Your Essential Guide to Expanding Your Business the Right Way

 

Growing your business is an exciting prospect, but it requires careful preparation and planning. No matter how large or small the expansion is, there are steps you must take to ensure that you set yourself up for success. We look at some of the most important considerations to keep in mind when expanding your business.

Get LLC Protection

Before you can start expanding your business, you need to make sure that it is legally protected. This means filing the appropriate paperwork and registering your company as an LLC (limited liability company). An LLC offers more protection than other types of business structures because you won’t be held personally liable for any debts and liabilities incurred by the company. It also allows you to avoid double taxation. Make sure to speak with a lawyer who has experience dealing with LLCs to ensure that everything is done correctly.

Shore Up on Expansion Funds

The next step is to find the funds you need for the expansion. This may involve taking out a loan, acquiring a line of credit, or looking into investor opportunities where applicable. Keep in mind that it may take time to secure funds from investors, so it’s best not to count on this option until you have confirmation from them.

Innovate

Another key element of business growth involves introducing new products or services into your existing lineup. Think carefully about which items could benefit from being added at this stage before deciding which ones should be included in the expansion plans.

Revisit Your Marketing Strategy

Creating a marketing strategy should be on your list as you expand your business. Consider what kind of messages would resonate best with your target audience, what platforms will give you the most visibility, and how much money should you put toward marketing efforts each month. Discuss these questions with an experienced digital marketer to gain clarity on what type of content will work best for promoting your brand online and offline, depending on which channels are available to you at this stage in development. Work with Oevae Marketing Consultants to do it the right way.

Put Cybersecurity Measures in Place

A huge part of business growth these days involves strengthening cybersecurity measures. Data breaches can cause serious damage both financially and to your reputation, if not handled properly. As more employees come on board, the danger multiplies, so be sure your staff understands IT policies regarding passwords, data storage, and end-user device security. You'll want your team members to be familiar with their roles and responsibilities when it comes to keeping data secure. Learn more from Tausight.

Observe Best Practices in Hiring

If your expansion plans involve hiring additional staff members or outsourcing certain tasks, now is the time to start looking for qualified candidates. Look into job boards, staffing agencies, and other resources designed specifically for businesses hiring new employees. Even if you’re just bringing in one person initially, make sure that they are well-suited to their role within the organization so that they can help take some of the workloads off your shoulders.

Choose Office Space for Growth

Look into finding larger office space during this period of growth, as well. You want somewhere spacious enough so that everyone can work comfortably without feeling cramped, but also make sure that it won’t burn through too much of your budget each month. Consider springing for new signages. Metal letters for wall applications show people exactly where you are and are also elegant and timeless representations of your business.

Expanding your business represents an exciting new chapter, but only if done correctly. Make sure legal paperwork is filed correctly, source funding where necessary, hire qualified staff members, create an effective marketing strategy, introduce new products and services, look into larger office spaces, and strengthen cyber security before moving forward. Taking these steps will help ensure success during this period of growth.

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Did your website just get hacked?

A relaxing day at the beach may be one person's definition of having fun. Unfortunately, this person may also be a hacker who's breached your website security while lounging at the beach – injecting scripts that redirect traffic to destinations where they usually get scammed or infected with malware. And more importantly, you don't even know it's going on until someone tells you.

No website security?

Not having website security is worse than being caught with your pants down. That's because you know when your pants are down, and the very moment you hear someone entering the room, you cover your goodies and smile as if nothing ever happened. But when your website has its pants down, you'll be clueless until someone sends you an email, text, or actually picks up the phone to call you and tells you about it. For a business owner, this can be a rather embarrassing experience.

"The most recent Microsoft breach occurred on March 20, 2022, when the hacker group Lapsus$ announced on Telegram that they had breached the company. Several Microsoft projects, including Bing and Cortana, were compromised in the incident."  

 – Fire Wall Times, Microsoft Data Breaches: Full Timeline Through 2022, March 23, 2022

In a nutshell, Hackers illegally access devices or websites to steal peoples' personal information, which they use to commit the crimes like identity theft. Many people shop, bank, and pay bills online. People also store financial information, like credit cards or bank account numbers, on their devices. This isn't probably one of your business' offerings, but it's happening more and more each day.  

Common types of cybersecurity attacks

If you used WIX, Squarespace, Weebly, or Webflow to build your website you are probably a fish out of water trying to identify the common types of cybersecurity attacks (SQL injections, DNS hijacking, Malware, Cross-site scripting).

Cybersecurity involves safeguarding your business' website against cyberattacks. One of the easiest ways to thwart attackers is using website security that offers continuous website monitoring to detect malware and any indicators of compromise.

Cyberattacks can be costly to fix

The cost of putting your website back in order after a cyberattack can run you hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. By acting quickly, you can often prevent further damage to your website and hopefully thwart additional attempts.  A hacked website costs your business a pretty penny because you will have to pay the website developer for the time they spend identifying the type of attack, whether the remaining files that make up your website can still be used, and removing files the hackers leave behind to do their dirty work.

If you are lucky and your pages are still in cache, or available in the Wayback Machine (digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by the Internet Archive), you will be able to recover your full content or at least take the text from the page.

Protect your visitors by keeping hackers at bay

Malware scans regularly check your website daily to look for any malicious code. Intuitive options allow you to set notification preferences for yourself. When malware, blocklisting, or security issues are detected on your website, you will be alerted immediately. Set up notifications, and you can avoid getting caught with your pants down.

Help ensure continuity and protect your business against adverse cyber events by using our comprehensive suite of security and resilience solutions. Exceptional threat management through a modern, cloud-native stack.

Oevae.com offers website security options that include:

• Denial-of-service (DDoS) protection
• Content Delivery Network (CDN) speed boost
• Denial-of-service attack
• A Firewall to prevent hackers
• SSL certificate (Secure Sockets Layer) aka URL starting with "https://"
• Malware scanning.
• Unlimited site cleanups

The best brands create positive experiences

Your brand experience happens both live and online – for their audiences. But today's audiences have higher expectations. You also put a tremendous amount of time, effort, and money into building your brand and creating a website experience that visitors will appreciate. Don't throw it all away at the fingertips of a hacker.  If you need more information, contact us at Oevae.com – we help you find website security solutions.

Related Content: Using Free Email Accounts for Business (Podcast: Morning Joe with Gibrón) 

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Small-Business Cybersecurity 101: Important Tips for Entrepreneurs

Photo by rupixen.com on Unsplash

Did you know that in 2020, small businesses made up 28 percent of cybersecurity incidents that happened across the United States? These dangerous incidents have not only increased in frequency over the years, but they are also impacting small businesses more and more. What do you need to know about small-business cybersecurity? How can you protect yourself?

Why is cybersecurity important?

As of 2019, data breaches cost small companies around $200k per incident, and that number continues to rise. The fact of the matter is that small business can’t afford to let “the big one” happen — many companies would have to shutter their windows if an incident were to occur.

The threat landscape for small businesses changes every day. Especially as more companies sent their employees to work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic, endpoint security was pushed into stark relief as becoming one of the most important aspects of a company’s security posture. With company laptops being used on personal home networks, and people being connected simply through a screen instead of seeing each other face-to-face, malicious actors took advantage of the situation — nearly 36 billion records were exposed throughout the year.

What can you do?

1. Small business owners should take steps now to protect their systems, instead of waiting until it’s too late. It’s relatively simple to put some precautions in place now, versus paying the price later if your systems are compromised.  Learn how to protect yourself from phishing scams and business email compromise (BEC) hacking attempts. As your business grows and you gain employees, train them to spot scams as well. Essentially, remember that you shouldn’t share sensitive information via email, check the grammar in any “phishy” messages you get, and check the domain of the sender by hovering over the ‘from’ box in the email.

2. Have a disaster recovery (DR) plan. If you are hit with a cyber-attack, you need to make sure you have a backup of your data, for one. The right DR plan will be easy to implement, flexible, affordable, and secure. Working with a managed services provider would offer you the expertise you need so you can breathe easily. Whatever solution you choose, Commvault recommends having the ability to view and manage your data through a single interface — and make sure you frequently test your plan. (Because any good plan should be tested and retested often to gauge its effectiveness.)

3. Update your systems. Updates to operating systems and regular patching often carry security updates that correct flaws that have been discovered in your OS. Therefore, it’s critical to make sure your systems are up-to-date with the latest software.

4. Secure your company Wi-Fi network. Set your router so that it is password protected and encrypted and encourage your employees to do the same.

5. Use two-factor authentication to access company machines. Enabling two-factor authentication is one of the most important things any company or individual can do to combat the spread of hackers. By requiring a second factor to log in to resources (in addition to a password, you may be asked to generate a random code), it strengthens security and keeps malicious actors out of your systems.

Protect your site and keep customers safe.

With a little bit of attention, a little bit of elbow grease, and a lot of precaution, your small business can be protected against the threat of a cyber-attack. For more information about running your small business and making sure you’re getting the most out of your website security, protect your site, and keep customers safe, visit HomeOfficeXpert.com.

Related Content: Using Free Email Accounts for Business (Podcast: Morning Joe with Gibrón) 

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