Top Gifts for Company Picnic Giveaways

Company picnics are a great way for people to relax and come together in a low-pressure setting. They open the door to allow new people to get to know veterans at the company and for clients to get to see a more personal side to your brand. These events are often used as motivational tools for employees or as ways for companies to mix and network with people in their community to help drive sales. Regardless of how your company uses the picnic experience, you should be ready with some giveaways that will leave your employees headed home with a little something special.

Before your next company picnic, browse through some promotional items to find the perfect one that will fit your brand image. Here are a few suggestions to get you started.

How to Increase Brand Awareness with Promotional Products

For so many startups, knowing where to begin with building a brand is a difficult task. While you know what your company stands for, your customers are still new to your idea and what differentiates you, your product and/or service in the market you are entering. This is your opportunity to make a first impression and define your company in a way that will pique customer interest and drive sales.

One way some startups do this is through advertising. However, advertising is expensive for many businesses, and most startups operate on a shoestring budget. Another option is to have items custom made to sport your brand. With promotional products, your brand can stand apart from the crowd and your logo can gain valuable recognition without having to invest in costly traditional advertising methods, such as television or radio.

Frugal Festive Shoppers affect UK Retail Sales

UK retailers are hoping for a last-minute surge in spending this December, following a fall in consumer spending last month. Statistics show that UK retail sales dropped in November, with shoppers spending 0.1% less than they did in October this year, and nearly 3% less than they did in December last year.

Retail sales in the United Kingdom have remained flat for the past three months, and economists have called this slump in spending “the worst since September 2011”. What is the underlying cause of this notably slow festive spending season, which has become something of an ongoing trend in the UK?

How To Increase Work Output Amongst Your Staff

Many different people do not enjoy going to work. Because of this, employees may not look forward to working and may slack off. Many small businesses have begun trying to make the work environment more enjoyable for employees. This may be done by increasing bonuses and increasing wages for employees. However, this is not the only thing that needs to be done to increase an employee’s work efficiency. Many different employees often look for the following:

- Praise for good work

- Recognition for hard work and a good work ethic

- A positive and fun environment to work in

Is Leaflet Distribution Still a Viable Option in the Internet Age?

In the modern world of Social Media Marketing, Pair Search and Search Engine Optimisation it would be easy to both forget about and discount leaflet distribution as a form of advertising all together.

Well stop right there and read on to find out the benefits direct marketing can offer you and more pertinently leaflet distribution.

First things first we should dispel some of the myths which surround leaflet distribution, most of which are formed from peoples own personal experiences and views on leaflet distribution.

Grow Your Personal Branding

We all have a personal brand and it shows through in the way we do things, down to what we wear, how we communicate, and carry ourselves. Investing in your personal branding is the key to creating a successful impression, particularly when going for job interviews. Here are a few tips to help you grow a positive personal brand.

Honesty

Being honest also means being trustworthy; these two traits go hand in hand and are the core of your personal branding statement. If someone else describes you as ‘honest,’ you are already on a positive footing for your personal branding.

A Few Workplace Etiquette Rules

Companies are so different in terms of workplace etiquette. While some are more laidback, others are extremely puritanical in their way of office etiquette, so it’s best to stick with policy across the board. Not only will this make your life easier, but it helps to make friends and not cause office politics.

Gossip is a No-No

Gossip is standard if offices across the world and it cannot be avoided; however you can do your best to not be a part of it. This is the first rule in workplace etiquette and people don’t take it seriously enough. Apart from being an office gossip, people rarely give much thought to how difficult and uncomfortable it can be for the person they’re gossiping about. If you gain a reputation as an office gossip, it’s not something to be proud of. Bosses won’t take you seriously, and your colleagues will distrust you.

The Importance of Using Warehouse Partitions

Having a warehouse means that you are going to have problems with keeping everything at the right place and solving them will be easy if you are going to use warehouse partitions. You can make sure that you are going to have an easy time of keeping everything in place and will not make every employee puzzled about their different stations. It will be easy for you and your employees to determine the right station of where they should place certain supplies and how they can isolate things from other supplies.

Considerations of Choosing Warehouse Partitions

When you want to cut down with your budget and you are still renting the warehouse that you have now, then warehouse partitions are the ones that you can have. If you are still not that sure about choosing these partitions over fix walls then you can have the following things to be considered:

Choosing a Bag Supplier for Your Business

Many companies and businesses require bags as an ever day part of their business, but how do you choose the right supplier? Most of the time, businesses simply choose the first, or one of the first, options that present themselves without researching options or prices. If you want to know you’re getting the best deal and what’s best for your company, you can follow these quick tips for choosing a bag supplier for your business.

Research the Price

First, you should always look up at least two or three different bag suppliers online to make sure you’re getting a good price. Remember to factor in any delivery costs (because this can add up quickly), print costs if there are any and any minimum orders you might have to make. From there, you can easily choose which bag supplier offers the best deal.

Do They Offer Bulk Discounts?

Some bag suppliers will offer you a discount for ordering a large number of bags. If you need a lot of bags, this can save you money! Even if you end up purchasing all of your bags for one year at one time, you can often save at least 15% when ordering in bulk from some companies. Does your bag company offer discounts?

Discover if You Are Paying Too Much for Rent

Rent is one of the biggest expenses a person will have to pay. Discovering if you are paying to much for your rental will allow you to decide if moving somewhere cheaper is a better option. One of the worst things a renter may do is compromise personal safety to save on rent. Less expensive rentals are not a bargain if you are putting your personal safety in jeopardy. The following five tips will help determine if your rent is too expensive and discover ways to lower your rent.

Rentometer:

Rentometer is a handy tool that allows anyone to determine if their rental is too high. This website has renters input their address, size and price of the apartment. Results will be returned in a split second offering the user a breakdown of rental prices within a few mile radius. Renters will instantly know if their rent price is too high or comparable to others in the immediate area. Try it out here: http://www.rentometer.com/

It's Not What You Know, It's Who You Know: Networking More Valuable Than You Think When Going For Your Dream Job

There are a number of different elements or emphases that go into landing your "dream job." There are such important issues as the job seeker's qualifications, education, the source of job listings, knowing how to find the right companies to work for, salary and wage issues, and doing work that makes you genuinely happy.

One of the most important of these elements is the ability to network and make contacts. Getting an excellent job is often more a matter of making social connections and meeting the right people than some may realize. Let's take a look at some reasons why paying attention to this job search area can be important and instrumental:

The Job Market and Employers are Networks

One reason making contacts and networking is so essential is that employers (i.e. businesses, organizations and corporations), and the entire job market itself are networks - groups of individuals all interconnected.

The Keys To Unlocking Business Success: The Top 10 Business Tips From The Worlds Biggest Entrepreneurs

Success, like a lock, needs only the right keys to be opened. Once those keys are located and utilized, any possibility can be freed. Here are the top 10 business tips from the world’s biggest entrepreneurs:

1) Richard Branson: “Don’t do it if you don’t enjoy it.”

The adventurous Englishman uses this one phrase to sum-up his key to success. For Branson, enjoyment is the most valuable asset, even more valuable than money. For the 62 year-old tycoon realizes that if you don’t like what you are doing, you will contract the worst illness in the entire business world: mediocrity.

The Advantages Of Leadership Skills, Even When You're Self Employed

One of the most underdeveloped, underused and underappreciated skills in the business world is that skill, that elusive skill, leadership. Leadership is such a broad and vague term that many people misrepresented when they say it, and even those who purport to be experts on the subject tend to disseminate information about leadership to the general public in a way that is completely irrelevant to the everyday lives of the average citizen, especially the average citizen who is self-employed or wishes to be.

It is no secret that especially in the United States, the country balances its hopes and dreams, as well as its tax burdens, on the backs of the self-employed people and the small business.

Three of the Most Successful Corporate Rebranding Initiatives of the Last Ten Years

Corporate rebranding is essential in certain circumstances; however, it is not right for all businesses. The businesses which benefit the most from rebranding are those which are struggling to attract their desired demographics and whose sales are dangerously low.

This may equate to the organization distancing themselves from their current consumers or they may choose to embrace their new consumers.

Either way, they must change the way they are viewed by the marketplace in an attempt to boost sales and often simply as a way to keep the doors open. Following is a short list of 3 rebranding initiatives that achieved great success within the last ten years.

Don't Let Your Business Show Appearance End in Tears and Droopy Sandwiches

The first business exhibition I ever arranged was a disaster. It was a big challenge for me and I was really looking forward to it but sadly it all went a bit wrong once the event started. Some of the mistakes look obvious in hindsight but it is worth going over them to see whether you can avoid them.

Get There on Time

I know it sounds silly but we didn’t know how to get to the exhibition centre. I mean, we had a rough idea but at a couple of roundabouts we got lost and had to end up retracing our steps.

How to Sell

As economic times remain tough for those in business, it is important not to underestimate the benefits of good sales techniques. During the boom years, it was not difficult for sales targets to be met, and generally people had a lot more money at their disposal to spend how they wished.

However, it is clear that this is no longer the case, and for the sales person, hitting targets is harder than ever. But does this mean that sales can’t be made?

There is no doubt that the consumer has become savvy.  This can be seen to be as a result of a number of developments over recent years.

In times gone by, people were happy to stick with brands, shops, energy providers and so on.  However, these days people will shop around for the best value for money.

How to Run a Meeting

You think you did everything right at your meeting. You started on time, stuck to an agenda that was distributed in advance, and finished on time, or, better yet, early. But you may have neglected to consider one thing that could render your meeting a failure.

Did you need to have the meeting in the first place?

Many offices hold regularly scheduled meetings because that’s the way things have always been done. But maybe there’s not much new to review this week. Maybe what business there is can be dealt with via email. Maybe the latest developments only affect a couple of people, who can hold their own meeting with the boss instead of getting the whole department involved for no reason.

5 Tips On Decorating The Office

Making the most of your office space is extremely important.

When redesigning or redecorating the office, there are many things which you will have to bear in mind.

The main focus of your office design is to ensure that all your work force feel comfortable whilst they are at work which will allow them to be more productive with their time in the office.

Follow these 5 tips when decorating the office to create the best office space possible.

Lifting the Looks of your Business Premises

Largely functional in nature, lifts can be easily overlooked when it comes to commercial buildings and public spaces. Although lift technology is far from new, many lifts in commercial premises have been installed in relatively recent times.

In some cases they may date back to the 1960s and however well presented the rest of the office is, the lifts can be something of a let-down and not in a good way.

However, it is possible to have a full, professional lift refurbishment completed to make these most humble of functional spaces feel and look just that little more user friendly.

What Does an Explainer Video Do?

You’ve most likely heard about explainer videos. Companies large and small are creating animated or recorded videos telling about their site, their services, or their business. But should you make one and if so, why should you?

Explainer videos can be costly so you shouldn’t make one unless you have a product or service to sell, a good presentation and are making a good video. Unfortunately a bad video won’t do anything.