Financial Tips for Entrepreneurs

According to Alan Safahi, a professional, skilled, and experienced entrepreneur and founder of a successful startup company in San Francisco, entrepreneurship allows people to say goodbye to the traditional 9-5 job, create their own businesses, polish their skills, and achieve their goals.

An entrepreneur makes a living doing what they love, focuses on constant development/growth, and creates a positive impact on society. However, 80% of small businesses quit in their first five years due to a lack of financial knowledge and literacy. Today’s article will give you seven financial tips to streamline your operations. Read on!

1. Establish Financial Goals

Having a financial goal will give you an outlook on how you see your money and make informed decisions to achieve a better and stable financial health. Entrepreneurs' financial goals involve achieving a reliable profit margin and reaching their tangible objectives, including saving money, purchasing equipment, and generating higher returns on investments (ROIs).

Alan Safahi Orinda says it is crucial to allot regular time to set your goals, consult your numbers, compare your finances with your competitors, create solid action plans, document the overall progress, and track the records.

2. Create A Budget

Most entrepreneurs fail to create a budget for their business, leading to financial issues in the long run. A detailed budget based on real-time data is an essential tool that guides you to make informed decisions and optimize your business processes.

Creating a budget provides you with essential information for operating your business within your means. At the same time, you can manage unexpected situations, counter challenges, and generate higher ROIs based on your business needs or goals.

A comprehensive budget lets you identify your capital, estimate your expenses, and anticipate revenues. Safahi, a professional entrepreneur, recommends examining your revenues, subtracting fixed costs, identifying variable expenditures, setting aside an emergency fund, and creating your profit and loss statement when creating a budget.

3. Track Your Spending

Track your business's finances can help you avoid legal penalties and grow your business. If you want to prevent lawsuits, expand your business, and implement reliable strategies without losing money, focus on tracking your spending.

Safahi recommends using advanced, cutting-edge financial tools and software applications to digitize your receipts, categorize and keep your expenses in a centralized location, and create a dedicated business bank account.

4. Keep an Eye on Your Credit Score

Managing your credit score is an essential factor when getting loans for your business. You can keep your finance in order and ensure better organization when you have an optimal credit history.

According to Safahi, an entrepreneur must build a credit history, make payments on time, keep their credit utilization low, and find ways to boost their credit score. Don’t forget to check for errors in your credit report. If you find any errors, make sure you fix them immediately. Monitor your credit file for unauthorized and fraudulent activity.

5. Separate Your Business and Personal Finances

When you mix your personal and business finances, you become prone to financial mismanagement. Keeping your personal finances separate from your business asset can protect your business from experiencing legal penalties.

Therefore, Safahi suggests that entrepreneurs open a business bank account, apply for a credit card, use it wisely, and pay themselves a salary to manage their personal finances. In addition, separate your business receipts and educate your business employees on using business finances wisely.

6. Set Up An Emergency Fund

No business can survive without an emergency fund. For instance, many entrepreneurs have closed their business doors due to a lack of emergency funds to tackle the harsh consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic.

So, every entrepreneur must set an emergency or contingency fund to bridge the gap between temporarily ceasing business operations and going out of business. The fund will help you pay your bills on time and reduce the number of liabilities. At the same time, you can continue running your business.

7. Seek Help from Professionals

Although it is wise to learn essential concepts of business finance, Alan Safahi recommends hiring a financial advisor to avoid complications. A financial professional has years of experience and skills to make the most out of your capital investment and optimize your business. 

Originally Posted: https://vocal.media/journal/7-financial-tips-for-entrepreneurs

How can Entrepreneurs Benefit from Blockchain Technology?

Blockchain, also known as a distributed ledger technology, enables real-time transactions and trading of digital assets. According to Alan Safahi, a professional entrepreneur and founder of a startup company in San Francisco, Blockchain keeps permanent and irreversible records of data and information.

It has two primary applications: First, it involves cryptocurrency trading and management. Second, it manages transactions related to commerce and trade, including financial processes, such as payables, receivables, and compliance.

The question is: how can entrepreneurs benefit from Blockchain technology? Today’s article will answer this question based on Safahi’s insights. Read on!

Boost Your Marketing Efforts

Blockchain technology can transform your digital marketing strategy, providing innovative opportunities for entrepreneurs and small businesses. Transparency, security, and convenience are primary attributes of Blockchain technology, allowing entrepreneurs to do business online and make their social responsibility apparent to their existing and targeted customers.

Safahi says Blockchain is a powerful marketing and advertising tool because this decentralized technology keeps your marketing cost transparent, lets you analyze data accurately, and generate valuable insights into your targeted audience’s interactions with marketing content and ads.

Improves Data Security

Data has become an integral component of your business. Blockchain-enabled systems offer enhanced security of your business data. It creates an unchangeable record of data and transactions with high-level security protocols, such as end-to-end encryptions. As a result, you can prevent unauthorized and fraudulent activities.

In addition, when you use Blockchain technology, you can store your data across a network of secured computers, making it impossible for hackers and cybercriminals to hack it. So this makes Blockchain an excellent tool for entrepreneurs to streamline their business operations.

According to Alan Safahi Orinda, conventional computer systems are more vulnerable to data theft and unauthorized usage. However, Blockchain can address privacy issues better than traditional systems because it anonymizes your business data. You and your team can access data after meeting various security protocols or permissions.

Speedy Transactions

Blockchain eliminates intermediaries and replaces manual processes with automation to streamline transactions and make all processes faster and more securer than conventional methods. For instance, when you use Blockchain, you can handle a transaction within seconds.

Alan Safahi concludes that Blockchain beats other technologies, methods, and processes, especially regarding the speed of transactions. Therefore, whether you run a small business or a large enterprise, this technology can help you improve your business’s bottom line.

Saves Money in the Long Run

Blockchain is an excellent way to save money in the long run. The technology creates efficiency and reliability in processing transactions. Entrepreneurs spend thousands of dollars to aggregate and amend data.

The good news is that you can carry out these processes via Blockchain technology and streamline reporting and auditing. So, when you use Blockchain, you cut costs by eliminating intermediaries, go-betweens, and third-party vendors/providers.

Final Words

Blockchain can improve your business in various aspects. It can optimize your financial deals and streamline the payment process across borders. It enables entrepreneurs to transact with each other beyond geographical boundaries. So, using Blockchain is worth your time.

Originally Posted:https://alansafahicontracosta.wordpress.com/2022/05/18/how-can-entrepreneurs-benefit-from-blockchain-technology/

7 Ways for Entrepreneurs to Boost Leadership Skills

Effective leadership is essential to entrepreneurial success. According to Alan Safahi, an experienced entrepreneur with an excellent track record and the founder of a successful startup company in San Francisco, entrepreneurs with strong leadership skills outperform their competitors by:

• Acting proactively

• Making informed decisions

• Navigating through complexities

• Improving business efficiency

• Anticipating and reacting to challenges.

1. Improve Your Emotional Intelligence

According to Alan Safahi Orinda, emotional intelligence allows entrepreneurs to understand and manage their emotions. It also lets entrepreneurs recognize and influence the thoughts/feelings/emotions of people around them.

Safahi says four competencies, including self-management, self-awareness, relationship management, and social awareness, are essential for improving your emotional intelligence.

A growing body of research evidence shows that 90% of top entrepreneurs have high emotional intelligence. So, when you build your emotional intelligence, you can bring the best in yourself and cultivate successful teams.

2. Focus on Employee Management

Employee management is an integral component of successful leadership. According to Safahi Orinda, highly engaged employees deliver premium-quality services to customers, attract new ones, and produce better outcomes at work.

A better employee management strategy can help you keep your employees engaged and more loyal to your business. At the same time, your employees will experience less burnout in their specific roles.

Therefore, base feedback on observations, delegate work, foster transparent and streamlined communication channels, show recognition, respect your employees, and support learning and development to maximize your team’s performance.

3. Learn the Art of Negotiation

Most entrepreneurs find it challenging to navigate challenges due to a lack of negotiation skills. Although negotiation is chaotic because you don’t know the desired outcomes of people seated across the table, you can improve your skills by doing research, practicing negotiation skills, such as keeping your mind open, setting appropriate and S.M.A.R.T goals, turning your anxiety into excitement, stay agile, and take a timeout.

4. Strong Decision-Making is Key

Decision-making is crucial for your business. Recent studies show that 20% of entrepreneurs and business professionals believe that strong decision-making can help them excel in their business domains.

Safahi recommends assembling a team of professionals to navigate the decision-making process. When you build a team, make sure you streamline communication channels and collaborate to map the technical, cultural, and political underpinning of the decision and develop a reliable solution for your problems.

5. Identify Your Leadership Style

Identify and establish your personal leadership style because it informs you on how to motivate yourself and your employees and handle challenges. A leadership style entails a consistent behavioral pattern across how you make decisions, collaborate with others, and utilize your time.

For example, imprint leadership allows you to get experience from people you lead and work with within your organization. Focus on the operational practices you employ to mobilize your employees and get things done.

Motivations are another aspect of leadership that focus on desires, stimulations, and incentives, driving you to take a specific course of action that aligns with your business goals.

6. Understand Your Motivations

Understanding your motivations requires you to equip yourself with resources to succeed as a leader of your organization. However, Safahi says it is crucial to understand what inspires and motivates you to do your best work.

When examining your motivations as a business leader, consider external rewards that stimulate you, such as higher productivity levels and more significant R.O.I.s. Safahi also recommends taking stock of intangible motivations, such as creating a sense of belonging to your duties at your company and encouraging others to work on new projects that can expand your business.

7. Engage in Leadership Training

Last but not least, leadership training benefits you at any stage of your entrepreneurial career. In addition to developing and practicing skills required for empowering your employees, you must also undergo training and seek help from successful business leaders. That way, you can learn and grow your leadership skills optimally.

Originally Posted: https://alansafahiorindaca.wordpress.com/2022/05/11/ways-for-entrepreneurs-to-boost-leadership-skills/

A step-by-step Guide to Starting a Fintech Company

Fintech, also known as financial technology, is a popular term used these days. According to Alan Safahi Orinda, the founder of a startup company and experienced entrepreneur, digital technologies can improve the way financial companies respond to their customers’ needs and streamline their transactions.

People use fintech when they use a credit card to purchase items online, subscribe to services, or invest via PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Wallet, etc. Today’s article will guide you to start a fintech company. Read this post carefully to understand each step and make the most out of your business.

STEP 1: Choose a Specific Domain

Choosing a specific domain and subdomain is essential when starting a fintech company. For instance, perform research to determine which subdomain in the industry aligns with your goals. Likewise, identify a target audience by focusing on specific demographic groups, regions, or countries.

According to Alan Safahi, some of the most common subdomains in the fintech industry are lending, investment management, mobile banking, Insure-Tech, loans/advances, cross-border payments, global money transfers, crowdfunding, financial products, and blockchain-based financial solutions.

STEP 2: Build a Team of Professionals

Once you have identified your subdomain or niche, it is time to build a team of professionals, including technical and financial experts. The purpose is to collaborate with these professionals and let them develop an innovative fintech app for your business. Make sure the technology partner or association you choose is within your budget.

For example, you can choose a software development company in your local area to develop a fintech app. However, it is crucial to find a company with years of experience and talented technical experts.

You can research online, ask entrepreneurs in your local area, and gather enough information to make an informed decision. If your budget allows, you can build an on-site team of professionals to create a software application at an affordable cost.

STEP 3: Explore Your Funding Options

Alan Safahi says bank loans, crowdsourcing, angel investors, and startup competition are the most reliable options for funding your fintech company. However, Safahi argues that an entrepreneur must develop a minimum viable product or MVP before accessing funds from third-party investors.

You can get enough funds to develop a software application for your target audience when you develop an MVP. Remember, giant fintech companies followed the same pathway.

STEP 4: Develop an Innovative App

The bottom line of a fintech company is to develop an innovative app. The application must align with your subdomain goals or business objectives. Safahi recommends choosing appropriate technologies and incorporating them into the app to ensure everything goes well.

According to Safahi, fintech entrepreneurs must focus on specific features, such as biometric sign-in, user-first navigation, voice-assisted banking, personalized UI and UX, data visualization, API integration capabilities, and blockchain technology.

For instance, blockchain allows entrepreneurs to build a reliable and secure fintech application. So this will enable consumers to trust your app and make transparent transactions without worrying about security issues.

In addition, leverage the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to analyze real-time data and make informed decisions. AI and ML can detect unauthorized and fraudulent activities in digital banking, Insure-Tech, and financial management fintech companies.

Originally Posted: https://safahi.com/a-step-by-step-guide-to-starting-a-fintech-company-c6d972a4919c