Spring cleaning should include more than just vacuuming the floors and dusting the blinds.  It should be an all-around lifestyle assessment, especially for your own small business or startup.  So here are a few tips for you entrepreneurs to do your spring cleaning the right way and prepare for the busy summer season:

1. Organize documents

Your desktop or laptop computer is a busy, crowded and congested place—do not make it any more difficult to navigate through your own documents.  Take a few hours out of your workday or weekend and properly organize your Word, Excel and other folders you are constantly saving.  Folders should not only be separated based on content, but by also by date.  Over months and years, folders can become confusing, as bi-annual and annual reports add up and are multiplied in the same storage place.  You’ll thank yourself later for dedicating a few hours now!   

2. Sort emails

As an entrepreneur, you are probably sending and receiving more emails than most people can grasp, let alone handle on a daily basis.  Make this task easier on yourself by sorting through and cleaning out your email platform.  Go back and delete emails that are no longer relevant, and if necessary, create side folders for placing certain documents.  You don’t want to have old, unrelated emails in your inbox, as they take up precious space and make it more difficult to search for a specific email you had received.

3. Revise résumé and portfolio

You should always be trying to sell yourself.  To do so, you need to make yourself stand out as much as possible.  One step to this process is continually updating your résumé and portfolio.  While it’s fresh in your mind, document your projects and work history because it’s what you will use in order to entice new clients.  Keep in mind that your résumé and portfolio should not include all of the work you’ve ever done—just the best work or most notable accomplishments.   

4. Check expenses

Are you spending as efficiently as possible?  Don’t waste money by not double-checking where your money is going.  As an entrepreneur, you are most likely subscribed to online publications and databases.  Make sure that you are using them if you are paying for them!  Entrepreneurs should hold themselves to a higher standard when it comes to proper spending, after all, they are in charge of their entire business and its success.

5. Keep getting your name out there

With new forms of social media and communication constantly popping up, make sure that you utilize these services, especially the free ones.  Clients are looking for businesses that are on top of all the latest trends, and the more ways to get your company name out into the business world, the better.  Also, on these social media and company profiles, continue updating your information, photos, projects, statistics and achievements.  Each click onto your profile is an opportunity to attain more business!

Now that the spring season is here, sit out on your patio, enjoy the nice weather and follow these tips to make you and your company or startup more profitable.  There’s no time like springtime! 

In many ways, a sales team is the backbone of any startup. A sales associate's voice is the first a person may hear from a company, so it's vital that the team leader build a strong army of salespeople. If your sales team isn't strong, your startup won’t be strong, and the customers, the stakeholders, and the bottom line will suffer. We've compiled a list of the top seven ways to build a strong sales team, and whether you're building a team for the first time as an entrepreneur or as a seasoned professional, these tips can always be found helpful.

1. Clarity, clarity, clarity

While assembling a sales team, it's important to remember that no one is a mind reader. If you have a protocol, outline it. Specificity is key when it comes to creating a successful culture. Ambiguity about expectations is often one of the key factors leading to team weakness. Clear communication of all company standards sets a strong sense of team accountability. Lack of clarity often leads to a breakdown of work ethic. Clear expectations, on the other hand, inspire teams to feel empowered and rise to meet challenges.

2. Shift the perspective

Creating a sales team can be stressful. This stress can cause many entrepreneurs to see the team as a liability to their own position. It is much healthier for all parties involved to approach your team as an investment in the company. A strong startup sales team creates beneficial outcomes for all stakeholders, whether it's clients or board members. Training a strong sales team takes not just an awareness of what's needed in the present, but also how fulfilling present needs will create future growth.

3. Embrace your dark side

Before setting loose your sales team to conquer the world, it's important to provide a reciprocal shadow period. A reciprocal shadow period is two-fold.

First, allow your sales team to shadow seasoned pros. This means following each and every aspect of important tasks, having them take notes, and then debriefing at the end of the shadowing period.

Second, the new team members should be shadowed by the seasoned pros, with the pros taking notes as well. At the end of the shadow period, all notes can be compared with an open-ended, positive conversation about the learning process. It is vitally important that this shadow period is approached as a positive learning experience and not an evaluation of skill so that honest mistakes can be made, corrected, and everyone moves on quickly and painlessly.

4. Empower your team

A powerful sales team isn't trained. Training is for pets. A powerful sales team is taught – taught to think, taught to assess, taught to discern. The training approach is necessary to a point, while team members are learning the ins and outs of the startup company rules and rituals. After a point, however, more thought-provoking approaches need to take place. Foster engaging conversations about effective sales practice. Facilitate thought-provoking question and answer sessions. A powerful sales team is a collective of individuals who know how to think on their feet, respond with aplomb to rapidly changing circumstances, and anticipate what's coming next. Teaching a team to think is one of the most effective ways to ensure success.

5. Role play

If you want to create an engaging lesson for your sales team, try acting out potential scenarios that could arise. Take past experiences and have team members act them out. Not only does this give your team a testing ground for how to approach problematic circumstances, it also provides a humorous way to deal with serious issues. At the end of the day, everyone walks away with gained knowledge.

6. Be who you want the team to be

As a CEO, team leader, or entrepreneur, it’s important to set an example for a new sales team. Teaching best practices is only one part, and can only go so far. It is important to remember that the environment you provide and the attitude you give off is more important than the words spoken. If you're teaching about organization but your notes are all written on napkins, your sales team will pick up on the dissonance and internalize that you don't really mean what you say. This can create a toxic culture of surface level niceties which are never followed up with action. You must be everything you want your team to be, and impart those qualities onto them not just with words but with action and demeanor.

7. Have fun with it

Ensure that your team understands that the learning process, while working toward the goal of being a powerful force, is indeed a process. Create an environment that portrays your startup’s culture and cultivates collaboration and creative thinking. As long as everyone on your startup team is there for the joy of it (and to make some money), your team will be successful.

Training a powerful sales team can be an arduous task, but a sales team is integral to the success of any startup company. Quality training is an investment toward the future that will pay off for years to come.

We all know money doesn’t grow on trees. This reality becomes especially clear when you’re an entrepreneur. Most startups need a little push to get them on their feet. That’s where small business loans come in. How do you get one? We’re here to help you through the process with a few tips. Read on and cross your fingers—you may receive a small business loan for your startup! 

Small Business Loan Application Process

Fortunately for you, small business loans usually have less restrictive requirements than other types of loans. It’s crucial to find out if your business qualifies for a small business loan in the first place (you can do so here). But there is still hard work ahead and you will need extensive documentation. While every lender is different, the most important part of the process is the loan application. According to the Small Business Administration (SBA), you will need the following:

Executive Summary

This is a simple statement of who you are, your business background, the nature of your business, the amount of the loan you are requesting, terms of repayment, how the finds will be used and how you will repay the lender.

Business Profile

• Type of business
• Location
• Product or service
• Brief history
• Annual sales
• Number of employees
• Proposed future operation
• Competition
• Customers
• Suppliers
• Date of information

Management Experience

Provide résumés of all key players in the business.

Loan Request and Loan Repayment

A loan request is a description of how the loan will be used including purpose, amount and type of loan. A loan repayment states how the loan will be repaid and how long it will take to repay it. Cash-flow schedules and budgets should be included.

Collateral

A list of real property or assets that will be held as collateral.

Personal Financial Statements

Business Financial Statements

Proposed Business

Include a pro-forma balance sheet to show future profitability.

Projections

Show future projections for at least a year or until positive cash flow can be shown. Include reasons for your estimates and how the numbers compare to the industry standards.

Tips to Remember

• Know your business inside and out! Many tricky questions will be asked. Impress the lenders and show them your business will succeed.
• Be confident! If you’re not confident in your business, why should they be?
• Practice, practice, practice! Make sure your message is polished and flub-free. Review Your Elevator Pitch: 7 Must-Have’s.

If funding has discouraged you from growing your startup, small business loans can help! All you need is some patience (hundreds of filled-out forms worth) and hard work. With the funding you need, you’re one step closer to your startup goals!

Do you find the apps on your smartphone or tablet...distracting?  It happens to the best of us!  There’s Instagram, AngryBirds, Pinterest and of course, Facebook.  How could these fun and flashy apps not be a total distraction?  And when you take the DNA of a typical entrepreneur into account (you know, the ADD-driven, “bright and shiny object” types), it becomes quite obvious: when it comes to productivity, entrepreneurs need all the help they can get.  To help you solve all of your productivity issues, we’ve compiled a list of the top 10 productivity apps out there. Now, stop playing Words With Friends and get to work!

 Pocket: Free

Perfect for articles that you want to read, but don’t have the time right then. Just “pocket” the document and read it later. Pocket works for videos, articles, pictures...whatever interests you! Once it’s in pocket, you don’t even need an internet connection to view it. Talk about simple!

 Peak Meetings: $9.99

This app has been called “…the best business app by far” by many review sites out there. So why not give it a try? Peak Meetings helps to streamline your meetings so they’re more productive and efficient. Upload all the files for you meeting so they’re all in one place. Say goodbye to the old snooze-fest meetings and hello to Peak Meetings.

 Dragon Dictation: Free

Have you ever driven home and realized you forgot to send an email? Now you don’t have to worry. Dragon Dictation is an easy-to-use voice recognition app...and it actually understands you! It’s even 5 times faster than typing on a keyboard. Send those emails on-the-go and join the mobile revolution with Dragon Dictation. 

Documents To Go: $9.99

Need to get a hold of Microsoft Office files right away? You can utilize the whole Office Suite right on your smartphone with Documents To Go. Need to make a quick PowerPoint on your way to the meeting? You can do it easily with this easy app! Now there’s no excuse to be unprepared.

 GoodReader: $4.99

Reading and editing all of your PDF files is a breeze with GoodReader! And don’t worry about size limits; this app can read books and manuals easily, too. GoodReader also allows you to add virtual sticky notes—and even freehand drawings—to documents.

Blogsy: $4.99

Although this app is only for iPad users, it’s so cool, we wanted to include it! Blogsy allows you to easily add pictures to any blog with drag and drop capabilities. It’s compatible with Wordpress, Blogger, and many more blogging sites. No coding required!

Priority Matrix: $3.99

Priority Matrix is basically a high-tech to-do list...and way more eco-friendly than the post-it system! Divide your tasks into 4 different categories; do now, start planning, high distraction tasks and uncategorized. This is the easiest tool to help you balance work and life.

GoPayment: Free

This app by Intuit makes it possible to accept credit card payments with your phone or tablet. It’s free to download, but you have to pay for each credit card swipe. This makes collecting money with a small business easier than ever!

iThoughtsHD: $9.99

This app is perfect for when you have so much going on in your brain that you just need to write it down. This is a virtual mind-mapping tool that helps you to brainstorm, plan projects, make lists and more. This is a must-have app for on-the-go entrepreneurs!  It’s organization at its finest. 

Shoeboxed Receipt Tracker and Receipt Reader: Free

Save time on accounting and bookkeeping with Shoeboxed. This app makes organizing receipts simple. Just snap a picture of the receipts and Shoeboxed will organize them. It only takes seconds to generate and email expense reports. Who needs an accountant? Not you!

There truly is always “an app for that”. With these personalized business apps, you’ll never feel lost without your laptop again! Now go forth and conquer the world with smartphone in hand!

Have you ever been in the middle of a great dream and been awakened abruptly? It’s very similar to when you’re interrupted while you’re “in the zone” at work, isn’t it?  Technology, open office space and coworking atmospheres are great, but sometimes they can distract you or keep you from what you should really be doing—working.

We understand how important it is for entrepreneurs to stay productive, so we’ve come up with the top 5 ways to make your workspace distraction-free. So, log out of Twitter and get to reading!

Wear Headphones

You can use headphones to listen to music or white noise—you can even use them to block out background noises. According to a study published in Environment and Behavior, excessive noise is one of the biggest complaints of an open office design. Headphones can solve this prevalent problem. And hey, if you’re wearing headphones, people are less likely to bother you!

Hide Your Phone

Constant text messages, personal phone calls and notifications from Words With Friends are just a few possible distracting scenarios. Smartphones are the main ingredient in the recipe for distraction. Stop the insanity—put your phone in a drawer and don’t check it until your work day is over (or maybe until lunchtime). It’s amazing how much more you’ll accomplish!

Take Five

Most people think the key to success is working 12-hour days and skipping breaks all together. This thought process is flawed. When you’re constantly working, you lose focus. Research led by University of Illinois psychology professor Alejandro Lleras, proves that brief diversions throughout your work can improve your focus. And a recent study, presented at The Academy of Management, suggests your breaks should consist of browsing the Internet. Sounds like a win-win to us!

Close Your Email

When you see you have a new email, you’re compelled to read it and respond—thus distracting you from working. Set aside times during the day to check your email and close it during the remaining hours. A French company, Atos, has experienced this email debacle. Atos decided to ban all internal email because employees loss of productivity. Email should improve productivity—don’t let it make your life harder!

Download Some Help

If you’re still struggling to get rid of distractions, enlist the help of technology—hey, that’s what it’s here for!  Download these helpful distraction-free tools and get workin’!

We all know how annoying it is to be distracted while we’re “in the zone”. Don’t get bogged down by distraction! Start integrating these 5 tips into your work regimen, and see how much more you’ll accomplish!