Category Archives: Business Advice

Electronic Signatures

Electronic signatures, also known as e-signatures, have become normal for a lot of people. They are essentially a product of the digital revolution that we’re experiencing – but do they hold the same weight as conventional signatures?

Although this is a question probably best answered by your local commercial lawyer, our team has rallied to provide some simple insights into the issue. As always, the following shouldn’t be seen as legal advice, but as simple informational content.

What is an e-signature?

Basically, an electronic signature is exactly what is sounds like – a signature that has been created via some sort of digital device. They come in a variety of forms, but are increasingly common as part of our everyday lives.

A lot of companies will make you sign electronically for things. For example, if you want to pick up a registered parcel from Australia Post, you will have to sign for it – on a digital device.

Are electronic signatures legal?

In Australia electronic signatures are seen as a rapid, streamlined way to work, reducing the need for paper copies of every document and increasing efficiency. In general, electronic signatures are completely legal in Australia, and they usually carry the same weight as conventional signatures.

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3 SEO Mistakes

If you are a business owner then hopefully you have had the good sense to employ a professional commercial cleaning company to clean your offices and other parts of your business premises. This presents you with many benefits, not least the fact that you can leave the planning and implementation of the cleaning schedule to them.

However, the cleanliness of your offices is not 100% their responsibility. On a day to day basis, you and your staff can contribute to how clean and healthy your offices are by taking some responsibility for keeping them clean such as tidying up any mess they create, wiping up spills when they happen, and so on.

For this to be achieved you do not necessarily have to give your staff comprehensive cleaning training, even though that would be beneficial, but you can at least make them aware of the need for cleanliness. In addition, you can also pass on to them some office cleaning hacks such as the fifteen below.

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The Pros And Cons Of Using Professional Removalists To Relocate Your Office

Whenever an office relocation is going to take place, numerous decisions and choices that have to be made. The first one is deciding that your business is going to move to new premises. Thereafter, whether the location of the new premises will be nearby, interstate or overseas. As you plan for an office relocation there is a further decision to be made, and that is what, if any, office removalists company you are going to hire. If your business decides to move interstate, interstate removalists will be a reliable option.

We say, “if any”, because hiring office removalists is not compulsory, and it could be that you have other contacts and resources that will help you with your office relocation. You may also be toying with whether or not paying for office removalists going to be the best use of your relocation budget.

If you are still unsure as to whether office removalists would be the best choice, we want to help you move closer to a decision. We hope to do so by outlining the pros and the cons of office removals helping to move your business to new premises. Hopefully, once you read through these you will be in a position to make your final decision, so let us get started with downsides first.

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With drug testing often being included in an employee’s contract of employment, there is the possibility that one day the test comes back positive, which means their employer has a very important decision to make. The options that are available to the employer range from termination, with the possibility of taking legal action against the individual, through to supporting them wholeheartedly which may even include them offering to pay for their employee’s drug rehab program.

If you own or run a business and have never had to face the reality of finding out a member of your staff is taking drugs, then if it does happen you might be shocked, and this runs the risk of you making a decision in haste. Instead, it is preferable that you are prepared in advance for this situation, and that means understanding what your options are, and what the consequences of each of them are.

The first thing you should focus on is checking whether or not the terms and conditions of the contracts which your employees have signed cover the misuse of drugs and what might happen if they fail a drug test. Regardless of how lenient or how severe you might wish any action that you could take against the individual to be, you are walking into a legal minefield if there are no policies regarding drug use specified in their terms and conditions.

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Facebook Ads

If you run a small landscaping business, you’re probably always looking for new ways to gain more clients and grow your workforce. The modern world is very digitally oriented, which means that you need to build a strong digital strategy. Your digital strategy should include things like Facebook and other social media marketing.

When it comes to Facebook ads marketing, it can be hard to get a decent return on investment, especially when you’re trying to sell something like landscaping services. However, there are a lot of different things that you can do to optimise the performance of your Facebook ads, including:

Making sure your ads are properly targeted:

High quality targeting is arguably the most important part of running a successful Facebook ads campaign. One of the best things about advertising on Facebook is the customizability that you have when it comes to choosing your audience. You can target your ads by a wide range of things, including age, gender, physical location and interests.

As a small, presumably localised landscaping business, you need to target your ads by location. You may also want to set age and interest parameters, but you will have to work these out for yourself. Ultimately, you want to be presenting your ads to people who are likely to use your services.

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Best Social Media Platform For Landscapers

Social media is without a doubt an extremely important part of digital marketing for landscapers. However, there are many, many different social media platforms out there, and it can be hard to decide which ones are the most effective and best to use.

Ultimately, landscaping is a predominantly visual art. You want to be using a social media platform which allows you to showcase your work using pictures and videos, and which delivers these to your followers fast and efficiently. Although a Facebook page is essential for your business, Instagram offers an easier way to share visual content.

What are the benefits of using Instagram for my landscaping business?

The benefits of using Instagram are numerous. You will be able to engage with more people, you will be able to build a large client base and you will be able to complete your weekly social media marketing tasks quickly and efficiently. Some of the other benefits of using Instagram to showcase your landscaping work include:

  • A huge percentage of the world’s population now uses Instagram. The number people using the platform recently passed one billion, which means that there’s huge potential to find new clients by using it.
  • Instagram lets you share photos and videos quickly and efficiently without having to worry about spending time creating written content.
  • Ultimately, people are more likely to react to visual content than to written content anyway, which makes it more important than ever to use a platform like Instagram to showcase your landscaping work.

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Business Taxes

A lot of business owners fall into the trap of believing that taxes and taxation rules are the sole field of accountant. They aren’t. In fact, a decent commercial lawyer who specialises in taxation law can be a major asset to your business – if you use them right.

In this article I’m going to have a quick look at a few of the things that an experienced commercial lawyer will be able to help you with when it comes to managing your business taxes. This isn’t financial or legal advice, but it should help guide you when it comes to employing a new lawyer.

The top 5 ways a commercial lawyer can help you organise your business taxes include:

  • They Can Help You Structure Your Business

An experienced commercial law team will be able to help you structure your business in the most tax favourable manner. There are a lot of things that you can do to minimise the amount of tax you have to pay and maximise your profit, but it can be hard to figure them out on your own.

  • They Can Help You Mount ATO Challenges

If you’ve been on the end of an unfavourable Australian Tax Office (ATO) decision then you’re well within your rights to challenge it and ask for the decision to be reviewed.

A commercial lawyer specialising in Australian tax law will be able to help you put your challenge together. Working alongside you and your team, they will help you come up with the best defence for your situation.

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Social Media Presence

There are two things that any successful online business must have in the modern world: a high quality website and a major social media presence. It is therefore extremely important to make sure that you dedicate at least a little time to things like social media marketing and improving your social media presence every single week, no matter how busy you are.

Customers and potential customers like to use businesses who they feel connected to. Engaging with your customers via social media will increase your chances of online business success, which means that it is essential that you put the time in to learn how to improve your social media presence and connect to more people.Our top 3 ways that you can improve your social media presence without having to work too hard include:

Create a clear social media strategy:
The single most important thing when it comes to building a strong social media presence is making sure that you have a clear, well-defined social media strategy. Without a strong strategy, you will basically be doing things in a haphazard way, failing to capitalise on your social media following, and missing out on potential clients as a result.

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Search Engine Rankings

Search engine ranking plays an important role, when it comes to earn profits with your website. There are several thousands of websites on the World Wide Web and to stand out from them, you need to have variety in search engine. If there is no good ranking for your website, there would be no one, who will know about your website. Browsers normally do visit more than 2 or 3 pages, unless they haven’t found the information, they are looking for. Search engine rankings help to increase traffic and also increase your earnings in return.

Here is what you can do to improve your search engine ranking.

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Link building

Link building is the ultimate goal with complete SEO. Your website needs to be judged as ‘popular’ – or worthwhile for a search engine to send their users to.

If a website is deemed to be popular, then a search engine feels confident that you could serve their user. Of course your website would need to tell the search engine that you have indeed got the products or services that the search engine user is looking for.

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