Daily Biz Solutions

Creating and maintaining an effective online presence is something that is essential to the success of any business in the modern business environment. The quality of your company’s website, as well as the effectiveness of the strategies used to attract visitors to the site and encourage them to do business with you, are key to the success of any modern business.

While there are many website development firms around the world, there are certainly advantages associated with selecting a firm that is based in your local area. When you choose to work with a professional Las Vegas website design firm, you are free to focus your energy on the important day-to-day aspects of running your business rather than stressing out about creating or managing a website – something that is far outside your scope of expertise.

In addition to choosing a company that knows how to develop websites that reach members of your target audience – both in and out of the local area where you company is located, it’s also important to choose one that understand how to optimize a site for search engines. Choose a company that can knows design, development and SEO Las Vegas strategies is the key to getting the most from your investment.

Are you ready to look for a Las Vegas web design firm? If you are ready to create an online presence or step up to the next level in quality for your company’s existing online presence, you just might find that working with Premier Pixels is the best option for your company.

Guest Post by by Jonathan M. Bergman, vice president and chief investment officer, Palisades Hudson Financial Group

Running 401(k) plans has been a moneymaker for big insurers and brokers because plans were layered with many hidden fees.  That began to change when Caterpillar’s employees sued their employer, claiming it failed to fulfill its fiduciary duty because of a fee-heavy 401(k).

That suit, which was settled for $16.5 million, was a wake-up call. Many plan fiduciaries quickly reevaluated their plans.  Soon, big employers were winning fee reductions from major 401(k) vendors.

Small-businesses don’t have the same clout, and most are still stuck with high-cost plans. According to a 2009 Deloitte Consulting survey, plans with fewer than 100 participants paid 2.03% in total fees, on average. But the trends going in the right direction.

First, pending federal legislation and regulations will require complete transparency in fees.
Second, the Pension Protection Act of 2006 confirmed that independent investment advisors may advise 401(k) plans.   The dominant plan providers—the big insurance companies and brokers—now have competition in the small-business 401(k) market.

A registered investment advisor, who should assume a co-fiduciary relationship with the plan trustee, can work in tandem with a plan administrator that provides recordkeeping and other administrative services.  The two entities combined can offer full 401(k) services that are as seamless as those offered by a single company, often reducing total plan expenses.

As more competition enters the small 401(k) market, small employers can now find providers that charge much lower fees and offer excellent funds

Small-business owners and managers should look for the following in a plan:

• Total fees of less than 1.25 percent a year.  Some small-business plans charge participants 3 percent a year or more to cover investment management, broker’s commissions, and recordkeeping, an outrageous amount. These high fees come out of the employees’ investments, meaning they’ll have less for retirement.  Most broker- and insurance-sold plans lack fee transparency. In some plans, you have to peel the onion a few layers to reveal total plan fees.
• A diverse selection of low-cost, high-quality funds.  Plans that offer mutual funds from only one or two fund families don’t give participants enough choice.  There should be a choice of well-regarded funds from different companies.  Investment selections should go beyond ordinary stock and bond funds, to include, for example, natural resources and inflation-protected securities funds.
• Careful monitoring of fund managers.  The plan trustee must keep close tabs on the performance of all mutual funds in the plan.  If any consistently underperform, they should be replaced.  This is the same kind of monitoring any good investment advisor is already doing for its individual clients.
• Participant education.  The plan provider should offer investment seminars, quarterly market commentaries, and general investment advice via email and a telephone hotline.

About the Author

Jonathan M. Bergman, CFP®, is vice president and chief investment officer of Palisades Hudson Financial Group, a financial advisor in Scarsdale, NY, with branch offices in Atlanta and Fort Lauderdale.

The popularity of online purchase today may make the importance of product packaging seem a little archaic, but nothing could be farther from the truth.

Today’s products are seeing an unprecedented amount of competition. For every small business making cosmetics in the United States, for example, there are a dozen competing companies, domestic and overseas, selling nearly identical products. Visit your local drug store and you’ll see that for every product there are at least three competing options. Separating your product from the rest of the pack is a vital aspect to any small business attempting to go against both established and generic opposition.

So don’t think there’s no longer a place for creativity in the workplace. The style of your brand’s design, particularly your logo, will undoubtedly be the first and most important step in establishing your product in the minds of consumers. Color, in this regard, is most important. A common mistake is to invent a color scheme and logo design out of thin-air based on the values of the maker, but a more considerate tactic may be to study your product, your likely customers, and even competition, to create a brand image that is exciting, original, and most of all appealing.

Once you’ve compiled a worthy brand design, the packaging material itself needs to be configured towards best optimizing your product. Packaging shouldn’t just protect, it should invite. Whereas the design itself attracts the eyes, the Custom Thermoformed Packaging should attract the hands, and entice the holder to open it. Do you remember opening up a new toy for Christmas and, if only for a second, holding back the urge to rip it free from the manufacturer’s packaging to marvel at the way it’s been neatly presented? Imagine now, all grown up, how that sentiment seeps into the motive behind any purchase of a packaged product.

It might be hard to allocate part of your limited start up funds to serious investment in your packaging, but this is a vital element of making sure your product is found and the word is spread. Not only that, but you’re sure to find out that making the right packaging is not only cheaper and easier than you thought, it’s a lot of fun too.

The costs of doing business is California, as it is anywhere else, are always at a premium and there are many ways to reduce these costs. There some things that you just can’t skimp on like advertising, business insurance, and legal advice from Corporate Law Firm in California. But as the price of utilities and other precious resources continues to go up, the coasts always seem to get hit the hardest. This includes price of transportation, utilities, and everything else. Reducing a business’ carbon footprint and cutting down on energy consumption isn’t just a luxury, it will eventually become another way to do business and slash daily operation expenditures.

Go Paperless:

When companies go paperless, it becomes a buzzword but there are real savings for doing so. Getting rid of or reducing the need for paper streamlines a business and makes it more efficient in a myriad of ways that most don’t realize. It’s tempting to keep everything in hard copy, and some important files you still should, but if you get rid paper, you cutting down on the expense of buying paper, making copies, expensive ink for printers, time lost looking for copies of need files, and many other ways. Perhaps the most important reason to go paperless is to reduce your space needs. It’s a simple fact that paper takes up a lot of space and reducing your storage needs will save you a ton of renting by the square foot and getting rid up paper adds up in real dollars and cents savings.

Buying Energy Star Equipment:

The initial cost does seem prohibitive. When looking at the bottom line, in the sort-term, it can seem like it’s better to keep doing business as usual. It’s important to understand that when you finally replace your appliances and other business equipment with Energy Star compliant alternatives, the savings end up being quite significant. For example, Energy Star appliances use just one quarter of the power it takes to run most other equipment. The average 17’’ CRT monitor uses 150 watts while an Energy Star 17’’ flat panel uses 50 watts of energy.

Refitting Your Office:

There are companies, like ESP Energy, that will retro fit your entire office to run on far less energy. Some of is really simple things like changing outlets and getting programmable thermostats. Business can also benefit from replacing out of date electrical work or placing new insulation and ductwork in the interior of an office. Many times this will translate to savings in the thousands in energy costs alone. It’s up to each business how far they want to go but eventually, the cost of not making energy efficient improvements will prove far too costly.

Sometimes it only takes just a few minor adjustments to your daily routine and the way your business operations to introduce significant savings to both your energy and bottom-line. Even though energy costs are far more in places like California, prices are climbing everywhere and sometimes it just takes a few little tweaks to make a big difference.

Are you tired of spending such a large portion of your office supply budget on printer ink? Depending on the type of business you are in and the quantity of printed materials that are produced in your office, the amount of money you spend on ink can add up very quickly. Look closely at your printing habits and office supply purchasing habits if you want to find a way to save money. Here are a few tips you may want to try.

Three Tips for Reducing Office Printing Costs

1. Shop for Bargains

Don’t purchase ink from your local office supply store without checking around for cheap ink resources. With a local store, you often pay extra for convenience. Often, you can get the best prices by purchasing online from a company that specializes in providing customers with affordable printer supplies.

2. Proofread Electronically

Does everyone in your office really need to print out hard copies of first draft documents to proofread? Work on getting your team members focused on doing as much electronic proofreading as possible. Every time you print something that isn’t a final copy, you are wasting printer ink and paper, which means you are wasting money.

3. Bulk Purchase

If you purchase toner and inkjet cartridges one at a time, you will pay the highest per-unit price. Why not buy several at a time to take advantage of multiple-unit purchase discounts? You’re going to use them anyway; this way you can reduce the amount of time you spend shopping for printer ink and save money in the long run.