5 Key Rules on How to Create an Effective Product Label

Designing a product label can be an intimidating thing. Follow these 5 rules on how to create an effective product label and create a label that beats all the competition.

Making a first impression is integral to creating a powerful message that turbo-charges your brand, but it’s easy to overdo it and mess up your image. The last thing you want to do is send people the wrong impression.

Designing a good label is much more than just a graphic. Realistically there’s a lot of practice and experience that goes into the design, and there’s a huge list of things you should do when you’re establishing your product label.

Here are our top 5 rules that you should follow when you’re designing your products custom label:

Spend plenty of time on your preliminary sketch

No matter what you’re doing, it’s important to start off small. Take the time to establish at least 20-30 different paper and pen drawings that establish a large variety of variations of your beginning ideas. If they don’t seem to work it’s important to start over with new sketches until you find the one that helps you establish your identity. A truly skilled designer or advertising professional will often spend as much or more time in the design step than actually making the label.

Balance and size are integral to good design

One of our brain’s interesting mechanisms is that we create scales in our head that help us perceive ideas. This means that some aspects are appealing and pleasing to the way that we receive information. When you’re developing your product label, you have to keep it balanced by enforcing that the “weight” of your finished product is equally balanced as your graphics, colour, and size. While you can tweak the rules as you see fit, your label will hopefully be seen by millions, so keeping it balanced is the way to go.

The same rules apply for logos. Logos MUST look good and be legible, no matter what size they are. Your logo instantly loses credibility when it’s not as defined when scaled down. It also needs to be designed in such a way that it looks great in larger formats like on billboards, posters, and on the web.

Use complementary colours

It’s tough to pick a colour scheme but it’s always best when you use complementary colours, and colours that aren’t too bright or graded. You also must ensure that your product label looks great in black and white, grayscale, and when made in just two colours.

The design has to fit the company

Make sure you effectively research your client and your audience before you begin your preliminary work. When you’re designing product labels, it should instantly provide background information to your client about the brand. Don’t fall into the trap of going after “recent trends”. Do what works for you by determining the best design style and work up a font that isn’t distracting and gets your message across so you can get a design that works the first time.

Be different and be recognisable

By all means break away from the norm and make yourself distinct with a product label, and definitely have fun establishing your design. However, there is a balance here. Research shows that anything that is more than 10% new is too much. It becomes too different and too “out there”. Take a few steps to stand out, but bear in mind it’s also about keeping it simple and working with the most important elements of advertising: size, style, colour, typography and originality.

Designing your product label can feel like a very daunting process. There are so many aspects to consider and directions that you can take your design. When you stick with these five key rules; spend plenty of time on the preliminary sketch, pay attention to the balance and size, use complementary colours, ensure the label fits the company image and be a little different; you will be off to a great start.

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10 Fantastic Apps For Business Travelers

So you are all set to embark on your next business trip.

You meticulously make a note: Travel light. Pack Small.

You made those calls and confirmed all your meetings.

Great! Fantastic! But here’s the thing, this is just the beginning.

There are flights to catch, rooms to book, cabs to hail and the most dreaded job of all, preparing the expense report.

Now, you don’t want to end up being unprepared for any of it. That’s not only going to cost you a lot of money but also make you lose your sanity.

With a handful of apps, life on the road can get really smooth. Here are 10 fantastic business apps that will save you a lot of hassle and let you travel with ease.

Apps For Business Travelers

1. TripIt- Keep your master travel itinerary at one place

How does this brilliant app help you?

It’s quite simple. All you have to do is forward all confirmation emails to your TripIt account and the app takes care of everything. TripIt keeps all your travel information at one place. From hotel bookings and flight schedules for all your car rentals and meetings, TripIt organizes all information systems.

There’s another plus point; this app lets you share this information with your friends, family and co-workers. Moreover, it lets you access your travel plans on any device and even when you are offline.

Imagine how sorted your business trip can get!

Availability: iPhone, iPad, Windows Phone 7, Android, Blackberry

2. Yelp

Looking for good places to eat, while dreaming about scrumptious burritos or maybe that earthy Italian wine?

Yelp is your ideal solution.

The app helps you find restaurants and shops by categories or search terms. So all this information is in the palm of your hand!

Important piece of advice: Don’t blindly trust the reviews. The online word of mouth in this case might be misleading as the reviews are written by anyone and everyone. So, they need to be taken with a pinch of salt.

Availability: iPhone, Android

3. Google Translate- Breaking the language barrier

When going to a different country for a business trip, language barrier can be one of the biggest hurdles. In fact, it is one of the most common challenges in the international business environment.  A little conversation starter can lighten that uneasiness.

With its two new incredibly excellent features: real-time voice and sign translation, Google Translate works effectively. The app will help you navigate your new surroundings in no time.

Availability: iPhone, Android

4. FlightTrack Pro- Track flights in seconds

FlightTrack Pro offers all your flight details at your fingertips and that too within seconds. You can track your flights worldwide with big beautiful maps. (Bonus: They are available offline too.) The app provides you with all the information such as gate numbers, delays and real time departure.

Also, if your flight gets cancelled, FlightTrack Pro is right there to help you find an alternate flight with a swipe and tap.

Availability: iPhone

5. Evernote- Makes you more organized

Photos, screenshots, texts, voice notes or any other piece of information- you name it and Evernote will make sure you capture and organize it systematically. From short texts to detailed research, the app lets you write and save notes of all types.

Evernote helps compartmentalize all your information that matters, thereby ensuring you don’t forget the important details of your meeting or your travel arrangements.

Availability:  iPhone, Chrome OS, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry, Microsoft Windows, webOS, OS X

6. Google Maps

When it comes to location services, Google Maps is one of the most remarkable apps that instantly come to your mind. The app is undoubtedly the king of digital maps. That’s perhaps the reason why the app sees an average of more than 79 million unique users per month. With constant improvements and the addition of new features, Google Maps remains the market leader in map apps.

Availability: iPhone, Android

Price: Free

7. Expensify- Track your expenses with ease

Keeping a track of all the travel expenses can be a hassle. It’s very easy to lose a receipt or to forget how much you paid for a dinner the other night. But with Expensify by your side, you need not worry any more. The app allows you to keep track of a variety of expenses. You can enter the expenses manually, you could scan your receipts with the SmartScan feature, or you could simply mail these receipts to receipts@expensify.com. And then you can instantly catalog them. With Expensify, you can now stay on top of your finances as you travel along.

Availability: iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry, Windows

8. HotelTonight- Booking last-minute rooms just got convenient

With HotelTonight, you are just five clicks away from booking your hotel anytime, anywhere. Yes, you read that right! In case you forgot to book your hotel in advance, HotelTonight acts as your savior. The app lets you find amazing places to stay and even book a room on your very day of arrival. Booking hotel rooms at the last minute and that too the ones that fall in your price range can be an arduous task. But now with the HotelTonight app, you can put those worries aside.

Availability: iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows Phone

9. Kayak- Your travel agent

From car rentals and flight bookings to currency conversion, Kayak helps get your hands on all kinds of travel information in no time; and with the newly added feature Price Forecasts, you can choose the best flight deals on Kayak. With Kayak on your device, you wouldn’t even need a travel agent.

Availability: iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows 7, kindle

10. Viber- Avoid insane phone bills and stay in touch

So you are travelling outside your country, well in that case Viber is what you need the most to save yourself from insanely large phone bills. Free voice calls, video calls and instant messages over the internet- that’s Viber app at its best.

Just as a search engine is synonymous with Google, free calls are becoming synonymous with Viber.

Availability:  Android, iPhone, Blackberry, Windows Phone, Nokia, Bada, Mac, Microsoft

Having these apps on your mobile device, will help you get through the tediousness and hassle of modern travel. Your business trip will undoubtedly be more productive and hassle free.

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Downloadable Excel Financial Spreadsheets

Here’s 8 pretty fundamental financial spreadsheets that every small business needs to have. All are in excel. All are templates and all are downloadable.

Profit and loss

This spreadsheet will help you to prepare a projected profit and loss account as part of your Operating Budget, in a format suitable for inclusion in your Business Plan. Download the Operating Budget Profit and Loss spreadsheet.

Receipts

This spreadsheet will help you to record and analyse receipts made by your business. Download the Receipts spreadsheet.

Overheads

This spreadsheet will help you to analyse the overheads your business is likely to incur, in a format suitable for inclusion in your Business Plan. Download the Operating Budget Analysis of Overheads spreadsheet.

Cashflow

This spreadsheet will help you to prepare a projected cashflow for your business, in a format suitable for inclusion in your Business Plan. Download the Cashflow spreadsheet.

Sales and Profit

This spreadsheet will help you to estimate your business’ likely sales and gross profit, in a format suitable for inclusion in your Business Plan. Download the Operating Budget:Estimate of Sales and Gross Profit spreadsheet.

Expenses

This spreadsheet will help you to record and analyse petty cash expenses for your business. Download the Petty Cash spreadsheet.

Payments

This spreadsheet will help you to record and analyse payments made by your business. Download the Payments spreadsheet.

3 Year Projected Cashflow

This spreadsheet will help you to summarise three years’ projected cashflows for your business, in a format suitable for inclusion in your Business Plan. Download the Cashflow:Summary spreadsheet.

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Offaly Gearbox: A Mobile Garage Concept

Every week we feature companies that have been successful in accessing funding from Microfinance Ireland.

Microfinance Ireland gives loans to small businesses and start ups in every sector up to 25,000 Euro. If you are interested in funding, check out the http://microfinanceireland.ie/how-to-apply/

Offaly Gearbox

Offaly Gearbox is mobile garage concept, from, you guessed it, Offaly. Specialising in, you guessed it right again, gearboxes and transmissions. What is particularly unique and interesting is, what is called the Osinski techniques, named after the inventor, Piotr Osinski. The technique is patent pending.

A family business

Offaly GearBox Ltd. is a family company. They have over 25 years experience in the automotive industry in Poland, Germany and Ireland.  They specialise in repairs/recondition and adjustment of transmission and all kind gearboxes using their specialised knowledge/technique.

Piotr Osinski is the principal driving force in the company and he has proven exceptional skill in accurate diagnosis of gearbox problems and the repair of complex defects. Since arriving in Ireland 7 years ago Piotr Osinski has build up a reputation as a provider of exceptional skills in this area.

He has created a recognition of his skills among main dealer garages which is a key factor in allowing him to transfer world-class GearBox repairs to the market place. The company offer one of the most dynamic services and unique offerings in GearBox repairs in Ireland.

Their service

In their own words, their service is professional, based on the highest international standards. They are providing a unique service based on exceptional skill in the diagnostics and repair of defective gear boxes. The company is Ireland’s only service of repairs/recondition and adjustment of gear boxes of cars, vans and light commercial by using an innovative program “Mobile Garage” at the customer’s location.

They are mobile and focused on getting to the customer in a timely manner that is not on offer in the market at present.

Their primary service is the repair/recondition and adjustment of gear boxes of:

  • Cars
  • Vans
  • Light Commercial

In addition they provide complementary services in:

a) Repair and tuning of sports cars.

b) Repairs of rear and front differential

c) Repairs gear boxes of vintage cars

d) Repairs gear boxes of motor bikes

Visit

You can visit their website here http://offalygearbox.ie/

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Overwhelmed in the Workplace! 5 Reasons for Employee Burnout

In today’s competitive business world, employee burnout is a growing occupational hazard. Characterized as exhaustion accompanied by a loss of interest in work-related activities, burnout is said to be primarily stress-related. While there are a number of factors that can contribute to burnout in the workplace, certain stressors have been identified that employers seeking to mitigate employee turnover should be aware of. The following is a short list of the five main reasons employees experience burnout.

Unrealistic Expectations and Employee Burnout

To stay competitive, companies often cut back on personnel and resources while expecting the same or better results. The result is that employees are faced with unrealistic expectations by management as to what they should be able to accomplish. This can lead to a stressful work environment where employees are unclear as to how to proceed and constantly worry that they do not have the time or resources needed to properly complete the task. Try as they may they will never feel successful in meeting management’s impossible expectations, putting them at higher risk of burnout. Managers need to be sure that employee work requirements are both realistic and that the means of achieving desired objectives are clearly understood.

Lack of Sufficient “Down Times”

Today, many employees are subject to high-stress “crunch times” that require them to put in long hours in order to handle more intense workloads. As long as these intense work periods are followed by adequate down times, employees can generally handle them. But when every day feels like “crunch time”, and the down times become few and far between, stress builds up as employees feel overworked and under appreciated. To avoid employee burnout from overwork it’s incumbent upon management to factor sufficient down times into the work schedule.

Lack of Empowerment

Employees thrive best in a work environment that gives them a sense that they belong, have a real purpose, and that the work they are doing really matters. They also do better with managers who ask for ideas and suggestions relative to the job at hand and allow them the opportunity to use their creativity and skills to solve problems without being micromanaged. Conversely, work environments where employees feel that they have no say or control over how the work gets done, and are constantly micromanaged, are at risk of creating burned-out workers.

Lack of Recognition

Working for a company that never shows appreciation and employee recognition for a job well done is no fun for anybody. Companies where management fails to recognize and reward both individuals and teams for their achievements run the risk of putting employees who feel under appreciated and taken for granted on a path that will lead to burnout. Implementing a program that recognizes and rewards employee achievements via awards, public praise, bonuses, and other means can go a long way in elevating morale and reducing burnout. The key is to avoid generic cookie-cutter awards and make sure that employees are recognized and rewarded in ways that are personal, meaningful and relevant to them.

Poor Communication

In every company there are barriers to communication that exist between employees and management. Failure to address and break down these barriers can lead to poor communication and eventual employee burnout. Good workplace communication is about managers engaging employees with real-time face-to-face conversations. It’s about sharing passions for the company and clearly explaining the company’s mission and objectives. It’s about being open and encouraging honest feedback to show employees that their ideas and opinions matter. Most importantly, it’s about staying positive and helping employees feel confident, inspired and empowered.

When employees stay motivated to light things up they are far less likely to ever burn out.

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5 Areas Where Every Business Should Consider Investing

No business can run and grow without a marketing budget. The more your marketing budget will be, the maximum number of people you can reach, and the better will be the growth of your brand. This is one of the reasons why many startups didn’t manage to stay in the market for a longer period of time.

Low budget is not a problem but investing that marketing budget at the right place is very important. This is where most businesses make mistakes. In this article I will discuss how startups can manage to stay online and grow within that limited budget.

Here are few of the areas where you have to invest at an initial stage. This investment is usually worthy because without it, growth is almost nearer to impossible.

Domain Name

No serious business (not even a blog) can live on a free domain. So, you have to go with an initial investment of buying a domain name for your business. Although it’s a $9.99 of an investment but how to choose a domain name for your business is the key.

It is a common misconception that having a keyword in the domain name will help you with SEO but Google and other search engines either do not consider it as a ranking signal or the weight is very low. Before buying a domain name, here are the 12 rules of buying a right domain name that will help you with purchase.

A Good Looking Website

The concept of an online business is incomplete without an elegant looking website. Once you have your desired domain name in hand, it’s time to design a website that features your products and services online.

Planning to develop a website, you have several options available that includes hiring a website developer or to go with CMS systems available online with several hints from powerful HTML tools. Here we are talking about a tight budget so in this case my advice is to go with WordPress as this is most cost effective and don’t require much technical skills.

Having a website is not enough. You have to do something to pull audience to your website and convert them in to leads and business.

Technical Lookup tool

Today having a website is not enough but you should have a website that is appropriate for the targeted audience as well as for search engines. A tool that gives you a quick lookup of all the technical details and what you should do in the website to make it better for the web and a user is important.

There are multiple tools that can help you with that, which includes Moz.com, Raven Tools and a few more. Out of all the tools I believe Search Enabler is the most cost effective tool and do exactly what one needs.

Keyword Research Tool

This, I believe is the most important investment to make when you are in an online world. If you find the right keywords from which audience are finding businesses of your kind, WIN!

Previously there was a Google Adword tool that helps with that but now there are no free tools I know that does the same. So somehow one has to invest on SEMRush. It is a little higher on cost side but will give you an exact idea of how you should go with content marketing and link building.

Once you are done with technical fixes in the website and you also have the targeted keywords in hand the next thing you should be doing is to create content for your website and promote it to the right places that gives you traffic and links.

Link building Tool

Write this phrase in Google and you will literally find tons of tools that can help you with this. But I have to find a tool that can do most of the jobs for you in a limited amount of money.

After going through dozens of tools, I believe the link prospector of Citation lab is the tool that is a perfect fit for any size of business. Tool is cost effective ($2 per credit) and helps you collect all the possible areas where you can get a link i.e Guest Blogging, Directories, Donations and more.

There can be tons of other areas and loads of other tools that can help you with different stuff but, above are the 5 areas where I believe a business of any size should invest and make the most out of all the online channels.

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Small Business Can Partner with Smart Business Show

We are delighted to announce that Small Business Can are partnering with the Smart Business Show to provide readers with exclusive discounts to attend the show and to exhibit. There will also be a Small Business Can dedicated event for readers within the show which we will update you on in due course.

The Smart Business Show is a two day Business to Business exhibition taking place on 22 & 23 April in the RDS, Dublin that will provide you with the opportunity to explore the latest innovative technologies and to engage, connect and do business with exhibitors and thousands of attendees. Visitors will also be able to hear from a rich mix of industry leading speakers and participate in dedicated workshops on a variety of themes.
The two-day event follows the very successful Smart Business Show in the Odyssey Arena, Belfast, in 2014, which attracted more than 3,000 attendees, the majority at MD / CEO / director level.

This partnership will provide Small Business Can readers with exclusive discounts to attend the show and also to exhibit.

Small Business Can Reader Discounts

As a Small Business Can reader you can avail of the following special rates to attend the show:

Special Partner Ticket – €15.00 (normally €30.00)

This option allows you entrance to the show, a place at the SBC workshop on SMEs and public tendering which is open to all attendees.

Show-Only Partner Ticket – €10.00

This option allows you to attend the show, but not the SBC workshop.

Click here to book your place

Discounts for Exhibitors

SBC readers can also avail of a 10% discount on exhibition rates, for those interested in exhibiting at the show.

For further information, please click here

 

www.smartbusinessshow.com

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Want to create a new App or idea that could form the ‘next big service’ for banking?

A ‘hackathon’ is a creative marathon of brainstorming and software creation in which the prototypes of mobile and web applications are quickly ‘hacked’ together by small teams of software engineers, designers and other innovators.

Ulster Bank together with the Open Bank Project invites you to the 8th edition of Hack (Make!) The Bank which will be held from January 30th to February 1st at the NDRC in Dublin and 13 t0 15 February in The Mac in Belfast

Hack (Make!) the Bank is a global series of Fin Tech Hackathons which are dedicated to realising tomorrow’s banking and financial solutions. This hackathon will bring together programmers, designers and members of the financial services industry to debate, design, code and pitch ideas on themes related to the challenges set below.

Sign up here for Dubin and here for Belfast

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thinkbusiness

Cabana cafe, 47 years of hospitality

Cabana Café

Every week we feature companies that have been successful in accessing funding from Microfinance Ireland.

Microfinance Ireland provides loans to small businesses and startups in every sector up to 25,000 Euro. If you are interested in funding, check out the website www.microfinanceireland.ie

47 years of hospitality

Cabana Café opened in November 2012. They are a husband and wife team who between them have over 47 years’ experience in the hospitality sector. Their ethos is simple; they prepare and cook their food in house, every day. They focus on providing quality service, great food, convenience and value for money to their customers.

Open every day

Whether you are hungry for a hearty meal, a great sandwich or just want a cup of coffee and a homemade sweet, Cabana is open all day every day.

Corporate catering

Not only can you drop in, they do corporate catering as well. They cater for all your meetings, be it breakfast meetings, working lunches, training courses and much, much more. They offer platters made from the finest ingredients and use a variety of artisan breads to make their sandwiches even more appealing. Their catering menus are designed with each customer in mind whether it is dietary requirements, low calorie options or any other needs.

Visit

They are located just off the Kylemore Road, on the Old Naas Road in Dublin 12 and have ample free car parking outside.

You can visit their website http://www.cabana.ie/ or say hi on their Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/thecabanacafe

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Paula Brady, Ulster Bank, triage nurse and referee

We have been working with Ulster Bank for 6 years now. It has always struck us that the perception of bankers from the outside, does not correspond with our experiences. In fact Ulster Bank is filled with cool dudes and dudettes, who have a very interesting stories to tell.

Business manager

So we decided to put them on video. Here is the next in our series, featuring Paula Brady. She works with senior management, helping them to manage their workflow and maximise productivity. She describes it as triage, which is not a bad description.

International soccer referee

Apart from being successful in Ulster Bank, Paula Brady is also a successful international FIFA and UEFA soccer referee. She referees the Irish Premier League, but also Champions League and internationals. She is one of only two women referees in Ireland. A big part of that is fitness and training. Lots of travelling too.

Her business tip

With Paula’s background in refereeing you will not be surprised by her business tip:

 

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