Category: Starting a Business

Business Advice

Fire Protection Equipment You Should Have In A Commercial Property

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Fire Protection Equipment You Should Have In A Commercial Property

If you own or manage any type of commercial property then much of the responsibility to ensure it is safe falls on your shoulders, which is why one of your tasks, if you have not already done so, will be to speak to your local fire services company. They will be able to advise you on the regulations regarding fire safety and what the minimal requirements are with regards to fire protection equipment on the premises.

Of course, you always have the option to go above and beyond the minimum requirements and invest in additional fire safety and protection equipment. Not only does this greatly increase the fire safety levels in your premises, but as an employer, it demonstrates that you take the welfare of your employers seriously.

There is a long list of possible options, so we must stress that the ones we highlight are merely our suggestions and do not constitute any kind of definite regulatory advice or minimum legal requirement, both of which you must ascertain for yourself with regards to the commercial premises you are responsible for.

Fire Extinguishers

The type of property and the commercial activity which takes place will determine which types of fire extinguishers you need, and in particular what is necessary for the materials that are predominant inside those premises. As a minimum, you will have a red-banded water extinguisher which is suitable for most fires involving paper and wood.

You might choose to expand the types of fire extinguishers to include a Black Co2 extinguisher for electrical fires, and also the number of extinguishers, especially if the property has more than one room.

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Starting a Business

How To Involve Your Staff In An Office Relocation

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Office Relocation

Office relocation is typically something which occurs due to a business changing. Whether your office relocation is due to downsizing, expansion, or a part of your business strategy to be located nearer to your customers it is important to make sure your staff are involved, well informed, and that their input is taken into consideration.

For this, you need to establish open communication to get their opinions regarding the relocation and anything related to it. Get them involved from the beginning by asking them their thoughts about what new offices you should move to. The more you take their suggestions into consideration they more committed and helpful they will be when the relocation with the help of experienced office relocators – actually takes place.

In addition, the more your employees are involved in the relocation, you may even see greater levels of productivity leading up to it, their new office. It is highly likely that you end up getting some amazing ideas about how to further improve your office structure, layout, and organisational activities.

Another way to involve your team is to assign them tasks. Assess their strengths and assign their roles with respect to their skillsets. There are many tasks, such as supervising IT transfer, telecommunication setups, the layout of the office, setting up new filing systems. They may not physically do each of these themselves, but if they can oversee them, it will improve the relocation as whole.

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Starting a Business

How to Register Your Business

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Register your Business

Starting a business in Australia has become easier than ever. Economic growth and saturation of the market has allowed Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC) to make the process easier for potential business owners. However, before incorporating your business and registering the name, you need to make sure that you are eligible to start, operate, and manage a business in Australia.

There are four business structures in Australia that you can choose from when starting your online business, namely sole trader, partnership, company, and trust. Generally speaking, a person is automatically disqualified from starting and managing a business if the person:

  • Is bankrupt
  • Is convicted for offences under s206B of the Corporations Act
  • Is convicted for offences under s32(1) of Business Names Registration Act

Once you have checked if you are eligible to start a business, and understand employment laws for business – the next step is to register the business name. Remember that managing a business while being disqualified to do so is a criminal offense. If you have any questions, contact a qualified criminal lawyer

Register Your Business

Once you have found out all the information related to starting a new business in Australia, the first step towards doing so is to register a company name. The company name allows you to hold exclusive rights to the name you choose in Australia without having to file for registration in each state.

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Legal Advice

4 Things to Think About When Making a Position Redundant

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unfair dismissal claim

One of the most important employer rights in Australia is the right to make a position redundant when it’s no longer needed. However, this has to be done carefully and within the scope of the law to ensure you don’t end up facing unlawful or unfair dismissal claim.

Unfortunately, redundancy can be a slightly complicated topic. Because of this, we’d recommend consulting with a lawyer or other legal professional if you’re considering making a position redundant. On top of this, we’ve put together the following list of the top four things to consider when making a position redundant to help you get started.

  1. Make Sure You Consider Redeployment

One of the major things you have to think about when you’re making a position redundant is whether or not you can redeploy the affected employee within your company. If at all possible, you have a legal requirement to offer affected employees another position, even if the position is significantly lower in the company hierarchy and pays much less. If you don’t you will likely end up facing an unfair dismissal claim.

  1. Provide Support Where Possible

If possible, you should provide support to employees who are going to lose their job due to a position being made redundant. While some people may prefer to be left alone, others will appreciate support in the form of:

  • Being allowed time off to attend job interviews.
  • Being assisted through some sort of redundancy program.
  • Providing help searching and applying for a new position.

Again, the better you treat people who are going to be made redundant, the less likely unfair dismissal claims are to arise.

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Legal Advice

Important Legal Issues to Consider For Protection of Your Startup

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As an entrepreneur engaged in a startup, there are several issues that need to be resolved in the early days of establishing your company. Failing to do so may involve complicated legal issues where you will need an experienced criminal lawyer or corporate lawyer especially in terms of copyright and patents, where even partnerships especially, can go wrong.

One of the biggest real life examples of copyright litigation was faced by Mark Zuckerberg himself in the Zuckerberg vs. Winklevoss faceoff regarding the rights of Facebook. Though Zuckerberg himself walked away with the company, still the payoff to those who litigated against him including his partner, won a considerable amount of compensation.

However, not everyone can be lucky enough to own a company worth millions. With such factors in mind, it is imperative to take note of the legal aspects of a startup where every loose end should be tight enough to protect you from any chance that litigation lawyers will pursue you for copyright claims.

Here’s what you need to do:

 Make a clear-cut agreement with your partners

An initial co-founder agreement will ensure you do not face any copyright problems from disgruntled co-founders. A partnership can go wrong, it happens. This is why you need to be firm in the beginning. A co-founder agreement should contain the following clauses:

  • Percentage rights of individual members
  • Designations of members and extent of responsibility
  • The limitation of rights of a member resigning from the partnership
  • The rights of remaining partners to buy shares from a resigning member

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Legal Advice

What You Need To Know About Commercial Leasing

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If you have found the best property for your commercial premises, then you must now be considering signing a lease for the property. But do you know what a commercial lease is, and are you familiar with the different clauses which outline the importance of the document?

According to commercial law experts, the clauses in the lease highlight the rights and obligations of both the tenant and the landlord, and any discrepancy and negligence can result in breach of contract by either one of the two parties.

Your Commercial Lease – What Is It?
It is very important for you to recognize the importance of a commercial lease, as it is a legally binding contract. It is essential for both the tenant and the landlord to understand the different terms and conditions given in the contract before signing up the contract.

It is also important that both the parties recognize their obligations and rights, so that all disputes can be avoided, or easily handled if any should arise. Since most lease clauses are quite complicated, it is important to seek the help of an expert who can advise you on the matter.

You need expert legal help, before you,

  • Occupy any leased property
  • Pay any deposit or any other form of monies
  • Make commitment to take, lease or buy on any work which might affect your lease obligations
  • Sign a lease contract

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Starting a Business

How To Keep Customers Satisfied And Get Good Reviews From Them?

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online-reputation

Customer satisfaction is the key to the success of any business. When customers are not happy with the brand, they not only leave the brand, but they also spread a bad word for it, which ends up ruining its online reputation. Therefore, every business that wants to be successful needs to keep its customers satisfied. Happy customers talk well about the brand and spread a good word about it amongst others.

Below are a few tips that businesses can use to keep their customers satisfied and get good reviews from them.

Keep Customers Satisfied

Respond to Customer Queries
Customers don’t hate anything more than a brand that doesn’t care about their opinion and queries. Even if the product was not satisfactory, they will not get turned off by it as much as they will feel bad about the brand not caring about them. Therefore, if a business wants to keep their customers happy, they should reply to every customer query. By answering their questions, businesses will be able to improve their image and make customers feel valued.

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Branding

What Mistakes You Should Avoid When Naming Your Business

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Company Branding

Naming your business is the moment where all your motivation and excitement reaches its absolute pinnacle. You start with a hazy idea for a business which gradually grows into a more detailed and comprehensive design and you then determine how you will manage different operations and management functions. Once you start work on your business plan, you start thinking about the best name for your brainchild. What group of alphabets will sum up all your services and values in a perfect way?

It is hard to choose a name for a business as it becomes the identity of your enterprise. A name which is difficult to relate to or remember can be a disaster, while the right name can be the perfect brand you had always wanted. So how do you make the right choice? By avoiding any major mistakes while choosing a name for your start-up!

Make sure that you don’t make any of the following mistakes while choosing your business name.

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Branding

Great Logo Design Tips for a Business Startup

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As a startup, you will likely consider whether you want to spend valuable resources and time on a logo design. A logo may cost as little as $5 to even hundreds of thousands of dollars to create a unique brand appeal. The essential goal of a logo is after all, to create a perception around the business, which is why creating a good logo in the beginning, is a good foundation for branding prospects.

When it comes to logo design, you have a wide range of options to getting it done as there are freelancers and creative design agencies that readily provide this service. However, if you want to incorporate your element into the logo, then follow these tips for a great logo design that becomes the foundation of your brand!

Focus on Simplicity

Simplicity doesn’t necessarily have to mean a stagnant logo that looks elegant, but nothing more than that. A simplistic logo could have some moving pieces, like the old Apple logo with the rainbow colours. To create a simplistic logo, focus on the colours and what emotions they are associated with. If your brand wants to focus on elegance, then grayscale and solid colours are good to work with.

On the other hand, if your brand wants to create a powerful and authoritative image, then dark red, green, yellow, and gold can work to perfection. In any case, make sure that your logo is simple and easy on the eyes as doing so will make it easy for people to remember it for a long time.

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Legal Advice

How to Handle Business Trademark Issues

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If you are planning to set up a new business in Australia, there are a hundred and one things you will need to sort out before you can inaugurate the business. One of the most important things in this long list is a business trademark.

The name, brand, and logo of your business all need to be trademarked if you want your business to have its own identity in the industry and with the customers. If you don’t apply for a trademark, then there is a high chance that another business might use your logo or name and launch their own company, without any legal ramifications whatsoever. They could easily get a trademark and you might be charged for trademark infringement all because they registered it before you did.

Such are the technicalities of trademark registration. If someone uses your business identity and you didn’t bother to go to the trouble of getting it registered, you could be losing loyal customers who would unsuspectingly opt for your competitor’s services with the same name as you! And to rub salt into the wounds, you can’t file for trademark infringement since you didn’t have the brand and logo registered in the first place.

The only way to make it a win-win situation and ensure that your customers are not swindled away by anyone else is to register for a logo and business brand. Think it’s difficult? There are indeed a number of procedures involved and you can get answers to your questions below,

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Starting a Business

How to Choose the Right Name For Your Business?

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Choosing a name for your business is every bit as important as trying to ensure services to customers in the industry, and even more so! Since your business name is the identity of your service, it will be the name with which the market and customers will identify you. If the name is unrelated and seemingly irrelevant to the product or service you offer, then the customers will find it hard to remember, and your name will eventually be forgotten.

Remember, in an industry which is highly competitive, a name which is difficult to remember or relate to a service, is bad enough to drive away customer traffic of existing customers. This is why, if you don’t choose the right name for your business, you run a high risk of losing customers who have the potential to become loyal clients.

Do you want to know what your business name should be? Keep the following points in mind while deciding an appropriate name for your business. Read more on branding

Reinforce Key Elements of Business Value
Make sure that your potential customer doesn’t have to think twice, to understand what you have to offer. Ambiguity or vagueness in a name can prove catastrophic for the business. Make sure to have combinations of words which give the customer an idea of the value you offer.

Experts discourage the use of number strings and symbols displayed as a business name, as it might confuse the target market about your product or service portfolio.

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Starting a Business

What Challenges Does an SME and Business Start-up Face In Australia

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Business-Start-up

If you have planned out everything for your new start-up; then are you ready for the challenges which lie ahead in your endeavour? There are many things to take care of in your new business, but you also need to be ready for any possible challenge which may come in your way.

Do you know what challenges you need to be ready for, and what do you need to do to tackle them? Following are some challenges that every business start-up has to face in their initial days.

Will To Persevere
The first set of problems is demanding enough to get a new business owner thinking. Many start-up owners begin to see quitting as a viable solution as compared to the problems of huge bills, negative customer reviews and unstable operations.

The key solution to deal with this challenge is to persevere and keep working hard.

Harbor Unrealistic Expectations
It is important to analyse the due demand for your business product and garner realistic expectations. Project your initial revenue with a clear idea of the realistic situation. Setting unrealistic expectations can prove to be problematic for the business in the long run.

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