Startups need to always be thinking of training their teams

A startup needs to be moving forwards all the time. If you stand still at any point then the market and your competition overtake you and you are left playing catch-up. And nothing is more important than making sure that your team is fully up to date with their training needs.

It can be easy to set up with a fully trained team and then think that you can just forget about training completely. But that is a big mistake to make. Your team are a valuable asset to your company and their training reflects how much you care about the service they are able to deliver to your customers.  Develop Intelligence are a great company to use if you want help in getting your team firing on all cylinders.

Your team spend all of their time making sure that your customer needs are met. They are responsible for –

•          Connecting with customers
•          Delivering the products or services that you sell
•          Improving the customer experience
•          Reaching out to new customers

And much more. Investing in their training with a great provider like Develop Intelligence means that you can keep your team at the top of their game and keep ahead of the competition. Don’t let your rivals steal a march on you and your startup business. Keep your team trained and motivated to ensure that you stay successful.

Startup business can be quite a cutthroat place to be so you need to make sure that all aspects of your business are on top form. You wouldn’t let something like your business insurance run out, so don’t let the training and qualifications of you and your team hold you back.

Get in touch with Develop Intelligence today.

The Strategic Startup is a great place to expand your Startup business

The best startup entrepreneurs are learning all of the time. They take on information and process things that can help them with their business all the time. One great way to gather information that can be useful to your startup business is by reading blogs. I have found a great blog that is interesting and full of useful information. It is called The Strategic Startup and it is full of tips and ideas on how to make a success of your startup business.

It is a sad fact that so many startups don’t make it through the first year. This is not through a lack of ability or knowledge but often through a lack of learning. I urge my readers to open their eyes to all potential sources of information that can help you to expand your horizons and become the best startup entrepreneur that you can possibly be. The Strategic Startup is a fantastic place to start. From the very first words in the very first entry you can feel the enthusiasm that Kishan, the writer of this blog, has for this subject. Enthusiasm goes a hell of a long way in startup business and this guy has it in spades.

I have looked at reading books and articles, attending meetings and listening to others in the same way throughout my career. You may well go to a meeting, for example, with the attitude that you have heard all of this before. You would actually be wrong. If you go in with the attitude that if you learn just one new thing then you will have made a success of that time. With The Strategic Startup blog from Kishan Modha you will learn all kinds of new things that can be applied to your startup business-

•          How to develop your potential
•          How to set up your startup business
•          The research you need to carry out at the start of your business
•          Planning your short-term and long-term goals
•          And more!

The Strategic Startup is a wonderful place to add to the knowledge and experience that you have when getting your startup business off the ground. As your business develops then you will want to arm yourself with more knowledge and more skills to cope with the oncoming challenges that any startup business faces.  By reading the informative and inspiring words of Kishan you will get a massive helping hand on your way to success.

The lattice bracket is a great way to measure your atartup and where you need to be

At ‘245 days...’ I always like to take a look at the many sides of a startup business. Sometimes it is how you can save money; sometimes it is about how you can improve your business. I also like to take a look at other startup entrepreneurs and see how their inventiveness can mean something to your business. I took a look at the business at Rusty Frets a little while ago and today I will give you some ideas about your business (and probably the idea to go out and buy some of the product) by looking at another great invention.

There are many ways to start a great business. Some involve your experience in the industry you start in, gaining knowledge from an employer and then applying it for your own ends. Some involve an obsession you have to do something better than the rest, often drawn from your own experiences or passions. In my mind, the inventor is the ultimate in startup entrepreneurs. These inventions often come from years of experimentation and a prototype before a fully working product is available to the market.

One such invention is the lattice bracket which is fiendishly simple in design but solves an issue that has been around for a long time. Lattice work has been notoriously difficult to hang plant on. The option has always been to grow something in the ground and let this work its way up the lattice. This takes time. The lattice bracket solves this issue in an instant. It is a simple bracket that attaches to lattice work, whether it is metal or wood. It allows you to hang your plants on the existing lattice by placing a pot in the bracket. This solution is simple, elegant and cost-effective.

For your business, it shows how one great idea can change what you offer. I say that every great startup business needs to revolve around one great idea. The lattice bracket is a great idea that has started this company. You can find, and order lattice brackets at http://latticebracket.website/. By having a single great idea for your startup it can focus everything else you do. Ask yourself the question at every decision point –

“Does this enhance the great idea?”

By giving yourself a focus you can use this as a yardstick to measure what you are trying to achieve.

New website? Does it sing and dance about the great idea? No? Then change it.

Marketing letter? Can your customers clearly see in the first paragraph what the idea is? Yes? Well that is just what I want.

Bill is the owner and inventor of http://latticebracket.website/ and you can see his passion and knowledge in this area. When you are the entrepreneur, the startup owner, you want your customers to see your passion for your business in everything you do. You can learn from this great product for your own business. Take a look at the website, and get some lattice brackets to liven up your garden while you are there!

How to get great marketing help for your startup business

At '245 days…' I like to look at the different ways in which you can get your startup ahead. It can be difficult to attend to every part of your business needs on your own with no support or training. You will know the results that you want to achieve but maybe not how to get there.

I am a big advocate of marketing. I read marketing books all the time and I think that a company that uses quality marketing techniques will always be on to a winner. In the modern world of social media, email marketing and other uses of the internet this needn't cost the earth.

But how do you get the knowledge and skills to do this properly? How do you get your startup ahead of the game?

There is a way to help your company to understand this area of your business and get better at it.

makersclass.com  gives you a training program that talks you through taking your existing marketing for your startup business to the next level. If you haven't started yet then it will get you started and on the road to successful marketing of your company and the products you offer.

If you start to understand the marketing messages you want to deliver, the audience you want to reach and where you can find that audience then you are well on the road to success. Makersclass.com will get you moving in completely the right direction with this. They offer you help with-

·         Branding

·         Website Design

·         Social media visual strategy

And include many extras like-

·         An exclusive website template

·         A collection of logo templates

·         Ready-to-use social media posts

·         Easy professional video making tutorial

Taking your marketing efforts step by step means that you won't miss a thing. The online course takes you through each of these topics in detail and gets your company firing on all cylinders when it comes to your marketing.

Once you start to learn and then master the basics of branding, the quality of your website and your social media marketing then you can take your business to the next level. This course gives you the knowledge, skills and confidence to apply your learning to your business. It puts you in control of the situation and allows you to produce marketing in these areas that gets results.

This isn't a course where you pay your fee and then hear nothing. This is a fully interactive course where you can get hold of the teacher. It is set up so it will never be over-subscribed. You can contact and receive a response whenever you need it. For platinum members there is the rate bonus of a one to one hourly session every single week. This means that you can have that face to face chat to ask questions, discuss strategy and move things along as quickly as possible.

If you are looking for help in this area and you want a supportive learning experience then this is a great way to learn and develop. It might just be the next step in making your company great - you wouldn't want to miss out.

Developments in my photography style

145

My photography course at the local college started again this week after the Christmas break. It was his to get back to it, and a chance to review and assess the photos I'd taken over the Christmas period.

Here are a few of them and my notes in how I've progressed over the course of the lessons-

The first two are taken with my new lens and are of a Buddha ornament into back garden. I have used the lens to create two depth of view shots of the same subject. One where the Buddha is in focus and the other where the branches of the plant in front are in focus and the Buddha a blurred into the background.

The second pair are a set of lights taken from two slightly different angles. I was at a museum and it was very dark inside the museum, so I wanted to capture something from a light source. I saw this strip of lights at the top of a set of stairs and thought their light against the darkness of the museum was quite a contrast.

The last photo I think is indicative of my developing style in portraiture. I captured my subject in light and dark, in the same museum. I was talking to one of the guys in the class and he showed me the work of Steve McCurry.

http://stevemccurry.com

I was taken by how he used the dark as much as the light to create his portraits. This is my attempt.