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7 Reasons Why You Should Start a Dropshipping Business

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Dropshipping is becoming a popular business model that many people are using as a way to start a business of their own and/or earn money on the side. With approximately 96 percent of Americans shopping online, dropshipping has really taken off and there is plenty of opportunity in the space to step in and build a successful business of your own. In comparison to other business models, dropshipping is more affordable to get started, easier to operate, can be run from anywhere at any time, and more. You can even dropship with Shopify sites and through other retail sites like Amazon and eBay.

If you’re looking into starting a side hustle or a business of your own, then here are seven reasons why you should consider starting a dropshipping business:

  1.  Startup Costs are Low

The cost of starting up a business will vary depending on the type of business you want to start, but studies have found that you will generally need at least $30,000 in order to get your business going. Unless you’re starting a dropshipping business, that is. When you opt for a dropshipping model, you don’t have to rent a building, hire on a full staff, find warehouse space and purchase inventory, etc. You simply facilitate purchases between the manufacturer and customer, so all you really need is a supplier, a website and domain name, and some marketing.

  1.  You Can Offer a Wide Variety of Products

When you start a business, it’s generally a good idea to keep control of your product offering and only offer products that are related to your brand and niche. While it’s good advice to follow and you can definitely stick to it with a dropshipping model, you don’t always have to. Dropshipping allows you to offer a wide variety of products from household cleaners and hygiene products to tech gadgets and apparel.

  1.  It’s Scalable

Scalability is a big issue that many businesses face. As they grow, they may not have the systems or tools necessary to meet the new demands being place on their business, which can cause some serious growing pains and sometimes even major setbacks. With a dropshipping business, though, it’s easy to scale. Since you simply take and submit orders to the manufacturer, you won’t necessarily need to upgrade your systems, expand your inventory, etc.

You may need to upgrade the plan on your website to accept more orders, but you shouldn’t have to do a whole lot else in order to scale as your business grows.

  1.  You Can Reach More Customers

Last year, the estimated 1.66 billion online shoppers worldwide spent over $2 trillion. With so many shoppers online these days, it’s important to get your business online too. Since dropshipping is a business that is done through the Internet, it’s easier than ever to get in front of more shoppers than you would if you were simply operating a brick and mortar store. Additionally, when you dropship, you can market to customers all over the nation, or even all over the world, helping you expand your market and reach more customers on a regular basis.

  1.  You Can Dropship from Anywhere

A lot of people dream of starting their own business and breaking free of their regular jobs. One of the biggest reasons people want to start their own business is to take control of their schedule and work on their terms. You do get a certain amount of control and flexibility when you start a business of your own, but when you start a dropshipping business, you have more flexibility than you would if you started another type of business. Since you’re not tied down to an office or a warehouse, you can dropship from anywhere, allowing you to travel, (for business or for pleasure), and get work done on your own terms.

  1.  There’s Plenty of Opportunity and Need in the Space

As more and more people turn to the Internet to do their shopping, there are plenty of dropshipping opportunities that open up. Not only that, but people will often look for niche, or specific items, creating even more need and opportunity in the space that is just waiting to be taken advantage of. Starting a dropshipping business now will give you the chance to get into the market and establish yourself, build up authority, and grow your business over the coming years.

  1.  It’s Easy to Manage

Between the finances, the products, the marketing, the employees, the building, and everything else that goes into running a business, they can sometimes be difficult to manage, especially on your own. When you start a dropshipping business, though, you don’t have to deal with a lot of that stuff, making it easy to manage yourself and keep control of, even as it grows and gets bigger.

In Conclusion

Dropshipping is a great business model to consider if you’re looking into starting a business of your own. From enabling you to work from anywhere on your terms and letting you manage it on your own even as it grows to allowing you to offer a wider variety of products than you might otherwise have been able to, dropshipping is a good way to go for many entrepreneurs.

What other reasons are causing you to consider a dropshipping business?

What Do Leaders Know About Organization That Most People Don’t?

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No matter what you might think, effective leadership will rarely happen by chance. According to Envision NYLF, leadership needs a lot of consideration, training, commitment and the natural ability to organize in an efficient manner. The truth is that organization is really important. It is all about how to effectively use one’s time in order to reach goals. Organized leaders do spend most of their time analyzing and addressing needs instead of doing things.

In the following paragraphs we will take a look at what leaders know about organization and what most people do not know.

Organization Highlights Opportunities

There can be many differences highlighted when comparing the best leaders with those that are just average. One of the big ones is that the best leaders are always ready to organize everything in order to find new opportunities and options. You want to be ready for the opportunities too. At the same time, the best leaders are always willing to become better by creating their own unique opportunity.

Making Relevant Choices

It is always really important to serve the needs of other people. Always seriously evaluate and actually consider rationale, together with the interests that are associated with every single decision that is made. The best leaders are those that always make relevant choices. This is only possible when you are organized in a way in which as many choices as possible are initially noticed. If you are not organized, the choices that become visible for the leader will not be all that exist.

Generating Growth

There are many aspects of growth that can be discussed. Unfortunately, most people from around the world think that growth is all about doing really hard work. This is definitely one part of it but there is so much more than can be said. The really good leaders have to always generate goodwill and focus on the strategies that can be used in order to achieve growth.

The problem with growth is that it has to be controlled. If you are not organized, it is a certainty you are not going to be able to grow as fast as you want to. Organization is what leaders use in order to achieve business and personal growth. They know the steps they have to take because they organize and work to develop them.

Increased Attention

There will always be many different alternatives and options that become visible for the leader as he/she wants to make a choice. The problem is that it is really hard to be attentive in the event that organization is not in place. If you are organized you gain a lot of time. You learn what you have to be attentive about and you quickly figure out what is necessary.

Final Thoughts

To sum up, organization is much more important than what many think. If you want to be a really good leader you need to learn all that you can about organization and how it can be used to grow in business and at a personal level.

Anju Vallabhaneni on The Benefits of Upgrading Your Business’ IT

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My colleague Anju Vallabhaneni and I have been working around Ohio state for a number of years now, working with small businesses and looking at ways in which they can reach the success that they are looking for. One aspect which we always start with is the IT systems which the business has in place. most every business in the world relies on IT for their processes and their storage, and this is one of the most crucial aspects which a business must get right. Very often we see businesses using outdated IT equipment and software, which is having a negative impact on the business as a whole. If your IT equipment is outdated it is time to invest the money and upgrade, and here are just a few of the benefits which you can expect when you do.

Better Productivity

A business must be efficient and provide high quality and speedy output, given the fact that almost all of our work is carried out using IT, it is essential for the productivity of the business that this equipment and software is operating at full speed. Many businesses look to improve productivity in a number of ways, but rarely look at the systems they are using, start with your IT and then look into other factors.

Happier Staff

Slow machines and software can really frustrate your members of staff and directly link to their morale. Many businesses reach a stage were they come to accept that their machines aren’t as quick as they like, and this complacency can be very dangerous, especially in terms of how your staff feel. Give your staff the tools to do their job properly and at speed, by upgrading your IT systems.

Security

There is a very real threat of security breaches for many businesses, especially given the fact that cybercrime is on the rise, and it is moving at an incredibly fast pace. Being attacked could result in damaging consequences for you business such as the theft of customer information and sensitive company information too. When you upgrade your IT systems and software you can be safe in the knowledge that you are less at risk from cybercrime.

Customer Service

No matter what business you operate, the customers are the ones that you need to make sure are the happiest and through modern IT equipment you will be able to offer them the very best service. Companies live and die by their reputation and the faith that their customers have in them, given the fact that there is so much competition in business, ask yourself if you can really afford to disappoint your customers simply because you didn’t invest in upgrading your IT.

Whilst this will come at a large expense for the business, it is important that you view this as an investment in your company rather than a cost. Having the best IT systems have a great deal of benefits which will make the investment cost effective.

Arnon Dror on How to Become an Effective Manager

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It is impossible to write a definitive list of the requirement to be a successful manager and as with all situations different styles will work for different people. However, there are key skills which are practically pre-requisites to becoming successful in your role. These are skills possessed by Arnon Dror These keys and critical skills which will help you lead and encourage your team. You will have a natural ability to keep your employees motivated and to get along well with one another. A bad manager is often referred to as a reason that someone quit their job.

You will need to have excellent leadership skills. Experience will teach you how to get the best out of people. You could do voluntary work to gain this experience. A professional qualification is also great for gaining experience and knowledge of how staff work and how to get the best out of them.

You must be an effective communicator. You need to be organized and turn up on time as this is what will make your employers more effective and you must be able to lead by example. You need to be able to manage your time effectively so that you get everything you need to get done when you need to get it done. You need to be reliable and see through any promises you make to your clients.

You need to be able to delegate when required you cannot do everything yourself. This will also make your staff feel valued and trusted which will make them want to work hard to please you. To be an effective manager you need to be confident and self-assured. They need to be able to think that they can come to you and that you will find a hassle-free solution to their problems, quickly and effectively. They also need to find you approachable and friendly at all times so that they feel that they are able to come to you with any potential problems or issues, if they do not think that you are approachable you might not find out about the issue and then this could potentially escalate and cause much bigger issues.

A great area where managers seem to fail is by thanking and praising their employees, some managers see this as a weakness when in fact it is a key to great success. A manager cannot get the job done without its employees, and happy employees are more loyal and more productive.

You must show respect to your employees at all times and you must also praise them when they have done a good job. There is nothing more valuable to a boss, company owner or employer than a happy workforce. They will spread your good name to your friends and family and encourage business. They will also work hard for you and pull out all of the stops, including staying later or working overtime when it is of benefit to the company, if there is a rush order or something that needs doing.

5 Ways to Improve Your Online Business

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When it comes to business, you should always be looking to improve as no one has ever been successful by doing the opposite. Online businesses usually have more flexibility than a strictly location-based business; however, many companies are doing both. It’s great to live in a world of options, and you are only limited by your imagination. If you’re looking to succeed, check out these five ways to improve your online business.

VPN’s

A virtual private network should be just private. As the online world grows, so does the online criminal activity. Make sure that whatever company you are using for, your VPN uses an encrypted network. Doing otherwise could easily leave you open to being compromised, an area you don’t want your business to go.

Packaged Services

Rather than buying your services all over the place, it’s likely going to save you money and headache by getting as many services as you can in one place. A good service provider will offer things like custom firewalls, emergency off-hour services, vulnerability scanning, and host-based intrusion protection to name just a few. Doing a bit of research upfront will save your time and money down the road.

Local Support

It’s great to work with a business that is globally diverse; however, when you have a problem, you might find it more beneficial when that problem can be dealt with right in your own country. Using a company that has engineers in your own backyard will likely make it easier to relate to you, and then solve your problem the best way possible.

Dedication

For your online business to run smoother and more efficiently you are going to want to use a dedicated server. Utilizing the right company that gives a completely dedicated server will ensure that whatever you are running is faster and can be configured to your exact needs. As a basic feature, you should also be offered RAM and disk configuration so that you know it’s all about you.

Get The Latest

Don’t mess around with outdated technology, use the best and forget the rest. Put the services of Dell to use for you, pick a company that utilises the latest generation Dell chassis with high-performance Intel Xeon CPUs. When it comes to technology, you are only as good as the latest edition.

There are many hosting companies available out there, but not all are created equal. When you are looking to choose the perfect one that allows the most value for money, it is important to shop around. Look for companies that can offer you more services all under one roof, great security and has support staff that can locally relate to what you need help with now. All of this and more can be found in great companies like Memset.com, a great place to get hosting services and plenty of other services to help with your online business. It always pays to improve your business, for both you and the clients you serve.

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We left our home in Sydney, Australia many moons ago in May 2012 and, other than a brief stint back in Perth for Christmas and a wedding in early 2014, we have been travelling the world nomadically ever since, running a business from our laptops and we’re here to show you how to do it!