Category: Strategies

Forming an LLC is crucial to protect your personal assets, this guide picks out the top LLC services company you should consider!

ZenBusiness

When it comes to forming an LLC online, we strongly recommend ZenBusiness based on overall quality. ZenBusiness provides company formation solutions beginning at $39 per year (plus state fees).

ZenBusiness Pros

• LLC creation packages that are simple to use and reasonably priced
• Customer service that is responsive
• Online ZenBusiness evaluations have received excellent client feedback.
• Registered agent services of the highest caliber

ZenBusiness Cons

• In order to obtain an Employer Identification Number (EIN), you must spend an extra $70 in the ZenBusiness basic plan. However, we urge that you learn how to obtain an EIN for free.

ZenBusiness Pricing and Features

All three packages include the following key products for forming your LLC:

• Registered agent services: All three of ZenBusiness’s packages include a full year of registered agent services. It’s only $119 per year after the first year. (We also named ZenBusiness the best registered agent service!)
• Free Operating Agreement: Assists in defining the parameters of the company’s formation. Few businesses include an Operating Agreement as part of their standard packages.
• Worry Free CPA Assessment: This assessment will offer you with a free examination of your company’s finances as well as a recommendation for the best licensed CPA for your unique needs. Accounting services are an excellent method to maintain track of your company’s financial flow, file taxes, and stay organized.

Incfile

Incfile, like ZenBusiness, offers excellent value in their basic pricing plan for LLC services.

Incfile Pros

All packages include a full year of registered agent service for free. After that, it’s $119 per year, which is still on the lower end of registered agent pricing.

Incfile provides a real-time order tracking feature as well as excellent customer service.

The organization offers an easy-to-use web dashboard to assist you keep track of crucial deadlines and compliance notifications.

Incfile Cons

Important company features such as an Operating Agreement and an EIN will cost you extra.

Incfile Pricing and Features

Their Silver plan, which is free with the exception of state levies, offers the following features:

• Formation of a Limited Liability Company
• Lifetime corporate compliance alerts
• One year of free registered agent service.

Incfile Gold ($149 + state charge) includes the following features:

• A Banking Resolution
• EIN Registration
• Operating Agreement

Finally, their Platinum package ($249 + state charge) comprises the following items:

• A free company website as well as a domain name
• Templates for contracts
• Accelerated filing

Inc Authority

Inc Authority is yet another effective option for forming an LLC.

Inc Authority Pros

• They will form your LLC for free, similar to Incfile (plus state fees)
• Every bundle includes a full year of free registered agent services from Inc Authority.
• Website and checkout process are simple to use.
• Customer service and assistance that is knowledgeable

Inc Authority Cons

• Several upsells that entrepreneurs would normally be able to obtain for free (e.g., EIN)
• The premium starting bundles available are more costly than other LLC formation services.

Inc Authority Pricing and Features

Despite the fact that Inc Authority offers three startup bundles, we advocate using their free LLC formation service. It includes the following and more for just the state fee:

• Preparation and documentation
• Check the name of your company.
• One year of service as a registered agent
• Digital storage and distribution

Rocket Lawyer

Although ZenBusiness is the superior option for merely starting a small business, Rocket Lawyer is the better option if you require ongoing legal services after the formation of your LLC, check out the individual Rocket Lawyer LLC review here.

Rocket Lawyer Pros

• The TRUiC and Rocket Lawyer New Business Bundle comes with a special discount!
• If you wish to try the legal services subscription package, which includes free LLC formation, the 7-day trial eliminates any risk.
• Rocket Lawyer offers exceptional client service.

Rocket Lawyer Cons

• Rocket Lawyer focuses on legal assistance and advice that extends beyond company creation. If you merely want to start a small business, there are more economical choices available.

Rocket Lawyer Pricing and Features

Rocket Lawyer distinguishes itself by providing a subscription-based approach for continuous legal services, with premium users receiving access to legal papers, advice, and other benefits.

We’ve reached a contract to combine Rocket Lawyer’s premium membership services into a special package for our users at a discounted price of $349.99. (plus state fees). By selecting our New Business Bundle, you will save around $300 (more than 45 percent!) by including the following:

• Service of Free Incorporation
• One Year of Registered Agent Services
• Legal Services for One Year:
• Expert Advice from Real Lawyers
• 30-minute lawyer consultation on any new legal problem, and up to 40% off attorney hourly rate after that.
• Operating Agreements are examples of simple legal documents and contracts.
• Discounts on future services are only available to members.
• Excellent client service

The TRUiC and Rocket Lawyer New Business Bundle is ideal for entrepreneurs that require further legal knowledge throughout the life of their business.

For example, if you are launching a real estate business, you may require more complete legal assistance and advice on rental applications, sublease agreements, and so on. Rocket Lawyer excels at providing peace of mind to businesses that require easy access to attorneys and specialized counsel on potential legal challenges.

There are a number of situations that occur at work that make the workspace toxic. There could be instances of discrimination, and harassment that make the environment unbearable. When you finally make an HR complaint to stop the disrespect, that’s when employers can decide to take revenge. This may come in the form of downgrading your position, ignoring you completely even when it comes to professional correspondence, or disciplining you severely although unwarranted. You may be passed up for job promotions or important job training. This can even progress to outright termination. 

Make An Official Complaint

You first should make an official complaint to your supervisor or human resource department that you believe your boss is making retaliatory moves against you. How to be sure? One way is to take note of the timeline this behavior from your employer began taking place. Right after your complaint? Bingo. With sufficient examples of retaliation, an investigation should be opened. Your boss would be questioned and he or she may well deny the claims. But if you’re sure of your accusations and nothing substantial is being done by the organization you work for, then contact the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Connect The Dots

You need to find concrete examples that tie your complaint directly to the ensuing behavior. For instance, your employer may have e-mailed you an opportunity to participate in a special type of training, which you happily accepted. Fast forward to the start of harassment or unwanted sexual advancements. You refuse those advances and explain to your boss that you are uncomfortable and this is inappropriate. He persists. You file a complaint. 

All of a sudden you receive a correspondence stating that you are no longer invited to participate in the training, and your spot has been given to someone else. No further explanation. Here you can see a clear line that connects one course of action to another. Such evidence cannot be refuted. This is exactly the type of evidence you need to make a strong case. 

Get In Touch With An Employment Lawyer

This will be a tough fight should your employer not take responsibility for his or her actions as is often the case. You need the best, most experienced lawyers fighting back on your side. Cases against major businesses like Walmart, Fed-Ex, and Sherwin Williams have been tried and won. Having experience in representing both employees and employers the West Coast Employment Lawyers are well versed in how both sides of the cases can proceed. This allows them to better prepare all angles of the case. They promise justice, support, and compensation. 

You might be concerned that employing a firm as top-rated is bound to cost more than you can afford. The good news is that you pay not a dime out of pocket unless your case is won.

Retaliation Is Not Always Cut and Dry or Black and White

What you take to harassment from a coworker or an employer may fall within the category of subjectivity and not outright wrongdoing. Take for example a supervisor who asks to speak to you and leads you into his office with the palm of his hand on the flat of your back. He removes it shortly and makes no attempts to flirt. The office door remains open through the discussion. You leave that situation feeling uncomfortable and decide to make a complaint to HR. Your supervisor confesses he saw nothing inappropriate about the interaction. While no one can tell you your feelings are wrong, can he be justly accused of sexual harassment or poor conduct when no similar or worse action happened prior or subsequently? 

Knowing that you felt uncomfortable, he may approach you to suggest that you work with another supervisor from now on. You may have your gripes with this other supervisor or receive fewer opportunities for advancement under their leadership, and feel you are being punished for speaking out your truth. In such a situation, no one wins. It might appear to be an instance of retaliation but in fact, could have simply been the best course of action. 

Be Very Clear On What Protected Activity Covers

Be aware that not every HR complaint is deemed protected despite your belief that it is. Some protected complaints include racial discrimination, sexual harassment, violations of safety, denying medical leave due to a disability, and labor code violations. Micromanaging and being constantly asked to complete tasks that fall outside of your employment contract do not make the cut. So if your boss decided to let you go after you make a complaint that you’re being overworked with tasks that do not apply to your position, there is no case of retaliation. 

Sure, if you honestly believe that a case of harassment took place, but is proven by legal counsel not to be, you will not be penalized. But if it is found that a claim was maliciously brought against an employee or employer, you may well find yourself under the spotlight of the law. 

How To Avoid Such Situations

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission suggests that all business places proudly display an anti-retaliation policy. This can be posted in a location where all employers can easily read, can be sent out in emails, or included in the employee handbook. In addition, training can be held to remind all staff of the seriousness of the policy and consequences waiting for those who act out against it. As an employer, seek to create an atmosphere in the workplace of comfort, where persons can feel free to report any cases of poor work practices. But also a space of respect where unwanted and unlawful advancements and actions don’t or rarely take place. 

Make examples out of those who step out of bounds. Let nothing slip through the cracks. A regulatory body with no links to the employer ideally should oversee all complaints so that not even the boss can escape.

In every type of business, productivity is more than crucial. It’s the term we frequently hear and plays a major role when it comes to running a successful company. And that’s completely logical because, without it, no corporation can be and stay successful.

Any business owner must find a way to boost productivity in manufacturing and do the best they can to create a powerful and resilient workforce, as well as to incorporate technology that is going to help the company speed up production and thrive.

Manufacturing employers must simply turn to various digital tools to improve both the efficiency and productivity of their workers. Many plant managers suggest that in order to be the best, the workforce must master numerous techniques and apply them whenever possible. So what else can be done? If you’re eager to learn more, scroll below for more answers.

Useful Strategies To Enhance Productivity In Manufacturing

Dig Into Data And Employ It To Lighten Areas Of Improvement

Up until recently, manufacturers that gathered data about operations only typically had isolated data sets. Nowadays, the situation is a little bit different. Today, it is possible it is relatively easy to dig into data and figure out where current processes break down and what needs to be done to enhance efficiency.

Furthermore, there’s one case where a mining firm utilized data to learn that the best performance happened during peak oxygen levels. Later on, the institution changes its leach recovery process and incremented the average yield by approximately four percent in three months.

It is easy to see how crucial data was at that moment. Without it, this corporation might not have known which areas of the process were supposed to be tweaked in order to see any improvements.

That’s why in order to get started, you must choose a certain problem that data analysis could untangle, and then, every single aspect of that process must be precisely measured and finally to analyze the data to determine what type of improvements must be made based on these results.

Consider Having A Cartoner Machine

This is a great option for every company that utilizes a carton in or as their product packaging. Now, what’s important to mention is the fact that not every cartoner machine is created equal, however, every single one of them has the same goal when it comes to efficiency and decreasing the taxing and labor that’s associated with developing cartons and filling item into them manually.

So, what are the benefits of this machine? Namely, the advantages of using a cartoner machine are numerous. One of the most obvious ones is the fact that it can help you decrease the workforce of your employees and save labor. 

Another fact worth mentioning is that it can boost the quality and prevent the box from being destroyed. These types of machines were designed to avoid any mistakes during the packaging process

Adding More Ways To Boost Productivity Of Your Manufacturing Facility

Don’t Forget Regular Maintenance

Every company must constantly work on improving its business, however, in this industry there’s one mistake that is being frequently made and that can slow things down drastically. And we refer to regular maintenance.

Don’t forget that downtime for maintenance is much more affordable than downtime due to worn and ruined equipment. Therefore, having scheduled maintenance is a must and has to be scheduled.  So what are your tasks when it comes to it?

• Train all your operators in troubleshooting procedures and regular maintenance
• Schedule preventive maintenance as frequently as you can
• Figure out the best time for it by employing data from the workflow process and the floor
• Do not postpone it at any costs

Bear in mind that preventive maintenance makes sure that your equipment is still functioning properly, without any issues, work stoppage, and downtime.

Invest In Manufacturing Workforce Education

We live in a world where technology is continuously evolving, and the operational technology that is emerging is affecting a lot of corporations in a positive way. It is changing the way businesses are cutting, machining, and manufacturing things for quicker, safer, and definitely more effective productivity.

That’s precisely why your workforce must have various skills to be able to work in a loT ecosystem. With the help of mobile communication tools, firms can easily teach their existing employees and implement regular training to help them keep up with the latest smart machines. 

Organize The Workspace 

Being organized in this industry is essential, hence, you have to decrease clutter and movement if you want to save some time. So what are you supposed to do? 

• Reduce movement if you want to accomplish maximum task efficiency 
• Develop the optimal layout of materials and tools for the process or job
• Eliminate unnecessary or unused materials and tools from the workspace
• Make organized storage to decrease time to find documents, materials, and equipment 
• Arrange the manufacturing floor to boost efficiency

Whenever you can, reduce travel distance and time. For instance, if a certain product must be displaced from one machine to another, find a way to shorten the distance, or to simply move it much faster, yet with extreme caution.

6. Engage Your Employees

Sometimes, no matter how capable or knowledgeable you may be, consulting with others can definitely be beneficial for the business. For instance, if the process is plagued by downtime, then maybe you should consider talking to your workers.

Who knows, maybe they’ve gotten some smart answers and solutions. Moreover, it’s completely logical that the person who carries out the job is filled with ideas and can help you make the process much more efficient.

Therefore, it’s of huge importance to create channels of communication so that people who work in your company can easily communicate up the chain, every single time they have any complaints, suggestions, and comments. Keep in mind that employees are one of the most important assets of the company.

Efficiency is always welcome and good for any type of business. That’s why, if you’re not sure whether your company is productive enough, you should certainly implement some of these strategies.

In 2019, 14.4 million Americans were victims of identity theft. That’s around one in every fifteen people. So, it’s no wonder that many are becoming increasingly concerned about criminals stealing their personal information. Identity theft involves thieves stealing personally identifiable information like your name, address, date of birth, Social Security Number, and bank account number. They use the information without your permission for financial gain. There are many different types of identity theft schemes that criminals use, both online and offline. Here’s a look at three common schemes and how you can prevent them from happening. 

Image source: https://www.pexels.com/photo/man-with-binary-code-projected-on-his-face-5474031/

Phishing 

There are lots of different types of phishing schemes, but all of them trick you into giving your personal identifying information. Phishing schemes are the most common type of online identity thefts. The thefts could come via a number of different methods, such as email, cell phone voice messages, text messages, and online social networks. Two of the most-used phishing schemes are:

• Pharming, in which you visit a spoof website generated by a hacker and enter personal details like your name, address, and credit card number, without realizing you are on a fake site.
• Malware-based phishing, in which a cybercriminal attaches a harmful malware program to an email or website. When you click on it, the thief has access to your online movements and can record your keyboard strokes.

To protect yourself from pharming, check the padlock symbol in the right-hand corner of the website URL to check that it’s secure. If you need further assurance, contact the website administrator via phone or email. As for malware-based phishing, you can protect yourself by using caution before downloading or installing anything from the internet. Always make sure an item is from a trusted source and has security certification. For further protection against phishing and other identity theft methods, it’s a good idea to use identity theft protection software that monitors your online behavior and checks for any suspicious activity. With identity theft protection, you can make it more difficult for hackers to steal your personal information, and if identity theft should occur, the situation can be resolved quickly. 

Dumpster Diving

With so much focus on internet security these days, it can be easy to forget identity thieves also operate offline. One of the most common ways thieves gain access to your personal information in the non-digital world is by simply going through your garbage. This identity theft scheme is known as dumpster diving. In people’s trash, thieves can find things like credit card bills, bank statements, utility bills, and medical insurance statements; all of which contain personal data. 

Thankfully, it’s easy to protect yourself against dumpster diving. Make sure you shred any documents that contain sensitive information before you dispose of them. You could also stop using paper statements altogether and instead complete all of your transactions online. 

Social Engineering

Identity thieves can use the social engineering scheme either via email, over the telephone, or even in person. In order for scammers to use this scheme, they need to already know some information about you, such as your name and address. By making you aware that they know such details, you can be fooled into thinking you’re talking to a legitimate company. The schemer will then lead you to divulge more sensitive information such as your bank account number. 

To prevent social engineering, stay diligent every time a company contacts you; even if it’s a company you’re registered with or are expecting a call from. If you have any doubt about the genuineness of the caller, hang up and call back the company’s official number to verify the call was genuine.   

Running a business in this contemporary world requires that you have a solid online presence. As a matter of fact, a solid business plan must include strategies for branding your product or services to reach more potential customers. 

Having a website is part of business branding. The entire web portal informs potential customers about your business and how to buy your products or hire you to render the advertised services. After you have decided that your company or industry requires a website, here is a highlight of some important things you need to consider when bringing your website to life. 

Have Target Audience

The deciding factor on how to structure your website is your target audience. So, it would be best to answer some important questions relating to your customers before or while implementing the website. 

What product or service are you offering? 

Who are your customers? 

What is the age bracket for your target audience? 

What do your customers want to see when they click on the URL link to your website? 

What will be their first impression when they get to your landing page? 

What do they want to see when they navigate through your website? 

What type of content interests your target audience?

Will they want to come back again after their first experience on your website?

You can create an online poll targeting your preferred customer for feedback. The responses will help you put your website into perspective, and you can work with it to make a sitemap or wireframe for the proposed website.

Build A Sitemap and Plan Your Design

User Interface and Experience (UI/UX) makes an excellent website and achieves a relatable UI for your target audience. You start with a detailed site mapping. Everyone has an idea of what they want their website to look like or what they think their target audience would like to see when they get to the landing page, all you have to do is map out all the pages you want your website to contain, the categories and header titles.

When you have named all your categories, you can proceed to wireframe, where you detail what each category represents on the page. You can use an online simulator program to achieve this, as it will make designing your website easy. Website design has many intricacies to wade through, considering that you want your web portal to mirror your business branding strategies and communicate to your target audience in a way they will understand.

You want to make sure that your website design & development are top-notch. This is why you should take the long road by doing a target audience poll, gathering materials with similar websites, doing site mapping and wireframes. If it happens that you have to hire a professional for the job, you will have a well-structured plan for the web designer to work with. 

Also, you must prioritize mobile-friendliness features for your website when it is still at the implementation stage, as a large percentage of traffic that will make it to your website will be from smartphone users.

Have A Plan For Valuable SEO Driven Content

Content is the heartbeat of a website. The contents on a website complement the design and work in sync to attract potential customers. When planning your website, you have to make a good case for the type of content that will fill up each category.

When you have a perfect idea of who your target audience is, it narrows down the contents that will fill your website because that will help you with customer retention. If you are into the fashion business and building a website for your brand, know that your blog content must be steeped towards fashion trends but with fewer words and more pictures and videos, as that is what your target audience can relate to. Be double sure that your content aligns with your business brand and the medium used in communicating is satisfactory to your target audience.

Find a Suitable Web Hosting Platform

This is a major deal-breaker for your website as it will determine the functionality of your website and user retention. Website hosting will decide if your website survives when it has massive traffic coming its way, so you need to make conscientious decisions on the hosting domains you will be patronizing.

Hosting providers determines the speed of your website. Slow loading time, frequent non-availability, and server errors will downgrade your site ranking on search engine results, so you need a good hosting provider to help you achieve user retention for your website. Not only that, your hosting provider has a considerable effect on your domain authority. Hence, do your research on the best ones that offer excellent services suitable for your branding journey.

Be Conscious of Cyber Security

As a business owner, you need to consider the security of the potential users that will visit your website. In a situation where you want your website to be a one-stop-shop for potential customers, then you should make sure that the security of your website is top-notch. The personal information provided by customers, such as email, credit card information, and other biodata, is it safe?

When you are implementing your website, ensure that you add an SSL certificate to your budget scope and other security measures to prevent data leaks from your end. You can have an idea of how your website firewall is when you do a bug or split testing and plug any loopholes before the official rollout.

Have A Budget

Businesses are hinged on financial transparency and accountability. This is why you have a budget for everything. Hence, it would help if you had a budget for business branding and building a website. During the implementation stage, you should have a list of professional web designers or hosting sites and narrow down which one fits your budget and achieve your preferred business website.

Implementing a user-friendly website that will help promote your business brand is essential, so consider the points mentioned above when building your website.

Browsing the internet in modern days can be risky. For instance, when you are using public Wi-Fi, any person on the same network with a little tech know-how can easily access your online activity and location. 

Luckily, virtual private networks, better-known VPNs, provide a good way for remote and in-office workers to mask their online activity and keep prying eyes off their employer’s information. But just how safe are VPNs for work? 

Keep reading to discover the common cons of using VPNs.

Complicated setup

The process of VPN access setup, management, and configuration can be pretty complicated and time-consuming.

Considering that most employees are not tech-savvy, using VPN networks can become a big challenge and often calls for increased labor in terms of IT support staff. Additionally, the complicated configuration and setup processes translate to more time loss, which could have otherwise been used to engage in other productive activities.

Luckily, investing in a simple file server access solution such as Triofox can ensure your remote team easily and safely access your network or file server. The best bit about such tools is that they provide secure, remote access without a VPN and still ensure that everyone who accesses your file server is authenticated and uses a secure internet connection.

VPN hinders collaboration among workers

Apart from contributing to IT complexity in its setup, VPNs can hinder collaboration among remote workers. Most VPNs are not designed to support entire organizations operating remotely.

With a large volume of employees connecting over a VPN network remotely, most networks will be overwhelmed. In other words, you are likely to experience a delay in content syncing and file sharing, which are the two most critical aspects of an effective remote work model. 

Such performance challenges can ultimately affect your business’s productivity which calls for finding more effective ways of securing your work remotely other than VPN.

Complexity hinders scalability

As businesses start to experience growth, most enterprises try to solve the overload issues with additional VPN appliances and concentrators. 

However, this approach only serves to add to the cost and the complexity of the already complex system. These complications become a hindrance to scalability and can only be overcome by finding other options for securing your company data without relying on a VPN. 

Security loopholes

While most VPNs may promise maximum security, they may not be entirely secure, and users are always at a risk of having their IP addresses leaked. 

Therefore, if you intend to invest in a VPN for your workers, it would be important to check online reviews on the provider to see if they have had a history of IP leakage. Free VPNs are especially prone to leaks and must never be used for work.

Dropped connections

Dropped connections are a nightmare for any business owner who depends on a virtual private network for their online security. 

A dropped VPN connection should not be confused with losing your internet connection. Instead, a dropped VPN connection means that you cannot connect to the servers hiding your identity, leaving your true network and IP information on display for everyone putting your company at risk of a cyber-attack.

Slow speeds

Because a VPN network is a virtual connection inside a physical network, your internet speeds will be negatively affected. Slow speeds are especially a problem with free VPN, which must be avoided by all means.

Final words

VPNs are not developed equally, and you may find them useful for certain purposes in your organization. However, you can find many other alternatives to VPNs, such as file server access solutions, that effectively ensure your business remains safe from cyberattacks.