Category: Thrifty Business Tips

Spring is here, which means that graduation season is, too! Across the country, people are getting ready to walk across a stage and celebrate their academic accomplishments.

It can seem like everything has already been done when it comes to unique designs at graduation, but there’s always a way to get creative. If you’re looking to stand out, we’ve got the perfect design tips for you.

Whether you’re decorating your graduation cap or designing graduation announcements, we’ve got you covered. Read on to learn more.

1. Make It Personal

Looking to make your own graduation announcements? It’s easy to be overwhelmed with options, especially if you’re new to graphic design.

You can start by making everything personal, even the colors. Did you know that each discipline has a color associated with it?

Law grads traditionally wear purple, for example, while someone who graduated in the fine arts would wear brown. You can incorporate your discipline’s colors into your design.

Who says that you just have to use your school colors on your grad announcement?

2. Embrace The Minimal

Whether you’re picking an outfit to wear under your graduation robes or designing an invitation to a graduation party, minimal is the way to go. You can almost never go wrong with doing more with less.

When it comes to graphic design, minimalism is a big trend right now. Images that are clean and understated are ironically what get the most attention.

As far as your clothes go, it’s generally considered a good idea not to wear anything that takes attention away from your robe. You want people to focus on your achievements, not your bright pink shoes.

3. Use Photography

A good photograph might mean that you don’t even have to design anything. A great photo can be used for anything from a personal website to a greeting card.

With how good phone cameras are getting, you don’t need to invest in an expensive camera to get high-quality pictures. You might not have to look farther than your Instagram feed to find the perfect picture to include in a graduation announcement.

Instead of a staged graduation photo in a cap and gown, use a great photo of you and your friends, or find a photo where you think you look happiest. It will create a final product that’s way more personal.

4. Throw It Back

It might not be the eighties or nineties anymore, but that doesn’t mean that our design has to look like it. In fact, trends from those decades — like pastel colors and bright geometric shapes — are making a comeback today.

No matter what you’re working on, you can add a touch of nostalgia to your project by adding patterns or colors from the eighties and nineties. That’ll also help you stand out from what other people are creating.

Get More Design Tips Here

Looking for more design tips for graduation and beyond? You’ve come to the right place! Along with our deals, giveaways, and coupons, our blog is a great home for design advice for women everywhere.

Check out more of our design advice here.

Having a great product to sell is awesome, but selling it can be frustrating. You have to rent a space, buy the furniture for the store, and hire staff to help you manage the store.

That already sounds exhausting! But what would you say if you could do it all today without all those extra logistics?

Well, it’s possible! With the technology available today you can get started now. Open your own online boutique today with the tips fleshed out below.

Choose Your Products

To get on track to open your own online boutique today you need to start deciding what products you want to sell. Find products that people are looking for or are on trend. Try to cater to a specific niche with your products.

After you find these products, take amazing pictures of them. Find a white background and bright lighting to ensure high-quality pictures. If possible, try to record some video of your products as well.

When you are done taking pictures of your products, start writing up your product descriptions. Include measurements and special features. If it is relevant, include the materials your products are made of.

Get Your Finances in Check

You need to map out your budget before you open your online boutique today. Decide how much you will spend on getting your products, setting up your website, and shipping costs.

Make sure you know what bills you will need to spend and what days you will need to pay them. Understand that if you have a website, you will need to pay to maintain it and to update it regularly.

Getting the word out about your online boutique will be crucial to the business. Decide up front if you will be paying for marketing to be done or if you will be doing it yourself.

Set up Your Website

The next step to open your online boutique today is setting up your website. Make sure that your site design is organized and easy to navigate, as this aspect will help customers decide your credibility.

Since people will be purchasing products on your site, you’ll want to make sure it’s secure. Update your website regularly to ensure that it stays secure. And work on getting your site SSL certified.

Purchase your domain name and create one that is relevant to your boutique. This is what customers will be looking for on the web. Before you launch your site, test it. Make sure all of the pages load effectively. If your website takes too long to load it may cause customers to navigate away from it.

If you’re not sure what design would be best for your online boutique, look at other online stores. Note what you like and don’t like about the sites of other businesses and use them as inspiration for your own. Yizzam is a creative online website for buying t-shirts and is a great example to look at. Check it out here for more info.

Get on Social Media

To help extend your reach, meet your customers on social media. Ask potential customers what social media platforms they are on.

Then start creating accounts on those platforms. You won’t need to be on every platform, just the ones that matter.

Create relevant content that includes the products that will make users want to see you on their timelines. Post on social media weekly to keep up with trends.

Make sure your social media accounts look the same as your website. All pictures and posts should have the same branding as your website. This will increase brand recognition.

Organize Your Checkout

Since you will be selling things in your online boutique you’ll want to create an efficient checkout process.

Give the option for users to check out as a guest with just their email. Having users create an account can be pushy and may deter them from making a purchase. Simply getting their email will still help with marketing tactics later on.

If you want to start out simple and don’t want to spend time making a whole checkout process now, consider using Google Checkout or PayPal for your business. As these can be easier alternatives.

Set up Stores on Other Sites

After creating a website for your online boutique, start setting up smaller stores on other sites. This can help extend the reach of your products even further.

There are many users on online marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, and Etsy. Create an account on these and put a few of your products for sale. In the bio of your account direct them to your website.

These smaller stores will help you channel more users to your website and start building brand loyalty right away.

Learn About Your Customers

It’s important that you continue to learn about your customers. Use Google analytics for your website to help you understand how customers are interacting with it. Try changing some of your tactics based on how your customers behave and see if your site improves.

Take a look at your social media accounts and the analytics behind it. This will help you create an effective strategy for what you post and when.

Organize monthly checks of the analytics to observe how your online boutique is growing or suffering.

Start a Blog After You Open Your Own Online Boutique Today

After more of the pressing setup is completed, dedicate one page of your online boutique website to a blog. This will help increase your website’s search engine optimization gradually.

Start writing articles on topics that people are looking for. Choose a few relevant keywords and incorporate them into your content.

By optimizing your site for search engines, you’ll help put your site on the radar of customers and increase your traffic.

By creating a blog, you’ll also be helping your customers with problems they have. Thus adding value to their lives. This can also help your boutique’s credibility.

Optimize for Mobile

Currently, about 1.6 billion people use their mobile devices to shop online globally. Being able to access your website through smartphones is a must. If you’re going to open your own online boutique today, it needs to be accessible by mobile.

When creating your website, test its accessibility on your phone first before launching it. If you are using a site like WordPress or Wix, select their options for optimizing mobile.

More Business Tips

So there you have it! You’re ready to start building your online boutique store. Don’t stop here though. Keep researching best practices and other technology that can help.

Being a part of the e-commerce world means constantly improving and growing. For more tips on how to start your own thrifty businesses check out our page.

As a mom, you’re always on the lookout for a way to work from home, grow your home-based business, or plotting your triumphant return to the workforce.

However, no matter what your next step is, you need to make sure to familiarize yourself with common practices in the workplace.

Doing this will help you know what to expect when you head into that interview. It will also ensure that, if you’re running your own business, you’re not missing out on anything important.

One of the most crucial things you should do as an employer and expect as an employee?

Pre-employment screenings are more commonly known as background checks. However, today’s screenings are a little more complicated — and thorough — than those of the past.

Read on to learn what pre-employment screening is, why you need it, and how to prepare for it.

What is Pre-Employment Screening?

Before we discuss just a few of the many benefits of pre-employment screening, let’s first make sure you’re clear on exactly what it is.

In a nutshell, it’s designed to help you to ensure that everything a potential employee has claimed on their application, resume, and even in their interview, is truthful.

Additionally, pre-employment screening may also help you to uncover things that candidates intentionally withheld from you — things like criminal records.

You might even uncover moral issues, inappropriate posts, or beliefs that are inconsistent with your company’s values.

This screening helps you to feel confident in your hiring decisions and means that you won’t be faced with any unpleasant surprises down the road.

Common types of screening include:

• Employment/Education Verification
• Contacting References
• DMV Record Checks
• Sex Offender Registry Checks
• Drug Testing
• Criminal Background Checks
• Skill Assessments

Now that you’re clear on what the process entails, let’s take a look at some of the main benefits it offers to employers.

1. You’ll Lower Your Employee Turnover Rate

A recent study found that 78% of businesses are especially concerned with the current high employee turnover rate.

They certainly have good reason to be.

After all, the average cost-per-hire is over $4,000.

In addition to the financial side of things, you’ll also lose valuable work time when you have to interview and train countless employees.

While you can’t always prevent employees from leaving, you can ensure you’re hiring ones who want to stay — and ones who you won’t have to let go.

Pre-employment screening also helps you to lower your average cost-per-hire. You can be certain that you’ve hired an employee that has the proper training, great productivity levels, and one that won’t cause an imbalance in your office environment.

2. It’s Often A Regulatory Requirement

Especially if you work in the financial, education, or home improvement industries, you’ll likely have strict regulatory requirements in place when it comes to screening potential employees.

If you disregard this rule, you risk heavy fines, potential loss of licenses, and most of all, a serious loss of trust when it comes to your relationship with your clients.

But even if conducting a pre-employment screening is a regulatory requirement in your industry, it’s still a wonderful idea. After all, it’s a great selling point when it comes to securing future clients.

It proves to your customers that you’ve done your due diligence throughout the hiring process. It also shows that you’re serious about keeping your clients — and their personal information — safe.

3. You’ll Keep Your Employees Safe

You do a lot to keep your home safe. But what about your workplace?

As a boss, you also have a responsibility when it comes to keeping your employees safe.

Especially with all the recent news regarding sexual harassment in the workforce, it’s up to you to make sure you’re not putting your employees at risk by hiring a sex offender, someone with a criminal record, or someone who was fired from their last job for inappropriate (and even illegal) behavior.

You also need to conduct drug and alcohol testing to ensure your workplace isn’t safe, but also free from temptations that won’t just ruin your office, but could potentially ruin lives.

Companies like Rapid Detect INC sell quick and easy saliva test strips that can offer you results in as little as two minutes. This means you can even test potential employees before they leave their interview.

4. You’ll Uncover Lies

Today’s workforce is an incredibly competitive place, with 118 applicants competing for a single position.

This means that, unfortunately, lying on a resume or even in an interview has become a far more common practice than it was in the past.

Luckily, pre-employment screening makes it easy to figure out who really has the goods, and who is making it all up out of thin air. Today, you can get in contact with universities and access attendance records online.

You can also contact previous bosses to confirm employment records. If an employee is unwilling to provide you with these references or records of employment, then it’s likely that they’re lying about them.

What Else Do You Need to Know?

If you’re a mom who is thinking about getting back into the workforce, or if you’re looking to hire employees for your own business, it’s time to seriously think about the importance of pre-employment screening.

If you’re in the process of filling out applications for yourself, you can be certain that potential employees will screen you. Google yourself, take a look at your current and past social media profiles and see what comes up.

If there’s anything remotely unsavory, it’s time to take it out.

Looking to learn more about today’s workforce? Looking for more tips and tricks on how you can save and earn money while you wait to get that dream job?

We’ve got you covered.

Spend some time on our website and blog to learn everything you need to know about scoring awesome deals, finding a side hustle, and much more.

Did you know there are 38 million businesses that are based out of the home in the U.S.?

Yup, in the U.S. alone there are 38 million home-businesses which generate $472 billion in annual revenue. Of those 38 million, 20% of those businesses earn $100,000-$500,000 each year.

What we’re trying to get at is there are tons of people running businesses out of their homes and earning comfortable livings doing so.

Women overwhelmingly start home businesses (72%) for many reasons. They can spend more time with their kids, they like the flexibility, or they want to escape corporate life.

If you’ve been thinking about starting a business at home, check out our list of home business ideas for women.

Start an Etsy Shop

Do you have a knack for calligraphy? Jewelry making? Leatherwork?

Starting an Etsy shop is one of the most popular home business ideas for women. You can do what you love every day and see the joy your crafts bring to your customers.

You can also sell your crafts at farmers markets. This also gives your online shop more exposure.

Be an Online Broker-Dealer

If you’re coming out of corporate financial services, being an online broker-dealer is a lucrative position. Many professionals leaving corporate finance will set up shop at home and collect clients from past dealings.

There are a number of online exchanges where you can purchase investment vehicles for your clients. For example, TripleNet Gateway specializes in NNN property leasing investments and allows broker-dealers to purchase and sell on their exchange.

Explore Blogging

Starting a blog is one of the most attractive home business ideas for women. Blogging can be a highly lucrative business for those who carefully cultivate their online community and boost their web traffic.

There are no restrictions on what you can blog about. You can blog about one of your passions, provide expertise from your professional field, or start direct selling.

Through your blog, you can also sell products and services. For example, you could career coach or write a cookbook and sell it.

Found a Virtual Assistant Service

Virtual assistants are in high demand for all types of businesses. For the most part, businesses or individuals who need VAs are finding them through websites where VAs can post their experience.

This means there is still a gap for VA services that recruit, interview, and train VA specifically for each client. Starting a VA business is highly lucrative, especially if you already have a list of people who would benefit from having a VA.

Offer Coaching

If you like helping people achieve their goals, online coaching might be for you. With so many ways to communicate over the internet, there’s hardly a limit to who your clients can be.

The type of coaching you go into will mostly rely on your background. Popular types of coaching include career, business, fitness, life, financial, and direct-sales coaching. The list goes on.

There’s No Limit to Home Business Ideas for Women

Your mind is the limit when it comes to starting a business at home. You can do practically anything as long as you can figure out how to monetize it.

You can find tons of resources for home business ideas for women online. There are even Facebook and LinkedIn groups where women can encourage each other on their home business journey.

Once you decide on your home business, you’ll need a home office. Learn more about setting up a home office here.

Are you looking to become a freelance medical writer?

Breaking into the medical niche is a bit challenging, but not impossible. It requires some level of experience and expertise, but also hard work and discipline.

The medical field is a broad one, so you’ll need to decide on a niche first. For example, you can write about new medical discoveries, studies, health care or cover medical news. Another option is to specialize as a dental writer and write for a specific set of clients.

Besides the experience, you should also have excellent grammar and language skills.

Keep reading to discover how you can become a medical writer and find your first client.

Get Some Experience

To become a freelance medical writer, you need to gain some experience in the field.

For example, if you’ve worked in the medical field or went to medical school, you’re already familiar with the industry terminology.

Next, find successful medical writers. Study their articles to see how they write and where they’re published.

Do not copy another writer’s style. To be in demand, you have to develop your own style and be unique.

Write Guest Posts

As a beginner freelance medical writer, you need a portfolio to display your writing to potential clients.

You can do this by writing a few samples and publishing them on your own website. Another way is to write guest posts for medical journals, publications or blogs.

This is a great way to gain exposure and have your article read by a lot of people.

Pitch Clients

After you’ve published a few guest posts, it’s time to find your first paid client.

You can do this by signing up for freelancing platforms or contacting the clients directly.

For example, if you’re a dental writer, go online and search for dental offices in your area or state.

Let’s say you land on the website verdepointedentalassociates.com. Find their contact form and send them a message. State your expertise and offer them your writing services. If you don’t get a reply within a few days, feel free to follow up.

Start a Blog

Any writer needs to improve their writing on a daily basis. The best way to do so is to start your own blog.

You can write medical articles, opinions, news, reviews or client-directed pieces. The content you publish must be of great quality if you want to gain a big audience and land good clients.

Remember to optimize your content for the search engines and use quality images.

Learn Every Day

No matter what medical niche you chose, you should strive to learn new things every day.

Find ways to improve your writing. Read as much as you can, and if necessary, take a few writing courses.

The industry is changing every day and if you want to have a steady flow of clients, you need to stay on top of the trends.

Now You Know How to Become a Freelance Medical Writer

You can earn a decent living as a professional medical writer if you follow our tips.

Need more inspiration for starting a new career? Visit our blog for more business tips and useful articles.