Geekpad Business

The Left-Brained Innovator

Left-brained innovators set out to build great products or serve clients with their expertise. Revenue is the goal. It sounds simple; take a great idea, develop it, launch it, and collect the proceeds.

Left-brained thinkers might see in-depth planning and marketing for a product launch as “mumbo jumbo”. They might even believe a marketing team is unnecessary. They may undervalue support staff such as those in customer service, accounts receivable, and even shipping and receiving.

Intuitively this lot knows that without their expertise there would be no product or service and thus no revenue. In their mind, they are king; without their ability to build products or serve clients there would be no business.

But without communicating the product or service to the customers who need it, there will be no sales. Without an accounts receivable department to collect payments, there will be no cash in the bank.

Success in business is never one-dimensional. It is multi-faceted and control freaks on the management team will hold the business back if they don’t welcome others into the circle and value their contributions. Building the right team is part of the equation in a successful product launch.

The Right-Brained

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We all understand what a business is, but how is it defined?

A search among different sources will give you a range of different definitions. Chambers dictionary list it as defined below:

business noun 1 the buying and selling of goods and services.

This highlights the common theme among all the definitions, buying and selling. It doesn’t matter what the end product of the company is or what service it is that they supply what matters is that someone wants to buy it.

The aim of any business, no matter how lofty a mission statement they may purport to follow, is to make money. They need to provide something that other businesses or customers will part with money to have access to. It’s important to remember that not all businesses will have the aim of a profit. A charity can be run as a business, they may give away all the money they receive or spend it on helping others, but they still need to be able to have that income stream to be able to operate.

How Does it Start?

I’m not going to get into depth about the formation of a business in a legislative sense, whether a … Read the rest

Start thinking! Get your brain to work

Whether you’re too busy with your daily routines to take the time to think and reflect on what you want, or feel that your brain is too pressured and lacking the ability to run wild with your imagination, worry not. This article has tips and advice that will help you get started with the creative process.

The first step towards creative thinking is understating how the mind works and how to stimulate your brain. I will dig deep into this topic, because we might need several book to cover it, but I will briefly mention the key elements.

The brain has two main parts; the right and the left hemispheres, each of these have different functions and work differently. The right hemisphere is creative and artistic part, it’s the part that appreciates art, it uses shapes, colors and images to analyze and process information, and it’s also the part that controls creativity and the imagination.

The left part is the logical part, it’s the part that performs mathematical calculations, looks for causes and effects, uses words to describe and define, and it’s also the part that controls speech, grammar and word order.

For … Read the rest

• “Self Initiative”
  If you’re the type that cannot get any task accomplished, without another person instructing you to do so, then you might as well be an office worker instead of being the boss. A small business demands thousands of things to be accomplished, and you should be able to act on your own initiative.
• “Adaptability and Persistence”
  Starting your own small business entails braving many obstacles. If you cannot adapt and overcome every obstacle that is cast at you, then your business venture won’t get any far. Whenever you make mistakes, you must be able to stand right back up and don’t let it defeat you.
• “A Resource Of Support”
  In operating your private business, you by now have more than enough difficulties on your plate. Difficulties are a given! But if you don’t hold the backing of the folks that are near to you, so therefore it can cause you to doubt yourself and mistrust your every single attempt, causing success yet tougher to get to.
• “Wisdom along with Understanding”
  It makes it easier to possess a prior experience on the trade that you fancy to set up. Actual practice is more important than anything else you can

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The first place to start is to think about what you want from your business. Do you want to work entirely from home? If so maybe think about setting up an online business. Do you have a particular skill and passion you would like to work around? For example; are you a qualified hairdresser and would like to own your own salon, or to allow for more flexibility you could be a mobile hairdresser. Do you particularly want a huge company with lots of staff? Or is it a small local business you’d prefer?

Think about how difficult that particular type of business might be to set up. Think about the costs involved in setting up and how you could fund it. Would you need to acquire investment?

There are people who will say do what you know, when it comes to choosing a particular type of business. I disagree with this completely.

I knew nothing at all about starting an online business when I decided to first start one. I knew nothing about building a service business when I first started Spik ‘n’ Span (in fact I didn’t know a fat lot about cleaning either). I knew nothing about … Read the rest

Firstly, we need to know the various marketing and promotional routes that are available. The list below shows some of the more common promotional channels:

1. Pamphlets and brochures
2. Posters
3. Newsletters
4. Website

Routes 1, 2 and 3 require some sort of printing services. A common platform that is used to relay design layout and artwork for professional printing service is the PDF file format. In another word, most printing service can directly accept PDF as the artwork source. Thus, you will need to find a way to output your finished artwork as PDF. Fortunately there are free options out there. Below are two of them:

• Scribus opensource software for desktop publishing. This can be used to produce base file or artwork for print. It outputs to PDF.
• Open Office suite can also produce PDF outputs. For pamphlet and flyer layout designs, open office may be good enough. Additionally, you may wish to do some of the fancier graphics in another program and import them into Open Office Writer as bitmap image files.

For more specialised graphic design works, there are many free options as well. The more popular ones are:

• GIMP for general and web graphic design. This software is the

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Choose a legal adviser that understands your business

When selecting a new legal adviser, consider how interested they are in the businesses and whether they understand the issues that your business faces. For example, a bio-tech business will need to ensure that their adviser is familiar with regulatory and intellectual property law relating to their sector.

Do they ask about your personal and business objectives? This is particularly important if you are thinking of an exit strategy in the future.

Include your lawyer as part of your strategic business team

Whilst lawyers can advise you on your regulatory obligations and compliance, a good commercial lawyer will advise you on the commercial implications of strategic decisions. Keep your lawyer in the loop. Keep them apprised of your business strategies so they can identify legal risks at an early stage of your strategy and give you proactive solutions.

A lawyer who understands your business can provide you with innovative business structures that help your business grow and protect your market position, as well as identifying risks.

Provide a clear brief and feedback

Provide clear instructions, agree budgets and provide any information promptly. Consistent communications are vital especially where there are critical deadlines. … Read the rest