When you are running a business, you have a lot of hard decisions to make.

Should you hire more people or keep running on a skeleton crew? Should you expand to that new location or keep your business small? Can you afford to sink your cash into merchandise or should you hold on to it a while longer?

No one has a crystal ball, so making business decisions can be a very stressful thing to do. One thing that can help is paying attention to what is happening within the economy, both locally and nationally.

Local Economy Matters

If you live in an area where there is a general push to support small businesses, that can definitely help your small business to do well. Doing business in a place where the cost of living is low can also help you to keep your business expenses low. You won’t need to pay someone $100,000 a year for working at a drive thru when the cost of living is low.

Living wages are, by definition, lower when the cost of living is low. In essence, this means that the cost of doing business can be kept lower in these areas as well.

It’s also important to pay attention to things like foreclosures and bankruptcies in your local area. Some areas have a greater concentration of economic issues or have those issues earlier than the rest of the country.

See Also: How to Ensure Growth in Small Business

National Economy Matters, Too

Do you know what the DOW closed at yesterday?

Well, I don’t.

It’s not every person’s responsibility to keep track of every single thing that happens in business. However, as someone who is aspiring to be successful, you need to be observant of the situation, especially if you are making business decisions.

Looking at economic trends can give you an indication of which way the overall economy is headed. Maybe things are still going great in your small town but foreclosures are up across the nation. There’s a good chance it’ll affect your town, too.

There are many different economic indicators you can look at to determine how the economy is doing. There’s even a lipstick indicator. When lipstick sales go up, it generally means the economy is in a downturn and people are still treating themselves in smaller ways.

Some of the most common economic indicators in the United States economy are:

Consumer Financial Stress- When spending goes down and debt loads go up, that’s a good indicator that the economy is heading for a downturn.

Housing Starts- When people build more new homes, the economy may be on an upswing.

Bankruptcy- More bankruptcies can mean that people are ready to put their debt behind them and move forward.

Foreclosures- As with bankruptcies, foreclosures can indicate that people are ready to move forward and get on the right track. High foreclosure rates and high numbers of foreclosures at a specific area can also indicate that there is stress in the banking system, as we saw in the foreclosure crisis of 2008.

Knowing Where The Economy Is Headed Helps You Make Better Business Decisions

Imagine you are in the restaurant business. You want to open a fancy French restaurant in the hottest part of town. Rent will be high. Overhead will be high. Meals will be pricey.

If the economy is headed upward, you have a better shot of making it work. However, if everyone around you is having their houses foreclosed and filing for bankruptcy, it’s obvious that they wouldn’t have extra cash to spend on an expensive meal.

Legal Intakes Can Clear Up Confusion

When you have two or more economic indices that seem to be contradicting each other, you may need a little more information to make sense of it all. Legal indices track legal intakes across the country and can help clear up any confusion about two indices that seem to be at odds with each other.

If foreclosures are up but legal indices show they are old foreclosures moving out at the same time housing starts are up, that’s a pretty good indicator that the economy is on an upswing after all.

See Also: Changing Trends in the Way Families Buy Homes

Your Business Depends On Sharp Decision Making

Making the best possible decisions for your business means you need to be well informed. Learn more about economic indices from this infographic.

 

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When we look back across our lives, it is often the most prominent of events and landmarks that we remember: a kiss, a birthday party, a new job, or a sporting achievement. Yet it is the way we live our day-to-day lives that truly defines who we are and how we feel. Happiness breeds happiness, and it is important to start with the fundamentals.

All around the world, ordinary people and famous achievers alike have developed ways to buoy their daily experience for thousands of years. Whether due to the local climate, religious and cultural tendencies, or just a chance habit that caught the imagination of others in that region, every place has its own techniques to share on how to make regular life just that little bit nicer.

So let’s take a look at things folk from around the world do to give their day that tweak it needs, and how you can adapt these ideas to your daily life.

Japan

The Japanese have a relatively new ‘tradition’ to reconnect with their souls. It’s called ‘shinrin-yoku’, or forest-bathing, and was developed in the 1980s in an atmosphere of suffocating cityscapes and omnipresent technology.

To practice shinrinu-yoku:

• Go for a walk in the forest, or a wooded area of your local park
• Take time to think about every sound you hear while you walk
• Appreciate the smells and the texture of the trees
• Reconsider your existence in the context of our ancient natural world.

Hawaii

The Hawaiians have a particular method for dealing with problems in everyday relationships: ‘Ho‘oponopono’. Whether it’s your partner, a friend, or a colleague at work whom you feel has done you wrong, Ho‘oponopono is a means of figuring out things by yourself rather than responding rashly and making things worse.

Allowing resentment to build will ultimately hurt you more than the person to whom it is aimed. Instead:

• Take a deep breath
• Find ten minutes to think things through
• Be grateful for what you have
• Forget your own needs for a moment and consider the other person’s point of view
• Express your own feelings calmly
• Work towards mutual forgiveness.

Norway

‘Friluftsliv’, or ‘free air life’, is the Norwegian practice of spending time in the outdoors. Aside from the benefits of fresh air, subjecting yourself to decent amounts of natural daylight can help you to regulate your sleep and stay in touch with the natural rhythms of the world around you.

If you spend most of your time indoors:

• Establish a morning and/or evening ‘outdoors ritual’, such as walking the dog
• Use every coffee break at work as an opportunity to get some fresh air
• If it’s warm enough, eat lunch outdoors; otherwise, take a stroll through the park before you eat indoors
• Look beyond the borders of your town. It’s usually easy to find a national park or natural area to visit on the weekends.

Germany

If the Norwegians are all about heading into nature by themselves to ‘re-connect’, Germans are more about reconnecting with each other. ‘Gemütlichkeit’ is that particularly German manner of celebrating togetherness with a frothy beer, a song and a dance.

To get some of this goodness in your own social life:

• Be careful not to take the people you live and work with for granted
• Never miss a chance to raise a toast
• Take time to greet people properly and say meaningful goodbyes, even if you see them every day.

Spain

The famous Spanish siesta is an endangered animal. Sadly, even as experts more frequently recommend an afternoon nap to boost workplace productivity, many business managers are concerned that lost time and energy is bad for profit margins.

To take a healthy, effective siesta:

• Nap for no more than thirty minutes
• Sleep in an armchair or sofa rather than a bed
• Make sure you do it regularly and not just as an occasional treat.

See Also: Get Strong, Sleep, Repeat: The Importance Of Sleeping

France

We are a generation of multi-taskers – but often, allowing our work and personal lives to overlap means doing a bad job at both and truly enjoying neither. A little daily ritual to demarcate the various areas of your life can help you more accomplished and relaxed. The French do this by taking a small drink between work and the evening meal: the apéritif.

To leave work behind for the day:

• Change into a new set of clean clothes as soon as you get home
• Switch off work notifications on your phone
• Pour yourself a drink of something special – it doesn’t have to be boozy!

Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil

In 1909, the French Society of Hygiene told us: “Yerba mate raises morale, sustains the muscular system, augments strength and allows one to endure privations.” What they did not mention is that drinking this special tea in the company of friends is also good for the soul.

To tap into the South American ritual of mate-tea drinking:

• Always offer a drink to everyone in the room when you’re brewing up
• Try to establish a ‘tea tray’ culture for meetings at work
• Try the real thing – yerba mate can be found in lots of health shops and some regular grocery stores.

Turkey

‘Keyif’ is all about idle moments of relaxation and contemplation. Remind yourself to take a couple of these each day – the manner of doing so is different from individual to individual.

To identify your moment of mindfulness:

• Slow down – take the long route from A to B, and never be in more than a hurry than you need
• Pay attention to what makes you happy, be it the sound of the breeze in a tree you walk past each day, or a particular seat in a café that makes you feel calm
• Try watching a few ASMR videos for some ideas on how the mundane can become almost transcendental.

Bosnia & Herzegovina

Bosnian people like to break up their morning with a slow coffee, brewed in a special pot and served with sugar or candy. It’s thick and tasty like Turkish coffee, but just as important is the symbolic side: taking time to discuss the day’s events or a business proposition.

• Enjoy tea or coffee as an experience in itself, not something to fuel you while you work
• Use your coffee break to talk to other people, rather than staring at your phone
• Look into buying a Bosnian coffee set online – it will change your life!

See Also: How to Supercharge Your Afternoon With a Napuccino (aka a Coffee Nap)

Nigeria

‘Ubuntu’ is the philosophy of putting the community ahead of the individual. Individuals become stronger in a healthy, happy community.

• Try asking questions or listening rather than interrupting when you think somebody is wrong
• Consider the benefits for your group as well as yourself when making decisions
• Look at each group task as an opportunity to learn or to teach.

Try just a handful of these happiness techniques from around the world, and you are sure to see your quality of life improve!

 

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As the world of online trade and digital media continues to boom, the prospect of making a living over the internet has become an attractive one. However, despite how encouraging it is, not all people have the guts to start. Many of them are deterred by the prospect of having to start from scratch.

Building a successful website can seem like a daunting task to someone who has never done it before. In addition to a great design concept, you also need a comprehensive business plan, the know-how to improve your searchability and the right strategy to bring traffic to your website.

Fortunately, you can bypass a large part of the work by buying an online business that’s already existing. Once you find one with potential, all you need to do is keep it running and focus on its growth.

However, as is the case with any business venture, entering the world of E-commerce without sufficient prior knowledge could be disastrous. Some websites may appear to be promising acquisitions but require more work than you’d ever bargained for. Others may have a bad history or even be blacklisted.

Yet, these are not enough reasons for you to give up your dream of becoming an internet entrepreneur. Simply take some time to research your potential purchases and ensure you are fully prepared to work on your goal.

Of course, before you do any of this, you need an idea of the type of business you would like to own. If you want to stand out from the crowd, you have to be passionate about your endeavor.

Purchasing An E-commerce Site

If you are convinced to buy an online business, a good place to start is by browsing listings on an established marketplace, such as Exchange. There are numerous e-commerce business brokers to explore, with listings at all price points across a huge number of industries. (And if you’re into buying a website, check out Empire Flippers.)

However, it is not as simple as just finding an affordable existing site and expecting to turn it into a profitable venture. Unfortunately, some of the seemingly more affordable options may have hidden problems that could severely hinder your success. For example, the site may have been previously blacklisted or be under an AdSense ban.

As such, there are a few factors you ought to investigate before you start buying an online business.

The Good and the Bad

The true value of an online business lies in its potential for growth. When people purchase an existing business, it is generally either of the two reasons:

1. They have a passion for the industry and wish to grow the business as a long-term venture.

2. They plan to flip the website, increase its traffic, ranking and profitability before selling it.

Whichever you aim to do, you will need to investigate several factors in order to get a full measure of the business you are considering. Take, for example, the presence of an active community.

Check comments and forums in order to determine how many people are regularly using the site. Be aware of the site’s bounce rate- the higher it is, the more people simply navigate away from it.

Go over all links, titles and headings and check them for relevance and functionality. Factors, such as keyword density and authoritative functional backlinks, can impact the success of a website. Consider using the Wayback Machine to explore the site’s history and get a feel for how it could be improved.

The Right Price

For your investment to be worthwhile, it is vital not to overpay for your chosen business. However, determining the true value of an acquisition can be challenging, particularly if you are new to website brokerage. Fortunately, there are a few factors which can help you put together a more accurate picture of a site’s current value.

Existing revenue streams, such as AdSense, sales and donations. Do not be fooled by a recent spike in revenue. Instead, look at a site’s long-term performance to get a fairer idea of how the business performs on average.

Volume of traffic and its sources. Be sure to scrutinize traffic referrers. You could be fooled into thinking a site has high traffic but it may just be coming from dubious sites rather than Google or legitimate sources. Check also that you have traffic coming from websites, social media accounts and subscribers. Mailing lists can also be very valuable- if put to good use- as they allow you to connect with a site’s community and raise awareness about your site.

Page rankings. The better the site ranks in searches, the less work you may have to do to get it noticed. However, it is important to determine how many pages rank highly and for what reason. This will enable you to figure out how to optimize the site going forward.

Age of the domain. Older, established sites can have more favorable rankings as they’ve had time to build up a reputation and become more trusted by Google and other search engines.

Running costs. Don’t purchase a site without investigating the cost of keeping it online. Calculate the combined cost of the domain, hosting and security packages. Weigh these things against the potential profitability of the business.

Now that you have an idea of the site’s performance, the next step is to look for recently sold websites with similar statistics and within the same industry. This will give you a rough sense of what may be a fair price to offer.

Flipping, Clipping and Drop Shipping

Once you’ve found the business you want and have negotiated the terms of sale, it’s time to get started on making the website your own.

If there is existing content, you already have something to work with. However, you may need to reorganize and refresh the site’s content in order to boost SEO and generate a consistent, coherent voice throughout the website.

See Also: Get One Step Closer To Success: How To Make A Difference in e-Commerce SEO

Reach out to suppliers and make sure you know exactly what role you have to play in ensuring that the business runs smoothly.

If you have purchased a drop-shipping enterprise, your main responsibilities will be communication and increasing sales through marketing. Alternatively, if you sell a service or digital product, you will need to ensure that this remains up-to-date and relevant.

Engage with the site’s existing community to let them know what to expect going forwards. Pay attention to their feedback and work to build on what you already have. The first step could be to optimize the site’s layout, ensuring it displays and functions correctly on mobile devices and across all major browsers.

One way to speed up this process is to invest in an e-commerce CMS. Not only does this give you access to a range of tools with which to improve your domain authority, you can also uniformly rework the site’s aesthetic without interfering with sales.

Onwards and Upwards

Ultimately, it is not difficult to find and buy an online business. However, even the most promising venture requires time and effort if it is to continue to be profitable. You need to be prepared to continuously create content and keep your website up to date.

Make sure you have thoroughly considered the time and attention you will need to give your new enterprise. Ensure that you have a full understanding of its maintenance and running costs before you seal the deal. After all, whether you adopt a struggling business and transform it into a successful one or you purchase a more established website and make it even better, this transaction is only the beginning.

Nevertheless, if you keep these tips in mind, you can approach the world of website brokerage with confidence. From there, you will be able to seek out a business within your preferred industry and work towards developing the booming online enterprise you have always wanted.

See Also: The Average Joe’s Guide To Setting Up An Online Business

 

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