Growing a business is a complex process that involves many moving parts. It takes time, resources, and effort to achieve the desired level of growth. As a business owner, you need to focus on the essential steps that will take your business to the next level. Here are nine essential steps that can help you grow your business.

The Foundry can help change your business’s culture through consulting, coaching, staffing, and training.
 
Diversify Your Offerings
If your current product or service isn't bringing in sufficient profits, it's time to broaden your horizons. By offering a variety of products or services, you can attract new customers and break into new markets. Look for opportunities to offer complementary items that align with your strengths. This approach not only boosts revenue but also fosters customer loyalty.

Give Your Brand a Facelift
Marketing is essential for reaching your target audience and generating leads. If your current strategy is falling short, it's time to make a change. Consider rebranding, adjusting messaging, or exploring new channels. By identifying what works for your business and allocating resources accordingly, you'll see better results. Give your brand the boost it needs and start thriving.

Make New Connections by Networking
Networking is an essential part of growing your business. Attending industry conferences, trade shows, and other networking events is an excellent way to meet potential clients or partners. You can learn from other professionals in your industry and make valuable connections that can lead to new business opportunities.

Think Globally
Expanding internationally is a great way to drive business growth. However, it's important to conduct thorough research to identify the countries where your product or service is in high demand. You need to understand the regulations, cultural differences, and market dynamics of the countries you plan to expand to. This will help you make informed decisions and minimize risks.

Put Customers First
Providing excellent customer service is essential to building a loyal customer base. Customers want to feel valued and appreciated, and they will come back if they receive exceptional service. Train your staff on how to provide excellent customer service and create an environment that encourages feedback.

Implement a Document Management System
Streamline and improve your business operations by implementing a document management system. Don't waste money on expensive software - turn to free online PDF tools for document creation, editing, and conversion. Keep all your business documents organized and easily accessible in a central location, reducing the risk of data loss. Collaborate with team members from anywhere and enjoy increased efficiency with a document management system in place. If you're interested in implementing a document management system with PDFs, use a PDF converter. Then you can convert to a PDF file and organize your documents with ease.

Go Digital
In today's digital age, having a strong online presence is essential for business growth. You need to have a website, be active on social media platforms, and develop a content marketing strategy that drives traffic and leads. This will help you reach a broader audience and generate more revenue.

Use Automation and AI
Automation and AI platforms are the ultimate solution for businesses seeking operational efficiency. Automate repetitive tasks, streamline processes and save time and resources. Gain data-driven insights, enhance customer satisfaction and boost revenue growth. If you're interested in learning more about how an automation and AI platform can benefit your business, click for info on available options and features.

Seek Training for Web Tasks
As a business owner, it's essential to have a good understanding of how to handle web-related tasks yourself. Seeking training is an excellent way to acquire these skills. Gain control of your business with website management, ad campaign execution, and data analysis skills. Save money and time by handling these tasks in-house instead of hiring third-party contractors. For example, you can click here to explore an online resource about coding.
 
By following steps like implementing a document management system and using an automation and AI platform, you can increase revenue, build a loyal customer base, and expand your business to new markets. Remember to focus on your strengths, allocate resources wisely, and be flexible and adaptable to changing market conditions. With the right strategy, you can take your business to new heights.

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Davis Jameson is an experienced entrepreneur and business owner. He created Business Is Fun to spread the word about the joy that he thinks should come with owning a business. With the advice and resources he offers on the site, he hopes to help small business owners who are in a slump get their mojo back.

The video game industry has been on a constant rise in recent years, with a growing community of players and developers alike. With this growth, more and more individuals are becoming interested in pursuing a career in video game design and development. However, the path to landing a job in the industry can be a challenging one. From The Foundry, here are some tips and advice to help you get started on your journey toward a successful career in video game design and development.

1. Start a Gaming Channel
One of the best ways to improve your game design skills and develop your creativity is to start a gaming streaming channel. Creating content is an essential part of the process, and building a community around your gaming channel can help you get noticed by others who share your passion for gaming. This can also be a great way to demonstrate your skills to potential employers.

2. Use a 3D Modeling Tool to Help With Game Development
A 3D modeling tool can help you create high-quality textures and models for video game development. Game developers can use this tool to quickly create and iterate on texture designs, which can significantly reduce development time. When you utilize 3D modeling to develop a game, you can create games with impressive visual fidelity that fully immerse players in the world they create.

3. Showcase Your Projects at Conventions
Attending video game conventions can be a great way to connect with others, learn about new developments in the industry, and showcase your skills to potential employers. Some examples of popular gaming conventions include PAX, E3, and Gamescom. Be sure to bring your portfolio and have a few projects ready for showcasing.

4. Create Your Own Website or Blog
An online portfolio or blog can be a great way to showcase your skills and creativity to potential employers. You can use this platform to share your projects and document your progress. Be sure to include screenshots, videos, and descriptions of your work. Showcasing your work in this way can help you stand out from other candidates when applying for jobs.

5. Get Your Foot in the Door by Applying for Internships
Internships are a great way to get your foot in the door and gain valuable experience in the industry. Look for game design companies that offer internships, and take advantage of any opportunities that come your way. During your internship, be sure to network with professionals in the industry and build relationships with other interns.

6. Offer Game Development Tutoring Services
You can also offer tutoring services related to game development to help others get started in the industry. This can be a great way to gain experience and build your reputation as an expert in the field. You can offer tutoring services online, through video conferencing, or in person.

7. Start Your Own Video Game Business
​Starting your own business related to video games can be a rewarding way to pursue your passion and make a living. You can offer game design services, develop and sell your own games, or create tools and resources for other game developers. Be sure to register your business as an LLC to protect yourself legally and gain tax benefits.
 
A career in video game design and development can be an exciting, challenging, and rewarding path to pursue. By following these tips and advice, you can improve your skills, build your portfolio, and make valuable connections within the industry. Whether you start your own business, work for a game design company, or pursue another path in the industry, there are plenty of opportunities to succeed in this growing field.
 

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​Laura Pearson is a co-creator of Edutude. Through Edutude, Laura strives to find unique, creative ways for parents and educators to encourage students to be challenged, motivated and excited by learning. In addition to her work with Edutude, Pearson is an advocate for children's rights and education. She volunteers with local organizations that promote child literacy and provides mentorship to young students seeking educational guidance.Apart from her professional work, Pearson is an avid traveler with a love for immersing herself in diverse cultures. She has backpacked through Europe and Asia, and credits her travels with broadening her perspective and providing unique learning experiences.

 Business owners and leaders at every level have a constant duty to improve the company and boost operational productivity. One way to make the most of the resources at your disposal is by facilitating collaboration between the talented individuals in your employ. Effective collaboration not only makes better results possible, but also helps employees feel greater pride, satisfaction, and fulfillment in their work. While new tools are constantly emerging to make collaboration more convenient and accessible, it is also important for leaders to recognize and utilize the timeless methods that can still benefit businesses in the modern day.
 
For Roanoke-based workforce development support, visit The Foundry today!
 
1. Create Opportunities for Collaboration
Project managers cannot expect collaboration to occur unless they create the right environment for it. This starts by recognizing the strengths and weaknesses of respective teams and knowing when there is an opportunity for them to become greater than the sum of their parts.
 
Take a careful look at each team at your company and make note of how their skills and talents might overlap. When the need for a new project arises, think about whether or not it falls within one of these "overlap zones" and can benefit from the broad expertise of two or more departments. This approach can be much more effective than forcing collaboration between parties when the situation does not truly call for it.
 
2. Use a Project Management Platform
A project management platform can play a key role in improving collaboration among teams at any business. It provides an organized way to manage tasks and resources, enabling people to stay on top of their projects and communicate better. Automation features and real-time project visibility can also streamline processes and help ensure that teams are always informed of the latest updates. Having a reliable project management platform makes it easy for everyone to stay connected, organized, and productive.
 
3. Reward Collaborative Efforts
Experts explain that rewards, incentives, and recognition are important in the workplace because employee happiness often leads to a better business overall. When your teams put forth an earnest effort in collaborating for success, that is also something worth rewarding. All the more so when those efforts pay off, as this will incentivize the staff to continue making strides toward greater collaboration.
 
One way to reward collaborative progress is by using gift cards to easily reward respondents to internal surveys. This is a great way to encourage participation while learning about where and how collaboration efforts are succeeding and what can be improved upon.
 
4. Allow for Optional Team-Building
It can be hugely beneficial to make it possible for individuals from different teams or departments to mingle and collaborate even when it is not part of a mandatory project. Allow staff to opt in for team-building exercises, company excursions, or even office yoga sessions before work. For employees with an outgoing attitude, these opportunities can be gateways into fruitful collaboration.
 
You should also make it easy for individuals to seek help, advice, or input from colleagues outside their department. Leaders can do their part by maintaining an open-door policy and ensuring that everyone has access to the best communication tools.
 
5. Encourage Open Communication
Trust is the fundamental concept at the heart of any collaborative effort. To build trust, everyone involved needs to feel that they can speak their mind without fear of backlash or harsh judgment. This principle of open communication is something that must be a core value of your company culture and not just part of a one-off collaboration initiative. As a leader, you have a particular responsibility to show yourself to be a trustworthy person and to build trust between respective members of your team.
 
Whether you’re investing in a project management platform or encouraging open communication, collaboration has always been the key to accomplishing great things. While the nature of work evolves over time, the fundamental values that draw people together hardly change at all. That is why the same wisdom that fostered effective collaboration in the past continues to be useful today.

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Sue Hudson founded Biz Aid Central, an e-commerce craft store owner and maker. Sue created the site to help first-time and experienced entrepreneurs learn more about the best ways to fund their businesses and as a place to get support during tough times. The site’s tips, resources, and any future offerings will always be free. Sue simply wants to help her fellow entrepreneurs.

As parents, one of our main goals is to raise our children to be responsible and financially literate adults. To do this, it’s important to start teaching them financial lessons from a young age. The Foundry has compiled a list of tips and tricks that can help get your kids on the right path toward financial literacy.

Allowance
Giving your children an allowance is one way to teach them about money management. The exact amount will depend on the age of your child, but making sure they understand the correlation between work and money is key in this stage of their development. Make it a point to let them know that their allowance will be used for items such as snacks or toys instead of big-ticket items like a new phone or laptop.

Shopping Choices
Involvement in shopping decisions teaches kids how to compare prices and think through decisions before making purchases. When shopping with your child, make sure you explain why you are choosing certain brands over others or why buying generic items is sometimes the better option over name-brand items. This type of real-time learning experience helps children understand the concept of budgeting and how to stick within their means when it comes to spending money.

Decline Requests For Money When Appropriate
Teaching children about financial responsibility is an important life skill. One aspect of this is saying “no” to money and gift requests when appropriate. While it can be difficult to do so, explaining the importance of making thoughtful decisions about spending and saving will help children understand the value of money and how to manage it responsibly in the future.

Savings Account
Opening a savings account in your child's name is a wise step that can aid in teaching financial responsibility at a young age. By setting up automatic deposits into this account, your child will not need to worry about managing their funds, allowing them to focus on other important things. This encourages good savings habits that will be beneficial for them in the long run.

Number Exercises and Games
Introducing games and activities that involve numbers is an effective way to nurture your child's financial literacy skills. Board games give children a practical experience of using numerical concepts while providing them with a fun pastime. Taking the initiative to discuss these concepts during playtime can strengthen their understanding of related subjects outside the classroom setting.

Home Ownership Financial Concepts
It's crucial for children to grasp the basics of home ownership, including property tax implications, to prepare them for the future. They can get a better sense of what expenses to expect as adults by exploring examples of mortgage payments for specific properties based on price points. This understanding can help them make informed decisions about purchasing a home after college or graduating from high school.

Tips for Young Entrepreneurs
Encouraging your young entrepreneur to start their own business can be a great way to introduce them to the business world. With online resources and crowdfunding websites, it's easier than ever to find guidance and funding for their project. This can provide valuable lessons on finance while pursuing something they're passionate about.
 
Raising financially literate kids is a vital aspect of parenting. However, this task does not have to be intimidating. There are numerous simple steps that parents can take to achieve this goal, such as providing an allowance, teaching the concept of home ownership, assisting young entrepreneurs in starting businesses, and exploring various methods of obtaining capital. All these practices can help reassure any parent interested in fostering financially literate children.
 
To support community workforce development, visit The Foundry today!

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Laura Pearson is a co-creator of Edutude. Through Edutude, Laura strives to find unique, creative ways for parents and educators to encourage students to be challenged, motivated and excited by learning. In addition to her work with Edutude, Pearson is an advocate for children's rights and education. She volunteers with local organizations that promote child literacy and provides mentorship to young students seeking educational guidance.Apart from her professional work, Pearson is an avid traveler with a love for immersing herself in diverse cultures. She has backpacked through Europe and Asia, and credits her travels with broadening her perspective and providing unique learning experiences.​

Why Your Career Development Plan Should Prioritize Emotional Intelligence
In today’s educational landscape, teachers are more than just those that spout knowledge to their students. They are driven to foster an environment of inclusivity, emotional support, and understanding. Your emotional intelligence is crucial to helping you maintain all of your roles as an educator.
 
Today on The Foundry, we will take a look at how and why a professional development plan focused on emotional intelligence matters in education.
 
What Is Emotional Intelligence?
Before you can create a career development plan that prioritizes emotional intelligence, you have to know exactly what that means. In a nutshell, this is a soft skill that allows you to understand and manage your own thoughts and feelings and read those of others. As you can imagine, this is a critical trait for teachers.
 
The First Steps
When you’re ready to create a plan focused on emotional intelligence, you need to first know exactly where your current level lives. You can use an assessment test to better understand your strengths and also areas where you might need improvement. Once you have a grasp on your own emotional capacity, you can begin to set SMART goals.
 
Goals to Enhance Your Emotional Intelligence
While your goals will be based on your current level of emotional awareness, a few that you might consider include developing empathy, being more self-aware, improving your communication skills, managing your stress, and practicing gratitude, the latter of which the Alfred blog explains can help you create a better environment within your classroom.
 
What Are Your Resources?
Now it’s time to look at the resources you have available to you. This could be any of the many  charts, worksheets, textbooks, and activities available online. Another option is to talk with your administrators to find out if your district is willing to send you to in-person workshops for any of the areas that you’d like to improve.
 
How to Document Your Progress
There are many ways to document your progress. One way is to take stock of how you feel once each month. Are you less burnt out and worn down than you were before? Are your students more engaged? Make notes and then save them as a PDF file so that you can look back on these whenever you're looking to measure any specific area. One quick tip here. You’ll want to use a PDF splitter to separate PDF pages based on your specific goals. This makes it easy to download and share with others or to the cloud for easy access.
 
Should You Start an Education-Based Business?
If your professional development plan also includes getting out of the classroom, it’s never too early to start looking into emotional intelligence as it relates to running a business. You might, for example, begin counseling other educators on how to improve their own prospects. If you do branch out on your own, form an LLC, which may (depending on your state's rules and regulations) remove liability and help you maintain a flexible management structure as your business grows. A resource you can use here is an online formation service, which is cheaper than an attorney.
 
It does not matter whether you are a beginning substitute teacher or a tenured educator with new plans for the future; there’s always room for improvement. When it’s time to incorporate emotional intelligence in your professional development plan, start by knowing your goals, which may even include starting your own business. Then, make sure that your plan is easily editable and accessible (ideally via PDFs) so that you can review your objectives from anywhere. Ultimately, however, you must also be open to changing your plan as your self-awareness improves.
 

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Joyce Wilson may have retired from teaching but that doesn’t mean she has lost her passion for education. On her site, Teacher Spark, she is working to build a resource of engaging lesson plans, activities, and other fun learning opportunities for her fellow educators and for parents.