Michael Levitt's Blog, page 13

Summer Checklist for All Commercial Property Owners

One part of being a commercial property owner is caring for the building and parking lot. You risk turning away potential business if you let the outside get unruly. You should tackle tasks each summer to ensure your parking lot and property look pristine. The following is a summer checklist all property owners should follow.

Outdoor Checklist

Taking care of the outside of your building is vital because it shows you care about the property. Take advantage of the nice weather and clean up the landscaping. Clear away leaves, weeds, tree limbs, and other debris from around the parking lot and exterior of the building. Add grass seeds to any bare spots, and plant new flowers or bushes where needed.

Clean out the gutters to prevent water blockages and flooding. You don’t want to deal with mold or water damage. Change any lightbulbs that no longer work to ensure your property is adequately lit. Proper lighting keeps customers, employees, and residents safe. Look for any broken or damaged shingles, and fix them straight away.

It’s important to clean your parking lot, too. Hire a professional team to come out and fix any potholes or cracks in the parking lot. Now is also a good time to repaint any faint lines.

Inside Checklist

Check for signs of mold, mildew, or water damage in the crawl space or basement if your property has one. Closely inspect all seals around the windows, doors, and ledges. If you find sitting water, you may have broken seals and should get that fixed quickly.

Hire professionals to come out and look at the HVAC unit to ensure everything is running smoothly. Verify that all fire extinguishers are in working order, and do the same for suppression methods. Ensure the batteries in the smoke detectors are functioning by testing each sensor.

Go over evacuation plans with employees and residents. You want everyone aware of what to do in case of an emergency.

Closing Thoughts

Property owners should follow this checklist every summer in addition to usual weekly maintenance to keep their building and parking lot looking clean and beautiful.

Valet Tech Trends That Will Shorten Wait Times

Technology has improved many industries and businesses in ways we never thought possible. With more investment and techniques, people can enhance their business models and improve efficiency. Valet parking is one of those businesses that have seen many advancements in recent years with new technologies. Here are a few tech trends that help valets shorten wait times.

Texting Alerts

Phones have opened many possibilities across many industries, and the valet business is one of them. A feature many valets use now is allowing customers to text ahead so the valet can have their cars ready for them when they want to leave. This increases customer satisfaction and speeds up the process overall for the business.

Automated Valet Parking

Automated valet parking has become a powerful tool for the valet industry since now customers can leave their cars in a drop-off area, and a computer will plan a place to park the vehicle. This removes all the guesswork and makes it easy for employees to do their jobs efficiently and without mistakes. Which is just one way that automated valet parking improves profits.

Touchless Payment and Ordering

Another excellent method for shortening valet wait times is the touchless payment and ordering that has become popular since the start of the pandemic. People no longer need exact cash or a card, using their phones for fast checkouts and payments to speed up the process. All while protecting themselves and your workers at the same time!

Ticketless Valet Service

With the move towards a non-contact world, many places now use ticketless services to prevent the spread of diseases. Additionally, it speeds up the process as you don’t need to check a ticket; instead, a system does it for you.

These are just a few technological trends in the past few years that massively improve valet wait times. These methods can save you a lot of money and increase your overall customer and employee satisfaction.

5 Safety Tips for Your Business and Employees

There are many components to creating a successful and safe business. When you have to manage and take care of your employees and customers, there are certain actions you need to pay special attention to. Everyone’s safety is important, so learn these five safety tips for your business and employees for a better experience.

Emergency Drills

It’s no secret that emergencies happen every day, and some situations could get out of control in no time. Having an emergency exit drill with escape routes, guidelines, and quick actions is necessary for your business and employees to feel safe. Every month, take time to go over these guidelines and actions to keep everyone informed and ready in case of an emergency.

First Aid Kit

This is essential to any place and business; accidents happen all the time, and having the necessary tools to address different types of situations that don’t require medical intervention is important. A first aid kit will help you and your employees stay safe, whether they have a headache or a small cut.

Medical Records

An employee’s medical records are important because they will tell you everything you need to know about the person. There are different ways to maintain medical records efficiently so that only you and the allowed personnel have access to them. This data is confidential, so you need to keep it safe and stored.

Put Employees First

An essential part of your business is the people who help you run it and keep it active. If one of your employees isn’t feeling well or is asking to take a day off, the best way to address this is by trusting your staff and giving them the time off. Happy staff will result in a happy environment and a successful business.

Check the Floors Constantly

One of the best ways to keep your business and employees safe is to keep the workspace and floors clean and ready. Whether you work inside a warehouse, a restaurant, or a store, maintaining a clean space will ensure everyone’s safety. Every day, do a walkthrough to detect and correct any possible threats.

Strategies for Success as a New Business

Operating a successful business includes keeping track of several factors that play into the overall image and accomplishments of the company. It is easy to get caught up in the profits of a well-selling product or a spree of good choices that lead to growth. However, it would be best if you implemented tactics to keep a business running for a long time. These are some strategies for success as a new business.

Keep Your Files in Order

One of the most significant issues a company runs into after hitting the fast track to success is keeping its financials in order. Things that should be discovered immediately end up being discovered months or years later. Having an orderly filing system for every company function helps save you money in the long run. Stay organized and keep a close eye on every aspect of the business.

Save Your Profits

No matter how successful your business is, it is essential not to let the money get to you. While certain luxuries are bound to find their way into your budget, it is impossible to predict the future. With that sentiment in mind, it is good to remember that there must always be enough cash to keep the business afloat during turbulent times.

Have a Goal

A key strategy to remember is to always have a current goal in mind and another to follow up when the first is accomplished. Building upon each one as you progress is a great way to ensure that you always have a clear path to travel. By avoiding times of stagnant operation, you are more likely to continue growing.

Create an In-Depth Strategy

Having a strategy for different aspects of your business helps prepare you for different scenarios and sets a detailed plan for the company. For customer relations, having a social commerce strategy is essential, while logistic plans are necessary for shipping and storing goods. Being prepared is the best way to counter unexpected events or mishaps in the future.

Taking care to ensure your business thrives well into the future is the responsibility of any owner who wishes to prosper. While there are several things to keep in mind, building a team of people best suited for each role in the organization you require is crucial. Hopefully, these strategies for success as a new business help clarify your priorities and lead to your business thriving.

Easy Ways You Can Declutter Professional Video Equipment

Keeping the workspace clutter-free helps routine operations look professional and run smoothly. If you’re currently in a cluttered studio space, then it might not be clear where you should even start making tweaks. Plus, professional video production requires a lot of complex equipment that will break quickly in the wrong hands. Keep your studio clean with these easy ways you can declutter professional video equipment.

Expand Your Shelving Units

If your cables, cameras, mics, lights, and more equipment are overflowing in your inventory, it’s time to make some more shelf space. After all, overstuffing your current shelves can lead to equipment damage if something falls to the ground or bumps and scrapes a nearby surface. This is particularly helpful when you find yourself taking on more projects that require additional equipment to complete.

Business expansion is a good thing, but it often requires you to expand your production setup, too. Something as quick as getting new shelves for your equipment can help your hardware expand with you instead of holding you back.

Remember Post-Filming Walkthroughs

Of course, completing routine inventory inspections is one of the best ways to maintain professional video equipment. That said, some occasions call for special inspections, such as when completing a new project. Whether you work on live broadcasts or pre-shot video content, bringing equipment back to the inventory can lead to novice mistakes.

These mistakes include putting equipment in the wrong place or storing it in hazardous positions. By conducting inventory walkthroughs after filming, you can ensure employees don’t leave the area in a mess after a long day of work. Remind new hires of the importance of proper storage and teach them best practices to create consistency across every project.

Know When To Replace Hardware

A helpful way to prevent equipment clutter in the studio is to remember to replace old hardware when it comes time to update to a newer model. That way, you can have all the space available to use for the equipment you need to use. However, there are situations when it benefits your studio to not get rid of older hardware.

For instance, if your primary camera breaks, having a high-quality backup ready to go is always helpful. In addition, you may need different cameras, mics, and other equipment for different purposes. If you need to update your hardware without completely getting rid of all older units, then organize your storage space accordingly. Suffice it to say that this is a situation where new shelving units will aid you greatly.

Remember these easy ways you can declutter professional video equipment to ensure your production space remains safe and efficient.

How to Reduce Business Stress

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You can’t expect to run a business without experiencing at least a little bit of stress. It’s just the name of the game. However, it’s important to remember that it should really only be a small amount of stress. If things are beginning to feel overwhelming, then something needs to change. The good news is that there are plenty of things you can do to help alleviate your stress levels. We’ll run through some of the most effective methods below. Incorporate all of these into your operations, and it won’t be long before you’re beginning to feel a little better.

Focus On Positives

It’s very easy to get drawn into thinking about the negative sides of your business operations and the things that are causing you to feel stress in the first place. However, it’s important to try to keep a balanced view of things; even if some things aren’t going as well as you’d like them to, there are probably still a lot of things that you’re doing correctly! You should also ensure that you properly celebrate your successes when they come around. It’ll help to bring a dose of positivity to your business life.

Key Phone Numbers

There’s nothing as stressful as things going wrong. You’ll feel a lot better about the prospect of things going wrong if you know who to call if it happens. You can’t always prevent things from breaking down, but you can have a plan to combat the problem! So look at keeping some key numbers written down so you know exactly who to call. You won’t be worried about your commercial trucks breaking down if you have the contact details for a mobile truck repair company, for instance. It’s far from ideal when things stop working as they should, but you’ll always have options to ensure they don’t impact your operations any more than they need to. 

Trustworthy Staff

A good, reliable, and trustworthy team of staff is very much worth its weight in gold. If you have that at your company, then you’ll find that it’s much easier to overcome difficult moments. After all, everything’s easier when you have people by your side! You can begin your path towards having a great team of employees by improving your hiring process, which will help to push the best candidates in your direction. 

Outsource Tasks

If you’re not in a position to hire multiple employees to do every task, then look at outsourcing. This can be an extremely useful method for combating stress induced by having to take care of too many tasks because it takes things off your plate, and you know that the task is being completed to a high standard. There’s no shortage of things that you can outsource to other companies. Most small businesses will find that outsourcing things like their IT needs, marketing, legal, and account tasks can not only reduce stress but also enhance the quality of the company since the people you outsource the tasks to will be experts. 

Ways To Increase Brand Awareness This Summer

All business owners understand that increasing brand awareness is challenging. What if we told you that there are easy-to-implement strategies that could help? Well, there are, and we have a few excellent ways to help increase your brand awareness this summer.

Be Aware of Your Surroundings

You need to pay attention to what’s going on in your industry. Talk with your marketing team if you have one. Look at the recent marketing trends along with what your target audience wants.

For example, online video consumption has been steadily increasing over the past few years. Use this knowledge to reach your consumers in ways that they appreciate. Use trends like specific sounds to grab the attention of your target audience. Host summer pop-up events if you’re launching new products or services.

Stay Frequent and Consistent With Posting

Social media rewards businesses and creators who post consistently. Stay on top of trends happening online and use them to your advantage. Create Instagram videos about finding clothing if you’re an online clothing retailer. Show your creative process for making a t-shirt design using popular sounds.

Google also rewards frequent and consistent blog posting. The more you put online, the more it rewards you with online traffic.

Repeat Positive Reviews and Stories

Use repetition to your advantage. When individuals leave positive reviews or stories about your business, repeat these raving reviews in ads, on social media, and even at conferences and engagements.

Consumers want to know why people love your products or services. They want to see what you have going on and why you’re such an excellent company. The positive, repeated stories will help build up your brand awareness.

Team Up With Other Trustworthy Brands

Partnering with other trustworthy brands is an excellent way to build brand awareness this summer. What are two big brands that come to mind? Those two companies have worked incredibly hard to build the trust of consumers. Why not use their success to leverage trust for your own?

For example, test out collaborations on different social media platforms. There are inexpensive ways to reach lots of people, create trust, and make relationships with other similar brands.

If you’re a candle company, work with other businesses to put together a “spa day” kit. Fill the kit with candles, gift certificates, comfy clothes, nail polish, face masks, hair products, face cleansers, and specialty lotions. It all depends on who you want to work with. Know that if you have the opportunity to work with a well-known, trusted brand, you should take it.

Always think long-term when it comes to building brand awareness. Don’t go down quick-fix paths that could eventually lead to harm. Take your time and ensure you’re working with the right people.

How To Accommodate All Learning Styles in Staff Training

Employee training plays a critical part in the success of any business. As the ones operating your enterprise, your staff needs to know what to do and how to do it well. Training creates synergy, allows you to establish expectations, and informs your team on all legal and business-specific conventions. Like any other learning opportunity, people approach and benefit from their classes differently. Keep reading to explore some tips on accommodating all learning styles and optimizing your staff training.

Get To Know Your Employees

Understanding your employees helps you dictate how to accommodate them best. Smaller businesses one-up larger corporations when building a community-centered workspace and team. It’s easier to get to know your employees when there aren’t an excessive number of them.

Discovering everyone’s learning styles and preferences allows you to create a productive training module. Sending out surveys, requiring learning style quizzes, and simply communicating what works and what doesn’t gathers all the information you need to build an optimized training session.

Allow Customizability and Feedback

Creating the opportunity for training feedback and customizable sessions further ensures you accommodate all. Like feedback surveys, customizable training sessions allow your employees to have a say in the matter. Customized training provides them with options to dictate certain aspects of training like pacing and individual versus group activities.

Explore All the Programs Available

Aside from your company’s specific regulations, industries also require compliance and training on mandatory, government-established conventions. For example, healthcare businesses take in numerous considerations, on top of different learning styles, before choosing a compliance program to meet their HIPAA requirements. The type of program chosen affects the success of compliance and implementation of standards.

Exploring all the available program selections also determines how much training you can customize, the type of training you offer, topic relevancy to your specific practice, and any additional resources needed.

Offer Multiple Training Options

The more selections and variations you offer, the more people you accommodate. Although it’s not always realistically attainable, offering various options increases productivity and brings numerous other benefits to your business.

Training modules often come in two forms: digital or in-person. Both provide different advantages, depending on one’s learning style, schedules, and access to resources. Offering both styles, hybrid versions, or multiple sessions allows your employees to choose what best works for them.

Accommodating your employee training to meet the needs of various learning styles ensures the success of your training sessions. Properly trained staff members can perform better and help your business succeed. On top of improving your staff and operations, accommodating training for different learning styles shows that you care about your employees and want them to succeed and grow with you.

Things Every Dental Clinic Needs to be Successful

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Now is a busy time to be a dentist; with many patients stuck on waiting lists for treatment and a shortage of available dentists, your services could be in high demand. If you are currently employed but have been considering moving away from your current dental clinic to launch your own business, there has never been a better time to take the leap. But, it is crucial to remember that while there may be demand for dentists amid the national shortage, this does not mean you will automatically be inundated with patients. Understanding what your clinic needs to be successful and how you can ensure that it remains in demand even once the current shortage has eased is essential for your clinic to be successful in the long term. Here are some of the crucial things that every dental clinic business needs to be successful both right now and in years to come:                                                                                                                                                                                                             

The Best Equipment

Having the best equipment is a must; otherwise, providing your patients with the highest standard of treatment will be almost impossible. Sourcing the best dental supplies and equipment from the start is vital to getting your business off to the best beginning. Carrying out product research to ensure you purchase your medical supplies from a reliable, high-quality supplier is so important. Building a relationship with reliable suppliers from the beginning is beneficial for your clinic and will ensure you always have the best equipment delivered when you need it.

Accessibility for Every Patient

As well as having the best equipment and medical supplies to treat your patients, you also need to ensure that your clinic building can offer the best experience for every patient. Ensuring that your building is accessible and easy to use for everyone is so important. Providing easy access to a building for every user is often an afterthought, but this should not be the case. For every patient to feel valued, you need to be sure that they can access your building easily and feel welcome in your clinic.

Well-Trained Staff

If there is one area of a business that stands out and makes a lasting impression, it is the level of service that you receive from its staff. A warm welcome for every patient does not cost you any money, but it does make a difference to how your business is perceived by its customers. Having well-trained and friendly staff helps even the most nervous patients feel calmer and more at ease. Every patient that enters your clinic should have a positive experience and ensuring that your team is equipped with the knowledge to provide this is a must. If you want your patients to continue returning to your clinic, again and again, building a positive relationship with them is the best way to make this happen. Once you have established a reputation as a great dental clinic with friendly staff and gathered the testimonials to prove it, achieving long-term success at your dental clinic will be much easier.

How To Find Contractors for Services That You Don’t Frequently Use

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Whether you work in an office or have a construction site to manage, there’s a good chance that you work with contractors at some point in your projects. Even if your staff is well-trained and experienced, there are probably a few jobs that they won’t be able to do. If you need a specific kind of service frequently enough, then it’s probably a good idea to just hire an extra employee to take care of it. However, there may be situations where it’s not cost-effective to do that. As such, we hire contractors and outsource specific tasks to make things easier and more affordable for us.

But finding contractors can be difficult, especially if you don’t frequently use those services. For example, maybe you need some kind of construction-related service or surveying specialist for a project once a year. The problem here is that most businesses can build long-term relationships with their partners through consistent use. But if you only need them once every year, then it’s going to be tougher to find the right people.

So in this post, we’ll be covering a few tips on how to find contractors for a service or task that you don’t frequently use.

Always rely on the industry’s finest

Every industry has reputable names that can offer you a much better service than most other companies. These are the big names, the ones that you should always have in your contacts list because you know they’ll provide you with a good service. They might be a little more expensive than local services and they probably won’t offer discounts due to how infrequently you use them, but you’ll get a consistent and reliable quality of service.

Reach out to friends in the industry

While you might not have great relationships with the contractors that you’re looking for, you might have friends in the industry that do rely on those services more often. In cases like this, you may want to reach out to those industry contacts to see if they can introduce you to a service or refer you to someone. Whether it’s a commercial demolition service that you’re looking for or a legal expert in a particular field, referrals are often the best way to ensure that you can work with a trusted and reliable specialist.

Understand exactly what you’re looking for

If you need specialized construction workers, network administrators or developers for something highly specific, then it’s important that you know exactly what you’re looking for. It can be difficult to explain exactly what you need to someone if you don’t use the service often. You might not understand certain technical terms and the jargon can get really confusing if you’re not a part of that industry. In situations like this, it’s worth asking around to clarify what you need so you know what to look for and who to ask for. This will ensure that you get the service that you’re looking for and will make things easier for the future.