For about 8 years now, my mom and I have been collecting hard plastic dolls from the 1950s era. Of course, every collector ends up with items they don’t want, so to get rid of those — and also to try to make a little extra cash — we decided to try starting an eBay business.
We had some success with this, but not a whole lot. Because our main idea was to get rid of our castoffs, we didn’t have a whole lot of success business-wise — but we did accomplish what we wanted, which was to downsize our collections and focus on our better quality dolls. It’s not easy to start your own eBay store, though, and we did encounter some bumps and bruises along the way: It is time consuming to write item descriptions, answer questions, and pack and ship items, and there are of course always the malcontents who make selling a pain in the you-know-what.
For aspiring small business owners, thogh, eBay is a great way to start your own business. Although the fees are annoying, they aren’t as a high as the overhead you would face if you leased a brick-and-mortar store or even ran your own ecommerce website. But the biggest advantage to eBay is how high traffic it is — you’d never get that many potential customers looking at your own small online shopping site!
Yes, eBay has its down sides — but overall, I think it can provide some really great opportunities for entrepreneurs!
I always liked the excitement and anticipation of getting hired for a new job … and I always hated that first day on the job. I have never really done well with things that I wasn’t familiar with. I like already knowing what I’m doing so that I can feel confident in my abilities. And of course, you never know what you are doing at a new place on the first day of a new job.
I used to just try to fake it a lot. I remember one time when a new boss asked me to head over to the local office supply store to research the prices of guillotine cutters. (This was back in the days before you could just do that type of research on the Internet.) I had no idea what a guillotine cutter was but I figured that I’d figure it out when I got there.
I wandered the aisles for nearly an hour passing through rotary paper trimmers and commercial shredders and all sorts of equipment that I’d never seen before. Finally, I had to ask for help. It turns out that guillotine cutters are just paper cutters (the manual kind as opposed to electric paper cutters). Who knew?
When I got back to the office, the boss asked what had taken so long. Did I fess up? Of course not. I pretended that I knew exactly what I was doing until I had the hang of the job down pat!
Every so often, certain concepts need refurbishing and doing so can have quite an unexpected yet positive result. Such is the case when it comes to plastic business cards. Paper business cards are a medium that individuals and businesses have always used to ensure customers and clients have pertinent information at their fingertips. However, with so many offering these cards, it is more than easy for information to get lost in a shuffle of papers and clutter. A professionally designed business card made of plastic draws the eye quickly making it easier to spot and less likely to get lost. Plus, individuals are more likely to keep a plastic business card in a purse or wallet with credit cards where it will be seen more often.
Even if a person is very orderly, plastic cards in a file system will always be much easier to spot. This is why many businesses now choose to offer clients a business card in the form of a rolodex card. The card fits neatly and nicely in the file and has all a business’s important information pre printed on the front. Plastic cards can come in any color or design and can even be created using recycled PVC materials.
Most of us know the basics about how to do research because we’ve spent time in schools that required us to do this. However, the type of research techniques we learned in college don’t necessarily apply to the research that we’ll have to do in the real world. This can throw people for a loop when they’re given a professional project that they need to learn more about.
Google is never enough. A professional report needs to be based on detailed facts not just superficial information so you can start with a Google search but you must go deeper.
Interview someone. If you need to know more about the Net Trav program at Synergy One, call someone from the Synergy Marketing Group and ask for an interview. You’ll learn more this way than you ever could otherwise.
Be able to back up what you say. Keep clear and organized records of where your information comes from in case someone questions you. There’s more than just a plagiarism claim from your college at stake here.
Doing professional research means being a professional about it so don’t cut any corners! Your job could be on the line.
Whether you are looking for office paper shredders for your business, or a home shredder for personal use, a quality shredder is needed to protect your — and your customers’ — privacy.
Here are a few things to look for in a good paper shredder.
It shreds both ways. Although strip-cut shredders are more common (and usually less expensive), cross-cut shredders — which shred in both directions — make it virtually impossible for anyone to piece a document back together. These high security shredders pretty much obliterate any document, and is by far the safest way to dispose of sensitive documents.
It doesn’t jam. Jammed paper shredders are among some of the most frustrating things to deal with — and some of them jam so easily! Others, however — such as the Fellowes Powershred shredder — are designed to avoid paper jams while shredding.
It shreds higher quantities of paper, and quickly. Gone are the days when you had to feed just a couple of sheets of paper to a shredder at a time, for fear of it jamming or the motor overheating. These days, paper shredders can generally handle more sheets of paper at once, and run for a longer length of time before needing a break to cool down.
Finding a good paper shredder is actually easier than you might thing. Just make sure to shop around and compare the details of each product!
