which comprises numerous businesses and brings in $100 million in revenue each year.

US basketball superstar Michael Jordan is another top athlete who is now a respected entrepreneur. The Chicago Bulls champ owns a company known as the Charlotte Bobcats. It is believed Jordan bought the company for $175 million.

London Anniversary Games 2016

In the meantime, if you want to be inspired by some of the world’s leading athletes, watch the excitement unfold at the London Anniversary Games for the IAAF Diamond League on 22 – 23 July. These highly anticipated Games come just weeks before the Rio de Janeiro Olympic and Paralympic Games get underway, held on 5 – 21 August 2016 and the 7 – 18 September 2016, respectively 2016.

Whether you’re a veteran business owner in a Yorkshire business centre or a start-up business owner in Essex, taking a leaf out of the book of the world’s top athletes will help put you on the track to business success.

If you’d like your business to excel, take a look at WorkWell, a high-quality Yorkshire business centre on the outskirts of Leeds.

Our superior quality serviced offices in Leeds and meeting rooms in Leeds are stylish, comfortable, modern and well-facilitated. Inspire yourself and inspire your business. Get in touch with WorkWell today to book a viewing of our office space and meeting room space to hire.