When your business needs office space, you need to consider a lot of things. The decisions you make here are going to affect your finances in the long run. One of the problems here is that you may not know exactly how many things you need to consider here.

The first thing you should do is check your finances. You need to see how much capital you have immediately available. You should work out how much profit you’re looking to make in the next few months. You should review your company’s credit score to assess your suitability for a business loan. All of these things will be integral to the decision you make.

Here are the things you need to think about when you’re deciding to make a move to a new office.

Do you need office space?

Let’s say you’re a startup company and you’re all currently working from home. Obviously, the dream here is to have a nice office space for yourself eventually. Having your own office for your own company is such a thrill. It;s easy to see why people are so eager to get office space. But you need to think about this decision carefully. Do you really need the office space? It can cost quite a bit of money, especially if you’re in urban business areas. It may be smarter for you to continue to use your virtual office setup while you save even more money for your business.

Maybe you’ve already got a company in an office. Why are you considering a new office? If your company has hit a sweet spot of profit recently and you’re just buying a new office to splash cash, think twice. Don’t go making frivolous purchases! You should really only be moving office if there is a specific problem with your new one. If you’re expanding too fast and have employees sharing desks, then it’s time to move.

Where should you get your office space?

It’s not just about the office itself. The location of the office is extremely important to consider. Let’s say you’re looking for office space in prestigious business areas like London and New York City. This is a smart decision, in most aspects. But offices in these areas can have quite a hefty price tag. You should consider what profit you stand to make with this move and weigh that against this cost.

Of course, you may not want to go for a slightly cheaper office in a much less desirable location. You may end up in a lease contract that has you stuck in that office for longer than you’d want. In other words, be careful when it comes to compromise. You don’t want to get yourself stuck in one place and, as a result, missing opportunities for offices in really prestigious places. Added prestige make it much easier to get business going with potential clients!

Should you buy or rent?

With cost in mind, you should also work out if you’re going to buy the space or rent it. On the buying side, it may be much better for you to be the landlord of your office space than some other party. You also won’t fall victim to egregious rental rate increases. Some specialized equipment may require you to own the property, too.

Of course, if you don’t have the available capital, then you’ll have to rent. That, or just keep saving money! Work out what your business can afford and what it deserves. Strike as close a balance of the two as possible.

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Getting retailers to stock your product is notoriously difficult. The development process is often long. The money that you need to risk is high. And often the terms you end up with aren’t much to write home about.

It can be brutal for smaller players. But, as with most business operations, there’s a process than can improve your chances.

Have A Plan

Before you start out even developing a product, it’s a good idea to have a plan. In that plan, you want to map out all the usual financial metrics that will tell you how many units you’ll have to sell to make a healthy profit.

But you also want to include all those stores that you plan to approach. For many products, it’s necessary to sell a large number of units to break even. So this may influence the type of retailer you approach. If you’re looking to market a new health food product, you might want to plan to pitch to chains of newsagents.

Just make sure that your product complements their current advertising persona. It wouldn’t make sense for you to advertise health food in a fish and chip shop, for example.

Be Direct When Pitching

Getting time with retailers is difficult. Like other resources, their time is finite. They want to know immediately why they should stock your product and how it is priced.

All they care about is whether your product will improve their business’s bottom line and you have to make sure that it does.

Adapt To Their Systems

One common stumbling block in the way of getting a product into the stores is using the right systems. Often smaller companies are prevented from retailing because they haven’t completed a GS1 application.

Fortunately, there are plenty of barcode solutions out there that allow you to quickly and cheaply register. Having a barcode ready to go with your product will make it more attractive. It’s just one less thing for the retailer to have to think about.

Understand The Needs Of The Retailer

It might be the case that your product is amazing for the consumer. But is it amazing for the retailer too? Retailers want products that will sell reliably. If your product is something quite quirky and different, they may be reluctant to take it on.

This is where doing your research can help. Find out whether any of your competitors has stocked their products with other retailers. Then find retailers with similar characteristics. It’s likely that they will look at your product favourably if their competitors offer your competitor’s product.

Don’t Give Up

Too many entrepreneurs think that the only way to success is to land one big contract with a big retailer. However, this is rarely what happens, even for the most successful products.

Rather businesses start off small, using independent local stores to get their product off the ground. Then follows a long, drawn-out process that involves a lot of setbacks and rejection. Often, it’s only after many years and tremendous effort that products find their way into the big retailers. But if you stick it, the rewards are there for the taking.

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When you see the stock market in movies, it looks easy. It looks like nothing but fun and quick cash (and sometimes illegal substances). And, for sure, the real stock market can offer those things. But the films you’ve been watching often leave out the unsexy details. One of those unsexy details is capital gains tax.

Many people have heard the term capital gains tax. Many know what it is but don’t think it applies to stocks. Well, they do! Here’s a quick rundown of what you need to know about these taxes on your stock sales.

Capital gains tax: a quick explanation

A capital asset is something you own that you use outside of business. The money you’ve sunk into the initial price and subsequent costs are combined and called the basis. When you sell a capital asset, you either make a gain or a loss. If the price at which you sell the capital asset is more than the basis, then you’ve made a profit. And in the government’s book, that means you’ve made a taxable capital gain. The capital gain minus the basis is the total profit. That value is what is going to be taxed via a capital gains tax. When filing your taxes, you need to get yourself a Schedule D (form 1040).

So this applies to stocks?

Yes. Capital assets include land, vehicles, real estate and securities, among other things. Securities include bonds and stocks. If you own stock for personal investment purposes, then it’s a capital asset. The profit you make from the sale of a stock can be taxed by your national revenue agency. So if you want to work out the total money you’re going to pocket after an exchange, you need to calculate capital gains tax.

Are there different types of gains?

There are indeed. There are what we call long-term gains and short-term gains. Short-term gains are the taxable profits you made from the sale of stock you held for less than a year. They don’t benefit from any special tax rate. The value, minus the basis, is usually taxed depending on your income. Long-term gains are the taxable profits you made from the sale of a stock that you held for over a year. The tax rates on these are much cheaper. In fact, if your ordinary income tax is less than 15%, there’s a chance you’ll pay no capital gains tax at all.

Keeping a record

When it comes time to file your taxes, you need to have everything in order. You’re not going to be taxed for every single stock; that’s unreasonable and will hurt the IRS’s calculator fingers. What you need to do throughout the year is work with your stock broker to record all of your gains and losses. These should be arranged into short-term and long-term. Oddly enough, this is when you find out whether or not you actually made a short-term gain or loss in the long run. If all your short-term losses outweigh all your short-term gains, then you’ve made a short-term loss. Whatever the result, put the calculation on Schedule D when you’re filing your taxes.

A loss isn’t a total loss

Revenue agencies aren’t completely heartless. Keep a record of your losses. You can use these losses to offset any future capital gains tax you incur!

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These days it seems everybody wants to be a trader. Despite the financial crash and all of the negative press, trading on the international markets is still trendy.

What’s more, because interest rates are so low, it’s not just regular stock brokers and traders tradings on the forex. Now there are hordes of amateurs looking to make a return on their savings and get in on the action.

The problem however, is that very few of these amateurs know what they’re doing. They’re not following the bet trading practices out there, often because they’ve jumped in too soon. If you decide to start trading, make sure that you do the following.

They Practice Using A Demo Account

Starting a demo account and trialling out forex might seem like a no-brainer. But thousands of people start trading with real money from the get-go, without ever having put in any practice.

Demo accounts will give you an idea of whether the forex is for you. You’ll be able to play about with different financial instruments, like binary options low deposit options and so on. And you’ll eventually get a sense of whether the forex market is a market in which you want to spend time trading. If you like sitting eagerly at your computer all day following the markets, it could be for you. If you’d rather be doing something else, or the thrill just isn’t there for you, you can learn that lesson without having blown any of your money.

They Do Their Research

All investors know that their job is fundamentally about the flow of information. After all, if all information were known, then prices from now until forever would be known too. The real world is, of course, full of uncertainty. But if you can gain insights using historical data or the latest trends, you may be able to predict future price trends. And predicting future price trends is what it’s all about in the foreign exchange markets.

Short term trading tends to depend more on the sentiment of investors in any given moment. If you expect the sentiment towards a currency that you own will soon worsen, sell now and buy it back when the price has fallen.

Underlying fundamentals tend to affect the value of currencies in the long term. So if you’re a long-term investor, you’ll always be on the lookout for political and institutional factors that might adjust prices.

They Don’t Bet All Their Cash At Once

Most investors have portfolios outside of the forex. That’s because the market is notoriously volatile. Yes, there are dizzying highs. But there are also devastating lows.

It’s important to limit your losses by only using about 2% of your funds per trade and incorporating a stop-loss order on your account. Taken together, this will reduce the amount of money that you can lose and afford you sufficient capital to cover your downside.

Remember, you only lose money on a trade when you decide to sell, so having enough capital in the interim is essential to keep your position open.

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When you’re trying to create and launch a thriving business, you need to look for an extra edge. There are so many avenues you should be exploiting for new business. You have to add finishing touches to your business that help improve it. These should be things that will set you apart from the competition and help to draw interest to your company. Have a look at these ideas and use them where you can.

Get a Sign

Think about things your business could do with to give it that extra edge. Perhaps things that competitors might not be doing. One of the big things to do is make sure you have signage for the business. You might be surprised by the impact you can have just by getting a sign for the company. Things like A Frame signs, banners and billboards can have a huge impact on the way the company operates. You will give yourself an extra chance of attracting new clients and businesses as much as possible.

Social Media Profiles

When it comes to helping promote and market your company, you need to make sure you do what you can here. There are so many great ways to do this, and none are more powerful than social networking sites. So, to add the finishing touches to your business you need to make sure you have a perfect social media profile. This is the best way of raising brand awareness and attracting people to you. So it’s important to make sure it’s as good as it can possibly be. This will elevate you above competitors, and help you secure important business.

Perfect Your Website

The most important part of your whole business is your website. It might not seem like it, but these days where the internet is so prevalent, your website is crucial. So, it’s important to take the time to make sure your website looks amazing all the time. You could think about getting a web design team involved to help you perfect this as much as possible. Having an amazing website is the best way to stand out and help give your brand that extra edge for your customers.

Get Business Cards

Business cards are a great finishing touch to any business. They allow you to market your brand in another way. Business cards provide a great touch for the company. They are an excellent way of ensuring that you raise brand awareness. You can create and personalise your business cards to make them look exactly the way you want to. They are an excellent and personal way of getting people interested in the business. People are likely to be more responsive to something like a business card than simply an email address.

It’s important to give your business important finishing touches. This is how you help it to stand out and compete with other companies. Finishing touches are vital because they give you that extra edge these days. But, it’s so easy to overlook these and launch a business that’s not at the optimum level. Be sure you take these things into account so you get the best out of your company.

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