Reginald Chan

Author: Reginald Chan

  • Copyright Laws That You Need to Know About

    Copyright Laws That You Need to Know About

    Copyright laws enable creators to protect their works from reproduction, selling, or any other unauthorized use. Just because you have seen a beautiful art or idea physically or on the internet, it is not free for use unless given permission by the owner. Using someone’s work that’s copyrighted or trademarked without consent can lead to a jail term, fines, or ruin your reputation. It’s important to copyright your work as a creator to avoid unlawful use. This article will discuss some copyright laws, dos and don’ts, and those affected by these laws. Read on to find out more.

    What is copyright, and who is eligible for it?

    Copyright refers to protecting your ideas, story, and art of software from illegal use. It marks the concept as solemnly yours, and it’s not for use by anyone unless under your permission. Most governments handle this protection, and rules change daily, especially in this internet era where duplication is rampant. If you find your copyright infringed, you can sue the parties and get compensation for damages. It is essential to get a patent lawyer to help safeguard your content and get culprits who infringe it. Who is eligible to copyright their ideas? Many creators are suitable for protection. These include all literary works, architecture, artistry works, films, TV shows, Podcasts, choreography, software, and hardware. What is not eligible for copyright? Not everything is suitable for copyrights. The lists depend on countries, and it includes facts, ideas, operation methods, and systems.

    Which protections are provided by copyrights?

    When you copyright something, it becomes your own, and if one uses it without your permission, it can fall under stealing. If you are a copyright owner, you are privileged for so many things. As the owner, you can reproduce your work, create other works concerning the original one, display your ideas in public, sell copies of the original work, and perform the same in public. For example, if you produce your music on DVDs and streaming it online, you can also perform it in public and sell it through other media. The rights you get are long-lasting, and you only lose them if you dissolve the copyright legally. With it, you will enjoy economic rights, legal rights, social rights, and even moral rights.

    • Which are the economic rights? 

    The economic copyright rights enable the owner to benefit financially from their copyrighted ideas. To earn from your ideas, the copyright allows the owner to reproduce the concepts to the public, perform public performance, translate their work in different languages and broadcast their ideas on streamlined media including smart TV, Radio, or the internet. You can also derive your results to earn something from them.

    • What are Moral Rights?

    These rights allow the creator to protect their works against actions that may damage its reputation or personal reputation. The moral rights benefits include the right to own the work, the right to publish their work anonymously, protect their work against unclear reputations, and protect against unfair attacks that may damage their reputation. 

    How long should copyright last?

    There is no definite limit for a copyrighted work. It depends on the item and where it is made. For example, contents made before 1978 gave the author a copyright limit of their lifespan, including an additional 70 years after they passed away. However, few exceptions vary from one region to another, depending on the material and the law imposed.

    Does one need to register a copyright?

    This situation also depends on the state. To some, immediately you create a concept, it becomes copyrighted automatically without registration, while some require one to register for it. You can register for your work anytime as long as it’s within the time frame. Even if not registered, the creator can have a public record of their claim, file an infringement lawsuit, and get refunds for legal fees in infringement claims. To register for copyright, you have to fill an application form, pay the fee, and pay a deposit for the same.

    What is Copyright Infringement?

    Infringement is when someone breaks the rules and uses your content without prior permission. This is a crime punishable by law, whether done knowingly or unknowingly. When caught in the wrong arms of the law, you can be fined huge sums of money depending on how you used the content. As a content creator, you can use your lawyers to press charges for someone who used the content unknowingly. 

    If you are a content creator, it is important protecting your work or something you earn from. It is essential to have a lawyer carry you through the copyright process and protect your work. The lawyers will ensure every procedure is followed and everything gets copyrighted, and those who infringe it are charged according to law.

  • Tips To Get Additional Funding For Your Construction Business

    Tips To Get Additional Funding For Your Construction Business

    Construction is certainly a risky business. With things going array in a second because of an unknown structural defect or delayed payments from clients, one needs to keep their heads clear and think of ways on how to get the business moving and the project completed.

    When you can’t meet your financial obligations, like paying suppliers and your staff because of a shortage of funding, you would have to be more creative to cope with the lack of cash. There are outfits and out of the box methods that you can get additional money for your construction business such as revenue based loan. Let’s talk this through.

    How Can I Have Extra Money For My Construction Project?

    Most business owners are getting battered in their first few years especially when you are engaged in the construction industry. It is a super dynamic arena that you can lose your shirt over. From the permits, suppliers, crew, and getting the project up to code, your investment or your investor’s money can easily get eaten up. 

    When you don’t have enough money to continue the hammering and the nailing, here are your options.

    Invoice Financing/Factoring

    Invoice financing is a creative way to ensure that you are up to date with your payment obligations to everybody you owe money to. This is construction finance where you borrow money against the unpaid invoices of your clients with interest. Basically, you are using your income in advance. It would help you improve your cash flow, meet your obligations, and invest your money wisely. 

    But you have to be very meticulous in your accounting because you can easily borrow more money than you are entitled to be paid. Plus, take note that it has an interest. When you borrow too much from invoice financing, your profit might just be lost due to the interest you have to pay off.

    Equipment Leasing

    Another innovative way of getting that extra cash to supplement your construction projects is leasing some of your equipment to other contractors who need it. Since heavy machinery like a tower crane will not be used all throughout the project duration, you can lend it to someone for a specified period of time in exchange for periodic payments.

    A risk that you have to keep in mind as a lessor is that the equipment may be misused by the lessee that the equipment is rendered inoperable after the lease duration. To prevent this from happening, you can add in penalty clauses for specific clear misuse circumstances in the contract. You can draft a sample contract online and tweak it to reflect all the terms and conditions that you want to be included in the leasing agreement.

    Business Line of Credit

    This works like your emergency stash or open banking but with interest. Line of credit loans you a set amount of money that you can use when you need it. You don’t need to use it all up in one go. And the good part is you only pay interest on the money you borrowed and the interest starts when you use the loan.

    Line of credit should be set up ahead of time before things go bonkers so that you would have time to give all the requirements needed to the bank or finance institution where you want to avail a line of credit. 

    You would need to present collateral if you want to apply for a secured line of credit. Of course, you can also seek credit without needing to pledge specific assets but your business needs to have a good track record and strong credit profile. Also, unsecured lines of credit have usually higher interest rates and offer smaller loan amounts.

    Short Term Loans

    Short term loans are often used by small businesses to raise working capital to cover money deficits for inventory, payroll, and other expenses. 

    Just like a business line of credit, you would need to guarantee your repayment through an asset or some form of collateral to get approved. Interest rates for short-term loans are usually lower than long-term ones but the tables can be quickly turned when the economy is in recession.

    Short term loans are usually repaid in 30 days up to a year depending on the amount and the terms of the lender. This is quite enough time for construction projects to make the money and settle the loaned money.

    Merchant Cash Advance

    A quick way to earn the cash you need for the rainy days is availing of a merchant cash advance. A merchant cash advance is a lump-sum payment in exchange for future revenue.

    This type of business financing is discouraged by business finance experts because of the high risks it puts small businesses into. They can get bankrupt easily because of how the contract and staggering interests on your loaned money. 

    Lenders that offer merchant cash advance use a “factor rate” that is fairly simple to understand. Your initial loaned amount is multiplied to a factor rate ranging from 1.1  to 1.5, and you get the total amount for repayment. However, if you compare it to APR, the interest rate on your borrowed money will be converted up to 200% APR. A shocking rate that would surely shake any small business owner.

    So beware of availing of a merchant cash advance.  Only use this highway when you are in desperate need of cash and that you can repay the amount within the terms or even earlier.

    There are of course other means on how to finance your obligations in your construction business but just like any transaction, there are risks involved in loaning money. Before you decide on the type of financing you would want to use, be sure that you understand all there is to comprehend about that type of loan. It would also not hurt to research a bit about your options and take your pick on what option you are comfortable with. Losing your shirt over your business is not necessary but can happen if you are not careful in dealing with your finances.

  • Small Business Advantage: The Ultimate Guide

    Small Business Advantage: The Ultimate Guide

    There are numerous tips out there for small businesses and it can be quite confusing with all of these ideas floating around, most of the time contradicting each other. However, there are some recurring ideas that they all have in common. Small businesses have inherent advantages and disadvantages that you’ll need to recognize. Here is an ultimate guide to help you bolster those advantages and convert those gaps into opportunities:

    1. Sort Things Out

    In order to be successful in every business, you’ll have to stay organized. That is why large corporations have teams, departments, divisions, and whatnot, it is to keep things in its proper place and promotes collaboration among the different groups. Small businesses must also have that outlook, although you don’t have (or need) a lot of people, the tasks are almost the same, just smaller in scale. You don’t have to be hands-on on everything, learn to delegate but always keep track of all the tasks needed to be done in a day or weeks even. Keeping yourself abreast with every essential item in your business is crucial for your survival and growth.

    2. Stay Focused

    Diversifying can sometimes be a trap that many entrepreneurs fall into early on. It can be tempting to get away from your niche and be all what your clients want you to be. However, it is important that you focus on your niche a little longer until you’re one of the best in your category. In the services industry, how to start a cleaning business should not stop at setting it up. A good businessman should conduct research, identify strengths and weaknesses, and develop their best practices. If you’re focused on one business, it can be easier to replicate the things that work well to other ventures and you’ll be able to expand relatively faster.

    3. Marketing Strategy

    Marketing is an essential component in every business. It doesn’t only refer to sales and numbers, rather it is an understanding of how your business can bring value to targeted customers and maximize your efforts into them. Use various online platforms to inform people and promote your brand, customize your approach to speak to different people to match their needs. Focus on keeping customers happy and keep them coming back rather than always looking for new ones. A good marketing strategy will not only help your small business but it can also help your brand as you look to expand your territory. Today, digital marketing is the way to go if you want to make yourself known faster, so make sure you focus on coming up with a strategy using the different online tools to help you get the word out.

    4. Study The Competition

    Competition in business always benefits the customers and in a way makes everything better. Studying your competition will force you to come up with creative ways to implement them in your own business. Small businesses tend to look at big corporations and say “they have the manpower, that’s why they can afford it” but that defeatist mindset will not help you in your cause. Rather, you should take a look at their practices and determine the principles involved as to why they are doing it. You don’t have to copy the entire practice, rather emulate the strategy and come up with your method to get similar results for yourself.

    5. Risk and Rewards

    Shrew businessmen won’t get on a deal without understanding all of the risks involved as well as the rewards. The key here is calculated risks, it is knowing what are the possible downside of the action and if the risk is outweighed by the rewards it promises. Knowing these will help you make better decisions at crucial times i.e. timing. One example is the increased need for sanitation and cleaning services brought about by the pandemic of the coronavirus. Great timing and recognition will tell you that even with the increased cost in PPEs and cleaning materials, the market for these services continues to grow and would possibly help you sustain growth for your business. 

    6. Build A Network

    It is common for business owners to feel isolated sometimes, especially if they are solo owners. It is important to connect with different people and build a network to help you get in touch with different people. Having a strong supportive network can help you get through different situations, come up with solutions to problems, and maintain a healthy social life. With the internet, it is now easy for different groups to connect and discuss business solutions over a conference line. Building a network is an investment that will pay its dividends in the future, no business owner becomes successful without the help of like-minded people.

    7. Keep Overhead Low

    It is important, at this stage, to keep your overhead costs low. It allows you some cushion whenever economic problems arise. You won’t panic because your margin is healthy enough that a cut in the revenue won’t take too much toll. More than ten years ago, one small business owner moved his operation from an office to his home to cut costs. And when the recession hit, they were able to stay afloat because cashflow never went negative and that helped him keep his peace of mind. If you can create a virtual workstation and ditch other costs for more affordable options, it will help you set a stage for further growth and maintain a healthy revenue stream.

    8. Don’t Quit Your Day Job – yet

    When people see that their small business venture is doing well, they immediately think of quitting their day job. However, it can be a critical mistake if you don’t consider all the factors involved. The founder of Spanx, Sara Blakely, did not quit her job until she had enough knowledge and did everything to make sure her business would become a success. It will take a chunk of your sleeping time but if you’re able to hold out just a little more to study and sort out your business, it will pay off big time. Also, it’s risky to leave a steady paycheck for a business that you haven’t really had enough time to work on.

    These practical tips will not make you an overnight success, but it will guide you to where your focus should be. Give yourself time and don’t stop learning from your mistakes and success. You will also learn important lessons along the way that you can share with people who are thinking of success as you are now.

  • How Outsourcing Accounting Services Can Save You Money?

    How Outsourcing Accounting Services Can Save You Money?

    Proper financial management and adequate record keeping of all your financial investments and expenses are vital for the growth of your business. While an ideal finance and accounting department requires full-time employees, they might or might not meet the company’s financial management requirements. On the contrary, in-house accountants often come up with high maintenance and operational costs, which if not detected and rectified early enough, can slow the growth of your company. 

    It is not a surprise that most company executives are resorting to outsourcing accounting services. Outsourced accounting services can help you focus your resources on the core functions of your business, save your company a lot of money, and have access to reliable account information. Below are some of the cost benefits of outsourcing accounting services:-

    Collaboration

    Running a business in a more technologically advanced means that you need to invest in tools that allow for more flexibility and efficiency. Outsourcing accounting services promises this and more. Outsourced accounting service provides you with tools that will help integrate most of your business process into one single platform. And as explained by the guys at Xero Accounting, this is among the perks of outsourcing accounting services. This is among the ways you’ll better understand your financial standing even when on the move. You’ll be exposed to services such as cloud computing services where all your financial information will be stored and backed up in the cloud. Among the factors you’ll need to consider before hiring an outsourced accounting team include: 

    • Their ability to meet your deadlines
    • They need to have great communication skills
    • They must work under minimal supervision
    • They should provide you with 

    Editor’s question to readers: How hard it is to find outsourcing accounting services in Hong Kong? Leave a comment below!

    Provision Of Scalable Accounting Services

    Professional accounting services providers will scale your accounting services significantly such that, if you had only a single employee handling all your finances, you’ll not need to train more accountants for it. The best part is that they can work on your accounts off-site provided they have all your financial records. All the more reasons to have your financial records saved on advanced storage systems. 

    More Internal controls

    By outsourcing accounting services, you will deal with people working in in-house departments while others work remotely. As a result, you will save on the costs you would have incurred to pay for office space for your accounting departments. Accounting experts who offer outsourced services offer executive-level services to different companies on demand. This will cut the costs of paying for accounting officers on a full-time basis. 

    You’ll only be outsourcing the services when you need to. This strategy will also help your company develop a precise billing system where you only pay for work done. This system will cut costs and also increase the efficiency of your company. Different account service providers have extra charges on the services provided, others charging accounting fees monthly while others hourly. You should, therefore opt for a billing system that is more convenient for your business.

    Reduced Operational Costs

    The standard business accounting systems demand that your organization carry out accounting tasks in your finance and accounting offices. Some companies also survive with back-office accounting officers to reduce the costs of office space. These types of accounting systems are always faced with scaling and transparency constraints. Document management is often inaccurate in such environments, and as your company expands, you might be forced to add more human resources.  

    All these services will mean that your company spends more money on technological investments and training. These are good reasons to prompt you to outsource accounting services. At the same time, regulatory changes on inventory management will mean added costs on refresher training and more money on additional training which also comes with more expenses.

    Improved Reliability and Efficiency

    No organization can pride itself on having an effective financial planning and management system as well as having an accurate financial statement if it lacks a reliable and efficient account and finance team of experts. The accuracy of a company’s accounting systems will determine its financial health. All the investment decisions made by a company will also be dependent on the company’s financial information. Inaccurate balance sheets will always lead to wrong decision making. Outsourcing accounting services will thus help your company save more money by improving precision and efficacy in decision making, which in the long run, will save your company the cost implications of making less viable investments. 

    Your outsourced team of accounting experts will help update your balance sheets and financial statements to enable you to conduct an accurate financial analysis. This would help you make better financial decisions and attract investors who will bring in more money into the business. Most accountants who offer outsourced services handle requests immediately, and this will help your company have effective and reliable reporting procedures.

    Access to High-Tech Solutions at Low Costs

    Accounting is a rapidly evolving field. With technological advancements increasing, you may be required to invest heavily in updating your systems or acquiring new ones. Unfortunately, it is costly for you to acquire advanced accounting software for your company. This leaves you with the option of outsourcing accounting. Outsourcing accounting services will give you access to cloud-based software services at relatively lower costs. This will ensure that you receive accurate accounting insights from reliable experts at low prices.

    Outsourcing Saves You Time

    In-house accounting services will burden your employees with administrative tasks. Accounting systems also need some technical skills, and most of the time, your best-performing employees will be busy with other activities to meet client deadlines. This limits the time they have for other essential duties. It would, therefore, be more cost-efficient if you outsourced accounting services rather than employ full-time accountants for your business.

    Outsourcing accounting services is a sure strategy to save you money. It will help you spend more time on financial management and efficient decision making, which will increase the productivity of your company. Outsourcing accounting services will offer you better expertise at significantly lower costs than those you would incur in a conventional accounting system.

  • How Businesses Can Benefit From Artificial Intelligence in 2021?

    How Businesses Can Benefit From Artificial Intelligence in 2021?

    When it comes to the topic of artificial intelligence (AI), there’s a lot of controversies. Many believe that these “robots” will steal people’s jobs and increase unemployment rates worldwide. However, this is just a myth; in fact, if used wisely, artificial intelligence can improve your business by leaps and bounds. Implementing the full range of AI technology, including language processing and machine learning, into your business has many incredible benefits. On that note, read on to find out how artificial intelligence can benefit you in 2021.

    Simplify and Improve Your Hiring Process

    Embedding artificial intelligence in your business can simplify and improve your hiring process. It can increase the efficiency of your recruitment process through the automation of the otherwise slow and arduous steps. Instead of having a dedicated team of personnel to go through all the applications and screen calls, you can speed up the reviewing process through AI. Moreover, involving AI in those preliminary steps can eliminate potential human bias, which is great for the diversity of your workplace. AI can also aid you in spotting talented individuals using generated data from detailed questionnaires. This can apply to both existing employees and prospective recruits.

    Improve Communication with Customers

    Following up on the previous point, artificial intelligence can also improve communication with your customers. Implementing AI solutions in customer service tools, such as your chatbox, your automated messaging service, and your automated calls service, can enable your organization to provide customer support 24/7, personalizing your clients’ experience. You can arrange this kind of service through a custom ai development service, which will develop your AI with your customer-specific algorithms. Implementing AI technology will make the customer experience you offer unique and more effective, increasing your customer satisfaction levels and business revenue.

    Related: Learn more on patent lawyer and why it is important for your brand

    Personalized Experience and Brand Loyalty

    Did you know that 60% of customers expect a personalized experience when interacting with a brand? This poses a big challenge for most businesses, as the personalizing process takes a lot of time, effort, and money. To develop a customized experience, companies need to map out their target audience, their wants and needs, and their personal journey with the brand. They need to have an in-depth analysis of their customers to ensure that they’re targeting the right moments with the right content to increase engagement and customer satisfaction as well as drive sales. This proves to be an arduous task that can luckily be substituted with artificial intelligence.

    Usually, businesses use data collected from different platforms such as social media to predict the service or product customers would like to interact with. This process can be fulfilled by AI technologies, which automates this process, and can grant your brand with specific personas, their data, and their journeys; it identifies the behavioral patterns your customers act out when interacting with your brand.

    Save Costs and Increase Revenue

    One of the much-needed benefits that AI technology can offer to your business is the increase in revenue and the saving of additional costs. Deploying AI technology can increase your business revenue through its ability to identify the sales opportunities that can maximize your profit. As for its ability to save costs, this is because implementing AI in some departments can improve the efficiency of your office’s back-end procedures as well as reduce the costs of salaries and benefits. This is most effective in the field of customer service due to its ability to fill the gaps in the field.

    More Accurate Forecasts

    In any business, one of the essential things you need to do to succeed is forecasting. Forecasting in business is essentially a tool that helps a business make planning, budgeting, and growth decisions. There are many types of forecasting used to achieve this, such as sales forecasting, general business forecasting, and cash flow forecasting, and they are all important. However, forecasting procedures are very time consuming, which incidentally makes them prone to human error.

    Implementing AI technology into this type of procedure can transform your business by reducing this issue and automatically creating objective forecastings without any human involvement. This will give businesses a clearer understanding of their future governance and finances, allowing them to make better decisions and achieve their goals.

    These are just some of the benefits artificial intelligence can offer your business. Embedding AI technologies in your organization can help you face 2021 with new tools that will ensure the success of your business. Moreover, with the uncertainty that the COVID-19 pandemic brings, AI technologies can make sure that your business will still run smoothly, even with the lack of personnel on-site.

  • The Importance of Brand Storytelling for Small Businesses

    The Importance of Brand Storytelling for Small Businesses

    Throughout our human journey, storytelling has been an intrinsic aspect of our nature. From ancient illustrations to the modern-day internet, storytelling has always been part and parcel of our human experience.

    This is why it isn’t at all far-fetched to think that the success of your brand identity and marketing rests on the way you tell your story. Consumers now are highly forensic and sharing your story in a passionate fashion is the key to engaging them in your company’s vision and mission.

    Therefore, in a sense, storytelling is the art through which businesses exhibit transparency, and only when you focus on your storytelling could you be able to put forth a cohesive narrative that best showcases the emotions that your brand evokes.

    The days of advertising your products to your audience as the sole mean of marketing are long gone and failure to convey your company’s core message coherently will result in unengaged and dissatisfied customers.

    The conventional marketing methods could only get you so far. You might be able to attract customers in the short-run but retaining them requires proper brand storytelling. Scroll through to learn more about the ins and outs of brand storytelling.

    Know Yourself

    What you ought to do is to set yourself apart from the herd. One way to stand out and take the center stage is through cultivating your own distinct personality. This is what comes into play when a customer is on the fence between choosing two products that are quite similar but they end up choosing one of them more often than the other.

    Experts from Continuity2.com draw attention to the fact that more often than not, a company that has a robust infrastructure happens to be the company that values transparency and in turn retains its customers. This is because when you’re well informed about what you’re offering to your customers and when your company proves its resiliency against frictions—you build trust!

    Show Your Human Side

    It is necessary that your company feels familiar to the customers. If in fact the product and/or service that you provide contributes to the betterment of the community—show it! Ultimately, you want to ingrain your company’s story in the mind of your audience through humanizing your brand.

    If it happens that you own a local business, make sure to put the word out and show your local community the values you’re upholding. Letting your customers in on what goes on behind the scene and sharing the environment of the company along with the experiences of those staff members that make it all happen is crucial to building the necessary emotional attachment.

    Brand Story & Social Media

    It is evident that social media has forever changed the trajectory of brand marketing. With billions now using social media platforms, it is easier to reach out to your customers and allow them to know what a day inside your company looks like.

    You can even incentivize your audience to further get involved with the essence of your brand by way of allowing them to share their own unique stories that are related to your brand and if possible—give out prizes for the best stories.

    Evoke Emotion

    We’re highly emotional at our core. Focusing on what creates the right emotional bond with your target audience is imperative if you want to leave an indelible impression on them. The idea is to find something within your company’s mission that people can relate to.

    If you had a humble beginning, show that to your customers! If your company is environmentally friendly, make that aspect shine. You can get creative in using the right words and images that best convey your message. A powerful image representing your company combined with compelling facts can have a great impact on how people look at your brand so make sure to align your story with the sentiments shared by your customers.

    Conclusion

    A gripping story is a game-changer at worst! Honing your storytelling skills should be your top priority if you’re to ever create a strong relationship with your customers.

    Your sales representatives should promote the story of your brand and its origin. Have your recruitment team embrace the company’s story and attract employees that resonate with the company’s mission and vision.

    Popular brands like Pepsi and Coca-Cola have always been prime examples of great story-tellers. Through making use of real-life stories, businesses can promote concepts like body positivity and inclusivity, all of which are values that the general public can relate to.

    At the end of the day, it is crucial that you do your homework regarding your company and its position in the local community. The fact that you’ve come so far means that you’re one step ahead of the game of story-telling.