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The entrepreneur usually has their business idea and goes in search of it, however it is advisable to reflect on the road ahead and question about their entrepreneurial skills, their strengths and weaknesses. Performing this step along the way, may have a great impact and help to facilitate your startups.

Basic questions for the entrepreneur

If you are an entrepreneur or are in the beginning of the creation of a small or medium enterprise (SME), you should be aware of the following:

What is the ease of starting a business?

Ask yourself this, since the procedures according to the type of business are sometimes very repetitive and require multiple visits, paperwork and negotiations.

What support is needed?

It would be desirable to have comprehensive support according to the segment of the company which can offer both onsite and offsite forms, bringing a new way of bonding between SME entrepreneurs and government.Among the main supports that an SME may require are having campaigns to encourage the consumption of their products, support through a wage subsidy of SMEs in growth, training, adequate funding and a productive network that allows access to markets.

Should I take into account the culture of the region?

Each SME has the idiosyncrasy of the region where it is located. Therefore, considering their culture can stimulate the consumption of products and services of the town to promote the creation of new SMEs. This regional domestic consumption and the recovery of traditional sectors that have long-established locally are encouraged.

Where can I receive care and support?

It is preferable to have support in one place; support. Having a single point of care where practical and concise solutions are offered, is essential.Ideally, the government will look to companies to offer services and not wait for these applying to receive support, which allows them to offer advice directly where required by the employer.

How to organise support for my business?

This can be answered by boosting business accelerators, incubators and schemes that generate the development of new processes to strengthen the competitiveness of SMEs globally.It can be said that the comprehensive support to SMEs can be given in five aspects: training and assistance, financing, production linkages, technology development and market access. Considering these factors will help you to get better benefits and find support.

Where to establish my SME?

This can be performed in industrial parks specially designed for your type of company, where they can link the incubators, business accelerators, as well as the exchange of services among SMEs.For office based businesses, there are now numerous managed or serviced office spaces available to rent for companies. These can be especially beneficial to start-up businesses due to competitive packages that take a lot of the pressure off of the new business owner. These packages are flexible and can be tailored to your own budget and requirements.

Additional issues to the entrepreneur

What purposes do you have for your business in the coming year? Where should you start? What comes first, what will follow, and which of them is most realistic? what goals are aligned with the mission of the company? Which can generate a competitive advantage?Considering all these factors, make every effort that your SME is not left alone in wishful thinking, but remember that one of the main advantages of being a small or medium business is the flexibility to meet challenges.The work of an entrepreneur is hard, but the positive results after good analysis of these questions, can help the company to succeed in the future.

If we talk about impact and freshness in the universe of social networks, then you've got to think of Instagram, an interactive platform with stunning visual potential; however, as a tool for brand positioning, it has generated more doubts than certainties.The situation is logical if we consider that is the subject of recurrent comparisons with Facebook and Twitter - historically the preferred access routes to the digital environment. But sometimes logic creates myths, and myths are to be broken. What do we mean? Instagram offers entrepreneurs and especially SME`s, outreach opportunities and valuable promotion that could help them break out strongly in the Social Media.Instagram is a useful and easy-to-use tool for community managers, the general public and, of course, companies.If you want to know other benefits of this site that emerged in 2010, look at what we present below:

• Less competition: the number of brands on Instagram is lower compared to Facebook and Twitter. This means that many companies wasted a reach of 150 million potential users and that new firms have a large area to fertilise.
• More inspiration: Instagram is highly experiential i.e. users enter and share their daily experiences. This feature is critical for budding businesses, because new business players are more likely to exhibit freshness and innovation - always worthy of shared elements.
• Visibility: publications related to your brand reach everyone; that is, each and every one of the users assigned to the platform will have access to your content without restrictions or algorithmic rankings.
• Mobility and location: Instagram can travel to your phone or wait on the web. Also, it offers a map of photos and the ability to synchronise with services like Foursquare - traits that will help you win your own space in the world.

If you enjoyed this article you can read more insightful posts on our business blog. Your Virtual Office London help countless startups become more successful.

Employee performance directly impacts the results obtained by a company, so if members of your team perform an incredible job, the business progresses; by contrast, if employees perform poorly, the company stagnates.Against this background, it is always difficult to know whether the members of your team who are not performing well will be reflected in the scope of the goals set. Therefore, we suggest setting goals and metrics to evaluate to each employee.With this practice, each worker will know what works and where to go, while the results arising from performance measurement helps you both know if they are on track.As we know, setting goals and metrics is not a simple process, so we share some recommendations for you to overcome this process within your company.

Ask them to set their goals

This simple exercise will motivate your employees, since they are the ones who must define the objectives to be achieved while working in your company.To overcome this step, we recommend you speak to your whole team, and ask them to set each of their goals. Then you must evaluate these objectives and approve or modify them if necessary.

Realistic goals

Once you start to review the objectives proposed by each worker, it is necessary that you are sure that each member of your team maintains control over the possibility of achieving their goals or not.This is done in order not to promise things that cannot be met, either by lack of resources, or because they are out of reach or relies on a third party.

Think in the short term

Your employees must set monthly goals; so you should consider scheduling regular meetings to discuss the results that have been achieved.For that reason, it is important that measurable objectives are established with clear methods. Otherwise, you and your team will not know whether they have been met, which may affect their motivation and lower morale.

Drive the group recognition

Gather your team together in a group at the beginning of each month. At this meeting, each team member must set out the goals reached last month, what their performance was and what their goals are for the next month.Such meetings provide positive feedback and collaboration. This will make the team improve their performance, and in so doing, will obtain the satisfaction to share it with the rest of the team.

Define goals when necessary

For some departments of your company, such as the sales area, the objectives are easy to develop. In other places, it can be a challenge because they are not entirely obvious or quantifiable.To overcome this situation, you must think of the ideal scenario in which the person would do excellent work that contributes to the good of the company.By aligning business goals with employees, and providing real-time visibility, it will enable them to know their progress, from which both your company and your workforce will benefit.

Many times, young graduates from different universities no longer find employment (or paid employment). A solution is for them to create their own business and generate wealth in their community. That is the great contribution of business incubation in the context of the national economy. Business incubation is classed as the "creation of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and to support them during their early stages of life."Many business mentors complement this view and explain that incubation aims to create projects that have a high potential, a certain degree of innovation and that are distinguished from what already exists in the market. It's also an area where entrepreneurs with good ideas receive counselling to generate their model and business plan, create networking and obtain resources.

For a business incubation initiative to succeed, it is essential that two factors are combined:

1. A good project, which can count on these features: a promising market, a good business opportunity, the existence of certain financial resources, knowledge and contacts; the definition of competitive advantage and the definition of needs.2. A good entrepreneur is usually one who exhibits the following qualities: Hunger for victory, determination, leadership, keen market insight, tolerance, as well as the ability to interact.If this combination is present, it is possible that the incubation process can begin to boost a business and earn it a place in the market; to survive beyond two years after it has been formed. A good entrepreneur will make any project succeed that comes their way, which is often not true in reverse: if there is a good project and not a good entrepreneur behind it, the best results will probably not be obtained.

Incubation process

The business incubation process consists of three stages: pre-incubation, incubation and post-incubation.This process meanwhile must try and meet these steps below:1. Selection Process. The incubators instruct the creation of an evaluation committee, to which entrepreneurs must submit their business idea.2. Pre-incubation. During this phase, the entrepreneurs selected will receive counselling to aid their entrepreneurship.3. Incubation. In this period, which can last from six months to a year, a mentor helps entrepreneurs to develop their business model and plan. Potential entrepreneurs also receive specialised advice on various issues: from intellectual property and funding to legal issues.4. Creation of the company. The incubators link entrepreneurs with public networks to formalise the establishment of their business. The company starts operating.5. Follow post-incubation. Incubators provide specific consulting on business operations, in order that it be consolidated and be successful. This support extends normally one year after the incubation process.Many in the industry say that incubation is a service, which requires future business leaders to invest some money. They also mention that some incubators for entrepreneurs seek a stake in the shares of their companies, but this is not a general rule.Moreover, business incubation is key to the emergence of MSMEs, which, according to recent data, suggests that they are the lifeline of the country in terms of volume business and jobs.Therefore, it is essential that both public and private sectors work together to try and strengthen the business incubation system, such as the UKBI, operating for 16 years now.Incubation is a very powerful tool that countries have to continue to try and grow, to generate wealth, employment and other successful growth mind-sets. When an entrepreneur creates their own company, they will change and become more responsible, a leader is a person committed their workers, their community and who takes pride in their surroundings.

The capital of a company is one of the first things that you must obtain to crystallise your dream of opening a business. Therefore, it is important to know how to attract investors to your start-up.The creator of iRobot, Rodney Brooks, had the idea of building a low-cost robot that could collaborate with workers in a safe, intelligent, low-cost way for companies who purchase the invention.It may only be an idea, but Brooks made an analogy between computers and robots with the argument that the adoption of worker robots would be similar to the introduction of personal computers in workplaces. This would result in higher office efficiency, more productivity and more jobs. This is why investors gave him $62 million to fund its start-up.So that your business idea has the support of more investors, we share a list of tips to help you create a connection with them.

Talk to the right people

The first step is to understand the interests of each investor, so we suggest you investigate your potential investors before talking to them about the ideas you have.This step will help you know if your company can adapt to and will thrive in the investment industry.

Create contacts

Once you determine who may be interested in investing in your business, you should look at ways in which the manager of one of the start-ups can present you with the investor.

Make a presentation

This refers to when you agree to an interview with the prospective investor and make a presentation that will tell your story in non-technical terms. In the presentation, you should talk about your team, the opportunity in the market, the need for the product, its value to the customer, your position against competition, how much capital you require to create the company and have a financial plan to present also.

Acknowledge your areas of opportunity

During the interview with the potential investor you must be honest in answering each of the questions you ask. If you do not have an answer, you should admit it and not lie about something you know about.

Listen carefully

It is possible that in the first meetings with potential investors, you fail to capture the interest of any of them; however, you should not discard the tips that they share.The best practice in such cases is to listen to feedback, absorb information and tailor your pitch.If you enjoyed this blog from Your Virtual Office London you can read more business tips and advice in our startup blog.

Many small and medium enterprises (SMEs) unfortunately do not have a department or specialised recruitment area, so sometimes it's the same employer who has to conduct the interview for candidates.During interview, employers should seek a professional conversation focused mainly on the skills and achievements of candidates; however, often they have to apply other questions that reveal more about the person being interviewed.That is why we share some tips here for applying different types of questions, common in a job interview.1. Open: top questions to ask in an interview that seek flowing dialogue between the interviewer and the candidate, allowing the person to give a comprehensive response. With them will be assessed your poise, communication skills and consistency. For example, tell me about yourself, why you were interested in the vacancy? Why do you think you`re suited to this job?2. Fitness: Your objective is to assess whether the candidate has the skills to perform the job. It`s a good idea to enquire about the candidate's experience and skills they possess.3. Behavioural: When making a hiring, it is not only important that the candidate can do the job. Behavioural questions seem to examine what the profile of the person is to assess whether they can successfully integrate into the team.4. Situational: Once you analyse their past records, you may want to ask situational questions to get an idea of what their future behaviour will be.5. Trick: It sometimes works to ask questions that seem out of work context or even absurd or incoherent. Its purpose is to remove some candidates of standard questions and submit to a mental challenge that reveals a little more about their personality.Finally, do not forget that there are also inappropriate questions to avoid, which could put a business-person in trouble because they can be offensive, for example: Are you pregnant? What is your sexual orientation? Why are not you married? Just to mention a few.

E-commerce is growing rapidly and represents invaluable opportunities for sale for large, medium and small businesses. This medium helps many business owners to entice new consumers.However, this trend does not imply that the offline trade has become obsolete. Proof of this is that over 70% of purchasing decisions yet- happens in physical spaces, according to information from the global association of retail Point of Purchase Advertising International (POPAI).These data presents a need that businesses must address: integrating two apparently antagonistic environments, digital and physical, in a global marketing and sales strategy.The idea is to arouse consumer interest and detonate its intention to purchase from both sides. To achieve this, it is essential that firms exploit the specific features of the two environments.

In the virtual realm, companies should consider the following:

• The design of a website. Through the balance between content, product information and technical features like usability, use of links and loading speed, allows them to create brand awareness in online users and generate a buying attitude.
• Using social media to create conversations with customers and promote direct actions, including the purchase.
• Search and use of electronic payment platforms that enable Internet users to complete their online transactions.

In the physical point of sale, you must take into account these aspects:

• Location of the property, based on a thorough market study.
• Visual Merchandising, a marketing technique in situ, which aims to captivate customers through organising various material elements, ranging from decor and lighting of the establishment, to the presentation of goods on shelves and spatial distribution the furniture.
• A sales team perfectly aligned with the business concept and prepared to meet efficiently the needs of customers.
• Using Point of Sale (POS), enabling businesses to receive payments through credit cards and debit cards, and take advantage of the market cardholder has not stopped growing in recent years.
• Interactive installations make the stay more enjoyable for user in the sales point.

One of the most currently used strategies used by companies around the globe to attract the attention of new customers or consumers is sending emails with information about their products or services, or other relevant data. This trend is called email marketing, and has seen such acceptance that a recent study by ExactTarget reported that 77% of consumers surveyed by the company like to receive this information via email.With this in mind, there are plenty of options available to supplement this kind of marketing. Here we offer three such applications that will help you be more efficient with this type of content in order to attract more customers and help your products and services reach more people.

My Emma

This service has very flashy designs and templates, in addition to being able to mingle with your social networks and other analysis tools; it is compatible with mobile devices and has affordable packages to suit your needs. View My Emma here.

Sendloop

The emails you send by this means will be sent in HTML format, which lets you have reports from sent mails, knowing if they were already read, who are clicking, and whether subscriptions have been cancelled, among other things. We should mention that if you have less than 2000 subscribers this service is completely free of charge, besides enjoying segmentation contacts. View Sendloop here.

Mailchimp

With this system you will know how many people open your mails, the target audience, know how many users click your ads and all for very reasonable prices, even free, depending on your level of use. View mail chimp here.

In the world in which we live, full of speed and an infinite need to be in constant communication, a market that is gaining ground every day has come in the form of mobile messaging apps (applications).This sector has experienced a sharp growth in the area of mobile apps, and is therefore where a potentially multibillion-dollar market for developers who choose to engage in this type of business arises.Today services like WhatsApp, iMessage, Line, Viber, Facebook Messenger or Skype account for the majority of mobile messaging market in the world. For this reason this market is expected to continue to grow over time, so if you are interested in investing in this area then we give you some options that will leave you to make money with this system:

Stickers or emoticons sponsored by brands

To be known and reach more users, many brands have taken on the task of creating stickers or emoticons for use on a mobile messaging service, these no cost to users either.

Souvenirs and toys

Try to get your pets, souvenirs or virtual Toys to be traded physically, it may make you earn a lot of extra money to your mobile messaging services.

Charge for use

Perhaps the least liked by users, this option can be useful for your mobile app. It is to charge a fixed monthly or yearly fee for the use of mobile messaging service. Just be careful with this option because unless your service is the market leader, users will go to the competition.

Collection of stickers and emoticons

You can create two types of stickers and emoticons on your mobile messaging service, free or paid; with the paid option, usually the design or animation makes them unique for users, giving them a greater sense of value.

Selling advertising

This option is also a bit annoying for users because from time to time a number of messages may appear in a small window or completely fill the user's screen with advertising for any brand, event or other application, either from the same creator mobile messaging service or other developers to pay for it. However, for many companies it will work very effectively.

Technology has become one of the guiding principles of the current corporate scenario. This is demonstrated by the exponential growth of e-commerce and electronic payment. In this context, the way we do business has changed and so too the mechanisms of interaction between companies, customers and financial institutions.All business owners are obliged to adapt their processes to new technological trends if they want to capitalise on contextual opportunities and transcend in a highly competitive world.As for electronic payment, there is data that predicts a more intense use of credit and debit cards as a transactional instrument. The proliferation of tools like Point of Sale (POS) and Mobile Points of Sales (mPOS, POS Phones) being examples, especially in the segment of small and medium enterprises (SMEs).Analysts have shown particular interest in mPOS, as they are an evolved form of TPV and allow businesses to run their operations through a smartphone or tablet.This gives them an important cost reduction, dissociation of physical space and openness to a growing market for cardholders, whose activity has increased over the past eight years. Basically transactions will be made at any time and place.But these are not all expectations for electronic payment methods. Technology and finance specialists point out that in the short term, contactless payment systems without physical-card-reading contact and Near Field Communication (NFC, Near Field Communication) will be consolidated, with which they interact directly with a terminal NFC and a smartphone.Electronic means of payment and electronic commerce have maintained a positive trend in recent years. In the immediate future of e-commerce, the growth was in double digits, but this continued development will depend essentially on three factors: first, that businesses and users give greater certainty about their online transactions; two, that the acceptance of debit cards in digital operations is maintained and three; that companies develop and promote friendly and efficient applications for mobile use.