Monthly Archives: March 2016

Sales

Short Run CD Printing, Outsource or In-House, Timing and Artwork Software

With the increasing popularity of digital downloads as a means of getting the latest music track into your collection, the audio CD printing and duplication business has seen a decline in large volume orders but it’s certainly not a dying industry. The change has really only been in order quantities but to counter this development there has been a marked increase in the amount of short run CD printing orders that are placed. You can download amazingly complex electronic studio software with multitrack recording facilities and load it onto your laptop for less than a hundred pounds.

Do It Yourself or Call In The Professionals?

This facility of being able to very cheaply set up a home recording studio has led many artists to consider producing their CDs themselves. A CD duplication tower can be obtained for a few hundred pounds enabling people to burn a hundred CDs relatively quickly in their own home studio. Printing the CDs can be done using a regular inkjet printer and inkjet compatible printable CDs. The problem is, all this is time consuming and without putting in a tremendous amount of time and effort, it’s never quite as good as the professionals.

The short run CD printing project budget is always a major deciding factor when it comes to the in-house or outsource decision. If your graphic design skills are not up to scratch, however, you would probably be much better off paying for the professionals to take care of the CD printing and packaging and putting your extra time and expertise into the studio sessions perfecting the music recordings and mixes.

If you do work something out with a supplier, then the next consideration is the quantity of CDs to order. As with most businesses, the more you order, the lower the unit cost. This is especially important for orders of less than 500 discs where there can be a significant difference in price bands per hundred units ordered. After the 500 unit mark the savings per 100 units become smaller as the fixed cost doesn’t change, but if your order goes into the thousands, then you will see a good saving. You also need to be confident that you can sell this amount of units.

There are many small businesses out there which can turn around 200 CDs in 48 hours. You must, however, pay close attention to the artwork that you submit to your supplier if you choose to do it yourself. Many game breaking delays have been caused by unsuitable artwork or even copyright issues where the artwork involves an image created by another artist preventing the supplier from being able to legally produce the work for you.

Artwork Software Skills

Knowledge of design for CD printing and packaging is important but also, knowledge of the printing processes that are likely to be used to print onto the surface of a CD, is equally important in order to produce a design that can be easily and effectively printed. If you’re getting your CDs printed professionally but you don’t want to pay the supplier to produce the artwork as well, you should most certainly ask them for their disc and packaging artwork templates and for some detailed advice about their particular artwork requirements. Different suppliers will use slightly different templates which are tailored to their particular process and, whilst there probably won’t be a huge difference, it may be enough to cause a delay if artwork has to be re-submitted to suit their process.

For those of you who are going it alone with the artwork design, the following information will prove useful and may save you from a major headache later in the project.

There are various artwork software packages available that can be used to design a CD on-body print and the CD packaging print. Some are quite basic but are designed specifically for this job. The following packages can be downloaded from the internet and some are free downloads:

· CD Label Designer 6.0 – (Free download)

· Cover XP 1.65 – (Free download)

· Nero Cover Designer – (Free download)

· Sure Thing Disc Labeler v6 Deluxe – (around £20)

· Disketch Disc Label Software – (around £17)

True to the old saying, you get what you pay for with these packages (or don’t pay for in some cases) but they may serve a purpose for you.

If you already have some graphic design experience then you may have come across or may have experience of using a professional artwork software package. The following examples are not specifically for producing artwork for CDs and packaging but they will all do an amazing job if you work with a template and pay attention to the finer details as they can be used to produce very high resolution or vector quality artwork files:

· Adobe Illustrator, InDesign or Photoshop

· CorelDRAW Graphics Suite

· Quark Express

· Xara Designer

· Serif Drawplus

As you would imagine, these professional software packages don’t come cheap but if you don’t mind using an older version from a couple of years back you can pick them up for a good price from various websites if you search for them on the internet. If your experience with any of these packages is limited then you can also find many tutorials on the web to point you in the right direction. You may even be able to find a tutorial specifically assisting with CD on-body design or CD packaging design.

Accounting

The Impact of Millennials in the Workplace

Study after study has been conducted on how employers can attract and retain Millennials and how they are changing the workplace. However, as a non-Millennial, specifically a Gen-Xer (ages 34 – 54), I began to examine the impact or effect that Millennials are having on non-Millennials in the workplace. The expectation that stands out the most to me is for rapid career progression. This was never more evident to me than when I was promoted to my current position within my organization.

I work in the financial services industry and have been with the same company for a little over 13 years. I was hired into the company through their Leadership Development Program, which is intended to put graduates of the program on the fast track to success. Although I have progressed very nicely in my career, there were times when I felt that my career was being stalled. However, I later realized that my career stalled because I did not take control of it.

When I first joined the bank, the only people I saw in the position in which I now serve were older or more mature men who had been with the bank for many years. Therefore, in my mind, it would take me years to naturally progress to that position. Once I was hired into the position almost two years ago, I was actually shocked to find that there were people in their twenties and early thirties in the position. My first reaction was that I could not believe that a company would entrust that level of authority to people so young and with such a lack of experience.

As Gen-Xers or Baby Boomers in the workplace, we have to make a decision as to whether we are going to resent Millennials for almost demanding that they are promoted quickly into Senior level positions or learn from them and position ourselves for rapid career progression, as well.

Millennials are definitely having a huge impact on the workforce. However, it is important that employers and managers manage the impact so that is does not negatively impact non-Millennials and the overall morale of the company.

Gynevella Michelle Ballard is an entrepreneur, author, and public speaker. Michelle’s topics include, personal and professional development, financial literacy, and keys to living life on purpose. She is also currently enrolled in the Masters of Entrepreneurship Degree Program at Western Carolina University.

Small Business

4 Basic Tips to Keep in Mind While Starting a Business

People use the services of a taxi to reach their destination safely just like they would have if they travelled in a car owned by them. It is unlike other public transport where there is a crowd, and there are chances of not being able to reach the destination on time. If you ever intend to start a business of your own and provide comfortable taxi rides to people, here are a few tips that can help you.

• Ensure that your car looks presentable to anyone hiring it. Your car should be spick and span to attract passengers and accordingly reach wherever they intend to go.

• Affix your car with the latest technology and gadgets like GPS, music system, etc. this would allow the passenger to feel safe, guide your driver to the right destination at the fastest time and entertain your passengers with good music.

• Allow them to book your services beforehand. You may have a fleet of taxis randomly allowing passengers to hire it. You could increase the prospects by having the right marketing tools and allowing them to book your services beforehand. They can give you a call or directly book online.

• Make it convenient for them to make payments as there are times when passengers do not have money with them and insist on making a payment with their credit or debit cards. Having a swiping device would allow them to make the payments easily. You could also make provision for them to pay online beforehand or after they have received the services.

While a person hires a taxi service, the first thing they expect out of it is comfort and fast services

Accounting, Advertising

What’s The Best Tool To Manage Inventory !!

The success and failure of a business can be determined by the efficacy of the stock management practices it employs. Certainly, poor stock control can lead to cash flow problems. In fact, this may even lead to a business collapse. It is for this reason that you must manage your stock levels very closely.

Generally, plenty of the assets of small businesses are tied up in inventory. A field service company’s inventory can include any raw materials, work in progress and finished products they have and intend to sell in order to gain income. Determining how much stock your business really needs is where inventory problems often begin.

The main goal of inventory management is quick turnaround, ensuring low costs and guaranteeing customer satisfaction. Due to the fact that inventory management directly influences cash flow, you need to have a solution that will make sure that you are indeed managing your inventory properly. So if you think that your current inventory systems are causing cash flow woes, it is time for you to implement a system that does all the management and monitoring for you. In other words, you must have an effective tool to manage inventory.

Important Considerations When Choosing The Best Inventory System

Stock and Cash – With plenty of inventory at hand, your cash will be tied up and cannot be used for other important business activities. With an inventory tracking solution in place, you will know exactly what you have on-hand and if there is a need to order for more. Efficient and proven management systems will incredibly increase your cash flow whereas poor management will cripple your business.

The Type of Stock – You need to have a system that monitor what is selling and what is not. Fast-moving stock and goods can bring in cash faster while slow-moving inventory can actually restrict your cash flow. Thus, it is very crucial for you to know this slow-moving stock and consider evaluating it again if it really needs to be in your warehouse.

The Level of Stock – This refers to the volume of inventory that you maintain on hand for sale. Today, managing your stock does not necessarily mean that you must stock more than enough inventory in your warehouse. You must have a system that efficiently monitors what you have on hand and notifies you if it is time to restock.