Business

Over recent years, the health and fitness industry has grown exponentially. According to the IHRSA, the $30 billion industry has grown by 3–4 percent annually over the last 10 years and shows no signs of slowing down. For prospective entrepreneurs who aren’t sure where to start, the health and fitness industry has great earning potential and can help you create a profitable venture. With that in mind, here are some exciting ideas and trends in the industry that are worth exploring.

Health and fitness blogging

Health and fitness bloggers have become increasingly popular, and blogging is continuing to grow as a creative outlet. Blogging allows individuals to combine their passion for writing with their love for health and fitness. Since blogging is a great way to generate extra income, it’s worth exploring for anyone looking to create their own side hustle, become their own boss, or work more flexible hours.

In addition, many health and fitness businesses with an online presence hire freelance bloggers to create fitness-related content.

Starting your own CBD business

The cannabidiol (“CBD”) industry has experienced exponential growth over recent years. In fact, a recent report projects that the industry will generate $22 billion in revenue by 2022. CBD’s immense growth potential makes selling CBD a lucrative way for health and fitness lovers to make extra money or start their own business.

In order to start a successful CBD business, you’ll need to research different CBD products and companies. CBD is now offered in a variety of products. Researching product reviews and quality control procedures from authority sites can help you determine what kind of products you’re interested in selling. For instance, if a certain CBD oil or patch interests you, sites like The CBD Insider offer comprehensive reviews which can help you decide if the product is right for you.

Make sure to consider local regulatory laws before selling CBD. After determining what kind of products you want to sell, start researching CBD affiliate programs. While all CBD affiliate programs pay commissions to sellers, each company’s program is different. If you’re interested in a company, don’t be afraid to contact them and ask about their affiliate program options.

Selling dietary supplements

If you take dietary supplements regularly, you may want to consider selling them to others. Selling dietary supplements can help you educate and help others who are trying to reach their health and fitness goals. With the right supplement manufacturer, you’ll be able to start your own business as a dietary supplement distributor.

Those interested in creating their own dietary supplements should look into working with a soft gel manufacturing service. Many softgel manufacturing services offer color, shape, and size customization of softgel supplements. As a distributor, you’ll be able to work with a manufacturing team to formulate and price your product.

Along with dietary supplements, there is an increasing demand for weight loss products. The U.S. weight loss market reached $68.2 billion in 2017 and is continuing to grow. Many people are passionate about health and fitness for weight loss purposes, so selling weight loss products can also help you earn a profit.

Health coaching

Creating your own health coaching business is also becoming a popular venture in the health and fitness industry. More and more consumers are turning to online health coaching for health and fitness advice. As a result, prospective entrepreneurs with limited time have the option of running their own business from home. Since more companies are beginning to offer health coaching options to employees, corporate health coaching is another option with great earning potential.

With the significant growth of the health and fitness industry, now is a better time than ever to explore potential business ideas. With hard work and determination, you’ll be able to turn your passion for health and fitness into a source of income.

Entrepreneurship could be considered the wave of the future. In fact, more than 15 million Americans are self-employed full-time, and the number is estimated to continue to grow by millions more. Of course, there’s no rule that says you have to be self-employed full-time in order to reap the benefits of your own business. Many entrepreneurs start their businesses on the side. Some end up leaving their traditional jobs as their business grows, and others never do. Either way, earning extra money from an online venture isn’t as hard as you might think.

There are hundreds of ways to make money online. Some require a lot more time than others, so the real questions you should be asking yourself pertain to how much time you can spare and how much effort you’re willing to put forth. Once you’ve answered those questions, you can follow these steps for starting your own successful online business.

Choose your business

This step in the process could take some time, but the best way to find out what types of businesses are available is to visit online forums and read blog posts about other online entrepreneurs. Most online businesses fit into one of two categories: Selling products or selling services.

Selling products is sometimes the easiest model to follow if you aren’t sure what else you can offer. This can be done by selling used or new merchandise, but you’ll need to choose your platform. One example of this type of business is to buy an Amazon return box for a fairly low price and then mark the items up to sell yourself. You can sell your items on Ebay, Amazon, Etsy, or a number of other platforms. Or, you can sell them on Facebook’s marketplace, Craigslist, or even garage sales.

Service-based businesses might require a little more effort to start, but they are usually the least expensive to get off the ground. Some examples of services you can offer are writing, consulting, bookkeeping, transcribing, graphic design, and marketing. But these are only limited by your imagination. Figure out what you’re good at, what people need, and what you can feasibly offer to find your own niche.

Build your website

Almost every online business needs its own website. This is your space where people can find you and learn more about what you offer. The type of website you have will depend entirely on your business. For example, if you’re going to sell products, you might need a website with an e-commerce plugin, such as Shopify or WooCommerce.

The exception to this is for online selling businesses that will strictly use Ebay, Amazon, or some other ready-made platform for their products. In these cases, you can choose to build your own website for advertising purposes, but not many people do.

Of course, you’ll want to make sure that your hardware is also in optimal condition. If your computer lags, freezes, or is broken, be sure to fix it before you embark on your online business venture. This computer repair shouldn’t cost you much, and it is a crucial aspect in ensuring that you won’t face technical issues moving forward.

Market your business

In the case of online selling on platforms like Ebay and Amazon, your marketing is pretty much done for you. That doesn’t mean you can’t learn techniques to boost your listings. It just means you probably won’t need a full-blown campaign to unload your merchandise. For most every other type of business, though, you’ll need a marketing strategy.

The best place to begin is social media. In fact, many businesses base their entire campaigns strictly on one or two platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter. This is because almost everyone in the world has at least one social media profile, and it’s a free and easy tool to use.

You can then branch out into content marketing, which would include blogging on your own website and others. This type of outreach can be done on other sites in your niche. For example, if your website is about computer repair, you would want to reach out to other technology websites to see about guest-posting or swapping social media mentions.

Many construction activities generate dust that can endanger the health of the workers and the environment. This makes it crucial for the management of construction businesses to determine the most effective dust suppression strategies to implement. In this article, we’ll list the best practices to manage dust effectively and minimize the likelihood that it will be a significant hazard.

1. Use Atomized Mist

One of the most innovative approaches for dust control is the use of atomized mists, which are finer and more effective in saturating dust compared to the water that comes out of hoses and sprinklers. The dust absorbs the tiny droplets to weigh them down. This is also effective in dealing with fugitive dust. If you are looking for top-notch dust control products that create atomized mists, check out the selections that are available at https://bosstek.com/.

2. Manage Vehicles

Motor vehicles in construction sites generate dust that harms humans and the environment. Some of the best practices include turning off the engines when necessary, washing wheels and other components where dust may cling, imposing a speed limit within the construction site, and using fixed sprinkler systems, among others.

3. Provide Personal Protective Equipment

In many construction settings, using personal protective equipment is one of the most common ways to reduce the risk of dust exposure. The PPE includes dust masks, respirators, and goggles. It makes sure that the workers won’t be able to inhale dust and that it won’t irritate the eyes or skin.

4. Train the Employees

Even with the right equipment and processes, they won’t be relevant if the workers do not know how to use them properly. It is also crucial that you train and inform the employees. Plus, they need to know the dangers of construction dust, which will compel them to participate in the on-going efforts of the management to eliminate such hazard.

5. Know the Law

The implementation of measures to control dust in the construction site is not optional. Depending on where you live, it is most probably what the law requires as a way of protecting individuals who are directly exposed to the dust particles. By knowing the law, you can prevent the possibility of paying hefty fines because of your inability to follow health and environmental standards.

6. Create a Waste Management Plan

Waste disposal is one of the activities that generate dust in the construction site. It is crucial to have a solid approach in managing the waste. Make sure that you contain it in a safe place and that you throw it properly to avoid generating dust particles.

7. Assign a Point Person

The strategies that we have mentioned above will be useless in the absence of its proper implementation. This requires the need to appoint someone who can strictly enforce the rules and innovative practices for dust management. This person should be also held accountable.

From using equipment with atomized mists to assigning a point person, this post tackles effective strategies for dust management. Doing these things is good for the employees, the environment, and the business in general.

Data analytics is a priority in many businesses. They use information about their customers in several ways, such as in terms of improving their products and personalizing their marketing campaigns. With this, it is important to make the most out of customer data, which is possible by doing the things we will briefly talk about in this article.

1. Organize Data

Data is useless if you do not organize it and if it is not actionable. One of the best things to do is to use a customer data platform. The latter is one of the best ways to gather and organize both online and offline data. It makes sense of customer information and interactions, which you can use for your marketing campaigns. It makes data available in a single platform.

There are many options for the best customer data platform you can use in your business, but one of the most promising is Lytics.

2. Pay Attention to Data Quality

To use customer data effectively, it is important that you focus on quality and not quantity. A good starting point is to determine what exactly is the information that you need from your customers. Do not collect more than necessary. It is easy to make poor decisions and ineffective strategies when the management receives inaccurate data.

3. Gather Feedback

Another important thing to do to make the most out of your customer data is to gather feedback. This gives you insights on what you are doing wrong in the process of collecting information. More importantly, it provides opportunities for improvement in the implementation of future action plans for information gathering.

4. Know the Rules

Collecting customer data is not as straightforward as it seems. There are rules that you need to understand. Otherwise, there can be serious legal repercussions and it can cause your business to suffer. You should not violate privacy laws. This makes it important to work with a lawyer to be sure that you are not breaking any law as you collect information about your customers. See to it that your company has the proper approach to data management, such as in making sure that you won’t sell it to third-party users and that you will utilize the best practices to keep data safe.

5. Keep it Secure

Data security is also a crucial concern. Make sure that there are systems in place to protect the information that you have about your customers. They share it with you expecting that you will keep it private. Draft policies that stipulate how exactly you intend to use the information that you have. Train employees on their individual roles. See to it that you have multi-factor authentication to prevent unauthorized use of customer data.

Consider our suggestions above to maximize the benefits of customer data. From using the right platform to implementing tight security measures, these things will help in making the most out of the information your business has about its customers.

Customer service is a catch-22 situation. On the one hand, you must be efficient, fast, and helpful. At the same time, your customer service has to feel personal, empathetic, and confident.

So, how can you give your customer service a personal touch while keeping things moving at the pace you need for good growth?

Use the right software

Zendesk call center software can make all the difference to your customer service experience. The omnichannel integration allows your agents to see all communications from a caller across all channels. This eliminates frustration for customers who don’t understand why the person they’re talking to on the phone doesn’t know about the email they wrote last week.

Call center software also routes incoming calls to the best agent to deal with a problem. This makes your agents more efficient while also providing the highest level of service to your customers and customizing their experience.

Help agents learn how to treat people as individuals

Efficient customer service is all about speedy solutions. Personal customer service balances that need with the reality that every person calling with an issue is an individual with unique needs.

To do this effectively, agents have to be able to take a moment to put themselves into the customer’s shoes. How would they feel if they had this problem? What would they be worried about? Thinking along these lines, agents will be able to provide service that feels unique to each caller.

Prioritize soft skills among your agents

The best agent isn’t necessarily the one who can blow through the most calls in an hour, or even the one who brings in the most money. While converting callers is very important, that’s a short-sighted goal.

Ultimately, the agents who provide personalized customer service that gets people talking about your company in a positive way may be providing more value in their hour at the desk than someone else who brings in more revenue in the moment. Communication skills, a positive attitude, critical thinking ability, and good listening and persuasion skills are crucial.

Make your website more personal

You might not think your website has much to do with a personalized customer service experience, but it can be extremely valuable. To personalize, you need to be relevant to each individual’s needs. If every link a potential customer clicks on takes them to your home page, you’re not offering a relevant experience.

Most home pages have more than one call to action and can be tricky to navigate. Instead, tailor your incoming link buttons to take people to pages that are more relevant to the needs they’re online for at the moment.

Reach out at the right moment

If you overwhelm people with calls and emails, you’ll just turn them away. You have a better chance of earning and keeping customer loyalty by learning what they really need and reaching out when you have something relevant to them personally.

Make a note when people ask about things that are out of stock, and be sure to let them know when that item is back in. Pay attention to the type of things they tend to buy and let them know when something similar (but not identical) comes around.

Make sure everyone is satisfied

Customers like knowing that you think of them as more than just dollar signs. Always follow up transactions with calls or emails to make sure people are satisfied and to genuinely ask for feedback.

By inviting genuine feedback, you invite people to become a part of your business. This gives them a stake in who you are, however small, that usually translates into greater loyalty and positive discussion on social media.

Running a plant nursery can be both enjoyable and exhausting at the same time.

For one, you get to grow plants and other items that consumers can use in their yards, places of business and more. That said it takes time and the proper nurturing to make sure all those things you grow take root.

So, is your plant nursery taking root with consumers?

Your Facilities Need to Be Top-of-the-Line

In coming up with the proper setting and conditions for a nursery, remember the following:

1. Location – The location you have for a plant nursery is of major importance. If not happy with your present locale or are thinking about opening up a new nursery, do not sleep on location. If you are in a hard to get to location, it can mean fewer consumers will visit you over time. In the event you are in an area with little room to grow, it can also hinder you moving forward. Last, an area where weather can play havoc with what you grow can also prove negative. An example here would be being located in an area that is prone to flooding during and right after heavy rains. Do your best to come up with an area prime for growing.
2. Equipment – Making sure you have all the necessary equipment will prove key too. As an example, do you have the proper water temperature for hydroponics? For those not aware, hydroponics is a means of growing plants without using soil. In doing this, plants take on mineral nutrient solutions through a water solvent. If you assumed soil was the only way to go about growing your plants, think again. Over time, you could find this an easier and even more affordable way to grow. Of most importance, make sure you keep your water temperatures at the right level. The last thing you want is your plants not getting the proper amount of water and at the right temperatures. One of the biggest killers of plants and vegetables is extreme weather conditions. If it is too hot or cold for the items you are trying to grow, you could find yourself with notable losses.
3. Help – It is pretty hard to run a plant nursery without some good help. That said do your best to hire top-notch workers. Working at a nursery can be a little demanding at times. This especially can be the case when the weather turns rather hot. You also want employees who can deal with the occasional fickle customer or two. By making sure your workers know their responsibilities, your nursery can thrive.
4. Branding – Finally, do all you can to promote your brand. There can be a lot of competition in the nursery business. This is even truer these days with the Internet in play. When you market your brand the right way, it can do wonders for your business. Emails, texts, social media, customer word-of-mouth are but a few of the ways to promote.

Whether you put the city life behind you and start a nursery or have one planted in a city, do your best to have a green thumb.

Arranging a successful catering event is not the easiest task out there – anyone who’s done it in the past will tell you this. There are just so many things that can go wrong (and fast) that people are often times very reluctant to even accept the task, or they’re just too stressed out when they finally say yes.

Although it can be a rather overwhelming experience, organizing a successful catering event doesn’t have to be all that troublesome. We’ll give you some advice on how to turn things around and make a pleasurable and gratifying experience out of it.

Plan Everything Ahead

One of the most important things to do when you’re making arrangments for a catering event is to know exactly how everything’s going to play out. We know that this sounds like a lot of stress, but it’s actually so much easier to get the job done the right way if you have a thorough plan that you’re going to stick to for the entire time.

In case you don’t make such a plan, rest assured that the people will notice it. One thing that separates a good, memorable event from a bad one is your level of commitment to the plan that you’ve previously made.

Take Care Of the Food the Right Way

No catering event can go without food. If you want to have an enjoyable and memorable event, it’s paramount that you take care of the food properly. We don’t have to tell you that the foodstuffs need to be fresh and delicious. That’s why you need to make sure that the meals are properly stored throughout the entire time.

For instance, we’d recommend you to use food transportation trays, like the ones  Westberg Sheetmetal manufacture, so the food can arrive safely from the restaurant to the catering event. After you’ve done this, you should store the food in a cool and dry place, until the guests arrive. You also don’t want to bring everything out at once because that way the food won’t stay fresh for a long time (not to mention that it can go bad).

Use the Space Wisely

After you’ve made sure that the food is served fresh, you need to know how to use the space where the majority of people will be located. You should have a clear idea of where everyone’s going to sit if it’s that type of gathering.

You also need to know where to put the flowers, helping hands, drinks, foods, decorations, and things like that. Good advice would be to draw everything up in advance if you don’t have too much time to experiment while you’re there. Get a plan of the space beforehand and actually draw these things.

Know How Many People You’re Expecting

Other than this, you want to avoid overcrowding the space – that’s why you need to know exactly how many people are you expecting at the event.

Make sure that there are enough chairs and tables for everyone. Food and drinks also can’t be scarce – having insufficient space or food is a sure recipe for a disastrous event. This is the main reason why you need to know how many people will come. If you order too much food, it’s going to waste; and if you order too little, everyone will end up going home hungry. We don’t need to tell you that this is not the way to spell ’a successful catering event’.

Know Their Eating and Drinking Preferences

Once you have an approximate number of people who are going to attend, you should ask around about their eating and drinking preferences.

Not all people eat and drink everything, so you need to pay attention to this as well. Different types of drinks and food will definitely earn you some extra ’organizational skills’ points.

Conclusion

Arranging a distinguished catering event can be a rather difficult and ungrateful task. That’s why you need to make sure that everything goes in perfect order. We know this isn’t easy by all means, but if you follow our tips and advice, you’re most certainly bound for success.

I get asked quite often if I have any tips for small businesses to get a leg up on their competition. A lot of small business owners feel like they are just getting the leftovers from the competition, and not actually eating into their market share. My answer is always the same…It should come as no surprise that business is a competition. Even if you don’t feel it on a daily basis, or think that you are competing, you are!

Really, there are only five main ways your business can compete. Be the best at one of them and you’ll make money, be the best at all of them and you can grow your business beyond your wildest dreams.

Price

If you are the low cost provider, you will get business. Keep in mind I am not talking about what your profit will be, but you will have people coming through the door to buy your products and service. Figure out a way to be the low cost provider, and make a reasonable profit and you got it made.

Quality

High quality sells itself. People will seek you out for a quality product, and word will spread that you provide the highest quality. The good news here is that you will be able to sell your product/service at a premium to your competitors. Think Ford Escort or BMW, both are cars but one fetches a much higher price due to quality.

Service

Providing the highest quality customer service and a first rate customer experience will make you the provider of choice for the consumers you target. Nothing spreads word of mouth quicker than great service.

Location

Sometimes just being in the right place, with the right product, is enough to beat the competition. If you’re selling ice cream on the boardwalk in San Diego you’ll have a leg up on the competition selling the same ice cream in downtown. Location is important when buying real estate, and should be as important when you think about where to locate your business. The closer to your target market the better.

Timeliness

Be a first mover to capture the lion’s share of profits. Also, giving your customers what they want, when they want it will help your business squeeze competitors from the marketplace. Remember, people don’t want to wait, if you don’t have it and your competitor does they will get the business.

Of course, to succeed with any of these you need a good balance of persistence, luck and organisational skills. Add those to any of the above and you’ll have an excellent chance of making it.