If you are approaching retirement age, you may be wondering whether you’re in a good financial position to stop working.
Many people have seen their pensions drop in value since the financial crisis began, and with the current economy’s low growth and high inflation, the value of money is likely to fall over the next few years. To assess your readiness for retirement, compare your current situation to that of Mr Jones, a client we recently helped with retirement planning: Continue reading
With the economy lagging and many businesses looking for ways to cut costs, the marketing budget is often one of the first to be cut. Cutting costs is often necessary to ensure the survival of a business in tough times, but at the same time it’s important to market your goods and services – finding a balance between the cost and benefit of marketing is essential, and social media are excellent tools in achieving this.
Since the launch of Facebook almost 10 years ago, social media have become a buzz word in the marketing industry. Today there are several social media platforms including twitter, LinkedIn, blogs, and many more, that will allow you to reach your target market without paying the high costs that are involved when you use traditional media like TV, print, and radio ads in your marketing strategy. Continue reading
Many entrepreneurs like to keep their business and personal finances separate, and can sometimes become quite defensive about discussing their company accounts – especially if business is not so great at the time.
While each client has the right to privacy when dealing with a financial planner, keeping financial secrets to yourself is not always the best strategy. If your financial planner isn’t aware of all your assets, commitments and liabilities, they won’t be able to offer you the best advice – simply because you haven’t given them the full financial picture. Continue reading
Lacklustre employees are the bane of every dynamic entrepreneur. Arriving at the office with renewed energy for the day and ambitious plans that you need to put into action, the last thing you want to be faced with is a team of employees who act as if they’d rather be somewhere else.
As discouraging as this scenario sounds, it is faced by entrepreneurs all over the world on a daily basis – what can you do to hire and keep efficient and dynamic employees? Continue reading
In our previous article we spoke about the benefits of doing business globally, and highlighted some of the qualities that a great global business should have. If you feel that your business may have global potential but aren’t sure how to take the next step, here are some ins and outs of global business that will help you to expand your reach overseas. Continue reading
If you’re feeling the pinch of a slow economy like many South African entrepreneurs are at the moment, you might have thought about looking abroad to find new markets for your products and services.
With emerging economies growing fast and some developed countries recovering from the great recession, consumers in countries like Australia, Germany, India, Brazil, China, Singapore, and parts of Eastern Europe are starting to flex their spending muscles – these could be some of your new clients if you manage to go global with your business, but how can you achieve this? Continue reading