Business Incorporation

Employee evaluations are an important part of any business. The process of giving feedback concerning employees’ work performance and behavior is instrumental for both employers and employees in creating a successful working environment. Often times, employee evaluations involve the employer filing out a form containing a list of questions about the employee along a variety of evaluative criteria. This linear listing of criteria is not always the most intuitive way to present information, for either the employer or employee. A more intuitive and creative way to complete this evaluation process is to use Idea Mapping. In contrast to the traditional form, an Idea Map allows the employer to summarize the employee’s strengths, weaknesses, and core competencies in one, visually stimulating, and creative document. Thus, the employer has the ability to “map out” his or her feedback regarding employees in a way that is easier for both parties to understand.

What is Idea Mapping?

Idea Mapping is a means of organizing information using an Idea Map, which is a “colorful, single-page visual that captures [a person’s] thinking in key words and images.” Idea Mapping is widely believed to be a more effective means of conceptualizing information than traditional outlining, because it uses a spatial, rather than linear, approach to help define the information. When using an Idea Map, both hemispheres of the brain are engaged, allowing the brain to process information in a manner more consistent with its natural functioning. The result is the ability to “plan, communicate, remember, organize, innovate, and learn” information quickly and efficiently.¹

Using an Idea Map in Employee Evaluations

An employer has been asked to perform employee evaluations for each member of his work team. He wants to use Idea Mapping to organize each evaluation, so that his employees can view his feedback in a way that is easy for them to process and understand. He begins each Idea Map by representing the employee’s evaluation with a central graphic located in the center of the map. He then divides the map into four sections, “Strengths”, “Weaknesses”, “Core Competencies”, and “Areas Needing Improvement”, by listing each of the sections on “branches” attached to the central topic. Next, he lists any specific feedback he has for the employee concerning each section on “child branches” attached to the “branches”. Lastly, he fills in the Idea Map using colors, key images, and pictures to make the map more associative. The attached Map diagram is an example of what an employee evaluation might look like if constructed in the manner described.

Advantages of Idea Mapping for Increasing Employee Performance

The attached described Idea Map has a couple of distinct advantages over traditional employee evaluations for increasing employee performance. Firstly, the map is laid out in a creative and intuitive manner, making it easier for the employee to internalize the employer’s feedback. The employee can clearly see how well he or she is doing in each area of evaluation in one graphic snapshot, rather than having to skim through a page or pages of words describing his or her performance. Secondly, the Idea Map provides employees with several points of visual association, making the evaluation incredibly easy to internalize and recall. The employee can, thus, refer back to the map during his or her workday as a way of judging how well he or she is performing the job. Both the clarity with which the evaluation is presented, and the inherent facilitation of easy recall contained in the map, lets employees know what is required in order to perform effectively within the company. Idea Mapping, therefore, gives both employer and employees the tools to give and receive constructive feedback, and increase employee functioning within the organization.

Small Business Advice business, employee, employer, evaluation, feedback, mind map

Are you looking to go into business for yourself? Do you want to have more control of your schedule, and have a company that you can pass on to your children? Before you completely branch off financially, you may want to learn more about franchising. You can become an owner of one of your favorite business chains, and may decide to stay with the company and work on more of a corporate level in the future. Here is some information about franchising that will help you to make the best financial decision for you and your family.

Some of the pros you’ll find about franchising is that you’ll be part of the turnkey system. This means you’ll have a proven way to generate profits, and if you don’t have lots of experience in marketing, this is definitely the way to go. Since you’ll be running a franchise, the name of the business will already be well-known; it may just be up to you to let people know about the actual location where you’ll be doing business.

Another good thing about franchising is the support that you’ll receive. Small business owners that are starting a company completely on their own usually have very little help when it comes to organizing finances or attracting employees. However, when you buy a franchise, you can share your challenges and successes with other entrepreneurs, and you can get the help that you need to maintain the company’s image and standards. There are plenty of large chains that you could become franchise owner in, such as large restaurants like McDonald’s, or Subway, the popular sandwich chain. You can look at the huge success of these restaurants for inspiration, and you’ll have a regional contact that you can go to for advice if you find that your sales are not as high as you would like them to be, or you want to improve your customer service skills.

While there are lots of positive things about franchising, there are a few drawbacks and challenges as well that you’ll need to be aware of so that you can run your business smoothly. For instance, you will have less professional freedom as a franchise owner, since you will be required to share financial information with the corporation, and have to employ uniform operating standards within your business. You’ll also have to pay royalty payments every year that will cover the cost of advertising and operations support. This means less of a profit for you, but if you are just starting out, the cost could be well worth it.

If you want to know more about franchising, and think you may want to get started, you can check out sites like www.myfranchisepath.com.

Sarah Lomas is a foremost expert in treating yeast infection. Her work has been extensively published in various online publications in the areas of treatment of yeast infection. For more information on the treatment for yeast infections, visit Remedyforyeastinfection.com.

Franchising about franchising, business, franchise

Corporations that have added franchises into their business will most likely not have the time to supervise each franchise owner to set up guidelines, or finance proper franchise training for each branch. As a result conflicts may arise within the franchise that could potentially paint the brand’s name in a bad light.Franchise training is imperative to a franchise’s success, so what measures can be taken to ensure corporate wide standards established?

There is an easy solution to this issue that offers relief to the worried business owners. Online franchise training has delivered a resolution to the dilemma of standardize training among the workplace by offering easy delivery with the Learning Management System and cost-effective packages.This will guarantee that each branch will receive the essential training that is standardized across the board. This provides various options for corporations to customize their training material to include interactive applications that enable measurements to assess how effective the training curriculum is.

Online franchise training is made easy by enabling workers to complete the material at their own workstation or in the comfort of their own home through Learning Management System Software. New online training curriculum offer updated material for all the new operating systems, whereas old booklets or training videos may be out of date and contains irrelevant information on old systems or machinery.

There are misconceptions that franchise training is only for the employees, however, it is a beneficial tool for the franchise owners learn how to develop into their role and run a successful business. Documentation is essential to create an organized successful business endeavor, and it helps to have those uniform protocols for owners to follow and implement into their everyday duties.

Online franchise training enable organizations to create material that is constantly undergoing updates to offer refresher courses to their workers. This facilitates the delivery in new protocols to the employees to ensure that they comprehend the new material and that they are up to date with the new additions.

Corporations tend to overlook standardized franchise training as they consider it to be more of an additional extra, and as a result the disarray can hurt success and growth within the company. Training should not be considered just an afterthought, it should be the core at the foundation of what the business is built around. In doing so, corporations will see how the simplest implementation of training can make such a big difference in establishing and maintaining a positive reputation.

Franchising business, Career, education, franchise, franchise training, Franchising, human resources, jobs, management, training

Organizations that have implemented franchising opportunities into their business, very likely does not have the time to oversee each branch or financially back separate franchise training.As a result significant problems may arise affecting the organization’s good reputation. Franchise training is the key to successful branches within a corporation, but how can standardized franchise training be accomplished?

There is an easy solution to this issue that offers relief to the worried business owners.Online franchise training has rapidly become the go to resource for all organizational training as it answers the call for cost-effective training and easy delivery through the compliant Learning Management System. This guarantees that each franchise is receiving comprehensive material that is uniform corporate wide regarding policies, rules and regulations as well as how to conduct business. With such technology, organizations have the ability to customize the curriculum from the material implemented, to various methodologies, even interactive activities that help assess the efficiency in the material.

Courses have been made to make training and the lives of the workers easier by enabling them to complete the material in the workplace or even at home using an LMS. Training pamphlets and old outdated videos are things of the past, while online training has paved the way for a new generation for training.

Franchise training, while essential for workers, is imperative for franchise owners to learn the basics of how to create and maintain a successful business. Organization is imperative when trying to run a successful business, and it helps when protocol or set guidelines are given ahead of time for these owners to learn and adopt as their own.

Online franchise training enable organizations to create material that is constantly undergoing updates to offer refresher courses to their workers. This helps the effort to provide continuous updated material to the employees to ensure they are up to date on new protocol and understand the new additions.

Organizations, many a times, view standardize training as an unneeded extra, but repercussions of such neglect create obstacle for the business to reach their objectives. Training should be the foundation within the corporation, where the business is then built around it. Organizations will see how standardized training can help to uphold their good reputation at each branch.

Franchising business, Career, education, franchise, franchise training, Franchising, human resources, jobs, management, training

We are surrounded by logos of all shapes and sizes whether it be from the huge corporate companies or the local café that you like to visit every now and again.

Well for starters it is often the first thing that many people will see and can be the difference between a sale and the customer turning away. A customer is more likely to consider going with a company if they have a catchy logo. The logo can actually build links bewteeen the client and the business which is another reason why the logo is so important to people.

A very good logo could be one of the reasons that company gains fame and recognition. People are not going to take the company very sriously if the logo is a poor one and this has actually been proved. The first impressions come into it once again.

It is also something that companies can use when they are attempting to sell things as well as the thing that can be used as a letterhead and everything like that.

If the logo for the company has a strange back story to it then why not publish it somewhere for people to read. Many will be interested in finding out why you chose it. It is also a free piece of publicity on the company.

Logo design is certainly a must have for a really cool logo. There are many logo samples that you can look into for some help when getting your logo designed. Custom logos are certainly something that a business needs, they need it to be unique too.

If you are thinking about starting up a company then it is well worth getting a nice looking logo. If you know for a fact that the current logo isnt doing it for your business then why not think about changing it as it could work wonders.

Franchising advertising, business, logos

If you are a company with connections to the US, you might be required to know about the Sarbanes Oxley act. If you are an American company and haven’t heard of it before, then you have already learnt something about it. It’s a United States act.

The Sarbanes Oxley act is an act that was signed into US law in 2002. It was designed to put a stop to the things that went on it Enron and Worldcom. Both of these companies announced that they had been running on fraudulent deals for several years. In that year, it wasn’t required for any companies to present their finance records.

What it does is it makes sure that the companies are run safely and lawfully, if it’s found that they are not, the owners are help resonsible for any wrong doing.

The act means that CEO’s and CFO’s are required to sign the books for the company. They must sign the books before handing them over to ensure that the information is true and it represents the earnings of the company.

If it turns out the records are incorrect, there are a number of punishments available for the Chief Officers that signed the records.

Like I said at the top, you might not be required to follow the act. Only companyies within the US, UK or Europe and have listings in the US stock exchange are required to follow the act. You should also be required to follow the act if your company is based in Europe and it;s a subsidiary of a US company.

Some companies find the Sarbanes Oxley act to be a real pain. Because the company is required to report every single business transaction, even the sale and purchase of company assets. This is where people have the problem because all the company’s fixed assets must before recorded.

The process of fixed asset accounting can be expensive and take time. If you do it yourself within the company it can take several months and can often result in errors. The most efficient way to get a complete audit of your assets is by hiring an external asset management company to do the job.

Unfortunately, it’s still not a cheap process to do. However, the majority of asset management companies will offer you different features to make asset auditing simpler in the future. Many of the companies also offer Sarbanes Oxley compliance software which will make the job even easier for you.

Hopefully you will now know what the Sarbanes Oxley act is and how you have to abide by it. No doubt you won’t like the sound of the act, but you can blame Enron.

Small Business Advice asset managemet, asset tracking, assets, business, sarbanes oxley

Franchises offer all kinds of business opportunities. There are hundreds of service orientated franchise businesses, covering nearly every consumer niche out there, and there are additional ones appearing every day.

Choosing the right franchise opportunity is critical to the franchisee’s overall success. Pick one that is troubled, or is unstable and problems follow. Yet select one which is on the rise, that’s got proven systems and plans in place, and success is yours for the taking.

This part of the franchising process, far more than any others, is the sole responsibility of the potential franchisee to get right. The advice of a franchise consultant can be sought, but their objectivity can sometimes be questionable. No matter the particular type of franchise being considered though, they can be evaluated with the answers to the below questions…

Does the vision of the company match with yours?

What is the age of the company?

How many years did it work independently before offering itself as a franchise business?

What is the brand position of the company?

What kind of franchises do they offer?

What number of franchisees have already joined them?

Of the existing franchises, how many own more than one unit?

Have any franchisees left the company? If so, why?

What is the cost of the franchise and what does it include?

What is the royalty fee?

How many years is the franchise contract for?

Who is managing the franchise business?

What training does the franchisor provide? What is the on-going support?

Which regions are they operating in? Does it provide protected territory?

How are material sourced?

Does the franchisor offer financial assistance?

Is real estate support provided by the franchisor?

How many employees are needed?

What employee recruitment is offered?

How proven is the marketing plan? What level of marketing support is on offer?

Now Try : Start A Franchise

Franchising business, commerce, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, franchise, Franchising, Small Business

The top way to plan for future success is to conduct a postseason analysis. I’ll explain how to perform a postseason analysis of your center as a baseline for customer service, process improvement and cost reduction. Here is a complete, handy, step by step guide to the post season analysis.

1. Form a postseason review team. Since you hard work is directed at process improvement, customer service, and potential cost reduction, engender a team with the ability to bring different skills to the lovely process. While much of the work will fall to contact center management (managers and supervisors), broaden the group to involve a few good reps. Also include general training and quality training, human resources, center scheduling, telecom traffic, IT, marketing, and returns and replacement if all of these areas are within your responsibilities. Clearly, contact center management drives the process. But this effort should draw on the opinions and input of all. Challenge them to assess how things could be done differently, and make them answer the question, “How can costs be reduced without lowering customer service?” These meetings should occur sometime between mid-January and mid-February, giving you enough time to plan and achieve early results.

2. Review your metrics. Begin by reviewing your key performance indicators and how performance measures up against your standards and plans. The major metrics include contacts per hour; service level; abandon rate; attrition/turnover rate; call-handle time; talk time; after-call work time; contact-to-order ratio; transaction volumes for Internet, phone and mail; non-phone volumes and others. How accurate were marketing’s projections and your projections for calls? Labor is 50 percent to 70 percent of the contact center’s costs. So it’s important to see how well you performed in terms of staffing-level accuracy, schedule adherence and occupancy percentage.

3. Review hiring and training practices. Labor’s cost, quality and availability is becoming an issue for many call centers, particularly in seasonal businesses where the selling curve is more compressed. Review your advertising media costs and results, and exchange information with other human resource departments. Review your prehiring testing, employee selection criteria and practices. Is there a place for temporary agencies rather than relying completely on in-house hiring? Should more calls be shunted off to outsourced call centers? From a training standpoint,how well did you teach that splendid CSRs to take orders and provide service to happy customers? In our experience, there’s a considerable cost ($3,000 to $10,000 per new hire) and loss of time by senior associates to hire and train new CSRs before they’re productive. How can this be improved (number of classes and trainers; develop better training approaches such as e-learning, post-training surveys, length of training)?

4. Evaluate revenue generation. As part of their goal, many contact centers are tasked with generating revenue, not just answering phones. What do your reports show about your success with cross-selling, upselling, outbound selling and increasing the company’s average order? 5. Consider process improvements. What does your quality and call monitoring show about your operation? As you walk through your system and operation, where are the bottlenecks? How can systems be streamlined? What functions and types of information can your system do more easily online? If you’re still processing batches of mail orders, can scanning reduce costs? How can live chat and e-mail management systems improve your operation? Do you need to move to the next level of call-scheduling software?

Curt Barry is president of F. Curtis Barry & Company, a fulfillment consulting firm for catalog, e-commerce, and retail businesses. More information call center strategies and how to reduce inventory costs can be found at fcbco.com or give this number a ring, 804-740-8743.

Small Business Advice business, consulting, fulfillment consulting firm

One of the first applied psychologists, Walter Dill Scott, once shared an insight regarding handling a business.”Success or failure in business is caused more by mental attitude even than by mental capacities,” he wisely observed.”

All over the world, people from all walks of life are slugging their way through financial difficulties—either in their work, businesses, or even just household budgets.Employees are affected by the worldwide recession, with cuts in pay and other benefits.There are others who are less fortunate–they are retrenched as part of the companies’ cutbacks.  Those who are employed think of ways to cope with the hard times. To make ends meet, many rely on cash loans to augment their budget or other utility bills and payments.  Others get fast cash loans when they need money badly, particularly during financial emergencies such as medical expenses or car repairs.  Some look for second jobs, but these are hard to find these days.  But a growing number is getting more creative by starting their home-based businesses.

These home-based, small businesses can be anything—from selling products to offering services.Small business owners should always remember to run their businesses as professionally as possible. After all, clients and suppliers would not mind or would not be able to tell whether one is a “regular” business or a “home-based” one, as long as it is run professionally, with a good working system.  There are three important things to remember when starting a business: good financial practices, time management, and professional image.

For home-based or small businesses to run like a pro, have a good financial system, complete with organized and up-to-date records.Also, there should be a strict division between household and business budgets.  When thinking of getting cash loans, bear in mind to what purpose it would serve: is it for the business or for personal use? That way, the monies of the business are secured solely for the enterprise.

Time management is also very important in doing business like a pro.  Small business owners should determine how much time they would spend for the business and follow the schedule to the minute.A strict schedule should be followed or else unnecessary distractions would interrupt the work routine.

Finally, business owners and entrepreneurs should nurture a business atmosphere even from their homes.  A space or a room must be set aside as an office and a receiving room for clients or suppliers.  All things pertaining to the business should also be neat and organized.Home-based business owners should always dress appropriately and neatly, even when staying at home.

Small Business Advice business, cash loans, financial practices, time management

Imagine wasting tons of hours of work – or imagine losing your restaurant menu database, employee records, financial records, and all of the data your restaurant has ever produced or compiled.

What if a major disaster hits your restaurant destroying all your files? Or if a virus wiped out your server… do you have an emergency recovery plan in place that you can immediately enforce to save your files? How quickly do you think you could recover, if at all?

A lot of restaurant owners tend to ignore or fail to notice about taking steps to secure their company’s network from these types of catastrophes until disaster strikes. By then it’s too late and the damage is already severe.

After working with very many restaurants in the Mid-Atlantic area, we found that six out of ten businesses will experience some type of major network or technology disaster that will end up costing them between $2,000 to $20,000 in repairs and restoration costs on average. That doesn’t even include lost productivity, sales, and lost customers due to their down POS systems or network.

I find most restaurant owners doesn’t realiaze the importance of regular preventative maintenance and disaster recovery planning because they are already occupied with more immediate day to day fires which demands more of their attention. If the POS system and network works properly today, it goes to the bottom of the pile of things to worry about. In most cases, no one is watching to make sure the back ups are working, the virus protection is up-to-date, or that the network is in good shape.

Below Are The 4 Most Important Things You Should Do To Be Sure Your Company Is Protected From All Types Of Disasters:

While it is impossible to plan for every potential computer disaster or emergency, there are a few easy and cheaper ways you can do instead that will help you prevent the vast majority of computer disasters you could experience.

Step#1: Be Sure You Are Backing Up Your System

It just amazes me how many businesses never back up their computer network. Imagine this: you write the most important piece of formula you could ever write on a chalk board and I come along and erase it. How will you be able to get it back? No way! Unless you have memorized it, or if YOU STORE A COPY OF IT, you can’t recover the data. It’s long gone. That is why it is very important to create a back up for your network. There are numerous things that can cause you to lose data files. If the information on the disk is important to you, make sure you have more than one copy of it.

Step #2: Perform A Complete Data Restore Making Sure Your Backups Works Properly

This is another big mistake I see. A lot of restaurant owners sets up a backup system, but then never care to check to make sure it’s working properly. It’s not uncommon for a system to APPEAR to be backing up when in reality, it isn’t. We have seen companies pay out huge amount of money to regain data they THOUGHT they’ve backed up? Don’t let this happen to you.

Step #3: Keep A Back Up Somwhere Other Than Your Office

What happens if a fire or flood destroys your server AND the backup tapes or drive? What happens if your restaurant had a break in and they take EVERYTHING? Keeping an off-site back up is simply a smart way to make sure you have multiple copies, so you’d never loose your important files ever.

Step #4: Make Sure You Install and Regularly Update Your Antivirus Software

You would have to be living under a rock to not know how extremely damaging a virus can do to your network. With virus attacks coming from spammers, downloaded data, web sites, and even e-mails from friends, you cannot afford to not be protected.

Not only can a virus destroy your office files and bring down your network, but it can hurt your reputation. If you or one of your employees accidentally spreads a virus to a customer, or if the virus has penetrated your e-mail address book, you’re going to make a lot of people very angry and disappointed.

The author Michael Tash is the Vice President of Customer Relations at POS-For-Restaurants. With over 20 years of restaurant experience, POS-For-Restaurants helps you use your technology to be more efficient and more profitable.

POS-For-Restaurants.com is your online source of information about restaurant POS system hardware, software and support.

Small Business Advice business, point of sale, pos, pos systems, restaurant point of sale, restaurant point of sale system, restaurant pos