Business & Financial

Cultural, not just commercial

Leading luxury brands are often born from a philosophy that evolves to become a business. Their origins are not in a clever business plan that re-imagines a historical brand story. While many of these brands have sustained successful businesses for centuries, they never appear to have been motivated by profit alone. More often than not, the brand originally embarked on a mission to bring unadulterated excellence to the market. The creators of these brands were artisans, not MBAs.

Considering the centuries of change that they’ve witnessed, it is not surprising that today’s leading luxury brands feel as though they have a cultural mandate. In a modern and fractured world, leading luxury brands stand out not only because of their product quality, but also because of the standards they have retained. They are paragons of style, devotees to detail, and keepers of the craftsman tradition. Their magic is not in their history. Rather, it lies in their ability to drive demand by continuously innovating through these legacy qualities – indulging customers, delighting them, inspiring them, and keeping them in a state of sustained desire.

Having a business can truly give you enough income that you can never have if you are an average employee. This is true especially if you would venture a business in the food industry since food is an essential part of everybody’s life. However, when it comes to event catering, it is important that you give twice the effort when advertising your business. Thankfully, there are now different ways to do this.

• Start with your family, relatives, and friends. During special occasions, you may volunteer to cook a cuisine or two. This would be your sampler and your way to entice them to try your services for their next special occasion.

Use a Virtual Accounting Department

There is a wealth of information technology available to help you run businesses more efficiently, yet most of them are underused. One of the most important information technology advances for business has been the widespread availability of fast and secure internet connections.

This means you can safely share even confidential information with partners all over the world, which in turn means companies can efficiently outsource many of their internal functions such as accounting services. A virtual accounting department allows authorized individuals full access to the company’s books from anywhere at any time. Managers can see up to date financial information at the click of a mouse rather than having to pore over paper reports that represent data from days or even weeks ago. Armed with the latest information, they can make the best decisions for their departments and their organization.

Predict Your Company’s Future

When you start hiring freelancers, you’ll see that there is a wide variety of talent available. Some freelancers are easily able to handle the most complex tasks, but take longer to do it while others are super-fast but handle minimally-complicated assignments. It’s important for you to know how to leverage your freelancer’s talent so that you can get the most bang for your buck. Here are some tips to leverage your freelancer’s talents.

Identify What Your Freelancer is Great At – During a project, you’re likely to find out exactly what your freelancer is exceptional with, and in which areas they may be only satisfactory. For instance, your freelance designer may create the best and most innovative designs, but they may not have a perfect eye for color selection. What you need to do is identify precisely where your freelancer excels so that you can have them focus their time and attention there. You may even want to hire another freelancer to work on certain areas of the project while your first one handles the areas they excel in.

In my years as a video business entrepreneur, the months of November and December have always been slow. Clients are preparing for vacation and the last thing on their mind is executing a video production agreement. So, instead of worrying about why we aren’t busy, I channel that energy into marketing my company. Here’s a few ideas on what you can do to boost revenues during the slow part of the year.

1. Attend business networking events so you can meet other business professionals in your area.

Check with your local chamber of commerce, ad federation and PRSA to see what’s available. Do your best to meet a lot of people and hand out plenty of business cards. You can follow up with those you meet with a personal letter, a copy of your demo reel and a meeting request.

2. Offer to videotape a high-profile non-profit fundraising events in exchange for sponsorship exposure.