Nonprofit Stewardship – Business Advice For Nonprofits

The Differences Between A Business Sale And A Share Sale

June 13, 2024May 6, 2024 by non-profit.steward

Whenever someone is discussing buying or selling a business, the term ‘business sale’ will often be used, but in truth, it is often used wrongly. Commercial law defines a business sale as a specific legal process, and often the transaction taking place is not a business sale but a share sale.

A business sale and a share sale are two distinct types of transaction, and each has several legal differences in commercial law, even though once the sale takes place, it has the same outcome. Based on legal advice from the professionals at Fletcher Law, here are some of the differences between business sales and share sales to clarify what this means in practical terms,

Share Sales

The legal owner of a business is the company and whilst that business ownership does not change, with the buying and selling of shares the ownership of the company can change. In certain states, there are advantages to share sales such as no transfer duties to be paid. There are also administrative benefits such as there being no need for new bank accounts to be opened and contracts with employees and suppliers remain in place.

5 Signals Indicating Your Office Couches Need Professional Cleaning

February 8, 2024February 2, 2024 by non-profit.steward

It could be that, regardless of their condition or appearance, you arrange professional office cleaning for your business’s furniture regularly. This is often the case when a business has many visitors and potential clients coming to its offices. It wants to ensure that their first impressions and view of that business is positive, or at the very least, not diminished due to grubby, stained office furniture.

However, suppose you do not have a regular couch cleaning agreement with professional upholstery cleaners. In that case, it begs the question, at which point do you determine that your office furniture does need attention? If you do it randomly rather than only when you are relocating, the risk is that one or more chairs and couches get stained without you knowing about it, and horror of horrors, a client sees that stain and immediately forms a negative opinion of your business.

Far better than this scenario is to have a checklist that assists you in determining what triggers the need for you to call professional couch cleaners to take care of your upholstered furniture. As for what you have on that checklist, the best option is signs or signals, and when they occur, they tell you it is time to make that call. Here are what we consider the top five of those signals.

Stains And Other Visible Marks

The most obvious of the five signals that tell you your office couch needs cleaning is one you can see with your own eyes, which is staining or marks on the surface of the upholstery. Whether you decide your threshold for this is a single stain or several, you must know that some stains need dealing with quickly as they can become permanent if not removed in time. You could try removing stains yourself, but the best option is to call in the professionals.

10 Ways To Optimise Your Website’s Content For Voice Search

October 15, 2024April 26, 2023 by non-profit.steward

One thing that everyone who works within SEO knows is that they can never sit back and relax, because just as they think they may have mastered the optimisation of a website for search engine results, along comes another update, algorithm change, or technological advancement that makes SEO a prime example of the “two steps forward, one step back” scenario.

Such is the pace and frequency of changes within SEO, they can often happen overnight, and there are tales of a business being wiped out in the space of 24 hours due to an overnight Google update, for example. What we are going to discuss is not so dramatic as that. However, it does have a significant impact on how SEO is done, and that is voice search.

As its name suggests, voice search is requesting a search engine search for a query by speaking it rather than typing on a keyboard. Voice search has become more widespread with the advent of mobile internet use, and the introduction of products such as Siri from Apple, Alexa from Amazon, and Google Assistant.

Given all of this, it is important to know how to conduct SEO on your website’s content so that it can rank just as highly, if not higher, for voice searches as it does for text searches. Get this right and you have a huge advantage over your competitors, most of whom will not be undertaking SEO for voice searches. We understand SEO is very complicated, and it is best left to the professionals, however, here are ten ways you can optimise content for voice search to gain that aforementioned competitive advantage.

Pros And Cons For Businesses Of Using Storage Units Vs. Warehouses

October 10, 2024March 22, 2023 by non-profit.steward

As a small business owner or entrepreneur, finding the right secure storage solution for your inventory or equipment can be quite tasking. However, you are not without options, and two of the most popular are commercial storage units and warehouses.

Each of them has specific advantages and disadvantages so we thought it would be useful to go through each of their respective pros and cons to help you choose the best one for your business.

Pros And Cons Of Commercial Storage Units

Storage units are individual units that can be rented by businesses for the storage of their inventory or equipment. They come in various sizes and be rented both short-term and long-term.

7 Awesome Tactics For Divorce Lawyers To Augment Their Digital Marketing Results

April 27, 2023March 8, 2023 by non-profit.steward

For any divorce lawyers reading this who have tried using digital marketing to advance their law firm, but have been underwhelmed by the results, you deserve praise. We say that because the mere fact that you have instigated a digital marketing campaign means that you are already several steps ahead of most other divorce law firms, and that includes much of your local competition.

However, the fact remains that if you are not seeing the results that you want, something has to change. Obviously, without knowing the exact details of what digital marketing tactics or channels you are using we cannot offer you a bespoke solution, nevertheless, we can offer several digital marketing tactics that are proven to work and have worked successfully for divorce lawyers.

Ensure Every Piece Of Content You Publish Is First Class

One of the most important elements of digital marketing is content, however, merely publishing content is not enough. The content you create or had created for you must be exceptional for it to be noticed, consumed, and appreciated by online users, or for the search engines to give it any ranking credit.

Embrace Social Media To Build A Following

Social media might not be to everyone’s liking, and that includes many divorce lawyers, however, if you are to give your online marketing campaign any chance of succeeding, you must have a presence on at least one or two social media platforms. If you do not want to be involved with it yourself, outsource the work, which can be done for a relatively low cost.

5 Coping Methods For Those Whose Health Is Suffering Due To Financial Woes

October 10, 2024March 6, 2023 by non-profit.steward

When you think of the usual list of things that are said to harm our health such as smoking, drinking excess alcohol, drug abuse, and overeating, you might find it unusual that finances could be added to that list. Whilst financial health is usually something that financial planners are most commonly employed to fix, a person’s physical and mental health can also be positively affected by financial planners.

Whilst a financial planner is obviously not medically qualified to treat physical or mental illnesses, the fact that they can drastically reduce the amount of pressure, stress, and anxiety a person is subjected to by removing financial worries from their mind, is not an insignificant contribution to that person recovering from their health issues.

Individuals can also take additional steps to enhance their health by utilising several coping methods relating to their finances and the negative impact financial worries can have on their health. If this is something that is a concern for you, read on and you will discover five of these coping methods.

Seek Support:

We have already mentioned one way of achieving this which is seeking a financial planner but there are other sources of help too relating to your situation including your bank, an accountant, or a debt advice centre who may all give you some resolutions to your financial issues.

Also, when we say “support” we do not just mean the financial type. If you are feeling depressed, suffering from anxiety issues, or even recognising some physical health issues as a result of your financial stress, you should seek medical advice or counselling as soon as possible.

Assess Your Finances:

One of the most effective ways of de-stressing a problem is to have as clear a picture of what the problem is as you can. Often a person becomes stressed over their finances, not due to lack of income, but because their head is in a spin trying to keep up with their income versus outgoings.

10 Essential Actions For Before, During, And After An Office Relocation

October 10, 2024August 31, 2022 by non-profit.steward

An office relocation is an exciting time for a business, but it can also be a somewhat precarious one as well, especially if the relocation is done without proper planning. Poor planning and preparation, trying to do it on the cheap, failing to use professional Interstate Removalists, and not ensuring that the new premises are ready for the business to move into, are but a few of the many pitfalls that can occur.

Thankfully, most business owners have the good sense not to follow that route and instead try to do all they can to make their office relocation a success. To help facilitate that success, here are 10 actions that you can take if you are considering relocating your business.

#1 Start Planning As Soon As Possible: There are one or two of these actions that have the most significant influence on the success of your relocation, and this is certainly one of them. Planning early and properly from the very day you decide you are relocating all the way through to moving day, will give you a huge advantage.

#2 Put One Person In Charge Of Coordinating Your Relocation: The planning and organisation will work better if you have one person coordinating it all. Choose someone you know is a good communicator and excellent at project planning.

Top 10 Customer Relationship Management Tools

August 21, 2021August 21, 2021 by non-profit.steward

Whatever the size and type of the business you own or run, you will be keenly aware that some of the most important contributing factors to its success is sales performance how well you treat your customers. Give them great service and not only will they remain customers for life, but they will also recommend your business to others. Do the opposite and treat them poorly you will lose them, and they will spread the word far and wide that your business is one to be avoided.

Creating a positive relationship with customers is undoubtedly a group effort with everyone in your business playing a part, and thankfully there are additional tools and software which can help them all. In particular, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software allows businesses of all sizes to manage their sales pipeline and customer service effectively with many features that ensure the experience a customer or client has interacting with a business is a positive one.

If you are not yet using CRM software then you are making tasks like sales tracking and communicating with customers more difficult. So, to allow you to choose CRM software and introduce it into your business here are 10 of the best currently available.

Freshworks CRM: This cloud-based CRM software has features that cover sales management, marketing automation, email campaigns, customer communication, and contact organization. There are multiple customizations covering user roles, sales metrics, web forms, and languages. Freshworks also has advanced analytics tools so that each campaign can be fully assessed.

5 Significant Human Behaviours That Your Web Design Should Focus On

October 10, 2024June 20, 2021 by non-profit.steward

For those that know little or care little about web design, it is probable that if asked what a great web design should have, their answer will contain nothing other than “look great”. Of course, every web design should look great, but there is much more to it than that because every web design should have one or more objectives to achieve.

It might be that a website’s primary purpose is to generate email subscribers. Another website could exist to showcase products. The next website’s main priority could be to get prospects to fill out a quotation request. On eCommerce websites, the main task is to sell products via product sales and checkout pages.

You can take those four and probably add another 100 different objectives that a website might have, and it is the web design that is going to play the biggest role in determining whether those objectives are met or not.

You may have spotted from what you have read thus far that almost all the objectives revolve around the person who is visiting the website taking some form of action. It is the user taking action to enter their email address, make a telephone call, fill out a form, or make a purchase. For them to do so, the website, and in particular, the web design elements within it must have had the effect of persuading that visitor to act in a specific way.

Injunctions – What They Are And Why They Are Granted

October 10, 2024May 5, 2021 by non-profit.steward

Injunctions are a legal order that most people are unlikely to ever encounter, but if they are served with one, they need legal help as soon as possible. Injunctions can happen within several scenarios but most commonly they will be used by commercial lawyers within commercial law between two companies, a company against an individual, or an individual against a company.

Injunctions are orders issued by a court that prohibits or commands a specific action, and the objective of that is to prevent another party from suffering harm. One of the most common reasons that an injunction will be sought is to maintain a certain set of circumstances or status quo. An example will be during a dispute between two parties and one of them requests an injunction to prevent the other party from changing, selling, and removing something.

Types Of Injunction

There are essentially four different types of injunction that could be ordered by a court.

What Are The Best PPC Digital Marketing Platforms?

August 21, 2021February 4, 2021 by non-profit.steward

There are numerous forms of digital marketing available for those who want to promote their business, services or products. Although things like search engine optimisation and social media marketing are becoming increasingly popular, pay per click (PPC) marketing remains a useful stream.

As you might realise, there are numerous PPC marketing platforms out there. In this article I’m going to look closely at some of the most popular, but first, let’s have a quick look at exactly what PPC is.

What is pay per click marketing?

To put it simply, pay per click, or PPC, marketing is a form of digital marketing where you pay for clicks on your advertisements, rather than for impressions. This means that you’re essentially only paying for potential conversions.

Usually, PPC platforms involve some sort of bidding process which allows you to specify how much you’re willing to pay for a click on a certain ad in a certain position. For example, you might be willing to pay $1.00 per click on an ad that appears at the top of the Google search results, as this click is likely to result in a conversion or sale.

What Are The Best PPC Platforms To Use?

As I’ve already noted, there are numerous different PPC platforms out there. Each has its own pros and cons, so it’s important to do your research before selecting one. Some of the options to consider include:

5 Essential SEO Actions Necessary For Your Website To Rank

October 26, 2024December 7, 2020 by non-profit.steward

If you wish your real estate company’s website to compete with your competitors for top rankings on Google, then you will need an SEO plan in place. According to SEO specialist Peter Brittain, this can often seem like a colossal task. However, even they will tell you that you can make great progress with your SEO by ensuring you take action in 5 distinct areas.

We are not saying that these five actions alone will rocket you to the top of Google, but they provide you with the platform needed to do so. From there, you can build upon them and further optimise them so that they cumulatively improve your rankings.

Comprehensive Keyword Research

There is little chance of your website ranking for anything if you do not know what you want it to rank for in the first place. Some of those keywords will be obvious to you, but we guarantee you there are dozens, or even hundreds more, that your real estate company’s website has the potential to rank for.

Apart from keyword research tools producing a list of relevant keywords, there are some tools that literally allow you to discover every keyword your competitors are ranking for, and more importantly, how they are optimising for those rankings. With that knowledge, you know what keywords are easy pickings and which might take a bit more effort.

Building A Network Of Backlinks

Backlinks from high-authority websites are like votes of approval, and when Google identifies these, it brings the desired improvements to your website’s ranking a step closer. When building a network of backlinks, the first principle is to go for quality rather than quantity. 20 strong backlinks from well-established websites are worth a lot more than 200 spammy links from one-page link farms, with another critical difference being that they will not harm your rankings either.

The Parking Lot Facilitation Tool

August 21, 2021October 1, 2020 by non-profit.steward

Group of creative business people having meeting from overhead

Being respectful of your board members’ time and energy is important to retention. The “parking lot” is a useful facilitation tool for keeping your meetings on track and on time. It allows open issues or ideas not on the agenda to be “parked” for discussion at a later time, keeping the meeting on track. But more importantly, it sends a message that everyone’s contributions are important, even if they aren’t on the agenda.

Determine where to keep your parking lot. In person, a whiteboard or flip-chart allows everyone in the room to see the parked items and watch as the list grows. In a virtual meeting, tasking someone to jot items down in a notepad will suffice. Either way, assign a parking lot attendant to write down the items and note their contributor.

During the meeting, add items to the parking lot when the issue or idea arises but doesn’t adhere to the agenda or the conversation is moving off subject. By adding a note to the parking lot, the item will not be forgotten and the contributor can be assured their idea will be addressed at the appropriate time. The meeting facilitator, likely your board chair, will need to take responsibility for keeping the meeting on track but anyone can suggest that an item be added to the parking lot for later discussion.

Nonprofit Expert Roundup: What is the most important thing to remember when fundraising?

October 10, 2024June 2, 2020 by non-profit.steward

Every nonprofit, whether they’re brand new and an established organization, has heard a wide variety of advice when it comes to fundraising. Whether seeking funds from private donors or larger foundations, nonprofit staff and board members have a lot to consider.

All of the information can be overwhelming, so we asked a variety of nonprofit experts, “What is the most important thing to remember when fundraising?”

“I think it’s crucial for all of us in the nonprofit world to remember that when we’re fundraising, we’re not simply asking for money to support our work or our organization. Instead, we are asking people to invest in their community and offering them an opportunity to direct that investment to something meaningful and impactful for them as a member of that community.”
John M

“Have a fundraising and gift acceptance policy, and review it and keep it in mind whenever anyone offers you anything other than straight cash or check with no strings attached. Lots of people try to solve their problems by disguising them as ‘donations’ to trusting nonprofits, who wind up saddled with liabilities instead of assets.”
John G

Micro-Plans Messaging for the Here and Now

October 10, 2024June 2, 2020 by non-profit.steward

A comprehensive marketing plan brings together individual plans for marketing communications, internal communications, and stakeholder communications. They may even take into consideration things like search engine optimization, paid vs. organic traffic, and marketing automation platforms. For many organizations, developing campaigns at this scale isn’t feasible in the best of times due to the large investments of time and funding they require.

Smaller, micro-campaigns are a great tool for organizations that want something more easily designed that can be implemented swiftly. These tightly focused campaigns are intended to deliver a specific intention or motive; a perfect option for the here and now.

To frame your plan, start by identifying the business goals you intend to reach through your communications. Beginning with your goals in mind will help you market with intention.