Home Wealth Project
Extensive Research On How To Build Wealth From The Comfort Of Your Own Home.
Employee Wellness Benefits Keep Your Company Healthy, Wealthy and Wise
Mar 2nd
While Congress continues to debate health-care reform legislation (will the law stay the same, change, or even be eliminated altogether?), many employers have started emphasizing wellness as a way to cut health-care costs. And a new survey from Principal Financial Group, conducted by Harris Interactive, indicates U.S. workers are embracing the idea.
The number of workers using weight-loss programs their companies offered surged to 53 percent in 2010—a 25 percent increase compared to the prior year, reports The Principal Financial Well-Being Index, which surveyed small and midsize U.S. companies. In fact, weight-loss-related benefits were one of employees’ most-wanted perks. Asked what health benefits they’d like their employers to offer, 27 percent of respondents said fitness facilities, 24 percent wanted discounts on fitness center memberships and 17 percent wanted weight-management programs at work.
“Americans in general are more aware of the impact of obesity on their health,” said Lee Dukes, president of Principal Wellness Company, a subsidiary of the Principal Financial Group, in announcing the results. “Employers and employees are asking for these programs more than in the past.”
Dukes also said the rise in the percentage of workers taking advantage of wellness benefits “is indicative of Americans’ greater sense of personal responsibility towards their own health.” Specifically, 68 percent used an employer’s personalized action plan for high-risk conditions (21 percent more than the previous year), and 84 percent took advantage of blood-sugar screenings (up from 66 percent in 2009).
Wellness benefits make sense for businesses for some obvious reasons. Employees who are healthy are less likely to miss work, get injured on the job or file health-insurance or workers’ compensation claims. The survey uncovered some other good reasons for offering wellness benefits: 43 percent of employees said wellness benefits motivated them to work harder; 48 percent said the benefits motivate them to stay with their employer; and 38 percent said wellness programs give them more energy and make them more productive at work.
Small companies aren’t as likely as bigger ones to be able to offer wellness programs, but more health insurers are beginning to offer this option. If yours doesn’t, here are some options to consider:
- Contact hospitals in your area to see what kind of education and outreach programs they offer.
- Investigate the Weight Watchers at Work program to offer a weight management plan in the office.
- Consider bartering services with local wellness providers to offer classes in yoga, stress management, smoking cessation or other wellness related topics in your workplace.
The best advice, though, is to lead by example. Provide healthy drinks and snacks for meetings and some low-calorie choices if you bring in lunch. Encourage employees to get away from their desks during lunch and walk, work out or just decompress. Discourage sick employees from coming to the office; if they must work, offer the option to work at home so your staff stays healthy. You get the idea. Small businesses need every player on the team in peak condition—a wellness program is one way to get there.
How does wellness figure into your workplace, and what benefits have you seen from it?
Employee Wellness Benefits Keep Your Company Healthy, Wealthy and Wise
View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends
Small Business News: Big Branding Benefits
Jan 8th
Branding is tied increasingly to success in business large and small. While branding might once have belonged more firmly in the realm of big business with larger marketing and advertising budgets, the Internet, social media and other tools and factors have changed this. From personal brands to individual branding for each of your products or services, many small businesses are realizing the degree to which branding is an important aspect of today’s small business environment. Join us as we review important lessons to master in this critical field for the modern entrepreneur. What’s your business brand? Don’t know? Read on…
Branding Basics
Basic branding with Twitter.One of the easiest tools to establish personal or business branding today is Twitter. The microblogging platform allows great flexibility with its 140 character posts. What you accomplish depends upon your strategy and approach. This Twitter Q and A tells you more. Personal Branding Blog
Branding misteps for companies large and small.Just as both large and small businesses now can take advantage of the power of branding, so both large and small businesses can be hurt by the simplest mistakes where their brand is concerned. A Starbucks rebranding this week showed how even the largest and most powerful of companies can suffer from branding misteps. What values are your brands communicating to your customers. Financial Post
Strategy
Using social media for small business branding. Using social media (Twitter, Facebook etc.) is, as suggested earlier, amongst the easiest ways to create a small business brand on a par with larger competitors. Branding consultant Silvia Pencak shares some broader tips you may want to consider when using these tools to distinguish your business, organization, product or service. Magnetic Look
Sending your small business brand global. One of the greatest potentials for using social media tools to brand your company is the possibility of sending your small business global. Before the Internet and social media, it took a big marketing or advertising budget and representatives around the world to gain global reach for your poroducts and services. Here’s how to use the new media to gain a whole new kind of advantage. Reuters
Self-development
Does integrity boost your branding? Here are three pieces of advice for building your brand all tied to an integrity-based approach telling others more about who you are and what you represent. Elinor Strutz’s approach pushes it to the limit and demands some soul searching. But when you[re through you should have an honest brand representing your own values and built to boost the kind of business you most want to attract. Personal Branding Blog
New Year’s resolutions for small business branding. Forget about loosing a few pounds or getting into shape! While the new year is still young, make a committment to loose those aspects of your brand that are not advancing your business and getting your small business brand and the message it sends to your customers in shape. Make a resolution to improve your brand with some simple tips. Logo DesignWorks
Advertising
Interactive trends will change the way we position our businesses forever. Conventional advertising is dead. But a new breed of interactive advertising including mobile communications, daily online deals and an integrated approach to marketing has taken its place. What message do you ewant to send about your latest product or service and how should you go about communicating? SF Gate
Investment
It’s time to invest in your brand. Investing in your business is always a good idea whether it’s with time, money or energy, but here Kristen Marie Schuerlein is talking about something more. Investing in your brand, as explained above, involves figuring out who you are and what makes you different when attracting customers or clients. Kriten has five good reasons to invest in your brand today. We think you’ll find it worth the effort. SuccessBug
Success Stories
How product reflects your brand. Toronto-based Ella’s Botanicals reflects its values and committment to locally produced, hand-made products with every bar of soap or bottle of lotion the company produces. Your brand cannot simply be a clever marketing campaign super imposed on a product that doesn’t match it’s image. TheStar.com
Small Business News: Big Branding Benefits
View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends
Small Business News: Biz with Benefits
Nov 9th
Today biz with benefits is about much more than the small business tips we’ve all heard about at the local chamber of commerce. A whole new set of tools and techniques lets you do business anywhere and in any way you wish with more flexibility than ever before possible. But it also allows you greater insight into running your small busines than ever before. Here are some of the basics:
Tips
How to do a great business followup. Fred Caballero delivers this awsone advice on great business followups in the age of digital technology. Fred reminds us of the importance of great impressions and how to make them in the online world via LinkedIn and even hi def video. Come along for the tutorial and even check out Fred’s great hi def video followup. Bloggertone
From marketing research to PR. Crowdsourcing is growing up and here, examining an unconventional example in the use of crowdsourcing by a larger federal agency, FEMA, we see how the tool can “take away our whiner status.” Thus crowdsourcing has gone beyond marketing research. It has become a way for not only requesting input but also making customers or constituents respinsible for the developing solutions. How could your small business use crowdsourcing today? QuestionPro Blog
Tricks
How to manage jerks in the workplace. Ivana Taylor reviews the book No Jerks on the Job by Ron Newton. As an owner or manager of a small business, have you ever had to manage a jerk in the workplace? How did you handle it? What was the result? How did it work out in the end? More than just a business book, this is a guide to dealing with all the unreasonable people in your life. Small Business Trends
Marketing your business with strategic alliances. What if there was a way to boost sales, get more customers, and effectively expand your marketing budget to leverage the same level of influence as a larger rival. Then imagine that all this could be done with no upfront investment and with fairly limited risk. One way to accomplish all this (and more) is through strategic alliances, says Mar Dewitte. Market Your Small Business
Tech
Do you have a vCard for your business e-mails? The term vCard refers to an electronic business card or virtual card that can be attached to your small business e-mail and passed along to prospects who can open and save your vCard in their e-mail program and easily pass it to others. Check out Chris Hamilton’s video on creating an electronic business card for your business communications. Sales Tip A Day
Treat your blog like the business it is. It is after all. There are several ways to view your blog, says Sherryl Perry. One way is to view your blog as way to promote your business. This would include using a blog to drive traffic toward another business Website. But another way to view the equation is to see the blog as your business. What sources of revenue might a blog have in its own right. Keep Up With The Web
Startups
What the Bible’s King David can teach us about persistance. Actually, Michael has supplied a considerable amount of information in this post, not just about King David but also about other leaders who, despite weaknesses, went on to achieve great things. There’s also a wonderful video here you won’t want to miss. Michael G. Holmes.
Let your customers build your company. Sound crazy? Well, that’s what Greg Gianforte, founder of RightNow Technologies did. When Greg began his business, he simply called up about 400 potential customers and asked how he could help them solve their e-mail problems. Then he created a product that fit their needs and delivered it to them. Still sound crazy? Read his story. Small Business Trends
Marketing & Sales
Do you have a sales funnel? What is a sales funnel? How can it help my marketing? How do I capture leads more readily and how can I develop a process which will more readily turn these into actual sales? If you find yourself any of these key questions to creating a successful business model, wonder no more. Check out this post to learn about building a sales funnel for your business and how to use it correctly. Solo Biz Coach
Small Business News: Biz with Benefits
View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends
Businesses Learn the Benefits of Social Media
Oct 7th
| Today, business leaders were given an opportunity to see how these social media sites can help their company grow. |
|
||||
View full post on Home Wealth Project Riot!
Benefits of Marketing Strategy- Does Your Facebook Page Make You Money?
Sep 20th
| The benefits of marketing strategy can be of use when you are promoting your Facebook page with articles. Do you use this process to make money? |
|
||||
View full post on Home Wealth Project Riot!
Friends with Benefits: A Social Media Marketing Handbook by Darren Barefoot and Julie Szabo
Sep 16th
 |
… and advice for those marketers looking to use the power of the Internet, and in particular social media to promote their products… |
|
||||
View full post on Home Wealth Project Riot!
‘Catfish’ Star Nev Schulman on the Perils, Benefits of Social Media – Speakeasy
Sep 15th
 |
The social networking documentary “Catfish,” directed by debut feature filmmakers Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost, may not hit theaters until this Friday,… |
|
||||
View full post on Home Wealth Project Riot!
3 Benefits of Using Social Media For Marketing – Online Business Ideas
Sep 10th
 |
Using social media is so easy and it can help in getting good online business ideas. The possibility is endless! |
|
||||
View full post on Home Wealth Project Riot!
10 Benefits of Using a Business Credit Card
Aug 17th
This is a guest post by Andreas Nicolaides of MoneySupermarket.com.
Image: TheTruthAbout…/Flickr
Never used a business credit card before? This article will try and explain the main benefits of why you should. Here are ten reasons why business credit cards can be valuable for you and your company.
1. Keeping track of finances – Business credit cards make it easier for you to keep track of your company’s spending. If you use the business credit card for all your expenses, you will be able to see all your monthly outgoings on your monthly statement, without any need for calculation.
Also, most providers will send you a business expense report at the end of the month, allowing you to monitor payments quickly and easily.
2. Business credit doesn’t affect your own – When you use a business credit card, your business credit stands on its own. Your business transactions will not have an impact on your personal credit rating.
3. Positive credit for your business – It’s important to build a positive credit history for your business. This will help gain your company a higher level of trust, especially among lenders.
4. Demonstrate your business growth – Your business credit is a record of how your business grows and develops. This, in turn, can give you more credibility among lenders and potential investors.
5. Rewards – Many business credit cards offer rewards for your spending. If you use your card for most expenses, you end up building up a lot of rewards. Examples of rewards offered include business and supply discounts, as well as many travel and insurance rewards.
6. Good employee relationship – Allowing employees to use your business credit card builds an element of trust between you and your workers. If you’re reluctant to let employees use your card, many providers offer ‘employee misuse insurance,’ which protects you against exploitation of company finances.
7. Control employee spending – Building on my previous point, having a business credit card also allows you to keep and eye on how much employees spend on business purchases.
8. High spending limits – Many business credit cards offer higher spending limits than normal credit cards. This means that you have that flexibility of spending more for your business, if you need to.
9. Be protected – Business credit cards offer extra layers of protection that some other credit cards don’t. Examples include travel accident coverage, identity theft coverage, and various misuse policies.
10. Ease of use – Using a business credit card is a lot more convenient than using check. You can use your credit card online or over the phone, making transactions faster and easier.
Andreas is a financial writer for MoneySupermarket.com, who specialise in providing financial services throughout the UK.
View full post on Business Pundit
5 Key Benefits of Monitoring Your Client’s Brand on Social Media
Aug 15th
 |
From an agency perspective, many utilize social media monitoring at the request of a client who either doesn’t know much about it, or depends on their agency to… |
|
||||
View full post on Home Wealth Project Riot!
